David Gilman - The Devil's breath

“Not yet.”

“What? Dad, we have to get out of here!”

His father shook his head. “Not yet,” he repeated.

Max looked where his father’s trembling hand pointed. The door had closed when Max had launched his attack. Could he drag this doctor to the security point, use his palm-print to open the door, and then get his father out in time?

“You need him,” his father said, and shook his head, as if trying to remember something.

“Dad, what is it? What have they done to you?”

“Memory,” his dad said falteringly. “I took … I took … a potion … herbs and stuff … Bushmen gave it to me … had to …”

He fell silent. Max waited, uncertain what to do or say, but he knew that time was not on their side. “Dad, I don’t know what to do, other than get you out of here.”

His father nodded and struggled to string together the words he needed. “Had to blot out my memory … much as I could … fooled them…. Listen, son … listen … they wanted the … evidence. Everything. I’ve hidden it … it’s here … my Land Rover.”

“Your Land Rover’s here?”

Max’s dad was beginning to lose consciousness. Whatever they’d done to him made the effort of recognition and speech too difficult.

“Dad! Where? Where is it?”

Tom Gordon was sweating, the exertion of staying awake draining away his energy.

“Big hangar somewhere … near … near a fan … may be a generator …”

Max knew that had to be on the next level. He remembered the water pipes tunneling upwards from the hydroelectric tank room. That might make sense. This place had to be below ground, so the next floor up was probably at ground level. That would give access to the outside. If he could get up to that room, hide his dad and find the evidence, they might still have a bargaining tool if they were caught. It might at least buy them some time.

“Where’s the evidence, Dad? Where is it?”

“Land Rover …”

“OK, I know that. But where? In a panel? Spare wheel? Where?”

His father’s head dropped, his lips barely moving. Max put his ear closer. “Water proof … water … proof …”

Max held his father’s face in his hands. “Dad, I know the water’s being poisoned, I found the hydrology map. But where is the proof?”

But his father was unconscious.

So now what? Where to keep his dad safe until he could come back for him? Right here. Right where he’d always been, because then if anyone came looking, they’d see he was still in his bed.

He wheeled his father back into the room and with a lot of effort manhandled him onto the hospital bed. Stepping back into the corridor, he saw what was obviously the doctor’s office. There was a coffeemaker and a small fridge, which yielded a couple of pots of yogurt, a tub of something in rice and a carton of milk. Max wolfed the lot in an indecently short time and followed it with a belly-churning belch. Now he had to get out of there.

“Doctor Zhernastyn has left the controlled area,” the woman’s voice said.

So that’s who you are , Max thought, as he eased the still-unconscious man’s hand back onto his lap and pushed the wheelchair through the doors, with Zhernastyn secured to it with surgical tape wrapped around his body and across his mouth.

The lift slid down, the doors eased open and Max trundled his cargo inside. The panel showed there were six floors. Those from the basement through to the fourth floor were clearly marked, but there was a button above those that said PRIVATE: CODED ACCESS ONLY. That would be where Shaka Chang hung out. Max pressed the second button. The lift moved with stomach-dropping speed. Once again the doors glided open. “Ground floor. Vehicle Maintenance. If you’re driving today, be careful, Doctor Zhernastyn. Goodbye.”

Max eased the wheelchair forward into a hangar-sized cave which had been blasted out of the solid rock and turned into a modern work area. He could hear music playing somewhere, and the clang of a wrench as it fell to the floor. Massive doors had been slid back across the hangar’s opening, revealing the glare of the desert that filtered in far enough to create a soft sheen of light across the highly polished floor.

A twin-engined jet sat, parked at the center of the hangar. Dust bags covered the air intakes. The gleaming black metal sported a thin line of trim that ran like an arrow along the fuselage and up to the tail fin, where it formed the start of Shaka Chang’s corporate logo-assegais and a shield. The upturned wingtips gave the plane a cutting-edge look, and Max reckoned the wings must have spanned twenty-odd meters. But there was still plenty of room for all the other vehicles. Skeleton Rock must be like an iceberg , Max thought. There’s a hell of a lot you don’t see from above. And it’s probably just as deadly, looking at that gear .

The wheelchair’s tires squeaked as Max turned to the right, hugging the rear wall and ducking low behind a couple of Humvees, painted black and bearing Shaka Chang’s coat of arms. A dune buggy and a sleek helicopter, also black, sat further forward. This looked like Shaka Chang’s personal playroom, and his toys were expensive. Somewhere near the front of the hangar, a couple of mechanics wiped their hands and moved away from the open cowling of a small aircraft. It looked as though they were going for a coffee break. One of the men switched off a portable radio and they disappeared into the glare. Max could see that a glider, the tips of its huge wings balanced tenderly on supporting blocks, lay as still as a moth transfixed by light.

Max hugged the wall, seeing no sign of his dad’s Land Rover. At the far end of a ten-meter passage cut into the wall-a corridor big enough to drive a lorry through-Max could see a smaller room, if that was what it could be called.

Edging forward cautiously, he found himself inside a smaller version of the hangar. This seemed a more workaday place, though it was just as immaculately clean as the hangar, containing racks of spare parts, a block and tackle, heavy lifting rigs and a couple of inspection pits. In the opposite corner, fairly well tucked out of sight, an engine diagnostic center sat gleaming, its various computer screens dark-a purpose-built area that looked like something out of a Formula One garage. A huge enclosed cooling fan was bolted to the wall, and it turned lazily on a low power setting, massaging the room with cooled air. Half a dozen motorbikes and a couple of pickup trucks stood in a neat row on the far side, in addition to several quad bikes and two very sleek Class 3 sand yachts. These were the ultimate: a steer-able front wheel and two fixed at the rear. That single wing-shaped sail could snag a breeze and rocket the slender Kevlar hull along at up to a hundred and twenty kilometers an hour.

One of Max’s friends had taken him once to help at a sand race in north Devon, and let him try his hand. The thrill of hurtling along that close to the ground under the power of wind was an experience he wouldn’t forget. But those memories were getting in the way now; he had to concentrate on finding his dad’s Land Rover.

At the end of this room was another opening, and Max ran towards it-this and the other hangar might be his way out. Keeping in the shadows, he peered out across the landscape. The big hangar opened onto the vast plain, but this corner of the fort was on the edge of a plateau, so the ground dropped away to the river. That would make sense. That river must be fed from the Devil’s Breath crater, and he could see the marsh grass and the crocodiles basking on the sandbanks. A narrow set of rails led down a ramp from this opening, where a motorboat was held fast. Matted, tissue-paper-like fiberglass showed a nasty gash below the waterline, and there were signs that someone had been working on the repair. Something sharp and with enormous crushing power had caused that damage. It wasn’t too hard to imagine what.