Leopard Dreaming (54 page)

From their broken English and body language, she guessed that two of their kinsmen had failed to report in.

Kitching waved his hand dismissively and replied in the same hybrid language. ‘Reception … not good … yet, boys.’ In between, the other words blurred into gibberish. ‘… patrol … generator room … interference. Take point … try later.’

He signalled them to march ahead, and Mira couldn’t help but dream of Lockman leaping to her rescue — a ridiculous idea, considering how much he must despise her for his injured leg by now, and that his prime objective had to remain the takedown of Kitching.

General Garland seemed more likely to stick her bossy nose in by this stage anyway.

The colonel walked alongside Mira, while Ryuu and Fuyu marched ahead, and Jinhai trundled along
behind, still pushing the matron’s unconscious body on the gurney. Bohai followed too, with his angry-looking machine gun at the ready.

Mira stayed alert to them all, as best she could, expanding her map of the facility in her mind and preparing to cause a ruckus to make off with the gurney at the first sign of any trouble.

‘You should probably thank me now,’ Kitching said, keeping just out of reach. ‘You won’t get a chance after you see Ben. And when I say see him, please recall that it’s only possible because of that painkiller you seem so keen to fight for some reason.’

‘
Thank
you?’ Mira almost choked on the idea. ‘I may be lost, but I’m fairly sure I was supposed to see Maddy released by now. How far apart are the exits in this place anyway?’

‘Built before the Second World War, so don’t get your hopes up for any regular exits. They had no strict fire regulations or changes for renovation until recently. So you may have relied on such things to escape other places at other times, but that skill won’t help you here and now. Irrelevant anyway, since I just gave the order for my men to treat you with the utmost respect, and with an open-door policy for a year, wherever we may be.’

Mira laughed. ‘I’m sure you did. General Garland played basically the same trick.’

‘No trick.’ Kitching caught her by the elbow and pulled her to a halt. ‘I can assure you, I am ten times the leader that your precious Garland pretends to be. In every way.’

Mira wrenched her arm free. ‘If that’s true, isn’t it about time you led me to Ben and my friends?’

‘Turn around.’

She did, and found herself facing another long corridor.

‘Third door on your right.’

His tone made it sound as if that door might also open a trapdoor, but she didn’t hesitate. She ran ahead, bursting through the Japanese twins to wrench it open.

Inside, Mira found a squad of four more Asian guards standing around a medical bed, obscuring the identity of their patient, while a fifth man with a long dark plait of hair leaned over to administer a dose of clear fluid into a limp, muscled arm. The ‘doctor’ wore the same dark fatigues that Lockman’s old unit usually wore for night missions — as did the body on the bed, who lay with his face turned away from her.

‘Lieutenant?’ She could hardly believe her bleary eyes, but as she drew nearer and the guards parted for her, she realised it wasn’t Lockman at all. Tanned like him, but less muscled.

‘Ben!’ She rushed to him, shoving aside the ‘doctor’ and pressing two fingers against his throat, below his ear, testing to check for his pulse.

Irregular at best. His skin cold and clammy. His face bruised but healing. He stirred under her touch, and groaned as if trapped in a nightmare. Same thing happened to her every time someone tried to knock her out, and yet she’d choose pain any day over a sleep from which she couldn’t willingly wake.

‘What have you done to him?’

‘Ironically,’ Kitching said from the doorway, ‘my team saved him. He’d taken one too many modern painkillers today, which required his stomach to be pumped, amongst other things. This man is Commander Kurst, my second in charge. Luckily for your friend, he’s also a talented field medic.’

‘So what was in the syringe he just administered?’

‘Oh, that was only a little something to ensure he can’t father a child with you accidentally before we get a chance to implant you.’

‘You chemically neutered him?’

Kitching shrugged. ‘Nothing so drastic. Merely a male contraceptive that should last a month or so. By then you’ll be full. We’ll get a message to you, wherever you may be, with a time and place when we’re ready for you to come in.’

Mira laughed. It seemed too ridiculous for him to trust her with that level of cooperation. He might as well threaten her with “or else” at the end of every sentence.

Kurst dusted off a spare gurney, patting it, as if inviting her onto it.

‘If you could make yourself comfortable,’ Kitching said, ‘he’ll harvest you now. Get that stage done.’

‘
Now
?’ She gaped at him.

‘Of course. It’s why he’s come ashore. He’s been trained in the use of suctioning needles. Local anaesthetic. You’ll only need to rest for an hour or two afterwards. And the timing couldn’t be better. Your last medical report suggests you were due to begin your first ovulation cycle in thirty to thirty-six hours, and the first time is renowned for producing the most eggs.’

‘Whoa! Hey, that’s
way
too much for you to know from surveillance. And you haven’t fulfilled your promise to release the matron yet.’

Bohai rolled Freddie’s gurney into the room, and closed the door behind him, leaving the old man’s body to twitch, unconscious in the corner.

‘Ah, but we will. We’re halfway to the nearest exit.’

Kurst filled a large hypodermic with a pale green fluid. ‘She’s pretty,’ he said with a lecherous wink to Kitching. ‘The issue should be healthy.’

Mira backed up a step, colliding with Kitching, who grabbed her around the arms and tried to lock her from moving. In reflex, she bent forward and flipped him over her shoulder, her legs weak and crumpling, but she made a dash for the door, fumbling.

The squad of four guards beat her to it, one snatching her shades and throwing her back a century into ghostly rock.

‘No!’ she screamed, baring her teeth and nails to fight like a feral cat. ‘Leave me alone!’

She scratched at them wildly, but those three words failed to herald any noticeable change in her fortunes this time.

The squad tussled her into submission, pinning her against the wall and needing two of their strongest to keep her there.

‘Slippery,’ Ryuu complained.

‘No time for second thoughts.’ Kitching gathered himself from the floor, approaching her more cautiously and making her flinch as he slid her shades back onto her nose. ‘I think you need to see how screwed you’ll be. Can you see me again?’

Mira clamped her mouth and eyes shut, refusing to answer.

Kitching clicked his fingers near to her ear, and she heard footsteps.

Fear made her look around, and she saw Kurst approaching with the fanciest leather straitjacket she’d ever seen, anywhere. Shiny buckles, soft lining.

‘Option three,’ Kitching warned her. ‘I can take you out to sea for the duration. Ten months under water. No shades. No painkillers. Would you enjoy that any better?’

Mira screamed and tried to wrench away from them. One man clamped a hand over her mouth and nose, choking off her air, while others bound the jacket tightly around her — four against one and nightmares of madness and padded cells overwhelmed her.

M
oser offered General Garland the use of his handcuffs, but she took no pleasure in arresting the best communications officer she’d ever had. He didn’t need to explain his motives. Exploring the other hidden screens he’d been watching revealed the full story of his involvement in defending the disputed islands.

‘The bitch of it,’ she whispered, leaning close to him, ‘is I would have supported you, if you’d gone through the right channels from the beginning.’

Lasso spun and spat on her shiny shoes. ‘We tried that seven years ago! Diplomats can’t agree on the colour black. Peace through superior firepower, Caroline. If you were any kind of general, you’d already know that.’

‘
Pax superiore vi telarum
,’ she replied. ‘I was born in the t-shirt.’

Moser lifted Lasso by the collar and spun him away from the table. ‘Now you get to sit in the corner.’

‘Listen up,’ Garland commanded of her remaining team. ‘New game board, new vacancy and promotion to the first one to find Mira Chambers.’

Delaney grinned, raising her hand. ‘We can help with that. Who’s got the screen with recordings of all the aerial traffic?’

Darkin and Gabby led the way to the next intersection of corridors, wielding the biggest knives, while Tarin kept abreast with a tent spike as her weapon of choice.

‘This place is a freaky maze,’ Darkin whispered. ‘And why are there no light switches on every corner?’

Gabby switched on the torch, sparing the batteries but needing to see which way the tyre tracks had turned in the decades of dust.

‘Maybe we should have followed their boot prints,’ he suggested. ‘Aside from the truck, there’s been nobody this way in eons.’

‘We can’t afford the time to get lost down here,’ Tarin argued. ‘The ute came in so the tracks will take us out … ah … that way.’ She pointed straight ahead.

‘Wait,’ Gabby said, as Darkin took a step to follow the tread. ‘Watch out for the scorpions.’ Two were scuttling across the intersection at cross angles.

‘You’re kidding.’ Darkin laughed. ‘They’re too small to hurt us. Besides, everyone knows the Oz versions are about as scary as bull ants.’

‘Bull ants don’t glow pale green under black light or do this. Just stand still and watch.’

The scorpions veered around Darkin, before veering back on their path, which took them around into the corridor to his left.

‘So? They’re in a hurry.’

‘Or option two, they’re late for a party. Option three, they’re running from something down that way. They’re supposed to be the biggest predators down here, Declan. What does that tell you?’

Tarin shifted her feet, anxiously. ‘What are you saying, Gabby?’

‘They recognised us as dangerous enough to veer around, but there’s something down there that scares them even more.’

‘Bad guys,’ Darkin suggested. ‘And where there’s darkness, let there be light.’

‘Light to get shot by,’ Tarin warned them.

‘If they wanted us dead, they would have killed us already.’ Darkin snatched the torch and bolted off down the scorpions’ tiny scuttle trail as far as the next corner where he stopped again. ‘Hey!’ he called, snapping his fingers. ‘The little spiders were right.’

He waited until the two women caught up, and let the next hall speak for itself. Empty except for a few crates, a flickering light at the far end, and a nearby door, left slightly ajar.

Venturing in cautiously, he didn’t make it far before he spotted two gagged bodies on the floor, along with a few bonuses.

‘Bingo,’ he said and slid his knife into his belt. He picked up two fully loaded Uzi machine guns and offered them to his companions. ‘Who wants an upgrade?’

Lockman left the door ajar on another three captives in the bunker’s kitchen, two of them women. He’d found them packing up their scant food stocks, and judging by their supply of clean crockery they’d been catering for up to a dozen — probably all guards who’d been sent ahead to secure the facility for a day or so before Kitching’s arrival.

However, that still left up to five unaccounted for, plus any that Kitching had brought with him — unless his people had been eating in shifts, in which case the worst scenario put another dozen on patrol in the halls or forest. Each encounter also lowered Lockman’s chances of getting in and out without making a noise. He emerged cautiously back into the corridor, hoping the next hall he searched would be less populated.

Mira’s screams echoed to him, not for the first time. Wherever she was, it was taking a full squad to restrain
her, and some kind of gag that she kept shaking. Her cries made him sick. He launched into a flat run for the next corner, chastising himself for taking time to be gentler with the last lot just because they were women.

Rounding the corner, he found he wasn’t alone in being attracted to the commotion. A squad of four big Eurasians jogged ahead of him, all headed for a door where another two smaller men stood guard, staring at the door as if afraid to go in.

Lockman didn’t hesitate in getting closer. Sliding the tube of scorpions from his vest first, he jogged after the squad while they still had their backs to him. As a bonus, the other two couldn’t see him approaching with the bulk of moving bodies in their way, all armed with modern variants of Uzis, MP5s and Steyr rifles. Any one of them could Swiss cheese him with a single twitch of a finger, and he couldn’t knock the heads of the nearest two without leaving himself open to attack from the others in the vital second it would take to swing his weapon to bear.

Simplest answer; shoot first and drop them all, regardless of how thin the walls, but then he really would be the cold killer Mira always feared him to be. And worse. He’d risk killing her by accident, and cross that final line, following the footsteps of his father into the third and final stage of oblivion.

He sucked in a breath to man up, and prayed they didn’t expect anyone but their own reinforcements to jog up behind them.

No! No, no! What are you doing?

As he woke, Freddie heard his own voice, echoing back to him from the future — screaming words that his ears hadn’t yet discovered in the traditional way.

Glancing to his left, he found his beloved matron on a parallel gurney, stirring — her fragile body restrained by tight white sheets, but no ropes or handcuffs as far
as he could see. Same for Ben, it seemed, who stirred on a gurney on the far side of her, while the rest of the commotion that woke him still came from the opposite corner, where two men pinned Mira to the wall — upside down in his straitjacket.

‘Get her on this gurney,’ Kurst ordered. ‘We’ll have to strap her down thoroughly.’ He fetched the nearest one and held it steady.

‘No! No, no!’ Freddie screamed. ‘What are you doing? Let her go, you fools!’

‘Ah, there’s the chorus to her song,’ Kitching chuckled. ‘You’re next, brother. Wait your turn.’

‘Can’t you hear what’s happening?’ Freddie strained against the ropes around his chest, wrists and ankles. ‘Can’t you see the writing on the wall, in your own blood? Death is coming, and he’s coming for
her
.’ He tried to point to Mira, but only managed to flick his head and point with two fingers, so he tried also with his tongue, hardly caring how crazed it made him appear. Moving his hands also made him notice they’d stolen the scalpel from his hand, leaving only the slash that he’d caused initially when he’d palmed it.

No way to slice himself free any more. He could feel the weight of other sharp tools in his pockets, but couldn’t squirm enough to reach them — and he could already hear the worst of the commotion yet to come, with Mira, Lockman, and his beloved matron, all crying out in agony.

Frantic and growing wilder, he used what little movement he had to rock the gurney side to side, determined to break out of it. Dislocating his own shoulder, he also managed to draw one arm closer, creating a little slack in a rope where previously there’d been none.

Lockman neared the door behind the squad, and as they slowed, he did too.

He wrenched the first Eurasian backwards into a neck lock, ploughed him sideways into his companion, also tripping him into the third like dominoes and flicked the tube of scorpions over the fallen men to distract them. The fourth spun about and answered with a panicked burst of weapon fire, while the others screamed and tried to scramble and crawl away from the cranky arachnids — fear being far more effective than any stingers or pincers.

Recoil caused the novice by the door to shoot high, nicking Lockman’s arm and shoulder, and chipping chunks of concrete and dust from the wall and ceiling that hailed over him. The smaller guards at the door spun with their weapons too. In reflex, Lockman shielded himself with the first man’s body. Fragments punched through him, cutting into Lockman’s chest too, but the dying man took more hits as Lockman disarmed him, and used his Uzi to silence their argument.

Adrenaline kept his nerves from registering any pain yet. The body count seemed lower than expected too. Aside from himself, one injured by him and one dead by them.

‘Down!’ he shouted. ‘Stay down!’ The angry end of his new Uzi provided translation with a second hail of concrete chips from the ceiling.

All hands shot up. All crouched to their heels. All lumbering him with prisoners.

Inside, he heard Mira still struggling with her captors, along with a few shouts from Kitching and four others — and something else, which sounded like a gurney falling over. He couldn’t see through the wall without taking his eyes off the men at his feet, and more of their reinforcements could still come at him from two directions.

‘Back!’ he yelled to the men, and again in Bahasa and Malay — the only two Asian languages he knew,
but for the longest heartbeat his prisoners only stared up at him.

Wide-eyed and frozen.

‘Volunteers,’ Lockman called as he snatched the fistful of cable ties from his vest again. He offered them to the group. ‘Who understands English enough to tie up his mates so I don’t have to shoot them?’

At the back, the smallest of them raised his hand.

Same kid who’d panicked and winged him.

Mira squirmed and kicked about on the gurney, turning the battle to hold her down into World War Three. Outnumbered, but she knew all the tricks, enabling her to squirm part way out of the straitjacket, even semi-sedated, while the four wiry fighting men tried to hold her down and rope her legs. Well trained in hand-to-hand they might be, but for such a skirmish, her experience far exceeded theirs. They’d needed a full five minutes just to get her onto the gurney.

Biting, head-butting and kicking for their chins, noses and ears, she could judge precise distances to their most tender weak points with her eyes closed. Yet their superior strength and numbers were beginning to wear her down — until a loud crash distracted them.

And her.

Craning her neck, she expected to see Lockman bursting into the room with a small army, but the door remained locked and motionless, while Freddie charged forward with a gurney strapped up behind him like a turtle with armour-plating.

Kurst and Kitching shouted commands in their hybrid language. Two of her assailants on the nearest side spun around to defend themselves, while the other two wrenched Mira’s gurney sideways.

Pandemonium erupted in every direction. Freddie charged at them, spinning about and howling like a beast, turning demon.

Adrenaline shot through her body, accelerating her brain’s ability to process every detail. Weirdest side effect: time seemed to slow down — like that first fall from her tricycle as a child, back before she’d lost her ability to see normally. It also numbed the pain as it metabolised more of Kitching’s sedative out of her system.

She saw Freddie glance at her as he spun about. Their eyes locked for a single frozen heartbeat.

Go,
he mouthed silently, but Mira had momentum already.

Rolling. Falling. She landed on the ground like a heavy rag doll, leaving only one ankle roped up at an odd angle. Two soldiers remained, grappling for her over the gurney, trying to grab her and lift her up by the straitjacket — until Freddie spun again, tossing a cruel surgical instrument onto the floor beside her that looked like the devil’s own crafting pliers. Jagged blades and hooks distorted the conventional shape, but as she shrugged off the straitjacket and grabbed for it, the handle fit her hand as if made to measure.

Light to wield as a dagger. She stabbed at her assailants’ hands, and as they recoiled, she seized the chance to cut through her ankle rope. She only needed a few seconds, and won them.

Freddie slammed his gurney backwards against hers, sheltering her briefly as he drove her nearest two assailants against the wall, still nursing their bleeding hands.

Kurst threw the empty syringe at him, drew his sidearm, and fired the full clip in rapid succession, drilling the wall above Freddie’s head.

Shape of a halo, Mira noticed.

Freddie spun about yet again, laughing madly as he ploughed for Kurst and Kitching next. Maddy’s eyes fluttered open and she tried to sit up.

Mira pushed her down again, slid her gurney alongside Ben’s and pushed them both for the nearest
door. Not the one she’d come in. She’d heard gunshots out in that hall only moments before, but every room had four doors and she aimed for the door opposite, hoping to access a parallel corridor.

Bullets stung the wall around her.

‘Stop or we’ll shoot
them
!’ Kitching shouted. Too late, as Freddie barrelled him over.

Mira tried to shield the bodies on the two gurneys as best she could.

‘No, wait,’ Maddy complained as she tried to get up again.

Mira held her down by the chest. ‘Quiet, Matron. You’re not thinking straight yet.’

‘Hey, can you see me?’

‘Temporarily. I don’t have time to explain it. Just think hues and painkillers.’

The door looked too narrow to fit both gurneys side by side, but Freddie kept the others busy enough to let her shove Maddy through first, while towing Ben.