On the other hand, perhaps their calmness comes partly out of ignorance, as I’m the only member of my team that has actually had contact with these creatures, face to evil face, contact. On three or four occasions yesterday, I scraped through close calls with these Rabids, barely surviving, I know full well how formidable they are, and these men don’t. They haven’t come up against them, so they can’t, no matter how many times they have been briefed and warned. I doubt they even believe an unarmed enemy poses any real threat to their skills and firepower; ignorance really is bliss and I hope it stays that way for all our sakes.
There is a lull in proceedings as we wait to see if Dixon manages to crack the safe’s lock and I decide to join Kim covering the office door, my nervousness getting the better of me. The rain is starting to come down harder, bigger drops falling through the hole in the roof and in faster and faster succession. Luckily it is somehow keeping away from where Dixon is working. The angle at which it comes through the hole means it hits the sideboard and the floor in front of it. The sideboard must be sitting at a slight slope because the water collected on it runs down along the top of the sideboard to the opposite end of where the safe is, and flows down the side onto the floor.
Kim glances over to where Dixon is working and says something under his breath that I don’t quite catch; maybe I’m not the only one whose nerves are starting to fray or is he just picking up on my uneasiness? I to glance over. I can’t help it, hoping I see the safe door swing open, but it doesn’t. Are we going to have to start cutting away at the bloody thing with the plasma? I fucking hope not? The last thing we need now is noise, sparks, flashing light and more time.
My head turns back towards my covering position, still trying to ignore the door behind Dixon, the door to Sir Malcolm’s private bathroom where he sits on his toilet with his brains splattered over the tiled wall…I can’t deal with thinking about that right now. As my head comes around, a bright flash of white light washes through the orange light of the glowsticks and for a second, I think they have decided to power up the plasma to start cutting into the safe. I’m about to go look around to see and to ask Dixon if he has given up with his solution, then realisation hits me before I do. However, the flash of light didn’t emanate from over there, it came from above from the hole in the ceiling. A dull rumble of thunder reverberates over the noise of rain and Rabids banging on the door above a few seconds later, to confirm that the flash was lightning. The delay in the rumble tells me it is still some distance off at the moment, but I don’t like it, not one bit.
Chapter 15
Kim looks at me with a face that says, ‘oh shit’, straight after the thunder passes. And I suspect I have the same look on my face, as it looks like the storm is going to be on us at any time. Above us, the hammering on the rooftop door increases, almost giving the impression the thunder hasn’t stopped, the new noise adding fuel to the fire for the Rabids trapped behind it and their desperation to break through and find new prey.
“Boss, receiving, over?” Dan's voice sounds through my headset, making me jump.
“Receiving, over,” I say as I look over to Sergeant Dixon in anticipation of his question.
“How much longer? The storm is inbound, we have multiple lightning strikes in the East of the city and that local one has set the Rabids off. I don’t trust this door, we need to vacate A-SAP, over,” Dan says urgently.
Sergeant Dixon looks over to me knowing I will want an answer for Dan, and he indicates five more minutes which I assume is until he knows if his method is going to work.
“Received, we are looking at five minutes, over.” I decide to give Dan an honest but vague answer, not wanting to tell him it could be longer, a lot longer.
“I am not sure we have any longer than that, if that, over.” Dan’s voice falters.
“Understood, hold your position at all costs, we cannot afford to leave here until the safe is open,” I tell Dan sternly, knowing the rest of his team on the roof will also be listening.
“Understood, Boss, over and out,”
Even if there is only an outside chance this goddamn safe has anything that will help cure this infection locked inside, we have got to retrieve it, no matter the cost to us few men. Countless lives could be saved in London alone and who knows, countless Rabids could be cured, if that is in any way possible?
Dixon is tapping feverishly at the keyboard contained inside the briefcase that is on the floor in front of Sir Malcolm’s safe, wires crossing the divide between the two carries the code that will hopefully override the lock. Concentration is etched on his face, that is bathed in a blueish light from the screen he is staring at. Dixon’s eyes dart up from the screen, over to the safe occasionally, and I follow them when they do, in anticipation that the safe door is going to pop open. But the flipping thing doesn’t, not yet.
“Captain Richards to transport; receiving, over?”
“Receiving, over,” Buck says.
“Status report, over.”
“We are
