Lockdown, p.4
Lockdown, page 4
part #4 of Liars Series
‘Don’t antagonise them,’ she continued. ‘Once they have what they want, they’ll leave. Then we can help Anya.’
‘She might not last that long,’ Jarli insisted. ‘What if she has a cracked skull?’
‘She doesn’t,’ Olivia said.
Jarli’s phone didn’t beep. Olivia believed what she was saying—and she was a professional. But she was further away from Anya than Jarli, and she could hardly see.
‘Trust me,’ she added.
Anya’s chest was rising and falling, at least. Maybe she would be OK.
Lightning flashed outside the glass sliding doors. A few seconds later, thunder boomed, loud enough to shake the pens on the reception desk and the paddles of the defibrillator mounted on the wall.
Rattler didn’t look up. She was fiddling with a device which looked a bit like a walkie-talkie. Jarli had heard her refer to it as a jammer. Jarli wasn’t an expert—he knew software, not hardware—but he understood the basic principle. The jammer would broadcast STATIC on all wavelengths, stopping any other signals from getting through. No calls, no radio, no wi-fi, no Bluetooth. Nothing. The jammer itself could make and receive transmissions, but nothing else could.
‘When will you leave?’ Jarli asked. His cuffed hand was going numb.
‘Soon,’ Rattler replied.
‘How soon?’
Rattler drew her sword. The blade caught the light from the neon bulbs buzzing above her, sending rainbows dancing across the walls.
‘No more questions,’ she said.
When the criminals had been talking, they had said four codenames: Rattler, Taipan, Mamba and Anaconda. Rattler was here. Anaconda had been sent to guard the back door—hopefully the school group had escaped out there first. That only left Taipan and Mamba to search the hospital for whatever they were looking for, all three storeys of it. Wouldn’t that take hours? And what would happen if the school group was still here, and the bad guys found them?
‘Rattler.’
A squat man in goggles was standing in the doorway. A row of flash-grenades was clipped to a sash under his jacket.
Jarli swallowed. Video games had made flash grenades seem pretty harmless. Now he knew better.
‘Taipan,’ Rattler said. ‘What do you want?’
Taipan lifted his goggles and looked at Jarli. His pale eyes left Jarli feeling like he’d been X-rayed.
‘I need to borrow a hostage,’ Taipan said.
‘Why?’ Rattler asked.
‘I require assistance opening a door.’
‘Oh.’ Rattler seemed to know what this meant. ‘Better take two—you may need to prove you’re serious.’
‘An excellent suggestion. The two children should do nicely.’
‘The girl’s unconscious.’
‘Even better.’
Rattler strode over to Jarli and swung her sword at him. The blade whipped through the air so fast he didn’t have time to scream. Suddenly he could feel hot blood pouring down his hand—
No. The blood was flowing back into his hand. Rattler had sliced through the plastic cuff and freed his wrist without even nicking his skin.
Rattler sliced off Anya’s cuff just as quickly. His heart pounding, Jarli wondered how many years of practice it took to master a sword like that—to use it as precisely as a pen. Who were these people? Soldiers? Circus performers?
Taipan hefted Anya over his shoulder as though she weighed nothing. He was small, but he was strong.
‘Come with me, young man,’ he said. ‘And no funny business, or you and your friend will both regret it. Briefly.’
Jarli swallowed. ‘She needs a doctor.’
The squat man beamed, showing a gap between his front teeth. ‘How fortunate. We’re on our way to see two doctors right now.’
Jarli shot a worried glance at Olivia, and followed Taipan as he carried Anya up the stairs. Taipan moved eagerly, taking the steps three at a time.
‘Do you like action films?’ he asked, as he walked.
It took Jarli a moment to realise the criminal was talking to him. ‘What?’
‘Action films. Do you like them?’
‘Sometimes,’ Jarli said cautiously.
‘I hate them,’ Taipan said. ‘So unrealistic. For example, James Bond sometimes attaches a “silencer” to his gun so no-one hears the shot. In real life, that device is called a “suppressor”, because the shot most definitely is not silent.’
‘OK.’ Jarli rubbed his sore wrist. He wasn’t tied to a bench anymore, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that things were about to get worse.
At the top of the stairs, the corridor was as quiet as death. Jarli was afraid to ask where all the other doctors and patients had gone. How long before the police realised what was happening here?
‘If you want to shoot someone quietly, without alerting the authorities,’ Taipan continued, ‘you go medieval.’
A tattooed woman was standing outside one of the operating theatres holding a rusty crossbow. It looked like it might have been stolen from a museum. Jarli found himself shuddering uncontrollably, like a car on the verge of stalling.
‘What kept you?’ the woman asked.
‘Patience is a virtue, Mamba.’ Taipan dumped Anya on the floor and Jarli flinched. Then Taipan knocked on the operating room door.
There was no answer from the other side.
‘You’re in luck,’ Taipan shouted at the door. ‘Instead of getting through this door with high explosives, we’ve opted to have our friend open it for us. His name is . . .’
He gestured at Jarli.
Jarli muttered, ‘Jarli.’
‘Louder, please.’
‘Jarli.’
He heard a gasp from the other side of the door.
‘Jarli will be assisted in this endeavour by . . .’ Taipan pointed at Anya, slumped on the floor.
‘Anya,’ Jarli said.
‘Here are the terms. You have sixty seconds to open the door, or Jarli dies. If the door is not open sixty seconds after that, Anya dies. Then we blast our way in with explosives. I trust you’ll make the right choice.’
Mamba pointed the rusty crossbow at Jarli’s head.
TWO AGAINST ONE
The squat man’s voice was muffled by the door. ‘Your time starts now.’
For a second, no-one moved. Bess was frozen with terror. Her phone hadn’t beeped once. Taipan and Mamba weren’t bluffing.
A line from a crime novel flitted through her head: motive, means and opportunity. The criminals had a reason, a weapon and no-one to stop them from killing Jarli and Anya.
Bess looked around. Everyone was just cowering on the floor, waiting for someone else to do something. To make this impossible decision.
Bess pushed herself to her feet.
‘Bess,’ Mr Hayes said. ‘Get back here.’
Bess ignored him. She limped towards the door. It was hard on only one crutch. The other was still wedged tightly through the door handles—she hoped she would have the strength to get it out.
‘What are you doing?’ Hayes demanded.
‘What are you doing?’ she shot back. No-one else had spoken. Were the others really willing to let Jarli and Anya die?
Lanagan looked up from her surgery. ‘Don’t go near that door. We can’t let them hurt Mr Plowman.’
‘Can we let them murder Jarli and Anya?’ Bess demanded. ‘Because that’s what will happen if we don’t open the door.’
‘They might kill them even if we do,’ Lanagan said. ‘And the rest of us will be defenceless.’
Vorham looked from Lanagan to Bess, clearly uncertain who to side with.
Bess reached for the crutch holding the door closed. Hayes ran over and grabbed her arm. His teacherly calm was gone. His hair was scraggly, and his voice was hoarse.
‘You can’t,’ he said.
Bess had never liked Mr Hayes. PE was her least-favourite class, because she always ended up doing nothing while everyone else had fun. She had hated every sport her parents had ever made her try—table tennis, bowling, golf, archery, fencing. Bess couldn’t imagine becoming a PE teacher unless she’d already failed at every other job.
‘Let go of me!’ she snapped.
‘I’m responsible for all these students,’ Hayes said. ‘If we let them in, they might kill all of us. Including Anya and Jarli.’
Bess knew he was right. But there was also a possibility that the criminals wouldn’t do that. Jarli was her oldest friend. She couldn’t do nothing. Not if there was even a slim chance of saving him.
‘Time’s nearly up,’ Taipan said gleefully.
Bess tried to grab the crutch again, but Hayes held her still. Tears of frustration sprang into her eyes.
‘Don’t hurt him!’ she shouted through the door. ‘We’re opening the door!’
‘Do not,’ Lanagan said. ‘There’s a reason that governments don’t negotiate with terrorists. I’m not giving up my patient.’
Vorham said nothing, looking from Bess to Lanagan to Hayes and back again.
Doug ran over. Bess thought he was going to restrain her other arm, but no—he grabbed the crutch and tried to wrestle it out of the door. He was on her side.
‘Stop!’ Hayes cried.
There was a ka-chunk sound from outside the door.
It took Bess a second to recognise the noise. She’d heard it in a TV show.
It was the sound of a crossbow firing.
She screamed.
MOBILE TARGETS
Fifteen seconds earlier
‘Time’s nearly up,’ Taipan said to the door. He was leering, like a creepy clown. This was fun for him, Jarli realised.
Not Mamba. Her face may as well have been carved from stone. The crossbow was dead-still in her grip. Jarli saw now that although the device itself looked old, there was a shiny new scope attached to the top. Not that Mamba would need the scope at this range. The needle-sharp tip of the bolt hovered only centimetres from Jarli’s eyeball. If she pulled the trigger, he wouldn’t even hear the shot.
‘You don’t need to do this,’ he stammered. It was hard to get the words out.
Mamba didn’t move.
‘They can’t see us,’ Jarli whispered. ‘I can pretend, OK? I’ll pretend you’re pointing it at me.’
Mamba still didn’t move.
‘Should we shoot the girl first?’ Taipan mused. ‘So the boy screams?’
‘No,’ Mamba growled. ‘Always deal with mobile targets first.’
‘Don’t hurt him!’ Bess was yelling from inside the theatre. ‘We’re opening the door!’
Jarli hoped that was true. The bad guys weren’t bluffing. Jarli’s app hadn’t beeped once the whole time Taipan was talking. He definitely intended to KILL them both.
Taipan glanced at his watch. Then he stepped back and nodded to Mamba.
Mamba shifted her weight, straightened her arm, and squeezed the trigger—
But just as she was about to fire, the crossbow was kicked out of her hand.
It discharged in mid-air, the mechanism snapping like a mouse trap. The bolt punched a hole in the ceiling, releasing a puff of dust.
Mamba spun, trying to see who had attacked her—
And found herself facing Anya.
Jarli stared. Anya didn’t look like a girl who had been unconscious a few seconds ago. She stood like a boxer, bouncing on her toes, hands up, ready to parry away any oncoming blows.
She had been faking it, Jarli realised. So she could surprise the bad guys at the right moment. And Olivia, the paramedic, had figured that out, which was why she’d told Jarli to shut up.
Mamba swung a fist at Anya, who ducked under the blow. Another punch. Another dodge. Jarli had seen Anya do incredible things. She had climbed tall buildings to spy on corrupt politicians. She had been a finalist in the state under-eighteens boxing championship. But she couldn’t fight off two trained killers by herself.
The crossbow had landed a couple of metres away. Taipan dived for it, but Jarli kicked it out of reach, hurting his toes in the process. The crossbow skittered away up the corridor.
Anya tried to sweep Mamba’s legs out from under her, but Mamba was too fast and too smart. Instead of jumping back, she stepped in closer and shoved Anya’s chest, sending her sprawling.
Anya landed right next to the bomb—a rectangle of soft plastic, like a lump of clay, with a timer wired to it. The numbers 00:60 were still flashing.
Taipan saw what was about to happen. ‘No!’
Anya scooped up the bomb and pushed the red button on the timer. The numbers started counting down from sixty.
‘Run, Jarli!’ she yelled. Then she sprinted away up the corridor, carrying the bomb.
THAT AMOUNT OF CRAZY
Anya had hoped for a better moment than this.
She had thought if she pretended to be unconscious, the criminals would eventually leave her unguarded. Then she could hack through her plastic cuffs with the nail file in her pocket and go looking for something more effective to cut Jarli free. This was a hospital, so there would be big scissors for cutting stitches and staples.
But then the criminals had carried her and Jarli upstairs into an even more volatile situation, with a bomb and a crossbow. Kicking away the crossbow and stealing the bomb was all she had been able to think of.
Starting the timer on the bomb was supposed to distract the criminals so Jarli could get away. She could turn the timer off again once she was out of sight. The criminals wouldn’t chase her, surely. They’d have to be crazy to run towards a live bomb.
Unfortunately, they seemed to be exactly that amount of crazy. Anya could hear Mamba’s feet slapping the waxed tile floor; the woman was getting closer. She thinks she can catch me fast enough to stop the timer before the bomb goes off, Anya thought. She might be right. The man was slower, with his short legs, but he was coming too.
And there was a third pair of footsteps. When Anya risked a glance back, Jarli was running right behind her.
‘What are you doing?’ she cried.
‘You told me to run!’ Jarli puffed.
‘I meant the other way!’
Ka-chunk! Another crossbow bolt flew past her head and buried itself in the wall up the other end of the corridor. Anya didn’t stop running.
She and Jarli reached the end of the corridor and turned. A door up ahead was marked FIRE STAIRS. Anya barged through it sideways, cradling the bomb under one arm. The timer had ticked down to thirty seconds.
She found herself in a gloomy concrete stairwell, lit by a distant skylight. Coiled-up fire hoses were wall-mounted on every second landing. Anya ran upstairs rather than down. She was lighter than the criminals. It would be hard for them to keep up.
Unfortunately, it sounded like Jarli was struggling to keep up too. She could hear his ragged breaths echoing off the walls as they pounded up the stairs.
He was good at coding, but wasn’t very athletic. Soon he would fall behind.
Anya peered over the rail in time to see Mamba burst through the stairwell door below. Mamba took aim with her crossbow again, but then Taipan charged through the door and grabbed her arm.
‘Let them go!’ he hissed. ‘Take cover!’
As they both disappeared back through the door, Anya looked down at the timer.
00:28. 00:27. 00:26. No wonder the criminals were fleeing. Time to stop the countdown.
She hit the red button.
The countdown kept going. 00:24. 00:23. 00:22.
She tried again. No result. 00:20. 00:19.
Jarli was practically vibrating with panic. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I assumed I would be able to switch it off!’ she cried.
‘You assumed?!’
00:16. 00:15.
‘Just pull out the wires!’ Jarli yelled.
Anya wrapped her hand around the cords, but hesitated. What if that set the bomb off?
00:13. 00:12.
‘What are you waiting for?’ Jarli demanded.
‘I have a better idea!’ Anya sprinted up the next flight of stairs towards the roof.
She shoved open the door at the top of the stairs and found herself on the roof—a flat concrete plain dotted only by air-conditioning units and antennae. The storm had reached full force. Wind whipped at Anya’s hair as raindrops exploded on the concrete all around her. Thunder boomed like orchestral drums.
Anya sprinted over to the edge and wobbled. It was a long way down. At least ten metres. A vortex of raindrops plummeted past her to the puddles on the distant concrete.
00:07. 00:06. 00: 05.
Anya frantically looked around for the best place to throw the bomb. Not straight down—Lanagan had mentioned flammable cladding inside the walls. The whole hospital could catch fire. Not towards the car park, either. Someone could be in one of those cars. Not towards the bush on the other side— not unless she wanted to be showered with sharp chunks of trees and dead animals. But there was a broad grassy plain between the forest and the car park. EMPTY.
00:03. 00:02.
Anya hurled the bomb as far as she could. Then she lay facedown on the concrete with her hands over her ears. Jarli did the same.
For a moment, the only sound was the rain. And then—
BLAM! The bomb exploded in mid-air with a sound like a whip crack which echoed from the distant hills. The shockwave ruffled Anya’s clothes and sent hot raindrops sideways. A mist of smoke stung her nose.
When Anya looked up, there was no sign that the bomb had ever existed. She peered over the edge. The grass had been scorched, but nothing else looked damaged. The bomb had been designed to blast open a door. She guessed that the criminals wouldn’t have wanted too much power.
‘That was way too close,’ Jarli was saying.
Anya released the breath she had been holding. ‘I agree.’
‘Someone in town must have heard that. The cops will be coming. Right?’
Anya looked towards the centre of town, shielding her eyes from the rain with one hand. She couldn’t see any flashing lights or hear any sirens. Just her luck to end up in a town so sleepy that a bomb could go off and no-one would notice.
‘It probably sounded like thunder,’ she said. ‘To everyone except the bad guys. They will be up here to get us soon. Do you have a phone signal?’
