Eye of the Storm (12 page)

‘Back up! Back up!’ Claire ordered, her strong voice carrying over the sound of the weapons fire.

Nipper growled a warning. Was something moving behind them?

‘I don’t think we can!’ Sam yelled back. ‘It looks like there are more coming up behind us. We’re trapped!’

‘We’re going to die,’ David groaned.

Sam felt a surge of anger at the dark pessimism in the man’s voice. There was something about people who moaned at every turn that set his teeth on edge. He was tempted to snap at him, but
as he opened his mouth to speak, something caught his eye. Was that movement Sam could see in the dark passageway behind them or was his imagination playing tricks on him? A muffled growl was
answered by a sequence of clicks. Raptors were definitely approaching, but it was impossible to tell how close they were.

‘Sherri! Cover the rear,’ Claire ordered, firing another burst. ‘We need space. Get us moving back. There’s too many of them ahead.’

‘Got it.’

Sam felt the raptors shift aside to let Sherri through and she pushed past him without apology as she moved to support Nipper and Grunt. Holding her rifle with her right hand, she raised her
filtered torch in her left and played it along the passageway behind them. Initially, there was nothing to see. The passageway looked empty. With cautious speed, Sherri, Nipper and Grunt began to
move back the way they had come. Suddenly, they stopped again. Caught, reflected in the red light of Sherri’s beam, Sam could see raptors’ eyes coming towards him at speed.

‘There’s some seriously weird stuff in here,’ Tony commented. ‘Have either of you read the section on UFOs and USOs yet?’

Niamh looked over the top of her screen at him. The three of them were now working on separate computers – Tony on his laptop, Niamh on Carrie’s laptop and Carrie on an old laptop of
her dad’s that she’d found tucked away in a cupboard. Pieces of paper were spread all over the kitchen table, covered in notes.

‘No,’ she answered, glancing across at Carrie, who also shook her head.

‘I’ve heard of UFOs, but what are USOs?’ Carrie asked.

‘Unidentified Submarine Objects,’ Niamh explained. ‘What have you found, Tony?’

‘It’s hard to believe some of these reports, but there are so many! I got shivers running up and down my spine just readin’ ’em.’

‘What sort of reports?’ Carrie asked, getting up and moving round to look over her brother’s shoulder.

‘Navy ships trackin’ underwater objects movin’ at speeds of 150 miles per hour. Military and civilian pilots reportin’ flying objects that seem to stalk them in the sky.
Weird clouds and fogs that don’t follow the laws of nature. Here, let me read you this one. I love this! It’s a direct quote made by the Director of Civil Air Defense at Lajas, Puerto
Rico, who says he saw an object being chased by a military jet in April 1992. He said:

‘ “The saucer was metallic, silvery and highly polished, and it seemed to be playing with the jet. It would continually stop in the air suddenly, then just as the jet was about to
catch up it would move away quickly.”

‘There’s more, but you get the gist. Apparently, he was one of several witnesses. It’s hard to imagine someone in that sort of job puttin’ his reputation and career on
the line unless he was pretty certain of what he saw.’

‘Flying saucers!’ Carrie scoffed. ‘So you think Niamh’s brother and his friend have been abducted by aliens? I don’t get it. How would a UFO steal the boat? And if
it did, then why for Pete’s sake? I mean, some of the aircraft and ships that have disappeared have been massive. It would take a damned big UFO to pick up somethin’ like the USS
Cyclops.
I’ve just been readin’ about it. That thing was over 500 feet long and weighed about
20,000
tons before you start adding cargo!’

‘I didn’t say I thought that was what had happened. . .’

Niamh closed her eyes and concentrated, remembering again what it had felt like at the moment she had first experienced the strange tearing separation from her twin brother. Carrie and Tony
continued to bicker, but their voices faded as once again she relived the moment in the pool.

Her memory of that instant was vivid. She remembered no sense of weird objects in the sky in Sam’s thoughts at the time of his disappearance. There was shock and confusion, but there was
no question of anything alien . . . then, unbidden, an impossible face, scaled, with sharp teeth and a cold intelligence behind its dark eyes reconstructed in her mind and she shuddered. It was a
face she had pictured clearly just the previous day. Could it be that this creature had somehow taken Sam and Callum? She scrunched her eyes shut even tighter as she focused on trying to feel a
link between the face and the moment the boys vanished. Nothing came. Although the image of the creature had come from Sam, it had come long after she had sensed he was on land.

‘No,’ she sighed, causing the other two to pause in their argument. She could feel their eyes on her. It was hard to know how much she could tell them about what she had seen without
sounding crazy. ‘Sam’s in a strange place, but I don’t think he was abducted.’

‘What about a sort of space-time warp?’ Carrie suggested. ‘I was just readin’ about this freaky thing that happened to a passenger aircraft where they apparently vanished
off the radar screen for ten minutes and then suddenly reappeared again in the same place, carried on flyin’ and landed safely. Once they were on the ground, air traffic control asked the
pilots where they went during that ten-minute blank period and the pilots denied having ever been off course, or having experienced anythin’ strange during their approach. The really spooky
thing was that after landin’, the pilots discovered all the watches and clocks on the plane were ten minutes slow, yet they had only done a time check about twenty minutes before the
incident.’

‘That
is
weird!’ Tony agreed. ‘You know, I never believed there was anythin’ in this whole Bermuda Triangle thing until I started readin’ these notes, Niamh.
Now, I’m not so sure. There’s just so much stuff here. The thing that’s scary ain’t just the number of incidents, but the sort of people involved. It would be easy to laugh
off a bunch of flaky wannabes lookin’ for a bit of publicity, but a load of the people in these reports are solid, respectable types.’

‘I don’t think Sam’s in a time warp either,’ Niamh said, shaking her head. ‘At least not one that just makes you lose track of time. I’ve sensed his fear at
times. Wherever he is there are dangers. He’s not in some sort of stasis.’

‘OK, so we scratch UFOs and time warps,’ Tony said. ‘What about USOs?’

‘I think we can cross those off as well,’ Niamh answered. ‘At least for the moment. I suppose there’s a possibility that a USO could have done something without being
seen by the boys. There was a sort of pulling sensation when I first felt something was wrong. It was almost as if he was being torn away from me. I don’t know how else to describe
it.’

‘There’s an awful lot of stuff about magnetic and electromagnetic effects in these notes,’ Carrie pointed out. ‘Maybe the boys are still here, but sort of
invisible.’

‘Have you been catchin’ sneaky
Star Trek
time again, sis?’

‘No!’ she replied vehemently. ‘You’re the trekkie, not me. It was somethin’ I read here in the notes.’

‘Strange!’ Tony said, his eyes going distant for a moment. ‘It’s just I saw an episode of
The Next Gen
a couple of weeks ago when somethin’ like that
happened. Two of the main characters suffered a sort of phase shift. They could see the rest of the crew, but no one could see them. It was as if they were ghosts, except they were
alive.’

Niamh began to shake her head, but Carrie nodded.

‘Yes!’ she said excitedly, pushing her brother aside and keying back up through the file levels before opening a different chain of folders. ‘Look at this. I read
somethin’ similar just a few minutes ago. Let me find it. It’s here somewhere. I think it was called the Philadelphia Experiment. Yes. Look!’

Carrie sat back as the others scanned through the notes.

‘This was back in 1943, Carrie,’ Niamh said, shaking her head and pursing her lips. ‘And Dad’s noted the sources as questionable.’

‘Yeah, but look at the claim!’ Tony said, giving a whistle. ‘It says they were usin’ some sort of a strong electromagnetic field to make the ship undetectable to radar
and instead, they inadvertently made the ship and crew vanish entirely!’

‘Riggghhhht!’
Niamh said. ‘Invisible. Like the invisible man invisible.’

‘And there were reports of it having teleported. There’s a cross-reference here to something called the Hutchison Effect,’ he noted. ‘Anyone seen that yet?’

The girls shook their heads.

‘Do we have to look at that now?’ Carrie asked. ‘My head’s spinnin’ with all this stuff. Who’s up for a swim?’

‘I don’t know,’ Niamh replied. ‘I think we might be getting somewhere here.’

‘It doesn’t have to be a long swim,’ Carrie said, stretching and arching her back like a cat. ‘I’m just gettin’ stiff from all this sittin’ and
starin’ at the screen. I’m strugglin’ to concentrate and I think I’d be more alert after a quick dip.’

‘OK, you go, but I’d better stay inside. It’s probably better if I don’t risk being seen.’

‘Our pool’s pretty private,’ Carrie assured her. ‘There’s no houses overlookin’ us out back. It should be fine. Come on. I’ve got plenty of spare
bikinis. What about you, bro’? You comin’?’

‘In a minute,’ he said, his eyes still glued to the screen. ‘I just wanna check out this Hutchison Effect. I’ll be right behind you.’

‘I should stay too. This electromagnetic thing looks promising.’

‘Oh no you don’t!’ Carrie chuckled. ‘If you stay, the two of you won’t come at all. Come on, Niamh! Take a quick break. The information will still be there when we
get back.’

Carrie took her by the hand and led the way through to her bedroom where they pulled out Carrie’s extensive collection of swimwear. Her bikinis were rather more daring than Niamh was used
to wearing, but she found one that covered enough for her to feel comfortable. She looked at herself in the mirror.

‘Dad would have a fit if he saw me in this! Especially if he knew I was going to be swimming with a boy I fancied.’

Carrie gave her a cheeky wink. ‘Less is more around here. You’ve got a great body. What’s to hide?’

Niamh put on an obviously fake posh accent and pointed at Carrie’s bikini, which barely covered anything at all. ‘One doesn’t flaunt one’s assets with such blatant
exhibitionism in England.’

They both laughed.

‘Well, it’s a good job we’re not in England then,’ Carrie said. ‘Come on. Let’s go through the living area to the deck and do a bit of flauntin’.
I’m bettin’ Tony will change pretty quick when he sees you go by.’

Niamh felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment, but she couldn’t think of a suitably quick reply. Tony was still glued to his computer screen and Niamh could hear a distorted voice coming
from it. Niamh started towards him, eager to see what he was looking at, but Carrie immediately took her by the arm and steered her towards the patio door. Tony glanced round briefly and Niamh was
sure she saw his eyes widen as he saw her. She felt her chest tighten. He was quick to look back at the screen. Was he worried that she might think he was staring?

‘You not comin’, then?’ Carrie teased.

‘Yeah. I’ll be right there,’ he replied, glancing round at Niamh again and flashing a smile at her. ‘I just googled the Hutchison Effect and found some videos of his
experiments on YouTube. You need to take a look at this later. Experiments aside, this dude has serious mad scientist hair that’s bound to give you a laugh!’

‘So what sort of things does he do on these videos?’ Niamh asked, pausing by the door. She was tempted to shake off Carrie and temporarily abandon swimming to check it out.

‘He keeps on about somethin’ called zero point energy and by puttin’ different stuff into a strong magnetic field, he makes it do weird stuff. It’s freaky, but hey
– the clips ain’t goin’ nowhere.’

‘So what’s the connection with the Philadelphia Project?’

Tony clicked the pause icon and got to his feet. ‘I’ll tell you in the pool,’ he said. ‘Be right there.’ And he left the living area at a run.

‘Told you,’ Carrie whispered.

‘I reckon he just needed the toilet,’ Niamh suggested, playing down his speedy exit.

Carrie gave her a knowing smile and although Niamh tried to remain outwardly indifferent, secretly she hoped Carrie was right.

‘Perhaps I should just take a look at the video,’ she added, taking half a step back towards the computer.

‘No! Swim! Now! Come on. The sooner we get in, the sooner I’ll let you come back and look at the freaky scientist!’

Stepping out from the air-conditioned living room, the heat hit like a sledgehammer. Niamh wasted no time in heading for the water. The Dales’ pool was a similar size to the one at her
father’s house in Summerland. Without knowing how deep it was, Niamh did not want to risk diving in. Instead, she walked to the edge and stepped straight off the side to drop into the water.
Allowing her legs to fold as her feet found the bottom of the pool, she stayed under the water for a few seconds before drifting back to the surface.