* * *
A secret weapon, of course, can’t remain secret if you publically test it. Which was why the loudspeaker’s true capacity was such a surprise. For starters the Duke would’ve known better than to have the volume turned up to the max’, and they’d all have been spared that initial brain punching PUNGGGGGSCREEEEOOOOEWWW!
The Duke dove on it as quickly as he could, of course, spinning the volume dial back at least far enough to smother the howl. And he could’ve made even a better adjustment if circumstances had permitted! Could’ave reduced that appalling, bowel-wrenching bass hum, for example, before it set his and the Duchess’s and the entire building’s skeletons to a quease-inducing vibration. But circumstances did not permit. Because of Ava.
At the very first blood-curdling consonant of the PUNG, she’d bounced for a second time - half way to the ceiling this time. On the way up, the contents of her bladder had come spraying out as that organ began clearing the decks for battle. On the way down, the entire cacophony of vicious ‘I’ve-got-enormous-teeth’ barks that the drugs had dammed up in her, had also came flooding forth.
She hit the ground (or rather the carpet) with no immediate destination in mind, but with her legs in mid-gallop and her Terrier-of-Death cool completely shattered. She did her first circuit of the room in dog-Olympic time, leaving a trail of spattered blood from her newly re-opened wound and filling the air full to overflowing with her frenzied terrified howls. The Duchess flattened herself against the nearest wall, emitting her own version of terrified howls while the Duke, roaring, “Holy dyin’ Nellie!” found himself, despite his previously dicky knees, in a wobbly crouch atop the bed.
Ava paid them no heed. Even if there’d been something in the present situation (which there wasn’t) that made her want to stop, she couldn’t and she’d done five more laps before the Duke managed to peel the doona off the bed. A doona which, despite the Duchess’s shrieked objection, (“Nooo! The blood! The blood!”) he flung out, parachute-like, to drop down on top of his panicked prisoner.
“AR-AR-AR-AR-AR!” railed Ava, as the gag of the heavy thing enfolded her. And the Duke pounced.
It took all his strength to contain her, to wrap up her gnashing, clawing, desperate fury. But he managed, edging open the bedroom door, flinging beast and wrapping together into the hall and slamming the door behind him. For long moments then he stood, panting like a buffalo, his forehead and arms pressed to the oaken wood. The Duchess, her face pale and bloodless, peeled herself slowly from the wall, listening sadly to the ruckus beyond the door - her precious doona meeting a terrible and savage end
“Bloody hell!” the Duke puffed.
“Ohhh,” the Duchess whimpered and, “Nearly killed us!” he agreed.
Already short of breath then, he dragged himself back to the desk and collapsed into his commander’s chair, alternately running shaking fingers through the thin web of his hair and patting reassurance into his racing heart. Around him, the tactical centre was in chaos. Coffee was spilled, the procedural schedule was scattered on the floor and the video monitors were scrambled. The last was a worry. Not so much if it was something he’d done himself in the heat of battle. But if it was some tricky signal-disrupting technology nefariously initiated by the invaders? He would have to deal with them harshly; as he had with the K-9 infiltrator (which had obviously freed itself from his doona-trap; the ripping sounds having been replaced by those of a small hard body, hurling itself against the door).
How it had come so rapidly to this, the Duke couldn’t begin to say. He’d planned so long and so carefully! And yet, within minutes a ravening enemy had revealed itself within, the enemy outside had become invisible and the last intel’ received (the face of the Hughes child) remained, spookily frozen on the screen, staring skyward. Mouthing that very unambiguous message: ‘She’s got the gun!’
We’ll have to up the emergency response level, he told himself and, in a trembling voice, cut with a curious mixture of attempted reassurance and barely restrained panic but loud enough for the Duchess to hear him over the hum of the loudspeaker and the thump of the animal body against their bedroom door, he stuttered out, “Code Wolf!” And then, with an even greater pretence of confidence, “Best get the gun out, pet!”
Unaware that these words, like all the preceding and presently proceeding uproar, were being broadcast like an evening prayer in Istanbul, out over an aghast neighbourhood. And they could not be taken back.
Neville the Less Page 59
