Alchemist

by Peter James

  There was a long silence. He stared at the partially open operating theatre door. There were more footsteps; two men raced down the corridor dressed in lab coats, one carrying a large black bag. They swept through the open theatre door.

  ‘How you feeling?’ Conor asked Monty.

  ‘Shut it,’ the guard said, jabbing the gun at him. ‘I don’t want a word from you. Not one word from either of you.’

  Conor looked at him. ‘I need to speak with Sir Neil –’

  The guard raised the gun and tightened his grip. Conor said nothing more.

  Ten minutes passed. Then the theatre door opened wide and Rorke came out, ashen faced. Gunn followed him. Rorke looked at Monty, then Conor, then turned to Gunn, and said, in a quavering voice: ‘Take that creep somewhere and shoot him. And that little bitch – and her father. They’ve done enough damage. Get rid of them.’

  Gunn shot a glance at Conor, then turned to the Chairman. ‘With respect, sir, I think we do need them.’ He met Conor’s eyes.

  Conor took his cue. ‘Sir Neil,’ he said, more calmly than he felt, ‘I sent Dr Crowe an eMail, but I don’t think he read it. I think you’d better have a look at it – you –’

  ‘I don’t care what you think, Mr Molloy. I’m not interested in what you have to say.’

  ‘Dr Crowe did read it,’ Gunn said, curtly. ‘He copied it to me. I’ve spent the past hour and a half working on it.’ He turned to Rorke. ‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to listen to him, Sir Neil. If you don’t, in three hours’ time you won’t have a company.’

  Gunn closed the door of the Chairman’s office, and Rorke, white with shock and anger, switched on his computer terminal, logged on then stepped aside. Gunn tapped a command on the keyboard. Conor stood beside them and watched impassively as the words came up on the screen. Monty watched, fascinated.

  x-Sender: eumenides@mailhost.minaret.co.uk

  Date: Sat, 10 Dec 1994 11:48:56 + 0100

  To: crowe@bendixs.co.uk (Dr Vincent Crowe)

  From: eumenides@minaret.co.uk

  Attachments: Audio

  Subject: Re: MEDICI FILE

  Hi, Dr Crowe.

  This is Conor Molloy. You’ll be interested, I’m sure, to see the following file that I came across on a restricted access level on the Bendix Schere computer system. No doubt you are familiar with its contents?

  MEDICI FILE

  Maternox. Phase One Status.

  Batch no. BS-M-6575-1881-UKMR.

  Launch date: 31 Oct 1993.

  Expected result concentration: Sept 94–June 95

  There followed the case reports of Sarah Johnson and the other three deaths to date, Zeenat Patel, Roberta McDonald and Caroline Kingsley, and the list of the remaining women who had conceived after taking the doctored Maternox, and their expected delivery dates. The symptoms of the dead women and their babies were identical and damning: severe pustular psoriasis and death from respiratory failure in the mothers; Cyclops Syndrome combined with acute psoriasis and death due to gross malformation of the respiratory organs in the babies.

  Conor’s eMail continued:

  I’m sure you’ll be interested, Dr Crowe, to see the following transcript of an audio tape recovered from Dr Richard Bannerman’s laboratory in Berkshire on the night he was kidnapped whilst working on analysing Maternox capsules. The voices have been identified as those of Dr Bannerman, yourself and Major Bill Gunn:

  Dr Bannerman: ‘Poliovirus possibly indicates intent to use an oral delivery system. Most viruses can’t be used to deliver genetic material orally, because they can’t survive in the human gut. Poliovirus can. It is simple to produce a defective poliovirus that cannot replicate.’

  (Pause.)

  ‘You bastards. My God, you bastards!’

  Dr Vincent Crowe, Chief Executive of Bendix

  Schere:

  ‘Good evening, Dr Bannerman. I just happened to be passing – thought I’d drop by and have a chat. Haven’t seen much of you in the past week or so. I’m not sure if you’ve met Major Gunn, our Director of Security?’

  Dr Bannerman: ‘I’d like an explanation from you, Crowe, as to what the hell you think you’re doing with your Maternox.’

  Major Bill Gunn, Director of Security, Bendix Schere: ‘Well, we’d like an explanation from you, Dr Bannerman, as to what you’re doing with a Maternox formulaic template owned by the company.’

  Dr Bannerman: ‘Would you prefer that explanation to take place in a court of law, or in front of the Committee for Safety of Medicines? Now, I’d like you to stop trespassing on my property and leave. If you feel the need to drop in for a chat with anyone else at one o’clock in the morning, I suggest you drop by your lawyers and start briefing them, because by God you’re going to need ’em.’

  Major Bill Gunn, Director of Security, Bendix Schere: ‘Right, just roll up his sleeve and I’ll get this into him. Won’t give us any trouble; he’ll be docile as a lamb.’

  Dr Crowe, you will find the complete audio duplicate of this recording on an icon marked DR BANNERMAN ABDUCTION, which will have automatically been placed on to your hard disk memory. If you click on the icon it will play the sound.

  This same eMail message and audio attachment is being stored on 200 eMail file servers around the world at this moment. For verification, among the locations where you will be able to find and read it are the following: Vienna. Moscow. Paris. Cape Town. Zagreb. Warsaw. New York. Washington. Chicago. Los Angeles. Rome. Vladivostok. St Petersburg. Hong Kong. Sydney. Brisbane. Reykjavik. Gothenburg.

  At the end of this mail are the eMail addresses of the above so that you can verify for yourself.

  For Bendix Schere’s protection, this information is encrypted. However, unless I personally intervene, at 7 p.m. tonight GMT, one of these servers will automatically unencode and begin mailing copies of this information to all 9500 current newsgroups on the Internet. Another server will commence mailing copies to the President of the United States, the British Prime Minister and all other heads of state and military around the world with Internet addresses. A third server will mail this information to all newspapers, television and radio stations in Britain, the United States and elsewhere around the world which have eMail addresses.

  I have written a program interlinking each of these 200 servers. Should you attempt to deactivate any single one, the remainder will instantly mail out all the information to everyone I have itemized above, and, through a worm virus, continue, ultimately distributing copies to every single person in the world connected to the Internet.

  Knowing your fondness for killing people who irritate you, such as Jake Seals, Zandra Wollerton, Walter Hoggin, Dr Corbin, Charley Rowley, Hubert Wentworth, not to mention both my parents, Edward Donoghue and Tabitha Donoghue, I would suggest that killing me would be unwise. I am the only person who can issue commands to stop the information going out and have taken precautions.

  To guard my long-term safety, this command will have to be reissued by me at 7 p.m. GMT every Saturday for the next twelve months. As an added precaution I have distributed photographs of myself and passport details to each of the operators of these file servers. They will only accept the stop command if I turn up in person to enter it. If any date is missed, automatic irreversible distribution of the information commences.

  Rorke looked, questioningly, at Gunn. The Director of Security stared back at him gravely. ‘I’m afraid it’s correct, sir. Our Systems Manager and team have been on to it since Dr Crowe received the message. He appears to have done what he says.’

  Rorke was silent for some moments. ‘So what are our options?’

  Gunn glanced at his watch. It was ten to four. ‘Where do you have to be at seven tonight, Mr Molloy?’

  ‘An hour and a half’s drive from here.’

  Gunn scratched the back of his head. His eyes flicked to the monitor, then to Conor. He turned back to the Chairman, and said grimly, ‘I don’t think we have any options, Sir Neil. I’m afraid that Mr Mollo
y seems to hold all the aces.’

  132

  Rorke went out of the room with Gunn.

  Conor and Monty stared at each other in silence, and she understood from the signal in Conor’s eyes to say nothing. He slipped his arms around her and she held him tightly, struggling to control her fear. She knew that now at this moment, perhaps more than ever before, she needed to be strong.

  They sat down at a conference table. Monty remembered the first time she had been in this office with Rorke and Crowe just over a year ago, and how happy and full of hope she had been. She looked at the squat gold frog on the Chairman’s desk and thought about the frog in Crowe’s office, made of black papier-mâché, with jewelled red eyes. The frog –

  Her thoughts were broken as Rorke and Gunn came back into the room. She avoided meeting Rorke’s eyes.

  Gunn closed the door and stayed by it. Rorke walked a short distance across the room, then turned to Conor. ‘So what is it you want? I assume you’ve thought about it carefully.’ There was no rancour in his voice; it was as if this was a minor problem he wanted to get out of the way before turning his mind back to more important matters.

  ‘What’s happened to my father? Where is he?’ Monty asked before Conor could reply.

  Gunn shot a glance at Rorke and answered for him: ‘Your father is here in this building. He’s fine.’

  ‘Here? Why’s he here? I thought he’d had a stroke.’

  Gunn’s voice was polite and courteous. ‘Your father is in good health. ‘He –’ He shot a glance at Rorke as if for help. ‘He’s under sedation.’

  ‘I want to see him,’ Monty said. ‘Now. Take me to him.’

  Rorke looked anxiously at his watch.

  ‘This meeting goes no further until we’ve seen Dr Bannerman, Rorke,’ Conor said. ‘I also need my briefcase, which I left down in your charming hospitality suite.’

  Gunn and Rorke exchanged another glance. Something in their expressions made Monty deeply uncomfortable.

  ‘I’ll take you down,’ Gunn said.

  The sight of her father’s pallid complexion, and the drip lines and monitoring equipment had been a shock to Monty. But even in the few minutes they were with him, after the flow of anaesthetic and sedatives had been halted, he had shown noticeable improvement. The young doctor in charge of him had assured them that Dr Bannerman would be on his feet within a couple of hours.

  Back in the Chairman’s office, Conor took a seat at the head of the conference table, put his briefcase in front of him and opened it. Monty sat to his right, and Rorke and Gunn sat facing her to his left. Monty watched the Chairman’s face for a few seconds, disquieted by his air of confidence.

  ‘The first myth we need to dispel, Rorke, is the one of your role with the company.’ Conor removed a sheet of paper and laid it on the table for them all to read. ‘Bendix Schere has always maintained total secrecy over its shareholdings. Not surprising, is it, Rorke, since you actually own one hundred per cent of the stock?’

  Monty looked, astounded, at Conor then at Rorke.

  ‘Sure,’ Conor went on. ‘You give pieces of the action to your Directors. You are fair and democratic. You split forty-nine per cent of the equity of the company and the votes between them, but they never get any documentation formalizing it. It’s valid only for as long as they remain with the company – but it’s a big incentive. Your average annual dividend runs from a few hundred thousand to a couple of million pounds per head. Nice work if you can get it, Rorke, but I don’t think the qualifications for a seat on your Board are entirely straightforward, are they? You require something in addition to business and scientific skills from your acolytes, don’t you?’

  Conor pulled a folder from his briefcase and tossed it on to the desk. ‘You thought you were pretty thorough in covering your tracks. You had your minions work their way through every library and publishing house in the world. You even had two slightly less-than-helpful photographers killed.’ Conor leaned back. ‘You went to a lot of trouble to hide your past. Plastic surgery would have done the job much more efficiently, but perhaps in 1969 that wasn’t so good as it is now?’

  Rorke appeared unmoved.

  ‘You see, Rorke, my mother used to be an authority on the occult. She collected every book that was ever published.’ Conor opened the folder, which was filled with large photographic prints, and spread them across the table.

  Monty looked at one, a page of a book, with a black and white photograph of a man kneeling in a white robe in the centre of a magic circle. A series of artefacts including a skull, an athame, several chalices, censers and statuettes had been placed around the circumference. The man was in the process of having a mask in the shape of a frog placed over his head.

  The caption beneath read: ‘Daniel Judd (Theutus), being ordained as the Forty-Second Assessor of the New International Satanic Brotherhood.’

  As she looked closer, Monty could clearly see the face of the kneeling man. He was much younger in the photograph, maybe thirty years younger. The face had since fleshed out and the hair was much longer, but the features had not altered. There was no mistaking him. It was Rorke.

  For some moments she could not take her eyes away from the picture. She looked up at the Chairman and her skin crawled. She selected another page, also removed from a book, with three photographs. The young Rorke was present in two of them. As she leafed through the collection of prints she realized with increasing certainty these were the same pages that had been missing from the books in the British Library.

  ‘Daniel Judd,’ Conor said, his voice acid now. ‘Theutus.’ He pointed at the pictures on the wall, of Rorke sharing a joke with Prince Charles, of him standing arm in arm with Clinton. ‘All your friends in high places. You murdered your father and your mother, didn’t you, Daniel Judd? You tortured your mother first; you cut her hands off, then you tormented her, then you killed her. Your charm knows no bounds, Rorke. Sir Neil Rorke. How did it feel when the Queen knighted you?’

  Rorke looked at him with hatred. ‘Why don’t you stop this charade and tell me what you want, Molloy?’

  Conor nodded. ‘Sure. I have it right here.’ He pulled another folder from his briefcase. It contained a thin sheaf of documents, which he separated into four identical piles. He pushed one set to Rorke and another to Monty, ignoring Gunn for the moment. ‘Want to tell me where your secretary keeps her coffee machine while you take a read?’

  Rorke looked at the papers in front of him. ‘There isn’t time to read all this now.’

  ‘You’ll manage,’ Conor said, and pushed the fourth bundle to Gunn. ‘Guess you should take a look also. It affects you too.’ Then he stood up. ‘Anyone take milk? Sugar?’

  Thirty minutes later Rorke replaced the last page of the final document in his bundle then stacked the pages tidily, looking at Conor with incredulity. ‘You want me to make over my entire shareholding to Dr Bannerman, Miss Bannerman and yourself?’

  ‘It’s a good deal for you,’ said Conor smoothly. ‘In exchange, you receive a guaranteed pension of one hundred thousand pounds a year for life, plus the same fifty-one per cent of the profits of Bendix Schere that you currently get, for life.’ He paused a moment. ‘The remaining forty-nine per cent will be distributed annually to medical research foundations and charities. You’ve always called Bendix Schere the “World’s Most Caring Company” – well, that’s how it’s going to be from now.’

  ‘And you also expect me to sign the document resigning as Chairman.’

  ‘Dr Bannerman, Miss Bannerman and I will appoint a new Board. I don’t intend keeping too many of your existing playmates.’

  Rorke caught Gunn’s eye, frowning. ‘And is there anything else, Molloy?’ Rorke said, turning back to Conor. ‘Any more surprises tucked up your sleeve?’

  Monty looked anxiously at Conor. There was no way Rorke was going to swallow this. And she desperately needed to tell Conor what she had seen in the subterranean laboratories. It would get out, it had to,
and when it did the company would be finished. Was that why Rorke was so calm? Was Conor unwittingly offering him a golden get-out?

  ‘Yes,’ Conor said, ‘there is. I want you to take me to the Cave of Demons.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just the two of us. Alone.’

  Rorke smiled, visibly relaxing. ‘You’re not serious, Molloy?’

  ‘I’ve never been more serious.’

  ‘You wouldn’t last five minutes in there. I’m sorry, you’re talking about something way out of your depth.’

  ‘Am I?’ Conor flared.

  Rorke sat looking at him for some moments. ‘No one goes to the Cave of Demons unless they have been summoned, Molloy. It isn’t possible.’

  ‘You have the power, Rorke. You are the only human being on earth who is permitted to go.’

  Again Rorke stared at him in silence for what seemed an eternity. Then he shook his head. ‘No. No way, Molloy. What you want is not possible. It has never been done.’

  ‘It can be done,’ Conor said. ‘It is written in the Great Law.’

  ‘No one has ever done it. Not in two thousand years.’

  ‘You are permitted to return there once,’ Conor said. ‘It is one of the Sixty-Three Privileges you hold.’

  ‘It would take months of preparation. It’s madness to even think about doing it unprepared. No, Molloy. If you go to the Cave of Demons you will die.’

  Conor shook his head. ‘No, I won’t die, Rorke, because you’re going to protect me. I’m bad news for you dead.’

  ‘I could give no guarantee that I could protect you. I don’t think you fully understand the forces that exist there.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to work very, very hard, Rorke. You’ve never put a foot wrong in your life – so far. Why start now?’

  Rorke watched him silently.

  ‘If I live, Rorke, you will still have your fortune intact. If I die, you either face catastrophe or you take your money and spend the rest of your life in hiding. I don’t think that would suit you somehow.’

  ‘Molloy, you give me no choice. I’ll take you to the Cave of Demons. If you survive, then we’ll sign the documents.’