Nightrise

was wearing jeans and a tattered T-shirt, and he'd painted two streaks of red and white down the sides of his face. He couldn't have been more than twenty years old. Banes took careful aim and fired. But at the last minute, Koring jerked the wheel, avoiding a pothole in the track. The shot went wild. The jeep swerved off the track.
    Banes swore. The truck raced ahead.
    "Who are they?" Koring rasped. His eyes were wide and he was sweating. Perspiration dripped from his moustache. It wasn't just the heat of the night. Colton Banes scared him. This situation was out of control. And that scared him more. "What do they want?"

    "They're here for the boy!" Banes snarled. "Jamie Tyler. There can be no other reason."
    "What do we do?"
    "Kill him! Kill Tyler! It doesn't matter what else happens. He mustn't leave here alive."

    ***
    Inside the Block, Jamie had heard the gunfire and the explosions. There was a loud bang and the lights failed again. His flashlight was still on and he swept it around him. All the other prisoners were awake now. He could hear them shouting and cheering in their cells. Daniel McGuire had already gotten dressed. Jamie had to admire him. He had been locked up for seven months and suddenly he had been woken in the middle of the night and in utter darkness by a stranger who seemed to be covered in blood.
    A pitched battle was going on outside. But he was completely calm, waiting to be told what to do.
    Joe approached, hurrying down the corridor behind the beam of a second flashlight. "My friends are here," he shouted. He no longer cared if the security cameras saw him. It didn't take a great deal of imagination for Jamie to see that the intake officer wouldn't be coming back. "Now we go!"
    "What about the others?" Jamie asked.
    There were twenty cells in the corridor, ten on each side. Flashing his own flashlight over them, he saw faces through the glass windows set in the doors. Not just boys — but girls too. He remembered what Alicia had once told him. The kidnappers had been interested in both sexes, girls and boys, provided they had some sort of paranormal ability. He had no doubt that this was where they had all ended tip. It was incredible. A prison within a prison. And he still had no idea why they had been brought here.
    Joe Feather was waiting for him to go. But Jamie wasn't moving. "We can't leave them," he said.
    "We have to! "Joe exclaimed. "My friends came for you. Only for you. It's too dangerous if we take them outside…"
    "But they've done nothing wrong!" It was Daniel who was speaking. He had a high voice; it hadn't broken yet. "They're like me. They were all snatched and brought here."
    Joe shifted from one foot to the other as if he were standing on burning coals. "When you are out of here, then you can help them. You can speak with the authorities. But if we don't go now, we will never leave."
    Jamie knew that he was right. It would take them too long to open all twenty doors — and what about his friends back in the unit? He couldn't get them out either. Scott wasn't here. His first job was to get Daniel back to his mother. Then Alicia would be able to go to John Trelawny. And the senator would see to the rest of it.
    "Joe's right. We have to go." He turned to Daniel. "But I promise you, we'll come back and help the others."
    Daniel nodded and just for a second Jamie had the weird sensation of being, for the first time in his life, the older brother. For so many years he had looked up to Scott — even though they were the same age.
    But Scott hadn't been around for a while and maybe in that time Jamie had changed. He'd had to start to think for himself.
    There was another explosion and more shooting. The gunfire had intensified and Jamie guessed that the supervisors must be shooting back. Following Joe, they ran along the corridor into the medicine wing.
    As soon as they were there and could look out of the windows, they saw the truth. A pitched battle was taking place in the prison grounds. There were gaping holes in three different parts of the fence, and the cage holding the generator had been blown apart. The generator itself was on fire. That explained the second power failure — and for some reason the emergency generator hadn't yet kicked in. Haifa dozen different vehicles had come to a halt in front of the four units, the dining hall, the gymnasium. He saw figures, little more than silhouettes, popping up to take a shot at the prison windows. There were brief flashes