He looked around for a branch long enough for what he needed. It took a few moments, but he found one that had fallen from a nearly dead tree nearby.

  Holding the branch he gingerly climbed back inside the van, leaving the door open. He closed his eyes, gripped the steering wheel tightly with one hand and put his foot on the accelerator pedal, pressing it down hard.

  All four wheels spun, splattering twigs and mud backwards into the forest. The van lurched and bucked – desperate to launch itself forward, into the darkness.

  Kieron jammed the branch down onto the accelerator pedal and wedged the other end beneath the dashboard. It held: replacing his foot and still transmitting power to the wheels.

  Offering up a quick prayer to a deity he didn’t believe in, he released the handbrake with his left hand and flung himself sideways, out of the open door.

  The van sprang forward like a greyhound released from a trap. Kieron’s foot caught in the flapping seatbelt as he fell, and for a split-second he thought that he was going to be dragged away and carried over the edge along with the van, but he twisted in mid-air, pulling his foot out of the constraining loop of material. His shoulder hit the ground, sending a spike of agony through his body, but he was too busy watching the van to care. It reached the edge of the hillside, travelling faster every moment, crashed through the fence and launched itself out into space. The weight of the engine pulled it down, heading in a perfect arc. He scrambled to the edge of the hillside and watched as it fell, almost as if in slow motion –

  Directly into the centre of the control building roof.

  The van plunged straight through the flat surface, smashing through whatever building material it was made of, sending the air-conditioning units flying. Rafters jerked upward out of the hole like huge ribs surrounding a wound. Sparks flew. Flickers of arcing electricity illuminated the scene with a stuttering blue light.

  And then, moments later, several explosions sent the van flying upward on a cushion of fire and flame, almost as if it was backing away in horror from the devastation it had caused, before it fell forward again into the inferno.

  That same alarm he’d heard earlier started to blare again – whoop-whoop-whoop! – but it sounded more desperate now, more like there was a real emergency. He thought he could see people running away from the control building, but the chaos below made it difficult to tell.

  Job done, Kieron thought grimly. He didn’t know if he was in time or not, but he’d done what he could.

  Now to get Sam back.

  Going back around the dirt road would have taken too long. Instead he half slithered, half fell down the muddy hillside, sliding until he hit the ground. He moved cautiously through the buildings, trying not to be noticed by any of the Blood and Soul technicians and guards who ran around, panicking, but also trying to see into every doorway and every window, trying to find his friend. Hoping it wasn’t too late. Terrified about what he might discover.

  ‘Hey!’

  Kieron was so fixated on rescuing Sam that it was Sam’s voice he heard behind him. He turned, a half-smile already forming on his lips.

  It wasn’t Sam.

  It was Kyle Renner – the thug who’d been in charge of taking Bradley away from the shopping centre; the thug who’d threatened Sam with torture; the thug who’d led the discussions with the MI6 traitor at the Baltic Centre. The thug who’d been there all along, in the background of Kieron’s life for the last few days.

  ‘It’s the kid from the industrial estate,’ he said wonderingly. ‘You didn’t sneak inside the car, did you? Hide in the boot, like they do in the movies? I hope not – my dog’s been sleeping in there, and she’s got stomach problems.’ He frowned, thinking. ‘You must have followed us, or overheard us talking about this place.’ He looked around, at the chaos Kieron had caused with the van. ‘I have to say, I like what you did with the place. It’s full of nerds and techies – you’ve brought a bit of action.’

  ‘Glad to oblige,’ Kieron said. He felt his fingers twitching as his subconscious mind tried to wish into existence some kind of weapon, but none appeared. He glanced around the area between the buildings, illuminated by the flickering fire, but he couldn’t see anything he could use.

  Renner reached into his jacket and pulled out an automatic pistol. Kieron immediately recognised it as a Sig Sauer P229C. He’d fired that weapon thousands of times – but only in first-person computer games. He’d also been shot by it thousands of times – in the same games. Now it looked like he might finally discover what it felt like in real life.

  Real life sucked. It was dirty, noisy and painful. And it ended.

  ‘I dunno if you’ve inflicted so much damage that it can’t be repaired, at least not quickly,’ Renner said, clicking the safety catch off with professional deftness, ‘or whether you’re more of an irritant than a danger to the cause, but either way I don’t think anyone’ll care if I kill you right here.’

  He brought the pistol up so he was looking along its matt grey length, and pulled the trigger without any hint of emotion …

  … just as something exploded inside the control room, sending a fountain of flame and sparks into the night air.

  Either Renner flinched, or the ground shook. His hand moved slightly, and instead of hitting Kieron in the right eye the bullet fizzed past his temple, crisping his hair with the heat of its passage. Kieron flung himself left before Renner could fire again, rolling into the shadow of the corner of a building. He sprang to his feet and sprinted down the length of the wall. As he got to the middle another bullet hit the painted breeze-blocks, scratching a long mark through the paint before it ricocheted away into the darkness. Kieron tasted concrete dust as he sucked air into his lungs.

  He didn’t have enough time to get to the far end before Renner fired again.

  A window by his head had been smashed by the force of the exploding control room. An old, corroded drainpipe clung to the wall next to it. Before his conscious mind could come up with a plan, Kieron’s subconscious was forcing his hands to clamp on the drainpipe and his feet to scrabble around until they got a grip on the brackets holding it insecurely to the wall. He hauled himself up with all his strength until he could get a foot onto the windowsill and transfer his weight across. As shards of glass shattered beneath his boots a third bullet passed right through the drainpipe and drew a line of fire across his vision, left to right. Fragments of rusty metal peppered his face. He closed his eyes reflexively, feeling the sting as one went into his left eye. Before Renner could fire for a fourth time he half rolled through the broken window. Glass sliced through the denim of his jeans and scored the skin. He fell forward, leading with his right shoulder and desperately trying to turn so that he hit the floor with his right side rather than his head.

  Thick carpet broke his fall. He scrambled back to his feet and ran towards a dimly illuminated door. Through it he found himself at the middle of a T-junction, with corridors running left, right and straight ahead. It was lined with offset doors – one on the right, then one on the left, then one on the right again and so on. Emergency lighting had come on, and the occupants – if there had been any – had already evacuated.

  He had to choose quickly. If he ran straight ahead and Renner climbed through the window after him then he’d be immediately visible down the corridor. If he went right instead and Renner ran ahead to the far end of the building to find a door, then they’d bump into each other. Left was his only option – running back down the inside of the building to reverse the run that he’d made down the outside.

  As he sprinted, with no clear idea in his mind of what he might do next, he realised that hiding in any of the rooms he passed was pointless. He’d just be trapped.

  He’d passed a door before he registered the red cross painted on it, and the sign saying ‘First Aid Point’ that had been screwed into the corridor wall so it projected out where people could see it. People who needed a first-aid kit. First aid that involved sharp knives, maybe scalpels.

  He grabbed the door knob and flung the door open. Again, it was illuminated only by harsh green emergency lighting, but he could make out two beds, base units running along the wall forming a work surface, cupboards attached to the wall above them, and a table. The cupboard doors had labels stuck to them. He ran along, trying to wrench them open, but every single one was padlocked shut. He pulled at them in turn, bracing himself against the wall with his feet, but the doors wouldn’t budge.

  He heard a sudden bang! from the corridor. He thought Renner was kicking in the doors, looking for him. Or maybe he was just shooting through the doors. Only a few minutes before he got to the first-aid room.

  Kieron snarled in frustration. He quickly looked around for anything that might be used as a weapon. Just below the work surface running along the wall and above the cupboards he saw drawers that weren’t padlocked. He pulled them open, spilling their contents on the floor. Plasters, bandages, packs of aspirin … nothing that would be of any help.

  No – the bandages! He could make a makeshift slingshot – use it to fire something heavy at Renner’s head.

  But there was nothing heavy there. Nothing he could use as ammunition, even if the bandages would function as a slingshot without tearing.

  Another bang! from the corridor: closer this time.

  Kieron smashed his fist down on the table. He was running out of options.

  No point staying here. He had to check some other rooms, just in case there was something he could use.

  Moving to the doorway, he edged his head around the frame and looked along the corridor. He caught a glimpse of Renner’s shoulder and back as he moved into a room two doors down, looking for Kieron.

  Kieron glanced across the corridor. The room opposite had a sign on the door saying ‘Workshop’. That sounded good. A workshop had tools. Chisels. Hammers.

  Before Renner could emerge from the room he’d just entered, Kieron scooted across the corridor. For a terrible second he thought the door was locked, but it was just stiff. He threw his weight against it and it opened, spilling him into the room. He quickly sprang to his feet and shut the door. That would buy him, oh, maybe another second of life.

  Everything he needed was here – sharp things, heavy things, blunt things. For a moment he was paralysed by choice, and paralysed too by the fact that he’d have to get up close and personal with a man who was bigger, stronger and more vicious than he was – and then he saw the car battery on a metal workbench. And the jump-leads beside it.

  Bang! That was the next room along.

  He felt as if he hadn’t taken a proper breath for hours. His heart was pounding so fast that the individual beats seemed to blur together into a dangerous vibration. Ignoring them, ignoring everything, he clamped the red and black leads to the terminals of the battery. For a second he stood there, mind blank. What should he do next? What had they said in motor-mechanics class about the dangers of working with car batteries?

  Yes – the other end of the black lead should be earthed. He clamped it onto a leg of the metal bench that the battery rested on. Holding the red rubber grip on the remaining lead he moved to the side of the door, then realised that when Renner kicked it in it would hit him in the face. He skidded across the door to the other side, flattening himself against the wall.

  Just in time. The door smashed open as Renner’s boot caught it and smashed against the wall where Kieron had been standing less than a second earlier.

  Renner stepped into the room, gun raised. He seemed to realise with some sixth sense that Kieron was there. His head started turning even as Kieron reached forward and clamped the positive lead onto Renner’s gun, completing the circuit.

  Renner’s eyes opened wide. His hands started to shake. Smoke began to rise from his hands, his neck, his face. His muscles clenched, making the veins in his temples and his neck stand out and, crucially, locking his hand on the gun so he couldn’t drop it or throw it away.

  Kieron watched, horrified, as Renner took one, two, three tottering steps into the room and fell forward, still twitching. He could smell something burning, and he knew what it was. Tendrils of smoke emerged like questing tentacles from Renner’s collar and sleeves.

  Despite a terrible, almost unconquerable urge to stay and watch to the bitter end, Kieron slid past Renner’s twitching body, ran out of the workshop and along the corridor. The smell of burning followed him until he got to the open air, where he suddenly had to bend over and throw up until his stomach hurt.

  ‘Was that you?’

  He turned, feeling his heart sink, but this time it was Sam. He had a bruise on his cheek, and blood running from a cut under his eye, but in the flickering flames of the burning control room that he was pointing at he looked defiant rather than injured.

  ‘Yeah,’ Kieron said, feeling relief run through him like a cool breeze. ‘Had to do something.’

  He checked his watch. Thirty seconds before the transmission had been due to take place. He felt as if a band that had been fastened tightly around his heart had suddenly been cut. ‘Thirty seconds left, Sam. Thirty seconds.’

  Sam gripped his arm and together they sank to the ground, backs resting against the wall.

  ‘Out of interest –’ Kieron started to say, but Sam held up his right hand. The bone shears dangled from it. Blood dripped from the blades.

  ‘They didn’t search me properly. They’re useless.’

  Kieron started to laugh. ‘Yeah, I think we can agree on that.’

  ‘I suppose you’ve crashed the van,’ Sam said.

  ‘I have comprehensively and completely crashed the van.’

  ‘So how are we going to get home?’

  Kieron tried to bring his laughter under control. It was threatening to take over, like the firestorm sweeping through Blood and Soil’s satellite control centre. Hysteria, he supposed. He’d never experienced it before.

  He tapped the ARCC glasses, which he was still wearing despite the fact that he hadn’t needed them or used them. He’d completely forgotten that he had them on. ‘I could call up the local bus timetables on these. What do you think?’

  Sam shook his head. ‘I think we should steal one of those Land Rovers down by the main gate before they’re all taken. Sometimes the low-tech solution is best.’

  Kieron looked around at the flames, the sparks, the devastation. ‘Low-tech does have its appeal,’ he said. ‘And I’m not even sure the buses are running around here at this time of night.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Bex asked.

  The weather was hot and humid, but the cocktail in her hand was cold enough to make up for it – especially when she pressed it against her forehead – and the view from Agni’s island out across the Bay of India was spectacular.

  ‘I’ve got a ringing in my ears that wasn’t there before,’ his reassuring voice said, ‘and my vision is still blurry, but apart from that I seem to be OK. I don’t think I should spend too long on this thing though.’ He paused. ‘How are you feeling?’

  Bex glanced at the cocktail. ‘I’m OK,’ she said.

  ‘Your friend Mr Patel’s taken control of the neutron bomb from Pakistan?’

  ‘Yeah. He’s also got Darius Trethewey locked up in a comfortable but very secure bedroom and is questioning him about the locations of the other four. He’s sending teams out to Riyadh, Tehran, Islamabad and Baghdad in advance, with orders to retrieve them from whatever Blood and Soil facility they’re located in, along with the drones. That’s four more weapons of mass destruction to add to his collection.’

  ‘Do you trust him?’

  She took a sip of the cocktail. It tasted of mango and coconut. ‘I think I do,’ she said. ‘Yes, I definitely think I do.’

  ‘But you don’t trust our bosses at MI6, from what I hear.’

  ‘One of them is working with Blood and Soil, and we need to know who it is.’

  ‘And expose them?’

  She smiled. Maybe it was the effects of the cocktail. ‘That, or we let Mr Patel take whoever it is and put them in the next bedroom to Darius Trethewey.’

  She heard a voice in the background, asking something.

  ‘Is that Kieron?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’ Bradley seemed unusually embarrassed. ‘It’s Kieron’s friend Sam’s sister. She’s asking if I want a cup of tea.’

  ‘Very cosy.’ Bex felt a sudden and unexpected flash of jealousy. She wasn’t sure why – Bradley was like a brother, rather than a partner. Maybe she just didn’t want to lose him, or even a part of him, to someone else. ‘I’ll need to have a talk with Kieron,’ she continued, trying to suppress the unwelcome thoughts. ‘He can’t use the ARCC kit any more. It was fun while it lasted, but it’s too dangerous. He’ll get himself hurt, or killed.’

  ‘The kid did well,’ Bradley said gently. ‘Destroying that station took some guts. He picks things up quickly, and he doesn’t get scared. Or, if he does, he doesn’t let it stop him doing what has to be done. I think we ought to consider keeping him close by.’

  ‘You just want to spend more time with his friend’s sister,’ Bex said before she could stop herself. She bit her lip, wishing she could call the words back.

  ‘Hey!’ Bradley sounded offended. ‘It’s not like we get many perks in this job. We need to grab them whenever possible.’

  Bex took another sip of her cocktail and gazed out across the glittering waves at the distant horizon.

  ‘I wish we could keep him close,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to really like Kieron, even though I’ve never met him. But that means I want to look after him. I feel protective towards him. The trouble is, we’re still in danger. We’re going to have to risk our lives in order to expose the Blood and Soil spy within MI6, and I can’t let Kieron share any of that risk.’

  ‘I’m not sure he’s going to go that easily,’ Bradley said.

  Bex sighed. ‘Is he there?’

 

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