Alien Storm (11 page)

Sarah, I'm sorry
.

Eco appeared behind them and gave Alex a push into the warehouse with the end of the gun. The gangly boy circled his captives with the weapon raised, looking over at Major Bright as he did so.

“I caught the intruders, sir,” he said.

Bright nodded at him approvingly. “You're a good soldier, Eco. Keep watch on them while I deal with this one.” He turned back to Sarah and removed two objects from his pocket: a tiny bottle of liquid and a syringe. “You'll soon learn that cooperating with me is the only way forward, Sarah. Until then, I think it's best if you sleep this one out with your brother.”

Sarah rose into a crouch as Bright slid the syringe through the bottle lid and filled it. He advanced again, the needle pointed towards her like a weapon.

“When you wake up, we'll be one big, happy family,” he said just before he lunged at her. Sarah tried to sidestep, but he caught her arm, yanking her round.

“Robert,” she yelled desperately, “get them out of here!”

At the other end of the warehouse, her brother lifted his head fractionally and gripped Wei and Alex's arms. A split second later the three of them disappeared. Eco gasped in shock and lowered the gun. Major Bright cursed and turned back to Sarah, eyes narrowed.

“Very clever,” he hissed. “But
you're
not going anywhere.”

Sarah cried out as he jabbed the needle into her upper arm. However, before he could depress the plunger, the front door of the warehouse exploded, as the truck smashed through at high speed. Behind the wheel, Nestor drove headlong towards them. Bright looked round in surprise as the vehicle came at him. Sarah slipped from his grasp and ran. At the last minute, Bright teleported across the warehouse and reappeared at Eco's side.

The truck ploughed on, clipping one of the decaying concrete supports and toppling it. As Nestor sent the truck round in a tight turn, a massive section of the roof crashed down at the back of the warehouse, sending Bright and Eco running for cover. The vehicle's wheels screeched as it headed back for Sarah. The passenger door flew open and Alex threw out his arm.

“Sarah, grab on!” he cried as the truck approached.

Moving fast, she ran for it and caught his hand. With all his strength, Alex pulled her into the cab as the truck sped out of the warehouse. It flew through the gap in the door and hit the road, not slowing for a second.

YOU CAN RUN
, Major Bright's mind-scream echoed after them,
BUT YOU CAN'T HIDE!

Sarah collapsed on the seat as the passenger door swung shut beside her. Looking into the back of the truck, she saw Robert lying on one of the seats along the side beside Wei and Louise. Octavio looked round and nodded to show her brother was okay.

“Hold still,” Alex said beside her. He grabbed the syringe that was still sticking in her arm and pulled it out smoothly. The liquid sedative inside had not been delivered. He grinned at her. “Do you always cut it that close?”

“Usually,” Sarah replied, breathing heavily after the ordeal with Bright. Composing herself, she reached into her pocket and removed the mobile phone her father had given her months before. She'd only turned it on a couple of times since leaving HIDRA, having heard that phone signals could be easily traced – almost like carrying a homing beacon around with you. Whether that was true or not, she needed HIDRA now. Bright wouldn't be far behind.

“Turn left here,” Alex said to Nestor. “We'll never make the main airport, but I have another way out of the country.”

“Let me guess,” Sarah said. “Makarov.”

Alex shrugged. “Do you have a better plan?”

“He's right, Sarah,” Nestor said. “We don't have a choice.”

Sarah nodded, but gave Alex a look. “This Makarov guy had better be everything you say he is.”

Not waiting for Alex's response, she turned on the phone and speed-dialled the emergency number Rachel Andersen had given her. It went through to an automated message and Sarah said the code-word –
sleeper
. The line connected. Rachel picked up after two rings.

“Andersen,” she snapped.

“If you want Major Bright,” Sarah said urgently, “you'd better come get him now.”

“Got company!” Nestor announced. In the side mirror the lights of a speeding Range Rover appeared.

Bright was giving chase.

15

“Sarah, where is Major Bright?” Rachel demanded down the phone line, not wasting a second. In the background there was a commotion, as if people were springing into action all around.

“Right now, he's following us in a four-wheel drive,” Sarah said, checking the side mirror as the Range Rover sped towards the back of their truck. “Getting closer by the minute. We're heading south—”

“It's okay,” Rachel interrupted. “Our satellite has already locked onto your mobile signal. We're tracking you. Just keep that phone turned on.”

Sarah was suddenly glad she'd been cautious with the mobile all those months.

“A Special Forces team with be with you in five minutes,” Rachel continued as the Range Rover rammed the back of the truck. Nestor struggled to control the wheel, but managed to keep the truck on the road.

“We might not have five minutes!” Sarah exclaimed. “Got to go.”

She killed the line and placed the phone in her pocket.

“We're about a kilometre from the airport,” Alex said. “We're going to make it!”

“You sure about that?” Nestor said, nodding towards his window. Sarah and Alex looked over and saw that the Range Rover had drawn level with them. Major Bright looked across, red eyes blazing with fury. He twisted the wheel and slammed the Range Rover against the side of the truck. The truck juddered but was too large to be put off course by Bright's smaller vehicle. The Range Rover pulled away again, its passenger side crumpled from the impact.

“Just keep your foot on the accelerator,” Sarah ordered Nestor. “He's doing more damage to his vehicle than ours.”

“What's he up to now?” Alex asked, craning his neck to see into their pursuer's vehicle. Eco had reached across to take the wheel. In that instant, Major Bright disappeared and the teenager jumped into the driver's seat, managing to keep control of the Range Rover somehow.

“He teleported!” Nestor exclaimed. “Where did he go?”

A thud from the top of the truck answered their question.

“Something's on the roof!” Louise cried from the back.

Sarah looked round sharply at a sound of tearing metal. Through the open hatch in the back wall of the cab she could see into the rear of the truck. Louise and the others cowered as a metre square section of the roof rolled back like the lid of a sardine tin. Major Bright looked through the gap with an insane expression on his face.

SURPRISE!

“Wei!” Sarah yelled through to the back. “Light him up!”

After his ordeal at the warehouse, the Chinese kid didn't need telling twice. Raising both hands towards the roof, Wei let loose a stream of fire that engulfed Bright. With a howl of pain, the major reared backwards as his clothes caught alight. Then he threw himself off the side of the truck. Sarah stuck her head out the window and watched him rolling across the road to extinguish the flames. Finally he came to a smoky rest as the truck sped away. The Range Rover braked and came to a stop beside him.

“Wei, you did it!” Louise cried, throwing her arms around her friend.

Wei blew on his fingers. “Payback.”

Alex pointed to the right. Beyond a chain-link fence on the side of the road were runways and hangars. “There's the airport. Go through that gate. Don't stop!”

Nestor gunned the accelerator. The truck hit a set of double gates plastered with
Danger: No Entry
signs and sped through onto the tarmac. Although the airport was small, designed only for the light aircraft that were parked in the distance near the traffic control tower, the runway itself seemed a massive, empty area. Nestor scanned the space before them as the truck thundered on.

“Where to now?” he asked. From the direction of the buildings a warning siren sounded. “We seem to have drawn attention to ourselves.”

“Keep going,” Alex replied. “Our lift is here.”

Sure enough, the roar of a jet engine became apparent as they hit the runway. Looking towards the breaking dawn, Sarah saw the shape of a plane approaching. It was sleek and black, with strangely angled wings that gave it the appearance of something between a small passenger jet and a stealth bomber. As it came lower, Alex pointed ahead.

“It's going to land over there,” he said.

Nestor followed the path of the jet as it touched down on a runway heading diagonally away from them. The plane continued to roll for several hundred metres before slowing to a halt.

“Put your foot down, Nestor,” Sarah said. “We're almost—”

That's when something thudded against the roof of the truck cab. All three in the front looked up and then at each other with one thought:
Bright
.

A split second later the major's hand smashed down on the windscreen, shattering it. Grasping the glass with his fingers, the major pulled out the entire pane and threw it to one side. Bright twisted his head down to look into the cab. His face was red from the fire and his closely-cropped hair burned away at the front, making him look even madder than before.

DID YOU THINK YOU'D LOSE ME THAT EASILY?

Nestor slammed on the brakes and their attacker had to hold on to stop from being thrown off the truck again. As Nestor stepped on the accelerator again, Bright was thrown in the other direction, completely off balance. It was only a momentary reprieve, however, as he started pounding the top of the cab with his fists and feet. Sarah and the others ducked as the frame crumpled around them and the remaining windows imploded.

“We're not going to make it!” Alex cried, looking at the jet through the open front. It was still a few hundred metres away. “He'll tear the whole truck apart before we get there!”

“If he doesn't roll us first!” Nestor replied, struggling to control the wheel. As Bright smashed the top of the truck to pieces, the vehicle rocked right and left, becoming dangerously unstable.

“Roll us,”
Sarah said. “That's not a bad idea.”

Nestor shot her a look.

“Everybody hold on back there!” Sarah yelled through to the rear, before turning back to Nestor. “When I say, pull the wheel to the right as hard as you can.”

Nestor shook his head. “That doesn't sound like a very good plan, Sarah.”

Sarah put on her seat belt and grabbed the handbrake. Bright's fist ripped through the top of the cab and his arm snaked in, reaching blindly at them. Alex reared back in his seat away from the grasping hand.

“No time!” Sarah yelled. “Just do it, Nestor! Now!”

Nestor wrenched the wheel round. Sarah pulled the handbrake on full. The truck wheels locked out with a deafening squeal and the vehicle went into an uncontrollable spin. As the brakes stopped the wheels, the conflict of forces flipped the truck onto its top and the momentum sent it rolling along the runway. Sarah held on for dear life as the remains of the cab shattered around her and the world tumbled round and round. Through the window she saw Major Bright thrown from the roof and dashed against the tarmac. He disappeared from view as the truck rolled on.

Then, just as Sarah thought they would all be crushed by the seemingly unstoppable tumbling of the truck, it ended. With a groan of twisting metal, the machine came to a rest, right way up, in the middle of the runway.

“Are we alive?” Nestor asked quietly from the other side of the cab.

Sarah looked round, still stunned. The top of the cab was pushed down at a diagonal angle, obscuring the view ahead. To her right Alex was unclipping his seat belt. His nose was bleeding, but he seemed otherwise unharmed. Nestor was white as a sheet and staring forwards with his hands locked to the wheel.

“We have to get out of here,” she said, reaching past Alex to give Nestor a shake. “Wake up!”

The Colombian boy came to his senses and pushed open the door. Sarah found her own door jammed shut, so she slid across the cab and exited after the others. As they ran round the back of the truck, she took a moment to survey the damage the roll had inflicted. The vehicle was a battered mess and looked roughly half the size it had when they'd started out – as if it had been through some kind of compacter.

“We really trashed this ride,” Alex said with a low whistle.

“Get the back open!” Sarah commanded, but Octavio and Louise were already jumping out. To Sarah's relief, Robert followed after, still dazed but unharmed by the look of things.

“We need to get out of here,” Alex said urgently, holding out a hand to help Wei down.

Sarah looked at the plane sitting on the tarmac just a hundred metres from where the truck had come to a stop. Then she looked back in the direction from which they had come. In the middle of the runway Major Bright lay motionless, face down, one arm twisted round at an unhealthy angle. In the distance, the Range Rover approached at high speed with Eco behind the wheel.

“Is Bright dead?” Nestor asked at her side.

As if to answer his question, the major stirred, pushing himself onto all fours with a howl of pain. Sarah winced as he wrenched his dislocated arm back into its socket and rose to his feet. His head jerked round at them.

“Run!” she yelled.

The group broke in the direction of the plane. Alex scooped up Wei and threw him over his shoulder while Nestor helped Robert along. Looking back, Sarah saw Bright gaining on them inexorably. The plane was still fifty metres away. The back door was open, steps leading up – but she knew Bright would catch them before they got there.

“Wait,” she cried, grabbing Louise and Octavio's arms. “We have to slow him down!”