“What do you think?”
“If we are lucky maybe we can find something but I don’t really know how big the chance is.”
He would have preferred to get in with the older truck that Silas had access to, but it had not worked because they would certainly have got stuck in the control during the passage into Tabula Rasa. If you did not have the correct passcodes, you would be taken aside for a more thorough check, and then it would be game over.
Denver's strong arms supported Richard when they went together, and Richard's arm had become worse during the night. Elisabeth had gotten a hold of some painkillers and had given two tablets to Richard that had taken the edge off the worst pain but Richard was still in a bad shape. Jonathan saw the pills and had to muster all his willpower not to ask for one.
Elisabeth walked in silence and seemed to be lost in her own thoughts when she heard Jonathan and Malin's discussion. She looked up.
“The usual deliveries are handled by two large companies that are stationed on the east coast of Africa. The safety measures in their trucks and transport are at top level, so there we will not have any opportunity to steal any. The vehicles are equipped with both hand scanners and DNA scanning. Without the proper preprogrammed combination, they will not start.”
As Elisabeth share information, Jonathan hopes fell.
“So there is no chance?”
She shook her head.
“Well, most likely not.”
His shoulders sank, she gave a crooked smile.
“But.”
Both Jonathan and Malin stared at Elisabeth.
“Sometimes there are deliveries of food from distant villages with local delicacies. Not so often, not daily but sometimes. And those transports do not have as much security at all. Some of them are even so old that they only need a key.” She winked at them, “But the downside is that there are not many of them and they do not come daily.”
Malin looked thoughtfully at Jonathan.
“We have no choice, we must take us to transport area and keep your fingers crossed that they come from the villages.”
Jonathan nodded.
“Yes, and with Richard in such a bad condition, we do not have time for any advanced plans. We have to put our hope to higher powers.”
They looked affirmative at each other and went silently to a conveyor car that would take them down.
* * *
They squatted behind a meter-high wall that went along a slope down toward the huge loading docks. They had managed to get down to a service area and while they were sitting there, three big trucks rolled in and started their unloading of goods. Malin sat next to Jonathan and they both gazed down towards the open area.
She surveyed the area and formed an idea of how many guards were there. She could see a couple of them standing at the western entrance, but no one at the actual loading docks. The powerful lights around it were lit and the boom gate at the entrance rhythmically went up and down on a regular basis. As she watched, a larger truck drove out through the boom gate and turned up on the western road that led out of the harbor and headed down south. The whistling sound when the battery-powered truck drove away from them decreased rapidly.
“What do you think?”
Elisabeth shook her head.
“Those trucks are too modern to be coming from some local village. Not a chance.”
He nodded in agreement.
“Yes, you’re probably right about that.”
Jonathan sat down with his back against the wall next to where Denver and Richard sat together and Elisabeth helped his father in correcting the improvised sling they had done for him. Her kind touch made it bearable for Richard and he smiled at her. Jonathan glanced over to Elisabeth and her attempts to help her father. He saw the obvious love between them.
“I think we have to try have some patience and hope that there will come somebody else.” Malin looked at Jonathan.
“Yes, it looks like we don’t have a choice.”
For the next three hours they sat there and hopefully looked over the wall every time they heard a vehicle approaching and each time they were disappointed when they saw big, modern transports approaching. Jonathan did not know for how long they could be sitting there without anyone discovering them. Automatic robots took care of the unloading and transported the goods forward.
In between, Jonathan perceived a faint, sour smell in the air, but he could not place what it was that smelled or where the smell came from, he turned to Elizabeth and Malin.
“Do you also smell that?”
Malin nodded.
“You smell it too?” she looked relieved at Jonathan, “I thought that I was the only one who smelled it so I thought I was getting sick.”
Elisabeth leaned forward and frowned.
“The smell is coming from the Tabula Rasa itself.”
Jonathan looked quizzically at her.
“What does that mean?”
Elisabeth smiled.
“The smell started last year. The first time it was noted, it was on Cibus but in the last six months it has spread to all parts of the complex. It is not entirely decided what it is, but there is a suspicion that something unknown that is happening to the food or the air in a more or less closed ecological system that Tabula Rasa is, and it affects people in a greater or lesser degree.
The researchers are in full swing trying to investigate what it means. If there is only a minor inconvenience or a sign of something that is fundamentally wrong” she stretched her back while she continued, “Some people are more vulnerable to the smell affecting them.”
Jonathan stared incredulously at her.
“Oh, my God.”
Elisabeth nodded and glanced over the wall. No trucks. A half hour passed and Richard slid in and out of consciousness and Jonathan was near the breaking point when a faint, hacking sound was heard. It was different than the other sounds they heard and Jonathan glanced over the wall. There. An old, small, diesel-powered truck driving slowly up the ramp that would take it to the unloading ramps. Hope within him ignited.
“What about that one?”
Malin and Elisabeth looked carefully over the wall and did not have to say anything. Jonathan understood from their body language that this was what they were waiting for. Elisabeth looked at Jonathan and nodded.
“Yes, it’s for sure a local supplier. If we should take a chance on any transport, then it should be this one.”
Jonathan looked intently at the two women in front of him.
“We’ll do it like this. Elisabeth get to the truck and tries to get the driver's attention. If you come alone I don’t think he will see you as a threat. The rest of us will take us to the truck on the other side facing us. There are no guards, nor any security. That should work.”
They nodded and hope grew stronger in the small group.
* * *
They saw the driver leave the old truck and walk toward the back of it. While Jonathan and Malin watched, Elisabeth walked up to the truck. It was barely thirty meters away. The driver had not come back when she arrived at one of the fenders. She hesitated for a second and then went around to the other side.
Jonathan held his breath and nodded to the others.
“Now, move.”
Together they moved forward squatting and Denver was soaked with sweat when they reached the point where Elisabeth had walked around the truck. He was just about to open the truck door when a surprised voice called out.
“What are you doing here?”
He froze, but realized that the voice had not spoken to him. It had spoken to Elizabeth and Jonathan heard her voice answer something he did not make out. The other voice, a man, sounded angry.
“What? That's not right. Stay here while I call the guard.”
Ice spread in his stomach and he got ready to run around the truck and hit the driver when at first a sound of a blow and then a muted thud was heard. Unsure what to do, they stood still when Elisabeth came walking from t
he other side of the truck. She smiled uncertainly and rubbed her hand. Jonathan looked surprised at her.
“What happened?”
Elisabeth looked at her father and then at Jonathan.
“My father taught me self-defense when I was younger. He thought that it was something that all women should learn.”
Before Jonathan or Malin could answer, Elisabeth and Denver helped Richard get up into the truck and then jumped in after him.
Denver sat down in the driver’s seat. He had driven rally in his youth and did not think to let this opportunity pass him by. The small diesel engine responded to Denver’s throttle and the truck accelerated. Elizabeth had said that the service roads to the Tabula Rasa had little traffic early in the morning and they had managed to get out on that road and headed straight to the harbor.
The harbor was shaped like a horse shoe with the two sides that reached out in the water a couple of hundred meters. In the middle part of the harbor a number of large houses and warehouses were located. A pair of giant loading docks and a number of smaller ones were scattered in the harbor. On a couple of them cargo boats were in various stages of loading and unloading. A light rain had begun to fall, and they slipped out into the roadside, bounced when they drove over a pot hole in the road. Behind them Richard moaned and slipped in and out of consciousness.
* * *
The two clones followed the image on the screen in front of them. They sat in the cockpit of a small, agile reconnaissance craft. The vehicle looked like a small helicopter without rotor blades. Three, small highly efficient motors gave the craft an unsurpassed maneuverability.
It was its agility in the air that had given it its nickname, the hummingbird. It could hover and spin around on a dime.
The two clones had tracked them after they had managed to get out of Tabula Rasa. One of them, Fredric, shook his head. A light rain had begun to fall and the sun was rapidly on its way down, dusk came fast in these areas. Fredric maneuvered the smooth hummingbird and put it in a parallel course with the truck that was heading down to the harbor. The hummingbird came in fast at an altitude of not more than twenty meters.
He smiled to himself. It was just for this kind of mission that the handy craft really excelled. He glanced over at his brother, Gerard, who sat next to him and felt the deep connection they shared.
* * *
Denver looked out through the front window of the truck and tried to keep an even, steady speed. They hit another pothole and the trucked bounced and bumped and Richard moaned from the back seat.
“Sorry.” Denver said over his shoulder.
Malin laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.
“He still looks pale.”
Denver looked in the rearview mirror, saw Malin and Elisabeth who was sitting on the floor of the truck and gave a thumbs up. Jonathan sat in the passenger seat next to Denver and watched the screen he had in his lap.
“We have about three kilometers left. When we come down to the harbor Silas will help us.”
Denver nodded and looked at Jonathan.
“I do not know if I had time to say it, but thanks for the help.”
Jonathan winked at him, shrugged and smiled.
“No problem you know. Just doing my job.”
It was not far now. The plan was that they would go down to the harbor, and there they would meet Silas. Exactly what Silas had planned, he did not know, but he had to worry about that later. At the moment, it was all about getting down to the harbor in one piece. He looked through the side window, and saw a flash of light that turned on and quickly grew faster. Before he could shout a warning, everything exploded around him.
Denver did not see the rocket as it quickly approached. The hummingbird had risen to forty meters and sent off a missile at them. It was not a direct hit. The rocket hit the ground three meters to the side of the truck and instead of wiping the truck out, the explosion lifted it up and threw it like a glove. The explosion blasted through the evening and rolled the truck on the side.
An overheated gas cloud exploded and sucked in all the air within a ten-meter radius. Glass was blown in thousands of pieces, metal distorted and a deafening alarm roared through the evening.
The truck continued forward in the air and twisted while it fell back to the ground. It landed hard and slid a dozen meters before it glided with a screeching sound over the ground until it finally stopped against a palm tree.
* * *
Denver got up on shaky legs on the wet, muddy ground. He had been thrown out of his seat when the truck tipped over on the side. His ears rang as if a siren was blasting in his head. He looked around and saw their destroyed truck. Small flames burned behind it where it had slid down the edge of the road. He could not see any of the others. Frantically he looked around. There. A man’s body laid bent against a palm tree.
It must be Richard or Jonathan. He shouted but there was no answer, he started to stumble towards the body but his legs did not obey him. His right leg wobbled and he looked down. His pant leg was torn to pieces and he saw a blood on his thigh. He stared surprised at his own body part. There was no pain. Nothing. It was as if it was somebody else’s leg that was attached to his body. While he looked at the leg, it buckled and he fell to the ground. He screamed.
* * *
Fredric saw the man stand up. The truck had fared surprisingly well considering that half a kilo of explosives had hit it. Fredric made a mental note that he should report it to the weapons department so they could investigate exactly what had happened. Usually, the small helix rockets were almost a hundred percent accurate. The man who had got up stood still and looked dazed. He turned his eyes down to his leg and seemed to be petrified. Fredric leaned towards the screen and studied the man. He seemed to be in shock. Gerard sat motionless next to him and looked at a screen.
“He’s injured," Gerard continued, "But I cannot see the others. Start scanning.”
The hummingbird slipped around in a circle while scanning the explosion area.
* * *
“Elisabeth!” Malin waited a couple of seconds, “Richard!” No answer. She tried to move, tried to turn around to see how it was with Elisabeth and Richard that had been in the backseat. Malin saw the rearview mirror close to her. She reached out, grabbed it and managed to twist it. There. Elisabeth was stuck in the seat belt. A trickle of blood ran down her forehead.
“Elisabeth!”
Malin fought around and got up in a seated position. Her ears still rang after the explosion and she was disoriented. She heard a faint crying but she could not identify what the voice said, or where it came from. Malin turned around, trying to look out the front window but saw nothing because the window was covered by thousands of small cracks.
* * *
Gerard studied the screen intently and tapped his finger on it. He used the DNA scanner because of all the small fires that the explosion had caused disrupted the thermal scanner.
“There. There are three DNA signatures in the car. Two women and one man. And the man outside of course.” His voice sounded astonished, “They all survived. What lucky bastards.”
Gerard maneuvered the hummingbird as they hovered about forty meters away from the wreck. They were still at about ten meters height, looking closely at the chaos in front of them. He scanned after a good place to land. Fredric pointed at a place maybe twenty meters away from the burning wreck. There was a clearing some distance away from where their targets were.
“Put me down there. Then lift and take position above me.”
Gerard followed Fredric's pointing finger and nodded again. That was how it was. It was Fredric who was the stronger mentally of the two. Gerard wondered to himself if all twins had it that way. That one of them was stronger, more dominant.
He suppressed his thoughts and focused on the mission. Easy on the hand, he softly brought the craft in to the clearing that Fredric had pointed towards. The thick palm leaves on the palms around them were violently thrown around as the
y approached. They took no more than a few seconds before they had reached the clearing and Gerard confident steered the flying craft.
“Five seconds.”
Fredric kept his eyes stuck on the burning car wreck in front of them and nodded. One of their targets was still in front of the wreckage and the other three did not seem to have come out of the truck. He smiled to himself, it would be a simple match. His father would be proud of him. The helicopter smoothly descended until it barely touched the ground. Fredric quickly unfastened his seat belt and jumped out. He landed, rolled on the ground and stood up.
The tension increased within him. It had not been necessary to make a roll when he came down, it was not a high jump, but the adrenaline was pumping in him. He looked up and saw his brother control the helicopter back in the air and take position some distance away to protect him if something unexpected occurred.
* * *
Denver was still lying on the ground and his legs burned like fire. He had to get up. Now. Immediately. Slowly and with the help of a thick piece of wood that lay next to him he managed to get up. He looked over again against the burning wreck. It did not burn so violently, which meant that the tank had not exploded. But the danger was far from over.
“Malin!” a couple of seconds of silence, “Elisabeth!”
At first he heard nothing, then Malin’s weak voice.
“Denver! We're in the car, Elisabeth and Richard are alive, but we have to get out of here!”
Tabula Rasa Page 23
