He brought his hand back down, and tapped his laptop. The screen showed a huge black question mark.
'There's only one problem.' His lips parted in a faint smile that reminded Virgo of a snake about to bite. 'None of us knows how to do it yet. No one knows how to get such a grip on entanglement, how to keep it under control when every bit of energy that hits the atoms can kick their delicate link out of kilter. So no one knows what the quantum computer might look like. We know how it might work, but it's too difficult to control the entanglement: we're simply not there yet.'
Gierek was standing behind the lectern, leaning heavily on it with both hands. He looked out at his audience for a few moments. The pause was too long, and Virgo felt a tension creep into the room.
'But that doesn't matter. You should know something. You are being watched. It's inevitable: if you are the people that can make this technology work, then you are the people that the authorities will be interested in. Everybody wants this. The Americans want it for information: they love to know everybody's business. The European governments are so keen to beat the Americans to it that they're willing to work together on it. And the criminal underworld, if I may use such a dramatic phrase – the drug runners, for instance – they want it more than anyone. Just one application – opening up FBI and coastguard communications – would make it worth any investment.'
Gierek's face was deadly serious, his eyes narrowed. His voice had dropped to a low murmur, conspiratorial and urgent. 'The spoils for the winner of this race are fantastic. Whoever has this first wins. And if they can keep their victory quiet, nothing will ever be hidden from them again.'
The room was silent. Gierek drew breath.
'This quantum computer,' he said, pointing at the question mark on the screen, 'is gold bullion.' He strung out the last two words, turning to face his audience. 'Unfortunately – for you, anyway – you are the cashiers with the keys to the vault. The bank robbers are on their way, so you'd better decide what you're planning to do when they arrive.'
Gierek stretched out a hand. It was shaking again. He made a final scan of the audience, pulled the lid of his laptop closed, and mumbled thanks to his audience for listening.
There were two seconds of silence, a faint applause, and then a loud buzz of conversation. The session chair stood up to invite questions. Nothing came to Virgo's mind. Except 'why?' Gierek's talk seemed to lock together with Hillborough's announcement. But what could either of them gain by scaremongering about the potential of a quantum computer?
Virgo looked at his watch. He had a plane to catch. But he noticed with relief that he had watched Gierek with his heartbeat a little pumped up. With characters like this around – with the weird intensity of Gierek and the strange behaviour of Paul Radcliffe earlier – maybe the science beat wouldn't be a complete washout.
CHAPTER 3
'IM SORRY, SIR.'
The girl at the airport check-in was yielding to none of Virgo's charms. 'I'll make a note that you would be interested in an upgrade on your next flight with us.'
She said it with that sweet service smile. The one that meant nothing. He thought about offering her the chocolatecovered cranberries he had bought for his wife, but quickly thought again. Rachel always got so excited whenever he brought her a present home from one of his trips; she never showed even a glimmer of disappointment when it was obvious that it had been bought in the departure lounge.
He had to call Rachel, let her know what time he'd be landing. Virgo strolled away from the check-in desk and sank onto a blue plastic chair. He smiled at the woman in the next chair, but she scowled back, her face contorted with suspicion. Virgo looked away again. Air travel knows no camaraderie these days, he thought. All that's left is the fear of every stranger. He pulled out his mobile phone and speeddialled home.
Rachel picked up almost immediately.
'Rach? Hi, it's me. I'm at the airport.' He looked at his watch. 'You OK?'
'I'm in bed, thanks.'
'Did I wake you?'
'Not quite. I'd just turned out the light.'
'What about Katie? Is she in bed?'
'She's at a party.'
His daughter was fifteen years old, and still out with her friends at 11.25 at night. What were you supposed to do? It wasn't like the other parents seemed to care. He sighed. Four thousand miles away, Rachel sighed too. They did that a lot these days. It's what you did when your baby morphed into a teenager overnight.
'When will she be back?'
'She's on a midnight curfew. She'll be back in half an hour or so.'
'But you'll stay awake until she's in?'
'You know I can't sleep while she's out. She knows it too. You're worrying again, Nat. She's my concern at the moment, remember. You just get yourself back over here. This bed feels too empty.'
Virgo swallowed all his concern. 'OK,' he said. 'I'm getting on the plane now.'
'And I'll pick you up in the morning, even though you abandoned me for three whole days just to cover some stupid science conference.'
It made him smile; she knew it would.
'I love you,' he said.
'I love you too. Get back here, will you?' Rachel's voice softened. 'Have a safe flight, sweetheart.'
She hung up. Virgo held his phone and savoured the connection, just for a moment, before he flipped it shut.
The short notice on this trip hadn't done him any favours at home, but his editor had at least promised it would be an exception; he wasn't planning to send his new science reporter across the globe at a moment's notice every week. That was good news – Virgo had promised Rachel that everything was going to change now he was taking more of a back seat. He was going to be with his family a lot more from now on. That's why he'd booked the Cuba trip – so they could start afresh.
The guard beyond the departures gate asked him to remove his shoes for inspection but didn't even glance at the laptop bag in his hand. What kind of security was this? Putting his shoes back on, Virgo wondered how to pass the time until he could board and take the Tylenol. He wasn't going to risk his weakness for in-flight movies; he didn't like the idea of sleeping pills, but he'd take some anyway. Which meant he needed food.
He headed for the food hall, sat down and ordered pizza. He could almost hear the pepperoni laughing at the Diet Coke. Instinctively, he pulled in his gut, then looked down. He wasn't paunchy yet, but his early forties were getting later every day. How long before his abs gave up the fight?
Virgo pulled his laptop from its case, opened it up and checked Radcliffe's disk again. It was blank – unformatted, it seemed. Same as it was an hour ago when he'd checked it in the cab on the way to the airport. Same as it was two hours before that, when he'd checked it at the hotel. What did he expect?
That thing with Radcliffe bothered him. Virgo had asked a question from the floor towards the end of the last session, introducing himself as a reporter from the London Herald. A moment after he'd sat down, some guy was tapping him on the shoulder, asking him to step outside. He had 'something a good reporter would be interested in,' he said.
It was an envelope containing a CD. An optical disk and a business card – Paul Radcliffe, Department of Physics, University of Maryland, a couple of phone numbers and an email address. That was it. By the time Virgo looked up again, Radcliffe had walked off towards the elevators and disappeared. All he had said was to call him on his mobile phone in a couple of days.
And the disk was blank. Was it just a mistake? A North American format? As far as he knew, there was no such thing.
Virgo sighed, and looked up at the airport screens. How come these places were so much less crowded, so much less frenetic, here in the US? Heathrow would have been heaving with people, each one of them making a second tick past faster than the one before. People were his lifeblood: watching them, talking to them, interpreting them – that was what had made his reputation as a journalist. That was what had persuaded the Herald to give him the investigative reporter's job.
Understanding the strangeness, the vagaries of people – knowing the lengths they will go to given the right provocations – had put him onto award-winning stories. And now here was another enigma in human form: Paul Radcliffe. Was this a story? Was the disk a message? Or did he just want to make Virgo curious enough to call him later? Maybe there was a better time and place for them to talk.
Well, it would have to wait now. Virgo knew himself too well: make that call from London tomorrow morning and it could be a disaster. If he smelled a story it would either stop him getting on the plane to Cuba or taunt him through the holiday. Every grain of white sand would scream out for answers. This time, for the first time in years, he was going to walk away from work without looking back. Rachel and Katie had put up with a lot, and pretty much without complaint.
Now, he was going to put them first.
CHAPTER 4
'HELLO, STRANGER.'
Rachel threw her arms around him. They kissed – their airport reunion kiss: passion with just a little bit of propriety. A suitcase barged into them, and they stumbled apart.
Somehow, each time he went away, Rachel always managed to look more beautiful when he came back. She would have got up at 6.00 to make sure she was there when he emerged at the Heathrow arrivals gate. And still she took his breath away.
'Hello, gorgeous.'
'I'm so glad you're back,' Rachel said. 'I missed you. Come on.'
They headed towards the parking, his wheelie case in tow. Heathrow was already bustling. In the five-minute walk from the plane, he'd passed hundreds of people heading in the other direction, and he'd been shuffling along with hundreds of people. The whole world had itchy feet: a habit it couldn't kick. What would happen if everyone just stood still for a while? What would the world be like if everyone agreed to stay home for twenty-four hours and deal with what they found there: would civilisation stumble and fall?
He had to lighten up a bit: the airline coffee, an attempt to come up from the Tylenol, had him wired.
'How's Katie?'
'Her tops are too tight.' Rachel turned towards him and did the cute shrug she'd done since they first met at university. 'She's the same teenager she was three days ago.'
'Well, that's a relief.'
He waved towards the crowds passing by. 'Where do all these people come from? Where are they going at this time of day?'
Rachel grinned at him. 'Wrong question. Why are so many of them wearing bermuda shorts? Am I missing something, or is it still November?'
He laughed. It was good to be back.
'So, Mr Science Reporter, was it as bad as you feared? The conference, I mean.'
'It wasn't exactly rock'n'roll. But it was OK.'
'Any big stories?'
He hesitated. Was Radcliffe going to be a big story?
'What?' Rachel looked at him, curious. 'Someone's pen leak into their white coat?'
He laughed again. 'No,' he said. 'No big stories.'
The house seemed to close in around him as he walked in from the early quiet of their street of Victorian terraces; it squeezed him and hugged him and surrounded him with the scents of family and home.
'I've got to get ready for work,' Rachel said. She paused at the bottom of the stairs and turned to smile at him. 'One day to go,' she said. 'It's going to be so fantastic.'
Katie appeared at the top of the stairs. Her long brown hair was dishevelled and her pyjamas were crumpled, but she was as perfect as he remembered.
'Yeah,' she said. 'At last, this family takes a holiday worth taking. Hello, Dad.'
'Hello, sweetheart. Come and give me a kiss.'
She wasn't wearing her prosthetic, and she hopped down the stairs on her right foot. The left leg of her pyjama trousers, empty below the knee, flapped at each jump. Watching her come towards him, Virgo told himself, as he had done every day for two years now, that he would get used to it. Just give it time, like Rachel always said.
He closed his arms around her. She smelled like she always did. No matter what state she was in, even when she'd come home half-drunk and reeking of cigarettes from her friend Sarah's house party last month, she smelled like his baby, the baby they'd brought home from the hospital fifteen years ago. Would she still smell like that when she grew up and moved out of home, out of his reach?
Katie wriggled, already trying to get free. With a wrench of his heart, he opened his arms and let her go.
'Do you want a cup of tea, Dad?'
'That's very kind, thank you.'
She grinned at him. 'Make me one too, would you?' The grin broadened. 'And then bring it upstairs? I'm going back to bed.'
He watched Katie work her way back up towards her room. Making a cup of tea was the very least he would do for her.
It was late morning by the time he got to the office. The atrium was awash with light, despite the threat of rain. Hundreds of feet above him, the roof glass framed the pigeon-grey clouds as they dragged their burden over central London. As he waited for the lift that would take him up to the Herald's fifth-floor offices, Virgo gazed out at the street.
The lunchtime queue was already spilling out from Angelo's: a line of spiked haircuts and designer jeans; low and baggy on the men, figure-hugging sculptures on the women. These were the worker bees of London's media: runners from TV production companies, junior editors on the glossy magazines, copywriters at the trendiest ad agencies. Most of them stared at nothing as they waited, pretending they were alone in the universe. The motorcycle couriers, ready to run pictures and pages around the city, were ranged along the parking bay outside the glass, watching them without interest. The couriers were used to waiting outside; they were dressed for it, paid to wait, eat and mumble to each other under the sky, whatever it might loose on them. The precious office space of the capital was not for their shelter.
A squat brown cardboard crate sat waiting on his desk. Someone had piled all his awards into it and dumped the box here. There was a reason he'd left them over in the news room – he didn't want his reputation to fade, just because he was taking a break from the heat. But that was journalism: awards tarnish, and you were only ever as good as your last story. He just hoped he could make the science desk work.
Virgo slumped into his chair. Of course he could, he told himself: he'd done plenty of science stories when they needed someone to fill in. Though he had always tried to escape his past – a first degree and a PhD in physics – by going into journalism, every editor he had ever worked for dragged it up again. Everyone was always impressed at his qualifications – much more impressed than they should be, Virgo always thought – and assumed he'd willingly turn his hand to the science beat at any opportunity.
Nothing could be further from the truth. He had become addicted to the heart-thumping moment when a hint is dropped and a hunt is about to begin. He craved the excitement of chasing down a story that doesn't want to be found, and science rarely gave him that. The slow pace of scientific research had led him out of the lab, and the same slow pace had led him away from writing about it. Corporate scandal, ruthless political manoeuvring: that was his passion. Science couldn't come close.
And his email inbox proved it. It was flooded with news releases and other hand-out story tips. Their banality took his breath away. He would have to develop a whole new swathe of contacts if he was to do science reporting he could be proud of. His mind switched back, just for a moment, to Paul Radcliffe. He had one interesting contact now, at least.
A shadow looming over his desk distracted his thoughts.
'Did you miss me?'
Imogen Hennessey leaned her elbows on the grey partition that screened Virgo's desk from the walkway.
Virgo smiled up at her. 'I thought about you every day. Every hour. Every minute I spent in that conference, I cursed your name.'
'Oh, that's not nice.'
He watched as Imogen folded her arms over the partition, then placed her chin on top of them. Her skin was milky caramel, her eyes deep and opaque. Her lips parte
d in an irresistible smile.
'I didn't meet your guy,' Virgo said. 'David, is it? The NSA man. Does he go to things at that level?'
'Maybe. We don't talk about stuff like that. He gives me great story leads, and I write them up.' She paused, then grinned again. 'I'm like the unofficial spokeswoman for the US National Security Agency. And then you're sent to pick up the crumbs. Have you been in to see Charles yet?'
'Not yet.'
'He's looking forward to your work. This is the first phase, he says. The new, intelligent tabloid is in the throes of birth.' She paused. 'I quote, obviously.'
'So you get to write about ridiculous science fiction, and I have to follow up and make it sound plausible?'
'It is plausible. Didn't you get that from the conference?'
He shrugged.
'Hey, you're the one who asked for the science beat when the job came up.' She grinned again. Her smile was dangerous, could move mountains. No wonder she got such great stories. He watched her walk back to her desk. As she sat down, she turned and flashed a smile at him, then picked up her phone's receiver. Almost immediately, his phone buzzed. He picked up, and glanced across at her again.
'I still blame you for three days lost from my life, you know,' he said into the mouthpiece.
'Is that any way to talk to your editor?' The gruff response made Virgo ricochet upright in his chair.
'Charles? I didn't –'
Charles Mercer cut in before Virgo could finish the apology. 'You'd better come over, Nat. There are some people here looking for you.'
CHAPTER 5
VIRGO WAS STILL FIFTY steps from his editor's office when he saw them. Two men, standing in front of the double doors leading out to the lift lobby. They seemed to be assessing the layout, glancing in all directions. Charles Mercer hurried out of his office.
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