Spiral (29 page)

“I don’t know anything about it yet — Drake hasn’t briefed me,” Will admitted.

“Ours is not to question why, ours is but to do or die,” Danforth said, misquoting the poem by Tennyson. “How very admirable you’re willing to throw your life away for the cause.”

“Well . . . no . . . we’ve got to do everything we can to stop the Phase, haven’t we?” Will met the Professor’s intense pupils through his glasses, but the man didn’t answer.

For a moment the Professor and the boy locked eyes, as if trying to delve deeper, to understand each other. In Danforth, Will again sensed something akin to Dr. Burrows’s obsessive dedication to the pursuit of new knowledge. A cold shiver passed down the length of his spine; he could almost imagine he was back with his dead father. But there was a stark difference. The Professor’s eyes were completely devoid of any warmth or compassion — no one mattered to him. No one at all. And that frightened Will.

Danforth began to smile, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile.

“Why — what’s wrong with the plan?” Will asked, hoping to find out more about it.

“Well, it promises to be interesting,” Danforth said, his smile transforming into a sneer. “Look at what we’ve got here.” He indicated everyone in the Hub with a sweep of his hand. “A leftover from the Third Reich, a Styx turncoat, a man with a microwave oven in his head, and a bunch of trigger-happy teenagers like you. And to top it all off, there’s a commando old enough to claim his bus pass calling the shots. How can we
possibly
go wrong?”

All of a sudden, Mrs. Rawls’s anxious voice made everyone look. Drake had finished with Chester and was about to give his parents their shots.

“No! I won’t let my husband and son have any part in this!” she exploded. Chester and Mr. Rawls were standing on either side of her as she remonstrated with Drake. “Hasn’t my family done enough for you already?”

“Dissent in the ranks,” Danforth commented. “Doesn’t bode well, either.”

As directed by Danforth, Will began to cut a roll of khaki material into strips, which he wrapped around each of the Geiger counters before stacking them in a crate. The Geiger counters appeared to be the same as the ones Will had seen left at various points around the Complex — rather battered, with chipped gray enamel casings. The only difference he could spot in the ones he was packing up was that some type of stubby antenna had been added to them, and the analog dials had been replaced with modern LED displays. But Will really didn’t feel like speaking to the Professor to find out what they were going to be used for.

The heated discussion with Drake came to an end, with Mr. Rawls and his wife leaving the Hub. Will saw Chester heading over to him.

“That was embarrassing,” his friend said.

“What’s the matter?” Will asked.

“Mum doesn’t want Dad or me to be put in danger again. She’s a bit strung out by everything at the moment,” Chester replied. “So Dad and I are still coming, but Drake’s promised we’ll only be there in a support role. No front-line stuff. And Mum’s stopping here with . . .” He didn’t go as far as to mention Danforth’s name, but the Professor was too engrossed in his laptop anyway to hear.

“Oh,” Will said. He’d been counting on his friend being with him when they faced whatever they were going to face in London.

Chester leaned toward Will and whispered into his ear. “Don’t worry, though, Will. I’m not about to wimp out after all we’ve been through together.”

EVERYONE HAD BEEN
ordered to report with their weapons and equipment to the area by the twin guardrooms at the far end of the entrance tunnel.

This was it. The moment they were all leaving.

Drake had given everybody white parkas with fur-lined hoods, and thick trousers of the same color. Although the clothes were a little bulky to move around in, he said they’d be grateful for the insulation they provided when they went outside.

As Will looked at everyone in these white combats, he saw their vacant expressions and how fidgety they were. He knew precisely what they were feeling. They were trying to hide their fear.

In the relative safety of the underground Complex, the threat posed by the Styx Phase felt so far away. Like some nightmare that might fade from memory if one stopped dwelling on it.

Why us? Why can’t someone else deal with it?
Will asked himself. There must be somebody else out there who knew what was going on, somebody better placed to fight it.

Given the choice, Will knew that he would simply turn around and just march back down the long tunnel again. The Complex might be very far from the real world, but it had been the closest thing to home that he’d known in a long time.

But then he looked again and noticed what lay behind Drake’s and Eddie’s expressions. Their eyes spoke of duty and quiet determination and doing what had to be done. Will told himself that he should try to emulate these men and draw strength from them. He’d been so immersed in his thoughts that he hadn’t heard Drake speaking to him.

“Have you got your earplugs?” Drake asked for the second time.

Will nodded.

From his mobility scooter, Sergeant Finch was helping Drake to give each of them a detailed equipment check before they were allowed to pass up the slope and into the darkness of the entrance chamber. Will had emptied his Bergen and arranged the contents neatly on the floor next to his belt kit and Sten submachine gun. Drake now praised him.

“Perfect turnout,” he said. “We’ll make a soldier of you yet.”

“One last thing — comms check,” Sergeant Finch reminded Drake as he squinted at the list on his beloved clipboard while a cat slept on his lap.

Drake put his hand to his headset. “Testing — one — two — three,” he whispered.

“Got you loud and clear,” Will confirmed.

“Good, kid, but now turn it off to conserve the juice. And that’s you done.” Drake turned to Chester and began the process with him. Will repacked his Bergen but held back for his friend, who was clearly embarrassed because his mother seemed reluctant to let go of him.

Will’s heart went out to her as she clung to her son, speaking softly to him. Against all odds the Rawls family had been reunited, and it felt wrong that Chester and his father were about to be separated from Mrs. Rawls again.

Will threw a glance at his own mother as she stood not looking at anyone, in some sort of ethereal detachment. Will and Mrs. Burrows hardly constituted a family any longer. They were more like fellow combatants.

Then Chester was coming toward him. “Poor old Mum. She really doesn’t want us to go,” his friend confided in a low voice. The boys entered the chamber together, finding that Parry was already in position beside the sliding exit panel.

“Sweeney’s coming with us, isn’t he?” Will said to Parry, realizing that he hadn’t spotted him by the guardrooms.

“He’s watching the crates outside,” Parry replied. “And before you ask, Wilkie’s not part of the detail, either. He’s . . .” Parry simply trailed off as he looked at the dial of his luminous watch.

Before long, everyone was packed in the chamber. Shoulder to shoulder in the enclosed space and laden down with their weapons and heavy Bergens, they were getting hotter and hotter in their Arctic Issue uniforms.

Parry’s radio suddenly crackled into life. “Five clicks on a north by northwest flight line,” it announced. “Acknowledge. Over.”

Flight line,
Will thought, wishing he could catch Chester’s eye, but it was impossible in the darkness. Nobody had been told how they’d be making the journey to London. Drake had said it was on a need-to-know basis.

“Acknowledged,” Parry replied into the radio. “The LZ will be painted. Over and out.” As he hooked his radio back on his webbing belt, he must have sensed that both boys were bursting to know what his exchange had been about. “These days we don’t use visible light to mark landing zones, but infrared beacons,” he explained. “The pilot can see it a mile off through his dropdown.”

“Right,” Will replied, as if he understood exactly what Parry had said, which he didn’t. But at least he now knew they’d be flying down south.

“It’s time,” Parry said to everyone. “I know you’re all weighed down with kit, but you must keep up with the Colonel as he leads the way to the LZ. Our window is very tight, and we can’t afford to be late.”

Parry slid the hatch open and the boys shuffled aside to allow the Colonel to slip past and outside. Then they all followed into the whirling flurries of snow.

“Jeez, it’s freezing!” Chester exclaimed as the cold air filled his lungs.

They moved quickly, one following the other, through the gate in the chain-link fence and then downhill, their boots thudding on the frosted ground as they jogged along.

Ahead of Will were Chester and the Colonel. Directly behind him came Parry, then he could make out the vague forms of the rest of the party: Mr. Rawls, Eddie and Elliott, Stephanie, Mrs. Burrows and, last of all, Drake.

A gale was sweeping up the mountainside and whistling through the overhead electrical lines as they passed beneath them. There was barely any moonlight due to the thick cloud cover, so Will found it impossible to make out anything much ahead. He could see Mr. Rawls was struggling to keep up, and began to wonder how far they still had to go. Were they heading toward the valley floor itself? But some twenty minutes later the ground leveled out, and the Colonel began to slow. Will saw that Sweeney was crouched beside a number of crates that contained the mobile detectors he’d helped to pack.

“Stay put,” Parry ordered. Then he and Drake moved off. Standing some forty feet apart, they held up devices that resembled flashlights, although they gave off no discernible light.

Everyone was looking up when there was a sound as if the sky had fallen in. It was so tumultuous and unexpected, it was impossible not to duck.

The helicopter had been flying so low that there’d been no warning whatsoever as it appeared directly over them. As the immense downthrust from its powerful rotors whisked the snow blizzard aside like confetti, the massive piece of war machinery hovering no more than forty feet above their heads was quite terrifying.

As it taxied into position between Parry and Drake and began to descend, it tipped back. It maintained an angle of forty-five degrees and the moment the wheels at the rear of the fuselage touched down, a ramp swung open between them. Over the sound of the helicopter’s engine, Parry and Drake were yelling at everyone to get on board. There were subdued red lights marking the edges of the ramp to guide them, and as Will climbed it, he glimpsed army insignia on the fuselage. Drake, Sweeney, and the Colonel hauled the crates up the ramp and then it thudded shut, and they were airborne.

Will took the place beside Chester and strapped himself in. With seats down both sides, the interior was easily twice the size of a train car, but there was no sign of the crew. Will and Chester watched as Parry moved to the front of the helicopter. The boys caught a momentary glimpse of the two pilots bathed in the green glow of their instrumentation, before the door to the cockpit closed again.

Seeing their interest, Drake came over and leaned between them, speaking loudly so they could hear. “So what do you think of our ride?”