The Cure, стр. 37

Chapter Fifteen

Hod lay back on his sun lounger, rays of heat shining down on his face from the blistering sun above the Mediterranean Sea and the forty-foot yacht slowly cutting its way through the water. He held a Cuban cigar in one hand and not far from his other was a cocktail on a table laden down with exotic fruit. Life could not get much better he thought to himself, and he turned to look at the bikini clad supermodel on the lounger next to him. He smiled and picked a grape from the table, popping it in his mouth and nodding appreciably to the female waitress who had just brought him another drink.

But for all this, Hod felt that something wasn’t completely right, and he heard a far and distant voice in his head calling his name ‘Hod, Hod.’ He furrowed his brow trying to make out the voice and where it was coming from but looking back around, he decided that he was far too content in his current surroundings to be bothered.

In the back of the airplane Tallulah slammed her hand against the glass partition between her and the cockpit. ‘Hod, Hod, wake up, wake up.’ Hod awoke with a jump to see, with his one good eye, the ground hurtling towards him at two hundred miles an hour. ‘arrrrrgh.’ he yelled pulling at the controls in front of him and bringing the aircraft back to a level less concerning. ‘It’s fine it’s fine, I wasn’t asleep. I was just taking us down out to avoid any turbulence,’ he said. Tallulah mumbled under her breath ‘asshole.’

‘Not long now Missy, maybe thirty minutes or so. Hope you’ve got a plan.’

‘You just worry about getting us there in one piece and I’ll worry about the plan,’ she said.

Minutes passed and she could make out the town above the base. She wondered whether they were watching the plane. Surely everyone on the base would now know what they had done. Maybe Goldsmith had kept it to himself, in the hope that no-one else on the base ever found out of the plan to release the toxin. Only time would tell and Hod had begun the descent.

‘Over there, away from the town, we’ll walk in from a couple of miles away,’ she said.

‘Walk? I don’t think so. Once we’re down that as far as I go. I’ll wait with the plane but any signs of trouble and I’m outta here.’

‘Thanks, you’re a real hero.’

‘I’d wait until we’ve landed before you start calling me names,’ he said.

As the aircraft got closer to the ground Hod started saying something that sounded like the Lord’s Prayer, before the wheels touched the floor and he put the brakes on. Finally, the plane came to a stop and Hod crossed his chest and breathed a sigh of relief ‘Landing was never one of my fortes.’

‘Neither is staying awake, apparently.’ she said with contempt in her voice. ‘Stay here.’

Hod saluted.

As Tallulah got closer to the base she begin to panic. The exits were always manned, and she had no reason to believe today would be any different. She decided that the best course of action was to walk up and knock on the door as if nothing had happened. Not the most intricate plan, but a plan all the same. Yes, there would be questions, but once she was in, she could break away and get to the communications room. Once inside she could get the message out to anyone with access to a television of the plan to poison the water system.

As it was, she didn’t even need to knock as two soldiers, one male and one female, came out to greet her. Saying nothing they both took an arm and frog marched her back into the base. She realized that she had made a grave mistake in returning alone and that she would most likely be brought in front of the President to answer some burning questions then thrown into the base confinement.

‘What’s going on,’ she asked the soldiers. ‘Where are you taking me?’ Neither answered.

Led through the underground tunnels around the base and not through the main halls they didn’t pass another person. ‘Where is everyone? You can’t do this to me.’ They stopped at a door.

‘Where are we? What are you going to do to me?’ she pleaded, but nothing.

The soldiers released their grip on her and the male soldier took out a key card and touched it against the electronic lock of the door. It beeped and the light went red. Again, a beep and then red. The soldier shook his head and bent down to inspect the lock. As he did the female soldier brought a cosh down on his head and he slumped to the floor out cold.

‘We don’t have much time,’ said the woman. ‘My name is Rose, and I know all about the plan the government have to kill everyone. I don’t have time to explain everything, but I will once everything has worked itself out. I’m guessing you need to get to the communications room?’

‘Ahem,’ she nodded, completely unaware of what was going on.

‘Follow me. We can go through this way. Most of the others have been deployed to take the toxin across country to the reservoir. Are the others still alive?’ she said.

‘Others?’ Tallulah asked.

‘Logan, Danny, the others.’

‘Yes, yes, well I think so. They were when I left. Who are you?’

‘It’ll all become clear but I’m just someone who agrees that what you are doing is right. The President may not see it, but there’s many people on this base who will. You