smiled. “How old are you, Cross?”
“Almost twenty-one.”
“So you’re too young to have been one of us, then? You weren’t a superhuman?”
“No. I was only ten years old when Ragnarök’s machine was used.”
Joseph smiled again and nodded.
Rachel and Victor watched as he was led away.
“What do you think?” Victor asked.
She shrugged. “He was definitely being drugged back at the prison. Some sort of low-level scopolamine to keep him relaxed and compliant. It should be completely out of his system in the next couple of hours.”
“It had better not be,” Victor said. “We want him relaxed and compliant. Make sure that he stays that way, got that?”
“Sure.”
She followed Victor into the mine.
“So… the break out was a success,” Rachel said.
“Obviously.”
“I’ll write up a full report for you.”
Without looking at her, Victor said, “We have Joseph and you weren’t traced. What’s to report?”
“We left the Warden alive, but it’ll be a few more hours before he wakes.”
Victor nodded.
Rachel followed him up the metal stairway. “Don’t you want to know who the other inmates were?”
“Not really.”
“You did a good job locating the prison.”
Victor stopped outside his office and turned to her. “Rachel, I have work to do. If you want to make small talk, find someone else.”
He went into his office and closed the door behind him. He sat down at his desk, switched on his computer and keyed a number into his phone.
The call was answered immediately. It was the electronically-disguised voice again.
“Talk to me,” the voice said.
“We have him,” Victor said.
“Good,” the voice said. “You’re at your terminal?”
“Yes.”
“Find the file called Protégé. The password is ‘Apotheosis’. The file will tell you everything you need to know. Got that?”
“Got it.” Victor disconnected the call and began typing.
He found the file, entered the password and read through it.
Then he made another phone call. After a couple of seconds, a man’s voice said, “Hello?”
Reading from the computer screen, Victor said, “Icebreaker.”
There was a pause. “Say again?”
“Icebreaker.”
Another pause and the man sighed. Then he said, “Damocles.”
Victor read the counter-code. “Ultimatum.”
The man said, “I… I understand.” After a brief discussion, he gave Victor his location, then asked, “When?”
“Within the hour. Be ready. This is a code-one extraction. Do you understand what that means?”
“Yes. It means that you want the boys no matter what it takes. Everything else is secondary. All lives are expendable. Even my own.”
DANNY COOPER’S FATHER was in the sitting room watching television when Danny arrived home. “You’re late.”
“Sorry,” Danny said. “The party went on longer than I expected.”
“All right. Good party, was it?”
“It was OK. Everyone kept asking me about what happened with Susie.”
“You didn’t tell any of your friends, did you?”
“No, of course not!” Danny lied.
Danny’s father hesitated for a second, then nodded. “Good, good. Actually, Dan, if you’re not too tired, I think you and me need to have a little talk. I need to show you something important.” He pushed his massive frame out of his armchair and stretched.
“At this hour?”
Mr Cooper turned off the television set. “It won’t take long.” He led Danny out into the hall.
“Keep the noise down,” he whispered. “Your mother and Niall are asleep. Now, Look at this…”
Danny watched as his father pulled the casing off the fuse box.
“There’s a switch…” Danny’s father groped around and there was a soft click.
He turned to the large photo of Danny’s grandfather that hung in the hall and lifted it off its hook. Danny saw that there was a panel behind it. His father pulled the panel open and removed a small black canvas bag.
“What’s that?”
“Just some stuff from the old days.” He closed the panel and re-hung the photo. He slung the bag over his shoulder and opened the front door.
“Aw, Dad! I don’t want to go back out into the rain again!”
“It won’t hurt you,” Danny’s father said.
They left the blocks of flats and walked in the direction of the main road. “What’s up?” Danny asked.
His father opened the bag and took out a small metal device, about the size of a personal stereo. He flipped a switch on the device and a small red light began blinking.
“What’s that for?” Danny asked.
“It’s a transponder,” his father explained. “I’m sure that these days they could make something like this about the size of your fingernail, but it was state of the art back then.”
“I thought that transponders were something to do with aircraft?”
“Not necessarily. It’s looking for a specific signal. When it gets it, it sends a counter-signal back. Someone with the right equipment will be able to pick up our signal and find us. Doesn’t matter where we are on the planet, they’ll find us.”
