Within the airbase it took less than thirty seconds to find the chaperon Private Lawrence, his Jeep swinging out in front of them as they turned into the visitor’s area. A hand snaked out through the side window and waved for them to follow.
Three minutes later they were stopped a short distance from the taxiway, Brayden had climbed from the passenger seat of the van and wandered around to the side, slapping the heel of his right hand against the door. A moment later and the door slid open. Two of the three armed security men jumped out, the third stood behind the captured George Jennings, whom was shoved forward heavily into the open. Brayden pinched the black velvet hood off his head and guided him forward. The Boeing C-17 Globemaster III was parked on the taxiway, a metal staircase formed from opening its door downward led up to a passenger entrance. By and large the Globemaster III was a cargo plane, but there was room for several passengers. Often used to accompany the President of the United States on domestic and foreign engagements, carrying the Presidential Limousine and security detachment, there were occasions when it was used to carry the President himself, but not often. Air Force One was preferable.
“This way George,” Brayden took his arm and guided him gently forward. The three security guards flanked them as they headed towards the airplane, its four turbofan engines whirring; a thrumming noise accompanying them from within.
“Where are you taking me?” George pleaded. He tried to stop walking but Brayden had him by the arm and dragged him along easily.
“I’m taking you home, George.” The entrance to the cargo plane was just twelve-feet away.
“If that was so, you need only have asked. Why the spectacle... all this razzmatazz?”
“Just following orders, George. You know how it is...”
Before George could protest or struggle further one of the armed security men overzealously raised the butt of his rifle and clobbered him against the side of the head; the other two men walking close by leapt forward to help steady George from falling to the macadam, carrying his slumped figure up the metal staircase into the hulking body of the Boeing aircraft.
“He wasn’t to be harmed!” shouted Brayden at the offending soldier, climbing up the metal staircase after him.
Satisfied all travellers were safely inside and strapped into their seats, a member of the flight crew activated the switch to close the door and radioed up to the pilot, giving the go-ahead to takeoff.
Chapter Forty-Six
Sophie
Glancing over her shoulder, Sophie could no longer see her mother or the outline of the Peugeot, so deeply concealing was the darkness that blanketed the surrounding area. She sighed and tried to put her mother’s injury to the back of her mind. It was bad, she knew that, but how bad she didn’t want to consider.
She moved forward ten yards and came to within a foot of the access point to Mildenhall’s USAF base.
Unheard and unobserved Sophie stooped under the barrier and walked past the security booth and barrier station. A quick peek into the small office indicated that the two men on guard duty were preoccupied with their leisure activities (one still reading, the other continuing to watch television), not expecting further visitors or disturbances of any kind. It was close to 2:00 a.m. and the nightshift were settling down having been extraordinarily busy with the late arrival of the CIA agent, his cohorts and his classified cargo.
Nothing else was expected.
Sophie considered the electric gates that barred her way further into the airbase. Standing twelve-feet high, the obstacle would pose a problem to most chancers fancying a way into the airbase fortress.
Not for Sophie.
The fence posed little problem to someone of her abilities. For safety she placed the Nexus tablet into her backpack and secured it to her shoulders. Still within her bag were the handgun, several magazines of ammo and smoke grenades. She hoped not to have to use any of them.
Taking a run up, Sophie leapt up the twin gates, a hinge allowing her left foot leverage and some additional boost. With ease and agility she found herself at the top of the closed gates. Scissoring her limbs over the apex, she was momentarily perched on the narrow metal edge, her bottom pressed against cold steel, her legs dangling over the side. The gates juddered under her weight but made little noticeable sound. Composing and preparing her body for a fall and with feline finesse she allowed herself to drop to the ground on the other side. Also like a cat, but with knees bent to absorb the shock, she landed on her feet.
Crouching low she looked behind for any signs that her assault on the gates and her subsequent descent had alerted the guards to her presence. Counting ten heartbeats she allowed confidence to steel her forward.
Whilst walking she retrieved the Nexus once again from her backpack and used it to track her father. The red dot was no longer moving and indicated his whereabouts somewhere towards the centre of the base, near to the airfield. She returned the tablet computer back. A glance to her right indicated a well lit area beyond a number of large buildings and aircraft hangers. As Sophie started to run in its direction, the sound of an aircraft’s engine whirring echoed around the base, invading the night’s silence, penetrating her thoughts and planting a seed of anxiety within her.
Unable to rid herself of negative thoughts, she pushed herself harder, lengthening her strides so that she could reduce the space deficit between herself and the place where she believed her father to be.
Running through a gap between hangers, Sophie burst through to the runway area and laid her eyes on the aircraft responsible for the noise levels. She saw the DHL van parked a short distance away, the driver in situ behind the wheel, and an army Jeep that was tearing away from the area at the rear of the aircraft heading towards some more buildings and what were sleeping quarters. A glance at the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III indicated that it was making ready for flight. The stairs/door that had allowed access was being retracted. The whirr of the gigantic aircraft’s engines began to roar louder, the sound deafening and threatening to burst her eardrums.
Sophie knew what it all meant – what it fundamentally meant for her father.
“Noooooo!” Her appeal went unheard over the building roar of the Boeing’s four turbines.
Though her chest was now burning from the exertion and the lack of oxygen intake – she didn’t allow herself to falter, not even when the wheels on the Boeing began to move, first slowly, the aircraft rolling forward, and then faster as the four turbofan engines began to thunder, emitting even greater noise as they powered up for the takeoff.
She continued running towards the plane. Despite the genetic modifications to her endurance and strength, physically she was beginning to flag and no matter how much she willed it her legs were never capable of matching the acceleration of an aircraft building up speed for takeoff.
“Dad!” she bellowed, her voice inaudible over the noise of the Boeing. She was now running alongside the 173-feet of craft, though the cargo plane was now taking the lead and moving away from her fast.
Sophie ran for a few meters more despite the futile effort until the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III left the runway, its nose aimed heavenward, ascending into the night sky.
Out of breath, out of luck and out of ideas, Sophie stopped, collapsing to her knees in a heap. Unbidden and without use she started to cry.
She felt desperate and utterly hopeless.
Although her emotions were supposed to have been genetically eradicated, George had persisted in retaining them for the sake of humanity (and for personal reasons). In truth, it was Sophie’s only weakness.
Sophie watched the plane as it climbed ever higher, now just a dark shadow and a handful of navigational and positional lights barely visible in the sky, putting further distance between herself and her father.
“Dad…” she implored. What do I do?
It was over, she had failed him.
Her father was gone, taken for whatever hostile purpose – questioning, torture, imprisonment, death?
Who knew?
Whatever the purpose, he was no longer on hand to provide for his family, keep them safe and offer them shelter. Less significantly in the scheme of things, he was no longer able to help her – the only person qualified who could possibly fix her invisibility and make her normal.
When she could no longer see the Boeing aeroplane or hear the drone of its four engines, Sophie picked herself up from the tarmac and walked slowly, disconsolately, back to where her mum would be waiting expectantly – just an entrance gate and a security barrier manned by two armed soldiers standing in her way.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Bravo
The white van had screamed to a halt in the centre of the road outside the modern office building, the driver, disguised behind a balaclava, jumped out and ran to a nondescript black van that had led the way. He opened the door and leapt into the passenger seat, not securing the door behind him before the vehicle hurtled off in getaway mode.
From inside the abandoned white vehicle muffled noises and occasional thumps against the interior walls, deliberate and necessary – trying to gain notice, urging assistance, pleading for help. Not the everyday sounds one would expect on a commercial London street.
At such a late (or early) hour – after three in the morning – no one would hear the restrained, somewhat muffled distress signals, and although the van was parked conspicuously and deliberately in the centre of the road − an obstruction for other road users − no one would be bothered or inconvenienced for a while yet.
In fact it wasn’t until 4.08 a.m. that the van and its subdued disquieted inhabitants were discovered.
An early riser walking to work saw the van’s strange parking place and on hearing the commotion, had dialled 999.
Ten minutes later a police car had parked up silently behind the van, blue lights flashing self-importantly; two uniformed men clambering out and walking the perimeter of the vehicle slowly and carefully, one peering into the driver’s side. He noted the keys were still in the ignition.
A thumping noise came from the interior of the van, alerting policeman number two, who hastened to the rear of the vehicle.
“Hello?” policeman number two had his hand on the door handle.
“Wait, Shaun,” policeman number one was hurrying around from the front. “This doesn’t feel right.”
“There’s someone inside,” said policeman number two matter-
of-factly.
“Perhaps we should get backup.”
From inside the van a stifled cry for help could be heard:
“Hrmmmppppp!!”
“Quick, get it open.”
Policeman number two pulled the door open and gasped. Policeman number one had crept up and was standing by his side. “Good God,” he said, reaching for his radio. “Despatch, this is eight-five-two-one requesting backup and medical assistance. We have multiple victims cuffed and subdued, do you copy?”
“Eight-five-two-one, this is despatch. Can you clarify, over?”
“Despatch, I can’t elaborate any more than that. I need assistance right away.”
“Eight-five-two-one, standby; backup and medical teams are on their way, over.”
Within the back of the white van, crammed together with barely a hair’s breadth between them, seven men were tied together, their hands restrained using nylon zip tie cuffs, their mouths duct-taped shut. An eighth man was lying at the back of the van hidden from immediate view; his face turned away, his body inert. Unlike his colleagues he needed no further method of restraint.
One of the men had been constantly head butting the inside wall of the van in what had been a fruitless attempt at gaining notice – his face was drenched in sticky crimson from a gash at his temple. Two of the other six men were unconscious through lack of oxygen.
Policeman number two had climbed into the back of the van and was pulling duct tape from the mouth of the first subdued victim.
“What on earth’s gone on in there?” policeman number one was peering in from behind.
“Looks like one hell-u-va party,” said policeman number two, the duct-tape almost peeled free from the first victim. The man beneath him started to weep uncontrollably. “It’s okay. You’re safe now,” he soothed. “Tell me what happened.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Ryan
“Tell me what to do, Ryan,” Sophie whined. “I don’t know what to do…”
When Ryan had finished listening to the full account of Sophie’s failed rescue attempt he slumped back onto his pillow. For the whole conversation he’d been lying sprawled out across his bed. It was like a nightmare that his body refused to wake from.
“Ryan? What should I do?”
It was around the same time the white van parked outside the Kaplan Ratcliff control centre was being discovered by the police. Ryan gave Sophie’s question a moment’s consideration. The situation was a terrible mess. But he owed it to Clara to help her.
Clara.
The time was closing in on the moment when he would have to come clean with George’s daughter. Things weren’t all that they seemed – and let’s face it, things were far from being ordinary when it involved Sophie Jennings.
“Are you sure Harriet…” is dead?
“I… I can’t find a pulse,” she paused. “She’s not breathing. She’s cold to the touch…” By the breaks in dialogue Ryan assumed she was checking her mother’s vitals as she spoke. “After all we’ve done we’ve failed to save her...” she sobbed.
“Okay, Sophie. Okay.” Using his free hand he rubbed at his eyes trying to wake himself. “I’ll tell you what I want you to do.” In truth, Ryan didn’t have any idea what she was going to do. Before he had formed a response words started to spill from his lips: “I want you and your family to go somewhere safe. I know someone who will be able to help. Someone your father once knew.”
In a small, childlike voice, Sophie said: “Can we trust him?”
“More than me I’d wager,” Ryan harrumphed, clearing his throat. “Sophie, are you able to drive?”
“Are you asking me whether I have a licence? Technically, I’m not yet three-years-old.”
“No, I’m asking whether you know how to drive?”
“I can drive, just not very well.” Sophie said haughtily.
“I guess you have that in common with most of the British population. I will text you a postcode once I hang-up, use it in your Sat Nav and call me when you get there. It’s somewhere safe, somewhere secret. For that reason I will give you the exact location only when you arrive.”
“Okay. What about my mother?” she almost whispered.
“I’m so sorry, Sophie, there’s nothing for it; you are going to have to leave her behind.”
“We were going to have a talk when I got back. She said she was sorry… and now dad is gone…” she trailed off in a flood of tears, grief overwhelming her.
“Sophie… Do as I’ve said, follow the postcode I’m going to give you. Don’t give up, your brothers and sister need you. You need to stay alive. Trust me, together we’ll get your father back. I promise.”
Unable to bear the sobbing any further, Ryan disconnected the call and allowed the mobile to drop to the bed beside him.
“Poor kid,” he muttered, taking a deep breath. He sighed emphatically. What a colossal mess!
After a minute Ryan retrieved Emily’s phone, tapped through the path of icons to the text function and keyed in the postcode he wanted Sophie to head to. He pressed the send button and waited for the sent report, which came seconds later.
With little time to spare, Ryan freshened himself up, changed his clothes
and readied himself for a long drive. Sleep wasn’t going to come anyway, so the change of scenery would be a blessing. He intended to be in Devon to meet and greet Sophie, her brothers and her sister when they arrived.
Three hours into the journey, the news that Tom Kaplan was dead filtered through to him during a news report.
Things just kept getting better and better.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Sophie
If losing her father hadn’t been difficult enough, finding her mother lying face down at the side of the road next to the car with no pulse, and clearly beyond help was more devastating.
Using her father’s mobile phone, she’d returned one of the missed calls highlighted on the phone’s call history, calling the man who’d been contacting her father periodically over the past twenty-four hours, seemingly to warn him like some sort of guardian angel.
“Ryan… I need help!” Sophie was crying. “Dad’s gone,” she sobbed, barely whispering: “and I think... I think... my mum... is dead.”
The truth was, her mum WAS dead and the only help her father’s guardian angel could offer was to leave the woman who’d brought her into the world behind, discard her like an emptied crisp packet as though she meant nothing, a piece of used rubbish.
Sophie was kneeling beside the dead woman. When checking her vital signs, she’d rolled her onto her back. Now she was holding her head in her arms. “I’m sorry mum,” she said, whispering: “I wish you’d allowed me to know you.”
A couple of teardrops fell onto her mother’s face and slid a trail down the dirt that besmirched her cheeks. Sophie leaned over and kissed her mother gently on the mouth. Her lips were still warm even though the rest of her felt cold. “Goodbye,” she said softly before lowering her head back to the road’s surface.
The Girl in the Mirror Page 33
