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  ‘Wouldn’t it be easier to just cut our way in?’ Laura asked, pointing to the katanas strapped to Raven’s back. ‘Those things can cut through anything, right?’

  ‘That would make it rather difficult to secure the door again from the inside,’ Raven replied, handing Shelby one of her flashbang grenades. ‘Though I’m struggling to see how this will help.’

  ‘Oh ye of little faith,’ Shelby said, pulling the pin from the grenade and handing it to Otto. ‘Don’t let go of that.’

  ‘Oh, thank you very much,’ Otto said, keeping a tight hold on the spring-loaded safety lever.

  ‘Right then,’ Shelby said, turning back to the lock, ‘let’s crack this puppy.’

  She straightened the loop at the end of the safety pin and then made a series of tiny intricate bends at the other end.

  ‘Oh, that’s just beautiful,’ Tom said admiringly as he watched Shelby work. ‘I’ve seen the Maxwell twist before but I never realised that you could combine it with a reverse Mahler helix. That’s brilliant.’

  ‘You know, I’m really starting to like you,’ Shelby said with a grin as she slid the newly created pick into the lock. She closed her eyes and slowly twisted the pick.

  ‘You do know that you stick your tongue out when you’re doing that, don’t you?’ Otto said.

  ‘Seriously, Malpense?’ Shelby said, eyes still closed. ‘Now you start with the distracting banter?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Otto said, ‘it’s just that I get nervous when I’m holding live explosive devices.’

  ‘Shhh, just let Aunty Shelby work her . . . magic!’ There was a click and Shelby stepped back from the lock. ‘A round of applause might be nice, you know.’

  ‘Don’t,’ Laura said as Tom raised his hands to clap. ‘You’ll just encourage her.’

  Wing stepped forward, gripped the spokes of the wheel and turned, the large metal locking bolts screeching in protest as they released in a shower of rust. He pushed hard and the massive doors slowly swung inwards with a pained creaking sound. Raven cracked another glowstick and walked slowly into the darkness beyond the doors.

  ‘Last one into the creepy, dark, possibly radioactive abandoned military facility is a loser,’ Shelby said as she followed Raven inside.

  Colonel Francisco walked towards the burnt-out wreckage of the missing Shroud that was scattered across the valley floor.

  ‘We’ve found the pilot and co-pilot’s bodies but there’s no sign of Raven or the students who were on-board,’ one of the G.L.O.V.E. troops reported as Francisco approached.

  ‘You’re certain?’

  ‘Yes, sir, we’ve done a full scan of the wreckage. It seems that the Shroud was hit while it was on the ground. One of the ejector seats is missing too. It looks like Raven and the passengers have either been captured or they somehow managed to escape.’

  ‘Spread out and search for any signs of survivors,’ Francisco said to the rest of the troops. ‘We need to know what happened here.’

  Francisco continued walking through the debris field. Lying not too far from the Shroud were the twisted remains of a helicopter rotor blade. Someone had clearly managed to take down at least one of the enemy helicopters. The question was how? The transport Shrouds had no weapons. Something about the whole scene just didn’t make sense.

  ‘Over here,’ one of the G.L.O.V.E. troops yelled.

  Francisco hurried over to where the man was standing and found two dead bodies lying just inside the forest. Both were wearing white thermoptic camouflage suits.

  ‘Where did they get these from?’ Francisco said, kneeling down beside one of the dead men. The technology behind the suits’ holographic projection cloak was one of G.L.O.V.E.’s most closely guarded secrets. The fact that it had somehow fallen into the Disciples’ hands was deeply worrying. One of the men had been shot but the other man had been killed with a blade. The edges of the fatal wound were cauterised as if the blade had been heated or . . . Francisco suddenly realised what weapon might have caused a wound like that. He looked at the ground around the two bodies and saw several sets of tracks leading further into the forest.

  ‘I want the search continued along that vector,’ he said, pointing into the trees. ‘We may have survivors in need of assistance.’

  He pulled his communicator from his belt and thumbed the transmit button.

  ‘Go ahead, Colonel,’ Nero responded.

  ‘Max, I think Raven’s alive and even better, she may not be the only survivor.’

  Shelby locked the massive doors from the inside and handed the improvised key to Otto.

  ‘There you go,’ she said with a smile. ‘Gee, I hope you can get the pin back in the grenade what with the pin being bent now and all.’

  ‘You know you really are hilarious,’ Otto replied, as he forced the safety pin back into the grenade. ‘Truly, side-splittingly funny. I hope that nothing bad happens to you because then who would make sure that I’m always in such a constant state of intense amusement?’

  ‘If you two are quite finished,’ Raven said, taking the grenade from Otto and reattaching it to her tactical harness, ‘I’m quite keen to find out what sort of facility we’ve actually locked ourselves inside.’

  Raven walked down the darkened corridor ahead of the Alphas, the green light from her glowstick doing little to diminish the creepiness of the long dark corridor. Water dripped from the ceiling, pooling on the floor. They passed several doors that led to empty locker rooms and barracks with rows of rusty iron bunks.

  ‘Zombies,’ Penny said. ‘I mean, just look at this place. There’s definitely going to be zombies.’

  ‘I am thinking this but I am wishing that you are not saying it, yes?’ Franz said quietly.

  ‘Whatever this place is no one’s been here for a loooong time,’ Otto said.

  ‘Except the zombies,’ Shelby said.

  ‘Obviously, except the zombies.’

  ‘Please be stopping it,’ Franz said plaintively.

  Soon they came to another heavy metal door but this one was not locked. As Raven pushed it open dim, grey light came from the other side. The room beyond was lined with control panels on three sides but the fourth was a panel of dirty glass that looked out on to a massive cavern. Set in the glass was a door that led out on to a gantry running round the walls of the cavern. Daylight streamed down from an opening somewhere overhead, but what was truly bizarre was spread across the cavern floor. As they all walked on to the gantry they looked down on to an impossible scene from the past. Laid out before them was a perfect recreation of a small American town from the early 1960s. There was a diner, a drugstore, a church and even what looked like a fire station in the town square. Surrounding the centre were acres of suburban homes and schools. It was exactly as if somebody had picked up an entire American town fifty years ago and then dropped it in a cavern in Siberia. The only slightly incongruous detail were the abandoned Russian military vehicles that were dotted around the town. Far overhead was a huge geodesic glass dome that allowed the daylight to shine through. Some of its triangular panels were missing but otherwise it was intact.

  ‘OK, you know what,’ Otto said, ‘I wasn’t expecting that.’

  ‘On the plus side, it isn’t zombies,’ Penny said, unable to take her eyes off the bizarre sight. ‘Although that might actually have been marginally less weird.’

  ‘Why on earth would anyone build this?’ Laura asked.

  ‘Training,’ Raven said. ‘I’d heard rumours about places like this but I’d always thought it was a myth. Back in the early sixties there were people in the Russian military who were convinced that a war with America was not just probable but inevitable. That being the case, they had to find a way to train their men for an invasion but they had no towns that bore any resemblance to small-town America so they built places like this. I suppose it’s not a myth any more.’

  ‘Well, it may not be a myth any more,’ Otto said with a smile, ‘but I’ll tell you what it is. A really, really good pl
ace to hide.’

  The helicopter landed in the centre of the camp, the down draught from its rotor blades whipping clouds of snow into the air. A figure dressed in a long black hooded coat and a dark veil that covered her face stepped down from the side hatch and walked towards the commander. The commander swallowed nervously. The woman was Minerva and she had been the head of the Disciples ever since the disastrous events at the Advanced Weapons Project facility in Colorado that had resulted in Overlord’s destruction. He had good reason to be nervous – she had a reputation for ruthlessness and little tolerance for failure.

  ‘It is a pleasure to see you again, ma’am,’ the commander said with a smart nod as the woman approached.

  ‘Where are they?’ Minerva asked.

  ‘We’re . . . erm . . . not certain at the moment,’ the commander replied uncomfortably. ‘One of our teams spotted them an hour ago climbing a mountain nearby but they were unable to neutralise them.’

  ‘And you have not been able to locate them since?’

  ‘No, we have sent gunships to the area but were unable to find them. It looks like they’ve gone to ground somewhere.’

  ‘I am losing patience, commander,’ Minerva said. ‘You have had several chances to eliminate Raven and the last of Nero’s brats and yet you seem to be incapable of finishing the job. This operation needs to be a success. We have to prove to Joseph Wright and the rest of the deposed G.L.O.V.E. leaders that they were right to forge an alliance with us. Don’t make me regret putting you in charge of this operation – you should know that I am not in the habit of living with my regrets. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ the commander replied. ‘I have tracker teams on the ground at their last known location. We will find them.’

  ‘Let us hope so, commander, for your sake.’

  Otto threw the switch and there was a slight vibration from somewhere beneath his feet as generators that had probably not been used for decades slowly rumbled into life.

  ‘Gotta love Russian engineering,’ he said to himself as the dusty control panels around the room began to light up. He moved to one of the panels nearer the window and threw another series of switches. Outside the control room, huge banks of floodlights on the walls lit up and flooded the cavern with light. Otto walked out on to the gantry and looked down on the fake town below. Now it was lit up it looked even more like some kind of impossibly elaborate movie set. He walked along the gantry and took the stairs down to the cavern floor where Raven and the rest of the Alphas were waiting.

  ‘I can’t believe that anything’s still working,’ Laura said as they walked through the town.

  ‘They built things to last back then,’ Raven said. ‘Everything now is digital and fragile – when this place was built things were less sophisticated but they did not break quite so easily. Fortunately for us.’

  ‘So what now?’ Tom asked. ‘Do we just activate the beacon and wait?’

  ‘No, first we need to find good defensive positions,’ Raven replied. ‘We have to assume that the Disciples will get here before anyone from H.I.V.E. does. We also have to assume that they might find a way in here somehow.’

  ‘There are plenty of places to hide here,’ Laura said, looking around.

  ‘I’m getting tired of hiding,’ Otto said. ‘I’ve got a better idea.’

  ‘And what might that be?’ Raven asked.

  ‘Well, they say that offence is the best form of defence, right?’ Otto said as they walked into the main town square.

  ‘Normally I would agree,’ Raven said, ‘but the Disciples have us outnumbered and outgunned.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Otto said with a grin, pointing across the town square. ‘It’s like you said, some things are built to last.’

  ‘I think I’ve got something,’ the radio operator in the Disciple command tent yelled.

  ‘What is it?’ the commander asked quickly.

  ‘It sounds like a distress beacon of some kind,’ the operator replied. ‘I’m not entirely sure what the source of the transmission is but it’s certainly not coming from any of our equipment.’

  ‘It has to be Raven,’ Minerva said. ‘She’s signalling for help. Can you determine the position of the transmitter?’

  ‘Yes, it will take a few minutes but it should be relatively straightforward.’

  ‘Good,’ the commander said with a nod. ‘Once you have a position relay the coordinates to the gunships and have them check the area.’ He turned to Minerva. ‘I’ll get airborne with the rest of our troops so we can be on site as soon as we have the location.’

  ‘I will accompany you,’ Minerva said. ‘I want to be there to personally ensure your success this time, commander.’

  ‘But, ma’am, it could be extremely dangerous,’ the commander protested.

  ‘If I were you, commander, I would be more worried for the safety of your own troops. Raven must know that you will be able to trace the location of that beacon. It is no accident that she is telling you exactly where she is. Do not underestimate her or Nero’s students. They are a dangerous combination, as Overlord discovered to his cost.’

  ‘I know how dangerous they are,’ the commander said, ‘but she is only one woman and they are just children. We will not fail.’

  Cole Harrington sat in his cell in H.I.V.E.’s detention wing trying very hard not to think about what the future held for him. He had no idea how Otto Malpense had managed to transfer the stolen H.I.V.E.mind files to his Blackbox but he knew that whatever Nero might have in mind for him it would not be pleasant. He looked up as the door to his cell hissed open and Chief Dekker walked into the room.

  ‘What do you want?’ Harrington snapped bitterly. ‘If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t be in here.’

  ‘Whatever do you mean?’ Dekker asked with a smile.

  ‘You’re the one who told me what Malpense and those other Alphas were up to. You were the one who told me that you could sell H.I.V.E.mind’s source code for so much money. It’s because of you that I’m in this situation. Well,you’re going to get me out of this somehow or I’m going to tell Nero all about your part in this. I’m not taking the fall for this alone.’

  ‘You know, it’s really very sad,’ Dekker said, shaking her head.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You obviously couldn’t live with yourself after betraying H.I.V.E. so badly,’ Dekker continued. ‘You confessed everything to me, of course. How you’d found the proposed location for the Hunt amongst the files you stole from H.I.V.E.mind and then how you covertly transmitted the information to your contact. You even told me exactly where in your quarters you hid the covert transmitter that you had paid one of the security guards to smuggle into the school for you. During the course of my questioning I explained to you that the information you had unwittingly provided to the Disciples had been directly responsible for the massacre at the Hunt. You told me how you had no idea that anything like that would happen and that you desperately regretted your actions. Sadly you obviously just couldn’t live with the guilt. If I’d realised that you were a suicide risk I would have kept a much closer watch on you. Such a shame.’

  ‘Suicide? What do you mean suicide? I’d never . . . oh God no.’

  Dekker walked towards him smiling nastily as the door hissed shut behind her.

  chapter eleven

  ‘Are you guys going to be OK in here?’ Otto asked. He looked around the interior of the fake church and was struck by just how much attention to detail had been used when the building was constructed.

  ‘Don’t worry. We’ll be fine,’ Laura said, helping Tom lower Nigel on to the floor behind the altar.

  ‘How are you feeling, Nigel?’ Otto asked. His friend looked paler and his breathing seemed more laboured.

  ‘I’ve felt better,’ Nigel said quietly. ‘I don’t think I’d really recommend getting shot, to be honest.’

  ‘It wasn’t actually that high on my list of things to try,’ Otto said with
a smile. ‘Don’t worry, help will be here soon.’

  Otto handed Laura one of the Disciple assault rifles.

  ‘I know you don’t want it but take it anyway. If they get past us, then it’s up to you and Tom to protect Nigel and Penny.’

  ‘Hey,’ Penny said with a frown as she sat down next to Nigel, ‘I’m not that badly hurt.’

  ‘I know but you’re not in any condition to go running around outside either,’ Tom said. ‘Don’t worry, Otto, we’ll be fine.’

  ‘OK, I need to get back outside and make sure that Wing and Shel know what they’re doing,’ Otto said. ‘See you guys soon.’

  Otto and Laura walked back towards the church doors together. Otto pulled the door open but Laura pushed it shut and pulled him towards her.

  ‘Good luck,’ Laura said and then she kissed him. It felt just like he had hoped it would. It felt right. Otto pulled away from her and stared into her eyes. There was something there that he hadn’t expected – she looked afraid.

  ‘Hey, don’t worry,’ Otto said, ‘we’re going to get through this. In a few hours we’ll all be back at H.I.V.E. wishing we had something more exciting to do.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ Laura said with a sad smile.

  ‘’Course I’m right,’ Otto said with a grin as he pushed the door open again. ‘I always am, remember.’

  The Disciple commander examined the enormous rusted doors. There was no doubt that the beacon signal was coming from somewhere on the other side of them.

  ‘The gunship’s reporting that there’s some sort of glass dome hidden between the peaks up there,’ his comms officer said, pointing up to the rocky slopes that loomed above them. ‘They’re saying that there’s some sort of artificial lighting inside and what look like buildings.’

  ‘What is this place?’ the commander asked with a frown. ‘It’s not on any of the maps.’

  ‘That’s not unusual for the Russian military,’ the comms officer replied. ‘At least that’s who I’m assuming built this.’