Torchwood: Exodus Code

kicked up a thick cloud of smoke and dust, the
cóndor
’s body collapsing in the middle of it.
    ‘Holy shit!’ said Isela, her rifle clattering to the stone as the man, the
cóndor
, jolted upright and gasped for breath. A little unsteadily, he stood up, brushed off his trousers, rolled and stretched his neck muscles, then picked up his rifle and walked out of the swirls of dust.
    Instantly, the shooting stopped. Her father’s guards dropped their weapons and ran towards the airstrip. Antonio’s men followed them, firing wildly.
    The
cóndor
stopped for a minute under the heavy canopy of the huarango tree, its wide trunk full of divots from centuries worth of armed attacks even before today’s stand-off.
    When she could stand the noises in her head again after the explosion, Isela lifted her binoculars and stared out at the airstrip. Four heavily armed men were escorting Antonio to a black Hummer. Isela recognised their insignia as that of Donoso’s private army.
    Hundreds of black and yellow dots floated across Isela’s eyes, her anger piling on top of her shame. Why had she listened to Antonio? He’d set her up and he’d betrayed her father. What a dick she’d been.

67
    THE AMERICAN SOLDIERS who’d been covering the airstrip fanned in and took control of the piazza. Most of the dead and wounded were draped across the bricks, their blood seeping into the clay, staining the pink in a mockery of its playfulness. The music blared for a few more beats, until one of the soldiers shot out the speakers.
    Jack sprinted to Dana who was in full SWAT gear and standing at the bottom of the belfry. ‘Have I told you recently how amazing you are?’ said Jack.
    Dana smiled. ‘Never gets old. What’s the plan?’
    ‘I need the girl. She has my notebook, which I believe has the code I need to trick Mother Earth.’
    A voice yelled in Dana’s earpiece; she held her finger up, silencing Jack. ‘I need the girl at the extraction point. I want to know everything she does about Donoso. Someone’s going to pay for this fiasco.’
    ‘Our friends at the CIA want the girl, Jack.’
    ‘Can’t let that happen, Dana.’
    Jack figured he could make a run at the tower and, if he was lucky, get inside to the girl before the soldiers.
    Suddenly Jack’s earpiece let out a high-pitched static squeal. Jack tore it from his ear. His mouth filled with the taste of cucumbers and lemons and ash. His knees buckled, his joints ached so badly that he didn’t think they could take his weight.
    ‘Go to the others,’ Jack yelled to Dana over the chaos. ‘Tell them it’s started and be prepared.’
    The ground beneath Jack trembled. At first it was just a slight rolling beneath his feet, but then the planks of the veranda began to pop up one at a time all around the piazza. Jack stared in horror as the ground opened underneath the bus, dropping it twenty feet into the ground. Two soldiers were pinned beneath a massive rock crashing off the canyon wall when a long fissure shot out from the meseta along the dirt, across the middle of the piazza, opening a gaping hole in the ground sucking down anything in its path, including the huarango tree.
    The fissure shot between the roots of the massive tree, swallowed up the ground beneath it, spitting up its long roots and tossing the tree over the far wall of the hacienda where its tendrils gripped the mountainside like claws as the tree tumbled into the sea below.
    The soldiers standing at the bottom of the tower sprinted from the fissure as it snaked directly at them. They never stood a chance, swallowed into the earth as the tear opened wider and wider, taking walls and buildings with it as it snaked across the village towards the tower and Jack.
    Jack sprinted parallel with the fissure leaping over crashing adobe walls, ducking to avoid torrents of debris. When he reached the tower, he yanked at one of the lines.
    ‘Get down!’
    The soldier bounced against the wall as she pointed her gun down at Jack. ‘Sir, this is no time to be a hero, get back to safety with the other tourists. This will be over soon.’
    A clap of thunder rolled across the ground. Jack ducked against the wall for cover, thinking someone else had tossed a grenade. Roaring, the fissure snaked up the wall of the tower, crumbling the stones to chalk on either side of her.
    ‘Soldier,’ Jack called up to her. ‘You need to come down.’
    Letting out her line, she rappelled to the ground seconds before the entire