AWOL 2 Read online

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why do people always ask why when you tell them to do something? Just do it! Please!’

  She plotted the quickest route in her head: straight along a row of cars, then left across a stretch of tarmac kept clear for access, then right again. As she manoeuvred to get into the right row she glanced around. The car park had two entrances – one on a main route and one on a side road. It looked to her as if both had been blocked off by black SUVs. Whatever Sam had in mind, she hoped it was good.

  The rear windscreen suddenly crazed over. An instant later Bex thought she heard a bang! Effect before cause: that meant the bullet was travelling faster than the speed of sound. That meant the people trying to catch them were armed with high-power handguns – something like .44 Magnums. Either that or someone in the hotel had a rifle.

  A person in a hotel with a rifle: that would be ironic, considering what had happened to her in Mumbai just a week ago.

  Approaching the turn, Bex realised that an SUV was coming up behind her. It would probably use the standard car-takedown technique: come alongside and then nudge the rear bumper of her car with its front bumper, sending her into an uncontrolled spin. She had to stop them doing that, which meant she couldn’t slow down too much as she approached the junction. Instead she kept up her speed and actually passed the entrance to the access route.

  ‘You missed the turn!’ Sam said.

  Bex crossed her hands on the steering wheel – left hand on the right side and vice versa. ‘No, I didn’t,’ she said.

  ‘I know what you’re going to do!’ Sam shouted. ‘I’ve seen it in movies.’

  ‘Hang on!’ she said. Reaching down quickly, she pulled the handbrake up. The rear wheels locked, dragging against the tarmac and sending up plumes of smoke. Both hands back on the wheel, she turned it quickly. The car slewed through 180 degrees, so that it was now facing back the way they’d come. She released the handbrake again and floored the accelerator. The car leaped forward, heading back for a junction that was now invisible behind a wall of smoke.

  A wall of smoke broken by the SUV that had been behind them. Bex had a momentary flash of the surprised faces of the driver and his passengers – all dressed in black and all, strangely, with red hair – as she sped past. They were too busy staring at her to notice one of the concrete bars that separated the car spaces from the access roads. Their car hit it at speed. The front of the car stopped abruptly, while the back rose up into the air, wheels spinning. Bex didn’t like to think about the chaos inside. The car seemed to stand impossibly on its nose, like some bizarre sculpture, but it couldn’t stay there forever. Slowly it toppled back down, slamming against the tarmac and bouncing.

  ‘Cat in a washing machine,’ Sam said, grinning as Bex made it through the right-hand turn that moments before had been a left turn. She accelerated away.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s what they probably feel like.’

  She turned right again, heading alongside another row of parked cars. Somewhere over to her right she became dimly aware of another SUV, with a third to her left.

  Ahead of them she saw the end of the car park: a two-metre high wall of hedge stretching away in both directions, with concrete bars along its base.

  ‘What was your brilliant idea?’ she asked as they raced towards the hedge.

  ‘There’s a gap, straight ahead. See – there’s no concrete bar. The hedge has grown across the gap.’

  Bex was amazed. ‘How did you find that?’

  Sam sounded shifty. ‘Kieron and I came down for a quick vape earlier, before we left. We had to – the entire hotel’s covered with smoke detectors. We noticed it then.’

  They were travelling so fast that, in a few more seconds, it would be too late to brake.

  ‘Just out of interest, what’s on the other side?’ Bex asked, trying to sound casual. In her imagination it was the side of a building.

  ‘A disused car park,’ Sam explained. ‘All cracked and covered with weeds.’

  Now it was too late to brake. They were committed. All Bex could do was hope Sam was right. She kept her foot on the accelerator and forced her eyes to stay open as the hedge filled the windshield.

  Crunch! and they were through, in a storm of leaves and twigs. Just as Sam had said, the car park on the other side was like the evil twin of the pristine one they’d been chased through: cracked, broken and abandoned. But there was an exit on the far side, and Bex steered directly for it.

  Once on the main road, she sped away, then turned off as soon as possible. She kept an eye on the rear-view mirror through two more turns, but nobody appeared to be following them.

  ‘Where to now?’ Sam asked breathlessly.

  ‘Somewhere anonymous where we can rest up and look at what Kieron has left for us.’

  She drove back towards the airport, on the basis that there would be hotels there she and Sam could hole up in. She ignored the first few they passed, eventually turning in to a motel-style place where rooms more like cabins were arranged around a parking area, meaning you could park your car right next to your room. She told Sam to stay in the car while she went and booked a single room from the cabin that operated as the motel’s reception desk, reasoning that anyone looking for them would be searching for a woman and a boy, probably in two rooms. As far as the unshaven man in reception knew, she was a lone woman. And besides, she had no intention of being there long.

  It was almost dawn. The sky to the east had taken on a rose-coloured blush, and the air was already beginning to heat up. Their car was reasonably anonymous, but while Sam caught some sleep she returned it to the airport, then walked to a different rental firm and hired a different car. She stopped off at a diner on the way back and picked up food for them both.

  Sam was asleep on the bed when she got there, fully clothed and snoring. Bex sat down in the room’s only chair, slipped the ARCC glasses on and began to scroll through the material Kieron had recorded.

  An hour later she took the glasses off, massaged her temples and sighed deeply.

  Sam turned over and looked at her muzzily. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Sorry – I didn’t mean to disturb you. You should try and sleep some more.’

  ‘I’d rather know.’

  She sighed. ‘Kieron found out a lot of stuff before he got caught – and yes, he did get caught. Those thirty-five employees – they all died of heart attacks, like we thought, but they didn’t die here in Albuquerque – they died in Israel. Tel Aviv. The Goldfinch Institute has a branch out there apparently. They do a lot of work with the Israel Defense Forces. Oh, and all the people that died were of Eastern European heritage.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You can tell from their names. They’re all Polish, Czech, Romanian, Bosnian, Croatian …’

  ‘What else?’ Sam asked, sitting up.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, I can see it in your eyes. There’s something else.’

  Bex gestured to the bags of food she’d got from the diner, which she’d left on the dressing table. ‘There’s breakfast over there, if you want some.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  She sighed, then flicked her way through the recorded material stored inside the glasses until she found the particular bit she’d tagged earlier. ‘Take a look at this,’ she said, throwing the glasses to him. ‘Tell me what you think.’

  Sam slipped the glasses on. ‘OK, this is one of those fancy computers Kieron said they had in the Institute. He’s looking at the screen, and those are his hands on the keyboard. He’s accessed the personnel records. There’s a handwritten list by the side of the computer – I’m guessing he’s cross-referencing the names of the dead staff members you got from the medical examiner with the list of people employed by Todd Zanderbergen.’ He paused. ‘How am I doing? Do I get a prize?’

  ‘Look at the various divisions of the company where the staff were employed.’

  ‘Administration,’ Sam read, ‘Financ
e, Non-Lethal Weapons, Computing, Genetics … All obvious stuff.’

  ‘Yes,’ Bex said, ‘but the Genetics division didn’t appear on the company information we researched before we came here. And it’s not in the promotional material they showed Kieron either. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, the Goldfinch Institute doesn’t do genetic research.’

  ‘What’s the problem? Genetics is the next big thing – being able to decode our DNA, make changes to it, cure diseases caused by defects in the genes. Any research institute worth the name would be looking into that kind of thing.’

  ‘But why hide it?’ Bex closed her eyes, hoping that the suspicion forming in her mind was wrong. ‘Let me put it this way – a company involved in military research that has a secret genetics laboratory suffers a whole load of unexplained deaths, but only of employees with Eastern European heritage. Eastern European genes.’

  The silence in the room went on for a long time after she said those words. Eventually she opened her eyes. Sam was staring at her. The expression on his face was one of shock.

  ‘They’re developing biological weapons designed to kill people with particular DNA?’ he whispered. ‘Why would they do that?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t they?’ Bex shook her head. ‘The history of the human race is a history of racial groups hating and fighting each other. Arabs against Jews in the Middle East. Hutu against Tutsi in Rwanda. Bosnians against Serbs in Eastern Europe. White against black everywhere you look. Go back a few hundred years and it was the British against the Dutch and the Spanish against the French. You’ve heard the word “genocide”? The United Nations defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”. And how can you distinguish one national, ethnic or racial group from another? Genetic testing. Now, imagine that one racial group gets hold of a weapon, like a gas or a virus or something, that can destroy only people with a different genetic make-up. What would happen?’

  ‘Carnage,’ Sam whispered. ‘Wholesale slaughter, until the only people left in the world are the people who have the same DNA as the people with the weapon.’

  ‘And that,’ Bex said, ‘is what I think we’re up against – a man who has developed a weapon exactly like that.’

  ‘Can we stop him?’

  Despite the seriousness of the situation, Bex felt a wave of affection wash over her for the scruffy little urchin she’d somehow ended up with. No thought of getting away, no suggestion that they pretend they didn’t know anything. His first thought was how they could deal with the situation they’d discovered. ‘You’re a good kid, you know that?’ she said.

  His expression was serious, and a shadow darkened his eyes. ‘I’m a greeb,’ he said. ‘Kieron’s a greeb. We get chased down the street by chavs wherever we go. If the chavs could get hold of a way to eradicate all greebs and all emos, they’d do it without a second thought. That’s why we can’t let this go. But first we have to get Kieron back.’

  Bex nodded. ‘I’ll see what I can find out. Pass me the glasses, will you?’

  Putting them back on, Bex pushed away the recording Kieron had uploaded and tried to get into the Goldfinch Institute’s admin-level computers using the hacking tools built into the ARCC kit. All she wanted to know was whether the police had been called to the site last night or whether Kieron’s illegal entry had been reported, but it was no good – the security clampdown meant that the Institute had ramped up their firewalls. No way in, even to the areas they’d been able to access the day before.

  ‘If Kieron’s still being held,’ she said, more to herself than to Sam, ‘then we’re going to have problems. They’ll be expecting us to try and rescue him. If we thought it was difficult to get in before, it’ll be nigh-on impossible now.’

  ‘If he’s still there,’ Sam mused.

  ‘Actually, that’s a point.’ She frowned, thinking. ‘Zanderbergen might decide to leave the area for a while, and he might take Kieron with him.’ Quickly she accessed the Albuquerque airport computer, hacking in to the data on flights in and out. ‘Damn – someone filed a flight plan for a jet belonging to the Goldfinch Institute. Destination is … yes, of course. Tel Aviv. Due to take off in … no! Half an hour!’ She moved her hands, manipulating information. ‘If I can get access to the airport’s security cameras in the VIP area … yes, I’ve got a live feed!’ Her triumph was short-lived, replaced with anger and despair as she found herself looking at a picture being taken probably by a camera on a pole. It showed an executive jet with its stairway extended. A limousine sat at the bottom of the stairs. Todd Zanderbergen stood halfway up the steps, looking back towards the terminal. And at the bottom of the stairs, Bex’s old friend and colleague Tara Gallagher had her arms around someone as she helped them out of the back of the car.

  The person’s head hung low, but Bex knew who it was. She recognised the jacket, the shoes she’d bought, the hair. Everything about him.

  It was Kieron.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Kieron regained consciousness suddenly. One minute he was out cold, floating in a dark void, and the next he jerked awake in a comfortable seat, eyes open wide and hands clenched.

  ‘Ah, you’re back.’ Todd Zanderbergen sat opposite Kieron. He had a glass of champagne in his hand. ‘I know teenagers sleep a lot, but you were going for the record. Tara and I had a bet on it.’ He took a sip of the champagne. ‘I won.’

  ‘Yeah, I suspect you usually do,’ Kieron said. ‘Doesn’t it get boring?’ His mouth was dry, and his eyes felt gritty. He tried to move, but he’d been restrained.

  He looked around. He seemed to be on an aircraft, but a small one, upholstered in white leather and with mushroom-shaped wooden tables that looked like they’d been carved out of oak. Circular windows ran along each curved wall. Blue light spilled in from outside, but he didn’t know what time it was. Several seats were scattered around the narrow cabin. Todd sat in one of them; Tara Gallagher sat in another. Both of them faced the seat where he’d been imprisoned.

  ‘What’s the last thing you remember?’ Todd asked. ‘It’s a professional question: I’m not interested in the state of your health.’

  ‘Your Head of Security firing some kind of blue goo at my head.’ Kieron glanced at Tara. ‘I thought that stuff was just meant to harden around people and stop them from moving – not stop them from breathing.’

  Tara just raised an eyebrow. It was Todd who answered. ‘Yes, Tara did exceed the usage specifications a bit, but it’s all information we can feed into the research programme. Grist to the mill, as they say, although I have no idea what grist is or why it should go through a mill. Do people have grist mills? I should Google it.’

  He paused and took another sip of champagne. ‘You’ve been unconscious for about eight hours. Part of that was due to the immobilising foam hitting your head and knocking you out; part of it was due to your mouth being obstructed and you having problems breathing. Some of it might be down to you being a teenager and just needing to sleep a lot; I honestly don’t know. You’re lucky Tara scraped enough of the stuff off your face so that you could breathe.’ He frowned in fake concern. ‘You might want to run your tongue around your teeth when you get a moment, check for any of the hardened gel that might still be there. I don’t think we’ve run the toxicology tests yet. Best not swallow it by accident.’

  Tara held a hand up. ‘I’ve still got some underneath my fingernails,’ she said. ‘It’s hell to get out.’

  ‘We’re travelling somewhere,’ Kieron said. He could feel the vibration of the aircraft’s engine through the seat, although the noise insulation in the cabin seemed very good. ‘Is it somewhere I might have wanted to go?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Todd shrugged. ‘Ever wanted to go to Israel?’

  Israel, Kieron thought with a sense of impending panic. A long way from the USA. Not as far from the UK, but I wouldn’t want to walk it. All he could hope was that Bex and Sam had found the ARCC glas
ses he’d thrown over the fence, that they were intact, and that somehow his friends had managed to trace where he was and where he was going and could follow. That was a lot of things to hope for, but if they didn’t all come true then he was in trouble.

  Actually, even if Bex and Sam did manage to trace where he was going, it might still all end badly. What were they going to do – two people against a corrupt massive international research and development company?

  Thoughts of the ARCC glasses suddenly made him wonder about the other set, the ones Bex usually wore. He hadn’t thrown those ones over the fence. Or the earpiece either. Impulsively he reached up and checked the inside pocket of his jacket, where he’d left them. Even if Bex and Sam found the VR set and followed him to Israel, they wouldn’t be able to contact him unless he had them. A shiver of panic ran through him as his questing fingers didn’t find anything. Had he been searched? Had all his things been confiscated?

  He ran his hands through his hair and his fingertips touched something plastic, something that curved. The arms of the ARCC glasses. He slid his hand down and felt his fingernails brush against a hard lump. The earpiece.

  He took a deep, relieved breath. At least he still had his kit.

  Across the table, Tara stared at him curiously. He scratched in an exaggerated way at his chest.

  ‘Itch,’ he said to her. ‘Have you checked this aircraft for fleas? I think you might have an infestation.’

  Tara sneered and looked away.

  ‘Oh, forgive me,’ Todd said. ‘I’m being a terrible host. Would you like a drink? Not champagne, I’m afraid.’ He held up the glass and looked into it, at the tiny bubbles. ‘One mouthful of this costs more than most people spend on a car. I wouldn’t waste it on you.’ He seemed calm, but Kieron sensed an undercurrent of anger. It reminded him of the times he and Sam had been confronted by chavs in the shopping centre or the local recreation ground: they’d ask nice questions, like ‘What’s your name?’ and ‘Where are you going?’ but you knew it was just a precursor to them punching you in the gut and then laughing when you crumpled up in pain.