Lauren tutted. ‘Isn’t there another way in?’
‘I doubt it,’ Rat said. ‘Every second or third building’s got a door out back that leads down into the tunnels, but if this one’s been locked I’d guess that they all have.’
‘So now what?’ Lauren asked, looking at James.
‘We could try a couple more doors,’ said James. ‘If not, we’ll have to go back to the classroom. Maybe we can pile up the tables and make some sort of shelter, or something.’
Lauren looked at her brother like he was an idiot. ‘Yeah, desks are notorious for their bullet-stopping ability.’
‘Well sis, if you’ve got any better ideas my ears are wide open.’
‘Shut it,’ Rat gasped. ‘Something’s up there.’
A torch lit up their faces as a shout came from the top of the staircase. ‘Turn around, put your hands on your heads.’
James recognised the voice and smiled with relief. ‘Ernie, thank god it’s you.’
He felt confident until he heard the safety catch of an automatic rifle being removed.
‘Hands on heads,’ Ernie repeated stiffly. ‘I don’t know what’s going on with you three, but Miss Regan’s had a dozen people out searching for you. Now, come up them steps nice and sloooow. No sudden moves.’
*
Everyone they passed in the dimly lit tunnels wore body armour and most had a gun slung over their shoulder. The Survivors’ Manual said there was no such thing as an angel who wasn’t prepared to defend the Ark by any means necessary.
The combo of ragged Survivor clothes, middle-aged spread and automatic weapons had a comic air, like a bunch of accountants dressing up to re-enact some famous battle. But James didn’t find it funny: these were Joel Regan’s most fanatical followers and they’d already shown what they were capable of.
The Spider’s bunker was three levels beneath the church. Her garb was pure theatre: camouflage baseball cap, flak jacket, a small machine gun hung off her spindly shoulders and two grenades hooked over the waistband of her cut-off jeans.
The three kids lined up stiffly in front of her desk. Some of The Spider’s cronies sat behind them on stacking chairs, including Georgie, who now sported a backwards baseball cap and an assault rifle.
‘The three of you were seen clambering out of the residence,’ The Spider said. ‘What were you doing up there?’
‘Susie ordered us up there to help her pack,’ James explained.
‘But you clambered out and didn’t return to school,’ The Spider said severely. ‘Sneaks clamber, honest souls use the front door.’
James didn’t know how to answer and Rat took up the slack.
‘I ripped one of Susie’s skirts pulling it off its hanger,’ he lied. ‘She started going insane. Screaming and shouting about how much money it cost and threatening to have us paddled. She threw a make-up case at Lauren’s head and we just legged it. We didn’t want to disobey her, honestly. But we were scared. We’d seen what had happened to the butler and we really thought she was going to hurt us.’
‘I see,’ The Spider said, leaning across the desk and locking her fingers together. ‘And then you were seen in the truck. I can only assume you were trying to escape.’
‘We were scared Susie was after us,’ Rat explained. ‘James said he knew how to drive the truck. He said he’d be able to take us as far as the nearest town and phone his dad for help.’
James couldn’t help admiring Rat’s intelligence. The excuses were ten times better than anything he could have come up with.
The Spider hummed as she tried to find the flaw in Rat’s story. ‘But you must have realised that Susie and Brian had left when the jet took off. Why did you stay in hiding?’
‘I thought she might have left orders for Georgie to punish us when we got back to the school.’
‘Well …’ The Spider said, breaking into an uneasy smile. ‘That seems to explain the great mystery. You’ll be happy to learn that I don’t think we’ll be seeing Susie Regan inside the Ark again.’
Georgie cleared her throat, making it clear that she wanted to speak.
The Spider nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘I don’t mean to speak out of turn, Eleanor, but you’d do well not to believe every word that comes out of Rathbone’s mouth. He’s a notorious liar. I’ve had to paddle him more times than the rest of the Blues combined.’
The Spider’s face stiffened and she reared up in her seat. ‘Georgie, I don’t much care for your tone. I know Rathbone can be a handful, but you ought to remember that he is of the blood. He is and shall always be Joel Regan’s son and my own half brother.’
Georgie’s bulbous frame seemed to wilt under The Spider’s glare. ‘Of course,’ she said weakly. ‘I understand.’
‘Take the three of them back to the school,’ The Spider ordered. ‘And make sure you don’t lose them again.’
As soon as they were a hundred metres clear of The Spider’s office and heading down a tunnel towards the school, Rat couldn’t resist giving his arch enemy a cheeky grin.
‘Eyes forward, Rathbone,’ Georgie said acidly. ‘You might have sweet-talked your big sister, but I always know when you’re lying.’
‘How do you reckon on that?’ Rat asked.
‘Because every filthy word out of your devil mouth is a lie.’
‘Maybe I should talk to my big sister about you,’ Rat grinned. ‘I sense a serious lack of respect for my elevated status.’
They reached the tunnel beneath the boarding school two minutes later. All of the kids were confined to their dorms because of the emergency. Lauren gave James a worried look, thinking she was about to be separated from the boys and sent off to her room with the Yellows. But Georgie had other plans and unlocked the door of an underground room.
It was a nursery, set up with cushions and toys. The dank space, which smelled like water paint and milk, was home to five kids whose parents worked inside the Ark but weren’t old enough to attend the school upstairs. There were no other adults around and Georgie had simply locked them away, under threat of a good paddling if they misbehaved.
‘I don’t want you three running off again,’ Georgie explained. ‘You can stay here, where I can keep my eye on you.’
A cute little girl holding a comfort blanket had strolled up alongside Georgie and tugged at her trousers. ‘Miss, Michael took my pacifier.’
Georgie glowered down at the girl. ‘I’m not your nursemaid, Annabel,’ she growled. ‘Find another one or go without.’
The little girl scowled at a plastic tub on a high shelf. ‘Can’t reach that.’
Georgie wagged her finger. ‘I’m not in the mood to put up with your shit tonight, Annabel. Do you want a whack on the arse?’
The little girl’s face crinkled up like she was about to cry, but she reconsidered when Georgie raised a threatening hand.
Lauren intervened, crouching down and smiling at the toddler. ‘Why don’t you show me where the box is?’
Georgie grabbed Lauren’s T-shirt and dragged her back. ‘If you’re gonna start playing with the little ones, don’t wind them up. It’s late and it does my head in when they start screaming and chasing around.’
Lauren nodded politely. ‘OK, Miss.’
‘I’m going upstairs for a smoke,’ Georgie said, scowling at James and Rat. ‘Behave yourselves, or there’s gonna be blood and snot all over the place when I get back here.’
Georgie backed out of the nursery, slamming the metal door and turning the key in the lock.
40. TIME
Eve was in the top bunk with her eyes closed, but Dana doubted she was asleep. Who’d be able to, an hour and a half before you were supposed to climb into a little boat and blow up a couple of supertankers?
Dana threw back her duvet, quietly grabbed her cargo shorts off the floor and was slipping her socked feet inside trainers when the boat hit a huge wave, knocking the back of her head against the frame of the upper bunk.
Eve’s eyes flicked
open. ‘Oooh I heard that,’ she said. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Yeah. It sounded worse than it felt,’ Dana said, as she tried rubbing away the pain.
‘Why are you getting dressed, it’s not time is it?’
‘No, I need the loo again.’
Eve sounded confused. ‘You don’t need to get dressed for that.’
‘I guess,’ Dana said. ‘It’s just being on a boat I suppose … With Barry around and that.’
‘That’s at least the fifth time you’ve been. Are you OK?’
‘My stomach always goes crazy whenever I’m nervous,’
Dana lied. ‘Last year, the morning before my exams, I must have gone about twenty times.’ ‘Maybe we should pray,’ Eve said. ‘Thinking about God always helps me to relax.’ Dana stood up. ‘We’ll pray when I get back. How about you, are you nervous?’
‘I just hope I can live up to God’s expectations,’ Eve said. ‘Nina said they might name a room inside one of the new Arks after us. Can you believe that?’
This kind of Survivor speak made Dana nuts. In Eve’s head, a platinum bead and a room named after you inside an Ark meant more than six numbers on the lottery.
As Eve slumped back on to her pillow, Dana took three steps down a narrow corridor and slid a bolt across the bathroom door behind her. She raised the lid and sat down to pee, but that wasn’t the reason behind this visit to the bathroom, or any of her previous excursions out of her bunk.
Dana opened the cupboard under the sink and began pulling out the stash she’d gathered on her wanderings around the boat: a key, a saw-toothed hunting knife, a small aerosol canister of oven cleaning spray and some strong nylon cord. She’d already chopped this into lengths suitable for tying a person up.
Everything fitted into her pockets, except the rope. She stared at herself in the mirror over the sink, breathing deep and trying to think calming thoughts. In ten minutes’ time, Dana knew she’d either have taken control of the boat, or she’d be dead.
*
James, Lauren and Rat had been locked in the nursery for almost two hours. The space had its own bathroom, with little sinks barely half a metre off the ground and kiddie-sized toilets. For some reason the stall nearest the rear wall was the only spot in the whole nursery where James could get a decent signal on his radio. There were no locks on the doors, so Rat had to stand with his back against the bathroom door to stop the little kids from coming in and seeing what he was up to.
‘Chloe,’ James whispered. ‘Any news?’
‘Negative,’ Chloe said. Her next sentence disintegrated into static.
‘Sorry, can you repeat that.’
‘I said the first reinforcements should be landing within an hour. More will be coming by road and it looks like the media have caught on to the story as well. One of the TAG commanders wanted me to ask if you have any idea what’s going on inside the towers?’
‘Afraid not,’ James said. ‘We’re totally isolated here. Georgie’s been in and out a few times, but she never tells us anything. Why, what do you think’s going on?’
‘The commandos are looking into the turrets with heat-sensitive cameras. It looks like the Survivors are moving out a lot of weapons, maybe even abandoning the turrets altogether.’
‘Is it the same in all of them?’
‘We think so, yes.’
‘So are you getting any idea of what the TAG units are planning?’
‘They’re—’
‘Sorry, Chloe, you dropped out again.’
‘Everyone here is in shock: the TAG units lost a quarter of their manpower when that chopper went down. The commander, who wouldn’t even listen to me earlier, knows he’s messed up and he’s running around like a headless chicken. Nobody’s prepared to make any decisions. They’re flying in a hostage negotiation team to take over the show, but they’re not due here for another three or four hours.’
‘The Survivors down here are totally hardcore,’ James said. ‘They’d sooner starve than leave the Ark. It’s hard to see a happy ending.’
‘I know this is a bad situation, James. I wish I could be of some comfort, but I feel the same way you do. Keep in touch and do let me know if you get any information about what’s going on inside the turrets.’
‘OK Chloe, over and out.’
As soon as James pocketed the radio, Rat let in six-year-old Joseph, who’d been thumping on the door. He wore a set of faded pyjamas that were way too small for him.
‘What are you doing?’ Joseph asked angrily, rubbing his tired eyes.
‘Just messing around,’ Rat said, as the kid stepped up to a urinal and started peeing.
Joseph looked around at Rat. ‘What are you staring for?’
‘Hmm?’ Rat blinked. ‘Oh, nothing.’
James led Rat back out towards Lauren, who sat on the carpet with her back propped against a beanbag. Three-year-old Annabel and her four-year-old brother Martin were cuddled alongside her, fast asleep with their heads resting in her lap.
‘Sewage,’ Rat grinned cryptically, as Joseph ran between them and leapt noisily into one of the little beds set against the back wall. ‘Something just occurred to me. A way out, maybe.’
‘Really?’ James said.
‘I wanna see what Lauren thinks, too. I’m not going through it twice.’
James stepped up to his sister and tapped her cheek. She wasn’t asleep, but her eyes were shut.
‘Come over here a minute,’ James said.
Lauren shuffled out, gently shifting the two warm little bodies on to the beanbag, trying not to wake them up. Annabel took a sudden breath and opened her eyes.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Not far,’ Lauren answered gently. ‘Go to sleep. I’ll be back in a minute.’
‘You’re nice, Lauren,’ Annabel said, smiling as the need for sleep overpowered her and her eyes rolled shut.
Lauren looked back at the two kids as she walked over to James and Rat. ‘They’re SO cute.’
‘Sewage,’ Rat said again, clearly excited by something. ‘You know when you asked me if there are any other exits apart from the turrets? When I saw Joseph peeing, I remembered something from a few years back.
‘All of the Ark’s drains feed down into one big sewage tank. A few years ago, we kept getting this horrible stench whenever there were a lot of people inside the Ark. They had to dig it up and put in a bigger tank. I saw it arrive, it’s huge. I mean you could walk through it standing up.’
‘So?’ Lauren said. ‘What good does that do us?’
Rat smiled. ‘The truck comes in twice a week and pumps our sewage and waste water out of the tank. It backs up to a metal hatch on the outside and they attach a pipe to suck it out. You see the hatch when we do our morning run. It’s just past the fourth turret.’
‘I think I know the one you mean,’ said James. ‘It’s easily big enough to climb through.’
‘Hang on,’ Lauren said, raising her hands. ‘We’re talking about a sewer here, right? We’re talking about escaping by wading through the stuff that gets flushed down the toilet?’
James shrugged. ‘Lauren, there’s two sets of people with guns and we’re stuck between them. If there’s really a way out, I’m taking it.’
‘Well … I suppose,’ Lauren said uneasily.
‘What’s better?’ James asked. ‘Doing something gross or getting a bullet through your head?’
The three kids turned towards the door as a key clattered in the lock.
‘What are you three plotting?’ Georgie asked sarcastically, as she plunged a fat finger up her nose and slumped in a chair.
*
Dana got a fright as she stepped out of the bathroom. Nina was right outside the door.
‘Are you OK?’ Nina asked. ‘I keep hearing you moving around.’
Dana put a hand over her stomach. ‘Nervous tummy.’
Nina nodded. ‘What’s with the cord?’
This really put Dana on the spot. She considered laying Nina
out, but her plan worked best if she had Barry’s gun in her hands before showing her true colours.
‘It fell out of the cupboard when we hit that big wave,’ Dana said, convinced she was giving the crappest excuse in history. ‘I thought I’d stick it in one of the cupboards in the mess so that no one trips over it.’
‘Right,’ Nina said. She clearly found this explanation odd. Fortunately her desire to pee was greater than her curiosity and she hurried into the bathroom.
Dana rushed out, cutting through the galley and the luxurious mess room. A blast of noise and sea air hit her as she slid open the glass door at the back of the mess and stepped on to the rear deck. There was light coming from inside, but it was still a fiddle getting the key into the lock and turning it. Eve and Nina would be able to climb out through one of the windows if they got suspicious, but the locked door would slow them down.
Dana headed briskly up a flight of stairs, ditching the bundle of cord at the top of the staircase before stepping on to the bridge. The small space was as luxurious as the rest of the boat, with leather seating along three sides and a chrome steering wheel set in the control panel at the front. The main lights were off and Barry stood in silhouette, bathed in the blue light coming off the instruments.
‘Hiya,’ Barry said cheerfully. ‘Come to pay me a visit?’
Dana smiled. ‘You don’t mind do you? I’m too wound up to sleep.’
‘Not much to see up here at night,’ Barry said. ‘You set the coordinates on the GPS and this baby finds its own way. You just have to keep an eye on the radar screen to make sure you don’t hit anything.’
‘It’s a fantastic boat,’ Dana said, as she stepped up to the steeply raked front screen and stared at the spray ripping up around the two hulls.
Barry shrugged. ‘It’s a good tool for our mission, but to be honest I find this kind of thing repulsive.’
‘Really?’
‘A media big shot owned this boat. Spent millions building it. After a few years he got a better one and sold it on. Now, anyone with ten thousand bucks in their pocket can hire it for a day. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, there’s a little continent called Africa where millions of people die every year because they can’t get a few cents’ worth of medicine.’
CHERUB: Divine Madness Page 24
