Eurgh, Od thought. Too much information, Dad.
“But be under no illusion – this woman will do anything to get her own way. She will lie, swindle, cover up, cheat, kill. Treat her as you would a dangerous dog. A blonde, sexy, dangerous dog.”
That was an image Od was going to have a hard time scrubbing from his brain – Angelica W-K as a Rottweiler with crimson lipstick on.
“Now, here’s the rub,” his father said. “I need you to do something for me. This is no small favour. If what’s happened to me is what I think it is, then there’s only one person who can help – the one person in all the world I know I can rely on. You, Od. Angelica W-K will happily hang me out to dry, if that suits her agenda, if that’s what her bosses tell her to do. You, on the other hand, are my son, my only child, my only family. I know…”
Tremaine Fitch broke off, looked down, looked up again.
“I know we aren’t conventionally close, you and I. I know life is difficult, especially now without your mother around. I wish things could be different. Be better. I wish we were more like father and son instead of the way we are, just sort of flatmates who happen to be related to each other. Funny – I can talk like this to you now, on a webcam, in a message I hope you’ll never receive – and yet we never have this sort of conversation in real life. We’re not that type of people, are we? Still, my point is, you’re my best and only hope, Od.”
“What do you want me to do, Dad?” Od asked, as if the image on the laptop could hear.
“What I want you to do,” his father said, “is infiltrate Selston Tor, retrieve my work and use it to rescue me.”
“Infiltrate…?”
“You’re asking yourself how in blazes are you supposed to get into one the most heavily fortified and well guarded research installations in the western hemisphere? You can’t just knock on the front gate and expect to be let in.
“Don’t worry, Od. I have it all worked out. I prepared for just this eventuality. Look in my study. Look for your mother. Where she is, you’ll find everything you need.”
The duration bar at the bottom of the video clip window had almost reached the right-hand side. The message was nearly over.
“Od,” said Tremaine Fitch. “I’m asking a lot, I realise. What you’ll be doing isn’t without risk. In fact, it could be downright dangerous. But I wouldn’t be asking if I wasn’t desperate. And I know you’re up to the job. I know how smart you are, and how brave. Your mother was too. Brave as anything. The way she battled her cancer. She refused to bow down and give in, in spite of the pain, in spite of the side effects of the radiation therapy…” Briefly his face clouded. Then he continued: “You’re her son, Od. You’re like her in so many ways. So much so it hurts me sometimes to look at you. I know you’ll come through for me. I have every faith in you.”
The window went blank. A message came up: Replay? Od stared at it for a long time.
Did he want to replay the clip?
No. No point. He didn’t need to.
He already knew full well what he was going to do, and he didn’t have to be asked twice.
Chapter Four
Od padded downstairs to his father’s study. He could hear Angelica W-K in the kitchen, barking at someone on the other end of the phone line. He wouldn’t have wanted to be the person she was talking to. Whoever it was, she was tearing them several new holes.
He entered the study, careful not to tread on the creaky floorboard just outside the door.
Look for your mother. Where she is, you’ll find everything you need.
His father could have been referring to only one thing. On the desk, next to the computer, sat a framed photo of Od’s mother. It was a black-and-white portrait that had been taken by a professional photographer almost exactly a year before the cancer killed her. In the picture she looked healthy, happy, beautiful, glad to be alive. She’d had no idea what was lying in wait for her just a few short months in the future. The tumour had been growing in her brain even as she posed for the camera but it hadn’t yet got large enough to make its presence felt. This was a photo of a woman who was dying and didn’t even realise.
Od swallowed down the grief he inevitably felt whenever he looked at the picture. This was not the time for that, not when his other parent was also in deadly danger.
Where she is, you’ll find everything you need.
Od turned the photo frame over. The cardboard backing was held in place by four small fasteners. By twisting them out of their slots you released the backing, with its attached stand.
He levered the backing out of the frame. Beneath, taped to the rear of the photo, was an envelope with his name on it. He unstuck it and fitted the backing into place again.
The envelope felt heavy. There was something hard and rectangular inside, about the size of a credit card. Od ran a finger under the sealed flap and took out a blank plastic pass-card with a swipe strip. The only other thing in the envelope was a small sheet of paper folded in four. It was a section cut out of an Ordnance Survey map of the immediate area. His father had highlighted a landmark on it and written a few words.
Od barely had time to glance at the map before he heard the floorboard outside the door groan. Next instant, the door was thrust open and one of the secret service men stepped in.
“You,” he said to Od. “I was wondering where you’d got to. What are you doing here? Thought you were up in your room.”
“Yeah, well, I needed something,” said Od quickly.
“What?”
“This.” Od held up a rewriteable CD he had snatched off the desk a split second before the door opened. “Some tracks I burned for my dad as a birthday present. Some of that classical stuff he loves – Brahms and Bach mostly. I wanted to listen to it. To, you know, remind me of him. Make me feel like he’s close and he’s going to be all right. Is that a problem?”
The man stared at Od through the eyeholes of his balaclava. He had hard, bright, scrutinising eyes, like a seagull’s.
“No,” he said. “Suppose not. Just don’t go sneaking around any more. We need to know where you are at all times. Don’t want to get yourself shot by mistake, now do you?”
“Oh no,” said Od. “Definitely not.”
“Because we’re on a state of high alert here, as you can imagine. Itchy trigger fingers all round. We hear an unexpected noise, find someone moving around where we don’t think someone ought to be, then we’re not going to muck about. The lead will start flying, and bad luck whoever’s on the receiving end. Got that, sonny?”
“Loud and clear.”
“Good. Off you go, then.”
Od returned to his room, carrying the CD. The envelope was stuffed in the waistband of his jeans, covered by his long Muse T-shirt.
It had been a close call, and his heart was still pounding. If he hadn’t managed to hide the envelope in the nick of time, the secret service man would have demanded to know what was in it, and then it would have been game over. Epic fail.
On the plus side, what the man had said about “itchy trigger fingers” had given Od an idea.
He knew how he was going to get out of the house.
Chapter Five
One of Od’s bedroom windows overlooked the pitched roof of the barn. On hot sunny days – so rare in this desolate moorland spot – he liked to lie out on the sloping tiles with his earbuds in and the volume cranked up, letting his iPod shuffle through its playlist while he watched the clouds tumble overhead. He was almost happy then, as the sun warmed his body while the likes of My Chemical Romance and Funeral For A Friend lulled him with sweet gloom.
It was now a little after two in the morning. Earlier, around 10pm, Od had told Angelica W-K that he was going to catch some sleep. She’d looked up from her BlackBerry long enough to say that she thought it was a good idea. Her tone had been dismissive, as if she didn’t mind what Od did, as long as he did it elsewhere.
He hadn’t slept, however. He’d lain fully dressed on top of the duvet in
the dark, checking the time at intervals, waiting, listening to the rain rattling down on the roof above him. He reckoned by two o’clock the secret service men outside would be getting cold, tired, bored and bleary. They would be at a low ebb. It would be the ideal moment to sneak out.
He eased open the casement on one of the windows and squeezed himself out onto the roof. He trod along the apex of the roof for a few stealthy, catlike steps. Then he lowered himself until he was flat on the tiles and, inch by inch, he began slithering down.
The hammering downpour of rain was making a racket, plenty of noise to cover his actions, but still he did everything he could to be as silent as possible. The secret service men were positioned all around the house. The nearest of them wasn’t much more than fifteen metres from the barn. Od could make out the man’s shape, lit from above by the security light on the front porch.
When his feet touched the gutter, Od balled into a crouch, ready to make the drop to the ground. He waited for the nearby secret service man to turn away. Then he launched himself off. He landed with his knees bent, rolling to absorb the impact.
The secret service man swung round. He was sure he’d just heard something – a thump. He scanned the front of the barn, frowning. He went over and shone a Maglite into the darkness within. The torch’s powerful beam showed him a beaten-up old Land Rover, a few gardening implements, some rusty carpentry tools, assorted items of household junk.
He shrugged. He must have been mistaken. Ears playing tricks on him. He returned to his post, muttering under his breath about the cold and the weather, and using a couple of unsavoury words to describe the woman he had to take orders from.
Od slipped out from beneath the Land Rover. Thank God the car had a high wheelbase and it hadn’t occurred to the secret service man to inspect under it.
Quickly Od searched round the barn and found what he was looking for: a short-handled mallet. It was sturdy enough and the right length for what he had in mind.
He opened the driver’s side door of the Land Rover and climbed in. The keys were in the ignition, as always. Who was likely to steal a car out here in the middle of nowhere? Especially a car as battered and crappy as this one. Od’s father loved the Land Rover – loved it with a passion that was all the more surprising given the appalling state of decay it was in – but he knew no one else was going to find it anywhere near as desirable as he did. Hence he didn’t bother with even the simplest of security measures.
Od wasn’t old enough to drive legally, but he knew the basics. It was hardly rocket science.
Besides, if everything went according to plan, the Land Rover’s next journey was going to be a very short one indeed.
The secret service man by the front door was startled to hear the Land Rover cough into life. He was even more startled as its headlights came on, its engine roared, and the car shot out of the barn at high speed.
He swiftly overcame his shock. Trained reflexes kicked in. Whoever was driving the Land Rover must be a terrorist, one left behind to monitor events at the farmhouse. Somehow they’d missed the guy during the search of the property. Now he was making a desperate getaway bid.
The secret service man raised his Sig Sauer P226 and started shooting before the car had gone even ten metres down the driveway. He emptied the whole clip, all thirteen bullets, into the vehicle. Every one found its mark. Side and rear windows shattered. There was thud after metallic thud as a line of holes appeared in the Land Rover’s bodywork.
Yet still the car lurched on, gaining speed.
Other secret service men came running and opened fire too. The Land Rover careered down the driveway and smashed through the five-bar gate which stood before the track that led to the main road. Bullets whanged into the car from all directions. The front windscreen vanished in a glittering spray of glass fragments.
Miraculously, the driver seemed not to have been hit. He continued to steer a crazy, swerving course up the track.
Then, abruptly, he appeared to lose control. The Land Rover veered off the track and went bumping and bouncing across the rough, ragged moorland terrain. A dozen secret service men sprinted in hot pursuit, blasting away relentlessly. One of them managed to blow out a rear tyre, and the car began to slew over the thick wet grass. It struck a large boulder with its nearside flank and flipped onto its roof. It lay upturned, still revving, all four wheels still spinning, like some sort of giant green armadillo stuck on its back, struggling to right itself and escape. The secret service men closed in, riddling it with gunfire. They were taking no chances.
Finally their squad leader called for a ceasefire over the comms link. Everything went quiet, apart from the Land Rover’s engine, which continued to roar furiously and futilely. The squad leader approached the vehicle with caution, gun held out. He squatted and peered inside.
Empty.
Through the hollowed-out window frames he saw no one in the car. No bodies. Not a trace of blood.
Through their earpieces, the other secret service men heard him swear softly. Then they saw him reach into the Land Rover, switch off the ignition, and yank something out from the space between the driving seat and the pedals.
It was a mallet which had been wedged between the seat and the accelerator. There had been no driver, just the mallet holding the accelerator down.
“A diversion,” the squad leader said. “A damn diversion. Everyone, back to the house. Double quick. We’ve been tricked. Oh, she’s going to have our hides for this.”
By the time the secret service men reached the farmhouse, Od was already well away, charging off across the moors as fast as his legs could carry him, heading in the opposite direction from the course the Land Rover had taken.
Rain pounded into his face, numbing his forehead and making his eyes sting. He could barely see in the dark and kept tripping on tussocks of grass and stumbling in depressions in the ground. That was when he wasn’t catching his toe on rocks and sprawling face first in the mud.
None of this mattered, though.
All that mattered was getting to Selston Tor.
Getting inside the installation.
Saving his dad.
Chapter Six
By road it was nine miles to Selston Tor, a tortuous winding journey. But in a straight line, cross-country, it was more like six.
For the first two of those miles Od was travelling almost blind. Then the rain eased off, the clouds parted, the moon peeped through, and he got a clearer sense of where he was and which way he was going. Familiar landmarks appeared. The large outcrop of rocks known as Crook-Back Blakey. The two distant hilltops nicknamed the Witch’s Dugs. The rushing stream that was either Kelly’s Tarn or Kerry’s Tarn, depending on who you asked. Od had roamed the moors by daylight often enough that he knew the area pretty well. Orienteering in the dark was tougher, but the moonlight helped.
He wondered how long it would take them at the farmhouse to realise he had gone. Not long, he thought. The secret service men were probably already combing the moors looking for him, urged on by a furious Angelica W-K. Well, he couldn’t worry about that now. All he could do was put as much distance as possible between him and them and hope they didn’t figure out where he was aiming for.
By the time Selston Tor loomed into view, Od was pretty certain he had given the secret service men the slip. The research installation, lit up by floodlights, glowed like an airport. It consisted of two main central blocks, both perfectly cubic like a pair of dice, and a sprawl of outbuildings, all encircled by a high chain-link perimeter fence.
Several times Od had studied the installation from a distance and been struck by its concrete drabness, its ordinariness. From the outside it didn’t look anything special, this place that commandeered his father’s life and swallowed up so much of his time.
Of course, in the light of what he had learnt recently, Od had good reason to think that there was more to Selston Tor than met the eye. A great deal more.
The installation itself wasn’t
, in fact, his destination. Od re-examined the section of Ordnance Survey map by the light of his mobile phone display. Just to the west of Selston Tor lay an old, disused slate quarry, a ragged gouge that men had scraped out of the landscape by hand many years ago. Od’s father had placed a big bold X on the quarry and added the words THIS WAY IN.
Od was baffled, because he knew there was nothing at the quarry apart from a dilapidated wooden hut that had once served as a site foreman’s office. The hut was garlanded with notices saying DANGEROUS STRUCTURE – KEEP OUT, and he’d never given it more than a cursory glance. Was that the way in? Did Selston Tor have some secret back entrance?
As he was nearing the quarry, Od’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out. He had a new text message.
From his father!
He opened it excitedly, feeling relief and hope flutter like a bird’s wings in his belly. Maybe Dad was OK. Maybe he’d outwitted his terrorist captors and escaped and he was texting Od to share the good news. Maybe this whole nightmare was over.
The text read:
Apologies, Od, this is just another timed-release message. I’ve configured it so that it’ll be activated the moment your phone’s GPS puts you within a 500 metre radius of the quarry.
I’m assuming you’ve already got the map and pass-card. Otherwise why would you be where you are now? OK, so you know that old hut in the quarry. That’s what you should be concentrating on.
Don’t just go blundering straight inside, though. It’s not what it appears, not simply an abandoned tumbledown shack. For one thing, it’s guarded. There’s an armed soldier. He goes out on patrol regularly, on the hour every hour. His sweep of the quarry takes him four minutes, so that’s how long you have to get inside without being spotted. The rest should be self-evident.
Warsuit 1.0 Page 2
