The Cut Out Read online

  Cormanenko had warned him that the four laser diodes could only fool two pairs of eyes. If three of the terrorists were watching, one of them would see her and Fero approaching. Any moment now a bullet could come slashing out of the darkness.

  ‘Keep moving,’ Cormanenko whispered. ‘Fifteen seconds of battery left.’

  They crept up the path towards the hospital’s front entrance. Fero tried not to fall behind – if the camera on Cormanenko’s back could see him, he would become visible again.

  They reached the barricade that covered what was left of the entrance. Half the rotting planks were smashed, leaving jagged shards of wood on the ground. Fero wondered if the terrorists had done that, or if Noelein’s original team of police was responsible.

  Cormanenko flicked a switch on the invisibility harness to save the rest of the battery and peered between the remaining planks. After a moment of agonising silence, she gave Fero a thumbs up.

  They crept through the gap into the foyer, grit crunching beneath their feet. Fero hoped the wind outside would cover their movements.

  The inside of the hospital was as black and silent as a crypt, littered with skeletal waiting benches and pieces of broken glass. The pamphlets on the walls had been eaten away to tatters by fire or time or both. The linoleum underfoot looked like the surface of an unwashed frying pan.

  A camera on a tripod was propped up in the window. The lens was aimed between two boards so it would have a clear view of the grounds. Would the cloaking device have fooled it?

  ‘Cormanenko,’ he whispered.

  She stood as still as a photograph, staring into space. Her face was a silent mask of terror.

  Unnerved, Fero looked over his shoulder. But the corridor was empty.

  ‘Cormanenko,’ he said again.

  She remained frozen in place, looking at something that wasn’t there. Perhaps something which hadn’t been there for nine years.

  ‘Dessa.’

  No reaction.

  ‘Frankenstein.’

  Nothing.

  Fero reached out to touch her shoulder.

  She lashed out at him, twisting his arm behind his back and slamming him against the wall.

  ‘Cormanenko,’ he hissed. ‘It’s me! It’s Fero!’

  Her ragged breaths slowed down. Her grip on him relaxed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she rasped. ‘There’s just so much I had forgotten.’

  Shaken, Fero pointed at the camera. ‘Could it see us?’

  ‘No. The lasers work on cameras as well as on eyes.’

  Fero put his hand on her arm. ‘You can leave,’ he whispered.

  She shook her head. ‘I can never leave.’

  ‘You can. You got me inside. Your job is done.’

  ‘My job isn’t done until those bombs are taken apart,’ she said. ‘I’m okay. Don’t worry.’

  After a moment, Fero nodded, and kept walking into the shadows. He watched her from the corner of his eye, but she didn’t fall behind.

  A T-intersection was coming up. Should we still separate? Fero wondered. Or should we search for the bombs together? I don’t know if—

  A big man rounded the corner in front of them, and raised his machine gun.

  THE KILL ROOM

  Fero raised his arms to cover his face, knowing they couldn’t stop bullets. It’s over, he thought. We’ve already failed.

  But the shots never came.

  He peered through his fingers, and saw the giant staring into the gloom, confused and suspicious. He couldn’t see them.

  Cormanenko had switched the lasers back on.

  To the giant, it would have appeared as though the two people in the corridor had simply vanished. He whirled around, looking for them. But before Fero or Cormanenko could make a move, he turned back.

  A light was blinking on the power supply. The battery was dying. Soon they would be visible again.

  The giant took a step forward. And another.

  The light blinked faster and faster.

  Cormanenko spun, whipping up one leg and kicking the giant under the chin. He yelped – a surprisingly thin sound for such a large man – and tried to train his AK-47 on her, but Fero was already grabbing the cold metal and pulling it downward. His desperate grip on the barrel made it hard to keep his legs out of the firing line.

  Like a ballerina, Cormanenko slipped around the giant’s clutching hand and wove her arm around his neck. He made a choked snarl as the veins bulged in his face – and then he went limp. She must have cut off the blood supply to his brain.

  Cormanenko lowered him gently to the ground.

  ‘That was close,’ she said.

  Fero took a shaky breath. ‘One down, four to go.’

  ‘The battery’s dead. From now on we stay visible.’

  Cormanenko pulled the big man’s hands behind his back and fastened them together with a plastic tie. Then she pulled his feet up and attached them to his wrists.

  ‘Was that Gear Eruz?’ Fero asked.

  She shook her head. ‘Silverback is bigger. And he wouldn’t have gone down so easy.’

  ‘They had to sneak across the border and get all the way to the hospital without being spotted,’ Fero said. ‘Why did they choose such huge guys?’

  ‘I don’t know. Something doesn’t add up.’ Cormanenko picked up the giant’s gun and his mobile phone. ‘Soon they’ll know we’re here. We’ll have to search quickly.’

  Fero eyed the T-intersection. ‘Do you want right or left?’

  ‘You take right,’ she said. ‘I’ll take left.’

  ‘Good luck.’

  ‘You too.’

  Fero crept away into the shadows. He could see red lights blinking on the walls, marking light switches. The terrorists must have got the electricity back on, but left the lights off for security.

  He thought about switching them on. It would definitely help with the search. But he wasn’t sure they knew he was here. It was too risky.

  He turned a corner. A lift stood open, awaiting passengers. If he couldn’t find the stairwell, perhaps he could use it to search the lower floors. The bulb inside flickered in a semi-regular pattern. Fero walked on the opposite side of the corridor to stay out of the light.

  Each door he passed was boarded up. The boards looked old, but sturdy. They had probably stood strong since the outbreak. He didn’t need to search the rooms behind them—

  Voices.

  Two men, speaking in Besmari.

  Fero started moving back the way he had come, as fast as possible without making any noise.

  ‘. . . camera would have picked it up.’

  ‘Should have picked it up. But if it was nothing, why hasn’t Orren reported back?’

  ‘Probably because – hey!’

  They had seen him.

  Fero broke into a run.

  Gunshots boomed through the corridor. A bullet whistled past his head. Another cracked a plank sealing a doorway.

  ‘Intruder!’ one man yelled into his radio. ‘We have an intruder!’

  Desperate for cover, Fero ducked sideways into an open doorway. But as the lights flickered on, he realised that he had ducked into the lift. There was no other way out. Nowhere to hide.

  Footsteps clattered towards him. Fero jabbed the button to close the doors, praying that the power was connected.

  The footsteps drew closer, and then stopped. The two men must be waiting outside. They didn’t know he was unarmed.

  The lift doors started to slide closed.

  At the last second, something flew through the gap, thunked against the wall and landed in the corner of the lift.

  It was a small black canister with a chemical formula stencilled on the side, spewing yellow-grey smoke.

  There was no time to wonder if this was the same gas that had killed Cormanenko’s brother. Fero leapt back towards the lift door, arm outstretched. He was better off surrendering to the soldiers outside than getting stuck in here with the smoking canister.

  B
ut he was too late. The doors shut before he could wedge his hand between them.

  He hadn’t breathed since he saw the canister, and already his lungs ached. His eyes weren’t stinging, which seemed like bad news. Whatever this chemical was, it wasn’t tear gas.

  Fero frantically stabbed the button that should have opened the doors. The doors didn’t move, and the button didn’t light up like the other one had. Perhaps the wiring had deteriorated.

  He stabbed the button for the floor below. No light, no movement. In desperation, he pushed every other button in the panel. Nothing worked.

  It was getting hard to see through the fog. Fero tried to pry the doors apart, but they wouldn’t budge. He bashed his fists against the steel. He wanted to scream, ‘Let me out!’ – maybe the soldiers could open the doors from the other side – but he was afraid to open his mouth.

  ‘Come.’ A dull voice from outside. ‘There could be others.’

  ‘What about this one?’

  ‘We’ll pick up the body later.’

  Footsteps clomped away.

  Fero’s lungs were on fire. His head was pounding. Every heartbeat felt like a thunderclap.

  He pressed his fists against his face. Think, he told himself. Think!

  He looked up. A hatch was embedded in the ceiling. He climbed onto the handrail, leaned across and pushed the hatch upwards. It wouldn’t move. Someone had bolted it shut from the other side. Fero dropped down and pulled out his phone. With quivering thumbs he sent a text to Cormanenko. Trapped in lift with toxic gas. Ground floor. Help!

  The response was immediate.

  Sending failed.

  There was no signal in here.

  He was going to die.

  Fero went to fling his phone at the wall in desperate, helpless rage—

  And then he froze. His phone wasn’t just a phone. And while he might not be able to escape from the lift, maybe he could get rid of the gas canister.

  Fero cracked the phone in half, exposing the saw. The razor edge spun up to full speed automatically. He slammed it against the floor. Sparks filled the air as he gouged a long line between the floor tiles. Sweat dribbled into his eyes. The heat from the saw baked his face.

  He dragged out a second cut at right angles to the first. He could hardly see now. Was the smoke too thick in the air? Or was he losing consciousness?

  Fero carved a third line into the floor. Then a fourth, making a square. He stamped on it as hard as he could.

  The severed tile snapped away from the rest of the floor and tumbled down into the darkness of the lift shaft. There must be several levels below this one.

  Fero followed the hissing sound to the corner and snatched up the canister. It scorched his fingers like a freshly baked potato, but he held on. He carried it over to the hole in the floor—

  And hesitated. If he threw the canister down the lift shaft, he would still be trapped here with the rest of the gas. Every cell in his body was screaming for oxygen. He would black out long before the toxic fog dissipated.

  He put the canister back on the floor.

  No time to reconsider. No time to wonder if he would survive this.

  Fero stepped into the hole and fell into the lift shaft.

  Air.

  Cold, sweet air, blasting his face as he plummeted through the blackness.

  Fero sucked in lungful after greedy lungful, soothing his scorched lungs. When he jumped, he had expected his spring-heeled shoes to somehow save him from the impact. Now that oxygen was getting to his brain again, that seemed insane.

  He fell faster and faster. The lift shaft was an echo chamber, reflecting his panicked breaths. He swung his arm out, catching one of the steel cables, but the friction burned his palm. He couldn’t hold on.

  Bang.

  He hit the bottom. Pain shot up his legs and he suddenly felt himself flying upwards. His arms windmilled in the gloom. He tumbled back down and hit the ground a second time, bouncing again. The floor wasn’t soft, not exactly, but it had—

  A spring. His eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he saw the mechanism that had saved his life. A platform atop a giant spring, designed to cushion the impact if the cables snapped and the lift fell down the shaft. Thanks to that and his special shoes, the impact hadn’t been hard enough to break his ankles.

  Fero stepped off the platform into the maintenance pit, panting. There was no dizziness, no headache, no itching in his lungs. No unusual feelings of hot or cold. He must have escaped the gas in time.

  But he was a long way from Cormanenko. The four remaining Besmari terrorists knew he was here, and they could be reviving the fifth right now. Worst of all, he still hadn’t found any of the bombs.

  A sliver of light hovered to his left. The gap between the external doors. Fero stood and pushed his palms against the metal, prising the doors apart. He clambered up out of the maintenance pit and stepped onto the tiled floor of the hall outside. Cobwebs lined the curved ceiling. Massive fans hung motionless behind rusted grilles.

  Fero scanned his surroundings. This place didn’t look like a hospital. With its abandoned vending machines and dusty turnstiles, it looked like . . .

  A train station, Fero thought. Noelein had said there was a disused train station under the hospital, hadn’t she?

  The walls were scabbed with peeling posters. The rubber on the benches had rotted or been eaten away by rats. The strip lighting overhead was dead – the only illumination came from a floodlight somewhere else in the station. He could see it reflected in the tiled walls.

  Fero looked for a staircase to get back up to the hospital. But the signs had all withered away. The place was a labyrinth.

  He cocked his head. A rattling, crunching sound echoed through the abandoned train station.

  Someone was drilling.

  Noelein had said the tunnels were walled up. Perhaps the terrorists were trying to break through.

  But why? Surely there was an easier way to escape.

  Fero crept towards the sound. He passed a dented ticket machine, turned a corner, and another—

  Then he saw it, and the terrorists’ plan became horrifyingly clear.

  THE CARRIAGE PLOT

  A train.

  There was a train down here.

  It must have been in the station when the area was quarantined. It had been trapped here for nine years.

  The platform was piled high with rubble and discarded drilling equipment. No wonder the terrorists were giants. Fero wouldn’t even be able to lift that jackhammer, and it would take him years to shift so many gigantic rocks.

  The three carriages glinted in the gloom. Through the windows, Fero could see hundreds of black canisters like the one he’d left behind in the lift. The terrorists had taken all of the leftover poison gas out of the hospital and loaded it onto the train, along with the stolen explosives.

  Three carriages for three bombs.

  Operation Three Bags Full.

  A map of the train line adorned the wall, still mostly legible beneath a skin of grime. On this line, three of the next four stations were major population hubs. If the terrorists got the train into the main tunnel, they could drive it to Towzhik Station. Then they could leave the rear carriage behind with a bomb inside. The Library would be blown up. The new Towzhik Hospital, the fire department and the police station would all be gassed.

  The next station was Stolkalny. They could leave another carriage there. The Stolkalny shopping complex: blown up. Stolkalny Square: gassed.

  It seemed unlikely that they would attack the Botanic Gardens, so they would probably drive straight on through to Coralsk and leave the last carriage there. The gas might reach as far as Fero’s high school. As for the two giant apartment buildings, including the one in which his parents lived – they were right above the train station. They could collapse.

  Cormanenko’s voice echoed through Fero’s head. A cloud of toxic gas will wipe out Stolkalny, or Coralsk, or Towzhik – whichever way the wind blows.


  There was no need to rely on the wind. Using the three carriages, the terrorists could hit all three population centres. This was Armageddon. Millions would die, and the survivors would have nowhere to go. The Besmari–Kamauan conflict would be over, because Kamau would no longer exist.

  But Fero could stop it. If he was correct about the plan, the bombs were probably on the train right now. He could sneak on board and take the detonators—

  The carriage doors opened.

  Fero ducked back into the shadows, putting a pillar between himself and the terrorist. Had he been seen?

  The rhythm of the man’s footsteps didn’t change. But he was coming this way.

  Do I run, or do I stay? Fero wondered. If I run, he might catch me. If I stay, he might see me.

  ‘Eruz?’

  The footsteps paused. ‘What?’

  That’s Gear Eruz, Fero thought. Silverback.

  ‘The intruder has been dealt with,’ someone said in Besmari. ‘But Orren still hasn’t called in.’

  ‘The Kamauan may not have been alone.’ Silverback’s voice was quiet, but menacing. ‘I’ll go up to check.’

  Hoping neither of the two men was looking his way, Fero tiptoed across to the next pillar, putting some more distance between him and them.

  The footsteps kept coming, and then Silverback was in view. A long knife was holstered on one hip and an Uzi 9mm on the other. He was enormous, but that wasn’t what alarmed Fero. Beneath the combat webbing and army camouflage fatigues, there was something about the way he moved – a loping, lupine gait that seemed more animal than man. Scars crinkled his skin, and his shaved skull was caked with dust.

  Fero had a problem. Even after Silverback was gone, the other terrorist would still be on the train with the three bombs. How was he supposed to get rid of him?

  Silverback paused.

  Fero watched the back of his head as it tilted slightly. It was as if Silverback was sniffing the air.

  Fero pressed himself against the pillar, wishing he had Cormanenko’s invisibility device.

  Silverback whirled around. His amber eyes fixed on Fero, and his face contorted into a snarl of rage.

  Fero didn’t run. Behind him was a dead end. He could see the distant outline of the stairs, leading up and out of the train station, but Silverback was blocking the way.