Divine Madness (31 page)

‘Lauren?’ James gasped, straightening out his bits as he scrambled through the rubber strips and stood up.

She sat against the side of the building with blood trickling out the corner of her mouth. Rat handed her a bunch of tissues.

‘You OK?’ James asked guiltily.

‘Shit happens,’ Lauren said, mopping her face as she stood up.

James cut between a couple of Ford pickups and stepped across the open tarmac to the dusty Toyota truck. As Lauren and Rat climbed into the passenger side, James felt intimidated by the half-metre of steering wheel and broad expanse of dashboard in front of him. With power steering, power brakes and an automatic gearbox it was no more difficult than driving a car, but it was double the length of any vehicle he’d taken on before and the ground seemed a hell of a long way down.

He turned the ignition key, dropped the handbrake and dabbed the accelerator to roll out of the parking spot.

‘Could you drive any slower, James?’ Lauren sniped, slurring because she had tissues packed in her mouth to stop the bleeding.

‘Better safe than sorry,’ James said, picking up speed as he pulled out from under the canopy and turned on to the three-hundred-metre slip road that led up to the turret.

It was starting to turn dark, so it took a second to realise that the drawbridge on the outside of the turret was being winched up by its thick chain.

‘No
 
way
,’ Rat yelled, kicking the dashboard with both feet.

James thought about hitting the gas, but the dropdown gate had been built to withstand an apocalypse and the truck wouldn’t even make a dent in it.

James looked at his bloody sister in the middle seat. ‘What do you reckon now?’

‘I dunno,’ Lauren shrugged. ‘Leg it out of this truck and find a safe place to hide, I guess.’

The sky was black as the small plane headed for a beach landing on the Wessel Islands, a two-hundred-kilometre chain that stretched out from Australia’s northern coast. Dana had found herself a single seat at the back, two rows clear of Eve and Nina.

She knew there was a chance ASIS had successfully tracked the flight and had a team waiting to ambush them when they landed, but she doubted it. Most likely, everyone would assume that Barry Cox had cancelled the attack and gone to ground after discovering that his team was under surveillance.

So it was all down to Dana. At first, the idea scared her. She didn’t know anything about tankers or LNG facilities, but guessed that there had to be at least fifty lives at stake. The longer she sat at the back of the plane in her trademark position – arms folded, legs outstretched – thinking about it, the more confident she got.

CHERUB training teaches you that surprise is everything. Barry had thrown her off-stride with the double murder and the sudden revelation that the attack was going to take place in a different country, a thousand kilometres from where everyone was expecting it. But she’d have surprise on
 
her
 
side during the four-hour ride to Indonesia.

Once the boat was underway, people would let their guard down; maybe even try getting some sleep if things weren’t too tense. Dana didn’t have any weapons, but reckoned she’d find plenty on a boat: fishing hooks, ropes, kitchen utensils in the galley.

Dana was fifteen and had lived on CHERUB campus since she was seven. She’d been baked, frozen, half drowned and shot at during training exercises, she’d read eight-hundred-page computer hacking textbooks, learned to speak Russian and had her nose rubbed in puke by a sadistic training instructor; but all she had to show for it were a string of missions that had fizzled out or only been partially successful.

Now Dana had a chance to prove it had all been worthwhile. She felt like the last eight years of her life had all been building up to what was going to happen in the next few hours.

*

Chloe sat in a car at the roadside, with the Ark glowing serenely two kilometres ahead. There was no hint of the brewing trouble. The helicopter attack was due in nine minutes. She had a satellite phone at her ear and could barely hear the man talking to her, because his voice was being patched through from a helicopter that was thirty kilometres off, but closing in rapidly.

‘Why won’t you listen to me?’ Chloe shouted. ‘There are more than a hundred children inside the Ark. I have two undercover operatives who have positively identified an array of heavy weaponry.’

‘We’re aware of their capability, Miss,’ the TAG unit commander shouted back patronisingly. ‘This raid has been planned carefully. We’ve been in training for two months.’

‘You’re
 
not
 
listening to me,’ Chloe yelled, growing increasingly exasperated. ‘I have reason to believe that Joel Regan is dead. You’re attacking at the worst possible time. The Ark has been locked down tight and the Survivors are in an emergency state of readiness.’

‘Well, I haven’t received any such intelligence …’

‘Yes you
 
have
. I just told you.’

‘… from credible sources,’ the commando added sourly. ‘We’ve trained for this raid. We’re an elite unit. Now I know you’re worried about your undercover operatives, but this plan has been authorised at Prime Ministerial level.’

Chloe groaned. ‘Is there anyone from ASIS up there in the chopper with you?’

The TAG commander seemed only too pleased to get Chloe off his back and handed the radio across without another word.

‘Who are you exactly?’ the ASIS officer asked stiffly.

Chloe wasn’t about to reveal the existence of CHERUB to a helicopter full of commandos. ‘I’m on attachment from British intelligence,’ she explained. ‘I have two agents inside the Ark and they’re telling me that Eleanor Regan has issued weapons to every able-bodied adult. If you go into that Ark tonight, you’re going to face a significantly – I repeat
 
significantly
 
– more hostile reaction than the one you’re expecting.’

‘Miss Blake,’ the ASIS officer said bluntly. ‘I’m not even aware of any undercover operation inside the Ark and there’s no way we can pull out at this stage. If you’re still in contact with your undercover officers, I suggest you tell them to find refuge. The raid
 
will
 
commence in five minutes. If you feel we’re behaving inappropriately, you can file an official complaint after the event.’

‘Arsehole,’ Chloe gasped, losing her temper. ‘I just hope you live that long.’

Chloe ended the call and threw the satellite phone down on the passenger seat in frustration. After a groan, she grabbed another radio that was resting on the glovebox flap.

‘James, do you copy?’

‘Loud and clear. What’s going on, are they still coming?’

‘Looks that way,’ Chloe said. ‘Eight on the dot. What’s your situation?’

‘Same as,’ James said. ‘Eleanor put out an announcement over the Tannoy that Joel died and told everyone to protect themselves from a possible attack by devils. Everyone here is tooled up and running around dressed like Action Man. When they hear those choppers they’re gonna think it’s the bloody apocalypse.’

‘What kind of weapons are you seeing?’

‘Automatic rifles mostly,’ James said. ‘AK-47s, M16 carbines. There’s heavier stuff being set up inside the turrets: twenty-millimetre cannons and rocket-propelled grenades.’

‘Where are you now?’

‘We’re in a classroom on the first floor of the adult education centre. Rat took us here because it’s deserted: it’s been mothballed since they stopped letting guests inside the Ark.’

‘OK,’ Chloe said. ‘Can you find somewhere with better cover, like an underground bunker or something?’

‘Yeah,’ James said. ‘Rat says there’s a bunch of tunnels right under here. But we won’t be able to see what’s going on once we’re down there.’

‘I wouldn’t worry about that,’ Chloe said. ‘We’ve got total communication breakdown. The Special Forces commander won’t listen to me and the ASIS officers up there haven’t been briefed on the CHERUB mission. In the end I lost my rag and ended up swearing at them.’

‘That’s not like you,’ James said.

‘Sheer bloody frustration,’ Chloe groaned. ‘Just get yourselves undercover. Keep calm, keep safe and don’t try anything stupid.’

‘Would I?’ James said, making a weak stab at humour, even though he felt more like throwing up from nerves. ‘I’ll be in touch as soon as there’s something to tell you.’

Chloe took the radio away from her ear. For a moment she thought she’d left the volume on and was listening to static, then she realised it was the distant pulsing of helicopter blades. She looked at the digital clock in the dashboard: 19:57.

*

The beach was illuminated with flood lamps, powered from a diesel generator. Barry made a gentle landing on sand levelled by the outgoing tide. As Dana unbuckled her seat-belt, a man dressed in deck shoes and loud shorts came jogging towards the small aircraft. She’d not met Mike Evans before, so she had no idea it was him.

As they clambered from the aircraft on to the dark beach and walked the stiffness out of their legs, Mike shook Barry’s hand and spoke with a Texan accent.

‘Hey Barry, y’all set?’

‘So far so good,’ Barry nodded. ‘What’s been going on up here?’

‘Your boat’s all set to run. Weather’s good, the sea couldn’t be any calmer, so you can drive her flat out if needs be. But watch the fuel gauges ’cos you’re squirting eight litres a minute into the turbines when she goes above fifty knots and you won’t make it back to Oz at that rate.’

‘What about the radar?’ Nina added.

‘Not a dickey bird,’ Mike said. ‘The systems on that boat are state of the art. There’s nothing unexpected on the screen, either in the sea or up in the air. I’m ninety-nine per cent sure nobody followed you out of Darwin.’

Mike turned his head towards the girls before continuing. ‘And why haven’t you introduced me to these two beautiful young ladies?’

Barry smiled. ‘This is Eve and Dana, and I’m extremely proud to have them on our team tonight.’

Mike grinned and shook both their hands.

‘Are you coming on the boat with us?’ Dana asked, not happy at the prospect of having another crewmate to take out.

‘I’m sure your company would be a delight, but I’m gonna see you off in the boat. Then I’m gonna pack up the landing lights and fly the plane out of here.’

‘That’s a pity,’ Dana lied, creeped out by the way Mike was flirting with her.

Mike led everyone on a trek across the beach. They walked for a couple of minutes, when they reached a wooden jetty with a large powerboat moored off the end.

It was dark, so they were less than twenty metres away from the boat when Dana got a proper look. It was extremely cool in a menacing kind of way: twin black hulls with chromed deck fittings. The whole shape was streamlined for high speed and a dinghy – identical to the one they’d trained in that morning – was lashed to a ramp at the end of the rear deck.

Eve and Dana straddled over the deck rail and climbed aboard. As Barry ran up a flight of steps to the bridge, Mike began unwinding the ropes tethering the boat to the jetty.

‘Free to go,’ Mike shouted, standing to attention and saluting the three females. ‘Good luck out there.’

The catamaran lurched as the turbine inside each hull gulped down the water it would propel out of the stern in a high-speed jet. As Dana headed into the mess room beneath the bridge, Barry cranked up the power and two blasts of spray erupted five metres into the air behind the boat.

The emergency siren inside the Ark began to whine as soon as the helicopters were heard. A minute later it cut to a crackly Tannoy announcement from Eleanor Regan.

‘Angels in the southern turrets have sighted helicopters. My father’s death has emboldened the devils and encouraged them to attack. They will soon be upon us. Stand firm, defend your positions and remember that our strength comes from God.’

Rat gave Lauren and James a wry grin. ‘I bet those brave words came from about four levels below ground.’

The three kids had their faces at a window in the adult education block. The sky was black, but you could tell the helicopters were close from the vibrating glass.

‘Can we make it down to the tunnels in time?’ James asked.

‘Depends how long we’ve got,’ Rat shrugged. ‘We’ll have to head out of this building and run about thirty metres, then down a flight of steps.’

Lauren spoke awkwardly, because she still had a wad of bloody tissue jammed into her mouth to stop her lip bleeding. ‘I don’t fancy it.’

‘Me neither,’ James said. ‘The last thing we want is to get caught out in the open. We’re better off staying put.’

All three kids ducked instinctively as a helicopter skimmed the roof. Two more came into view, looming over the courtyard at the rear of the Holy Church, their positions exposed by the powerful lights illuminating the spires.

One of the helicopters switched its searchlight on, flooding the paved area beneath it with light. It was a big beast, military green, with a dozen commandos standing in open doorways, ready to spring out when it touched down.