It was warm inside and the air smelled stale. Crow felt his heart start to beat that little bit faster. He crossed to the huge metal safe built into the far wall, rubbing his hands across his legs to wipe the sweat from his palms. He reached forward to key in the combination, then froze and span round, suddenly overcome by the sense that there was someone else in the room with him.
The room was every bit as empty as it had been when he’d entered it.
“What am I doing?” he muttered to himself.
When he had opened the safe, he took out the pair of small brown leather pouches which held the Triskellions. He had not once given in to the temptation to look at them since they had been taken from Rachel and Adam Newman, but suddenly, for reasons he could not fathom, he wanted more than anything to see them again for himself.
He tipped the pouches one at a time and the amulets dropped into his palm.
It felt as though he had been wired up to the mains… The surge died away as quickly as it had come, but it left a … buzz inside him. All at once, he felt stronger and unafraid – of the director and his stupid threats. Of anything…
Staring down at the objects in his hand, his vision blurred; he was transfixed by the warm glow that was spreading across his palm. It slid up his arms and into his chest…
“Beautiful,” he heard himself say.
Would anyone know if he simply took them and ran? he wondered. Would they ever catch him…?
Taking a deep breath, he forced his eyes shut. It was far from easy. Keeping them closed, he shoved the Triskellions back into their pouches and back into the safe. Opening his eyes again, he stood there, staring at the gunmetal grey door of the safe, until he felt almost normal again.
Then he locked the room behind him and hurried back down the corridor to his office.
Back to his bourbon.
Major Todd Crow could not remember feeling worse.
He had drunk a lot more bourbon than he had intended to the night before – all but finishing the bottle once he was off duty – and his throbbing head and churning stomach were not helped by the fact that he had barely slept. Normally that much whisky would have put him out like a light, but he had lain awake, slick with sweat, thinking about the prison cell on the other side of the base. Thinking about Laura Sullivan and the three children with whom she was being held prisoner.
What little sleep he had been able to get had been punctuated with dreams that were full of blood and bright lights, and thinking about them now made the burning in his gut even worse; he wanted to run out into the desert and lie down until the images faded and the sand crept over him.
Crow had not known a great deal of contentment since his transfer to Alamogordo, but he could not imagine how things could be worse than this. For the last few days carrying out his orders had made him feel physically sick. He had looked away when the children had been brought down with Tasers and had felt something like a stone in his chest as he had ushered Laura Sullivan into the cell to join them.
He was a soldier, not a prison governor.
He drank the best part of a large bottle of water and stared down at his desktop. “I didn’t sign up for this,” he said.
“Excuse me, sir?”
Crow looked up and saw his assistant in the doorway. “Sorry, Parker, just talking to myself.”
Parker stared back blankly, then nodded. “I have the director ringing through from New York, sir. It sounds urgent.”
“It’s always urgent,” Crow muttered. He stared at the phone as Parker scuttled back into the adjoining office, fantasizing about telling the director he was quitting – he could find some other patsy to do his dirty work.
The phone rang. The fantasy evaporated and Crow snatched up the handset.
“Good morning, Todd.” The director sounded as chipper and glad to be alive as Crow felt gloomy and thick-headed. “Thought a nice early reminder might be a good idea.”
“Reminder, sir?’
“My Triskellions, Todd. I presume they are already on their way here.”
“Sir, not as yet, sir…”
The director’s mood blackened in a heartbeat. His voice dropped, took on an edge. “How clear do I need to make this, Crow? There is nothing, nothing, as important as getting those two amulets to me as soon as possible. Do you understand? I don’t care if we’re invaded – I don’t care if every country under the sun decides to launch missiles against us – you get the Triskellions to New York, and you do it now.”
“Yessir.” Crow could feel his stomach start to roll and burn, the jackhammer behind his skull picking up speed.
“You just need to follow orders, Crow. It’s not difficult, is it?”
“No, sir, but there are still … issues we need to resolve.”
“Issues?”
“The children, sir.”
There was half a minute’s silence. Crow could hear the director’s breathing. “They are no longer your responsibility, Major. You’ve done your job … not as well as I would have liked, mind you … and now it’s time to let the scientists get on with theirs.”
“I still don’t—”
“I’m authorizing the research process to begin at once. Have the lab prepped and get things started.”
Crow’s breathing felt laboured; the stone in his chest had doubled in size. “Which … one…?”
“We’ll save the Gabriel character until last, I think. He should yield the most interesting results. You can start with the Newman children.”
“Yessir.”
“You sound a little worried, Crow.”
“I’m fine,” Crow lied.
“Good, because it’s just science. Nothing to get hot and bothered about. We clear?”
“Clear, sir.” Crow turned away from the bright light streaming through his office window. He had never felt less clear about anything in his entire life. “I’ll get right on it.”
“And my Triskellions?”
“On their way. I’ll get an F-35 fuelled up and brief my best pilot.”
“Bring them yourself,” the director said. “There’s no better pilot on the base, and I know I can trust you.” He let his words hang for a second or two before adding, “I can trust you, can’t I, Todd?”
Rachel had dreamed about the building again – and the greed and terror that had given birth to it. She had seen the glass tower rising from earth, stained with the blood of a man called Spirit from the Stars, the sweep of its metal wings across the clear blue above her…
It was a building Rachel knew well, one she and Adam had seen many times growing up in Manhattan.
The Flight Building.
But why were visions of it coming to her now? She thought about the dreams of a knight and a maiden that had troubled her so much when she had first arrived in the village of Triskellion. Later there had been dreams and visions of a Traveller and the ancient North African tribe whose lives he had transformed.
Marriage and twins. Treachery and murder.
Rachel shuddered at the images that were as real, as vivid, to her as her own memories: two hearts cut out and entombed in a church, a stranger’s flesh consumed by flames, brains dashed out on a rock to be picked clean by sea birds.
The dreams always ended in death – those threatened or afraid always killed the outsider they did not understand– and they always meant there was something that Rachel and Adam had to do…
Rachel described what she had seen to Gabriel, Adam and Laura. In the past she and Adam had often shared the same dreams, but whatever was blocking their powers was clearly interfering with that ability too.
“Mine was a little more basic,” Adam said after he’d heard about her dream. “I was in a band. There were lots of hot girls…”
Laura grinned, punched Adam on the arm.
“What is it we’re supposed to do?” Rachel stared at Gabriel.
“It hardly matters,” he said. He lifted up his wrists, still bound with the plastic cuffs. “Not if we’re stuck in here.
”
“It’s important, though, isn’t it?”
“It’s how all this finishes,” Gabriel said. “How it was meant to finish.”
“Basically we’re screwed,” Adam said. “Right?”
Gabriel shrugged, unable to argue.
“We can’t do a thing,” Adam said. “Trussed up in here like Christmas turkeys.” He kicked the metal wall, kept on kicking it. “We can’t help Mom; we can’t find Dad…”
There was a click and a hiss and the glass doors began to slide back. Laura looked at Adam. “I think you’re making them mad,” she said.
Two guards had stepped into the cell, their Tasers pointed at the children. Adam stopped kicking. He sank down to the floor and turned away. “They’re just bringing breakfast…”
Rachel’s voice was quiet, a catch to it. “No,” she said. “They’re not.”
Two other figures had come into the cell and were marching between the armed guards towards the children. They wore protective bodysuits and face masks.
“No…!” Laura screamed.
The men grabbed Rachel and Adam and hauled them to their feet. Gabriel stepped forward to protect Rachel, but he was pinned to the wall by one of the guards, and when Laura tried to fight off the man who was dragging Adam out of the cell, she was hit by a Taser and fell, convulsing, to the floor.
It was all over very quickly. By the time Laura was back on her feet, Rachel and Adam were gone. She and Gabriel could only watch as the glass doors slid shut and sealed them in.
Neither of them spoke at first. They both knew where the children were being taken, and why.
Laura rushed at the door and began pounding her fists against it. She was filled with rage and panic and roared out her demands, spittle running down the glass as she continued to smash and shout at it.
“I need to see Crow!” she screamed.
But the glass was thick and she knew the guard who stared back at her from the other side could barely make out what she was saying.
She looked up and noticed the tiny camera mounted high above the doors. She stared into the lens, her fists still clenched and the veins all but popping from her neck.
“Crow, I need to talk to you right now! I’ve got information…” she said.
Two military policemen frogmarched Laura into Crow’s office and then stood behind her, holding her shackled arms.
“What can I do for you, Laura?” Crow said. He sat down behind his desk, formalizing the distance between them.
“Tell me where the children are.”
“You need to talk to me first,” he said.
“The stuff I need to tell you is classified to the highest level,” she said. “I can’t risk speaking with these monkeys here.” She nodded backwards at her two guards, who showed no offence at her comment. “And it would be great if you could take the jewellery off.” She shook her wrists.
Crow considered a moment, then instructed the guards to remove Laura’s cuffs and leave. He locked the door behind them, and while his back was turned, Laura took the opportunity to straighten her clothes and tie her hair back. She knew she would only get one shot at this and she wanted to look presentable. Then she leaned forward quickly, saw a letter to Crow on his desk and checked his first name.
Crow sat down again. “Drink?” he asked, taking the bourbon from his desk drawer.
“A little early for me,” Laura said. “But it’s not been a great day so far, so why not?”
“Yeah, sorry about the Taser.” Crow poured out two tumblers of whisky and sat back. “I’m listening,” he said.
In a medical laboratory, somewhere deep beneath the Alamogordo base, Rachel and Adam were strapped to surgical gurneys. They had been wheeled through scanners that had X-rayed every millimetre of their bodies, providing a complete picture of them in cross-section. The doctors, faceless behind paper masks and safety goggles, analysed the brain scans briefly and then began to take swabs.
Rachel shuddered as an orderly pushed cotton buds into her nose, mouth and ears, carefully logging the samples and placing them in sealed plastic containers. He roughly clipped her fingernails and toenails as if she were a corpse.
She heard Adam scream as the first of many blood samples was drawn, and then, as a needle was inserted into the base of her spine, her screams joined those of her brother…
“I’ve been with Rachel and Adam Newman for over two years.” Laura emphasized her words by banging her hand on the desk. “I’ve followed their every move. I know everything about them. I’m the world expert on these kids, and I’m telling you they need to be kept alive.”
“What makes you think they won’t be kept alive?”
Laura might have laughed had the situation not been so terrible. “What do you think your scientists are doing to them?”
“Research,” Crow said. It did not sound convincing. “Just running tests, gathering data.”
“I don’t believe you’re that naïve.”
Crow looked away. He wasn’t. He knew the Hope Project’s agenda and as much as it sickened him, he had played his part in it. All he could do now was try and justify his actions.
“Orders from New York are to ‘neutralize’ them to get all the information we can,” he said. “They’re a real danger to society, Laura. Given a couple of years they might breed, and then all hell would break loose. Imagine it, Laura, interbreeding with … aliens.”
“You don’t understand.” She thumped the table again. “They’re not aliens. These people have always bred with us. We’re all descended in some way from the Travellers. It’s just that these kids are direct descendants. Their family hasn’t moved from the same spot in England in three thousand years, and because of some family legend, the two branches of genes that were handed down from the first couple have never come together until now. These two kids are the most important human beings alive in the world today.”
She sat back and drew breath. She didn’t know how much more persuasive she could be, but she thought she caught a hint in Crow’s eye that he might be wavering. “Listen, Todd,” she continued, pressing her perceived advantage.
Crow looked surprised. “You know my name?”
“I know quite a lot about you,” Laura said. “For instance, I know where your family comes from. Crow is the modern version of the Old English Crowe.
“My family’s from Michigan.”
“That’s just this century. The Crowes were first recorded in England over a thousand years ago. They in turn would have been descended from Vikings who went over and raped and pillaged the Norfolk villages a few hundred years before that.” She pointed. “That’s where you got your blond hair from. The American Crowes came over with The Mayflower. But if we looked at your DNA, I would put money on you having some Viking genes, because it’s just not that long ago in evolutionary terms.”
“What’s your point, Laura?”
“No one’s blaming you for your ancestors being rapists and vandals, are they?”
Crow looked puzzled.
“In fact, it’s probably seen as an evolutionary advantage that the Vikings mixed their blood with the Anglo-Saxons’ to spread that blond hair everyone in the world seems to like so much. The same thing’s true of the kids – they’re the start of a better race. Something new and improved.”
Crow finished his drink. “One big difference, Laura” – he looked serious suddenly – “something I heard once from the director…”
“What?” Laura asked.
“Rachel and Adam Newman didn’t just evolve. They were bred. Bred for research by the Flight Trust.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“That’s what he said. ‘They belong to us…’”
Rachel could not believe the intensity of the pain, but with the frequency squealing in her head, there was nothing she could do with her mind to overcome it. No one else seemed interested in trying to alleviate her agony either. In fact, one of the orderlies actually seemed to be monitoring her pain levels
with some kind of machine positioned by her head.
Her mouth had been clamped open wide and samples of dentine were being drilled from her teeth. As she tried desperately to block out the pain, the dreadful black and white images from the video she had seen in the lab on the night they had been captured raced through her mind…
“Look,” Laura said, forcing Crow to look at the image she had called up on his laptop. The image of the live autopsy that had been conducted in the 1950s.
“I’ve seen it,” Crow said. He looked away as the grainy figure thrashed around on the screen.
Todd Crow had seen many horrible things. As a soldier in the first Gulf War, he had seen the population of an entire village murdered by their own people for belonging to the wrong tribe. During a tour of duty in Africa, he had seen a church full of villagers killed by fourteen-year-old militia for the same reason.
He had seen enough horror and brutality to last several lifetimes. He had promised himself that he would see no more once he left the military. His secondment to Hope had seemed exactly that – full of hope. Looking to the stars and making contact with whatever was up there. He had not reckoned on the paranoia and cynicism of the whole organization, from the director – the man who had wrecked his life and exiled him to the desert – down.
Now, stuck in the wilderness, presiding over the near-vivisection of two American teenagers because of their genes, Crow finally realized how far he had strayed.
“And these,” Laura said, calling up yet more images from the Hope BETA file. “This is what they did when we were in Morocco two years ago.”
Crow looked at the film on the screen. It was in colour this time and the camera was panning across a row of bodies on a beach: twin boys, their faces and bodies battered; a pair of beautiful girls, bloated and drowned. The image tightened on two tiny corpses: a little boy and a girl, their eyes also closed peacefully in death. They were holding hands.
Triskellion 3: The Gathering Page 19
