“Somebody speak to me!” Sir Lance roared as he gazed out of the window nearest him at the burning boat on the lake. “Did you get him?”

For a moment there was a blank on Paul Blankson’s screen, then he pointed to a blinking dot that appeared on his screen suddenly.

“Seems he made it out of the boat!” Paul shouted. “But he’s there, stationery, unmoving. Probably wounded by the blast!”

“Apache One, do you have the location fixed?” Sir Lance shouted.

“Yes, sir!” came the voice through the speakers. “Sweeping target with automatic gunfire!”

“Proceed!” Sir Lance shouted.

Immediately, the gunners on the Apache helicopters opened fire from their M230 30mm automatic cannons. Hot armour-piercing bullets decimated the area of the forest where the blinking dot representing Chris was. Swift gunfire tore through the trees, cutting trees down and churning the earth over with horrible power.

Effe was shaking as she looked on her screen and noticed that the white blinking dot that represented Chris Bawa was no longer on the screen.

Apparently, Chris Bawa was dead.

She inhaled sharply, surprised at the sudden and unexpected flash of sorrow she felt, and momentarily lost focus on all that was going on around her.

Surely this could not be happening!

Was she not supposed to be elated that the man who cold-heartedly murdered her brother and one hundred and seventy other poor innocent people was now dead?

No, she was not elated, surprisingly.

If anything, she had wanted him to pay for that atrocity, but not with death. She had just wanted him thrown back into prison and the keys thrown away, to languish away and forever face the consequences of his heinous acts.

You don’t even know how to kiss…

His voice intruded fiercely in her numbness, and she gasped audibly.

“Did we get him?” Sir Lance asked, bringing her further to the present.

“Seems we got him, sir,” came the cold voice over the intercom. “Target obliterated.”

“Bring me proof!” Sir Lance ordered. “Is there a place to land the machine?”

“Yes, sir,” came the pilot’s voice. “There’s a park five minutes up.”

“Okay, send down the agents, comb the area, and bring me proof! We’ll rendezvous at the park.”

“Sir, yes, sir!” came the voice.

“I’m going down,” Carl Acquah said curtly. “Throw down the ladder!”

Already, armed agents in army fatigues were sliding down ropes from the Apache helicopters. Carl Acquah hitched up his rig and moved towards the open door of the helicopter.

“Effe, come with me,” he said. “I need you on this.”

“Why?” Effe asked in a hushed voice. “I possibly can’t climb down that rope. And evidently, he’s dead. I don’t think I’ve anything else to offer, Carl.”

“I need you down too, Effe,” Sir Lance said with a wan smile at her. “Prodigal was our best field agent, the best we ever had. He was very meticulous, and factored in all angles to the tiniest, infinitesimal variant. We would have been patrolling the White Coves fruitlessly if you had not spotted the decoy. If he’s dead, I need you there to confirm it.”

Effe shook her head with horror and put a trembling hand to her hair.

“I-I… I ca-can’t see him… blown to pieces,” she said. “No, sir, please.”

“You won’t be in the target zone,” Sir Lance said and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Carl and the agents would see to that. You’ll be on the perimeter, maybe pick up a trace in the unlikely event that he pulled off another trick.”

Effe took a shuddering breath.

“Then I need to come back after we land at the park,” she said softly. “Nothing will make me go down that rope.”

“We can winch her down with the harness,” the pilot’s voice came through.

And that was what they did.

Effe sat down in the harness and was strapped in, and then the winch lowered her down slowly and gently with Carl Acquah sliding down the rope ladder beside her.

The forest floor was swampy and damp, and soon the legs of her trousers were fully sodden, her shoes probably ruined for life. She followed the broad back of Carl Acquah to the site of the heavy artillery fire, and once again she experienced a moment of faintness when she imagined Chris’ body being riddled with those heavy-calibre bullets.

“I’ll wait here,” she said miserably as she switched on her locator and activated it for extra sensory tracking.

Her screen was immediately filled with hundreds of tiny blinking dots!

It had factored in all life-like movements so it was now tracking all the wildlife in the forest within scanning range. She refined the mode to body mass and zoned out the areas, and then her tracker picked up the hub of agents.

She almost looked away, and then she saw it!

A blinking red dot was moving slowly in the opposite direction, not far from where they were! She stared at it with disbelief! Could it be him, or maybe a parks worker, or even a huge animal of some sorts? She touched the spot to isolate it, fed it a connecting shortcut, and found it was within fifteen minutes of walking.

Effe started walking in that direction instantly, moving as fast as her shoes would allow her to. Already her feet were beginning to hurt, and the water in the shoes made it uncomfortable to walk.

Thankfully, the dot was not moving much, and she closed in rapidly.

She was now in a deeper, dryer part of the forest, and she moved stealthily now, using the trees for cover as she moved in on that dot –  suddenly, she rounded a tree… and there he was!

Chris Bawa was holding a thick rope which he had tied to the overhanging bough of a tree. Below him was a deep ravine, and obviously he aimed to lower himself into the ravine with the help of the rope.

Effe gasped suddenly and paused.

She realized suddenly that she was not holding a gun, and that she had come alone. This man was proving to be so efficient, so bold, so destructive, a masterclass sort of prowess that she was so ill-equipped to handle.

She quickly stepped behind the tree and reached for the walkie-talkie which had an alarm feature she could activate. It would send a distress call to Carl Acquah and the other agents, and they would quickly converge on the area.

She heard a rustling of dry leaves and looked up with a startled gasp.

The huge outline of Carl Acquah was moving fast towards her, and his Uzi sub-machinegun was held out in front of him, his face cold and menacing.

“Oh, you scared me!” she whispered. “It’s Chris. He escaped. He’s about to jump into the valley below!”

Carl nodded grimly.

“I trust you more than those buffoons, Effe, so when you moved off, I followed at a distance!” he said.

He peered around the tree and saw Chris hunched now.

Carl Acquah slid the switch on his Uzi to full-automatic and stepped around the tree, and then he opened fire.

Effe screamed with horror as the shattering sounds of the machinegun shattered the air. Her horrified eyes glared at Carl’s grim face as he walked forward, firing as he went.

“Die, Prodigal, you bastard!” Carl shouted with clear hatred. “You son-of-a-bitch!”

“You bastard!” Effe screamed with horror as she stepped out and saw Chris’ body twitching as the bullets ripped into him. “You shot the man in the back? Damn you, bastard, Carl! You could have arrested him!”

Effe found her heart palpitating, causing her shortness of breath over a sight she could barely watch. She was agitated, deeply distressed over the spectacle and the raw knowledge that she had led Chris to his death…

But the reality struck her forcefully!

Having taken that deadly hail of bullets, Chris should have fallen down!

His body should have been bloodied and filled with holes but…

There was no blood, to holes… nothing!

Carl’s magazine emptied, and he stared with horror because Chris was still standing where he was! There was no blood, no scream, no moan… nothing!

He was still standing!

Carl and Effe were staring with terror and shock until his cold voice spoke behind them.

“It’s called the VCS, Virtual Clone Simulator.”

Effe spun around fast with a cry of panic and saw Chris Bawa stepping forward rapidly with a stout branch in his hand. His eyes were filled with death and she noticed the sinew on his arms as he gripped the branch.

Carl Acquah had unclipped another magazine from the belt around his waist and was trying to jam it into the Uzi, then realized he would be too late, so he dropped the Uzi and pulled out a Beretta from his holster at his waist.

“Shoot me in the back, huh?” Chris said lazily as he brought the branch down on Carl’s head with such terrible ferocity that Carl moaned and dropped to one knee as blood seeped instantly down the sides of his face. Chris crashed the branch on Carl’s wrist, and the gun fell. He smashed the branch to the side of Carl’s head then, and the agent crashed on the ground with blood on his face and in his mouth.

“Bashard!” Carl spluttered as blood rained out of his mouth. “Yoush bashard!”

Chris kicked Carl between the legs, and the huge agent let out a long-drawn wail as pain blasted through him a second before Chris kicked him in the chest with such brutality that Carl’s body slid across the forest floor and slammed into a tree.

Chris was following through, as huge as a demon, and then he raised the stout branch and made it fall like pistons as he lashed Carl so savagely across the face that Effe shouted with horror and pushed the brute away from Carl whose face had huge huge bleeding contusions.

“Stop it, you animal!” Effe screamed.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet!” Chris says with a grim expression as he snapped out his pistol and aimed it at Carl’s head.