Deadlock (5 page)

‘Yeah, that’s exactly what you said last time,’ Shelby said, ‘and after everything we went through it seems just as unfair as ever that we’re being kept out of the loop. They have our friends and –’

‘I suggest you think very carefully about who it is you’re talking to, Miss Trinity,’ Nero said, interrupting her with a sudden cold edge to his voice, ‘or you shall discover just how
unfair
I can be. I will give you any information that I deem appropriate at a time that I deem appropriate. And that is the end of this discussion. Do I make myself clear?’

For a moment Shelby considered arguing the point further, but there was something in the expression on Nero’s face that had made her mouth go slightly dry.

‘Yes, sir,’ she said quietly.

‘Good,’ Nero replied. ‘Now, for tomorrow’s lesson I want you to have read and made notes on the first three chapters of Pavel’s
Criminal Organisation Structural Theory
, one of the finest villainy management theory books ever written. Dismissed.’

Nero turned his attention back to the tablet on his desk as Shelby, Wing and Franz filed out of his office.

‘Well, that was going nearly as well as the last time we were asking what was going on with the Disciples,’ Franz said with a sigh as they walked down the corridor.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Shelby replied. ‘I think we managed to irritate him even more this time. It’s not like we’re asking for specifics; we just want some idea if they’re getting any closer to finding them. I don’t think that’s too much to ask under the circumstances.’

‘Perhaps the truth is that there is no progress to report,’ Wing said. ‘And that is why the question irritates Nero so much.’

‘It is times like this that I am missing Otto,’ Franz said. ‘He would simply be using computer brain to steal information from Dr Nero’s computer. Much simpler.’

‘Yeah,’ Shelby said. ‘I wonder what he’s doing right now?’

‘Oh, you know Otto,’ Wing said with a slight smile, ‘I’m sure he’s keeping out of trouble.’

‘Tell me you’re joking,’ Raven said as she sat down opposite Otto.

‘I can think of a lot of words I’d use to describe the situation, but funny isn’t one of them,’ Otto replied.

‘We go through all that to get the identity of the local Disciple cell commander and now you’re telling me that it’s Matt Ronson.’

‘United States Senator Matt Ronson,’ replied the floating blue wireframe head of H.I.V.E.mind that was being projected from the silver ring lying on the table.

‘
Presidential Candidate
Senator Matt Ronson,’ Otto said, rubbing his temples. ‘And you know what that means.’

‘A full secret service security detail,’ Raven replied with a sigh, ‘and he’s the only person who might be able to give us any clue where Furan might be hiding.’

‘We don’t even know that for sure, but the only way we’ll find out is if we ask him a few friendly questions,’ Otto replied. ‘And unlike the cell leader in London, let’s see if we can ask those questions
before
he ends up under a train.’

‘I thought we weren’t going to mention that again,’ Raven said with a slight frown.

‘Just making an observation,’ Otto said with a crooked smile. ‘Any idea how on earth we’re going to pull this off?’

‘I was just about to ask you the same thing,’ Raven replied, shaking her head.

‘Well, he’s on the campaign trail at the moment,’ Otto replied, ‘which means that the first thing we need to work out is when and where to go after him. Once we’ve figured that out we can start to think about how we’re going to get past his security detail.’

‘I’m going to have to talk to Nero,’ Raven said with a sigh. ‘I’ll need to clear it with him before we go after a target this high profile. I think I can already imagine his reaction.’

‘Better now than later when he might just have won the election,’ Otto said. ‘If you think he’s going to be a hard man to get to at the moment, just imagine what it would be like trying to reach him once he’s comfortably settled in the White House.’

‘Point taken,’ Raven replied. ‘I don’t imagine that Nero’s going to be pleased at the prospect of a senior member of the Disciples in the Oval Office. We have enough to worry about at the moment as it is, without adding that into the mix.’

Otto stared at the silver ring that was projecting the hovering image of H.I.V.E.mind and then at the discarded ISIS armour on the bench nearby. He suddenly felt the familiar prickle of an idea forming.

‘I think I may have an idea of how we can get close enough to him to get what we need, but I’ll need some components from Professor Pike and some tinkering time,’ Otto said, staring out of the window.

‘Draw up a list and I’ll pass it on to Nero when I report in,’ Raven replied with a nod. ‘The sooner we get this done, the better.’

Laura Brand pushed herself up on to her hands and knees, before staggering back to her feet, the sharp metallic taste of blood filling her mouth.

‘Too slow,’ the girl standing opposite her said with a nasty smile, ‘always too slow.’

The girl advanced towards Laura again, her fists raised, forcing her back towards the walls of the pit that surrounded them. She struck like lightning, her foot lashing out and hitting Laura in the ribs, knocking the wind out of her and sending her staggering backwards. She felt the cold, hard concrete of the pit wall against her back as the other girl pulled back her fist for a final blow.

‘Enough,’ a voice shouted from somewhere in the darkness behind the bright white floodlights that illuminated the pit. ‘One two five, you fought well, you may return to your quarters. I shall deal with three seven nine.’

The other girl lowered her fist with a nod and walked across the pit towards the steel door set into the opposite wall. She glanced back over her shoulder at Laura, a cruel sneer on her face, as the sound of heavy bolts unlocking came from the other side of the door.

‘Typical H.I.V.E. brat,’ the girl said. ‘No fight in you.’

Laura glared back at the other girl, wiping away the blood that trickled from her lip with the back of her hand. The door swung open and a tall, muscular man with a square jaw and shaved head walked into the room, watching in silence as Laura’s opponent left. His name was Heinrich, Furan’s right-hand man, and over the recent months he had become a regular feature in Laura’s all too frequent nightmares.

‘I still do not understand why Furan tolerates your weakness,’ the man said, looking at Laura with undisguised contempt. ‘If it were up to me I’d have thrown you to the wolves weeks ago.’

Laura did not reply; instead she just stared at the bloodstained concrete floor. She had learnt the hard way that no one answered back to this man. Her life at the Glasshouse, Anastasia Furan’s training facility for young assassins, had taught her many harsh lessons. Her former life at H.I.V.E. might have been hard at times, but it was nothing compared to the ordeal she had been put through since she had been captured by Furan and thrown into this fresh new hell. Here there was no tolerance for weakness, no pause for rest and no hope of escape.

‘Look at me,’ Heinrich snapped.

Laura lifted her head and looked into his cold grey eyes.

‘Such weakness,’ he said, ‘and yet I still see some shred of that defiance you showed when you first arrived here, three seven nine. Most of the other H.I.V.E. students we captured are either dead or have broken by now, but you’re still clinging on to something, aren’t you? What is it? Tell me.’

‘Not something . . . someone,’ Laura replied quietly.

‘Really?’ Heinrich replied. ‘And just who might that be?’

‘Someone who won’t stop until he’s found this place and burnt it to the ground,’ Laura said defiantly.

‘You’re talking about Nero, aren’t you?’ Heinrich said, stepping towards her. ‘Do you really think he cares about you, three seven nine? The girl who betrayed him. The girl who is responsible for the death of so many of his students. I think you overestimate your value to him. If he was coming to rescue you or any of the rest of his brats, do you not think he would have done so by now?’

Laura felt a sudden wave of despair as Heinrich reminded her of what she had done. She had been blackmailed into revealing the location of the H.I.V.E. survival training exercise known as the Hunt, unaware that she was jeopardising the lives of her friends and fellow students. There was barely a waking hour that passed when she was not haunted by that memory and now Heinrich was taking obvious delight in twisting that particular knife.

‘He won’t be coming for me,’ Laura replied. ‘He’ll be coming for the others and I hope for your sake you’re not here when he does.’

‘I’m not afraid of Nero,’ Heinrich said with a twisted smile. ‘By the time that Furan’s finished with him, he’ll
wish
he was dead. Nero’s time is past. Very soon the world will belong to the Disciples and there’s nothing Nero, G.L.O.V.E. or anyone else will be able to do to stop it.’

‘They’ve stopped you before, they’ll stop you again,’ Laura said.

Heinrich gave her a swift backhanded blow to the face and Laura gasped in pain.

‘Clean yourself up,’ Heinrich said, ‘then return to your cell.’

He walked out of the pit and Laura followed him into the spartan washroom beyond. She walked to one of the steel basins attached to the grey concrete walls and turned on the tap, splashing the icy water on her face, watching as the trail of blood washed away down the plughole. She pulled a couple of rough paper towels from the dispenser on the wall and carefully dried her aching face. She stared for a moment at her reflection in the mirror screwed on to the wall. The fresh cuts and bruises on her face were starting to feel normal after the months she had spent being subjected to the worst the Glasshouse had to offer. The bloodstains on the white vest she wore would have to stay there for now. They got a clean uniform once a week, a clean vest and a pair of grey camouflage combat trousers to go with the regulation black leather boots. You trained in that uniform, you ate in that uniform and you slept in that uniform. That was the way the Glasshouse worked. She let out a sigh and walked out of the washroom and into the corridor that lead back to her cell. She came out on to the balcony that ran around the huge circular central atrium of the underground facility. The centre of the atrium was dominated by the inverted steel and glass spire that hung from the ceiling and which housed the facility’s control centre. Wasp-like camera drones with whirring cowled rotors flew around the atrium, tracking the facility’s trainees’ movements using the barcodes printed on the back of their vests. There was rarely such a thing as privacy here. Laura looked over the balcony and down to the ground far below where trainees were receiving a hand-to-hand combat lesson in the large open training area.

The lowest levels housed the dormitories, but Laura was not afforded the comparative luxury of sharing a living space with the other trainees. She was kept in one of the isolation cells on the upper levels and that was where she was heading right now. At first she had wondered why Furan had singled her out for such treatment, but eventually she had decided that it was all part of the perverse delight that the woman took in tormenting her. She made her way to her cell on the other side of the atrium and the door unlocked with a clunk. She pushed it open and stepped inside, closing it behind her. The door locked again and she sat down on the concrete block with a thin mattress on top that was the Glasshouse’s version of a bed. The only other things in the room were a stainless-steel sink and toilet. Laura lay back on the mattress and closed her eyes. She refused to give in to despair, no matter how tempting it was at times. Instead, she thought of her friends and her previous life at H.I.V.E. and silently prayed that she might one day return there and see them again.