Web of Fire Bind-up (56 page)

‘When I say now,' said Skipper, strapping herself into the co-pilot's seat and pointing her CRB up at the hole in the roof to close it again, ‘press that button, OK?'

‘OK,' said Sam, still in shock.

‘But hold on tight,' she added, ‘'cos I'm driving now.'

She leaned forward and twisted the ignition key. As the engines growled back into life she rammed the joystick sideways and Sam felt the blood rush to his head as the hornet flipped over onto its back.

‘Now!' she shouted. ‘Now!'

Sam jabbed at the button, there was a series of loud thumps as the explosives blew the legs off the other hornet and then Skipper pulled full throttle and they scorched up into the sky, leaving the ball of robber flies tumbling away below them.

‘Now turn the dial to two,' said Skipper.

Sam clicked the dial round to the next number and felt his head spin as Skipper flipped the hornet back onto its front again.

‘Look down there,' she said. ‘They're all piling in.'

Sam saw that the entire swarm of robber flies seemed to have converged on Skipper's hornet, forming a dark ball all around it. He looked back at Skipper and was surprised to see that she was smiling.

‘Press it again,' she said.

Sam glanced down at the box in his hand. He looked at the squirming ball of robber flies falling through the air.

Then he pressed the button.

There was a brilliant, blinding flash and a bright circle of light sliced through the darkness like a silver saucer, followed almost immediately by a loud explosion and a ball of orange flame.

‘Wow,' said Sam, impressed. ‘That was one heck of a firework.'

‘It's nothing to what's coming if we don't pull this thing off,' said Skipper as the shattered remnants of flies fluttered like soot from the sky. She pushed the joystick forward and accelerated down towards the White House.

‘OK.' she said. ‘Let's go and see the President.'

The hornet plunged down the chimney and emerged through the fireplace in an upstairs room. It flew quickly through the open door, buzzing loudly above the heads of startled security personnel as it headed
down the red carpeted staircase and along the marble hallway hung with cut-glass chandeliers.

‘Come on,' muttered Skipper to herself as she pulled the throttle back as far as it would go. ‘Come on!'

They flew on through the West Wing, past the executive offices and Cabinet Rooms until at last, at the very end of the corridor, they came to the door of the Oval Office.

It was shut.

‘Damn and double damn!' shouted Skipper. She landed the hornet on the door handle and slammed her fist down on the control panel. ‘We have to get in there!'

‘What about the keyhole?' suggested Sam.

‘Looks too tight,' said Skipper. ‘But it's got to be worth a try.' She walked the hornet across the handle and the cockpit darkened as she thrust its head into the narrow tunnel. Beyond the circle of light up ahead, Sam could clearly see the President seated at his desk, surrounded by six or seven others. A couple of security men were staring anxiously out of the window, trying to locate the source of the recent explosion.

There was a thud and a grating sound as Skipper tried to move the hornet further into the keyhole.

‘It's no good,' she said. ‘We're too big. If we go any further we'll never get out again.'

‘Let's take a look,' said Sam. ‘See what they're up to.' He activated the zoom facility and they stared at a close-up of the President's grim, lined face concentrating on something in front of him.

‘Look,' said Skipper. ‘There on his neck!'

Sam looked at where she was pointing and saw the two angry red insect bites just beneath his ear.

‘Zoom out a bit,' said Skipper.

Sam took the magnification down a couple of notches to reveal a laptop and an open metal briefcase sitting on top of the ornate wooden desk.

‘That's it,' whispered Skipper. ‘It's the Mobile Command Centre.'

‘Then we're too late,' said Sam. ‘They've already got to him.'

The President turned to Defence Secretary Steele and pointed to the door.

‘Get over to the Presidential Command Bunker, Dan. The Vice President's going to need your help.'

Steele shook his head.

‘I'm staying here with you, sir.'

The President glared at him with fire in his eyes.

‘Defence Secretary Steele, that's an order.'

Steele stood to attention. He figured he had less than seven minutes to get to the bunker which lay a mile deep beneath the surface of Washington DC. He knew he probably wouldn't make it. But an order was an order. And at least he would get to see the trees and the sky one last time.

‘Yes, Mr President,' he said quietly. Then he turned on his heel and made for the door.

The President of the United States turned back to the keyboard and began to type in the launch codes.

3 – 7 – 4
…

As the Defence Secretary approached the door, Skipper thrust the hornet into reverse and flew back into the air just as the door swung open.

‘Go!' shouted Sam as he was flung violently against his seat belt. ‘Go!'

…
4 – 0…

The hornet's motors roared and as they flew at break-neck speed past the white fireplace, the flags and the paintings of rural Texas, Skipper turned and shouted: ‘Think of a number!'

‘What?' Sam yelled back over the howling engines.

‘THINK OF A NUMBER!'

…3 – 9…

‘Six!' screamed Sam as they accelerated over the President's shoulder. ‘Six!'

Skipper pushed the joystick forward and the hornet slammed headfirst into number six on the keyboard.

…6

‘What the–' exclaimed the President.

Special Agent Griffin swatted the hornet away with the back of his hand, smashing it back against the long sash windows behind the President's desk.

INCORRECT CODE

read the display.

Inside the hornet, Sam groggily lifted his head from the control panel, wiped the blood from his lips and peered through the screen. He turned to Skipper who was holding her wrist.

‘I think we did it,' he said. ‘I think we stopped him.'

Skipper shook her head and stared out into the room.

‘No,' she said. ‘Look.'

Sam looked again.

RE-ENTER LAUNCH CODES 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

‘What?' he shouted. ‘No!' He pulled back on the throttle once more, but there was no response and he knew then that the engines must have stalled on impact. They watched in horrified fascination as the President retyped the codes

3 – 7 – 4 – 4 – 0 – 3 – 9 –5

and a new screen appeared.

LAUNCH COMMAND

ORDER CONFIRMED

‘I can't start the engines!' shouted Sam, desperately twisting the ignition key. ‘They won't fire!'

Defence Secretary Dan Steele looked at the time displayed on his mobile phone and knew that he was not going to make it. He stood alone on the lawn, looking up at the stars and listening to the fountains pattering across the surface of the pond. As he thought of his wife and children asleep somewhere in the suburbs – at peace beneath the glittering sky – he hesitated, and then put the phone back in his pocket. They didn't know of the horror that was about to descend upon them and – much as he longed to – he decided it was better not to wake them.

The President moved the cursor above the SEND command. He was about to click on the mouse when he heard a cry of pain and looked up to see that the other members of his team were holding their heads. He paused, confused. Then suddenly he was holding his own head and it seemed to him that his brain was on fire, consumed by blue flames which raced down the crimson corridors of his mind and burned away all fear and confusion, cleansing his thoughts and leaving him breathless and gasping like a man who has awoken from a nightmare.

He looked at the missile tracking system and saw that all the red dots had vanished from the screen.

Turning back to the Briefcase, he moved the cursor to the left and clicked ABORT.

Then he looked at General Miller who, along with everyone else, was staring at the blank screen in disbelief.

‘What the hell just happened here, General?' he asked quietly.

General Miller shook his head. ‘I don't know, Mr President,' he said. ‘But whatever it was, I don't think it's happening any more. Everything looks completely clear.'

At that moment the phone rang and the President snatched the receiver off the hook.

‘Are you sure?' he asked after a while.

He listened some more and then nodded. ‘OK,' he said. ‘That's what we've got too.'

Slowly and carefully, he replaced the receiver and turned to General Miller.

‘General,' he said. ‘I want you to get everyone together immediately. I want to know exactly how this happened and I want to know today.'

‘Yes, Mr President,' said General Miller. ‘I'll get right onto it.'

He turned to go, but the President put a hand on his shoulder and stopped him. ‘There's one more thing,' he added, looking around at the men who had gathered in his office to witness the end of the world. ‘This must never, ever get out.'

He paused and stared out of the window at the floodlit rose garden.

‘As far as the rest of the world is concerned, this never happened.'

So it has all been for this
, thought Steele.

All the struggle, the love and the passion was to end in a fireball that would turn everything to meaningless dust.

Steele searched the sky and wondered if he would see the missiles approaching in the last seconds before his life was over.

Would he know the moment of his death?

A ringing sound.

Steele thrust his hand into his pocket and flipped open the cover of his phone.

‘Yes?' he said. He nodded, listening and saying nothing. ‘Thank God,' he said at last. ‘Thank God.'

Standing alone on the White House lawn trying to make sense of it all, he was startled to see what appeared to be a large hornet flying over his head before disappearing off into the darkness.

It had, he thought, been a day for surprises.

Suddenly – like a wave rolling in to the shore – a feeling of relief swept over him and he fell to his knees, resting his face against the soft, cool grass. Then Defence Secretary Steele began to weep as he hadn't wept since he was a child, and his tears soaked into the dark, sweet earth like rain.

‘For a second there I thought we'd had it,' said Sam.

‘How come he never pressed the button?'

‘I don't know,' said Skipper as they flew up above the White House. ‘I don't understand it. Maybe something
went wrong with the parasites. Or maybe,' she added with a smile, ‘we just got lucky at last.'

But sitting alone in his apartment and watching the dawn break over Vermia, Doctor Janik Jancy knew it had nothing to do with luck. Staring out of the window at the empty streets, he remembered how he had discovered Alya in the laboratories late one night before she disappeared, trying desperately to alter the codes that were to be programmed into the parasites.

‘Miss Blin!' he had hissed at her in the half-light. ‘What are you doing? Do you want to get yourself killed?'

She had told him everything then, about the cruelty of the camps and the atrocities that the Vermian Empire was committing in the name of freedom. ‘And look,' she had said, showing him the pictures from Earth. ‘These are not monsters we are about to kill. They are people. Don't you see? They are people, just like us.'