Matt Reilly Stories Read Online Free Page B

uppermost
chamber of the belltower of Westminster Abbey, not far from the Abbey’s
ten-foot-high bell.
    He
peered out the doorway of his booth—
    —just
in time to see a joint of Nazi paratroopers emerge from the stairwell and shoot
about a million bullets into Nathan Black.
    Black
shuddered and convulsed under the hailstorm of bullets before he fell, dead.
    Mitch
stared, horrified.
     
     
    Back
in Austin
     
    Nathan
Black instantly awoke. Since he had only been in a light coma, his death inside
Time Tours had simply woken him up.
    ‘Shit!’
he growled. ‘They got me. They’re guarding the portal.
    There’s
no way in.’
    Tad
Ellis went white. ‘What are we gonna do now?’
    ‘Wait
a second…!’ the tech at a viewing console called.
    ‘There’s
someone else in there. In Superstar . At the EEP. But it’s not a computer
entity. It’s…it’s a guest  signature. It’s Mitchell Raleigh.’
    Mission:
Superstar
    Mitch
peered out from his booth, eyeing the body of Nathan Black, dead at the top of
the stairwell.
    Suddenly,
a fat figure stepped into view, and all the WWII troops immediately stood to
attention.
    It
was Humbert Hughes. And with him was—
    Laura.
    Her
face was tear-stained, her eyes red.
    She
was still dressed in her glittery opening-night dress.
    Hughes
growled at her: ‘This was the man they sent to rescue you and to abduct me.
    Not
to be.’
    He
threw her to one of his men. ‘Take her the Tower. 24-hour guard.’
    Laura
was hustled away.
    Then
Hughes said to his paratrooper captain: ‘Keep two squads stationed in this
chamber. Cover the portal. Kill anyone who comes out of it.’
    Hughes
swept out of the belltower.
    Those
paratroopers who remained there never noticed the two tiny figures dangling by
their fingertips from the parapet of the belltower, three hundred feet above
the ground.
    Mitch
Raleigh and Pi.
     
     
    The
Rescue Part I
     
    ‘They’re
taking her to the Tower of London,’ Mitch whispered, still hanging from the
belltower. ‘Once she’s there, we’re screwed. We’ll have to snatch her en
route.’
    ‘But
how?’ Pi asked.
    Mitch
peered down the side of the belltower. After a few minutes, he saw the tiny
figure of Laura emerge and get shoved into an open-topped Army jeep. Hughes
followed shortly after, climbed into a limousine. Both cars were surrounded by
a motorcade of several tanks and a few turret-mounted Allied and Nazi jeeps.
    ‘You
got a parachute?’ Mitch asked.
    ‘I
am required to wear one at all times.’
    ‘Directional?’
    ‘Of
course.’
    ‘Room
for two?’
    ‘Of
course.’
    ‘Then
let’s do some rescuing,’ Mitch said, swinging over and grasping Pi around the
waist. ‘Bombs away.’
    And
with that, Pi let go of the parapet.
    In
the Control Room
    ‘Oh,
Christ! Raleigh just fell from the top of the belltower...’
    Everyone
in the control room froze in horror.
     
     
    The
Rescue Part II
     
    Mitch
and Pi plummeted down the side of the belltower, the building’s vertical wall
rushing by them in a blur of speed, before—WHACK!—a square-shaped parachute
blossomed above them, issuing from Pi’s backpack.
    And
suddenly they were gliding downwards at a steep angle heading for—
    Hughes’s
now-moving military motorcade.
    The
gun-turrets on two of the escort jeeps opened fire, but Pi fired back with his
(far more powerful) pulse rifle, and with one shot, blew one of the jeeps to
kingdom come. A second shot sent the other jeep careering off the road and into
a shop window.
    Then
a Nazi Panzer tank swiveled its canon turret, readying to fire, but this time
it was Raleigh who responded, awkwardly shouldering his rocket launcher and
firing it at the beast.
    The
rocket lanced through the air before it slammed into the tank, incinerating it.
    Pi
then zeroed in on the jeep carrying Laura, guiding the directional parachute
toward the fleeing car.
    The
parachute came over the speeding jeep and while Pi took out the two men
guarding Laura with two brilliant