Michael Carroll - Absolute Power

“Yes, it would. But what happens if the compound is booby-trapped? You three are too important to lose.”

Danny glanced at Renata, who was looking back at him with a familiar expression, and he knew that they were both thinking the same thing: Impervia wasn’t a superhuman any more, but she still wanted to pretend that she was.

Façade turned to the other soldier, Vaughan. “Get the extraction team ready to pick up twelve hostiles. And watch our backs.”

“Yes sir.”

“Let’s do it. Renata, lead the way.”

Danny followed Renata into the undergrowth.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was about to go horribly wrong.

THE NEATLY-DRESSED MANslowly raised his right hand and showed Colin that he was holding a small device about the size of a mobile phone.

Colin stepped back, but the man simply smiled and pressed a button on the machine.

Instantly, the sounds of the farmyard flooded back and Colin jumped: he’d been concentrating so hard on his super-hearing that now the sounds were greatly magnified. He could hear everything: the man and woman’s heartbeats, the noises of the animals – including a tremendous amount of gurgling coming from the cows’ stomachs – birds, insects, the slow ticking of a nearby car’s engine as it cooled down.

“Sorry,” the man said. “We knew you’d be able to hear us coming from miles away so we had to use this. It’s a sound-muffler. It works by inverting—”

Colin interrupted him. “I know how it works. What do you want?”

“We’ve been tracking you for weeks, Colin.”

“Who?”

The red-haired woman gave Colin a warm smile. “Look, we know you’re Colin Wagner. Let’s not bother with all that ‘I don’t know who you think I am’, nonsense, OK? It’ll save time.”

“We just want to talk,” the man said. “I’m Byron, this is Harriet.”

Colin looked them up and down. Immaculate black suits, white shirts, dark-blue ties. Highly-polished expensive shoes. “You’re Trutopians.”

“That’s right.”

“And you want me to join your organisation.”

“We just want to talk to you, Colin,” Harriet said. “That’s all. You’re a hard man to track, but we’ve got people everywhere. You were spotted a month ago outside Budapest, and ever since then we’ve been concentrating on this area.” She paused. “What exactly are you doing here?”

Before Colin could reply, Harriet said, “Never mind that for now. Colin, we didn’t come empty-handed.” She nudged her colleague with her elbow. “Show him, Byron.”

“What?”

Harriet raised her eyes. “What you’ve got in your pocket, you dink!”

“Oh, right.” Byron reached into his jacket pocket, pulled something out and tossed it to Colin.

“A Mars bar,” Colin said.

“Yeah. We thought you might be missing some of the comforts of home.”

Colin briefly wondered whether the chocolate might be drugged, but somehow he couldn’t stop himself from tearing open the wrapper and taking a huge bite out of the bar.

“Reginald Kinsella told us to order that stuff in specially for you,” Harriet said. “And your favourite chips.”

“You mean crisps,” Byron corrected. “Cheese and onion – those are your favourites, right?”

Colin nodded.

Harriet said, “We just want to talk. Mr Kinsella has been in Munich for the past week, but he’s cutting his visit short and he’s coming here to Romania specially to see you. Just give him a couple of days of your time, OK? If you’re still not interested after that, then that’s fine. You know what the Trutopians are all about, don’t you?”

“You claim to be interested only in world-wide peace.”

“Exactly. We’ve got a community in Satu Mare, that’s about twenty kilometres from here, and it’s in the direction you were heading anyway. So it’ll save you half a day’s walking. How’s that sound?”

Colin shook his head. “No.”

Byron started to speak, but the woman put his hand on his arm. “Leave it. All right, Colin. We tried.” She stepped to one side and pointed at the large backpack that had been behind her. “It’s yours. There’s enough food for a week, a new pair of hiking boots in your size, a couple of changes of clothes and a portable phone. I’ve put our numbers on it, just in case.”

Byron said, “I suppose it gets pretty lonely out there on the road, so we’ve also given you an MP3 player. It’s got a couple of thousand tracks on it. We weren’t sure what kind of music you like, but there’s bound to be something there that’ll suit you.”

Then Harriet reached into her jacket’s inside pocket and took out a thick envelope. “Five hundred Euro, five hundred US Dollars.” She handed it to Colin. “And there’s a Trutopian credit card in there too. In case of emergencies. It doesn’t have a very high limit, so don’t go trying to buy a Ferrari with it.”

Colin found that his mouth had gone dry. “You’re just giving me all this stuff?”

Byron nodded. “Yep.”

“Even though I said I wasn’t interested in talking to you?”

He nodded again. “That’s right. Look, Colin…This is how Mr Kinsella put it: you’re a superhuman. And more than that, you’re one of the good guys. That puts us all on the same side. If we make things easier for you to help people, that makes things easier for us.”

“It just seems…” Colin shrugged. “Like a bribe or something.”

Harriet said, “It’s not a bribe. It’s what we do, it’s what the whole organisation is about. We help people who are less fortunate. We’ve been following you long enough to know that you have no money, no change of clothes, no food, and you haven’t had a shower in over a month.”

“Actually,” Byron said, “we could tell that one even if we hadn’t been tracking you. But she’s right. Sure, the Trutopians want you on-board. But if you’re not interested, then what are we going to do? Force you to join? That’s not our style.” He reached down and picked up the bag. “So come on. We’ll give you a lift to Satu Mare, and there’s no strings attached.”

It could be OK, Colin said to himself. They’re not superhuman. If they tried to kidnap me or anything I could just smash open the car door and jump out. “All right,” he said.

“Great!” Byron said. “You don’t mind if we drive with the windows down, do you?”

“I’m right behind you, Ren,” Butler Redmond whispered.

Renata didn’t need to look over her shoulder to know that the older boy was telling the truth: she could almost feel his breath on the back of her neck.

Does he really think that I need protection? She wondered. I’m twice as strong as he is!

“Not too far now,” Butler whispered.

Through clenched teeth, Renata muttered. “Yes. I know.”

“So what we’ll do, right, is wait for Danny to give the signal and then we’ll rush through, smash into the guys guarding the door, then split up. You take the one on the left and I’ll take the one on the right.”

“Sure. Whatever.”

Butler paused. “Unless you want to take the one on the right?”

Renata stopped walked suddenly. Butler almost crashed into her. She turned to face him. “Butler?”

“What?”

“Back off. You’re invading my personal space again.”

“Right, right.” He grinned. “But you have to admit, we’re a good team. The way we took down those hijackers last month – that was class!”

Façade caught up with them. “What’s the delay?”

“Just working on the plan,” Butler replied.

“Leave the planning to Impervia,” Façade told him. “You two just do as you’re told.”