Tunnels 05 - Spiral

stairs.
    “You’re up early,” he announced to Chester in a loud voice. “Bet you’re —”
    He trailed off as Chester pressed a finger to his lips and then pointed at Mrs. Burrows.
    “It’s all right,” Will said. “She’s just meditating. She does it every morning.”
    “Can she hear us?” Chester asked, still speaking softly.
    Will shrugged. “I think so, although she can choose to stay in a trance if she wants.”
    Although Mrs. Burrows’s eyes remained shut and she was so still that she seemed not even to be breathing, her jaw suddenly dropped open. What appeared to be freezing cold air seeped from her mouth. Condensation hung before her expressionless face for an instant, despite the raised temperature in the room.
    “How does she do that?” Chester whispered.
    “Dunno,” Will replied distantly, more preoccupied with the rumbling sounds coming from his stomach. He glanced over his shoulder into the hallway. “I can’t smell anything cooking in the kitchen. I’m starving. I could murder one of Parry’s fry-ups.”
    Chester shook his head dourly. “Think we’re out of luck on that front. He’s too busy to cook. Something’s definitely going on.”
    “Not according to the news,” Will said. They’d searched the channels the evening before and drawn a blank. He gestured at the blackboard in the corner of the drawing room. “Maybe we won’t be having
commando school
today, either.”
    In addition to encouraging the boys to get fit, Parry had done his best to keep their minds active by giving them lectures every morning. To do this, he drew on what he knew best, so somewhat bizarrely they were treated to lessons on map reading, military tactics, and combat fieldcraft.
    “Choke points and interlocking fields of fire,” Chester said, recalling what Parry had told them about ambush theory.
    “My favorite was combat driving techniques.” Will smiled. “Now, that was something they didn’t teach at our school back in Highfield.”
    Chester became thoughtful for a moment. “Just think how many lessons we’ve missed in the last year. It all seems like a lifetime ago. I hardly remember anything about it . . . except putting that little squit Speed in his place.”
    “I’m still amazed that Parry trusted us with his beloved Land Rover,” Will continued, not really listening to his friend. “I seriously thought it was going to tip over when I powered down those slopes.”
    Chester came back to the present with a chuckle. “Yeah. And he wasn’t too happy when I took the sideview mirror off on a tree, was he?”
    “Not particularly,” Parry declared from the doorway. Chester looked sheepish as the old man continued, “Afraid you’ll have to look after yourselves this morning, lads. I’ve been up all night, monitoring the situation.”
    “So it is the Styx?” Will asked.
    “It has all their hallmarks. If I’m right, they’ve just entered the second phase of their initiative.” Parry frowned. “Still can’t quite figure out why there was a two-month hiatus after they stoked things up in the city with those full-frontal attacks.”
    “But is this latest stuff serious?” Will asked.
    Parry nodded. “And bloody clever.”
    The boys exchanged glances, waiting for Parry to elaborate, but he was staring absently at the fire. He appeared to be exhausted, leaning with both hands on his walking stick.
    “Is Drake dealing with it?” Will finally said, hoping this might elicit some further information.
    “No, he’s gone dark.”
    “Gone dark?” Will asked.
    “He’s operating on his own, probably in London. I’ve left messages for him to come back here if he ever deigns to listen to them,” Parry replied, beginning to turn from the doorway.
    “And my dad — is he helping you now?” Chester inquired hesitantly.
    “I’ll give a briefing later on — when I know more,” Parry mumbled as he crossed the hall to his study.

“DOES ANYONE ACTUALLY
live
in a grot hole like this?” After the car left the motorway, Rebecca One had sat up and begun to take notice of the succession of sprawling commercial areas they were driving through at some speed. “Even the name of the place sounds ugly.
Slough. Sluff.
Sloff.
Who thought of that?” She was thrown to the side as the car took a corner. “Oh, look, yet another roundabout. What a drag.”
    Rebecca Two didn’t reply. She was peering through the tinted car window beside her, lost in thought as the streetlights strobed her