Target Silverclaw (9 page)

Agent K struggled to stand as the MI5 agents around her continued lobbing grenades at the old man. One hit him on the shoulder. Before he could catch it and fling it aside, it detonated. The top half of the android was shredded into strips of plastic and metal, leaving its legs standing, the carpet slippers still on its feet. “The base!” cried Agent K, as loudly as the pain in her chest would allow. “Bring it down! Bring it down!”

The agents turned their machine guns on the aircraft and aimed for the jets. But the base continued to rise, then banked swiftly to soar over the heads of its attackers.

At that moment, a beep sounded in Agent K’s helmet. She flipped down her microphone.

“Hold your fire!” ordered Queen Bee in the laboratory at SWARM HQ. “I repeat, hold your
fire!”

“What?” gasped Agent K, her voice scratchy over the damaged radio in her helmet.

“We’ve had new communications from the other SWARM agents,” Queen Bee continued. “Sir Godfrey Kite and other civilians are on board that aircraft. Do not shoot it down! Do you copy?”

“Logged,” said Agent K. “Cease fire!”

“Queen Bee out.”

“Should we call for medical backup?” suggested Alfred Berners in a low voice.

“Agent K can take care of that,” snapped Queen Bee. “She knows what she’s doing.” The stress of the situation was beginning to affect her in more ways than one. She took a deep breath then turned to Simon Turing and Professor Miller. “Anything from Sirena?”

Simon shook his head.

Professor Miller ran a nervous hand over his bald head. “All data streams show zero. Total deactivation is implied.”

Queen Bee’s expression was grim. “We can’t bring down Silverclaw’s base, Agent K and her men are in a bad way, we’ve lost track of the
androids in London, and Sirena may have been destroyed. The Security Conference begins in just over eight hours’ time. I don’t think it’s any exaggeration to say that the fate of the world rests with our micro-robots aboard that aircraft.”

CHAPTER 9

The morning rush hour was starting in central London. People were streaming in and out of tube stations, wrapped up against the chilly weather.

A few hundred metres from the Palace of Westminster, a stall had been set up. The side of a small van had been opened out and a man was selling coffee and tea. Now that his face had been fully repaired, Mercury 2 would not be detected by his many customers as anything other than a human salesperson.

Over a period of half an hour, four men and two women approached the stall when nobody
else was queueing to be served. Each walked up to the stall and, without a word being exchanged, was given a large cup with a plastic lid. The final one, a man dressed in a smart business suit, was also handed a large rectangular briefcase. As soon as he had walked away, Mercury 2 closed up the van and drove off, disappearing into the dense traffic.

The last customer was Platinum 1, the android who had replaced Sir Godfrey Kite. After Gold Leader had given the androids new orders the night before, they had peeled away their faces and replaced them with completely different ones.

The six androids quietly made their way to a narrow alley behind a nearby restaurant. A rat scurried away as they approached. Pausing to check that they weren’t being watched, they took the lids off their coffee cups. The cups were filled with clips of ammunition and the components of six handguns. Throwing the cups aside, they quickly assembled and loaded the guns. Once they’d hidden the weapons inside their clothes, they left the alley. Platinum 1 carried the heavy
briefcase, containing enough high explosives to demolish half the Palace of Westminster.

A few streets away in Sir Godfrey Kite’s flat, Agent J was talking to SWARM HQ.

“Yes, I’ve had the place locked down for hours,” he said. “I’m the first person in here. There’s no sign of the androids and no clue about where they might be now. I’ve got my armed police looking for them throughout the Palace of Westminster. They all have the androids’ descriptions. There are orders to arrest ‘Sir Godfrey’ on sight, using any means necessary. He’s the one with the highest level of access.”

“Have you located Sirena?” said Queen Bee.

Agent J looked down into the palm of his hand. The robot butterfly lay twisted and motionless.

“I’ve run a quick scan with my phone,” said Agent J. “There’s electrical activity in her CPU, so I think her brain is functioning, but the damage is severe. Hercules or Nero might have survived, but…”

“Keep her safe and bring her back here as soon as you can,” ordered Queen Bee.

“Logged,” said Agent J. “I’ve heard that people are asking where Sir Godfrey is. He’s expected to open the conference. We’re putting out a cover story that he’s ill, but it won’t wash for long.”

“Do your best,” said Queen Bee. “In the meantime, keep your police team on full alert. Silverclaw know they’re being watched.”

“I’m going over to Westminster Hall right away,” said Agent J.

Westminster Hall was the oldest part of the Palace of Westminster. It was a huge room, almost seventy-five metres long, with a wide stone staircase at one end. Its stone floor and walls were topped by a vaulted wooden roof. Way up, almost at roof level, elegantly arched windows ran along each side.

This was the venue for the World Leaders’ Security Conference. The enormous hall echoed with the sounds of government staff, journalists
and foreign officials preparing for the arrival of the sixty-seven delegates. In front of a bank of chairs, white cloths and small floral displays had been placed on a large, circular arrangement of tables. TV news teams were filming reports about the importance of the conference to world peace. Politicians talked with advisers and civil servants.

Agent J weaved his way through the hall, alert for any sign of the six androids. He was becoming increasingly nervous. There was less than half an hour before the first session of the conference. Silverclaw could strike at any moment.

An armed police officer came over to him. “Those other five on the list, sir – the two journalists, two Foreign Office staff and the cleaner.”

“Yes?”

“No sign of any of them. They’re not here, and they’re not at their homes.”

Agent J’s gaze kept darting to the people around him. “They’ll turn up, somehow,” he said. “Every room’s been re-scanned?”

“Twice. We’ve got men in the sewers,
helicopters in the air, marksmen on the roof, ID checks at every door.”

“They know we’re on to them,” said Agent J. “They could try any number of ways to sneak in.”

“Sir, we’re practically inside a stone box,” said the officer. “A bomb outside wouldn’t work, the walls are too thick. They’ve got to get into this very room. And nobody’s getting in here without being X-rayed, ID’d, filmed, questioned, logged and labelled.”

Once the officer had returned to his duties, Agent J called Queen Bee at SWARM HQ.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “I’ve got CCTV and mobile units covering every millimetre of every street within half a mile. Those six androids can’t get anywhere near the building without being recognized. Maybe they’ve decided not to strike today after all?”

“I might be prepared to believe that,” said Queen Bee, “if it wasn’t for the fact that our bugs are currently reporting the Silverclaw base as airborne. It’s heading towards London at high altitude.”

On board the Silverclaw base, the micro-robots were gathered behind the main control console at which Gold Leader was sitting. Hercules had cut three small, perfectly circular holes at different points along the base of the console. Nero and Morph were inside, sending fibre-optic probes into various circuits and components.

“Are you making progress?” said Chopper.

“Negative,” said Nero. “There are lock-outs and coded sequences protecting every individual system.”

“If we manage to crack the guidance controls,” said Morph, “we’d still need to crack the power system, the central computer, the fuel regulators, the communications hub … everything.”

“How long will it take to access the entire ship?” said Chopper.

“Even at maximum processing speed, a minimum of nine hours fourteen minutes,” said Nero. “Plugging our own brains into key points in the computer grid would open up most systems,
but there’s a high risk of failure.”

“What sort of high risk?” said Hercules.

“There is a 78.9 per cent probability that we would all be fused into lumps of metal and plastic,” said Nero. “Not a successful end to our mission. Now that I’ve examined this ship’s data streams I have discovered several things that may be of use to us. Firstly, there is an escape capsule located close to the cryonic section. It is only small, but we could use it to get the frozen humans to safety.”

“If we can break into the cryonic controls,” said Morph.

“Secondly,” said Nero, “the androids being used in London require careful control. On this ship, two computers and three basic androids are used to monitor each one. Because of this complexity, introducing enough corrupted code into the androids’ information feeds should enable us to shut them down permanently.”

“If we can break into the transmission controls,” said Morph.

“That might become top priority,” said Chopper. “I’ve just contacted SWARM HQ.
Our mission objectives are to rescue the frozen humans, gain control of this base and capture Drake and Gold Leader. However Agent J and his security team are on full alert. There is no sign of the androids. The possibility of deactivating them from here needs to be investigated. Nero, that can be your job.”

“Logged,” said Nero. “I’ll need to get inside the computer bank on the other side of this control room. Hercules, your assistance please.”

Nero disconnected from the console and the two robots scuttled into the shadows.

“Widow, Morph, Sabre,” said Chopper. “We need to find another way to access the rest of the ship’s systems – and quickly.”

“Where do we start?” said Morph.

Inside Westminster Hall, the first session of the Security Conference was under way. Britain’s prime minister was addressing the seated delegates, in Sir Godfrey Kite’s absence. Behind the delegates sat teams of officials. The prime
minister welcomed the visitors and expressed the hope that the conference would be a turning point in the long road towards peace and the defeat of terrorism.

The entire area outside the Palace of Westminster was being closely monitored by a small army of MI5 agents, police and security guards. In nearby control centres, the footage from CCTV cameras was monitored and assessed by both humans and computers.

The six androids took no notice of anything the police were doing. One by one they walked calmly up St Margaret’s Street until they were level with the area of lawn beside Westminster Hall.

As soon as they were all in position, they turned to face the Palace of Westminster.

Suddenly, miniature jet thrusters hidden inside their legs fired up. Like humanoid rockets, they shot up into the air, smoke and flames issuing from under their feet.

Yells and screams erupted all around. Agent J, keeping watch outside the hall, realized at once what was going on. He spun on his heels and ran back inside.