Tunnels 05 - Spiral

that Will had known up until then.
    “Whatever they’re up to, they can’t be allowed to get away with it,” Mrs. Burrows said.
    “Precisely,” the old man replied. “And if not us, who’s going to stop them?” He twisted toward the open door of the study. “You made it up here in good time.”
    As a black-clad figure wheeled into sight, both Will and Chester thought the worst — that it was a Styx — and they both began to react. But Mrs. Burrows caught her son’s arm to still him.
    “Whoa!” Chester exhaled as he and Will recognized the man with the completely bald head and goatee.
    “Who’s going to stop them?” Drake said, repeating his father’s words. “
We
bloody well are.”
    Elliott rushed forward and flung her arms around him, then she stepped back, a huge grin on her face. It was a flash of the old Elliott — the Elliott that Will and Chester had been missing so much. “You look like a real renegade now,” she said, chuckling. “A mean and nasty one at that.”
    “Hah! But look at you,” he replied, admiring her dress and the way she’d done her hair. “Quite the young lady.” Drake moved into the room, greeting the boys, Mrs. Burrows, and Mr. Rawls, and then took his place next to Parry.
    “So you’ve been allowed into the inner sanctum.” Drake flicked his eyes around the room before addressing them again. “Some late-breaking news for you,” he began. “Just before dawn, there were simultaneous strikes on television transmission centers, Internet hubs, and several of the main phone exchanges.”
    “That’s why we couldn’t get anything on TV,” Chester said.
    “Quite so — it’s denial of service — the Styx are targeting our comms and information hubs. And it’s really bad down there in London, I can tell you. People are running scared — there’s panic-buying in the shops, which aren’t being restocked. And public services are erratic, to say the least — streets are piled high with rubbish, schools have been shut, and hospitals are being run by skeleton staff. And there’ve even been a couple of power outages — whole areas of London have had intermittent electrical supplies for the last week. Yes, it’s really rough down there. And there’s also the odd rumor or two knocking around that a number of cabinet ministers have gone missing.”
    “Decapitation. Textbook stuff,” Parry put in. Will and Chester glanced toward each other as they both wondered if he was referring to his favorite tome on insurgency by Frank Kitson. Parry drew his hand across his throat. “You remove those at the top —
the head
— and the rest of the country —
the body
— hasn’t got any idea how to organize itself.”
    “Except that in all likelihood the head will be put back on,” Drake said, “but it’ll be a Styx head.”
    “I don’t understand. With what’s happening, can’t we just go to the authorities and tell them who’s behind it?” Chester suggested.
    “That would be a very quick way to get us all killed,” Drake answered him. “The problem is you can’t tell who’s been got at already. You don’t know who you can trust.”
    Parry clapped his hands together. “I do,” he said. “It’s time to wake up some old ghosts.”
    Drake met eyes with his father as if he knew what he was referring to, then held a finger up as he remembered something. “Talking of old ghosts, I’m forgetting my manners,” he said as he strode back to the doorway. He was gone for a second, then reappeared with a man with a hood over his head. Everyone in the room knew what that felt like — Drake had insisted they wear them when he’d driven them to his father’s estate.
    The man’s hands were bound together with a plastic tie, which Drake sliced through with his knife. Then, with a dramatic flourish, he whipped the hood off.
    There was a sharp intake of breath from Will and Elliott.
    “Colonel!” the girl exclaimed, immediately recognizing who it was even though he was dressed in an expensively tailored but rather ill-fitting double-breasted city suit.
    “That’s the New Germanian who helped you?” Chester said to Will, who didn’t respond as he stared at the man distrustfully. Although Colonel Bismarck had delivered him and Elliott from the clutches of the Styx in one of his helicopters, Will knew the only reason he was now Topsoil was that he must have been part of the attacks in the city.
    The Colonel blinked in the unaccustomed light as he stepped