Vengeance (15 page)

“No need, there is some here,” Leozii said. He took a shaker from his own table. He placed it on Azoh’s food table with a disparaging look at Chisnall. If nothing else, Chisnall thought, his career as a chef was over.

But that could be the least of his problems. He was dismissed with a subtle hand signal from one of Azoh’s advisors. He turned to find Goezlin staring at him, and began the long walk down through the council benches, away from Azoh’s chair. He forced himself to walk slowly but his mind and heart were racing. Had Goezlin identified him?

He increased his pace. He had reached the hall of heroes when he saw Goezlin, flanked by two PGZ agents, emerge from the meeting room behind him.

Chisnall turned a corner and increased the length of his stride, quickening his pace even more without appearing to hurry. A curve in the corridor hid the PGZ agents from sight and only then did he start to run. But there was little point. He had nowhere to go.

“Well, this just keeps getting better,” Brogan said.

They had found a vantage point on top of an unfinished high-rise building, a luxury hotel according to the dilapidated signs on the construction site.

The Congress was completely sealed off. Tanks were rumbling into position on all the roads surrounding it. Crash barriers and barbed wire fences were being erected in a circle on the outer ring-road.

Two rotorcraft, one a surveillance craft, the other a gunship, were circling, maintaining a constant vigil overhead.

“Looks like they’re expecting us,” Wall said.

“They’re expecting something,” Price said.

“So much for no more hold-ups,” Barnard said.

Price wriggled slightly closer to the edge.

Rusted scaffolding and tattered tarpaulins encased the building like a decomposing, peeling skin. It had been under construction when the Bzadians had invaded. They hadn’t completed it, nor had they bothered to tear it down. It stood tall, silent and slowly decaying.

The Angels had found a place to hide the fire truck amid the empty containers and deserted site offices at the rear of the building.

From the second-to-top floor they looked out across the Congress. A rectangular complex in the middle of two concentric ring-roads, it had been largely dug out of a hill. Two curving shapes, like boomerangs, outlined a huge field of long grass above the buildings, which were topped by a massive metal flagpole.

To the east, a blanket of grey smoke suffocated the horizon. The low sun lit the top layer of smoke.

“They’ve locked the place down,” Wall said. “Looks like nobody is getting in or out.”

“We might as well turn around and go home,” Brogan said, and smiled before anyone could say anything. “Just telling it like it is.”

“What do we do now?” Wall asked.

“I don’t know,” Price said with a pointed look at Barnard. “Perhaps if I had more information about the purpose of this mission.”

“It wasn’t necessary,” Barnard said.

“It was necessary for me to do my job,” Price said.

“And if you’d been captured?” Barnard asked.

“I wasn’t,” Price said.

“You nearly were,” Barnard said. “We all very nearly were.”

Price stared at Barnard, fuming, but knowing the other girl was right. The moment was broken by Brogan.

“Where is the rendezvous point?” she asked.

Price answered without taking her eyes off Barnard. “There is a service entrance near the kitchens. We were supposed to meet him there.”

“Well, that’s easy then,” Brogan said. “Ryan won’t just give up. If we missed the rendezvous, he’ll keep trying. All we have to do is to find a way in.”

“Oh, is that all?” Barnard said. “Past armed guards, concrete crash barriers and two giant battle tanks. Why didn’t you just say so before?”

Chisnall looked around frantically. He had a few seconds at most. The kitchen was almost deserted. The chefs were all at the formal greeting of Azoh in the meeting room.

His eyes fell on an industrial-size spray can of cooking oil. Footsteps sounded in the corridor behind him. He snatched up the can and placed it on top of one of the gas elements on the cooking hob, and spun the knob around. The electronic igniter clicked a few times and he could smell the gas, then it lit with a small whoosh. Flames lapped at the base of the spray can.

He upended a large cooking pot and placed it over the can and the clawing flames, concealing them. He moved away from the stove and opened a cupboard, intending to hide the salt shaker, just as Goezlin entered behind him.

Goezlin wasted no time.

“Search him,” he said.

“What are you doing?” Chisnall asked, as the two large PGZ agents grabbed him by the arms.

Goezlin said nothing.

“I am just a chef,” Chisnall protested. “All I did was to forget the salt!”

“Really,” Goezlin said as one of the PGZ agents showed him the salt shaker he had just taken from Chisnall’s pocket.

“A simple mistake,” Chisnall said. It sounded incredibly lame.

“Have it tested,” Goezlin said to one of his agents. “And be careful with it. I doubt that it contains salt.”

“What are you talking about?” Chisnall said.

“You were at Uluru and Wivenhoe,” Goezlin said. “Your name is Chizna.”

“You are mistaken,” Chisnall said. He carefully avoided looking at the pot on the stovetop.

“I did not recognise you at first,” Goezlin said, “because you have changed your appearance. It will be very interesting to see what is in that salt shaker. Perhaps we have just witnessed a human plot to murder Azoh.”

“No!” Chisnall cried.

“I must get back to the meeting,” Goezlin said. “Take him to headquarters. Isolate him. He is extremely dangerous. No one starts the interrogation until I get there.”

Rough hands grabbed Chisnall’s wrists and hauled them to his neck, where a neck cuff secured them in place.

As he was dragged out of the kitchen, Chisnall allowed himself one last, desperate glance at the stove.

Goezlin disappeared back towards the meeting room. Chisnall stumbled along between the two large PGZ agents, wondering how everything could have gone so spectacularly wrong.

And then the oil bomb exploded. Heated beyond its limits, the aerosol can burst, releasing a mist of inflammable oil onto the flames of the stove.

Chisnall didn’t have to see the pot hit the ceiling; he heard it, just as a sheet of flame erupted out through the kitchen door behind them.

Then he was running, taking advantage of the shock that loosened the grip on his arms.

The sprinklers had kicked in. Water was cascading down his face and the floor was slippery. Fire alarms were blaring.

He skidded around a corner and burst through a door, not knowing or caring where it went. An office, it led into a series of larger offices, and he could see another door on the far side. He slammed into the door, but it wouldn’t open. The door he had just come through crashed open again as the PGZ agents reached it. Chisnall ducked down, below the level of the desks, searching for another way out. A door, a window, anything!

He could see nothing, and slid under a desk, hoping against hope that they would somehow miss him. He wrenched at his neck-cuffs, trying to free his hands. Footsteps sounded just metres away. He crawled into a corner, bunching himself up in the shadows. It didn’t help.

The desk above him was suddenly no longer there, tipped over on its side. What replaced it was the large shapes of two PGZ agents.

He barely saw the guns. All he could think about was the salt shaker.

Goezlin would test it. He would find the poison. In his eyes this would be a plot by humans to kill the Bzadian spiritual leader.

The Bzadians were teetering on the brink.

Chisnall had a horrible feeling that he had just pushed them over the edge.

But perhaps that had been Kozi’s plan all along.

A large black bird, a crow, was watching Price, pausing only to peck at something under its feet. Price watched it back. Crows made her uncomfortable. There was something sinister about them. This one watched her, turning its head from side to side, then went back to its meal.

Looking at its claws, Price saw what it was eating. The carcass of another bird. She picked up a stone and threw it at the crow to scare it away. It ignored her and carried on eating. She looked over at Brogan. One question that had never been answered was why Brogan had agreed to come on the mission. Brogan had been close to Chisnall, very close. But she had betrayed him. Now they were within sight of their goal. How was she feeling about seeing him again? Brogan caught Price’s gaze, staring back at her.

“So what are we going to do, LT?” Brogan asked. “Time’s a-wasting.”

“In a hurry to see Chisnall again?” Price asked. The words sounded more bitter than she intended them to.

“What if I am?” Brogan asked.

“He’s not going to have you back,” Price said. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Oh, really?” Brogan said. “Because that’s why I’m really here. To kiss and make up with an old boyfriend.”

“Whatever you think, it’s not going to be easy,” Price said.

“Sure. Life’s hard. And then you die,” Brogan said. “There’s a mousetrap at the end of the maze.”

“She’s right, we got to do something, LT,” Monster said.

“As soon as that bushfire burns through and those Puke soldiers emerge from the stream, they’ll all be looking for us,” Barnard said.

“What the hell?” Wall’s voice dragged Price’s eyes back to the front.

Across the grassy fields of the Congress, people were pouring out of the doorways of the building. The sound of sirens came clearly through the air, already hazy with the smoke from the bushfires.

A thin plume of smoke was rising, somewhere near the centre of the building.

“Chisnall,” Brogan said.

“You don’t know that,” Wall said.

“She right,” Monster said. “Is Chisnall.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s him or not, that fire is our ticket in,” Price said. “We are Oscar Mike, right now.”

The Tsar was still unconscious when they got back to the fire truck.

“Hit the sirens,” Price said.

Monster swerved the machine out of the construction site, around a corner and onto the main road towards the congress. The road was lined with trees, as was the median strip. They crossed an intersection and travelled through a small forested area. Although she had seen aerial photos, Price was still amazed at the amount of greenery and foliage surrounding the building. If the bushfire made it this far, it would find plenty of fuel, she thought.

The soldiers on the barricades saw them coming and wasted no time, pulling back the barricades, waving the fire truck through. Their truck was yellow, not red, a bushfire truck not a city fire engine, but in the heat, the panic of a fire in the heart of their government, no questions were asked. The soldiers left the gates open, and behind them Price heard the wail of more sirens.

“What now?” Wall asked.

“The service entrance is around to the left,” Price said. “Keep an eye out for Chisnall. If they are evacuating the building, then he will be somewhere outside, and that’s the most likely place.”

The fire truck leaned as Monster veered sharply around another corner onto the perimeter road.