Lockdown, p.11
Lockdown, page 11
part #4 of Liars Series
Anya looked alarmed. ‘What are you suggesting exactly?’
‘Just a sec,’ Jarli said. The handle, which looked like a price check gun, was mounted on a mechanical arm. Jarli swivelled it, taking aim at the floor. Then he found the LASER ON switch and pushed it.
A bright blue dot appeared, but not on the floor. It appeared on a ceramic tile mounted in front of the laser. That must be a safety feature, to stop people from accidentally cutting their fingers off. Jarli tried to work out how to move the tile out of the way.
‘What are you doing?’ Anya demanded.
Jarli found the RELEASE SAFETY button and pushed it. The tile slid aside, and the bright dot of the laser appeared on the floor. A spiral of smoke immediately corkscrewed out of it.
‘Getting us out of here,’ Jarli said. Then he swivelled the laser to face the window.
The air filled with crackling and hissing as the thick glass began to melt.
INFERNAL DEVICES
Hostages scrambled away from the door as it opened. Taipan strolled in first, holding a grenade and leering.
‘No sudden movements,’ he said. ‘In an enclosed space like this, a flash grenade can kill.’
Mamba came in after him, crossbow raised. She said nothing.
Bess resisted the temptation to look at the incinerator. Had the criminals heard Doug in the chimney? Did they realise an escape attempt was underway?
If they did, they showed no sign. Mamba levelled her crossbow at Hayes and Amon, who were sitting down near the far wall.
‘Everybody up,’ she said. ‘We’re doing some digging down here—we need you out.’
Bess cleared her throat. ‘Where are we going?’
Mamba swivelled to face her. ‘No questions,’ she said.
Bess raised her hands. ‘OK, OK.’
Mamba stepped aside and pointed at the door. Everyone shuffled slowly towards it, sneaking anxious glances at each other.
‘Wait,’ Mamba said.
Everyone stopped.
‘What is it?’ Taipan asked.
Mamba swept her gaze across the terrified hostages. ‘We’re short.’
Bess could feel her heart pumping faster and faster.
Taipan’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’re certain?’
‘Yes. One’s missing.’
Taipan started looking around the room for escape routes, just as Doug had been doing earlier.
‘You must have counted wrong,’ Bess said.
Several phones in the room beeped. LIE
Bess cursed Jarli and his stupid app.
‘Nice try,’ Taipan said. ‘Tell me where—’
His gaze settled on the incinerator with the open grate.
‘Never mind,’ he said.
‘We were just looking,’ Bess said.
Beep. LIE
Taipan leaned down, inspecting the inside of the incinerator. Bess had done the same thing a minute ago, and Doug’s feet hadn’t been visible. Hopefully he would keep quiet.
‘No sign of anyone,’ Taipan said finally. ‘I apologise for doubting you, young lady.’
But he was grinning. His expression made Bess uneasy.
She shrugged. ‘Um, no problem.’
‘Mamba must have miscounted,’ Taipan said.
Beep. LIE
Mamba raised an eyebrow.
‘Everybody out, please,’ Taipan said. ‘Follow Mamba up the stairs.’
As the hostages started to shuffle out, Taipan closed the grate—
Then he touched a button on top of the incinerator.
The button was marked IGNITION.
‘No!’ Bess screamed.
There was a click, and then a hiss.
The flame ignited.
At first, Doug wasn’t sure what the sounds meant. Clunking, gasping . . .
And then he heard a horrifying whumpf. It sounded just like the barbeque at home. It was the sound of gas catching fire.
No, he thought. No, no, no!
A faint glow flickered beneath him. The fire was about ten metres below, but already the heat was starting to cook the soles of his shoes. The metal walls were heating up against his palms.
If he stayed here, he would be roasted like a chicken. And if he fell . . .
Doug started climbing again, faster this time. He didn’t care about moving quietly anymore. He only wanted to get away from those flames, fast.
Plumes of smoke swept up the chimney past him, blocking out the light above. He choked on the bitter air, his eyes watering and his nose running. If he didn’t get out of here soon, the smoke would suffocate him. Three minutes without air. Then he would fall into the fire below.
He crawled upwards in a blind panic, coughing and trembling. His sweaty hands made the metal slippery. It was hard to hold on. The fabric of his trousers felt searing hot against his skin. If his pants ignited, he was doomed.
The flames didn’t just crackle—they roared. Like a cyclone, or a jet engine. If he screamed, no-one would hear it. Hot wind whipped past him as he climbed. Flakes of ash stung his face.
Then his head bumped into something. A roof.
Doug did scream, then. There was a lid on the chimney! He was trapped! He was going to die—
No. Not a lid. Another mesh, to stop particles escaping into the atmosphere.
Bracing one quivering arm against the wall, Doug frantically tore at the mesh with his other hand. The thin wires were so hot that they had started to glow red. When his hand eventually punched through, the shredded ends scratched his skin like broken glass. Ignoring the pain, Doug ripped up the mesh and scrambled further upwards.
Air. Moist, silky air on his face. With the last of his strength, he dragged himself out of the chimney and tumbled onto the roof. Raindrops spattered his face. The first stars were coming out. The concrete under his back was cold and sandy. For a moment it felt like being back home, lying on the riverbank and watching the lights of the city come on.
Too giddy to stand, he turned his head to survey the roof. There was a radio antenna, a couple of aircon units, a wooden crate and a door to the stairwell. He should go back down to the basement and let the others out.
But what was he supposed to do first? Doug struggled to remember the plan. The smoke was clouding his mind.
Oh yeah. Communicate with the police . . . somehow. He wondered if the jammer would still be on.
Doug sat up and waited for the world to stop spinning. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and dropped it with a yelp—it was too hot to handle.
He wrapped his hands in his ashen shirt and pushed the power button. The screen wouldn’t light up. The phone was cooked. Doug’s battery often overheated just trying to run graphics-heavy games. Now it was well and truly dead.
He would have to shout. His vocal cords felt shredded, but hopefully he would be able to get the attention of the police below. If they were here.
Doug was about to crawl over to the edge of the rooftop when he heard something. From the stairwell. Someone was coming.
‘Oh, come on!’ he groaned. Could he have just a little bit of good luck, for once?
None of the aircon units were big enough to hide behind, and he wasn’t sure he would be able to reach them anyway. His arms and legs were still so weak after the climb. The only useful thing nearby was the wooden crate.
He dragged himself over to it. It was big enough to hide behind, but that wouldn’t help if the criminals searched the roof.
The crate was sealed with duct tape. Doug pulled out his keys and quickly sawed through the tape. Then he lifted the lid and climbed into the crate.
It wasn’t quite empty. There was a large vacuum flask, the kind used for soup, nestled in a bed of polystyrene at the bottom. But there was still enough room for Doug. Hopefully from outside, the crate wouldn’t look like it had been tampered with. He had sliced the tape pretty cleanly. The damage shouldn’t be obvious unless they got very close.
Unfortunately, it sounded like they were getting closer.
Footsteps thumped across the rooftop towards the box. Taipan? Mamba? Someone else? It was impossible to tell. There were no voices. Doug held his breath.
The footsteps got closer and closer, until—
Thunk. Something hit the side of the box. Beep.
It sounded like someone had attached something to the outside of the crate. Something electronic. A bomb? A cutting tool? Doug’s scalp prickled with sweat.
The footsteps receded, and then paused.
With no clue what was happening outside, Doug lay perfectly still. With all the ash in his hair and on his clothes, he probably looked like a rock. If they lifted the lid, they might not even realise he was human.
Another sound filled the air. A buzzing, whirring sound that Doug knew well.
A DRONE. A big one, it sounded like.
Too late, Doug remembered the fragment of conversation he’d overheard between Taipan and Mamba:
When will the drones pick up the package?
Once we put the tracker on it. Viper will want it gone by the time he’s finished the surgery.
Doug tried to sit up, but—
Clunk! Clunk! Metal claws latched onto the sides of the crate. It lurched up into the air so suddenly that Doug slipped over and fell back into the polystyrene bedding.
Terror seized his heart. He had made the crate twice as heavy by climbing inside. What if the drone couldn’t carry it? What if the claws released it as the drone flew over the hospital grounds, leaving Doug screaming inside as he plummeted towards certain death?
But apparently the drone was strong enough. The crate soared up and away towards Viper’s hideout, with Doug trapped inside.
PLAN B
‘Move,’ Mamba said, shoving Bess’ back.
Bess stumbled, but didn’t fall. It seemed impossible that she was still upright, plodding along with a crossbow pointed at her back, while Doug was dead. Just ashes, floating out of the chimney.
Because of her. It had been her dumb idea which got him killed. If it weren’t for her, Doug would be marching along this corridor with them.
Mr Hayes took Bess’s hand, keeping her upright. ‘Hey. You OK?’
His concern only made her feel worse. ‘No.’ She kept her voice low so Mamba couldn’t hear them. ‘I’m a long way from OK.’
She half-expected him to chide her for weakness. Or blame her for convincing Doug to climb that chimney. But he didn’t.
‘I know this is scary,’ Hayes said. ‘For everyone. But it’ll be over soon—you just have to keep it together a little longer. Alright?’
He was wrong. It wasn’t scary. Doug’s voice in her head: Hard to be scared when the worst has already happened. The fear had faded, leaving behind only a sense of hopelessness.
‘They’re going to kill us all,’ Bess said.
‘I won’t let that happen,’ Hayes promised.
He sounded completely genuine, and no-one’s phone beeped. But with Doug dead, Bess didn’t trust him to save the rest of them.
‘No more talking,’ Mamba growled.
They trudged through the doors to the main foyer, where they had entered the hospital a lifetime ago. The woman with the sword was here, her face like a bronze statue.
Taipan closed the doors behind them, sealing them in the foyer. Bess didn’t see him lock the doors, although she doubted that mattered. Even if the hostages somehow got the chance to run, there was nowhere to go.
‘All yours, Rattler,’ Taipan said. He was tossing a grenade from hand to hand again. ‘I’ll tell Anaconda to start digging.’
‘Alright,’ the woman with the sword said. She turned to the hostages. ‘Listen up.’
Bess had kind of thought she would talk like a pirate, because of the sword, but she didn’t. She had some other kind of accent, maybe American.
‘I want everybody to sit still on the floor, over there.’ Rattler pointed. ‘Near the doors.’
‘Why?’ someone asked.
‘What was that?’ Rattler drew her sword. Shing.
The question was not repeated.
Everyone—students, doctors, nurses, Mr Hayes—shuffled over to the glass doors. They were locked. Bess found a space, laid her crutches down and leaned against the window.
There were more police cars outside than she had ever seen in Kelton. Swirling lights threw flashes of blue and red across the hillside, bouncing off the clouds in the night sky. Police huddled in the shadows behind vehicles. There were plenty of cops, but if they stormed in, they would have to trample through all the kids to get to the criminals.
That’s why Rattler made us sit here, Bess realised. The thought that she was being used as a human shield filled her with RAGE.
Down the hill a little further there was a temporary fence where more police were keeping reporters back. And not just reporters—parents. Bess could see a row of horrified faces, pale and tear-streaked in the beams from the floodlights. She looked for her own parents but couldn’t see them in the crowd.
But she saw a few familiar faces. Jarli’s mum, clinging to the fence, her hair a mess, her eyes wide. Jarli’s dad, hulking and grim. There was a man with dark circles around his eyes—Bess knew him as Scanner. He was a police officer who had been undercover in Viper’s organisation for months. He had saved Jarli’s life once. Bess would have been reassured to see him, except that he looked just as worried as all the parents around him.
She saw Doug’s mum and dad, too. They looked frightened rather than grief-stricken. They didn’t know he was dead. Tears brimmed over in Bess’s eyes. She wiped them away with her sleeve.
‘Hey! Cripple! I said don’t move.’
Bess gritted her teeth, and put her palms back in her lap. She could see the reflection of the criminals, who were having a discussion behind her, on the opposite side of the foyer. Without using the app, it was hard to read their lips. But she saw a word, or thought she did:
Tunnel.
There was a network of old coal mining tunnels under Kelton. Bess had been down there once. Maybe one of them ran under the hospital, and that was why the criminals wanted the hostages out of the basement.
They were planning their escape.
CROWD CONTROL
‘Move aside,’ Constable Blanco shouted. ‘I’m a police officer. Make way!’
She brandished her wallet. Her badge had been taken away when she was suspended, so she was actually flashing her driver’s license at people. It was dark and she figured no-one would look too closely.
Unfortunately, people didn’t move out of her way. They rushed inwards instead. Blanco found herself crushed in a scrum of desperate parents and eager reporters. They looked wild. The rain had drenched everyone, leaving hair frizzy and make-up running.
‘Whose drone was that taking off from the roof?’ someone demanded. ‘Was that you guys?’
‘My daughter is in there!’ someone else cried. ‘Her name is Anya. Please, I need—’
‘Can you comment on the rumours that the crime lord known as Viper is—’
‘Please help us, our son—’
Blanco turned her head away as a reporter’s flash went off, momentarily blinding her. She had a very bad feeling about this. With so many worried parents out here, the school group must still be inside. She’d called Arno as soon as she’d received the message from Jarli about the attack on the hospital. But when she’d tried to call the boy back, he hadn’t answered. She hadn’t been able to find him at his house or in town either. Was he being held hostage too?
‘Get back, everyone,’ Blanco snarled, barging people aside. The deep puddles soaked through her shoes. If anyone fell over and got trampled, they could actually drown.
‘Tell us about the drone!’ someone yelled.
‘My husband’s name is Henry Hayes,’ a woman said. ‘He’s in there. Please—’
As Blanco pushed through the crowd, she pictured the timeline on the wall in her study.
None of this was good, but the worst part was that the only two people who knew Viper’s identity—or claimed to—were both in grave danger. The whole situation was spinning out of control.
She reached the temporary fence and the police officers beyond. One of them was a face she recognised.
‘Rodney!’ she shouted. ‘Hey! Rodney!’
Rodney spun around, and scanned the faces in the crowd on the other side of the fence. He spotted Blanco quickly, and came closer to the fence.
‘Let me through,’ Blanco said. ‘Quick.’
‘You know I can’t do that,’ Rodney said.
Blanco could feel the people around her starting to take notice of the conversation. ‘This is Viper again, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘He distracted you on the other side of town so he could do something here. You need all the help you can get.’
‘We’re about to move in. We don’t have time for more theories.’ Rodney turned away.
‘Wait,’ Blanco said. ‘I have a witness who says he can identify Viper.’
Rodney didn’t take any notice, but the woman next to Blanco did. ‘Constable Blanco,’ she said. ‘Dana Reynolds, from Nationwide.’
The veteran reporter had managed to snag a spot right up the front. She was clinging to the fence with one manicured hand and holding an umbrella with the other. Her hair and make-up were somehow perfect despite the chaos.
‘I know who you are,’ Blanco snapped. ‘The department has no comment.’
‘Last time I checked, you weren’t with the department anymore,’ Reynolds said. ‘They turned on you. Used you as a scapegoat, so they wouldn’t have to take the blame for letting the criminal known as Viper infiltrate their department. Care to comment on that?’
She was trying to win Blanco over. It wouldn’t work.
‘Get lost,’ Blanco said.
‘I too have a source who can identify Viper,’ Reynolds said.
That got Blanco’s attention. ‘Who?’
‘You know I always protect my sources,’ Reynolds said primly. ‘You tell me who your witness is. Then I can tell you if my source is the same person. Because if it’s not—if we have two independent sources— then the intel is more likely to be solid.’
