Chapter 9 as it appeared

The spotlight swept on.

Tarrok rose and continued towards the perimeter. His men shadowed him silently.

Like an iceberg, 90% of the bunker was underground. All that was visible above ground was a squat concrete square, with one entrance. Tarrok had not been able to acquire access codes through his contacts. Once again they would need a gizmo. Corporal Owen slid silently up to the door. They'd waylaid one of the garrison in the nearby town and left him drugged up and silent in brothel. They had his prints, his retinal scan, pheromone trace and several voice recordings - more than enough to get them past standard biometrics. Owen grinned as the door swung silently open. She gave Tarrok the thumbs up. The group slipped through and then silently split into pre-arranged teams. They needed to cover and secure as much of the base as possible in as little time.

Tarrok headed for the server room. Owen for the security point. Tarrok was halfway there before the alarms started sounding. He cursed, but it was not unexpected. They had known there was only a small chance they could take out the entire garrison silently without triggering any automated alarm systems. They were inside now, that meant they were still within operational parameters and now they could use comms.

"Report!" Tarrok barked.

"Barrack Room secured!" came a tinny voice. It would be Captain Becker, the barrack room was his responsibility, but they'd put voice distortion into the comms head-sets. Tarrok didn't want any of this traced back to him or his allies if he managed to get out in one piece. If someone was recording their comms traffic, he wanted to give them as little as possible.

"Trouble in the mess!" said another voice. "But we have them pinned down."

"Hold them!" ordered Tarrok.

"Security room secured. Shutting down outside links now. I'm afraid an alert has got out."

"Never mind. Make sure as few extra details gets out as possible."

The server room door was up ahead. The red light above it was flashing, indicating it was in lockdown. No amount of biometrics were going to get him inside.

"Red Team, can you kill the lock down?" asked Tarrok while Corporal Nguyen, his explosives expert began examining the ducting in the ceiling.

"Working on it," came the reply from the Security Room.

Tarrok glanced at the time stamp on his headset. They had six minutes, 27 seconds from alert to the touch down of the first parachute team.

The explosion was small and contained, but loud enough in the corridor to make Tarrok's ears ring. He made an impatient gesture at Nguyen who just shrugged and pointed to the neat hole blown in the wall, leading into the server room. The big Achilles heel of the old legacy systems the base was running: they generated a lot of heat and the heat had to be got out of the room somehow. That was the weak point they'd exploited.

Swiftly Tarrok motioned to Nguyen to help him up and he crawled through the small opening and into the room. He nearly laughed when he saw the set up. Three dozen PCs, the like of which he hadn't seen in decades, crowded the shelves of the room. Tarrok felt a rush of nostalgia at the sight of the Intel logos and the flashing Windows icons on the monitor screens.

Then he wired up the remaining explosives, set the timer to 30 seconds and exited the room. "Fall back," he shouted just as the sound of the explosion echoed through the ventilation hole.

They'd rehearsed the retreat in practice. They should all be out of the base in under a minute. Tarrok glanced at the time stamp again. They would then have 43 seconds before the first parachute landed.

Once free of the base his men scattered. They would vanish into the woods and the hillside and make their way to the rendezvous on the far side of the mountain by midday tomorrow. Time was tight. There would be a 7 second gap between reinforcements arriving and Tarrok's men reaching their "own" perimeter and that didn't factor in the powder snow.

Tarrok waded through the woods knee-deep in the soft snow and cursed once again the snowfall the previous day. A delight for the skiers, not that there were any round here; a nightmare for their operation. He'd nearly called if off, but they were working in a window of time before someone wondered why the schematics for the base had been pulled recently, and why various items of military equipment had gone missing, and while he still had the men he most trusted available. There was the sound of gunfire behind him. Tarrok weighed the time lost switching into his skis with the time he was losing due to the snow. His headset ran a calculation. 500 yards to the special perimeter. At the speed he was going that was nearly a minute of effort. In practice all his men could switch to skis within 10 seconds.

"Switch to skis," he barked the order, even as he was pulling the small glass fibre package from his back. He flicked the activation switch and watched it expand into skis. He snapped his boots into the fixings, expanded the sticks and set off for the perimeter again. Projected time of arrival was now 23 seconds. Small lights were beginning to flash up in his head set display as men crossed the perimeter. He felt a surge of relief as he crossed it himself and then counted the seconds as the last five dots followed. He breathed a silent prayer. No need to trigger the over-ride.

Behind him, he heard the perimeter activate. Dozens of remote drones rose from the snow, guarding their retreat. It would take five hours before the drones' power units ran out, long enough to prevent anyone successfully following them on foot. In the dense woodland nothing could land. The base's pursuit tactics didn't cover the landing area being hemmed in.

All they had to do now was vanish into the countryside and make their way to the rendezvous point.

Wanted: Gabriel Mallows

Gabe sniggered. The headline had popped up on his dataglasses, presumably because he'd walked past some distribution point and he couldn't help activating it and reading the pamphlet.

"You guys seen this shit?" he called to his friends. They were making their way through Beijing at night. They were in breach of curfew, but they had a safehouse a few blocks away. A couple of hobos had actually smiled at them as they passed, raising their fists in what appeared to be a Black Panthers salute.

"Yeah, I'm a drunken mad scientist," Sam said ruefully. He took of his glasses and made a face.

"Nice," Vicky said, "I'm a disgraced surgeon".

"Be quiet!" Kate hissed, peering around a street corner. Gabe rolled his eyes and sauntered past her. He triggered a second news feed alert. The thin line of text scrolling across the top of his glasses. This one didn't have the official Imperial seals.

"Oooh!" he said, pleased. "A rogue news feed." More and more of them were springing up, ever since the surveillance system had gone belly up. Then his face fell.

"Fuck. This shit was written by normal people. Don't they get it? We're the good guys here. Look at this shit - misogynist playboy. I spent my life making music... I threw it away because it was what was right. Now they've forgotten it... fuck them. Why are we doing this, guys? If they don't want us... what's the point?" Gabe said quietly. He fumbled with the glasses control to disable the feed, his knuckles white.

"Because it is the right thing, Gabby. These people are just scared of Simon. Anyway, who says this was actually written by a real person?" Vicky answered, prising Gabe's fist open and squeezing his hand.

Gabby took a deep breath to launch into one of his trademark tirades about the "moral crusade" and the "sacrifices". But he was interrupted.

"You! Curfew is in effect! You are under arrest!"

A stocky Imperial policeman was shining a powerful torch in their faces, his hand on an automatic weapon at his waist. Gabe was not worried about that. What scared him was the comms unit hanging from his belt. If the man shot them and then got word out that it hadn't worked, the police would come here in droves, and probably turn the neighbourhood upside down, ruining all their plans. Gabby scowled. He slipped Slasher from his belt, having had it reactivated a couple of years back. The policeman did not notice. He didn't even recognise them.

"Mate - hand over your radio, and no-one needs to get hurt," Gabe said gently.

"I am an Imperial officer. Hands in the air. Now!"

"Last chance, pal."

The officer reached for his comms unit. Slasher was raised and smoking in a heartbeat. She was not a quiet gun. The two shots roared, shattering the eerie silence of Beijing under curfew. The police officer grunted, the force of the shot jarring his head back. A jet of blood spattered across the dirty sidewalk. Gabby hurried over to the body and took the gun, the comms unit and some of the man's valuables - he flicked through the wallet, and suddenly, threw it to the floor.

"The fuck are you doing, Gabby?" Sam hissed.

"Making it look like a mugging. Now we have to run!" Gabby barked, leading them the final few blocks to the safehouse.

They had made it with out any trouble. Kate and Vicky were discussing the upcoming operation with some of the local resistance. Sam was sitting with Gabe, who was cleaning Slasher, a sober expression on his face.

"You OK, mate?"

"That cop... he had a picture... four kids. His wallet was empty. He had a working-class ID. The kids are going to starve now that their dad is gone," Gabby mumbled, his hands trembling.

"You did what you had to do, Gabs - if Simon had got word of this, it would all be fucked."

"Yeah. But would that be such a bad thing? People hate us, Sam. You saw that leaflet. I haven't seen my music mentioned once in the press since we kidnapped Cat. Gabby the rock legend is forgotten, now he's just some terrorist cunt. And look, we haven't even got a moral leg to stand on! I've just murdered some poor sod in the street!"

Cat had entered the room at some point. Now she walked over and put her arms round Gabby comfortingly.

"Gabby - we are the good guys. You've got nothing on Simon, in terms of being a twat, OK?"

"Mate - don't forget - we're Deltas. Once a Delta..."

"Always a cold-blooded killer." Gabe stood up and left the room, dropping Slasher unceremoniously on the ground.

"According to the company website he no longer works there."

Kulko frowned across at Anton who was checking the mediasphere from the passenger seat. "Since when?" he asked.

Anton shrugged. "He's just not listed as an employee. Nor is that explosives expert."

"Check the news reports for arrests," suggested BD from the back.

"Nothing," said Anton. "Nothing about the explosives guy either. Not a trace. It's as if they've dropped of the face of the Earth."

"That rat of yours is smelling ranker," commented Danny.

"We should warn Gabby," said BD.

"We'll need better proof I think. An arrest of one of them at the least. You said you'd known the engineer a long time, Kulko. He's unlikely to be collaborating," said Danny.

"I don't know," said Kulko. "One thing I've learned is that everyone has a price."

"We need to link up with Hali, wherever he is anyway," said Anton. "Only way we can safely get a message through will be via him. He may be able to dig out some better info as well."

Kulko scratched his beard thoughtfully. "We might be able to risk a message without going through Hali. The whole info-sphere's wide open these days."

Anton shook his head. "Wide open on a local level, but I'm pretty sure they've got monitoring back up and running on the big inter-continental cables and satellites. Not worth the risk."

"Well, there was a safe house and supply drop near here. We should check it out. If we can't find anything there we can put Hali onto it."

"If that cell was infiltrated, someone will be watching the safe house," said BD.

Kulko grinned. "Quick way to find out!"

They entered the safe house through the back, after dark.

BD and Anton went alone having made the case that infiltrating buildings was more their area of expertise than Kulko's. If it was clear, they'd come out and get the others. No one was prepared to risk active comms in a built-up area so they went in blind and silent.

They cleared the ground floor and were halfway up to the second when BD spotted the tripwire across the stairs.

"Nasty," muttered Anton sotto voce. "Get a whole team in before it blows."

"Assuming it's rigged to explosives," returned BD.

"Supplies and documents are supposed to be in the safe upstairs," said Anton.

"Place has been compromised. It's not worth the risk."

Silently they traced the fuse from the trip wire to the explosives, packed beneath the stairs.

"Military issue," said Anton.

BD shrugged. "Set a timer and then let's get out of here."

Anton nodded.

Ten minutes later they were fleeing the scene as the safe house went up in flames behind them.

"OK, guys, good news, the `cleaners' have been hired. The one's Kulko's contact recommended. Their leader told me they'll have the place all set up by next Monday. Then all we have to do is go in and plug in the wires on go-day, and we're ready." Gabby announced, emerging from his "planning room".

"What about security - won't they notice the bombs?" Sam said with a frown.

"Nope. That contact's information checked out - the security are just rent-a-cops, they aren't actually part of Simon's lot. He'd love it if they were but someone pulled some kind of political maneuver on him so they're `independent'. And there is no way in hell they're actually going to fucking do a regular bomb sweep. The `cleaners' have been discreet, anyway - you know you can drop a block of flats with five well-placed packages the size of a shoebox?"

"Gabby, this isn't a block of flats - it's the seat of the world government. It's massive. Besides, you're going for more of a `razing' than a `dropping', aren't you?" Vicky said disapprovingly.

"We can do it. God knows I'm paying these bastards enough. Anyway. Get some sleep, guys - I figure in a couple of days, we won't be getting much at all - the troops from the resistance are arriving in Beijing, and I'll need you three to be at your best to organise it all," Gabby said with what was supposed to be an encouraging grin. While their aging processes had been frozen by the whole immortality deal, the others were all older than Gabby, and none of them were too happy about him ordering them about.

"Mate - who elected you leader of this shit?" Sam said quietly, doing his best to keep his voice even.

"No-one, but I figured - if it goes wrong, which it shouldn't, then only one of us takes the flak for it - I'm the one who's been in contact with the others - you guys have been working through me. So I go down, you four will be clean-ish. If it goes well, you were my triumphant collaborators," Gabby explained, his face sombre. Vicky tilted her head and observed him. She had exhausted all feelings of attraction towards the apparently young man in front of her, but occasionally, the edge of confidence that had compelled her towards him, in the backseat of his Ferrari, speeding away from a robbery, reappeared - and this was one of those moments.

"Gabby, that's a big deal to take on," Cat murmured.

"Yep."

Gabby stifled a yawn - for all his talk about "being at their best", he had not slept properly for a week. This attack would be the nail in Simon's coffin. One last bang and it would all go back to normal. It had to.

"OK! Got one of Hali's automated responders!" said Anton.

"What does it say?"

"Meet at location 7."

"Where's that?"

"Give me a moment." Anton fished a self-contained data unit from his pocket and keyed in a password. He swore. "Somewhere in Nevada."

"Fucking Hell," said BD. "Those permits I got say we're driving from Florida to New Hampshire. I assumed he'd still be on the East Coast somewhere. If we get stopped on the way, there's no way they'll believe us."

"Too late now," said Kulko. "We don't have time to rustle up more permits. We're going to have to steal some more fuel from somewhere as well."

Danny shook his head. "We'll never make it in time."

"Have to try," said Kulko.

"Ant!" said BD. "Just fucking email Cat and tell her to be careful. She can work it out from there. The bloody filters are out, how dangerous can it be?"

Kulko, Ant and Danny exchanged glances. "Not sure about emailing someone without Hali to check," said Ant. "There are rumours of new AIs. If she was in the US you might avoid them, but she's in China, an email is bound to go through some sort of checking en route."

"They're not fucking psychic. Create a one time only email account. Send the message to her webmail. Sign it, I don't know, Mandy Rice-Davis. She'll work it out."

"Simon knows that joke," said Danny. "The name will be in the system."

BD thumped the side of the car in frustration. "Sign it Andy then. They can't be reading every fucking email from everyone called fucking Andy on the planet. Just don't use her name at the top. She'll know it's for her."

Ant shrugged. "OK, that sounds safe enough. You sure you want to risk it? If they detect the email then they'll monitor where she accesses it from and next thing you know the police will be on her."

"Better than her getting caught trying to blow up the world government building. Send the email."

"It can't be!" Cat murmured to herself. Gabby turned to her, frowning. The media-screen was the only light in the room, so the shadows did interesting things with her face.

"Cat, can't you go to sleep?" Gabby sighed, trying to focus on her eyes and not the shadowy holes in her cheeks. He blinked and shook his head.

"I'm just checking my email, and lucky I did! It's Andy!"

Gabby raised himself up on one elbow, making to throw back his cover for a moment, then slumped back down. The safehouse was tiny. Since Vicky and Sam had started sharing a bed again, Gabby had to bunk with Cat. He'd been worried she'd keep him awake with the nightmares Vicky had mentioned, but it seemed that technology was the enemy instead. These days, she didn't really seem to need someone to hold her hand in the night anymore. Gabby made a mental note to follow up on that.

"What does that deserting git want?"

"He... you what? It's been encrypted, wait. Be careful? That's it? Well, they must have dug something up then. Did you hear, Gabby?"

"I heard. What do you want me to say? Bulldog and his merry men vanish, go silent and fail to turn up on schedule, leave me fucking scrambling to fill the gap, and then send me some bloody email the night before about `being careful'?" Gabby said venomously. "What does he fucking think I'm doing? God, I'm sick of being treated like a fucking bimbo around here. Ignore the email. We move tomorrow." Gabby's voice left no room for argument as he rolled over dramatically, pulling the covers over his head. Cat was quiet for a moment, staring at Gabby's heaving shoulders. Then she started typing.

"We all ready?" Gabe emerged from his room. Kate noticed he had slipped Slasher back into his belt. More worrying was the Delta badge - Gabe used to wear it on a pendant under his shirt. Now, it was pinned to his chest, winking arrogantly at her, reminding her of the cold-blooded killer Gabby had once been.

Gathered in front of him were Sam and Vicky, curled up together as usual. A gruff resistance leader, who insisted on being called "The Bear", had joined them. The stocky man was adamant he should be given equal status in the command staff, seeing as he was the one bringing the guerilla expertise and local knowledge to the table, along with two dozen seasoned fighters. Kulko, Bulldog, Anton and Danny had never made it nor sent their promised associates, leaving Gabe short of about ten men and quite a lot of hardware. But Gabby was confident they could pull it off - they would just have to `be careful'.

"Yeah, we're good, Gabby," chorused the gathered leaders, not even bothering to hide the impatience in their voices.

Gabby scowled. "Then let's fucking go."

"Damn, a blockade!" muttered Kulko.

"I said we shouldn't hit that supply depot," grumbled BD. "Too few routes out. They were bound to set up road blocks."

"Shut it, BD. We had no other alternative and you know it. We were down to our last barrel of fuel."

"Well we can't turn back," said Anton. He was already checking his gun. "They'll have seen us and we'll lose time if we go round."

"I hate this," said Danny. "We shouldn't be attacking regular army or police men."

"You can shut it and all," snapped Kulko. "You're a soldier, just because you're fighting against the global government, doesn't stop them being the enemy, more so than the people you fought when you were a part of the government."

"I'm just saying..."

"Leave it Danny," said BD. "We don't want to know." He pulled Black Betty from under the seat. "Right, let's pull up nice and slow and then take them out before they can contact anyone. Looks like there's only three of them."

"Fucking hell," BD swore. "What kind of a fuck up was that?"

"One where they shot at the wheels and not at us," replied Kulko. "At least we're still alive and it won't take that long to change the wheel."

"We're running out of time!"

"We never had enough in the first place BD. Let's just hope your sister can figure it out from that cryptic email you sent."

"Bad news!" Kate hissed, tugging at Gabby's shoulder as he attempted to wire up a bomb. They were both wearing balaclava's and data-glasses. The security system shouldn't be able to identify them.

"What the fuck do you want?" he growled, all his nervous tension exploding outwards. Cat scowled and slapped him on the arm. Gabby groaned.

"What?" Gabby snapped.

"I just saw Besancenot in an office. And I've seen a couple of people I didn't recognise. Are you sure the fire drill was activated?"

"The French socialist leader? - he was in Paris giving a talk at a university this morning - we saw it on the news, remember? It'll be fine, there's no-one important here - let's just blow this place the fuck up!"

The Bear emerged around a corner. "We've got it all wired to blow!"

"Great - set the timers for... fifteen minutes, that should be enough."

"Wait, Lan," Cat interrupted, using his real name to catch his attention. Gabby saw the Bear stiffen. No names on tape was part of the deal. On the other hand who the fuck knew if Lan was actually his name. The resistance were cagey even among friends. "Are we sure about this? Once he puts that timer on, there's no going back, right?"

"Nope, it'll be the point of no return. Your call, Gabby," Lan said quietly. Gabby cursed. He hated the balaclava and now he might as well not have bothered.

"Fucking hell, we've discussed this - the police are already inbound - set this fucker off!" Gabe growled, dragging the two of them along the corridor by the arms. Lan slammed his hand down on the old-fashioned detonator.

Gabby paused as they passed a large ornate door.

"Go on ahead, guys, I'll be right out," he murmured. Cat seemed about to object, but he just gently pushed her after Lan, smiling reassuringly. Gabby had always wanted to see what the world government's parliament looked like when it was empty. He pushed open the door, straining slightly with the heavy wood - probably rare Brazilian rosewood - guitar makers weren't allowed to use it, but apparently, the government were.

His face fell as he saw the inside of the room.

"Guys! Lan, whoever! Stop the fucking bomb!" The fear in Gabby's voice was audible even through the tinny speaker of their radios.

"We can't, man. What's up?"

"Parliament is in fucking session!" Gabby yelled. "There are bitches in the fucking chairs, everywhere - but... they're all opposition... what the fuck are you guys doing here?" his voice was fainter, addressed to someone else.

"Jesus Christ. A protest. Guys, evacuate, as fast as you can!"

"Gabby!" Cat cried, glancing at Lan's bleeping timer. "You've got ten minutes to get out of there, and you know how powerful these bombs are!"

"Shit!" Gabby clicked off.

Cat and Lan were by the door to the side entrance they'd come in by. The `cleaners', recommended by Kulko's contact, were supposed to have getaway vehicles outside. Lan's hand was on the handle. Their eyes met and Cat shook her head. "Upstairs," she said.

Lan nodded, pulling equipment from his pack. "I hope your friends have the other end of this set up."

In desperation Gabby pulled off his balaclava and dataglasses. "Look! It's me! Gabriel Mallows! You have to evacuate now, this place is about to blow."

He saw comprehension beginning to dawn on people's faces.

Then a siren wailed. "Lock down, lock down," said an impersonal voice. "A bio-security breach has been detected. Lock down. Lock down. All personnel to remain in their offices until the building has been decontaminated. Lock down. Lock down."

"The fuck?" said Gabby. He'd seen the protocol for the lock down procedure. Nothing they were doing should have set it off. It was only supposed to be triggered if there was a risk of biological agents.

"The doors will have sealed," said Besancenot, rising from his chair. "This is a trap."

"Fuck!" Gabby said again, hoping Cat had escaped.

"We cannot get out!" shouted someone.

Gabby glanced at his watch. 7 minutes, 43 seconds to detonation.