Meia waited until the three Securitats had turned the corner. She had no more grenades, although she did have her blast pistol. But it was one thing knocking Securitats unconscious in order to free prisoners, or quietly “disappearing” them if they happened to look the wrong way at an inconvenient time; quite another to kill Sedulus’s vicious little pet, however much personal satisfaction the act might bring her. There would be trouble enough once the escape was discovered without adding high-profile bodies to the mix.
She slipped from the cell. A camera watched her from above, but she had no fear of it. She had disabled every camera in the building before leaving the control room. She checked her watch. Syl and Ani should have been at the wall by now, for in a few minutes the castle would be ringing with alarm bells.
Alarm bells.
Meia stopped. She took her blast pistol from her belt and adjusted its setting, before pointing it at the mattress and firing a single shot. A section of the mattress exploded, and flames licked around the edges of the blast mark. Meia fanned them with her hands, feeding the fire until the mattress and the pillow were burning merrily. When she was happy with the blaze, she followed the route taken by Syl and Ani. She paused only once, just long enough to smash the glass that covered the little red box on the wall, and trip the fire alarm.
•••
The Securitats at the cells were relaxing. They could afford to, now that the prisoners had been handed over to Vena. The humans were no longer their responsibility. For a while, at least, they could take it easy. One of them had produced a small silver flask of a kind that might have been familiar to Meia’s Resistance contact Trask, and they passed it around to warm themselves, for the Vaults were damp and cold.
It was with some surprise, then, that their sergeant found himself confronted with the spectacle of Vena and two lieutenants. He was only thankful that the flask of whisky had been emptied and put away.
“We didn’t expect you back so soon, ma’am,” he said.
Vena took in his slightly red face, and the alcohol on his breath, and the two cell doors standing open behind him. She didn’t say a word. She simply drew her pulser and shot the sergeant in the forehead.
“Sound the—” she began to say, but the final word was drowned out by a blast of sirens.
Fire: the castle was burning.
•••
The alarm echoed through the passageway.
“They’re coming!” said Steven, and he seemed very young in his panic. “They’re going to catch us and kill us!”
“Hush!” said Syl. “It’s the fire alarm.”
Seconds later, though, she heard another noise, a whooping rather than a siren. She exchanged a look with Ani. That was the general alarm. The escape had been discovered.
“What is it?” asked Paul.
“You need to go,” said Syl.
“Go?” he said, looking at the solid wall before them. “Go where?”
Syl wouldn’t have been able to find the door had Meia not described its position down to the last inch. It was marked by two thin white lines against the stone, little more than scratches. Syl took the sensor key from the pocket of her uniform and placed it beside the marks. There was a click, and a section of the stonework simply popped open; it was metal painted to look like brick, and the hole revealed was just large enough for one body to squeeze through, as long as the body in question wasn’t large. Syl had no idea how or when it had been installed; all she knew was that it was Meia’s work, and there were probably other bolt-holes like it scattered around the castle.
Outside, a man stood waiting on the rocks. He was tall, but slightly hunched. “Trask!” said Paul.
“Come on, lads,” said Trask. “No time to lose.”
Paul turned to Syl. “What about our mother? She was arrested with us.”
“She’s safe,” said Syl. Meia had told her that Mrs. Kerr had been released shortly after her sons’ capture. They were the prize, not her. Syl could only hope, for the boys’ sake, that Meia had been telling the truth.
Steven was already scrambling through the hole, helped by Ani.
“Are you going to be all right?” asked Paul.
“Now that I know that you . . . people aren’t going to be executed by my kind, yeah, I think we’ll be okay,” said Syl. “Whatever happens.”
“For what it’s worth, we really didn’t plant those bombs,” he said.
“I know. And I’m glad,” said Syl.
Paul grasped her arm. He leaned forward to say something, but no words came, and he was gone before Syl realized that he had kissed her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
T
he castle grounds rang with the sound of sirens. Confusion reigned, just as Meia intended. Illyri were falling over each other in an effort to establish not only what was happening, but who was responsible for dealing with it. Meanwhile, the entire castle force of Diplomat guards and Securitats, alerted by Vena, was trying to hunt the prisoners, but was being hampered by those who were attempting to locate the fire. Meia, her cloak now discarded, moved through it all with clarity of purpose, while being careful not to draw undue attention to herself. She was under no illusions about how much time her little fire would buy all those involved in the escape bid. She needed to be sure that the human males were safely out of the castle, and Syl and Ani secure in their own rooms, before Vena and her underlings got a handle on the situation.
Still, she could not resist a small smile. She had just organized a major act of treason, and so far it had all gone rather well.
•••
Syl and Ani were not smiling. They were about to undone by a stuck zipper.
The uniforms Meia had secured for them were larger than required, but it hadn’t mattered because beneath them the two young Illyri were wearing their own casual clothes. The plan was to ditch the uniforms outside the castle walls, where the man tasked with getting the boys to safety would make sure that they were burned, destroying all traces of DNA that might be used to identify the perpetrators of the escape. Unfortunately, Meia’s supply of Securitat uniforms was largely determined by whatever she had managed to strip from the dead or otherwise acquire. While Ani’s uniform had opened easily, Syl’s zip had caught on her own clothes underneath, and now the boys and the older human were gone, and had taken only Ani’s suit and boots with them.
“You’ve busted the zip,” said Ani, gritting her teeth with the effort of trying to pull Syl’s fastening down. “You’re clearly too fat for that suit.”
“I am not!” said Syl, tearing at the clasp.
And perhaps it was the fear, but Ani started to giggle, and couldn’t stop.
“I can’t do it,” she said. “I’m serious.”
“You have to. If they find me like this, they’ll know.”
A shadow fell across them, and a blade flashed in the dark.
“I could hear you from across the courtyard,” said Meia. “You’ll bring the whole Diplomatic Corps down on you.”
“We can’t open the zipper,” said Ani.
Meia’s knife solved the problem, slashing the material from the nape of Syl’s neck to the base of her spine. Syl shrugged off the remains of the garment, removed two folded slippers from the pockets of her trousers, and slid her feet into them. Now, like Ani, she looked as though she had been disturbed by the sirens, and had left her rooms hurriedly to investigate. The problem was that those rooms were on the other side of the castle.
Meia blasted the remains of the uniform three times, kicking them into a pile so that the flames consumed them entirely. Then she spat on her fingers and removed the worst of the blood from Ani’s grimacing face.
“Yuck,” said Ani.
“I didn’t like it any more than you did,” said Meia. “Now, heads down and come with me. If anyone stops us, say nothing. I’ll do the talking.”
As it happened, they were stopped only once. A quartet of Securitats, anxious to avoid a pulse to the head, were hunting for the missing humans, and questioning everyone who crossed their path. There was no way to avoid them, so Meia did the very opposite: she went to them before they could come to her.
“You four,” she said. “Come with me.”
“What?” said the leader, who bore the four gold flashes of a lieutenant on his collar, and clearly wasn’t used to being ordered around by anyone with fewer than five flashes, never mind a female with no flashes at all.
“These are the children of the governor and General Danis,” said Meia. “I’m taking them to safety in St. Margaret’s Chapel, and I need an escort.”
“We’re searching for two escaped prisoners,” said the lieutenant. “We don’t have time for this.”
Meia spoke softly and carefully to him, the way she might have done to a very small child.
“There are two humans loose in the castle,” she said. “If anything happens to the governor’s daughter, those responsible will take the humans’ place on the gallows in the morning. Do I make myself clear?”
The lieutenant swallowed involuntarily, as though he could already feel the noose tightening around his neck. He gestured to two of his guards.
“Escort the governor’s daughter and her party to the chapel,” he said.
Meia nodded curtly. “Thank you, Lieutenant. I’ll be sure that the governor is informed of the assistance you offered.”
The two Securitats stayed with them until they reached the chapel door, whereupon Meia informed them that they could return to their duties. Once they were gone, she led Syl and Ani to the nave and, with their help, lifted a stone from the floor, revealing a set of steps winding into the darkness.
“Down you go,” she said.
Syl went first, then Ani. Meia brought up the rear, restoring the stone to its original position from below as she came. For a few seconds they were in total darkness, until Meia produced a flashlight and pointed it down a tunnel that was so low they had to bend almost double to make any progress, their backs nearly touching the roof and their necks straining. It seemed to take forever to make their way along it, Meia instructing them from behind to go left or right when necessary, until they came to another flight of stairs. There was just enough space for Meia to squeeze by Syl and Ani and ascend. She placed a finger to her lips, and all three listened carefully for any sound from above, but heard nothing. At last Meia pushed upward, and a dim light was revealed to them from above. She vanished briefly before returning to tell them that all was well.
They found themselves in Meia’s closet, making their way through her garments into the bedroom beyond. Syl and Ani collapsed in a heap on the floor. Their faces, hands, and clothing were filthy. They had cuts and scrapes on their knuckles, and Syl found a gash on her head from where she had misjudged the height of the tunnel ceiling, but they were safe.
“Let’s never do that again,” said Syl.
“Seconded,” said Ani.
Two sets of nightclothes were laid out on Meia’s bed, one for each of them. Meia, as always, had planned ahead. Syl and Ani took it in turn to wash and change in the bathroom.
“That,” said Meia, when they looked respectable once again, “was very, very impressive. Sloppy, and noisy, but impressive nonetheless.”
“Thank you,” said Ani. “I think.”
“How many tunnels and escape routes do you have exactly?” asked Syl.
“Exactly?”
“Yes.”
“None of your business.”
“Oh. Fine.”
Meia relented.
“Some of them were here already,” she said. “Most of them were constructed shortly after your father decided that the castle should be his base of operations. He gave me responsibility for its security systems. I just added a few safeguards of my own along the way.”
“They won’t find out that we did it, will they?” said Ani.
“I disabled all the recording systems in the Vaults. There’s nothing to prove you were ever there. As far as the guards are concerned, Vena ordered the prisoners’ transfer, even if that has probably come as a surprise to Vena herself. Now I’m going to escort you back to your rooms. Naturally, you will say nothing of this to anyone. If you’re questioned, I came to get you when the alarms sounded, and took you to the chapel until I determined that all was safe. Okay?”
Syl and Ani nodded.
“You did well,” said Meia. “You didn’t just save two lives tonight. You saved many. Remember that, in the days to come.”
And they did, both of them, even later as they were running for their own lives.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
P
aul wasn’t sure where they were.
As soon as they were away from the castle, he and Steven were bundled into the back of a van by Trask. The front seats were cut off from the rest of the vehicle by a sheet of metal that had been welded to the sides, and there were two masked men waiting to help them up, although help was probably not the most accurate way to put it, given that the boys were dragged inside, told to keep their mouths shut, and made to wear rough sacks over their heads to obscure their vision. The two men were unfamiliar to Paul, but he knew them for what they were: pure muscle—unsympathetic and unyielding. Their presence in the van gave him some idea of what was to come.
While they drove, Paul tried to keep track of the distance they might have traveled, and the route they were taking, but quickly gave up. He knew that Trask would double back on himself, and make unnecessary stops and turns, just to confuse his passengers and, indeed, anyone who might be following them. Nevertheless, he didn’t stay on the streets for too long. Even though a curfew was no longer in place, and there was plenty of traffic, the prisoners’ escape would force the Illyri to start closing roads and searching vehicles. A system of retractable bollards was in place on all major roads in Edinburgh, capable of sealing off the main routes into and out of the city center. Trask’s priority would be to get beyond them and make for a safe house. Someone else would then ditch the van a few miles away, probably by sticking it into the back of a truck or hiding it in a container, just in case the Illyri had spotted it on a security camera and had put out an alert. There were fewer cameras away from the city center and the main roads—and those that the Illyri had tried to install were routinely vandalized—but there might well be drones or lurkers in the air, and they wouldn’t know about it until the van was stopped, or a missile vaporized them.
The van came to a halt. Strong hands hauled Paul and Steven to their feet and guided them out and down a flight of steps. A door opened and then closed again behind them. Paul smelled coffee and cigarettes, and a conversation suddenly ceased. He was forced into a chair, and the sack was removed from his head. He was in a near-empty basement. There was a battered table before him, and behind it two more chairs waited. Steven was gone. They would be questioned separately. That was standard practice. It was what Paul himself would have done had he been faced with two Resistance members who might have revealed secrets to the Illyri.
Trask took one chair and one of the two masked men from the van took the other. The second masked man entered with three cups of coffee and a plate of toast on a tray before leaving again.
“Help yourself,” said Trask.
Paul did. He was hungry, and the coffee smelled wonderful, even though it was cheap and nasty instant. But when he tried to lift his cup, his hand began to shake, and the coffee slopped over the sides. He felt sick and he thought he might faint.
“You’re all right, son,” said Trask. “It’s natural after what you’ve been through. Take a couple of deep breaths. You’ll be fine.”
Beside him, the masked man took a piece of toast and dunked it in his coffee. Trask looked at him peculiarly.
“You dunk
toast in coffee?” he said.
“I dunk anything in anything. Coffee or tea, it’s all the same to me.”
“It doesn’t taste right if you dunk it.”
The masked man nibbled on his soggy toast.
“Tastes fine to me.”
“There’s something wrong with you.”
“Will you give it a rest?” said the masked man. “You’re ruining it for me.”
Trask shook his head at Paul as if to say “See what I have to put up with?”
“It’s hard to get decent staff these days,” said Paul, who was recovering himself with the help of sips of coffee and bites of toast.
“You shut up, or I’ll do you,” said the masked man, the threat made only slightly less intimidating by the fact that he was waving a piece of soggy toast. “You’ll be lucky to walk out of here without broken bones.”
Paul nodded. It was good cop, bad cop. In another room, Steven was doubtless experiencing the same routine.
“Our mum,” he said. “Is she still in the city?”
He knew that the Securitats would come looking for her in the aftermath of her sons’ escape. He didn’t want her to suffer more because of what he and Steven had done.
“We moved her to Aberdeen earlier today, when we knew there was a chance of getting you back,” said Trask. “Wouldn’t want the Illyri taking out their temper on her, would we?”
Paul closed his eyes in relief.
Trask took a long gulp of coffee.
“Right then,” he said. “May as well get started.”
•••
The debriefing went on for most of the night. It began gently, but grew tougher. Twice the masked man slapped Paul hard across the back of the head, causing Trask to tut-tut and tell him to take it easy, even while his eyes remained cold. In the end, it all came down to one question: What did you tell them?
Because everybody broke, in the end. They had seen Steven’s fingers. He was just a boy, and he’d have told them something to make the pain end. Hell, a grown man would have confessed in order to stop it. It was understandable. It was okay. They just wanted to know what had been given away.
Chronicles of the Invaders 1: Conquest Page 19
