She nodded. ‘Leave them where they are for the time being. I don’t want any of our people having to shoot them in self-defence. They’ve suffered enough. When we leave, we’ll fry this place with the usual EMP. That’ll unlock the cages; they can free themselves and find their own way out.’
‘Very well, ma’am.’
‘Where is Major Callen?’
‘Supervising the illegals, ma’am.’ He hesitated. ‘I think it would be fair to say he’s feeling a little aggrieved at the moment.’
She nodded. ‘I don’t blame him. I’m going to have to mend some bridges there. However, first things first.’
She opened her com. ‘Major Callen, I want every scrap of data we can retrieve. Quick as you can, please.’
‘Yes, Commander.’
She closed the link. ‘Let’s go and meet the delightful specimens responsible for all this, shall we? You might want to put the word around, Major – I am not in the best mood today and anyone even so much as looking at me wrong will regret it bitterly for the very short period of time I allow them to live.’
‘It will be my pleasure, ma’am.’
‘How many illegals have we got altogether?’
‘Twenty-five, ma’am.’
‘Alive?’
‘Mostly, yes. Three dead. Three wounded but not seriously.’ He consulted his scratchpad. ‘Plus, three security types, six suspiciously silent so-called doctors and/or scientists, six people assuring us they’re lab assistants and only following orders, a couple of all-purpose cooks and bottle-washers who say none of it was anything to do with them, one known illegal – Farnborough, Imogen – and the aforementioned piece of grease who must be senior management and calls himself Geoffrey.’ He stored his scratchpad and said thoughtfully, ‘I wonder, ma’am, if he might be the person they were so anxious we wouldn’t get to meet?’
‘Let’s go and have a look, shall we?’
Nineteen people knelt with their hands secured behind them. Imogen Farnborough was crying. So, on closer inspection, was Mr Geoffrey.
‘He did it,’ she burst out. ‘He made us do it. It’s all his fault. I tried to save them.’
‘You lying bitch,’ he shouted. ‘It was you.’ He turned to Callen. ‘I swear it was her. It was all her.’
An officer lightly sonicked the pair of them and they crumpled to the floor.
Commander Hay stared at them for a long while. Everyone here was silent. The only sounds were those of the Time Police, still tearing through the place and boxing up anything they could find. Pulling everything apart. Generally wrecking the place. And downloading everything.
Major Ellis, who had, on several occasions, seen his commander in full frontal fury was suddenly aware he would much rather face that Commander Hay than this one.
‘I can give you names,’ slurred Mr Geoffrey, struggling to rise with his hands zipped behind him. ‘I can tell you everything.’
An officer with an IT flash on his shoulder emerged from a shattered doorway. ‘Lt Fanboten sent me, ma’am. Some of it’s a bit fried because they tried a mass delete when they saw us coming and their system couldn’t cope, but we’ve got most of it. He says another ten minutes and he’ll have everything worth having.’
‘My compliments to Lt Fanboten and his team. Carry on.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ He trotted away.
‘Major Callen.’
He turned, his face expressionless. ‘Ma’am.’
She indicated Mr Geoffrey. ‘Ask him once – where are my people? If he doesn’t reply, shoot him dead and move on to Farnborough. If she doesn’t cooperate, shoot her dead and move on to the next one. Make it very clear that if they cannot produce Parrish and Lockland – alive – I will feed everyone here to their friends downstairs.’
‘My pleasure, ma’am.’
The threat was unnecessary. Mr Geoffrey and Miss Farnborough couldn’t gabble their stories fast enough.
Imogen Farnborough, nearly hysterical, had, apparently, done her best to save her friend Luke, even to the extent of hurling herself at Mr Geoffrey, no matter how unpleasant she found him, and pleading for Luke’s life.
Mr Geoffrey’s version fully described his horror and disbelief at Miss Farnborough’s revelations concerning Luke and Jane’s day job.
‘I just thought they were a nice couple,’ he wailed, piteously. ‘Here for a nice afternoon out.’ He appeared to remember the activities of the science area downstairs and wisely veered away from the niceness of the activities at this facility. ‘I didn’t believe a word she was saying. She obviously had it in for Luke Parrish. Spiteful little cow, she is.’
Even more tears ran down his cheeks than Imogen’s.
‘So where are they?’ roared Grint, shaking him by the scruff of his neck.
Having no hands free, Mr Geoffrey intimated with his head. ‘There.’
Grint dropped Mr Geoffrey, who thudded painfully to the hard floor, and looked around. ‘Where?’
‘There. Out there.’
‘They’re outside?’
Geoffrey nodded vigorously.
‘And you’ve waited until now to tell us?’
Mr Geoffrey almost physically disappeared behind a welter of apologies, self-justification, pleas for mercy, Farnborough-based accusations, and snot-snivelling self-pity.
Grint turned to Commander Hay. ‘With your permission, ma’am.’
‘Granted, Lieutenant, and with all speed. Find them.’
Grint set off for the door, calling for two teams to follow and to bring tag readers, proximity alerts, the lot.
Ellis turned to his commander and said quietly, ‘I hate to say it, but it’s most unlikely anyone could survive out there for more than about thirty to forty minutes and we’ve been on site for over half an hour. Their bodies could already be buried in the snow.’ He stopped and took a deep breath. ‘Ma’am, I’d like to join in the search.’
‘I understand, Major – you are their team leader – but I want you and Callen supervising events here. If they are already dead, we owe it to them to make sure we miss nothing. I think we can safely leave the search to Lt Grint. He has ground to make up.’
Reluctantly, Ellis nodded.
‘We will find them. I promise you, Major, we won’t leave without them.’
Outside Site X, Grint was dividing his teams into pairs.