Halfhead - Страница 59

Will just smiled, shook his head, and pushed through the doors into the darkened facility.

He switched the Whomper’s lightsight on, painting the place in soft green monotone. It wouldn’t be long before they brought the backup generators online and Will was determined to get as far as he could before that happened. He charged up the main corridor, trying to remember as much of the layout as he could from Ken Peitai’s tour. Cat was hot on his heels, sweeping the Bull Thrummer back and forth while Brian brought up the rear, tracker in one hand Whomper in the other.

‘Talk to me, Brian.’

‘Up to the end then left…no right. Shite, the thing’s all over the shop, must be the jammer!’

Will kicked his way though the doors at the end of the corridor and swept the area with green light.

There was a large woman standing beside a vending machine, a plastic of something hot and dark in her hand. ‘What the hell’s goin’ on?’

Will pointed the Whomper straight at her and she had to squint in the lightsight’s glare, her orange hair bleached green in the targeting beam.

‘Buchan, is that you?’ She hobbled forward a step. One leg was encased in plaster to the knee, but she still stood like a rugby player.

‘On the floor now!’

‘I don’t understand-’

‘Get your arse on the ground before I blow it off!’ Will thumbed the trigger, not with enough pressure to fire, just enough to make the weapon snarl in his hands. The woman dropped to the floor fast, coffee splashing across the dark terrazzo.

Will jabbed the Whomper into the back of her neck. ‘Where is she?’

‘I don’t know what you-’

‘Will?’ That was Brian, sounding worried. ‘What you doin’?’

‘This was one of the pickup team that got her.’ Will said. ‘This is the one that put me in the hospital.’ He turned his attention back to the redhead and made the Whomper growl again. ‘I SAID WHERE IS SHE?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about-I don’t even work here!’ She covered her head with her hands, face pressed against the floor. ‘Please don’t hurt me…’

Brian placed a hand on Will’s shoulder. ‘Hud oan. You don’t want to do this. You’re no’ that kind of person.’ Brian gently pushed the Whomper’s barrel away from the big woman. ‘But I am.’ He kicked her in the ribs. Hard. Something dark splashed out of her mouth and Brian kicked her again.

‘Right, sunshine,’ he said balling his fist and grabbing the coughing, gasping woman by the throat. ‘We know who you are.’ He slammed the fist into her face, spreading her nose like meat paste. ‘You know who we are.’ He loosened a couple of teeth for her. ‘And you know where our friend is. Okey doke?’

‘Jesus, Brian!’

‘No’ now Will, I’m workin’.’ He grabbed her arm and twisted it round through ninety degrees, locking the elbow. ‘How about a nice wee game of This Little Piggy?’ Brian took a firm hold of her index finger. ‘Where is she?’

‘I don’t know what-’

‘This little piggy went to market.’ He jerked it back. A soft ‘crack’ sounded and she squealed.

‘Where is she?’

‘Bastard! I don’t-’

‘This little piggy stayed at home.’ Crack.

‘Ah Jesus! I don’t-’

‘This little piggy had roast beef.’ Crack.

‘Aaaagghh!’

‘And this little piggy-’

‘She’s in the main interrogation suite! Down the corridor, first left, second right!’

Will jumped past them, leaving them in darkness.

‘There you go,’ said Brian, as if he was about to give the ginger-haired wifie a lollypop, ‘that wasnae so hard now was it?’ He let go of her hand and she pulled it against her chest, sobbing. Poor wee soul.

‘Come on, Cat.’ He struck a heroic pose. ‘Will’s only gonnae get himself in all kinds of shite if we’re no’ there to bail him out.’

‘First things first.’ Constable MacDonald placed the barrel of the Bull Thrummer against the woman’s battered head. ‘You have beautiful eyes.’ One second the big-boned woman was there, the next there was nothing left but a dark, sticky mist that tasted of iron.

Brian stood, mouth hanging open, eyes wide. ‘But…You…’

‘What?’ Cat hoisted the weapon. ‘Like we’re going to leave her alive to raise the alarm and shoot us in the back? I don’t think so.’

Brian watched her disappear up the corridor after Will. Jesus: they were a lot tougher in the Bluecoats than they’d been when he was a sergeant.

The lights flickered on above Will’s head. They’d got the backup generators online already. So much for all the cameras being out.

He pulled up outside the double doors marked ‘HOSPITALITY SUITE’. The roar of a Bull Thrummer sounded behind him, swiftly answered by the bark of a Whomper. More gunfire echoed down the corridor. The lights were on and someone was home.

Will stabbed his throat-mike: static crackled in his earpiece-the jammer was still going.

Cat sprinted around the corner, screeched to a halt and yelled, ‘Down!’ The hallway sizzled with blue light as her Bull Thrummer bellowed again. Brian came scrabbling after her; the hair on the back of his head a lot shorter than it had been fifty-seven seconds ago. He slammed into the wall at Cat’s feet, turned, and fired his Whomper back the way he’d come.

‘BRIAN!’ Will yelled over the noise, ‘KILL THE JAMMER, I NEED TO CALL FOR BACKUP!’

Agent Alexander fumbled in his pack and the static filling Will’s ear died.

‘Control, this is Hunter, put me through to Lieutenant Brand!’

‘Sir? Half the city is looking for you, Director-’

‘Put me through to Lieutenant Brand, now!’

‘Yes, sir!’

Brian dug a Sticky Willy out of the pack, pulled the pin and hurled it down the corridor. Someone shouted ‘Fire in the-’ and a wet whoomping noise rattled the ceiling tiles as everything in the blast radius was coated in a thick layer of polymer adhesive.

Cat’s Bull Thrummer roared again.

Will’s earpiece popped and a tired, irritated voice came through loud and clear: ‘This better be bloody important!’

‘Emily, shut up and listen. We’re in a secret research facility under Sherman House. You know the one, you’ve been here.’

‘What the hell are you doing there? You told me you were going home!’

‘We’ve found DS Cameron, but we’re under heavy fire.’ He ducked as a section of wall exploded into hot plastic shrapnel.

Cat MacDonald heaved the Bull Thrummer back and forth, teeth bared.

Someone screamed.

Will fired a couple of shots into the thick cloud of Thrummer dust. ‘Lock onto my signal and get your team down here ASAP!’

‘Damn it, Will, You lied to me!’

‘I didn’t have any choice. When they caught us they stuck listening bugs under our skin. Trackers too. If I’d told you anything they would have known.’

‘They put listeners under my skin and you didn’t tell me? You should have told me!’

‘Just get yourself down here pronto, OK?’

There was a pause and in the background Will thought he heard the Dragonfly’s engines changing pitch, though it was difficult to tell over the roar of Cat’s Bull Thrummer.

‘ETA two minutes thirty.’

‘Thanks Emily, I owe you one.’

‘You should have told me.’ She killed the link.

Will sighed and turned to face the hospitality suite doors. Brian and Cat were keeping the facility’s guards busy; Emily and her team were on their way; all he had to do now was rescue Jo.

How hard could it be?

The Whomper sang in his hands as he drew back his foot and kicked the door off its hinges.

28

Light, so bright it was painful. Will skidded to a halt, blinking, one hand up in front of his eyes. Nothing was visible past the broken door-the rest of the room hidden behind the lights shining straight into his eyes.

‘Mr Hunter,’ said a familiar, mid-Atlantic accent, ‘hey, nice to see you again. Drop the gun.’ Will snapped the Whomper round, pointing it straight at the voice.

‘Whoa there! You shoot, you blow a hole in the lovely DS Cameron! Want to see her head explode when you whomp it? You want that? Cos if you do, go right ahead.’

Will squinted into the glare. ‘Jo, are you OK?’

Silence.

Then Ken said, ‘Don’t be rude, Sweetheart, the nice man asked you a question.’

‘Kaaaaaaaarl thhhfugin basstdd Will, shoothfuger…’ Her voice was weak, slurred and swollen, but it was Jo alright.

‘I want to see her!’

‘OK, but remember: you use that cannon of yours, she’s not gonna need a party hat for Christmas.’ The light flickered and dimmed.

The shapes were fuzzy at first, just blobs, reflected again and again in the wraparound mirror, but as Will watched they resolved themselves into three figures: a gorilla in fatigues standing against the back wall, carrying a Thrummer; Ken Peitai standing beside one of the interrogation chairs; Jo strapped into it.

Her face was swollen and bruised, her left eye little more than a puffy, prune-coloured slit. Blood caked the side of her mouth, her lip split like the skin on an over-ripe tomato. Half a dozen wires were taped to her head and two intravenous lines ran from her arm to a small, cat-sized box festooned with little blinking lights.

Will twisted the focus on the Whomper’s lightsight until the green point sat dead between Ken’s shifty eyes. ‘Bye, Ken.’

Peitai flinched. ‘Henderson!’

The gorilla in the suit hauled his Thrummer round and Will shot him in the face. The Whomper’s bark echoed around the circular room as Henderson’s body twitched its way to the floor, fountaining bright red up the mirrored wall.