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Tunnels 06 - Terminal

Tunnels 06 - Terminal

Titel: Tunnels 06 - Terminal Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Roderick Gordon
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slightly away so that Chester couldn’t hear what he was saying.
    As the chill wind bit into him, Chester began to boil up inside; much as he respected Parry, he was done with all this. He was just summoning the courage to tell Parry this, so he could go back inside, to his nice warm bed, when the old man abruptly ended the call.
    ‘We need to get our skates on,’ he said, marching off across the gorse-covered field in the direction of the sea. With a groan, Chester followed after him. Parry was putting on a turn of speed and barely using his walking stick as they approached the cliff edge. And he seemed to be very familiar with the lie of the land as he followed the cliff along to where a track led down. The full force of the wind was on them now, and Chester was struggling as he negotiated the steps hewn into the rock. There was a thick rope to hang on to, but it was still a daunting task with only Parry’s dim torch to light the way. Then they arrived at the bottom.
    ‘Keep your arms at your sides and your hands open,’ Parrytold Chester, raising his voice to be heard over the bluster of the wind. ‘And don’t make any sudden moves. You have absolutely no reason to be alarmed by what’s about to happen.’
    ‘Alarmed … but what is about to happen? And why do I need to be here anyway?’ Chester demanded, unable to keep the antipathy from his voice. He hadn’t actually agreed to any of this, and now he was standing on a windswept beach in the dark. He just wasn’t ready to become embroiled in another of Parry’s schemes. The last one had resulted in everyone almost running out of air in the Complex, after that madman Danforth had blown up and killed his parents.
    ‘Look, I’m sorry to drag you along, old chap, after all you’ve been through,’ Parry said, giving Chester’s arm a squeeze through his duffel coat. ‘But this is important, and you are important.’
    He pulled Chester gently after him as he set off down the incline of the beach. As their feet crunched on the pebbles, Chester strained to see if anyone was there, his eyes slitted against the spray from the sea. But he couldn’t see a soul on the foreshore, which disappeared off into the murky darkness to either side of him.
    Parry stopped dead once they had covered about half the distance to the sea, then clipped his torch to his jacket.
    ‘Now put your hands on your head. Slowly,’ he said to Chester. ‘And just relax. You’re going to be fine.’
    Chester reluctantly followed Parry’s example, part of him feeling very apprehensive, and the other part bitterly resenting this intrusion into his life. Into his grief.
    ‘Callsign Delta Echo,’ Parry suddenly announced loudly, then said the words again at even greater volume so theywould be heard above the sound of the wind and the crash of the waves.
    From somewhere close by came a harsh, efficient response. ‘Yankee Alpha.’
    Shadows suddenly came to life all around them.
    Chester glimpsed black-clad men bristling with weapons before his arms were seized and wrenched behind his back. He felt a tie go around his wrists, binding them tightly, before a hood was slipped over his head.
    It was so evocative of the brutal way he’d been treated in the Colony when he was sentenced to Banishment that he began to struggle against his captors, twisting his body away from them.
    Someone whispered into his ear, ‘Calm it, junior, or we knock you out cold.’ The voice was American, and Chester had no doubt that the man meant what he’d said. He let his body go slack, closing his eyes under the hood, and allowing himself to be led down the rest of the beach and then into some sort of boat or inflatable. The vessel was tossed around by the waves as the low drone of an outboard started up, then he felt the forward motion. He was on the move.
    Five minutes later, the vessel bumped into something, and he was hoisted out by men on both sides of him, his feet meeting with a firm surface. As he was frogmarched a short distance along it, he was telling himself that he must be on a ship, then the two men drew him to a halt.
    ‘Hoods off and untie them,’ another American voice barked.
    As his hands were freed and the hood was whisked from his head, Chester blinked, trying to make out where he was. A diffuse red light percolated through the sea spray. The lightseemed to be coming from somewhere above. ‘Arms out wide, bud,’ one of the men beside Chester ordered, and he immediately

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