Regeneration (29 page)

“I think so.” He looked over at Zavcka, who stood, arms folded, responding to Aryel in a clipped, peremptory manner, all the while surveying the scenario in which she found herself much as he himself had done a moment before. Her smoke-dark gaze fell on him and he shivered. “I'm just trying to understand . . .
She
called?”

“She did: she said that Eve had been kidnapped and that she believed the kidnappers were planning to use the river to get away. She was on her way there and was going to try to get the precise location—but Aryel was in a meeting at Bel'Natur, so Zavcka had to leave a message, which Aryel didn't get right away. She took off for here the moment she heard it, but she couldn't get hold of Sharon because
she
was calling in the bulletin on Eve. So Aryel forwarded Zavcka's message to her and tried Gaela—who was on with you, I think—and finally she got through to Bal and connected me and Callan and Rhys, and we all got here as fast as we could. Thank goodness Rhys was home today.”

Eli glanced over at the two women. Aryel was talking in even, firm tones; Zavcka, her jaw set and stubborn, was not looking at her. “I imagine Aryel is pointing out that she could just have called police emergency and stayed home.”

Gabriel snorted. “She'd never do that—what if they hadn't believed her, or hadn't prioritized it quickly enough?” He closed his eyes for a moment, concentrating over the distance, then said, “The way she sees it, once she moved, people would be
forced
to pay attention.”

“So she wouldn't be asking,” Eli mused, “she'd be
compelling
?”

“That's what I'm getting.”

Eli chuckled and examined Zavcka with a kind of amused disapproval. “That's so like her.”

She must have felt his gaze because she turned and glared balefully back at him.

Sharon tramped past, heading for Zavcka and Aryel, and as one, Gabriel and Eli turned and followed her. Uncle Mik was still helping his parents, and Eve had now calmed down and was wrapped up in Bal's coat as they waited for the hospital transport. Callan had gone over to Rhys, his handsome face tight with outrage, his blue coat swirling with a glamour not even Zavcka Klist could match. The
man on the ground must not be in too bad shape because Rhys had left him there and was standing with his arm around Callan's waist, watching her.

Sharon stopped in front of Zavcka, exchanged a swift glance with Aryel, and tapped the remaining restraints meaningfully against her thigh. “I understand you placed a device on your tracking collar to disable it,” she said conversationally. “May I see?”

Zavcka silently twitched the scarf to one side to show her the dull red band clamped around the collar.

“What is it, out of interest?”

“I have no idea,” Zavcka drawled, tucking the scarf back into place. “Something I found in a drawer in my kitchen. My staff had nothing to do with this,” she added sternly. “The first thing I did was send them away, out of the house. They have no idea.”

“I doubt that, unless they got far enough away not to hear the proximity alarms go off when you left. Those things make quite a racket.”

“Indeed they do.” She smiled wryly. “I had a good long walk to find a taxi stand that was out of earshot.”

“And no one accosted you?”

“I don't look like an escaping convict.”

The corner of Sharon's mouth twitched, but she did not smile back. “Just to be clear,” she said, “since you did not, in fact, attempt to disable the tracker, and you alerted Aryel both to your departure and your concerns for Eve, am I to take it that escape was never your intention?”

“That seems a logical conclusion to me, Detective Superintendent. Are you arresting me or not?”

“I haven't decided yet,” Sharon drawled back, and glanced around at their audience. She cocked her head inquiringly at Gabriel.

“She's not trying anything,” he said, then added, “At the moment.”

“In that case, I'm not arresting you, Ms. Klist. At the moment.”

She turned to Agwé, who had left the jetty at a run and now charged up to them. “What did you do out there?”

“Fouled the propeller so they couldn't get away,” she said, “but that wasn't the only reason. I thought I recognized the boat, and I
was right—Gabe, that's the boat that was at Sinkat, but the people in it, they aren't EM techs.”

Gabriel felt the fear washing off of her as she said to Sharon, “They're the men you've been looking for! The toxin suspects. They've grown beards and they kept trying to hide their faces, but I finally got a good look when they had to stand up. I'm
positive
it's them—”

As one, Sharon and Gabriel swung toward the boat, staring, and then Gabriel strode over to the woman, the one in the black business suit, her wrists clamped tightly to the riverwalk's safety rail by one of Sharon's restraints. Another officer was dealing with her, but Gabriel shouldered past him and shouted, “What did they do?” He pointed at the stalled boat and the two men now standing up with their hands at shoulder-height, palms out in the surrender pose, as the river patrol edged up alongside. “What did they do at Sinkat?
What did you have them do?
”

He was shrieking at her, spittle flying and a vein throbbing in his temple, and she flinched and tightened her lips. He didn't expect an answer and she didn't offer one, but he guessed that in the face of such an onslaught she wouldn't be able to keep herself from thinking it and he was right; he could feel the shapes form in her mind as she remembered the instructions she had given, her shaky attempt to calculate whether it was better to speak or be silent—all of it blurred by her fear that even this far away they were too close to be safe, what time was it now, how close was too close, was she far enough away to be safe?

He concentrated harder—

—and then he was reeling back as though from a blow and swinging around, desperate with the urgency of what he had discovered. Aunt Sharon was right behind him, along with Agwé and the confused patrol officer.

“Gabriel,” said Sharon, “what is it?”

“Bombs,” he replied, his voice echoing back at him from a place of such horror that he could barely comprehend it, “disruptors. The quantum cells—” He turned and ran.

Once more Gabriel raced with Agwé at his side, but this time they had covered almost no distance before Rhys was alongside them, slowing his pace to match theirs, and shadowed by Aryel overhead.

“Get them
out
,” Gabriel screamed at the sky, “go ahead, get them out,
get them out!
”

She rose, flying swift and straight, and Rhys accelerated away as though they were merely jogging, taking corners faster and more surely than they could ever manage. Gabriel's earset buzzed and he flicked it on without slowing.

“Maintain this call,” Sharon said, all Detective Superintendent Varsi now, her voice brusque, not wasting time. “We need an open channel. I'm linking in Aryel as well. We have police and fire on their way, but you'll get there first.”

By the time they came panting up to the Sinkat quayside a few minutes later, alarms were screeching from several of the buildings that lined the basin and a confused trickle of people had started coming over the first of the bridges—but there were a lot more milling around in front of Thames Tidal Power, where Aryel was standing, her wings splayed wide to make herself bigger than she was, waving
people to get out, shouting at them to
move faster,
to
just go
! The UrbanNews crew had their vidcam trained on her; they didn't appear to understand that she meant them too.

“Below,” Gabriel said, “the residences—the water entries—they can evacuate quicker . . .”

“Got it,” said Agwé, and dived smoothly into the basin. She was wearing her cherry-colored bodysuit today and he watched the streak of red flashing through the brown depths as he followed topside, shoving past the evacuees on the bridge, sensing with despair that people behind him were slowing and turning, uncertainty morphing into hesitation as they saw him running toward the very place they had been told to run away from. When he got to her, Aryel was simultaneously trying to explain to Pilan, ignore the news team's shouted questions and urge others to hurry.

“Rhys went inside with Lapsa to clear people out; he can move faster,” she said to Gabriel, “but everyone's stopping to ask questions: is it really a bomb threat, how do we know? A bunch of TTP staff have set off the alarms and gone to evacuate the other buildings, but I don't see them coming out fast enough . . .”

Over their earsets Sharon heard, and swore.

“Yes,” said Pilan, “that's what I mean: exactly what
kind
—” then he saw the look on Gabriel's face and stopped.

Gabriel swung around, looking for something that would give him height, then clambered up onto one of the recycling units set into the stone quay. The UrbanNews crew trained their equipment on him.
So much for a low profile,
he thought, but he knew that if he didn't make them all understand,
fast,
it wouldn't matter anymore.

“Listen to me,” he shouted, turning from side to side so he could see the people streaming out of the Thames Tidal airlocks topside and below, trickling slowly out of neighboring buildings, mounting the bridges and massing on the quays.
“Listen to me!”

Finally they heard and saw and stopped, and he screamed, “Listen! I got this out of the head of the person who ordered it: they're
not
just bombs! They're tapping into the quantum cells—they're designed to release
that
energy! Do you understand me? They're
detonators
; it's the quantum cells that're the explosives.
DO YOU UNDERSTAND?
We've only got minutes,
WE'VE ONLY GOT MINUTES
, so
run
!
RUN!
”

There was a moment like a short, sharp gasp for breath as what he was telling them sank in and then—
at last!
—they started running, properly shifting, shouting at each other, the strong and the quick helping the weak and the slow; children and babies snatched up in their parents' arms as they fled. His words were shouted back to those who had not heard and his plea swept into the buildings around Sinkat like a wave, and by the time he jumped back down onto the quayside, alarms were screeching from
every
building and the stream of people fleeing on foot and underwater had become a flood.

“They're moving now,” he muttered into the earset. “Your people need to help ferry them away from here, fast.”

“Understood,” his aunt said, and spared a moment to add warmly, “Well done, Gabe.” He heard her barking orders.

Aryel was shouting at the dumbstruck vidcam crew who looked too stunned by the story they now found themselves on top of to know what to do. “There!” she cried, pointing toward the exits from the basin, “go and cover the evacuation—that's where the police will be arriving. We need to clear this area;
go!
”

And at last they went, the reporter talking into her throat mic as she ran.

Pilan grabbed Gabriel's shoulder, his copper-dark face as pale as Gabriel had ever seen it, even when he'd been ill.

“How many minutes?” he said urgently. “How much time have we got?”

“What time is it now?” Gabriel fumbled for his tablet, but before he'd gotten it out, Aryel had flicked at her band and told him.

“If they go off at 13:00 hours like they planned we've got fifteen minutes, but that woman—Moira Charles—she wasn't confident it would be exact. She was thinking they knew the devices would work, but could only work out approximately how long they'd take—”

“That's why she was so desperate to get to the boat,” Aryel said, and Gabriel nodded.

Pilan turned, shouting at the Thames Tidal staff who had lingered to listen, and with a few words he organized them into sweeper teams
to check the buildings lining the basin, instructing them to herd any stragglers out and away and on no account to return themselves. As the teams went running, he spun back to Gabriel.

“Can we disarm these things? If they're detonators, can't we just detach them?”

“I don't know. She didn't think they could be removed, but maybe—” But he was speaking to the soles of Pilan's webbed feet, disappearing beneath the water; he'd dived in leaving barely a ripple.

“Where's Agwé?” asked Aryel, and he told her. “Good,” she said, “but they need to get out of there.
You
need to get out of here.”

“So do you. I'm not leaving until everyone is safe.” He ignored Sharon's imprecation over the earset. Aryel raised an eyebrow at him, but did not bother to try and send him away again.

As another group of people appeared at the Thames Tidal main topside airlock, confused and stumbling in their haste to get to safety, Gabriel recognized some of his colleagues from the secure laboratories deep within.

“Aunt Aryel,” he said, “the infostream, the data—if we lose the building . . .”

“Herran's already on it.”

Rhys chivvied the final few stragglers and Gabriel ran to help, and with a few more words sent them flying along the quay.

“That's it for this one,” said Rhys, “at least in the topside spaces. Lapsa went to clear out below.”

“Agwé's doing that too—she should be done, they need to get out. Pilan went to see if he could remove the detonators and he hasn't come back yet either.” Gabriel was hopping in his anxiety; he spun around at a splash behind them.

Pilan was pulling himself up one of the ladders that dropped down into the water, shaking his head in disgust. “It's like a kind of maglock,” he said. “They've tapped into the actual cells somehow; I can't just pull it off.”

Rhys threw his coat at Gabriel and kicked off his shoes. “Show me.”

He and Pilan hit the water together and disappeared, swimming down along the convex lobes of the building. People were still pouring out of the buildings around Sinkat Basin, coming through doors
topside and portals below, moving fast underwater and running along the quays and over the bridges, pausing only to gape uncertainly at Gabriel and Aryel standing there and speeding up again when they screamed at them to
move,
to
RUN
!

As Aryel took off to check the upper floors and rear of the buildings, Gabriel could see the uniformed figures of police and fire officers begin to appear at the entrances to the basin, the nearest they would've been able to get their vehicles. He let Sharon know, adding, “They need to concentrate on getting people away, out of blast range, and to check the buildings at that end too if they can. We're pretty sure the ones down here are clear.” He broke off as Lapsa powered up from below carrying Pilan's utility vest, heavy with his engineering tools. Agwé was right behind her.

“You have to
go,
” she sputtered at her foster-mother as they broke the surface together.

“I thought something in here might help,” Lapsa gasped, holding up the vest and looking around. “Where is he?”

Gabriel reached down to grab it from her. “Below, with Rhys. They've been gone a l—” He broke off as two shapes bulleted up from the murky depths of the basin.

Rhys erupted out of the water to at least half his body length, such was the force of his ascent, and splashed back down, breathing in huge gasps.

Pilan's head popped up with far less drama and he shouted, “He got one! Rhys is strong enough to pull them off!” He spotted the vest in Gabriel's hands, whipped around until he saw Lapsa and Agwé and bellowed at them. “What the fuck are you still doing here? Get out, go up the canal—
now!
”

“But—”

“It's at an angle to the basin, if there's a blast, you'll have some protection!”

Gabriel could feel Pilan doing the calculations and judging that would be the safest place they could reach in the shortest time; his focus was switching back and forth between the two women and the devices underwater and what he had learned from the way Rhys had twisted one of them loose, wondering whether he could generate the
same torque using a lever of some kind, whether the quantum cells embedded in the biopolymer of the walls had already been damaged and rendered unstable.

Gabriel leaned down toward the water and handed Pilan the vest almost before he reached up for it. Their eyes met, and Gabriel felt the thought the other man wanted him to have.

“I will,” he mouthed, and Pilan nodded grimly and turned in the water. Lapsa was still hanging there, staring at him, while Agwé was trying fruitlessly to get her to turn and swim away.

“Lapsa,” said Pilan, dragging on the vest, “we don't have time. I'll come find you as soon as it's safe. I love you, and I
really
need you to go. Agwé, get her out of here.”

“We're going. Gabe?”

“I'll be right behind you,” he said, and knew that she knew it was a lie. She gave him a long look, and he felt a very clear, very specific thought form in her mind and felt his own eyes widen at the import of it. Then she caught hold of Lapsa and they turned and swam away at high speed. Pilan had already disappeared beneath the surface.

“It's not easy or fast,” Rhys called up from the water, still gulping air but in a more measured way now, deliberately hyperventilating before he went below again. “Gabe, how many are there?”

That information had not been in Moira Charles's mind. “I'll find out,” he said. Rhys nodded and went under again as Gabriel asked, “Aunt Sharon? We need to know how many of those things there are. Rhys has disarmed one and Pilan thinks maybe he can too, but they don't know how many they're looking for.”

“One moment,” she said in her crisp Detective Superintendent voice. He heard her mute the earset and took a moment to look around. There was hardly anyone exiting the buildings anymore, topside or below. He shouted at the stragglers to hurry up as Aryel appeared above the rooftops, sweeping past windows to peer in. She looked down at him and he gave her a thumbs-up as she curved away, making a final perimeter check of the basin.

Rhys surfaced, gulped air, raised his hand with three fingers splayed to show how many of the bombs had been disabled and was gone below again before Sharon came back on.

“Twelve,” she reported, “one for each building segment.” There was a world of impotent fury in her voice. “Gabriel, get out of there.”

“We're getting them,” he said. “Rhys has done two, Pilan one.”

“There isn't enough time—they could go at any moment, you said so yourself.”

“Or they might take longer than they thought. Aunt Sharon, I'll go as soon as I know there's nothing more I can do.” He hesitated, then said, “If I don't get out in time, tell my family—”

“Gabriel, don't you dare. Don't you
dare
make me have to do that!” There was a break in his aunt's voice he had never heard before. “Your mother was frantic when she and Eve left for the hospital. Your father's still here; he's losing his mind, it's all Mikal can do to hold him back.
Don't you dare
.”

Aryel came on, calm and almost amused. “Suppose there's no point me making the same request, then?”

“You're airborne. You can get away.”

“Not likely. If the whole thing goes, it'll blow whatever's left of me halfway to Hammersmith.” Gabriel saw her hovering above the far end of the basin. “Damn. Still a bunch of people over here,” she said. She told Sharon where to send support and dropped out of sight.

Rhys came up again and flashed five fingers. Gabriel shouted back, “Twelve total,” showing his own fingers, ten then two. He checked the time and his insides constricted. “Six minutes left,” he shouted.

Rhys nodded, and dived.

“Five down,” Gabriel said to Sharon. He didn't need to tell her that Rhys and Pilan were removing the detonators at the rate of roughly two a minute now, but there were still seven to go.

They have time,
he thought.
Enough to spare, maybe, if they keep knocking them off at this rate. The countdown isn't precise; you said it yourself, you felt it in her head. They disrupt the cell stasis, but the terrorists weren't able to calibrate exactly how long it would take. They could go off two, maybe even three minutes late.