Vortex cr-4

by Chris Ryan

  The man's eyes narrowed. 'How—?' he started to say, but the commanding officer interrupted him.

  'Quiet, all of you.' He pointed at Joseph, Ben and Annie. 'You three, inside.'

  Ben gave the soldiers a disparaging look, and they were hustled through the door, which was closed and locked behind them.

  'This isn't right,' Annie let out explosively as soon as they were alone. 'They're up to something. They'd never—'

  'I know,' interrupted Ben sharply. And then, more soothingly, 'I know.'

  Annie breathed in deeply. 'You sure that was him — the one who shot the hen harrier?'

  'Positive,' Ben replied. 'Absolutely positive.'

  The shack was dark, the only source of light being a small window in the side that was covered in a thick layer of greasy dust. Joseph stood at the window, looking out emotionlessly. He did not seem even remotely bothered by the bruising on his face — it was as though he didn't even feel it. 'Joseph,' Ben said, trying to get his attention.

  The old man continued to stare out of the window.

  'Joseph,' Ben repeated. 'You have to listen to me. Do you remember when we spoke last night?'

  Slowly Joseph turned to look at him.

  'You told me it was obvious why someone had been shooting birds round here. It's to keep us away, isn't it? People like us, I mean. There's something going on here and they don't want anyone snooping around.'

  Joseph smiled at him, revealing his yellowing teeth. 'Well done, Ben,' he said quietly. 'It's good to see young minds working properly.' He turned to look back out of the window again. 'Wildlife was always a problem for them, even in the old days. Brought people to the area, you see. People like you. And the last thing they ever wanted was inquisitive minds lurking around, so they tried to keep the numbers of the rare animals down.'

  'That cellar,' Annie asked. 'What is it? You said you'd been looking for it. Why? Have you been there before?'

  'Oh, yes,' Joseph replied, his voice little more than a whisper. 'I've been there before. Many, many years ago. That was where it all started for me. Or should I say, where it all ended.'

  'What ended?'

  Joseph turned back to look at her.

  'My life,' he said.

  Ben felt a chill descend. A million questions poured into his head — there was so much more to this strange old man than he had previously thought — and he barely knew where to begin. But he didn't even get a chance, because at that moment he heard the door open.

  All three of them spun round nervously to see who was there.

  The man who filled the doorway was not dressed in combat fatigues; instead he wore a thin brown suit and a black tie. He was old, at least as old as Joseph — indeed he did not look dissimilar. His hair was balding, he had round glasses and a short, neatly trimmed grey beard and his skin was deeply lined. Under his eyes were huge black bags that would have looked odd on any other face, but somehow, Ben thought, suited the funereal features of this stern-looking individual.

  'Let us out of here!' he heard Annie demand.

  But the man merely flicked his hand in Annie's direction, as though swatting a fly. Instead, all his attention was focused on Joseph.

  And Joseph stared back. There were a thousand unsaid things in that one stare, and it lasted for a long, long time.

  The man took a step back and then turned to the soldier standing next to him. 'Take them over to the lab complex,' he said quietly. 'I'll head over there first while I decide what to do.' The soldier nodded, and shut the door, locking it behind him.

  In the shack all was quiet. Joseph was still staring at the door as if he hadn't even noticed that it had been closed. For a full minute he stood there while Ben and Annie watched and then, almost imperceptibly at first but with gradually increasing vigour, he started to tremble. 'Still here,' he muttered under his breath. 'Still here.' He shook his head and started to look out of the window yet again.

  A rushing urgency filled Ben. Who was the man? Had Joseph recognized him? Could he shed some sort of light on what was going on here? For all his need to understand, however, he sensed that now, of all times, Joseph had to be dealt with sensitively. He could tell Annie felt the same — she was staring at the old man with wide eyes of sympathy.

  Ben approached Joseph and stood next to him. 'Are you all right, Joseph?' he asked.

  'Still here,' he muttered again. 'I'd never have thought that he'd still be here.'

  Ben swallowed nervously. 'Do you know him, Joseph?'

  The old man turned to look imperiously down at him, and for the first time Ben became aware of just how tall he was. 'Of course I know him, lad,' Joseph replied in a whisper.

  His eyes flicked towards the door once more, then back to Ben.

  'Of course I know him. His name is Doctor Lucian Sinclair. He's my brother.'

  Chapter Eleven

  As Joseph spoke, the door opened again. The flight lieutenant walked in, gun at the ready, followed by two of his colleagues. They each carried rough strips of cloth that looked as if they had just been hurriedly ripped from one of the soldier's articles of clothing.

  'Blindfold them,' the flight lieutenant said.

  'Don't you dare,' Annie started to say with fire in her voice. 'Give me my rucksack. I want my phone — I demand to make a phone call.'

  'Shut up,' the flight lieutenant growled, just as Ben felt himself being grabbed by one of the soldiers. He struggled, kicking his heel hard into the man's shin. His captor shouted out, but didn't let go. With his hands restrained by the cuffs and the fact that the RAF man was too strong for him, Ben soon had the rough cloth firmly tied around his eyes. As the blackness engulfed him, he sensed Annie scuffling ineffectually; Joseph, however, seemed to accept what was happening and was blindfolded without complaint.

  Once the blindfolds had been applied, Ben was hustled out of the shack and felt himself being pushed up into the truck yet again. The doors slammed shut and the vehicle started to move. It was difficult to tell in the darkness who else was in the truck with them, but he could only assume that the same three soldiers who had accompanied them before were there, so he knew he could not discuss escape plans or other theories in front of them. And so the trio kept quiet, disorientated by the blindfolds and the constant bumping of the truck over difficult roads. Before long it became clear to Ben that even if they managed to get away, it wouldn't make any difference: they would be totally lost.

  All sense of time seemed to be confused, so Ben had no idea how long they drove for. Finally, however, they came to an abrupt stop and once more they were manhandled off the truck.

  'Get them down there,' the voice of the leader said curtly.

  Someone pushed Ben from behind. 'Hey,' he complained as he stumbled forward. The moment he spoke, however, he felt someone deal him a crushing blow in the stomach. He doubled over, winded, falling to the ground, where he felt his knees rustle in a patch of fallen leaves.

  'Get up,' someone told him, and he was pulled gasping to his feet before being dragged through another door. 'Steps,' his aggressive companion murmured to him, and sure enough Ben found himself walking down a flight of stairs. For some reason — he didn't know why — he found himself counting them. Fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, twenty-six — they were going some way underground. He found himself praying that they wouldn't see any more rats down here.

  'Where are you taking us?' he demanded; but he was not favoured with a reply. Just another push that forced him down a narrow corridor — his uneven gait meant he occasionally brushed against the wall on either side, and he could tell that those walls were closer together than made him entirely comfortable. The corridor seemed to wind round erratically; occasionally they would take a left or a right turn. Ben felt as though he was in some kind of fiendish underground maze, and he knew he had no chance of getting back to the entrance unless he had a great deal of luck.

  Abruptly they came to a stop. There was the sound of somebody knocking on a door, and then of the door openin
g. They were pushed inside. 'Johnson,' a quiet voice said, 'you stay here. The rest of you, leave us.' There was a shuffling of feet as the soldiers left the room.

  Silence. A thick, meaningful silence that seemed to stick to them. And then the quiet voice spoke again.

  'You really should have stayed away, Joseph.'

  Ben heard Joseph take a deep breath. When he spoke, it was with a clarity that might not have been expected of him. 'Stayed away, Lucian? I rather think you should not have sent me away in the first place.'

  'It was for your own good,' Lucian replied sharply.

  A pause. 'My own good?' Joseph asked him, his voice calm. 'Or yours?'

  Lucian breathed out with a heavy snort. 'I wouldn't expect you to understand. Science requires a clear mind — not something you were ever blessed with.'

  Ben waited for a response from Joseph, but there was none.

  When Lucian spoke again, his voice had calmed. 'How convenient,' he almost purred, 'that you should turn up now of all times.'

  Ben sensed him walking thoughtfully among the silent trio.

  'All I need to know, Joseph, is what you have heard and who you have heard it from.'

  'You're as mistaken as you ever were, Lucian,' Joseph said, his voice cracking a bit. 'I don't know what it is that you've got going on here, and frankly I don't care. I came to Spadeadam to reassure myself that I've not been deceiving myself these last fifty years. I've done that beyond question, so why don't you just let us all go?'

  Lucian seemed to contemplate that for a moment. 'You never were a good liar, Joseph,' he commented finally. 'Who are your two friends? They're a little young for heroics, aren't they? It was stupid of you to bring them.'

  'He didn't!' Ben interrupted defiantly. 'We came here by ourselves.'

  He had barely finished speaking when he felt a hand at his face. With a sudden yank, the blindfold was ripped roughly from around his head, and Ben was face to face with Joseph's brother, able to look at him properly. He still wore the same thin brown suit as when they had first seen him, but it was his bespectacled face that interested Ben. Now he knew that Lucian and Joseph were brothers, he could see the resemblance. There was not the same hooked nose or floppy hair, but something around the mouth was similar, as were the eyes — now half closed in an expression of the deepest mistrust. 'You must think I'm stupid, you idiot child,' he hissed. 'But let me tell you this. I've been working on Vortex for nearly as long as you've been alive, and if you think I'm going to let you three interfere with it now, then you've got another think coming. It will be delivered tomorrow, there will be no trace of its development here and the few of us who know about it will be on a plane out of the country with enough money to fade into obscurity.'

  He strode up to Annie, removed her blindfold, and then did the same to Joseph. It was to his brother that he spoke next. 'History will not remember the name of the person who bestowed this gift upon it,' he said, 'but that does not matter. I am willing to sacrifice my own fame for the greater good.'

  Joseph looked flatly at him. 'For the greater good, Lucian? It strikes me that I've heard you say that once before, a long time ago.'

  Lucian's lip curled. 'You never did understand, Joseph.' He turned to the flight lieutenant. 'We need to keep them out of the way until tomorrow and make sure that none of our colleagues' — he spoke the word with a certain amount of distaste — 'above ground start asking questions about them. You're sure we picked them up before their presence was noticed? And no one saw you move them in or out of the truck earlier?'

  'We're sure,' Johnson replied.

  'Good,' Lucian replied. He turned to look back at the trio. 'Flight Lieutenant Johnson will accompany you to a secure unit while I decide exactly what to do with you.' He stared directly at Joseph. 'Take a good look at my face, brother,' he said quietly. 'It's the last time you'll ever see it.'

  Joseph stared back at him, gazing into his brother's eyes, his own face unreadable. 'Shall we go, Flight Lieutenant?' he asked gently. He did not see Lucian nod his approval, because he was resolutely looking the other way.

  Lieutenant Colonel Oleg Kasparov of the Russian army watched the sun setting over the Spadeadam marshland. The insects had descended in force as dusk arrived, and a bite on his left hand irritated him, but he neither scratched it nor complained. Beside him in the back of the car was his host for the duration of his visit, a pleasant and enthusiastic wing commander by the name of Stevens who had no idea that Kasparov's official visit to Spadeadam was nothing more than a front for some very un official business. And now that his two aides had been dismissed, he could get on with that business.

  'It's great to have you here, Lieutenant Colonel,' he was saying politely. 'Good to be able to show you guys round what we do here after so many years of cold war.'

  Kasparov nodded abruptly. 'The Russian army is grateful to you for your hospitality.' He did his best to hide a rare smile. This enthusiastic British officer could never guess that the gratitude of the Russian military was the furthest thing from his mind. He had a new paymaster now, and an ulterior motive for being at the RAF base at that time. If he made sure everything ran smoothly, the Russian oligarch from whom he now took his orders would make him rich — rich enough to leave the army and never work again.

  The car pulled to a halt outside a row of modern brick buildings. 'These will be your lodgings,' Stevens said as the driver walked round and opened the door for Kasparov. 'I trust you'll find them comfortable.'

  'I'm sure I will,' Kasparov replied, shaking Stevens's outstretched hand, then hauling his large-framed body out of the car and picking up the bag that the driver had fetched from the boot. 'Until tomorrow morning, Wing Commander.'

  'Tomorrow morning,' Stevens replied, and the car drove off.

  Kasparov walked up to the door of his lodgings and stepped inside. He barely noticed the clean, comfortable surroundings; he simply dropped the bag in the hallway and pulled his mobile phone from the pocket of his military jacket, then dialled the number he had been given.

  'It is Kasparov,' he said curtly when his call was answered. 'I am ready to be collected.' He flicked the phone shut and walked into the front room.

  It was dark in there, but he didn't bother to switch the light on. Instead he stood at the window and looked out over the wide expanse of countryside ahead of him, silently contemplating what he had to do. A group of renegade North Korean politicians were furious that their leader appeared to be losing his ambition for military supremacy. They had won his boss's little auction for the weapon this scientist had been developing without the knowledge of his RAF employers. It was Kasparov's job to check that everything was as it should be before the Vortex device was finally delivered. Once that happened, he could return to Russia, resign his commission and head straight to the little dacha in the countryside where he could allow himself time to decide how to spend his life and his money.

  Gradually he became aware of headlamps in the distance. They grew hypnotically closer as Kasparov watched them impassively. Only when they were really quite near did he move. He walked out of the front door and waited for the car to stop.

  When it did, another RAF soldier stepped out of it.

  'Lieutenant Colonel Kasparov?'

  'Flight Lieutenant Johnson?'

  Johnson nodded. 'You have a coat?'

  Kasparov shook his head. 'I am used to the Russian winter,' he said scornfully. 'I will not need a coat.'

  Johnson shrugged. 'Whatever,' he said. 'Shall we go?'

  'Yes,' Kasparov replied. 'We shall. I wish to see the Vortex device as soon as possible. Take me there now.'

  And without a further word, he stepped into the back of the car, waiting impatiently for Flight Lieutenant Johnson to do as he had instructed.

  Chapter Twelve

  Chin-Hwa slept. As he slept, he dreamed. And as he dreamed, he saw terrible things.

  He saw the cities of the world, their streets full of panicked people. He saw the fear in their faces,
and the chaos all around them. He saw lines of hospital beds, their occupants thin and gaunt — the unmistakable look of the dying. He saw burning fireballs in the air, and heard the screams of the aeroplane passengers as they fell to earth, and to their death. He saw nuclear missiles flying undetected towards the West, and he wondered whether their arrival might not be a blessed release to the people they were sent to destroy.

  And he saw Vortex. Small. Silent. Lethal. It did not care whom it affected: men or women, adults or children — everyone's life would be destroyed.

  He shouted out in his sleep and awoke sweating. It took him a moment to realize that his dream had not been real, but in a way that was small comfort. It could be only too real, and very soon. And Chin-Hwa would have to take his share of the blame.

  The meeting he'd had with the government men kept playing around in his head. London, New York, Los Angeles, Madrid. He never expected things to get this far. Vortex was just a deterrent. It was meant to keep the peace and stop the West from invading his country. No one ever intended to actually use it — at least that was what he'd been told. He was just being ordered to copy it. If he didn't do it, someone else would.

  But as he dressed and stomped around his sparse apartment, he imagined more of the devastation the weapon could inflict on those major cities. He imagined the chaos. He imagined the death, the destruction. He told himself that it was not his fault. This would have gone ahead without him. And if he hadn't complied — his eyes flicked over to the door of the bedroom in which his mother now slept, even though it was the middle of the day. She spent more and more time in bed now; but he knew the fact that she was frail would not stop the government stooges from carrying out their threat. He was doing the right thing, he told himself, in keeping his knowledge to himself.

  But what would she say? What would she say if he told her about Vortex and the terrible things it could do? And that thought led his eyes to fall upon a picture of his father. Ki-Woon had been a good man. Honest. Principled. Willing to die for what he believed in. He had told Chin-Hwa to look after his mother, but hadn't he himself followed his conscience all those years ago?