Something was wrong.
The feeling was that of coldness, but not of the physical body. He had had it ever since he could remember. Like ice in his soul, his mother had said. The strangeness always meant danger. Like the night the army men, in their bright, shiny dress uniforms and white gloves, had knocked on the door to give them the news about his father. Or the night Hunter had died.
The strangeness was on him.
Something was wrong.
He willed his hands back into motion, setting out dishes of sauce for the sierfruit.
Something had just changed in the room. Someone had entered.
Chisnall continued setting out the fruit platters. It would be too suspicious if he turned to look.
Could it be Azoh? Surely not. The entrance of the supreme leader of all Bzadians would surely be a grand affair.
Whoever it was, it was someone that even these people were afraid of.
He picked up an empty platter and glanced around casually as he left, trying to spot any new faces. He saw no one he recognised, but that meant nothing. There were many faces here he didn’t know. And he could not scan everyone in the room without being obvious.
But he could not ignore that feeling. It had never been wrong before.
Price stared at a long dark bridge that spanned the mouth of the river, which fed into the bay. Satellite scans had showed it to be intact, although they would not know for sure until they tried to cross it. A decade of neglect could do bad things to a bridge. It was the point at which the Angels were the most vulnerable.
A low, boxy lift bridge with crisscrossed metal beams, it spanned three hundred metres. For each of those metres they would have nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.
In the centre, a span of the bridge could be raised vertically on two metal towers to allow boats to pass below. One of the towers looked intact. The other was starting to crumble. No boats would be going under this bridge any time soon.
They were crouched in one of the food kiosks along the waterfront. Two alien jets had been crisscrossing the area for the last few minutes, before disappearing on fiery tails to the north. The Angels remained in hiding. Time was ticking. Price wanted to keep moving. But she did not want to get caught on the bridge.
A few minutes. A small delay, leading to a bigger delay. That was how missions got off schedule. That was how missions failed. But right now there was nothing she could do about it.
She eased from her squatting position into a sit, with her back against the wall for comfort. She sipped from her water tube. The water was warm from her body heat and slightly sweet, dosed with nutrients and glucose for energy. She took a nutrient bar from her belt pack and peeled back the plastic wrapper. It was Bzadian rations; they could carry nothing else. It tasted like grass clippings. From a lawn that was popular with dogs.
Two minutes passed with no sign of the fast movers. Price motioned for the others to stay hidden while she stole quickly across to the bridge. She clipped her T-board to her back and walked, staying in the darkest shadows, away from the silvery pools of moonlight.
The roadway looked solid and was strong under her first tentative footstep. A few cars had been abandoned here and there along the span, but they did not block the bridge, and could provide a little cover should it be needed. The wind was strong, funnelled by the shape of the bay to this narrow point. Too windy for T-boards, she thought. They would have to walk across.
“Anything on the scope?” she asked.
“All clear,” The Tsar replied.
“Okay, we are Oscar Mike,” she said, and her nervousness about crossing the bridge was offset by her relief at getting away from the town and the memories and feelings it brought.
She waited till they caught up with her, then led the way across. Low wooden fences on either side gave way to tall girders. All seemed clear. It all seemed easy.
She let Wall take point, and dropped back next to Barnard, switching off her com. Barnard saw the movement and did the same without being asked.
“What do you know about Brogan?” she asked.
“What’s that, skipper?” Barnard asked.
“Why is she here?” Price asked. “Why are we delivering her to Chisnall?”
“I know as much as you do,” Barnard said. “Our mission is to deliver the goods. We are FedEx. We deliver the parcel, we don’t ask why, or open it to see what’s inside.”
“Brogan said you knew why she was here,” Price said.
“She’s just trying to get under your skin,” Barnard said. “Don’t let her.”
Price stared at Barnard, who held her gaze evenly, without emotion.
She had got to know Barnard quite well over the missions they had been on together. Well enough to know when she was lying. She was lying now. Price didn’t press it. Now was not the time or place for a scene. She tried a different tack.
“Strange how Bilal agreed to let her come,” she said. “Sprung her out of jail. Strange that he was prepared to trust her.”
“I guess he has his reasons,” Barnard said.
“And I’ll bet that you know what those reasons are,” Price said.
“Even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to tell you,” Barnard said. “That information is not essential to the mission.”
“It’s essential to me,” Price said. “I’m team leader. I have to know if I can trust her. That she’s not going to take the first opportunity to escape or slip a knife into my back.”
“Price,” Barnard said. “We’ve been through hell together. You’re the closest thing I’ve got to a sister. But I have specific orders from Bilal not to talk about Brogan. Trust me, she did something to prove herself. But I can’t tell you what.”
“That’s not an acceptable answer,” Price said.
“Deal with it,” Barnard said.
Price walked alongside her for a few more paces. They passed a car, just a wreck, sitting on rusted rims, the tyres perished long ago.
“I rang Chisnall, you know,” Price said. “On that secret number that nobody was supposed to know.”
It was true. She had broken the rules out of a desperate desire to speak to her former team leader. Their bond was a close one. She’d been through things with him that Barnard would never know. She had almost died for him. Twice.
“You were told not to,” Barnard said.
“I wanted to hear his voice,” Price said.
“But nobody answered, right?”
“How’d you know?”
“It’s too risky for him. He can only answer that phone at certain times,” Barnard said. “You could have put his life in danger, calling him like that.”
Price’s fists were clenched. She forced her fingers to relax, breathing in and out slowly, pushing back the anger. She was upset because she knew it was probably true. Angry that she might have endangered Chisnall’s life. Angry that information was being withheld from her. Angry that she was being lied to.
“What did Brogan do to earn Bilal’s trust?” Price asked.
“I told you that’s classified,” Barnard said.
“Jeez, Barnard, you’re hard,” Price exploded, aware that her voice had risen, but unable to help herself. “You don’t trust me? What if I order you to tell me?”
“I’ll refuse,” Barnard said.
“Easy,” Monster’s voice came from behind them. “Fight is for enemy.”
“Don’t take it personally, Price,” Barnard said. “It’s ACOG security, not a popularity contest.”
“Look at you two.” It was Brogan’s voice. “Like children fighting over toys.”
“Stay out of it,” Price said. “You don’t even belong here.”
“Tell that to Ryan Chisnall,” Brogan said.
A combination of tension, fatigue and frustration erupted inside Price. She marched back to Brogan and grabbed the other girl, shoving her backwards into a metal railing. Brogan did nothing to resist, nothing to stop herself overbalancing into the water below.
“Yo
u smug cow,” Price yelled into Brogan’s face, her hands white-knuckled on the other girl’s equipment straps. “You’re a dirty traitor and I don’t need anyone on this team who I don’t fully trust.”
Brogan seemed indifferent to the onslaught. Her eyes moved slowly from Price’s face down to her hands. She started to smile again, but her eyes suddenly shifted to the north.
“Something’s coming,” she said.
“Don’t try to–”
“Contact on the scope,” The Tsar hissed. “Solid signal. Air mobile. Slow mover. Half a klick, dead ahead.”
Price flicked her com back on. “Everybody freeze,” she said.
That was a dumb thing to say. Everybody was frozen. What they needed now was to do something.
“Across or back, LT?” Brogan asked, casually removing Price’s hands from her straps.
“How’d it get so close before you picked it up, Tsar?” Price asked.
“It’s small,” The Tsar said. “Very small.”
“You’re sure it’s Bzadian?” Price asked.
“It’s giving off all the right signals,” The Tsar said. “Seems to be some kind of rotorcraft.”
“Rotorbot,” Wall said immediately.
“Azoh!” Price swore.
A rotorbot was a Bzadian drone. A small, unmanned, autonomous rotorcraft little more than a metre across.
“Four hundred metres,” The Tsar said.
“Across or back?” Brogan asked again. “Can’t stay here.”
They were way too exposed, out here in the middle of the river with nothing but the thin framework of the bridge as cover. On the other side of the river a group of buildings offered good concealment. But moving forwards was moving towards the rotorbot.
Price briefly considered ordering the team over the side of the bridge, into the river, where the cold water would hide them and their heat signatures. But the movement and the splashes were sure to attract the electronic eyes of the creature.
“Three hundred and fifty metres,” The Tsar said.
“Across or back?” It was Wall who asked this time and Price was acutely aware of her own hesitation.
“Gotta move, LT,” Barnard said. “Gotta do something.”
“We stay here. Camo down,” Price ordered, pulling her own camo sheet out of her backpack.
“We’re going to stick out like skid marks on a wedding dress,” The Tsar said.
“You sure you want to do this?” Brogan asked.
“Shut your mouth and follow orders,” Price said.
“Just asking,” Brogan said with another of those infuriating smiles.
Price ignored her. She laid her camo sheet on the roadway and activated it so that it picked up an image of the bitumen. She slid underneath, lying flat on her back to keep the lowest possible profile. She put her eye to one of the spy-holes but could see nothing.
“It’s coming right at us,” The Tsar said.
“Stay frosty,” Price said.
She said it to the team, but she knew she was really talking to herself. She was the one who had lost her cool. She had let her emotions get the better of her. She was the one who had to stay frosty. To overcome these constant self-doubts. But that wasn’t going to be easy with Brogan in the group.
“Stay real frosty,” Price said again.
The route back to the kitchen took Chisnall past the wall of heroes, a long curving corridor covered on both sides with photos of Bzadian soldiers.
There were two requirements for a soldier to have his or her photo on the wall of heroes. Firstly, they had to have done something heroic. Secondly, they had to be dead.
The twenty-seventh picture from the right, on the third row, was one he avoided looking at. It was the only face among them that he knew. It belonged to a Bzadian soldier who he had met on more than one occasion. Each time they had fought, and each time Chisnall had won. But he had got to know the soldier, and he respected and admired him. In a different world they might have been friends.
His name was Yozi.
A female stood in the corridor, staring at the photos. She wore the white robes of the administration staff.
She glanced up as he emerged from the meeting room, an empty platter in his hands. He didn’t recognise her, but nor should he. Outside of the kitchen staff, the only Bzadians he knew by sight were the various high commanders. He had studied their faces until they were ingrained on his memory. Anything overheard was only as important as the person who said it.
She was tall for a Bzadian, probably a bobblehead like Yozi. He caught his breath as he realised where she was standing. The place he avoided. Twenty-seventh picture from the right. Third row.
He looked straight ahead and held the platter high. Just a chef, going about his business.
It didn’t work. She looked up as he approached and caught his eye.
“I knew him,” she said, her head bobbing slightly as she talked, confirming his guess.
Chisnall used one hand to cover his face briefly. A Bzadian gesture for “I beg your pardon.”
“We were paired for fifteen years,” she said.
Chisnall stopped walking. To continue would be considered rude. It would attract attention he did not want to attract.
“It is unusual in our culture,” she said.
Chisnall said nothing, but could not help the widening of his eyes.
Our culture, she had said. In a society where people did not form lasting relationships it was unusual for paired couples to stay together longer than a few years. But why had she used the words “our culture” to another Bzadian? Surely she would only say that if she knew, or suspected, that he was human.
“He would never admit it to anyone,” she said. “For fear of ridicule. But it was true.”
A highly ranked general rounded the corner of the corridor ahead of them, talking in a low voice with his Vaza: a tall, misshapen female who was his bodyguard, among other things. The general glanced at Chisnall.
“I must return,” Chisnall said, shuffling the empty platter around on his arm.
She was silent as the general and his Vaza approached within earshot, then said, a little more loudly, “The other members of the group wanted me to pass on our appreciation of your appetisers. They were delightful.”
Chisnall smiled and nodded.
“Thank you,” he said. “It is a pleasure to serve, and I will pass your compliments on to the others involved.”
The pair passed with a sideways glance.
The woman looked back at the photograph and lowered her voice again. “He was a hero long before Uluru,” she said. “Ask any of those who served with him.”
“Of course,” Chisnall said, wishing he had something more significant to say and desperately wanting to get back to the kitchen.
“Nobody knows what happened at Wivenhoe,” she said. “His body was never found.”
“That is sad,” Chisnall said. “But I must excuse myself. My head chef will be wondering where–”
“Some people did not want his photo on this wall,” she said. “They think he was somehow responsible for the disaster at Wivenhoe, or didn’t do enough to stop it. But I knew him. I know he would have done everything he could, and more.”
Chisnall’s mind flooded with images of Yozi diving into the waters of the dam, disappearing below the water as he disarmed the bomb Chisnall had placed there. Then that image faded and all that remained was the look of calm acceptance, as a giant snakehead of water rose above Yozi and prepared to strike.
“I’m sure … he was a hero … at Wivenhoe,” Chisnall said.
“Yes,” the woman mused. “I’m sure he was. But only Chizna would be able to tell us that.”
A fist suddenly clenched around his heart at the use of his Bazadian alias. Panic, an urge to run that welled up from deep within him, spreading icy fingers throughout his body. But panic was a killer. That thought had been rammed into him until it was ingrained in his psyche and that gave him the strength to stay where
he was, and even to smile a little as he shook his head. “Chizna? I don’t know this name.”
For the first time she turned to face him, glancing quickly both ways along the corridor first.
“It is not safe to talk here,” she said. “I will meet you in the art gallery. I will be there in an hour.”
She whirled, her robes flowing out around her, then was gone.
Price could hear the rotorbot now, a soft humming from above them. Scanning the sky carefully, she finally caught a glimpse of it, a black disc blotting out stars. It was incredibly bad luck to have been caught by one of these things in such an exposed place.
She used her hands and feet to grip the four corners of her camo sheet, stretching it out tightly, holding it down against the easterly wind, strong and blustery here on the bridge.
The rotorbot flew well above the girders of the bridge, not slowing.
Thank God!
The beating of Price’s heart began to ease as the sound receded and the rotorbot, just a vague dark blur now, drifted towards the far shore.
“Are we clear?” she asked The Tsar when the disc had moved out of sight.
“I think so,” The Tsar said.
“It’s coming back,” Brogan said. “Nobody move.”
How she knew, Price had no idea. Brogan had slid under the rusting wreck of the car. That, plus her camo sheet, gave her good protection from the hovering bot.
“No, it’s not,” The Tsar said. “It’s continuing to move over the town.”
“It’s coming back,” Brogan said again.
“What do you know about rotorbots, Barnard?” Price asked.
“Enough,” Barnard said.
“Then talk, and quickly,” Price said.
“Okay,” Barnard said. “They’re primarily designed for surveillance, with high-res and thermal cameras, plus sensitive microphones.”
“Any armaments?” Price asked.
Barnard nodded. “Twin needle guns and a short range, anti-personnel rocket, all mounted underneath. And Brogan’s right. If a rotorbot thinks it has a contact it moves away. Lulls the enemy into a false sense of security. Then it comes back and compares the images before and after, to see if anything has changed.”
Vengeance Page 5
