by Chris Ryan
‘I brought you some flowers,’ said Ben, ‘but now I
wish I hadn’t. I’ll give them to the orphan next door.’
‘They don’t have an orphan next door,’ croaked Kelly. ‘They have a hunky rock star. Why don’t you go and send him in here and you can go and sit in his room on your own.’
‘Why do you get a room to yourself?’ said Ben. ‘Did you tell them you’re a rock star?’
‘It’s for security reasons. Half the world seems to think Uncle Sam is responsible for war, famine and the global recession. Given the trouble my dad had with those protestors yesterday, the authorities figured I could use a little extra privacy.’
‘You’re lucky you’re not in a jail cell for wasting police time. I hear they sent two helicopters to intercept the Ghan.’
‘Yeah, well, it was an honest mistake. And they don’t have time to worry about that with everything else that’s happened—’
Talking made her cough. She tried to grab a tube dangling down from a water container above the bed, but instead of pulling it towards her, her bandaged hands only succeeded in batting it away. Cursing, she tried to retrieve it.
Ben let her struggle for a moment, then his better nature took over. He reached over and moved the tube so that she could reach it. She sucked on it, then let it fall from her mouth.
‘Thanks,’ she said grudgingly, then started coughing. ‘It’s smoke inhalation. They say it’ll pass in a day or two. How come you’re not suffering with it, anyway?’
‘I don’t open my mouth as often as you do, I guess.’ Ben realized he was still holding the flowers, so he dropped them on the table at the end of the bed. They landed with a slap. He nodded at the saline bag hanging beside her bed, and the line leading into her arm. ‘So what’s with the drip?’
‘My burns got infected. Something to do with not keeping them clean, running around in the desert all afternoon, then landing in the sea and being hauled out by some guys who’d been gutting fish and hadn’t washed their hands. So now I’m on mega-strong antibiotics. Why are you here?’
Ben shrugged. ‘We’re staying in the hotel next door. There’s nothing on TV except The Towering Inferno and I didn’t fancy that. I heard you were here and thought I’d see what you were up to.’
Kelly began to laugh, a dry sound like a seal barking. ‘Yeah, well, I’m not your babysitter any more. Run along now and let me be miserable.’ She tilted her head back and clamped her lips around the water tube again.
Ben turned towards the door.
Kelly waved him back. ‘No — don’t go. I either talk to you or I watch endless news reports about the fire. Come and sit down. Where’s your mum?’
Ben pulled up a chair and sat down next to the bed.
‘She’s busy. She’s obsessed by finding out all she can about that US base we found.’
‘Oh yeah? Why?’
‘I told her about the big dome and she thought that sounded odd for a listening station. She made some calls. It turns out it’s some kind of top secret research place. Just like the protestors said.’
Kelly bristled. She clearly felt that any criticism of Americans was a personal attack on her. ‘Oh yeah? What are we meant to be researching?’
‘Weather control.’
‘Weather control? I’ve never heard anything so far-fetched!’ She folded her arms defensively, then remembered she had a drip in her arm and looked down in alarm in case she had dislodged it. ‘Stop thinking that because we’re the most powerful nation on the planet we’ve got a god complex.’
Ben wasn’t surprised that she found it all incredible. He’d had trouble believing it himself. ‘Apparently it’s not so far-fetched. It’s called the High Active Auroral Research Project. They have technology that can make wind and rain and even tornadoes. Do you remember those scientists thought we’d come over in that big plane from Alaska? That’s where the other HAARP research station is based. They’ve been shipping HAARP equipment to Australia.’
Kelly folded her arms tighter. ‘Baloney. I thought your mother was a scientist, not another of these kooky activists. Give me a break.’ She was starting to get angry.
‘My mum got this from respected scientists, not crackpots.’ Ben leaned forward. ‘Listen, in Alaska, a lot of people living near the HAARP station have been getting weird illnesses … and their dogs and cats were dying. Does that sound familiar? That was happening in Coober Pedy.’
‘According to a bunch of hairy, sandal-wearing, mud-wallowing bums. People get sick all the time. That doesn’t prove anything.’ Kelly ended up coughing again, a long attack that turned her face red.
‘Look, I’m telling you because you might need to get checked out by a doctor. If you don’t believe me, that’s fine. This HAARP thing fires a super-charged, high-frequency radio wave into the sky. It’s like detonating a nuclear bomb in the ionosphere. The fall-out can give people migraines, allergies … I just thought you might want to know—’ Ben stopped. Kelly was waving her hand at the mask.
‘Oxygen.’
Ben stood up, pulled the mask down and put it over her nose. She took some deep, slow breaths, then nodded that she’d had enough. Ben took the mask away and sat down again.
Kelly leaned forward and pulled her knees up beneath the sheets, hugging them. She looked like she was thinking seriously about what he had said. ‘When we were near the base,’ she said in a small voice, ‘it got very windy and I thought I was covered in crawling insects. And then you got it too.’
Ben nodded. ‘And the plane instruments went haywire. I said it felt like an electric shock. HAARP can also knock out communications systems. Apparently that’s another reason the military are interested in it. We definitely got hit by fallout from this thing.’
Kelly shuddered and hugged her knees tighter. ‘Did you see a doctor? What did they say?’
‘The doctor couldn’t find anything wrong.’
Actually, that wasn’t the whole truth. The doctor who examined Ben hadn’t had experience of that type of radiation. Bel was trying to find some experts who did.
‘I expect your mum’s got everyone running around in a panic. At least the base is in the middle of Australia, so it can’t be harming that many people.’
Ben shook his head. ‘That’s not what Mum says. She thinks they chose Australia for a more sinister reason. Alaska has given them control of weather in the northern hemisphere. Australia gives them the South Pole too. It’s like a world domination thing. She’s gone straight to the Australian prime minister about it.’
‘It sounds like we stumbled on something pretty big,’ said Kelly thoughtfully.
‘Big and sinister. I thought we were chasing red herrings out there in the desert, but we might just have blown the lid on research that could be as dangerous as the hydrogen bomb.’
Kelly looked down at her knees, deep in thought. ‘Remind me, what’s your mom’s organization called? Fragile Planet, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Ben.
‘I’m thinking maybe I should join. Can you ask her?’
Ben snorted. ‘If I ever see her. On top of the halfterm break, I only got a few extra days holiday off school so I’ve got to fly back home in a few days. She’s working round the clock again. I might as well have stayed in Britain.’
Kelly smiled weakly. ‘That’s like my dad. I’d just caught up with him here in Melbourne, and he immediately had to go off somewhere on army business.’
‘Does he know we — er — wrecked the microlight?’
Kelly sat bolt upright, her eyes wide. ‘No way. And I’m not going to tell him we broke into a top secret base either.’ She lay back against the pillow. ‘Hey — at least you have some good stories to tell about your holiday. You’re getting to be something of an expert on disaster zones, what with the flood in London and now this.’
Ben suddenly started laughing. He laughed so hard that tears ran down his cheeks. It was almost a minute before he could compose himself enough to talk again.<
br />
Kelly was looking at him, mystified. ‘What did I say?’
Ben sighed. ‘My whole family is one big disaster zone.’
Epilogue
Out in the Great Victoria Desert, Grishkevich and Hijkoop had quite a crowd in their lab. Most of the base’s science personnel, and a visitor, had gathered around one of the TV monitors to watch a news broadcast.
The screen showed two firefighters moving slowly through a blackened building, searching the ground with powerful torches. They moved unsteadily, the wet wreckage sliding and shifting under their feet. Where it had moved, smoke rose in wisps from the deeper layers. The surface was cooling, but underneath it was still hot.
A journalist gave a commentary: ‘The first fires in Adelaide were reported at eleven this morning. By two o’clock most of the city was on fire. It burned until eight this evening — and experts say if it hadn’t been for a freak thunderstorm it might still be burning now. For many it has been a lucky escape, but the search for casualties goes on …’
Hijkoop stabbed a button and the screen went blank. He turned round. ‘How about that? Saved because the weather changed. That’s the power of nature for you. And that is why we have to be able to control it.’
His remark was addressed mainly to their guest. He was a commanding presence — tall, and wearing charcoal-blue dress uniform with gold buttons.
Major Kurtis spoke: ‘Gentlemen, I am totally in agreement. I am here to tell you that despite anything you may hear to the contrary, the HAARP experiment is very far from over.’
About the Author
CHRIS RYAN joined the SAS in 1984 and has been involved in numerous operations with the Regiment. During the first Gulf War he was the only member of an eight-man team to escape from Iraq, three colleagues being killed and four captured. It was the longest escape and evasion in the history of the SAS. For this he was awarded the Military Medal. He wrote about his remarkable escape in The One Who Got Away (1995), which was also adapted for screen.
He left the SAS in 1994 and is now the author of many bestselling thrillers for adults, as well as the Alpha Force series for younger readers. His work in security takes him around the world and he has also appeared in a number of television series, including Hunting Chris Ryan, in which his escape and evasion skills were demonstrated to the max, and Pushed to the Limit, in which Chris put ordinary British families through a series of challenges. More recently, he appeared in Terror Alert on Sky TV, demonstrating his skills in a range of different scenarios.
Wildfire is the second title in a new series of thrillers for younger readers: Code Red adventures.
FB2 document info
Document ID: ceb9e5c0-15d8-4dcb-be5b-0bbf2a28c3b6
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 15.5.2013
Created using: calibre 0.9.30, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6 software
Document authors :
Document history:
1.0 — создание файла fb2
About
This file was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.5.0.
(This book might contain copyrighted material, author of the converter bears no responsibility for it's usage)
Этот файл создан при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.5.0 написанного Lord KiRon.
(Эта книга может содержать материал который защищен авторским правом, автор конвертера не несет ответственности за его использование)
http://www.fb2epub.net
https://code.google.com/p/fb2epub/
