‘I strongly suggest everyone remains very still,’ snarled the left-hand Mogul.
Ed and Andy exchanged a knowing glance and got busy with their DOVIs. It took less than twenty seconds to deactivate the four rifles pointed at them and one pistol in a holster of the Mogul who’d spoken.
‘A BDF safe house, eh?’ he smirked. ‘Doesn’t seem very safe to me.’
‘You betrayed us,’ spat Abubaker, glaring venomously at Ed.
‘Actually, no,’ said Ed, turning back to the raised front seat and reaching inside. ‘If you’ve been betrayed, then it was by one of your own.’
‘I said remain still,’ shouted the same Mogul, swinging his weapon at Ed, before glancing down at it curiously. Dropping it, he drew his pistol and pointed that instead.
In the couple of seconds this was happening, Ed had retrieved one of their rifles, turned and proceeded to fire four times. He received almost four identical shocked expressions as the line of Moguls dropped, the clatter of their weapons on the hard ground echoing around the dock.
‘Oh fuck!’ exclaimed Haitham, looking between the prone Moguls and Ed. ‘What have you done?’
‘I was accused of betraying you a moment ago,’ he replied, giving Abubaker a hard stare.
Abubaker was standing stock still staring at the Moguls, his mouth opening and closing again, but no sound emanating.
‘They don’t seem quite as nasty as the ones we’re used to, do they?’ said Andy, casually kicking one as he stooped to pick up their rifles. ‘Give us a hand, chaps,’ he said. ‘We need to secure and interrogate them.’
‘You mean they’re not dead?’ said Abubaker, finally getting his vocal cords to work.
‘No,’ said Ed. ‘We don’t kill unless we absolutely have to.’
‘His weapon would have been set to kill when he pulled the trigger,’ said Haitham. ‘Which is another thing – why didn’t any of their weapons function? I’ve never seen anything like it.’
‘Tricks of the trade,’ said Andy. ‘Now, has anyone got any sticky tape or anything similar?’
Inside the building they found two dead Callametans.
‘You see what we mean?’ said Abubaker. ‘These two had been sentenced to death for stealing food for their spawn group.’
‘What were they doing here?’ asked Tocc, looking sadly at the corpses.
‘Hiding out until we could get them new identities,’ said Haitham.
‘For some reason the Blends have difficulty telling the Quads apart,’ said Abubaker. ‘They all look the same to them. Makes it easier to change their identification documents.’
‘We need to move quickly,’ said Haitham. ‘This location is blown and if those soldier Blends don’t report in, the streets will be flooded with security.’
They found some rope and returned downstairs to the underground loading bay.
‘Did you move them?’ asked Pol, the first to enter the dock.
‘Oh crap,’ said Andy, ‘they’ve gone.’
‘Their van’s gone too,’ said Haitham. ‘And ours has been vandalised.’
‘Oh crap,’ said Ed, looking back to Abubaker, whose face had gone white.
‘Grab everything and come this way quickly,’ said Haitham, opening a cupboard door in the wall.
‘Does this one have a bolt hole?’ asked Abubaker, looking at Haitham.
‘It does,’ he said. ‘But only into the opposite building. It’s not far enough, but it’s a start.’
The tunnel hidden behind a dummy ventilation grille was small and low. Everyone had to crawl through pushing a bag or weapon in front of them.
‘You okay?’ Ed called back to Andy, knowing he was claustrophobic.
‘Only shitting myself a little bit,’ came the reply.
‘Just follow my boots for a few more metres, I can see a light ahead.’
Haitham had gone first and helped everyone out into a gloomy storeroom racked with shelving containing rolls of cloth.
‘It’s a clothing manufacturer,’ he said, noticing Ed inspecting the contents of the shelves.
‘Is there a storeroom with the finished product?’ asked Ed. ‘We need a change of appearance.’
‘I believe they have a small shopfront on ground level for wholesalers to inspect the merchandise,’ said Abubaker, glancing up at the ceiling. ‘They must have samples there.’
A low boom shook the room, causing dust and the odd lump of plaster to drop on them.
‘They’re back with the heavy artillery,’ said Andy, some colour returning to his face after the horror of the tunnel. He tried the door and, finding it locked, set about it with his DOVI.
‘How the hell did you do that?’ asked Haitham, as Andy opened the door and peeked out. ‘You just shut your eyes and the bloody thing opened.’
‘Mind over matter,’ said Ed, slapping Haitham on the back. ‘You worry about a route out of here and let us worry about opening the doors.’
On the way to the stairway, they checked all the other doors on the basement level, but none contained any finished stock. A second and third explosion and the sound of falling masonry close by had them clinging on to the railing as they ascended the stairs. Dust enveloped them as they pushed open the door to ground level.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Andy. ‘Did they just blow the whole building to shit?’
‘If they did, that’s a good thing,’ said Ed. ‘The tunnel will never be found.’
Rounding a corner in the direction of the storefront, they realised why so much dust was present. The frontage of the building was gone. Rubble filled the street and had pushed in through the door and windows.
‘Back up, everyone,’ said Haitham. ‘No exit that way.’
They quickly turned and retraced their steps back though the dusty gloom, past the stairway door and deeper into the building.
‘Follow those,’ said Abubaker, pointing at red emergency exit signs. ‘There must be a way out onto the next street somewhere.’
The signs took them to the rear of the building and a solid grey door with a small square glass panel to check the exit was clear. Haitham peeked out and instantly backed away again.
‘Crap,’ he said. ‘The street’s full of police and emergency vehicles.’
Andy enjoyed the ease with which his DOVI could unlock doors and did just that to the one he found himself standing next to, a few metres back from the exit. He had a quick look inside and smiled.
‘Guys,’ he said, grinning. ‘I think I might have found what we’re looking for.’
The stock room was crammed with uniforms, racks and racks of uniforms. Blue ones, green ones, grey ones and black ones, there were hundreds of them.
Abubaker’s eyes lit up as he peered round the door.
‘Those are the local Quad police,’ he said, pulling a grey set from the rack and handing it to Tocc. ‘You guys find some of those to fit and we’ll give these a go.’
He thrust black uniforms at Ed and Andy, who raised their eyebrows at the design.
‘I’ll look like the villain’s muscle from a Bond movie in this,’ said Andy, holding it up in front of him and posing in a wall-mounted mirror.
‘Or a carpark attendant at a posh Italian hotel,’ said Ed.
‘Ah yes, I remember him,’ said Andy, ‘what did we call him?’
‘Mussolini.’
It took just a few minutes for them all to change and check each other’s dress.
‘Don’t leave anything behind,’ said Abubaker. ‘I want them to continue believing we were in that building.’
They tidied the stock room, hid their weapons under their uniforms and went back to the emergency exit. Haitham glanced out again and reasoned going left would be the best course of action.
‘Follow us,’ said Abubaker to the Quads. ‘The black uniforms we’re wearing would always be senior to the local police, so follow us and do as we say, especially when in earshot of strangers.’
Haitham turned back to the door and hit the opening lever hard. The door swung outwards and the TAs marched out, leading the way as if they owned the place. Two Quad police officers who were leaning lazily against one of the vehicles, jumped to attention as the group swept by.
‘No slouching, you two,’ snapped Abubaker, as he passed.
‘Sorry, sir,’ came the mumbled reply, as the group disappeared into the dusty darkness.
Ed felt decidedly grubby as the dust in the air stuck to the sweat on his skin. Even though it was now late in the evening the temperature was still in the low thirties.
They crossed the street and took the next narrow passageway on the right. Abubaker led as he knew this part of town better than Haitham and after about half a kilometre of twisting and turning, he stopped at a tall set of gates secured with a lock and chain.
‘Can you open this?’ Abubaker asked Ed, his eyes flicking nervously up and down the narrow street.
‘It’s mechanical, not electronic,’ said Ed. ‘But I do happen to have a master key.’
He opened his uniform tunic, pulled out the rifle and turned it to full power.
‘Is the street clear?’ he asked, and getting a nod from Andy, he reduced the lock to its component atoms.
‘Open sesame,’ said Andy, pushing the heavy gates open and ushering everyone inside.
‘Is this another safe house?’ asked Ed, looking up at a warehouse-style unit sitting across the small yard.
‘It’s the old business premises of one of our members,’ said Haitham. ‘He moved to a bigger warehouse and said we could use this while his company still owned it.’
The lock on the building was electronic so this time, Ed made short work of opening it without resorting to a laser rifle. Inside was a small warehouse area on the ground level and stairs to one side, leading to a mezzanine level containing two offices.
An old electric truck sat parked against the back wall, the sides emblazoned with an electronics supply company’s details.
Abubaker strode over, turned the charger on and nodded happily as a red light glowed.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘The power’s still on. In the morning we can use this old thing to take us up into the mountains.’