Saturday, June 24th, 2017

07:00 GMT+2 (05:00 GMT June 24th)

Zürich, Switzerland

COCKBURN ONE

Keira had awoken to find that Harper had moved from her seat during the night and was squeezed in beside her.

Keira groaned as Harper was not getting any smaller and the growing youngster took up quite a bit of space on what was already a narrow bed. Gently, she nudged the sleeping girl.

"Harps, can you move, honey?"

"You stink of booze," Harps muttered.

"Yes, I do," Keira conceded as Harper reluctantly slipped off the bed and headed for the nearest toilet.

"Hi, honey," Blake said from the next seat as he leaned over to kiss his wife.

"I am so glad that you are here," Keira said as she returned the kiss.

"I will always be there for you, no matter what," Blake replied.

"You two finished that disgusting display?" Harper demanded on her return from the toilet.

Keira grinned fiendishly as she pulled her husband into a deep and passionate kiss which went on far too long – as far as Harper was concerned at least.

"I think I'm just going to go and puke," Harper decided as Simon grinned enormously.

"Simon and Rylee were doing that, last night," Tanya groused.

"Thought it was remarkably quiet," Kate commented as she sat up and rubbed her face.

"You still in the bag?" Tanya smiled.

"A little," Kate groaned.

"Here, lass, get that down yer," David chuckled as he handed his daughter a mug of coffee who took a tentative sip.

"Yuck! Where's the milk and sugar?"

"Get it down yer!" David chuckled.

All around the Boeing there was activity as everyone came to life and prepared for a busy morning.

..._...

Jasper put down his cup of coffee as his encrypted satellite phone trilled.

"Hello, Chuck, how're things?"

"They're good, Jasper."

"You got something for me?"

"You always did ask for the impossible," Chuck Griffin chuckled.

"You always delivered the impossible," Jasper countered.

"Good point, old friend. The GPS is activated, and you have satellite coverage for the next six hours. I've emailed you the access codes to download position updates."

"This makes us even, I think, Chuck."

"If it's for a good cause, then I'm always happy to help."

"Believe me, the cause is righteous, Chuck."

"You enjoy, Jasper. See ya!"

Jasper dropped the call before he then turned to Alya.

"Email coming in with tracking details for Diana," he advised.

"You've found Diana?" Keira asked.

"The GPS she carries in her legs has been activated."

"I thought you said the signal would be too weak?" Harper challenged.

"I called in a favour, last night, from an old friend who was able to get us access to some serious hardware up in orbit."

"I have her location!" Alya called out. "Looks like she's on a boat of some kind on Lake Zürich – north end."

"We can go get her!" Keira shot back.

"Hold on – she's moving . . . heading north . . . she's stopped."

"What...?" Keira began, just as her mobile phone began to squawk.

Keira grabbed the device and she felt a chill as she identified the calling number – it was Diana.

10:14 GMT+2 (08:14 GMT June 24th)

Zürich, Switzerland

Gemeinschaft Bank
Limmatquai

Diana & Laurel

Diana prayed that there was a rescue plan.

She had endured nineteen hours of hell and many hours of slightly inebriated sleep interspersed with vicious nightmares. While her time as a prisoner had not been as bad as she had initially feared, it had still frightened the life out of her. She had spent the night alone, having not seen much of Laurel since the helicopter had landed in the middle of a forest and they had been separated once they had been taken inside a house of some kind. Nobody had spoken to her very much as Laurel appeared to be getting all the attention – the older girl's screams of pain had been easily audible to Diana which had scared her greatly. She had been searched, but nothing more than a cursory pat down which had not found anything beyond her passport and her mobile phone, of course. The phone had been taken from her that afternoon, naturally, but it had reappeared the following morning. Luckily, nobody had identified that Diana was an amputee, let alone identified that she was a walking armoury. Not that she could do much as she was handcuffed, so reaching her legs was not all that feasible. Instead, she had just sat in the corner of an empty room for the evening, apart from being brought some food which had tasted awful, and going to use the toilet – both of which she was allowed to do without handcuffs, but she had been watched by an armed mercenary who did not seem to like her for some reason. In hindsight, that might have been something to do with her punching him in the face, Diana was not all that sure – she had also not let on that she spoke German.

As for her phone, that had been returned to her early that morning and she had been told to call 'her friends'. Hearing Keira's voice had been so special but had not lasted long as the phone had been snatched from her hands and some big bastard had given Keira an ultimatum in a decidedly Germanic accent.

"You will bring the data device to the Gemeinschaft Bank on Limmatquai in Zürich. You will be there by eleven o'clock or the little girl dies."

Diana had grinned through her tears of joy at hearing Keira's voice but then she had smiled as she had recognised the very pissed off voice of Harper.

"Give me that phone! I don't know who you are, but I have a very particular set of skills acquired over years of hell, and if you hurt her, then I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you."

"In your dreams, little girl!"

Even as she was shoved out of the side door of a Chrysler Grand Voyager outside the private bank, Diana felt hope and she held those two voices in her mind to try and keep her mind focussed on her surroundings.

10:14 GMT+2 (08:14 GMT June 24th)

Limmatquai

Akuma & Kryten

The pair were seated in the back of a dark grey panel van – a ubiquitous Ford Transit – parked up about two hundred yards to the south of the Gemeinschaft Bank.

Multiple wireless cameras had been secreted along the street covering all approaches to the bank, including the side streets. Along with those cameras, Akuma had also been able to gain access to the bank's own security cameras with the assistance of Synthesis three thousand miles away in Chicago. The bank was state-of-the-art, and the majority of its systems were air-gapped – no access to the internet. Indeed, the camera access had only been possible due to Jasper's connections and an MI6 infiltration team who had long ago targeted the bank due to its associations with rogue individuals. The bank specialised in private vaults as well as safe deposit boxes. Laurel had explained that while Dieter Mannheim held a private vault, she held a small safe deposit box. Their case was actually made all the easier once Lara had discovered the name of the bank and she had realised that the name was familiar. Hillary had been able to confirm, via Lara's solicitor, that her father currently held a private vault at the bank – which gave them an early in, long before the bank actually opened for the lesser folk, such as the Panther Brigade. Lara had been aware of a similar vault in London, as well as one in Dubai – both held by her father – but the Swiss vault had been unknown to her. Therefore, at 08:15, Lara had turned up at the bank with Hillary driving a Mercedes S-Class limousine and behaving like she owned the place. Lara hated behaving like the spoilt brat she had once been, but she knew that it was simply acting. Indeed, she had introduced Jasper as her 'overbearing security protection', and he had been allowed to enter the bank unmolested – which was helpful considering that he was armed and armoured.

"Okay, Kora is giving the bank manager the run around," Kryten chuckled as he watched the monitor showing the security feed from the bank having parked the Mercedes and jumped into the support van.

"She can be a real bitch!" Akuma pointed out.

"She was a handful, I can tell you," Kryten confirmed.

"Head's up!" Akuma called out. "I have a Chrysler Grand Voyager pulling up outside the bank – four, no five people have stepped out. We have Aegea and Firestorm, plus three goons. One goon is staying in the vehicle and moving further up the street."

"The plot is afoot," Kryten commented.

Indeed, it was.

Limmatquai

Tanya

The eleven-year-old Zeta was having the time of her life.

In her left hand, she held a block of C4, and in her right hand, she held a detonator – it was a personal thing; she liked to keep the two apart until she was absolutely ready for the C4 to go boom. Above her, lay the underside of a Chrysler Grand Voyager. Just a few seconds before, she had been clinging onto the underside of an Audi Q7 which had slowed, momentarily, to allow an old woman to cross the street up ahead. As the vehicle had slowed, Tanya had dropped off and rolled underneath the Chrysler. She remained silent, knowing that just above her and about a foot forward of where she lay, there was a hulking mercenary who would just love to tear her apart. Tanya studied the underside of the vehicle, being very careful to stay away from the hot components such as the exhaust system and catalytic converter while she identified where she wanted her block of C4 to be placed – just forward of the fuel tank where it would be all but invisible until it was too late. Once the six-inch length of C4 had been securely wedged into place, Tanya wrapped a plastic cable tie around the block and a steel member, just to be safe, and she pulled it tight on the ratchet. Next came the detonator which was a remote design allowing them to trigger the explosive whenever they wanted. The detonator had several exposed pins which were pushed directly into the C4, holding the detonator securely in place.

After a brief check of her work, Tanya slipped out from under the vehicle just as a car horn blared, distracting the Panther Brigade driver long enough for the young girl to get clear.

Gemeinschaft Bank

Diana & Laurel

As Diana passed through the door into the bank, she found her eyes darting left and right, instinctively searching for danger.

Then her heart skipped a beat as she laid eyes on Keira who was arguing with a bank employee just a few yards away. It took everything the youngster had to keep shtum and not give them away, but their presence was enough for her to feel hope. It was hope that had got her through the previous day and it was hope that would get her through the next. She looked up onto a balcony which wrapped around the main vestibule and she heard a familiar voice.

"Do you know who I am? Well, do you?"

Diana tried not to grin as she recognised Lara's voice, only it sounded a lot more pompous and arrogant than it usually did. Diana dragged her eyes away from Lara's show of arrogance as she was prodded in the back by one of her captors – she called him Frieda. For some reason it seemed to annoy the man who would not divulge his own name, no matter how many times she had asked. One of the other men – she had named him Felicity – took Lauren off to seek access to her safe deposit box.

That just left Diana in the custody of Frieda and one other whom she had named Francesca.

Gemeinschaft Bank

Lara and Jasper

While the Lady Cockburn was strutting her title around the bank, Jasper watched from above as the enemy hove into view.

His trained eyes read the situation. The three mercenaries escorting Diana and Laurel – there was something there. Strangely, something did not seem right about Laurel – the girl was not behaving like someone who was being forced to be where she was; she appeared to be resigned to her fate . . . what did that mean? There was something off, but the man could not put his finger on it. What was their game plan? As he watched, Laurel was led up to a desk by a bank official and she identified herself to the bank officials by placing her right hand upon an angled scanner. She was then led up a set of broad stairs by the same bank official to the upper floor and into a curtained off compartment a few yards away from where Jasper stood ignoring Lara's arrogant ranting.

"Please wait in here," the bank official was heard to say as he departed. "Your box will be here in three minutes."

Almost exactly three minutes later, another bank official arrived carrying a large metal box which he took through the curtain.

Gemeinschaft Bank

Laurel

The fourteen-year-old girl was struggling – the previous night, she had been battered black and blue by the Panther Brigade bastards.

The torture had been extreme, but she had held out as long as she could, knowing that if she pushed it, then Diana might be used to coerce her. Laurel knew that if Diana was hurt, then any hope that she had for help from Diana's friends would be gone for good, and she would be dead.

Naturally, when they had entered the bank, Laurel had immediately seen that she and Diana were not alone; her eyes had clocked Keira and Harper, then she had recognised the voice of Lara and seen Jasper on the balcony above. Was that relief, she thought? Maybe. If only they knew the worst of it, she thought as she was then prodded forward to check in with the bank. The waiting room up the stairs was spartan with a desk, a chair, and a bin. There was a phone set on the desk, but little else. After a short while, the bank official had returned with her safe deposit box. The man lay it down on the table and then left, closing the curtain behind him.

"Open it," the mercenary said, and Laurel's mind flew for the umpteenth time since the previous day as she tried to figure a way out of her current predicament.

The man produced a titanium knife from inside his belt – all other weapons were prohibited due to the metal detectors and scanners at the main door. Indeed, Diana had beeped, and Laurel had been shocked to see that the girl had artificial legs – their Panther Brigade minders had been just as surprised. The knife had been pressed into the soft flesh of her neck, deep enough to draw blood. Slowly, Laurel unlocked and slid the top off the steel box. Inside were her most personal possessions – indeed, her only possessions. As an activated Predator, she had been issued a standard kit – multiple passports (dependent on languages spoken), secure data storage devices, cash in various denominations and origin, credit and debit cards, bank account information, and numerous other items. That had all been hidden during the time when Urban Predator had folded and when Dieter Mannheim had taken her into his employ. That box was her life, not that she expected to live out the day if all went to shit. The bastard standing beside her kept the knife pressed into her neck as she considered going for the gun in the lower compartment of the box, but she gave up on the idea knowing that she would be dead before her hand ever touched the gun. Instead she studied the various data storage devices which lay in the top tray and she reluctantly selected the correct item, knowing that it was her only chance. Her eyes paused as they hovered over a colour photo of a young girl who could have been a younger version of Laurel, then they moved on.

"Here it is, asshole!" she growled as she held up the memory stick.

"Danke."

Laurel sealed up the safe deposit box and left it on the desk for collection – she knew the drill – but as she pushed past the curtain, she noticed a commotion underway down below in the main vestibule and while her goon was momentarily distracted, she took off - away from the stairs which led down to the vestibule.

Fifty yards to the north of the bank...

Lily & Blake

The pair had been walking for about twenty minutes as they had searched for trouble in the immediate area surrounding the bank.

Then they had found it as they had casually strolled down some quite nice narrow streets. Ahead of them, they spied a dark grey BMW M5 parked up, its engine gently ticking over. The powerful vehicle stood out like a sore thumb and Lily's Predator senses told her that it did not belong. The girl stopped and pulled her rucksack from her back and placed it on the ground. She had been shopping, the previous evening and again that morning, and she had acquired some chemicals and other items. One of the items she dug out and handed to Blake was a nail gun. She pulled out a second nail gun identical to the first and she took a few seconds to confirm that the car was indeed trouble, and that the four men inside were not to be trifled with. Lily had wanted to try out her little chemistry experiment for ever, and now she had her chance. Swiftly, she and Blake raced up on either side of the four-door saloon, and they swiftly nailed the doors shut as they passed by, along with some other carefully aimed nails. The glazing was armoured which meant that the men inside were unable to shoot through the glass which could not be lowered due to the nails in the electric window motors.

That gave Lily time for her chemistry experiment. She swiftly dug inside her rucksack while the four men in the car struggled to escape, with none of them attempting to actually move the car. Lily placed a common-and-garden ceramic flowerpot in the centre of the capacious bonnet, and she filled the pot with a carefully created mixture of iron oxide and aluminium powder. She then surrounded the pot with a section of concrete tubing before she then dropped in a detonator.

"Run!" she ordered Blake and as they ran, she pressed the button on the trigger in her hand.

There was a small bang and then the powder mixture exploded into life, burning at over 2,500°C in an unstoppable irreversible reaction. At first it was small, but then molten metal began to burst out like a mini volcano. Within seconds, the fiery mixture had melted its way through the aluminium high-performance engine and continued down onto the tarmac below.

The car was very much immobilised.

Gemeinschaft Bank

Keira & Harper

It had been so hard to play their part, what with Diana standing just a few feet from them, but at least she was alive and in one piece, relatively speaking.

Once Laurel was out of the way, along with one of the goons, Keira turned away from where she had been having a decidedly unsuccessful argument with a bank official, and she took three steps towards her daughter. One of the two remaining goons stepped forward to intercept Keira.

"Hey, Francesca, they're okay," Diana hissed, receiving a nasty glare from 'Francesca'.

"You have storage device?"

As Keira made to hand over the first data storage device, she noticed a bank security guard – he wore a smart business suit, but he was still an armed security guard – taking a little too much interest in what was going on.

"Ich habe das Gerät," the goon told his colleague.

The other goon – 'Frieda' – noticed that there were now several men all taking an interest in what was going on in the centre of the large open vestibule. The goon was not happy, and he decided that it was time to leave.

"Wir sind geblasen! Wir gehen!" 'Frieda' said as he grabbed hold of Diana.

"Diana – it's time to go," Harper said pointedly.

Diana grinned as she realised it was time. Deftly, she shoved both hands into her legs – an act which creeped the hell out of Harper – and when she withdrew her hands, each held a ceramic knife.

Gemeinschaft Bank

Laurel

She knew the layout of the bank perfectly and she raced fast to get to her first destination.

Laurel dived into a ladies toilet and quickly carried out a delicate task before she pulled open the door and with a brief look up and down the corridor outside, she bolted for the fire stairs and raced upwards one flight of stairs, before she stopped dead as she heard the fire door on the next landing open and footsteps move towards the staircase beside her.

"Damn!" Laurel growled as she realised that she would have to fight.

Two men in suits stopped when they saw Laurel.

"Was machst du hier, Mädchen?" one of them asked.

Laurel shrugged and she looked down at the landing below – she could hear voices of other security guards, so that was a no go, not to mention that her Panther Brigade escort was down there somewhere. She turned back to face the two security guards.

"Ich möchte dich nicht verletzen," she said.

The man to her left laughed as the other began to advance down the steps towards Lauren. After taking two deep breaths, Lauren leapt forward like a greyhound out of a trap, only her rabbit had no idea that she was not the average fourteen-year-old girl that she appeared to be. Her right fist took the man in the right thigh, causing the leg to buckle, and then her left foot slammed into the man's left knee, twisting the leg. A punch in the back of the head sent the man sprawling down the stairs to land in a painful heap on the landing below. His partner hesitated as the smile vanished from his lips, suddenly wary of the girl whose eyes looked at him like he was prey. The man shook off the feeling that he was dancing with death and he worked his right wrist to extend the ASP he held there. The girl before him did not appear fazed in anyway by the appearance of the ASP. Indeed, he had expected the girl to bolt, but instead, she advanced on him, a grin on her face. The man decided that he was best moving onto the offensive, so he raised the ASP and brought it down towards the unfortunate girl's shoulder – only she moved, and the ASP missed her by several inches.

"Wie zum teufel!?" the man exclaimed, astounded by how quick the girl moved, dodging every one of his attempted strikes.

That was when the fire door below opened and her goon, Felicity, appeared.

"Komm her schlampe!" the man growled angrily.

"Sperr uns ein! Sperr uns ein!" the security guard called into his radio.

Laurel decided that it was time to move, and she did not want to kill the security guards just for doing their job, so she went in softly. The security guard struck again with the ASP, only for the blow to be intercepted and then he found the girl using the ASP against him as she pivoted on the ASP, almost snapping it as she flew up onto the bannister and then kicked the unfortunate man in the head – twice. As the security guard fell to join his colleague, laurel bolted up to the third floor, taking steps two at a time, her long legs stretching ahead of her as she tried to gain some distance on Felicity. The door off the third-floor landing was locked – the lockdown had begun!

"Fuck!" Laurel groaned, but then the door lock flashed green and she yanked the door open, knowing that she would have to thank someone.

She raced down the corridor on the third floor, towards where she knew that there would be a fire escape into a back alley.

Limmatquai

Akuma & Kryten

Akuma was busy tapping away on her laptop.

"I think I've been able to block the lockdown – Laurel has made her escape to safety, I think."

"They should be out by now," Kryten said.

"Should be any second, I think – did you hear that?"

"A metallic sound – yes."

"It came from underneath the van," Akuma said.

"Get your gear packed; I'll check under the van," Kryten said as he slipped out the side door.

After he had looked around and seen nothing, the man dropped to the tarmac and he peered under the chassis of the panel van – his heart sank as his eyes found the device strapped to the main chassis rails. He stood up and peered in at Akuma.

"I think it is time to leave."

"Yeah – let's go!"

Akuma leapt out, her laptop under one arm and her rucksack over her left shoulder.

Outside the bank

Laurel

She was able to outpace the Panther Brigade mercenary by dodging through the mass of people who moved between offices undertaking the bank's business.

The people milling about had slowed up her pursuer just long enough for her to smash open the fire door and emerge onto the rusty fire escape out the back of the building which led down three storeys. Lauren jumped down to the second floor and then she paused as the fire escape shook a little and she heard the sound of steel grating within concrete.

"Shit!" she growled as she moved a little more carefully down to the first floor and then down to the ground.

She peered up the fire escape in time to see her pursuer just appearing at the top and descending fast, ignoring the shaking fire escape.

Laurel hoped the bastard would fall as she turned away, but she never saw the chunk of steel which the big man's movements had dislodged and which fell from the fire escape and struck her on the side of the head, putting her out cold even as she folded onto the ground.

Gemeinschaft Bank

Keira, Diana & Harper

Diana's hands moved fast, and both knives sank into the closest legs.

Frieda and Francesca bellowed in pain as the titanium blades sank into their flesh causing maximum pain. Just as swiftly, Diana pulled out her mask from her leg and she pulled it on over her face, instantly becoming Aegea. Scorpion and Polaris formed up on Aegea and they guided her over towards the exit, moving as fast as Aegea's legs would move. Behind them, Jasper and Lara descended the staircase, pretending to be scared bank clients, amongst several others. The moment all five had stepped past the security shutters, Akuma triggered them and the all-but-impenetrable steel shutters crashed down in less than a second, a good few minutes after the lockdown had actually been ordered. Two more men managed to slip beneath the shutters as they fell, and they were decidedly unhappy with their former charge.

Harper spun around to see the two angry Panther Brigade brutes coming after them, but before anyone could move, four pistol shots rang out and both men fell to the ground, blood pooling around their bodies.

"Shame," Aegea commented as she brought her pistol down, "I liked Frieda."

Polaris was so stunned; she was unable to speak as she watched Aegea calmly stow her Kel-Tec PF-9 pistol back into her right leg. Then all attention was drawn to a massive explosion over to the left and Scorpion was appalled to see their command van take off like a rocket before it crashed back down onto the roadway spewing flames and black smoke. Then a dark grey Audi Q7 driven by Drift squealed to a halt beside the curb. Noxa and Necis who had been sitting in the back seat leapt into the 3rd row of seats while Custos abandoned the front passenger seat and he squirmed into the back seat. That allowed Scorpion to take over the front passenger seat while Polaris and Aegea jumped into the back seat. Drift stomped on the accelerator and roared away. As they passed the Chrysler Voyager, the Panther Brigade driver made to chase after them.

"Fire in the hole!" Necis advised as she flipped up a switch and then stabbed a button on the remote control in her right hand.

Behind them, obscuring the mass of blue lights from the approaching emergency vehicles, there came a second explosion as the Panther Brigade driver died as his body was compressed by the concussive force and he was reduced to little more than a foot in height.

Behind the bank

Chief & Goshawk

Goshawk noticed a deep red BMW M5 race past them and stop just behind the bank.

Then they saw Laurel descending the rear fire escape and it looked like she might be in the clear. Chief started the engine and they moved to assist Lauren, but as they watched, they saw the girl fall to the ground as a large man descended the fire escape behind Laurel and grabbed up the girl. He threw her into the backseat of the BMW which sped off the moment the man had jumped in after Laurel.

Chief floored it, keeping the BMW in sight as it turned left onto Mühlegasse and then raced over Rudolf-Brun Brücke a few hundred yards ahead of them.

Meanwhile...

10:35 GMT+2 (08:35 GMT June 24th)

Zürich Flughafen

COCKBURN ONE

Isaac was happily running from one end of the aircraft to the other.

His older sister, nine-year-old Mackenzie left the boy to it, hoping that he might wear himself out – 'Fat chance', she thought! However, there were worse places to be marooned than a luxuriously appointed Boeing 787 Business Jet. The girl was happy – she could ask for anything and get it – within reason of course. Captain Hodges had said hello to her as he had left the aircraft to sort out a problem with refuelling the aircraft and most of the other staff were busy restocking the aircraft. That just left Amelia to welcome aboard a Swiss Zoll (customs) who wanted to carry out a walk around inspection. It was nothing untoward, and fairly common for private aircraft to ensure that nothing dodgy was going on aboard which included the trafficking of illegal items or substances. Amelia watched from a discrete distance as the tall uniformed man with round spectacles walked around the interior of the aircraft. He peeked inside the sideboards and he checked in and around each of the seats in the aft section of the Boeing.

"Amelia," the junior steward, Stefanie called. "There's a guy outside needing to speak with you."

"Thanks, Stef."

Mackenzie kept her eyes on the Zoll man while Amelia headed forward. The man ignored the two children and behaved like neither actually existed as he moved around. Then, the man stopped part way down the aircraft, and he spoke into a hidden microphone under his lapel. That single act struck the ever-curious Mackenzie as something out of the ordinary. She could not understand a word of what the man was muttering, but none of it sounded good to her young mind, and why, she considered, did he not use the handheld radio in his left hand? While the youngster was relatively new to the secret world which her brother had uncovered during his trip down to Safehouse Zulu in Chicago, the previous year, she had an uncanny knack for reading people and identifying whether they could be trusted or not. As far as Mackenzie was concerned, the customs man was not who he purported to be. Therefore, she did what she had been taught by her parents, over many years – if in doubt, go tell an adult you trust and Amelia had just reappeared.

"Amelia?"

"How you doing, Mackenzie?"

"I think that man's a bad man."

"Why?" Amelia asked.

"He talks on a hidden radio and he doesn't sound very nice."

Amelia could see that Mackenzie was troubled, but while weak, the man had been troubling her as well. His uniform was correct, as was his equipment and pistol on a belt around his waist. What was it about the man which gave her doubts? Then she had it – it was his demeanour; the man did not behave like any customs officials whom she had ever dealt with and his eyes were different. She recognised a soldier when she saw one – she had been around enough of them. The bastard was Panther Brigade, he just had to be.

"Can I see your identity card, again?" she asked the man.

"Nein – you have seen it."

"You're not Zoll, are you?"

The man grinned fiendishly, "Nein. Where ist the device?"

Amelia drew an ASP from her left pocket and the man stepped back from the woman. He too deployed his ASP, not wanting to use his pistol which might alert those outside the aircraft. Mackenzie grabbed her brother and she moved further down the aircraft away from the impending fight. The ASPs clashed as Amelia blocked the first blow, using her agility to counter the man's extra strength. Amelia knew what the man was after, and she knew where it was, but she also knew that it was out of reach as far as the man was concerned. The man was good, exceptionally good, better than she was, she soon found out as his ASP took her off her feet and the same ASP came down across her left thigh eliciting a scream of pain. Then the ASP came down again, but she was able to raise her own ASP and deflect the blow, but then the brute of a man smacked the ASP from her hand and he dropped to one knee – the knee buried in Amelia's stomach. The man's left hand reached down to grip the woman by the throat.

"Where ist the device?"

"I don't know about any device," Amelia choked out.

"I get the device, or you die."

"Eat shit!"

Amelia knew that there was nothing she could do – the man was heavier than her, stronger than her, and a better fighter than her – but she could not give up the location of the device, nor could she put the children at risk. She made a last-ditch attempt at subduing the man with a titanium knife which she carried in her trouser belt. But to do that, she would have to remove a hand from those which were busy trying to prevent her throttling at the hands of the brute above her. But it had to be done, so she took a deep breath and then released one hand which only resulted in her breathing being cut off completely. Her right hand fumbled at her belt and found the hilt of her blade. She withdrew the blade, and with what remaining life and strength she had, she rammed the thin titanium blade into the man's abdominal region, and she twisted the blade with all her might. The last thing she heard was the man's bellow of pain as her vision closed up and then there was nothing but blackness.

Mackenzie knew that she had to do something, but what? She glanced out of the nearest window, and she could see Captain Hodges, but he was too far away, and any delay would result in Amelia getting badly hurt. While she had never hurt a living person in her entire life, she had watched those around her, and the attack on her home, just a few months earlier, had given her a new outlook on life. She knew where there were weapons and she shoved Isaac down into a corner while she bolted towards the rear of the aircraft. There, she fumbled with a hidden catch which she knew would release a hidden drawer in which...

"Yes!" she hissed to herself as the hidden drawer in question popped open to reveal a stunning array of bladed instruments, all honed to perfection.

The youngster grabbed the largest blade there – a vicious looking bowie knife with a nine-inch blade. The girl ran back forward to where she could see Amelia being choked, but then she heard a yell of pain from the man, and then she could hear Amelia's choking no more. Mackenzie felt intense anger building up inside her, and the fear subsided as she ran forward, the blade pointing downwards and held in both of her small hands.

Mackenzie plunged the nine-inch blade down, and she did not stop until her right fist was pressed against the man's back.