Tunnels 06 - Terminal

afraid he was set on a collision course with Danforth. You see, the death of Chester’s parents was never intended and very unfortunate. But Danforth was no traitor. Far from it. In his out-there, superclever-supercrazy mind, he’d figured we were on a hiding to nothing, and had cooked up a plan so he could infiltrate the Styx. And it worked, up to a point.’
    Will was silent for a moment. ‘So did Danforth kill him?’
    ‘No, surprisingly enough, it was Martha.’
    ‘Martha!’ Will said with surprise.
    ‘Yes. She turned up with a bevy of Brights as her personal escort-cum-hit squad. Seems Chester and Martha went off together, but then had a falling-out. You should ask Danforth or Stephanie about it – they were both there when it happened.’
    ‘That’s just terrible. Poor Chester,’ Will said. He could hardly bring himself to think about the loss of his friend. ‘It was because of me that he got into all this in the first place,’ Will added, almost in a whisper.
    ‘Don’t do that to yourself,’ Jiggs said firmly. ‘You can’t beat yourself up over him. The way it played out with the Styx, not one of us was safe. Nobody knows yet precisely how many casualties this country has suffered, but it runs into the millions.’
    A twin-bladed helicopter thundered past the building, so close that the windows vibrated. Jiggs was grateful for the opportunity to change the subject as he turned to see the large palette of crates strung below the aircraft on ropes. ‘Good – that looks like more medical supplies for us. The Americans are here in force now, and bending over backwards to be helpful,’ he said. ‘Considering they were seconds away from blowing us all to kingdom come with a nuclear strike, I suppose it’s the least they can do.’
    ‘Nuclear strike? Really?’ Will echoed. ‘I missed so much,’ he said again. ‘After the Armagi got me.’
    ‘Only to be expected,’ Jiggs said. ‘They wouldn’t exactly have handled you with kid gloves. And, besides, Hermione needed you out of it when she shoved those Armagi larvae down your gullet.’
    ‘So I really had those things in me?’ Will said with a shiver, glancing down at his stomach.
    ‘Yes, and I was first on the scene. I had no option but to …’ Jiggs hesitated.
    ‘Please. I want to know,’ Will urged him.
    Jiggs was still hesitant. ‘Maybe it would be insensitive of me to tell you anything more. Are you really sure you want all the gory details?’
    ‘Don’t worry,’ Will said, trying to smile but achieving something more akin to a grimace. ‘After what I’ve been put through over the last couple of years, I’m not sure anything much can get to me now.’
    ‘Righty ho,’ Jiggs said. ‘Well, I figured I had to take immediate action after Bug Lady impregnated you outside St Paul’s, and I was the nearest person with any sort of medical training.’
    ‘I was choking a lot, wasn’t I?’ Will whispered, putting a hand to his throat.
    ‘You were,’ Jiggs confirmed. ‘And after the grubs were deposited inside you, your body quickly began to shut down, so I filled you up with morphine. The golden rule with any major trauma like that is to medicate immediately against the shock.’
    ‘I think I sort of remember … it was beginning to hurt like hell, and Elliott was with me too, wasn’t she?’ Will said.
    Jiggs nodded. ‘For a while. Anyway, we had to operate on you, there and then, in a tent on the forecourt of St Paul’s. We had no option but to act quickly because we had no way of knowing if the grubs had hatched out of the egg sac or not, or even if they were still in you.’
    Jiggs held his hand sideways to Will to emphasise the point he was about to make. ‘You see, there seems to have been a dividing line between the Styx, who magically did a disappearing act, and the Armagi, who degraded into a rather foul-smelling, fishy mass.’
    Will pulled a face.
    ‘Anyway, I opened you up pretty sharpish, and found that the grubs had all died, but not before they’d begun to feed. So I located and removed each of them, stopped the bleeding andpatched you up the best I could. Then you were evac-ed here in a chopper, where a doctor opened you up again. You see, the dead grubs had degraded in you, leaving behind not just organic matter but other chemicals – enzymes, I suppose – which had to be painstakingly swabbed out, because we didn’t know what effect they might have.’
    ‘So I’m okay now?’ Will