Noble Conflict (21 page)

They regarded each other, the full import of what they’d discovered hitting both of them hard.

‘OK, we need to figure out how to prove or disprove all this,’ said Kaspar. ‘Firstly, we need to find out who had access to the gas. The thieves had been and gone before anyone knew anything about it.’

Mac sat back in her chair. Kaspar was grateful that she didn’t challenge his use of the word ‘we’.

‘We also need to know who could get access to the school without raising suspicion,’ he added.

‘Hmmm  . . . maybe we could also follow up the forensics on the explosives in the truck that went off today,’ said Mac. ‘And determine where the truck came from.’

‘The one thing that convinces me more than anything else that I’m right is that someone had to have enough clout to influence the assignment of Mendel to the investigation of the Loring School gas attack. An attack like that should have our best people on the job, not our worst,’ said Kaspar.

There was another long pause. Kaspar’s mind was racing.

‘I could run a correlation study of terrorist events against Guardian trackers,’ Mac said at last.

‘You’re talking “geek” again,’ Kaspar sighed.

‘Take the truck bombing as an example,’ said Mac. ‘We know the truck was stolen from behind a supermarket at 0800 hours this morning, parked at the target at 1330 and exploded at 1417. Well, the bots can find which Guardians were near the shop between 0750 and 0805. Then they can determine who was near the target between 1320 and 1340 hours. We can also ask them to determine the nearest Guardians to each outrage and ask them to tell us which Guardians were on shift when the crimes were committed.’

‘Or off shift but within the vicinity maybe? If you’re driving a huge bomb across the city, you probably don’t want to be interrupted by a call to rescue a cat from a tree.’

‘Good point. We’ll run it both ways. If it works, and we get lucky, then we’ll get some statistics telling us which Guardian or Guardians were within a kilometre of all the bombings.’

‘Great. Of course, all this is academic,’ Kaspar noted sourly. ‘If I’m right and there really are high-level Guardians involved, then they’re going to notice what we’re doing. We already know that they monitor bot-searches.’

‘There are ways round that.’ Mac winked. ‘We make our enquiries in the form of bot-parasites. We infect some bots, ask them some simple questions like where to buy pizza – and initiate the search. Our bots will tell us where to get pizza – and the parasites will tell us what we really want.’

‘Yeah, but surely
they
’ll find them too when they run their activity trace or whatever?’

Mac was offended. ‘I know what I’m doing, thank you. A routine activity trace consists of trapping a bunch of bots and asking them what they’re doing, who they’re doing it for and how many other bots they are chatting with. Our bots will simply say they’re hunting for pizzas.’

‘But your parasites are
not
innocently looking for pizza.’

‘Nope. But when the bots are trapped, the security protocols strip out all viruses and parasites automatically.’

‘So they can’t detect what we’re doing?’

‘Well, er, under normal circumstances, no  . . .’ said Mac.

Uh-oh! ‘What aren’t you telling me?’ asked Kaspar.

‘I just described a
routine
activity trace. A full trace is much more thorough. If they do a full trace, then we’re screwed.’

‘When and why would they do a full trace?’

‘If they suspect we’re up to something.’

Kaspar considered for a moment. ‘You realize that if we are right and they catch us  . . . ?’

‘I know.’

‘I don’t just mean you lose your security clearance. We could end up  . . .’

‘I
know
.’

Kaspar looked at Mac’s face. Scared, but determined. She really was quite beautiful – and a better friend than he deserved if she was prepared to go through all this with him. He couldn’t help wondering why she was doing it,
but he wasn’t about to question her motives. She was genuine, he’d bet his life on it.

‘OK, let’s do it,’ he said finally. ‘But we’ll have to come up with a better cover than pizza. And the other thing I need to do is find a way to get back into the Clinic.’

After a full-on week of yet more skirmishes with groups of Insurgents, Kaspar sat against a wall, getting his breath back, next to the bodies of two stunned, unconscious terrorists. This latest attack had involved a prolonged ground car chase through some pretty suburban backstreets and had ended with Mariska immobilizing the terrorist’s vehicle by sending an override command to its engine management computer. The four terrorists had bailed out and scattered into the Botanical Gardens, and it had taken twenty minutes of chasing them round the shrubbery before they were tagged.

Kaspar was excited, and it wasn’t just the adrenalin from the chase. He had known for some time now that he needed to get back inside the Clinic, and today at last a golden opportunity had presented itself.

It was time to find out what was really going on.

Mariska had zapped the other two, and he knew that she was on her way to him, so he only had a few moments. After a quick check to ensure he wasn’t being watched or monitored, Kaspar took out his utility knife and slit a hole in the leg of his trousers. Here goes, he thought, steeling
himself. Taking a deep breath, he stuck the knife through the tear and into the fleshy part of his thigh.

For a moment he felt nothing, then red-hot, screaming pain ripped through his body. Kaspar bit down hard on his bottom lip. He looked down at the damage he’d inflicted to his leg. It was bleeding a little too copiously. God, he hadn’t hit an artery, had he?

Stop panicking, Kaspar. He’d been careful to aim for a non-lethal part of his thigh. But it still hurt like hell and was bleeding like a water feature.

By the time the transports arrived, Mariska had already stuck a field dressing on the wound. After treating the terrorists, a medic found time for the good guys.

Kaspar gave him a rueful smile. ‘One of them got me with a knife,’ he explained. ‘It looked a bit rusty but it’ll be fine, yeah?’

The medic peered at Kaspar’s leg. ‘It’s superficial, but it’s safer to come with us and get it checked,’ came the reply. ‘It might need a couple of stitches. You can’t be too careful with open wounds. The last thing you need is for it to become infected. Here, stick this over it for now.’ The medic handed Kas a fresh field dressing.

Fifteen minutes later, Kaspar was at the Clinic. He was directed to wait outside Treatment Room B, where he would be seen as soon as the more urgent cases had been dealt with.

‘Could you at least do something to stop the bleeding?’ Kaspar read the nametag that was part of the uniform of the nurse before him. Nurse Drayton had a sour face and
lips that were permanently turned down. It probably took a High Council directive to get her to smile. ‘I’ve got blood dripping down my leg and it hurts like a bastard.’

‘I could cauterize the wound and staple it closed, but a doctor has to administer the local anaesthetic,’ Nurse Drayton told Kaspar in no uncertain terms.

‘And how long before a doctor is available?’

‘At least an hour,’ said the nurse.

Kas took a deep breath. ‘I really can’t wait that long. Could you just staple me back together so I can get back to the Academy?’

Nurse Drayton’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Are you sure? It’ll be quite painful if you don’t have the local anaesthetic.’

‘I’ll grin and bear it,’ said Kaspar.

The nurse shrugged. ‘It’s your leg. Just sign the waiver form and I can get right to it.’

A couple of minutes later, Kaspar was seated on a gurney, his leg stretched out in front of him. Nurse Drayton had escorted him into the treatment room and was laying out the necessary medical-ware to fix his leg.

‘Last chance to back out,’ said the nurse.

Kaspar shook his head, and gritted his teeth. He had to be insane to go through with this but he really couldn’t go exploring with blood pouring down his leg and leaving a trail behind him.

But this was going to hurt. A lot.

Kaspar hadn’t been wrong. His leg was throbbing, his heart was pounding, and all he wanted to do was put Nurse Drayton in a choke hold. But at last his wound was
clean and stapled. The nurse covered it with a fresh dressing, securing it with a bandage.

‘You’re very brave,’ said the nurse, a touch of admiration sneaking into her voice.

Kaspar wiped the beads of sweat off his forehead. ‘Not brave. Just stupid,’ he corrected.

‘Would you like me to call the Academy for a transport to take you back?’ asked the nurse.

Kaspar shook his head. ‘No, I’ve got that covered. But thanks anyway.’

‘Take some painkillers and keep your weight off it for at least twenty-four hours. OK?’

‘OK,’ said Kaspar, knowing full well that it wasn’t going to happen.

He hopped off the gurney and tentatively tried putting weight on his bad leg. It was manageable. Acutely painful, but manageable. Kaspar thanked the nurse one last time before he headed out of the Minor Trauma department, made his way down to the kitchen, slipped out through the exit into the garden and limped across to the melon patch where he knew he could get to the North Wing.

By the time he’d taken up his position beneath the melon plants, his leg was throbbing worse than ever. Kaspar would’ve given his left arm for some strong painkillers at that moment; if he didn’t take the weight off his leg soon, the wound would open up and the dressing would be saturated with blood. He had to hurry.

He kept his eyes on the entrance to the North Wing.
This time, there was no one there and the side door was shut, but Kaspar reckoned he wouldn’t have long to wait. With a large number of captives to process, he figured that medical reinforcements would soon be on their way. Kaspar settled down, hidden among the roots of the plants, and pointed his rifle at the door. Through the telescopic sight, he could clearly see the keypad. Now he just needed someone to arrive. About ten minutes later, two doctors turned up. They obviously didn’t think they could be seen, so they weren’t at all careful about shielding the keypad. Kaspar watched the movements of the shorter doctor’s hand over the keys.

Left side, right side, middle, right side.

Perfect.

Once they had gone in, Kaspar sprinted across to the door and examined the keypad. There was a fine layer of dirt on it – except on the two, four, five and nine.

‘No wonder people get burgled.’ Kaspar shook his
head. Anyone could see that the clean keys had to be the active ones. And since the code pattern was left – right – middle – right, the code had to be 5 – 9 – 2 – 4. Kaspar keyed in the numbers, satisfied with his logic.

The door remained disappointingly sealed.

How about 5 – 4 – 2 – 9?

Kaspar held his breath as he keyed in the alternative code. There was a satisfying click and the door swung open.

‘Yes!’

He followed the now-familiar route down the corridor, peering carefully into each room, but they were all empty. At the end of the corridor, he took the stairs up one flight and walked back along the length of the building, still checking. Nothing. The second floor up was also unoccupied, but when he reached the third floor, he immediately heard noises.

Kaspar tracked the sound to ‘Operating Room One’ and peeked through the door. He couldn’t see everything that was going on, but he could see that there were glass panels just beneath the ceiling, through which medical students above could watch operations. He followed a sign that said
VIEWING GALLERY
up a flight of stairs. Carefully opening and closing the door so as not to attract the attention of those below, Kaspar began to observe.

The room contained medical staff and a couple of Guardians from the Special Support Group, none of whom were wearing surgical masks. However, they were in the minority. The room was filled to capacity with
gurneys, each occupied with strapped-down terrorists. Most were unconscious, no doubt zapped by Guardians’ stun rifles, but a few were awake but restrained, alert and looking around, or struggling to get free. Regardless of whether or not they were awake, all of them were immediately stunned by one of the medics. Not anaesthetized, but given a high-power, direct contact blast.

Kaspar winced at each shot. A while ago, back at the Academy during a close-quarter battle drill, a real oaf of a trainee called Micheson had accidentally fired his weapon point-blank into Mikey’s thigh during a wall climb. Even after Mikey had woken up with a boatload of painkillers swirling through his system, he was still in agony.

‘It felt like the nerves in my leg were being shredded,’ he told them afterwards. ‘All the way from my lower spine to my toes. My leg felt like it was on fire and the pain just wouldn’t let up. If they hadn’t sedated me through the worst of it, I’d have thought seriously about killing Micheson and then myself.’ And he hadn’t been joking.

Micheson had been kicked out and Mikey had come damn close to quitting too.

So to hit someone with a contact shot was not a humane or pleasant thing to do. And after the patients were all unconscious, there was something else. The way they were treated was more reminiscent of a slaughterhouse than a hospital. Their bodies were stripped and tossed about like carcasses. They were being slammed, dropped and slung across the room. Occasionally they landed face down on the floor and sustained facial injuries.