by Blake Banner
I nodded again. “I understand. I’ll do it. But she’ll take some convincing.”
The colonel looked down at the floor and puffed out her cheeks. “Not if she believes that essential parts of her work can be saved for medical application.”
I nodded again. “Yeah. That’s true.”
She reached out and took my hand. “I’m sorry, Harry. It really is the only way.”
There was a tenderness in her expression I had seen only once before. That time we had been interrupted, but it had left me wondering about her and how much of a woman was left underneath her uniform. I looked at her curiously now and she patted my hand and smiled.
“The brigadier is inviting us out to lunch,” her smile broadened and she gave a small laugh, “or what he would call luncheon. I think they will be waiting for us in the cocktail bar downstairs. You OK?”
“Sure. Of course.” I stood and she stood at the same time, and suddenly we were just a couple of inches away from each other. She reached out with her left hand and touched my arm, then moved a little closer.
“Your relationship with Helen…”
“There is no relationship with Helen.”
“Does she know that?” I didn’t answer. “It won’t work. You know that. You have to distance yourself from her.”
I gave a single nod. She looked suddenly embarrassed, almost girlish. She thumped me gently on the chest with her fist.
“I…” She hesitated. “I made a bit of a fool of myself once, remember?”
“No.”
She laughed. “The one time in your life when you’re not supposed to behave like a gentleman and do.”
I smiled. “OK, yes, I remember. I guess it was sort of out of character…”
“You don’t get it, do you?”
“Whatever it is, no. I don’t get it.”
She took a step closer so her body brushed against mine. In spite of myself I felt a rush of heat through my belly and I found my hands rising to hold her shoulders.
“You’re not great at reading women, are you, Harry?”
Her face was up close to mine and I noticed her breath was sweet and smelt slightly of strawberries. I said, “I hope to god I am not reading you wrong now, Colonel.”
I cupped her face in my hands and kissed her. She pressed close and I was surprised at how my own body responded to hers. Next thing I was crushing her to me and she was running her fingers through my hair.
And that was when the door opened and Diana, now Helen, walked in followed by the brigadier. The colonel gave a small gasp and pushed away from me. She straightened her jacket and her hair, muttered something about seeing to lunch and hurried from the room.
I felt a hot flush of confusion and embarrassment, ran a hand through my hair and took a slug of whisky. Helen’s face, when I glanced at it, was as expressionless as it had been the first day I met her. The brigadier’s eyebrows were slightly lifted and there was a trace of a smile on his face.
“I have reserved a private dining room for us, where we can have some luncheon and finalize details, Harry. Perhaps you’d like a shower before we go down, a cold one, perhaps?”
“I’ll be just fine.”
I stepped out of the suite and made for the elevators. I opened the door for Helen and she stepped inside without looking at me. The brigadier stepped in after her, asking as he went, “Was your conversation with the colonel productive?”
He smiled blandly at me, like he hadn’t said anything funny.
“Yes, she managed to persuade me that you were right. I…” I glanced at Helen. “We have to go back.”
He eyed Helen a moment. “I trust you haven’t changed your mind?”
She regarded him with her strange, expressionless face.
“Not about that, no.”
“Good.” He stared up at the ceiling of the elevator for a moment. “Speaking in general and in the abstract, it is very, very important at the moment, that we keep our personal feelings to ourselves, and remain strictly professional.”
I said, “Point taken, sir.”
The elevator slowed to a halt, the door opened and we stepped out into the cavernous, tiled lobby. The dining room was at the back, beyond the main dining room, and overlooked lawns that stretched down to the beach. I could see the yacht bobbing slightly on a sparkling sea, and away off in the distance, thunderheads building over the horizon. The rest of the sky remained a clear, summer blue.
A long, mahogany table had been set at one end for four people, and on a Castilian credenza along one wall there were two bottles of 2009 Eladio Piñeiro reds and a couple of bottles of Soalheiro Alvarinho crunched into an ice bucket. There were a couple of waiters standing by the door and as we sat they took our orders for drinks. Helen made a point of sitting next to the brigadier and glanced at me as she ordered a rum and coke. The colonel came in as I was ordering a Scotch and soda, hesitated when she saw the only seat was next to mine, and sat. She ordered a Beefeater and tonic. I wondered for a moment if I had slipped back to high school.
We all studied the menus in awkward silence, ordered our fish and meat and the brigadier raised his glass. “To old friends and new, and to future success.”
We all drank.
I said, “OK, so what’s involved?”
The brigadier set down his glass. “You killed the man in charge of the Malaga laboratory, and, as we know, Helen did irreparable damage to the data held in the computers there. This, you will forgive me, Helen,” he placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, “we have been able to confirm from independent sources.”
The colonel took over. “However, some fifty miles inland, as the crow flies, from Cadiz in the southwest, and an equal distance from Malaga in the southeast, high in the Sierra de Grazalema, is a tiny village that sits perched on a mountain overlooking the lake of Zahara. The village is also called Zahara. It is remote, peaceful and has a population of less than one and a half thousand people. Those are mostly mountain folk, and a handful of crazy foreigners gone native.”
I turned and smiled at her. “Is that the PC version?”
She smiled back and winked. “Screw the PC version. That’s the real version. Now, if you take the A-2300 along the edge of the lake...” She grinned at Helen like they were old pals. “That’s a road, just about wide enough for a mule going one way and a cart going the other.” She turned back to me. “If you follow that road or alternatively fly a drone over it, after three miles you come to a fork in the road that tells you the right fork takes you to Arroyomolinos. You take that right fork and follow it for five hundred yards. The road is crap, so you’d better hire a Jeep or a Land Rover. On the right you’ll come to some stone steps that lead up to some kind of manor house. That is the private residence of Dr. Julian Ferrer, head of research at the lab…”
Helen suddenly exploded, “Son of a bitch! I knew it! That bastard Omar was stealing my work and feeding it to that piece of shit Ferrer!”
“You knew about Dr. Ferrer?” It was the brigadier
“Son of a bitch!” she said again. “Yeah, I knew about him. Omar was always having him ‘peer review’ my work. That piece of shit never had an original idea in his fucking life…excuse me. It just makes me so mad. That was my work! And that slimy bastard was passing it to his damned boyfriend.”
The colonel said, “Really?” in a neutral voice. Helen nodded. “Yeah, really.”
“Anyhow, as I was saying. On the left, directly opposite the stone steps, you’ll find a sloping drive. There is a large, green, metal gate and a lot of pine trees. If you can get past the gate you are in a dense pinewood, and at the heart of the pinewood is a complex of old, hacienda-style buildings with corrugated, terracotta roofs, thick white walls, you know the kind of thing. It looks like a Spanish finca. You’d walk right past it and not give it a second look, not least because it is not visible from the road. But in fact it is a very advanced lab.”
I raised a hand. “I have a question.” I looked at Helen. “Maybe
you can answer it. It is my understanding that in working with quantum particles you need vast amounts of energy. How are they generating that kind of energy in such a remote area?”
She nodded and looked at the brigadier, like he’d asked her the question.
“Sure, I can answer that. Andalusia is a regional autonomy and it is run by the Junta de Andalucía, the regional government. Ten years ago, Omar approached the president of the Junta, one Baldomero Moreno, on behalf of Mohammed ben Amini and proposed a research project. Part of the deal was that the Junta would assist them in installing two hydro-electric power plants, one at Zahara, the other at Guadalteba, thirty miles east. According to Omar they both served to power our research at the lab outside Álora.”
I grunted. “There must have been a lot of greasy palms in Andalusia back then.”
The colonel answered. “There are quite a few now too, believe me. OK, so, getting down to brass tacks. The plan is simple. You need to go there. You’re a married couple, Mr. and Mrs. Smith. You live in Spain…”
I interrupted. “Why, that complicates the backstory.”
“It also explains why you’re there in spite of COVID-19. You’re doing a tour of the so-called white villages of Andalusia. There are three of them around there, El Gastor, Azahara and Olvera. So perform your reconnaissance, break in…”
She paused as the door opened and the two waiters came in with the fish. We remained silent as they served us and, once they had departed, as the brigadier, Helen and I started eating, she went on.
“You, Helen, must establish whether the research has gone beyond what you were aware of in Álora, in your lab.”
Helen nodded. “OK.”
“And you, Harry, must do what you do best. Destroy the place and leave no trace of what it was.”
“Thanks. I will need ordnance and hardware.”
The brigadier spoke through a mouthful of monkfish. “I’ll take care of that. Just let me know what you’ll need.”
“Do we know anything about security?”
The colonel said, “Electronic and sophisticated. No more than six armed guards, but highly trained and professional.”
“What about the personnel? The scientists…”
“The facility was beyond top secret, so they have no gofers there. So there are half a dozen scientists who live on site and very, very rarely leave the complex. They are there twenty-four hours a day.”
I frowned at the brigadier. “So what the hell are we supposed to do with them?”
He raised his eyes from his plate and stared at me like he was surprised and a little annoyed. “You kill them,” he said. “You kill everyone. Then you blow the whole damned place to hell.”
Twenty
I slept badly that night. It was like my dreams were trying to keep me awake. I awoke frequently, first to an eerie moon riding low in a sky that was tinged almost green over a broad, gleaming path across the ink-black ocean; and later to its glow in a turquoise sky. Someone at my window, in a dream, had told me that we believed the moon’s lies because they were beautiful, where reality was too ugly to bear.
I rose at six and showered, then went for a run along the beach and spent an hour training in the sand as the sun rose bright and clear, where the moon had been whispering lies earlier on.
I returned to the hotel, showered again and dressed, and found the brigadier and the colonel in the dining room having breakfast with Helen. The colonel conspicuously made room for me beside her and as I sat she poured me black coffee.
“I got them to find some rye bread,” she said. “I know you like that.”
The brigadier spoke before I could answer.
“I have booked you an air taxi to Malaga. It will be somewhat more comfortable than the one you had last time, I hope. Your papers were delivered this morning…”
He glanced at the colonel, who pulled an attaché case onto her lap and handed Helen and me a large, padded envelope each. She said: “The usual, passports in the names of Andrew Smith and Margery Smith, driving licenses validated for Europe, American and Spanish credit and debit cards. Backstory as simple as possible. You are New Yorkers and you, Harry, made a fortune in real estate, then retired and moved to the Costa del Sol. Your home address is in the envelope, Nueva Andalusia, Marbella. Harry, you have been there before.”
The brigadier sipped his coffee and as he set down the cup he said, “After the killing of Mendez and Omar, and the defection of Salim and Abdul, we must assume that they will be expecting something and they will be on red alert.”
I nodded. “But we haven’t got time to allay their fears and take a subtle approach. We will have to move in hard and fast, with overwhelming force, and that is going to put Helen at risk, and also make her a liability for me.” I spread my hands. “Why not go for a false flag operation? Animal rights attacking a lab? Hell, jihadists attacking a diabolical Western lab. A couple of missiles would do the job.”
He shook his head. “This risk of creating an international incident is too high. It has to be a quiet, efficient insertion. You have six guards, you should be able to handle them.”
I gave a dry laugh. “Sure, I can handle six guards in a small pine forest, but what about the alarm system? There is also the fact that they may well have increased the number of guards in view of the red alert.”
“Yes, that’s true. The north wall that runs along the road is concrete, fifteen feet tall and topped with barbed wire. It is also electrified and mounted with cameras. This is not an ideal point of entry.”
The colonel took over. “The rest of the perimeter, which is roughly pear shaped, is designed to be low-key and not draw attention, while being no less secure. It is composed of two fences made of wire strung between steel posts. The wire is similar to chicken wire, but it is tougher, it’s electrified above three feet and carries sensors every fifteen feet. The sensors are not super sensitive because they have to allow for the huge number of animals that move in and out of the grounds. The dimensions are roughly three hundred and fifty yards in length and two hundred and fifty yards across, with a pond at the northern end which is about ninety yards square. Most of the place is dense pine forest.
“Beyond the fence you have cameras mounted in the trees that feed into a control room within the main building. There are normally six guards, but as you say that complement may have been increased. If it has, it will have been with great caution. Because they are very wary of arousing curiosity in the area.”
I sighed. “So for six men read nine to twelve.”
“Possibly.”
We sat in silence and I tried to ignore the fact that the colonel, the brigadier and Helen were all looking at me, waiting. I shook my head and spread my hands. “Have we even got a map of the land?” The captain shook her head. I said, “There is no way we can get an EMP up there in time, besides which it would attract a lot of unwelcome attention.”
The brigadier frowned and shook his head like the suggestion was absurd. “Out of the question.”
“So we’re looking at a feint. Damage the fence, draw them to the area of damage and attack from the rear.”
He smiled. “That would seem to be the way to go. Think along those lines and give me a list of ordnance and hardware you are going to need. We are very short of time and I am going to have to make people scramble in Spain to get you the stuff. The flight is at thirteen hundred hours. You both need to be ready by then.”
I raised a hand. “Hang on. What about Helen?”
“I’m coming to that.” He turned to the colonel. “Jane?”
She reached down and put the attaché case on her lap, flipped the catches again and pulled out something that looked like a Velcro headband with a small lamp on the front. “This is a camera.” She addressed Helen. “It has a microphone attached and an earpiece so that we can stay in communication. When you switch it on, by touching this button here,” she indicated a small, plastic knob on the side, “it connects automatically with a dedicated laptop
via a secure feed.”
I interrupted. “How secure?”
“Very secure.”
“Who will be viewing it?”
“Me, the brigadier and a couple of techs.”
I interrupted again. “You’re going to cramp my style. I don’t want you telling me what to do via Helen as your mouthpiece.”
The brigadier shook his head. “We’ll be in communication with Helen to identify the hardware and the software that must be destroyed.” He gave me a look that was full of meaning. “We don’t want anything overlooked.”
The colonel handed Helen the camera and pulled out what looked like a small cell phone. “In addition we want you to take this high-resolution digital camera. We want photographs and film of everything.”
She nodded and examined the two cameras. “Just one thing,” she said after a moment. “I am feeling very acutely the fact that I took the NPP from Omar. I created it, it is the product of my genius, but through brute force it has been taken from me, sent to New York and from there it goes into the hands of an organization which I have never heard of and know nothing about. I would like to have some say over what happens to it.”
The colonel leaned forward, frowning hard. “That is exactly why we are taking these precautions with the cameras. So that we know exactly what to destroy, and, if there is something that you feel needs preserving, you show us and explain.”
Helen drew breath to answer, but the colonel raised a hand. “Let me tell you exactly what is going to happen from here on in, Helen. We are not blind to your genius, believe me. The device will be collected from Harry’s place and taken to our headquarters. When your mission is finished we will have a meeting at HQ and we will decide piece by piece what happens to each aspect of the research and the programming. And you will be a central part of that decision process. Does that make sense?”
