Cry Darkness

by Hilary Bonner

  ‘Oh well, as long as Jasper’s being well looked after, we don’t have a thing to worry about, do we?’ responded Jones, with a smile.

  They sat in the kitchen together, picking at fruit and crackers and cheese, chewing over yet again the events of the last few days and what it all meant. Jones had opened a bottle of wine.

  Being together was beginning to feel easy and natural again. Just as it had done all those years before.

  ‘You know, much as I want to get my hands on your USB, I just can’t stop thinking about Connie,’ said Jones. ‘Paul’s work, whatever it proves, won’t necessarily help protect Connie. Possibly just the opposite—’

  ‘Nor us either, we must still be in danger, whatever you say,’ interrupted Ed.

  ‘Yes, to some degree at least we must all be in danger,’ Jones admitted. ‘I suppose we could go to the authorities here, but the police would just be bewildered, I reckon, and I don’t know who else to trust—’

  ‘I’ve had an idea,’ Ed interrupted suddenly. ‘You’re a high-profile media figure. A celebrity. I saw that at the airport. Turn it to your advantage. Call a press conference. They’ll come. If only to question you about your new love interest.’

  Ed laughed briefly.

  ‘Look, if you put it all out there: our belief that RECAP was the target of the Princeton explosion; all that happened in New York; the hit on Marion; everything, in the public domain, then surely that could put Connie and us out of danger,’ he continued. ‘You’d create an international storm. If anything happened to any of the three of us it would look just too suspicious, wouldn’t it?’

  Jones stared at him in silence for a few seconds.

  ‘You could be right,’ she said eventually. ‘Why the heck didn’t I think of that?’

  Ed shrugged.

  ‘Not such a genius after all. Obviously.’

  ‘Obviously,’ repeated Jones.

  PART FIVE

  A human being is part of the whole, called by us Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a prison, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison.

  Albert Einstein

  EIGHTEEN

  The next morning Jones arrived at her Exeter University office just as her mail arrived. The package she was so eagerly awaiting was still not there. But she had decided the previous evening, that she would go ahead with a press conference without it. She couldn’t afford to wait. Lives were at stake. Including, possibly, her own.

  In any case, she reflected a little guiltily, regardless of that, it was about time she made a stand on behalf of RECAP.

  If there was anything at all she could do to help keep Connie Pike safe, and herself and Ed, she needed to get on with it. She had witnessed first-hand just how fast those who were out to get Connie could move.

  She picked up her desk phone and called Sally Brice. Sally had worked in admin at Exeter University for almost twenty years, and was something of a Jackie of all trades. One of her many jobs was to organize and, in as much as was ever possible, control any dealings the university and its staff had with the press. She had been doing it for years and was rather good at it.

  ‘I want you to be a little vague about the exact reason for calling this gathering,’ she told Sally in response to her obvious question. ‘But feel free to drop some loud hints. Have you seen the Mail?’

  ‘Yes I have,’ responded the cheery voice at the other end of the phone. ‘What did happen to your face, and who is the new man in your life?’

  ‘Exactly,’ responded Jones obliquely, not quite sure whether Sally was actually hoping for a proper response or merely repeating the headlines.

  The press call brought about a healthy response, as predicted by Ed. It was, reflected Sandy Jones, disconcerting to consider how much depended on her celebrity, a dubious commodity at the best of times.

  More than a dozen assorted journalists, both written and broadcasting, turned up. The tabloid representatives including reporters and photographers from the Daily Mail, the Mirror, and the Sun, were doubtless hoping for the opportunity to quiz Sandy Jones on her new love interest, and to acquire a posed snap of the happy couple.

  For once, Jones thanked God for the media attention she attracted.

  Sally had arranged for the conference to be held in one of the university meeting rooms. On the dot of three o’clock, and not a moment before, Jones made her entrance.

  ‘Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,’ she began, getting straight to the point. ‘My real reason for bringing you here today may come as something of a surprise. My facial injuries are the result of an attempt on my life in New York, which I believe to be part of a major conspiracy, a conspiracy which might well involve American government agencies at the highest level, and which will almost certainly have far-reaching international consequences.’

  There was a collective gasp in the room. Jones’s television work had taught her the value of a good intro. She was also aware of the importance of placing herself at the heart of the story, if she was to get the level of coverage she hoped for from the ever-insular British press.

  She looked around. She had them, and she knew it.

  ‘I am sure you all know about the fatal explosion at Princeton University last week,’ she went on. ‘The authorities have told us the target was the animal research department. But I have reason to believe that is not the truth, ladies and gentlemen, and that the truth is being deliberately covered up. The bomb was planted in the RECAP lab, that’s REsearch into Consciousness At Princeton, and I believe RECAP was the true target.

  ‘While studying for my doctorate at Princeton many years ago I became involved with the work of RECAP. My ties remain deep, and I went to America in order to personally investigate that explosion and its aftermath – an explosion I believe to have been deliberately targeted at destroying RECAP and those involved in this extraordinary ground-breaking project.’

  Jones paused. She was aware of a buzz around the room. She had spent most of the previous twenty-one years keeping very quiet about her involvement with RECAP, and her one-time closeness to Paul and Connie. To publicly align herself now with the project and its people, was in some ways as disconcerting to her as facing all the dangers she had encountered in America. Fleetingly she wondered if that was why the idea had not presented itself to her before Ed suggested it.

  Paul’s paper might change everything. Meanwhile Jones could imagine only too vividly the reaction she was now likely to provoke in academic circles, particularly at Oxford, the university which had just chosen her to be their next chancellor.

  ‘There is something else,’ she continued. ‘The psychologist Connie Pike, the RECAP lab manager allegedly killed in the blast, is in fact not dead. She survived, due to a freak chain of events, and has since also survived a second deliberate attempt on her life. This was the same incident in which another woman was grievously injured, and from which I only narrowly escaped.’

  Jones paused again. You could have heard a pin drop in the room. All eyes were riveted on her.

  ‘Connie Pike is currently in hiding,’ Jones continued. ‘She has told me that Professor Paul Ruders, the director of RECAP, who was killed, had recently made a sensational scientific discovery. Paul believed he was finally able to explain the secret of consciousness.’

  The journalists gathered in the meeting room were general news men and women, area staff mostly, but they were still quite obviously aware of the significance of what she was telling them.

  ‘Paul believed that he had solved the greatest single mystery of mankind’s very existence,’ Jones went on. ‘And Connie Pike and I both believe that is why he was murdered. I have decided to go public with that, and with my conviction that RECAP and all associated with it have been the target of a deadly conspir
acy, almost certainly executed by establishment figures quite probably in senior American government circles. My intention in telling you this, ladies and gentlemen, is that I hope to blow that conspiracy wide open.’

  For just a few seconds the deathly hush in the room remained unbroken. Then a kind of humming noise began, as the realization of the magnitude of Jones’s statement bounced from person to person, like a current of electricity whizzing along a row of pylons. The questions came thick and fast. Jones told no lies but withheld as much of the truth as suited her, giving only a very edited version of Ed’s involvement, and she allowed the assumption to be made that Paul Ruders’ work had either died with him or been stolen by those responsible for the Princeton explosion. She certainly didn’t mention the imminent arrival of Ed’s USB.

  Sandy Jones knew just how to present a story in order to make it irresistible. If she could do that with the theory of relativity, for God’s sake, then selling a tale of a deadly explosion, a fugitive scientist, a killer truck, a series of life-threatening events, and the possibility of a major conspiracy at US government level, was a piece of cake.

  Everybody wanted to know where they could find Connie. And Jones was glad that she was genuinely unable to tell them.

  ‘I’m sure Connie Pike will come forward now,’ she said. ‘The whole purpose of this news conference, of revealing all that I have today, is to make it safe for her to do so. And, indeed, also to ensure my safety, and the safety of Ed MacEntee.’

  Jones could tell from the way the gathered throng all took off at a run as soon as the press call was over, that it had been a success. She’d effectively dodged questions concerning her relationship with Ed, but, in any case, for once even the tabloid press present had allowed her dramatic revelations to overshadow their abiding fascination with the love lives of the well-known.

  She called Ed as soon as it was over and gave him a quick rundown, so that he would know what to expect. She then called her sons to provide them with a précised account of events, hopefully before they learned of it from the media, and to assure them that she was fine. She lied that she had exaggerated the danger a bit in order to be sure of blanket coverage, but she knew they weren’t convinced. Matt threatened a visit at the weekend to see for himself how she was, and Lee expressed outrage that she had taken off on such a crazy mission without even telling him or his twin. Jones ended up feeling rather more like the child than the parent.

  The calls from the specialist science correspondents on the various papers and broadcasting news services began minutes later. Soon afterwards came calls from crime correspondents and political editors.

  Two national newspaper editors of Jones’s acquaintance called her directly. She could tell they were almost as amazed by her embracing RECAP as they were by the rest of her revelations, including her allegations of an American government conspiracy concerning the Princeton explosion.

  She stayed in her office until almost seven in order to watch the main national news broadcasts on the BBC and ITV. To her delight, and a tad to her surprise too, her story was the lead item on both.

  She also channel-hopped on satellite and found it featured prominently on Sky News and CNN. That meant worldwide exposure. Most importantly, the allegations would soon be known all over America. The New Jersey State Police, the FBI, the whole of the American establishment including the doyens of science and academia, and every area of government, national and regional, would very soon be aware of the hornet’s nest Dr Sandy Jones had stirred up. They surely would not dare attack Connie, or her and Ed, now.

  Ed’s USB had still not turned up when Jones left for home. But she was in considerably better spirits than she had been since she first heard of the Princeton explosion. However, her mood changed again, when, just as she was stepping out of the building, she received a phone call from Oxford University, postponing her dinner appointment the following week. Jones had actually half-forgotten about it, and in any case would be unlikely to attend – certainly if she had that USB in her hands by then. Nonetheless the significance of the postponement was not lost on her. She had no doubt at all that her endorsement of RECAP was the real reason. The Vice Chancellor was probably playing for time, giving himself and his cohorts opportunity to discuss and perhaps even reconsider Jones’s appointment as Chancellor. Jones didn’t think that the decision of the Convocation – the body of Oxford MAs and MScs who had cast their votes in the traditional election process – could be overturned. But she wasn’t sure. She cursed under her breath, as she hurried to her car, but still remembered to smile for the assorted press gathered in the car park.

  More press were outside the gates of Northdown, as she had rather expected, some of them, no doubt, still interested primarily in the possibility of a picture of her with Ed, but most of them now with bigger fish to fry. The narrow approach lane was lined by a string of assorted vehicles. Cameras flashed.

  Jones had no further interest in them. She was looking forward to a bath and another evening with Ed, whose company she was beginning to enjoy so much more than she might have expected.

  There was nothing else she could do now. Not until that USB arrived.

  The anonymous looking man sitting alone in a vehicle parked just a small distance further back from the others, made no attempt to leave his equally anonymous silver grey saloon car as Jones drove by. Instead he merely watched the performance of the rest of those gathered there, some of whom actually ran after Jones’s Lexus, stopping only when the big electric gates closed in their faces.

  There was a camera on the passenger seat next to the anonymous man, but he didn’t even pick it up. Instead he waited until Jones had disappeared into the grounds of Northdown House, before finally climbing out of his car, and walking around to the rear to remove from the boot a small leather case which he opened rather furtively, glancing from side to side to ensure no one was nearby. He seemed to be checking the contents of the case, in which nestled a very sophisticated looking sniper rifle, its stock and barrel in two separate sections, a silencer, and a box of ammunition.

  He turned to study the press corps again, most of whom were now grouped together by the electric gates, looking as if they were discussing what to do next. Nobody was taking any notice whatsoever of the anonymous man. With one hand he smoothed down his already smooth mousey brown hair. With the other he turned up the collar of his raincoat, a garment, almost exactly the same shade of brown as his hair, which was perhaps not entirely necessary on a dry and relatively warm September evening. Then he removed the rifle parts from the case, and with practised ease, quickly assembled and loaded the weapon.

  He replaced the case in the boot, slid the rifle beneath his raincoat, holding it close to his body beneath one arm, and began to walk casually towards a wooded area just to the right of the gates.

  He went straight to a spot from which he had a particularly good view of the house, even though he was then quite well concealed by trees and shrubs. Anyone watching might have assumed he knew exactly where he was going, and that he had already checked out the vantage point. But there was nobody watching.

  The light was fading fast. It was very nearly dark. The anonymous man liked that. Darkness surrounding illuminated windows. Silhouettes standing out clearly against brightly-lit backdrops. Even in properties where windows were hung with heavy curtaining, there were almost always moments of vulnerability at dusk. Moments when lights were switched on before the curtains were drawn.

  Lights were being switched on now upstairs in the house. And he could already see a shadow moving around in what he knew to be Jones’s bedroom. The shadow moved beneath the room’s bright central light. It was her.

  He grunted in satisfaction. His was the simplest of plans. And it was extraordinary how often such a plan could circumnavigate the most advanced of security systems. There was no need to even attempt to breach the well-protected perimeters of Northdown. The anonymous man was an expert at what he did. Swift and accurate. And he liked to atta
ck from without.

  The gathered press had unwittingly provided him with his cover. Sandy Jones had been wrong to think that a press presence would give additional protection to her and Ed, not when a would-be assassin of this man’s calibre had been deployed. Depending on how quickly the waiting journalists became aware of the incident that would soon occur, they might yet also provide a displacement activity covering his escape from the scene.

  The anonymous man lifted the rifle to his shoulder and took aim.

  Meanwhile in New York, in a tall thin Brooklyn brownstone, Dom was trying not to nod off in an armchair while Connie slept surprisingly soundly on a bed in the same room. Sheer exhaustion had finally caught up with both of them.

  The big man hadn’t slept properly for a long time either. Gaynor had given him a full account of the Wall Street fracas, and that had made Dom all the more nervous and on edge. He no longer left Connie’s side for a minute. Even when she used the bathroom he stood outside the door.

  When she’d popped in with provisions earlier, Gaynor had offered to take her turn looking after Connie, but Dom had refused, sending her off back to work, telling her this was his problem and he’d sort it. The truth of course was, that, even though she was a cop, and she was smart and she was tough, Dom now wanted to involve Gaynor as little as possible. At best the incident in the financial district could destroy her career. At worst she could also now be targeted. Indeed, she may already have been targeted. They neither knew the identity of the mystery gunman nor his intent. Dom didn’t want Gaynor put in any more danger.

  The big man yawned deep and long. It was the middle of the day in New York, but that made no difference. Dom’s eyelids felt like they were made of lead. They weighed more than he could bear. He just couldn’t stop them closing.

  He was snoring gently when the Enforcer and his Apprentice arrived, their mission having been assigned to them by Mr Johnson and various of his associates.