The Chimera Vector (The Fifth Column #1)

Chapter 33: Damien's Stopped Breathing

Denton sat hunkered over his Toughbook—a rugged laptop designed for extreme environments—in the darkened Security Control room. He watched the single dot onscreen—Montoya’s subdermal GPS implant—tell him Sophia and her insurgents were trying to escape in a second railcar. Major Novak stood at his shoulder, his breath warm on Denton’s shaved head. He hated it when Novak did that. Especially when his idea of breakfast was an omelet that smelled like its only ingredient was onion.

‘Oscar Five Delta to Tango Zero Golf,’ Denton said into his throat mike. ‘Hold position at railcar platform. I repeat, hold position at railcar platform. Over.’

‘Tango Zero Golf to Oscar Five Delta. Acknowledged. Out.’

‘Oscar Five Delta to Echo Four India,’ Denton said. ‘X-Rays are inbound. Stand by for intercept. X-Ray leader is to be taken alive. Undercover operatives will comply. The hostage scientist and the insurgents are expendable. Over.’

‘Echo Four India to Oscar Five Delta. Copy that. Out.’

‘Oscar Five Delta to Echo Four Golf. Change direction and pursue X-Rays. Over.’

Denton waited for a response, but there was none.

He glanced up at Grace, the shocktrooper commander. Her violet, disc-shaped goggles unnerved him slightly. He checked his watch. The countdown for the bunker-buster bomb read 32:13.

Knocking back his sixth Guaraná Jesus, he reached for his briefcase and opened it beside his Toughbook.

He said to Novak, ‘There’s a chance they’ve hijacked the radio frequency jammer. Destroy it. I have my own.’

***

With Renée’s arm draped over her shoulder, Sophia dragged her into the Vector labs. More glaring lights, white walls and metal benchtops. One half of the lab was blocked off by a glass wall. On the other side, Benito and Jay were lying the unconscious Damien on an operating table. The rest of the team quickly took up observation posts.

Jay’s left arm was bandaged. It hung limply at his side. Jay didn’t even seem to notice; he was too focused on Damien. Sophia couldn’t think of anything to say to him.

Blood spurted from Renée’s thigh. Sophia looked down to see Renée’s crimson hand slide away from the wound. She felt heavier: she’d passed out. Sophia pressed her own hand over the wound and applied pressure. Jay appeared beside her, his expression resigned, but at least willing to help. He wrapped one of Renée’s arms over his shoulder and helped lift her onto an operating table. Sophia’s hand slipped. Blood sprayed towards the ceiling in a miniature fountain.

‘Femoral artery,’ Sophia said. ‘Benito, we need you.’

Benito left the needle he was preparing for Damien and rushed over. He swapped Sophia’s hand for his own, pressing down firmly on the artery.

‘Jay,’ she said, ‘I need my com right now.’

‘What about electronic countermeasures?’ Jay snapped.

‘Taken care of,’ she said. ‘I’ve remotely hijacked the facility’s broadband jamming system. It’s continually and simultaneously jamming the full spectrum of RF comm frequencies from twenty megahertz to 3000.’ She removed a memory stick from a pouch in her vest. It reminded her of blue chewing gum. ‘Encryption and security keys are on here. Load them into your radios.’

She wasn’t sure if Jay understood that the transmission security keys, once loaded into their radios, would tell the jamming system to let their communications go through. But he didn’t seem confused, so that was a good sign.