Dickinson Lie Kill Walk Away

From the author of The Everest Files and Mortal Chaos
1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-1-910240-87-8
Verlag: Vertebrate Digital
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 300 Seiten

LIE I check the Range Rover dash. The keys are in there. The sirens are closing in. There's a police helicopter coming over the hospital. KILL I have to decide. Decide right now. I can keep out of trouble. Not get involved. Just run away through the park and go home and pretend none of this has happened. Or I can help Becca. WALK AWAY I stare into her eyes. Those deep blue eyes. Just for a split second. I tell her, 'get in the car'. Joe and Becca uncover a deadly secret. A lethal bioweapon is about to be unleashed. Millions will suffer a terrible death. Now they are being hunted down. And their problems have only just begun ...

Autoren/Hrsg.

Dickinson, Matt

Leseproben

– PART 1 –

INTO THE HOT ZONE

Patrick Eden: Biohazard suit sealed. I’ve got oxygen for fifteen minutes.

Police Command: Instructions from Defence HQ. Do not go in alone. I repeat: do not go in alone.

Patrick Eden: There’s a man dying in there. I’m going in.

Audio transcript from helmet mic worn by Patrick Eden, UK Government bioweapons inspector following emergency call at SYMBARON lab, Hampshire.

1 REBECCA EDEN

Sleep shatters into a thousand ugly pieces. A distant scream worms its way into my waking mind.

‘NO!’

I sit bolt upright in bed, my heart racing. A woman’s cry. High pitched. Desperate. Down in the garden? Perhaps in the woods? It sounded like my mother.

But it can’t be.

I take a few deep breaths, calming myself down and persuading myself it was just a nightmare. I swing my legs out from under the duvet and only then think to check the time.

Ten past nine.

I blink in surprise. It’s way too late. During the summer holidays Dad wakes me at precisely eight o’clock with a cup of tea and two pieces of toast.

‘Rebecca! Oh daughter mine! Get your lazy backside out of bed!’ His morning serenade. Every single day of the holidays.

But not this one.

I slip off my nightdress and pull on jeans and a T-shirt. Something pricks my nostrils. I smell burned toast. I go to the top of the stairs and call down.

‘Dad? Are you there?’

No reply. Something is wrong.

2 JOE FONTANA

It’s a bit past midnight in north London. I’ve been spraying for fifteen minutes and this is how far I’ve got:

I’m working as fast as I can. Enjoying the mist. The jelly-baby fuzzy high that comes with it. Cans hissing away like silver serpents. Ears on radar alert for the crackle of a walkie-talkie. The wall belongs to some sort of military hospital so I’m on maximum alert.

There’s not many people around, just a drunken old tramp in the park on the opposite side of the road. Way down the other end of the street there’s a bunch of rowdies getting chucked out of a pub.

That’s not my business.

Shamrock is with me. That’s my dog. He’s a daft, scruffy mutt but he’s all right. I chose him from the shelter. On his sticker it said some kids had tied him up in a bin bag and thrown him in a canal for a laugh.

That’s why I wanted him – show him people aren’t all bad.

Now he’s tied to a lamp post with a bit of string. Most taggers take dogs with them when they’re spraying. Gives you an excuse to be out late on the streets.

‘Just walking my dog, officer.’ That sort of thing.

At the shadowy end of the street I see a dark car has stopped near the rowdy bunch.

Like I said, none of my business.

3 BECCA

Halfway down the stairs I see an envelope sitting on the doormat. I reach the hall and pick it up.

A Cambridge postmark; the name of the college printed in the top left-hand corner.

Oh. I feel my skin chill. My breath trips a tiny beat. There’s no way that Dad would leave this envelope on the mat like that. Like it was junk mail or something.

It’s my formal offer from Cambridge. A reward for the five A* A levels I scored just three days after my fifteenth birthday.

Mathematics. Biology. Physics. Chemistry. Applied Science.

This envelope means I’ll be studying Natural Sciences, following in the footsteps of my dad. Some press people wanted to do an article about the fact I will be one of the youngest undergraduates ever, but I didn’t want to make a fuss. I’d rather just get on with it.

Why didn’t Dad pick the envelope up? It doesn’t make sense.

Has he had another stress attack? The last few days have been unbearably hard for him. Life as a bioweapons expert was never going to be an easy ride.

Where has he gone? Maybe to the lab? I get a momentary surge of confidence: he will have left me a note somewhere. So I’d better take a look around and find it.

4 JOE

Still spraying. Almost there. Trouble is, the letters on this job are really big, so it’s taking a bit of time.

Out of the corner of my eye I see that dark car is now moving up the street towards me. Ignore it. Just ignore it. I can’t stop now – there’s too much money riding on this job.

Yes. Cash. Fifty quid to get myself down here and spread the good word about Gary Barker. Whoever he is.

And I need that money to pay for a vet to get this nasty bump removed from Shammy’s neck. I don’t want to ask Dad for it because I know he’s always skint. So I brought a beer crate to use as a stepladder, gave the two CCTV cameras a quick squirt of paint and I’m into the job.

I’m on the K now.

The car is still coming. Crawling down the road. Dead slow.

I shake the cans. I get back to the job. Don’t show fear. Stay calm.

The car stops.

I turn as I hear the buzz of a window. Then I see there’s three dodgy-looking men in there. And a woman as well. My heart hammers in my chest.

‘Oi!’ Her voice is hard as nails. ‘D’you know what my name is?’

I shrug.

‘Michelle Barker. Gary Barker’s sister, as it happens.’

Ah. So now it is my business.

5 BECCA

I step along the hallway, heading for the library. It’s the biggest room in the house, an old dining hall with a mock minstrels gallery and a huge stone fireplace.

I pause outside. ‘Dad?’

Not a sound.

I push the door open, walking slowly into this most sacred room; a place where I have learned to be curious, to ask questions.

It was my choice to be home tutored. I wanted to stretch myself in a way no school could have done.

It’s not just a matter of following in Dad’s footsteps. It goes deeper than that. When I was eight, Dad was infected by Marburg fever – he was bitten by a chimpanzee in a test lab. I still remember the terror I felt as he was sealed in an isolation ward at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London.

Mum understood exactly what was happening: ‘He’s not alone,’ she told me. ‘He’s got 250 billion white blood cells fighting tooth and nail to kill that virus.’

Her words helped me to keep hope alive. And those white blood cells did their job. Dad survived by the skin of his teeth and ever since then I had a secret and fierce ambition to learn about the ways these diseases work, to spend my life helping people survive the deadliest viruses on the planet.

The memory of that woman’s cry floods back. I shiver to recall it.

Was it real? It couldn’t be. Could it?

I leave the library and walk towards the office.

6 JOE

Now I’m well and truly gripped. Everything goes dead quiet for a few seconds. The men are giving me evils. Shamrock is growling.

Then the woman goes on: ‘What’s the big idea? Disrespecting my brother like that?’

I think about a reply. And here’s the thing about me: if I get asked a question, I have this habit of blurting out a stupid answer even if I know it’s going to get me deeper into trouble.

It’s like my mouth gobs off and my brain’s not in gear. Sometimes I even think it’s funny. And that’s why I say:

‘It’s nothing personal.’

There’s a pause. Like when you press the button in a lift but nothing happens. And half a second can seem like a week. And the woman’s eyes are bulging.

‘You cheeky scumbag!’ she screams. ‘Grab him!’

The car doors fly open so fast it’s like an explosion. I’m off the beer crate and it’s clattering over as I snatch up my shoulder bag, cram in five or six of the cans.

I undo Shamrock’s knot and just dodge the first outstretched arm. He’s a big one, this man – bug eyed. Veins busting out on his forehead.

‘Come on!’ I tell Shammy. I grab his string and we start to run.

7 BECCA

I walk into the office. And the first thing I see is a photo frame lying on the...