by Mark Lingane
“How do you know it’ll work?”
“Because they’ll know it’s us. The less you know the better.”
They crept out into the wide corridor. Chambers ran off down an adjacent hallway.
Hanson counted off the seconds under her breath. She picked up a fire extinguisher and ran to the corner, smashing it up into the CCTV. The light switch was a dozen yards closer to the security station. She stepped around the corner and shouted down the corridor.
The guard’s head snapped up, but he remained in place.
“You don’t know,” Hanson shouted again. She ran directly toward the guard, smacking her hand into the light switch. The corridor fell into darkness. Adrenaline flooded through her, into her strides. A flashlight flickered over her as she charged toward the barrier.
She stopped. She stared at the guard. He stared back at her from the other side of the metal barrier, roaming his light over her face and body. She could see confusion and uncertainty in his eyes. Then his face came lunging at her and smashed into the metal bars. He slipped down to the ground, the flashlight tumbling away. The lights came back on.
Chambers appeared on the other side of the gate. He grabbed the keys from the guard and quickly unlocked it. Hanson dashed through.
“All you did was bluff them and hope I could rescue you,” Chambers said.
“It was an unpredictable plan.”
“Not the word I’d use.”
“Look, they weren’t searching, they were waiting. That means all they know at this point is that we got through. All along they’ve been monitoring us, recording us. They were at the archives and the police station, but not at Randeep’s because of his anti-surveillance. They only know what’s been recorded. So we had to do something unpredictable, quickly.”
“Yes, follow the insane girl with no grasp of reality. What could possibly go wrong?”
They hurried down the corridor into the bowels of the HMRC.
“Are we looking for a terminal?” Chambers asked.
“Too risky. We want archived records.”
Another guard walked past the T-junction ahead of them, and they ducked behind cover. The guard heard a noise and changed his path. The security door to the stairway had been opened. He flashed his light inside the door and around the stairwell, then went up to the next floor. That door was locked. He came back down and examined the open door again. He shrugged and locked it.
Hanson and Chambers ran along the corridors, following the signs until they reached the archive room. It was locked. Chambers glanced around. He smashed his boot into the lock and the door flew open.
“I’m guessing we’ve got about two minutes,” he said.
They crept in. It was huge. A cavern. And unlabeled.
Hanson pointed. “Let’s split up.”
Chambers took off to the left and Hanson headed to the right. She ran her hands along the first row of drawers. Fa. She sprinted down to the end of the row. Fa. The rows stretched out in all directions.
The guard slowly made his rounds through the corridors. He approached the archive door. Something seemed wrong. He extracted his flashlight.
Le. Le. Le’f. Le’g.
The light fell over the lock. Smashed. He whipped out his Taser.
N. Na. Na. Naa.
He clicked his radio and called for support. He heard running feet within the room.
O. O. O. P. Pa.
The guard stepped into the chamber, looking down the various rows. He could hear footsteps ahead. He hurried forward in pursuit.
Pl. Pl. Pn. Pn.
A figure flashed past the ends of the rows. The guard shouted.
Hanson’s head snapped up. Po. She pulled out the long drawer and rifled through the cards. Her fingers burned as the ancient edges cut into her fingertips.
The guard could hear someone breathing heavily. He sprinted to the corner and wheeled around. The row was empty. Cards were scattered over the floor. He turned and ran back to the door.
Hanson ran through the rows and found Chambers.
“We’ve got to go, now,” he said.
She waved the card. “I’ve got Poundriff’s address.”
“Keep it safe.”
The guard appeared out of nowhere and knocked Hanson to the ground. The card fell to the floor. Chambers grabbed him and flung him over his shoulder. The guard landed, rolled and lunged at Chambers with the Taser. Shouts came from the doorway. Chambers ripped out a drawer and flung it at the guard, who staggered back under the attack. Chambers jumped forward and punched him in the jaw. The guard collapsed and Chambers grabbed the keys clipped to his belt.
Hanson picked up the card and glanced out into the corridor. She indicated it was clear and they charged down a quiet hall of identical ancient doors. There was a shout as a group of security guards spotted them. They turned back and sprinted along another corridor of identical doors until it ended in another junction.
“Which way?” Hanson said.
“Down.” Chambers fumbled through the keys as the guards gained on them. The door clicked open, and in seconds they were through and sprinting down the stairs. They crashed into the lower door, also locked. Chambers slammed the key into the lock just as the security guards came into the stairwell above them. Wrong key. He tried the next. Success.
Hanson led the way into the service hallways in the basement. They sprinted along, knocking aside the staff. A guard turned to face them. Chambers ripped a fire extinguisher off the wall, spun around and hurled it. It bounced off the walls, making the guard duck out of the way. Chambers elbowed him as they approached, knocking him aside.
The guard furiously fought back against Chambers as they collided, but only seemed interested in Hanson, clawing after her as she rushed past. The lights went out and Chambers twisted free of the guard. The lights flickered back on, but by this time Hanson and Chambers were sprinting away.
Shots were fired. They turned the corner, bouncing off the concrete walls. The war rooms were ahead. So were more guards. They slowed for a moment, then picked up their pace again when more shots came from behind.
“I smell something,” Hanson shouted.
Fire. Pure flame erupted ahead of them, blasting out the glass doors and flattening them. Randeep charged into the foyer and helped Chambers and Hanson up. They staggered outside, coughing, and ran down the steps into the trees.
“What happened?” Hanson asked Randeep.
“There was an unfortunate gas explosion,” he replied.
“Where did the gas come from?”
“It’s an ancient building. It can’t function without gas. It’s unfortunate.”
“And the spark?”
He shook his head. “It’s all physics.”
Hanson shrugged. “I don’t know how the day will play out, but they’ll be looking for us. Maybe you as well. Find somewhere safe and wait it out.”
“I have experiments to run. You’ve got me thinking.”
“Don’t take any risks.”
“I’ll be in the safest place possible.” He smiled and ran off over the green.
Hanson read the card. “Poundriff has a West London address.”
“Of course. He’s loaded.”
They looked back over their shoulder at the smoking remains of the Churchill War Rooms.
37
THE SUN PEERED over the horizon, trembling with trepidation as the rays slipped through the smog. Another cloudless sky greeted the city. Gravel crunched under their feet as Hanson and Chambers walked through the oversized iron gates and up the circular drive. The house looked empty. No lights or signs of life.
Chambers knocked on the door. There was no response. “We should get a warr—”
Hanson grasped the doorknob and twisted. It was unlocked. She quickly released the knob and the door opened fractionally. They looked at each other. Chambers pushed and it swung completely open, revealing a dark entrance.
Hanson examined the lock. “No sign of forced entry. It jus
t wasn’t locked.”
“You think he’s expecting us?”
“I was going to ask how he would know, but today I’d believe just about anything.”
Chambers chuckled as he entered and looked around. “This is one amazing place. You see houses like this on TV, but being in one is something else.”
“You know, for the amount this place costs, you could probably buy Wales.”
“Waste of money. I’d get a fleet of Lamborghinis.”
The door had opened onto a majestic foyer that soared three stories up and was topped with a glass dome. The marble floor stretched away to three rooms; all the doors were closed. Exotic art adorned the walls. The skin of a lion, including the head and mane, lay prostrate on the floor in the center of the large foyer. On one side an imposing marble staircase curled up around the wall.
Several envelopes lay scattered over the floor behind the door. Chambers scooped them up and rifled through them. They were all from utility and services companies.
Hanson opened the doors to the rooms off the foyer. Two were empty-shelved offices, the modern furniture stark against the dark blue of the early-morning light. The dark shades were somber.
Chambers picked up the phone on one of the desks. “Line’s dead.”
The third door led to a sleek and modern kitchen that opened up onto a glass conservatory. Chambers flicked the light switch. The room remained dark. Several more switches yielded the same result. He dropped the letters on the kitchen counter, moved to the sink and turned on the faucets. No water.
He grabbed a knife from the block of wood on the island, and sliced the envelopes open. “All services disconnected,” he said. “Accounts settled in full.”
Hanson searched through the drawers. “He’s packed up everything.” She sniffed. “Something smells bad in here.” She checked the garbage. The receptacle was empty and scrubbed clean. She pulled out another knife from the block. Its blade gleamed in the light, sharp and spotless.
They went back to the foyer and made their way up the wide staircase. Three enormous high-roofed bedrooms wheeled off the landing. Beds made. Wardrobes empty. En suites clean. A large bag of clothes sat behind the door of the master bedroom. A set of cufflinks lay in a velvet box by the bed, the only personal item on display.
The smell was stronger here, and was becoming worse the longer they stayed in the bedrooms.
They went up to the attic, and the smell became overpowering. Scavenging flies buzzed around the bloated carcass reclining in a chair behind an oversized executive desk. Hanson slapped her hand over her mouth and nose. Chambers followed suit with a handkerchief.
“It’s him,” Hanson said. “I can still recognize his face from the photographs. Open the skylight, Chambers, it’s unbearable in here.”
She pulled out a pair of gloves and began an examination. “Self-administered head wound. Our first dead body not killed by a sniper.”
Chambers struggled with the ancient latch on the window, wriggling it against the built-up layers of glossy paint. The fastener opened as Chambers’ fingers went white under the pressure, then clean air flooded into the room. He gasped at the fresh breeze and looked down the long garden to a partially obscured gray block at the end.
“Looks and smells like he’s been dead for weeks. Maybe months,” he said.
“Forensics will know.”
Hanson examined the old-fashioned office. Set within the wall was an old Chubb safe. Same as the colonel’s, she thought. She tried the handle. Locked. She examined the books on the shelves, running her hand over the ancient history volumes.
“There’s something big and gray down the end of the garden,” Chambers said.
“He was the war generation, surviving the blitz. It could be a bomb shelter.”
“Why would you keep a bomb shelter for seventy years? Hang on. There’s a light on inside.”
They ran out of the attic back to the kitchen, and into the conservatory. The door was locked until Chambers threw a kitchen stool through it. They charged down the expansive length of grass with their feet pounding over the turf and breath puffing out into the cool morning air.
The door to the structure was locked. Chambers scoured the garden and returned with a shovel. He smashed the edge down against the padlock, breaking it free. Hanson opened the door to reveal a long concrete room. An old bulb hung from the ceiling, emanating a sickly yellow glow.
“It’s a home away from home. Bed. Kitchen. Washroom.” Chambers put his hand on the stovetop. “Stove’s still warm.”
Hanson hadn’t noticed; she was looking at the end of the concrete bunker. The end wall was covered with newspaper clippings in various shades of yellow. Red string zipped between them all. In front of the wall, several folders lay on a long, low rough-cut table.
She dashed forward. Her fingertips caressed the newspaper clippings from centuries of publications that had been stapled inelegantly to a huge board. The clippings were scattered, giving no clue of continuity. She checked dates at random: 1973 Old Bailey bombing, 1928 Thames flood, 1861 Fleet riots, 1666 Great Fire of London. On each clipping, written faintly in chalk, was a name.
Her eyes caught an unexpected reflection on the wall. Compressed between plastic sheets was a clipping that defined antiquity. It displayed a bill that had been presented to William II of England, son of William the Conqueror, regarding the damage inflicted by the London tornado of 1091. She reached up and ran her hand over the plastic, staring at the item. The smoothness of the plastic belied the significance of the artifact it covered.
She stood back, taking in the catalogue of disasters that had befallen London, disasters like a plane crashing in the heart of the city.
Chambers ran his hands over the top of the desk. It had been cut—hewn—from one piece of oak, ancient, smooth, and as hard as rock.
“Look through the pile of folders,” Hanson said.
He glanced up at her.
“Please,” she added.
He opened the first folder. “Emily Cartwright, eighth of February 1928. There’s one of those old cracked black-and-white photos with it, and an address and another name. It’s a bit hard to make out … Lieutenant Henry Whitaker.”
Hanson’s eyes flicked back to the newspaper clipping of the 1928 flood. The name on the disaster report matched the handwritten chalk name.
“Madam Edina Watford,” Chambers read. “First of June 1861. No picture. Another address. Captain William Hollander.”
She stared at the accompanying news. Match. “My father had a relative called Hollander.”
“Third of July, 1973,” Chambers continued. “Helen Bailey. Oh, and look at this, Colonel Frank Carter. That would mean all the other male names refer to the designated assassin.”
Hanson jumped up on the table and ran her hands over the papers until she found the relevant disaster. Match. “Next.”
“First of September, 1991. Molly Blackall.”
“The date matches the forensics report back at Carter’s house,” she said.
Chambers paused and glanced up at Hanson. “Here’s another one with Colonel Frank Carter again.” He slipped the folder to the bottom of the pile, concealing the information that had been crossed out. He read out two more.
Hanson chased the red string around, from era to era. Disaster to disaster. Death to death. “One name is written really big. Sebastian. No date, just the name. I think it’s a name … iYe. Maybe it stands for something.” She crawled over the pages, looking for the faint name. “I can’t find anything. We’ll get to him later.”
Chambers looked around. “This seems like a significant place. Lots of damning evidence. Why aren’t the people chasing us here?”
Hanson glanced at Chambers. He seemed tense. “They’re either on their way, distracted, or they’ve given up. But they don’t seem like the people who give up. Keep going.”
They continued through several more folders. All matched the clippings on the wall. Hanson jumped down, picked u
p a folder, and opened it. The first photo slapped her in the face.
“What’s the matter?” Chambers said. “You’ve gone pale.”
“Did you read my report about the plane crash?”
“Chief wouldn’t let me.”
“Cally’s mother’s name was Stacy Raiden. Her maiden name was Matthews, so I never saw the connection. But she was adopted. With these new privacy laws, I didn’t have access to the records, so I never knew.”
“Knew what?”
Hanson held the photo of Stacy up to Chambers. She flipped it around to reveal the name. “Birth name Stacy Blackall.”
“Oh.”
“Molly Blackall was killed three days after the premature birth of her baby daughter, Stacy Blackall. And the date written below is the date she was shot—in the heart of a disaster, just like all the others. Stacy Blackall was never meant to exist. Is it the same for all the others?”
“I don’t like that idea. Does that mean Cally wasn’t meant to exist?”
Hanson looked up at the headlines and red string hanging between the clippings. The dates stretched back over a millennium. “It’s a lineage. All female.”
“Cally isn’t female,” Chambers pointed out. “These victims are all women. Convenient if you want to hide, because surnames often change. But it looks like Cally was the first boy.”
“It’s a unisex name. If you saw it written down, you wouldn’t know. If future people had sent an instruction, could they have got it wrong? Could they have assumed Cally was a girl?”
The paper slipped from her grip and fluttered to the ground, landing face down. Scrawled across the back of it in red chalk was one word. Failed.
Chambers picked it up and ran his finger over the red chalk. It didn’t smudge. “What’s up with this chalk?”
Hanson turned over another sheet in the folder. Failed. She flipped them all over and scattered them over the table. Failed. Failed. Failed. Failed.
“But if they were meant to be killed, and they were killed, why were they fails?” Chambers said.
“Someone’s been exterminating that family line. But something has always gone wrong. The timing’s always been out or something unexpected has happened.”
