“Still being assessed.”
The man stared at Doc from under his bushy grey eyebrows. His eyes were small and blue and glittered with intelligence. “Something has to be done about this.”
“That’s why we’ve come to you.”
“Right,” said Lassen, rising decisively from the remains of his breakfast. He pushed the table back, screeching across the tiles of the floor, to allow his bulk to escape. Doc scooted back as the table shifted towards him. Sir Fred paused to wipe his hands on a brightly coloured length of cloth hanging on the back of chair, which looked to Doc suspiciously like a woman’s expensive scarf and, now free of jam stains, Fred headed through a large oak door into the next room.
Doc followed him.
And stopped in surprise.
While he’d been chatting with Lassen in the kitchen he’d gained the impression that the two of them were alone in the house. But now he was standing in a large room which judging by the walls, lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, was a library. And there were eight people in it, five young women and three young men, all busy leafing through books or peering into screens on computer terminals. Doc couldn’t help noticing that the girls were all rather good looking.
They were casually dressed, mostly in jeans and rustic sweaters, seated either side of a long wooden table. All seemed busy. None looked up at Lassen and Doc as they came in.
Lassen stared at them for a moment and then cleared his throat. Nothing. He cleared it again, this time lending it some of the volume of the bellow that had given the duck its marching orders. Now one of the girls looked up from her computer screen. “What is it, Fred?”
“Right,” said Lassen, clapping his hands. “Thank you, Antoinette. Everybody listen up.”
The young people reluctantly stopped what they were doing and turned to look at him. “From this point on,” he said, “I want everyone to drop everything. All research, both on the computers and in the labs. And all recruitment activity. All campaign funding, communications, PR effort, I want it all to stop and I want everyone to concentrate on a single project…”
“These recent fires,” said Antoinette.
“The ones near Sydney and Tahoe,” said another girl.
“And in Cambridge and Milan,” said one of the boys.
“You knew about Milan?” said Sir Fred in surprise.
“And Baden-Württemberg,” concluded Antoinette. “And any other fires which break out with suspicious rapidity, burn with unprecedented ferocity, stop with unusual swiftness and have a curiously well-defined perimeter.”
Lassen considered this for a moment. “Hmm,” he said. “Well yes, that’s about it.”
“We’re already on it, Fred.”
“Well, tell the boys and the girls in the lab, too. Z5 will be sending us samples of ash from the fires.”
“They’re already on it, too, Fred,” said Antoinette. “And the ash is already here. Now if you’ll just let us get on with it…”
She turned back to her computer screen and the others all resumed their activities. Lassen turned and looked at Doc. He spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “Well, that’s me told,” he said.
*
Sir Fred showed Doc around the rest of the grounds. One of the largest outbuildings had been converted into a laboratory complex. Doc was very glad to have a chance to look at this, because it completely altered his view of Lassen and his operation. Due to the ramshackle appearance of the man and his house Doc had begun to have second thoughts about the whole idea of asking him for help.
But the laboratory put paid to any doubts or reservations that Doc might have entertained. On the outside it was a nondescript grey stone building with a thatched roof. “It used to be the priory’s dairy,” explained Lassen as he opened the scarred old wooden door. “But now we milk the goats in what used to be the coach house.” He gestured for Doc to come inside. Doc stepped through the door, and it was like stepping into another world.
The interior of the building had been completely gutted and refurbished with a full, working 21st century laboratory. The place was all glass and steel surfaces under brilliant lighting and was as clean and antiseptic as an operating theatre. In the front half of the building there were about a dozen people working, all of them young, all wearing jeans and tee shirts under their white lab coats. But they certainly looked like they knew what they were doing.
Lassen showed him the equipment and the people dedicated to fire cause evaluation, fire dynamics simulation, smoke dispersion and emission modelling, and fire pattern analysis. “We also deal with fire prediction modelling, soil heating modelling, landscape fire ecosystem dynamics and fire danger rating.” He waved a big hand to indicate the further wing of the lab, beyond a wall of smoked glass, where more staff were busy. “As you can see, we have the finest lab facilities, extensive computing resources and a state of the art burn chamber. Would you like to see the burn chamber?”
Doc politely declined.
Lassen shrugged. “You’re right. It’s not that special. In fact next year we will have rendered it obsolete when we’ve finished constructing our new burn hall, which will be the largest in Europe. It will have a 15MW oxygen calorimeter to measure combustion products.”
Doc nodded sagely.
Lassen concluded the tour by taking Doc back to the house, and into his study for a cup of tea. Sir Fred’s study was as jumbled and untidy as Doc would have expected, an obstacle course made up of books, journals and magazines piled on the floor between a green aluminium desk and a couple of battered armchairs. But in one respect it was very tidy and well organised. The walls to the right and the left as you entered the room had been kept scrupulously free of the usual Lassen clutter. Instead they were painted white and on the wall to the right there were several dozen photographs of varying sizes, all in matching black frames.
They were beautiful colour images of exotic animals and birds. The presence of kangaroos and koalas clearly signalled that the species were native to Australia. There were also possums, cockatoos, wombats, bats, snakes and many other creatures he didn’t even recognise.
It was a vibrant gathering of wildlife and made the room seem cheerful and densely populated. Lassen watched Doc as he studied the pictures. “You like them?” he said. Doc nodded.
“Those species were all living in the Kingslake area before the big fire hit on February 9th, 2009. Do you want to know what was left on February 10th?” Lassen pointed at the wall opposite.
This wall only had one photograph hanging on its entire blank white expanse. This one was also in a black frame, but it didn’t feature an animal. It was an image of a landscape, a desolate scene showing the blackened skeleton of trees standing on a slope of scorched grey earth.
“Nearly a million acres were destroyed,” said Lassen. “That was what really turned my head around, once and for all.”
*
Doc said his farewells to Sir Fred and went out to where he had parked his bike on the driveway under an apple tree. Doc had come up from town on his beloved twin-cylinder Ducati 1098 R. He was looking fondly at the bike and about to put his helmet on when his phone rang.
It was Benadir. Her voice was strained and tense.
“Doc, don’t come back,” she said.
“What?”
“Stay where you are,” said Benadir. “There’s a wall of fire around London.”
8: M25
There’s a wall of fire around London
Benadir’s warning hadn’t stopped Doc.
In fact it had spurred him on to race back to central London, where Benadir and Z5 waited for him. Where his work waited for him.
Doc had things to do, and he refused to be intimidated, fire or no fire. Now was the time for urgent action. He couldn’t afford to be paralysed by fear.
At least, these were the things he told himself as he ignored Benadir’s warning and climbed on his Ducati and started the bike. Any lingering doubts he had were smothered by the sound of th
e 180 horse power engine throbbing to life. As he sat down the vibration of the twin under-seat exhaust pipes was a further reassurance.
Benadir had said that the fire formed a barrier directly in line with his return to town. That was what had got her so spooked. She had described how the blaze had just broken out in the last few minutes, due south of Sir Fred’s estate, and spreading in a wide band. Neither of them had said as much, but it was almost as if someone didn’t want Doc to come back.
Doc revved the engine and felt his body tremble with the vibration of the powerful motor, as if he and the bike were a single entity. He felt sure that Benadir was over reacting. She was Z5’s London station chief and under most circumstances was an eminently cool headed and rational individual. But she and Doc were lovers and she had a blind spot where he was concerned.
In many ways Benadir and his mother were two sides of the same coin.
They both worried too much about his safety, although they manifested their concern in very different ways. Marion Palfrey’s instinct was to pull Doc out of the field if things looked to rough. Whereas Benadir’s approach was to go into dangerous situations at Doc’s side, with a gun in her hand.
But she couldn’t be at Doc’s side now, so she wanted him to stay put. To remain at Sir Fred’s eating scones with raspberry jam and goat cream, presumably, until the fire was under control.
Well, that wasn’t going to happen.
Doc switched off the comms on his helmet, so he wouldn’t have to listen to any scolding from Benadir, then he pulled away in a scattering of gravel and accelerated out of the front gate of the old priory. He was confident that the Ducati could get him out of any hairy situations he might encounter on his way back to town. His spirits lifted as the bike sped along. It was a perfect English autumn day. The sun was shining down on him and crisp clean country air streamed past his face. He rode past the Potters Bar Cricket Club, the throaty roar of the twin exhausts echoing off the fence. With every second he felt more certain that he’d made the right decision.
He wasn’t going to let these bastards intimidate him - whoever they were. Doc realised that he was already convinced that someone was behind these fires, some active human intelligence, and that they had a plan. An agenda. He just had to find out what it was.
And to do that he needed to be back at Digby Mews, Z5’s nerve centre in Notting Hill. Doc turned left into Mutton Lane, more boringly known as the B556 and gunned his engine, heading for the A1000 and then southwards towards London.
Yes, he’d definitely made the right decision.
Doc was confident about that all the way down the Barnet Road until he came to a solid mass of traffic that was backed up right from the M25. Since he was on a motorbike, Doc was able to weave his way carefully among the stalled cars and vans and lorries. Eventually he reached the orbital motorway, and that was when he realised the magnitude of his mistake.
Beyond the M25, rising into the sky, was a solid wall of flames.
*
“I told you not to try it,” said Benadir. She leaned over Doc and wiped his face with a damp cloth. He was covered, for the second time in two days, with oily smudges. Luckily that was all the damage that had been done to him as he had dodged and weaved along the back roads around the perimeter of the M25 until he’d finally found the edge of the curtain of fire, and a route that allowed him to go south.
It had taken him three hours.
Benadir sighed and rinsed the cloth in a bowl of clean water, then leaned back over Doc. It seemed to him that she was making a lot of fuss about nothing, but he felt bad that he’d ignored her warning, so he didn’t say anything. And, besides, it was quite nice to have a fuss made over him.
They were sitting on a sofa in the sitting room 5 Digby Mews, a Georgian town house that adjoined Elgin Garden. It was Doc’s London residence and it was also part of a complex of building which housed Z5’s London headquarters.
There was something quite sensual about the way Benadir was washing him. The damp warmth of the cloth, the trickling of it each time she returned it to the bowl of water, the almost ritual motions. Doc could tell that Benadir felt it too, from the heavy-lidded way she was looking into his eyes.
It was quite likely that they might have put the wash cloth aside and put that sofa to another use entirely - if Marion Palfrey hadn’t walked in at that moment.
Benadir moved quickly away from Doc, creating a wide space between them on the sofa and busied herself with the bowl and the cloth. It was ridiculously as if they were a couple of teenagers caught making out in the front room.
Marion gave Doc a cold, piercing look. “You’re in one piece, then?”
“I’m fine, Mother.”
“No thanks to yourself and your ridiculous behaviour. I understand Benadir specifically warned you against coming back while the fire was burning.”
“Look, I’m perfectly all right.”
Marion sat down heavily in an armchair opposite the sofa. “You may well be perfectly all right. But others are not. That fire is still burning. It is precisely following the contours of the M25 immediately north of London. Thank god it hasn’t spread- or been spread - onto the motorway itself. But nonetheless it has paralysed all traffic movement in the area for obvious reasons. The section of road between Stagg Hill and the Barnet Bypass is a no-go area. And immediately south of that a great block of land has been turned into an inferno.”
Doc knew all this. He had studied the map. Farm land, park land and a surprising number of golf courses had been utterly obliterated.
“The St Alban’s Road transformer station has been destroyed,” said Marion, “knocking out the power supply for a substantial area.”
“But luckily there’s been very little loss of life,” said Benadir. Considerable loss of putting greens, though, thought Doc.
“Luck has nothing to do with it,” said Marion Palfrey.
“You mean they deliberately chose an unpopulated area,” said Benadir. “As a kind of warning, or demonstration?”
“Yes.” Marion Palfrey’s face was grim. “Which is distressing in itself, the fact that they can target their burn zones so accurately.”
Benadir nodded. “It was almost like a barrier, to stop Doc getting back to us. As if someone was trying to send us a message.”
“They were trying to send us a message all right,” said Marion. “And the message was, look what we can do to unpopulated land. Just wait until we hit an urban centre.”
There was silence in the room for a moment. “Do you really think so?” said Benadir. “That they would escalate to that?”
“I think it’s the logical next move,” said Marion.
Doc cleared his throat. “There’s something you’re both missing.” The two women turned and looked at him, with a surprisingly identical expression. It wasn’t an entirely friendly expression, either. “And what is that?” said Benadir. A girl has her pride.
“If they knew enough to try and kill me in Cambridge -”
“Do you really think that was all about you?” sniffed his mother.
“Well, we’re assuming the M25 fire was all about me, aren’t we? So it seems natural to assume that my presence in Cambridge was some kind of trigger for what happened there. But in any case, the point I’m making -” Doc had to think for a moment to remember the point he was making. His mother had that kind of effect on him. “The point is, if they’re making counter moves against Z5, then they must know a great deal about us and our activities.”
“Clearly,” said Marion Palfrey.
“Obviously,” said Benadir.
“Which suggests that there might be some kind of leak, or that we’re under observation…” said Doc, his voice growing rather tentative under the gaze of these two formidable women.
“We’re already conducting an internal audit for just that reason,” said Benadir. ‘Audit’ was a euphemism for investigation.
“And we’ve assigned a special team for external surveillance,” sa
id Marion.
“What does that mean?” said Doc.
His mother sighed. “It means they’re outside Z5 looking in.”
“They’re watching to see if someone is watching us,” added Benadir, rather more helpfully.
Doc decided he had to regain some lost ground. He rubbed his hands together. “Well, there is one piece of good news,” he said cheerfully. “Sir Fred is on side. In fact, he’s keen to do anything he can to help.”
“Good,” said his mother. “If anyone can identify the cause of these fires, or find a way of combating them, it’s Lassen and his team. Did they have any useful suggestions so far?”
“Uh, no,” said Doc.
“Nothing at all?”
“No.”
“Well, if there’s nothing else,” said Marion, beginning to rise from her chair, “I have to prepare for a Cobra briefing at Downing Street. The Prime Minister will want to know what we can do about this situation and I don’t want to have to tell him ‘bugger all’.”
“Actually, there is something else,” said Benadir.
Marion Palfrey gave her a baleful look, but sat down again. “Yes?”
“We’re getting reports in from field agents all over the world about some kind of new fire-worshipping sect. We’ve been hearing about it for some time, but obviously we’re suddenly taking a closer interest in it. The sect takes various forms in various cultures, sometimes drawing on existing historical religious practise, at other times taking a New Age, self-actualising approach - fire walking and so on - but in all case it has the same basic tenets. The members of the sect believe they are being purified by the fire rituals and that they are learning the secrets of mind over matter.”
“Mind over matter,” said Marion Palfrey dryly. She glanced at her watch.
“Yes, Faustus and his people claim that they can create fires by psychic means.”
A small smile creased Marion’s face. “Do they? I see. And who exactly is Faustus?”
“Their leader. He’s a shadowy figure -”
Hard Targets: A Doc Palfrey Omnibus Page 12
