The Whisper of Stars

by Nick Jones

  He thought back to a challenge he had once given his students, something he called ‘Gap Assembly.’

  On that occasion, the brief had been to ‘assemble’ detailed plans for the recently built Stadium of Light in Copenhagen. It had been constructed to celebrate the 2076 Olympic Games and was a terrorist target from bid through to completion. Each plan, document, blueprint, quote and signature had been logged, encrypted and securely stored.

  The claim, at the time, had been that all data connected to the project was impossible to hack. A few years later, his team – albeit in complete and glorious secrecy – had proven them wrong.

  He likened it to an artist he had seen once. The man had created an artwork on a huge canvas using the tiniest of dots. Stand close and you could see the technique, the individual presses of a pen, but take a step back and a landscape appeared, an illusion rich with depth and texture.

  Assembly was similar; it involved the gathering of tiny packets of information. For every secure document, there was always a trail, something that wasn’t secure, a sketch, a proposal, a tweak to a piece of construction. Each piece of data formed a picture that made sense as a whole, the gaps often a case of simple guesswork. Nathan hoped the blueprint for the vault would reveal itself in the same way: an architectural drawing bought together using skill, technique and old-fashioned gut instinct.

  The cursor on his screen winked, taunting him to start.

  He got to work, deciding to hit a multitude of possible sources but spread it out over the next few days. Within hours he saw two files connecting and smiled.

  The assembly was underway, dot by dot.

  Chapter 39

  Zitagi stood outside the office and calmed her breathing.

  Summoned.

  She had sped across town meticulously preparing her answers, her mind trawling the facts. Nothing happened without reason; each singular act was connected to another, even if sometimes it was hard to see. Logan had been to Owen Powell’s house. That meant she had made the connection between Baden and the Histeridae. She was better than Zido had expected, a worthy opponent. She checked her dress and shoes and knocked confidently three times.

  ‘Come,’ his voice bellowed from inside.

  In a world of buzzers, passes and security systems, Victor Reyland was a man who liked to keep things simple, old-fashioned even.

  She entered his office, a large corner suite with high ceilings and huge windows spanning the length of two walls. The hum of the air conditioning fought to maintain the low temperature he seemed to prefer. Reyland stood looking out over the city. He was a tall man and at seventy-two considered to be middle-aged, which was laughable. He was fitter than most fifty-year-olds. His rank no longer had a title within the agency, and like any good leader, if you stepped out of line he wouldn’t correct you. You would do that yourself.

  ‘Zido, it’s good to see you.’ His voice was warm but he didn’t turn to greet her. She joined him by the window, her mouth dry.

  ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ he said, not moving an inch.

  She looked out and studied the huge buildings towering almost a kilometre high. Airships and transporters blinked across the late afternoon sky. Beauty wasn’t something Zido could appreciate easily. It felt like weakness.

  ‘It is, Sir,’ she answered obediently. ‘Very.’

  She could feel that something was wrong, a hairline crack of doubt within him, and knew how important it was to fix that before it grew into something that couldn’t be repaired.

  He continued to stare out of the window. ‘When we bury a problem, we don’t expect it to come back and haunt us. And if it does, we control it.’

  ‘I will get it back,’ she said confidently.

  He turned looked at her. ‘I don’t doubt that.’

  Zitagi hid the surge of relief that washed over her. Reyland walked over to a small chrome table and invited her to sit. She obliged and Reyland stared at her, his eyes unblinking, paused in time. He waited for her to swallow and then poured a glass of water.

  ‘You are still confident of retrieving it?’ he said, handing her the glass.

  She nodded. ‘Yes, Sir, I am. Absolutely.’

  ‘Good.’ He paused, eyes like liquid steel. ‘Tell me about Logan. What’s her next move?’

  Zido needed to reassure him, and quickly. ‘She’s working alone but she’ll want to make connections. She will need to. The next time she surfaces we will be ready.’

  He smiled a little. ‘Ah, yes. Your little experiment.’

  ‘We are close, Sir. A few more days and we will have a way of blocking the Histeridae –’

  ‘Callaghan, the chase, the guards and now McArthur. It’s a trail, Zido,’ he said. ‘You know how these things can unravel.’

  ‘I assure you, I will find her and this will all be over. Soon.’

  He leant forward, smile gone, his expression like stone. ‘I’m getting heat from upstairs. I know you can handle this, but they want to team you with Phillips, turn things up a notch.’

  Zitagi nodded and cleared her throat, unsure she had heard him correctly.

  ‘Phillips?’ she said calmly.

  That fucking idiot. Over my dead body.

  Something buzzed, Reyland’s secretary reminding him for the third time he was late for an appointment. They stood.

  ‘Don’t worry about Phillips,’ Reyland said, grabbing his jacket. ‘I will stall them. Just don’t mess it up and keep me informed.’

  She nodded.

  Finally, just before he left the room, he added, ‘The body count. Keep it low.’

  Their meeting was over. Zitagi entered the executive elevator elegantly and with a calm demeanour, but by the time she reached the ground floor her anger was boiling.

  Jim. Fucking. McArthur.

  She blamed him for most of this mess. He had been weak, unable to make the tough decisions when it mattered. And now Phillips? That weaselly little shit had been snapping at her heels for years. The very fact they were even considering him made her seethe. The anger passed, as it always did, and by the evening her familiar cold clarity had returned. She knew what she needed to do. Reyland was putting his faith in her and she wasn’t about to let him down. When she pledged her life to the cause, she’d meant it, unlike some. Her remit was more important than anyone would ever know, and Jennifer Logan was not going to stand in the way of that.

  Zitagi would be ready, and this time she wouldn’t waste energy trying to capture her. This time she would kill her and take back the Histeridae. Murder. It was easier sometimes. And then, when that was done, she would ensure that nobody, especially Phillips, got close to her affairs again.

  Chapter 40

  Jen had never been good at staying in one place too long. Hiding at Thomas’s had been particularly difficult, the atmosphere a disconcerting blend of functional and distrustful. She had tried to explain to Nathan why she hadn’t told him about Lynch, why she met him alone, but he remained angry. As she watched him stuffing clothes and equipment into a hard-shell case, she realised what she had done was wrong. Whether she liked it or not, they were a team and she needed to be more open with him, needed to trust him. He was standing now, arms folded, studying the map that was opened up on the table. She joined him.

  ‘When I’m done, we meet here, on this road,’ she said, tapping the pickup point. ‘Just North of Kurumoch.’

  He nodded. ‘And then we hide and wait.’

  There was a pause, as if he were about to say something else. Instead he rolled the map roughly and continued packing. They had been over the plan a few times but decided not to torture themselves anymore. It was full of holes and unknowns that no amount of planning was going to fill or make right.

  They would travel separately. Jen would fly into Ufa Airport posing as a farm worker. Security at Ufa was an unknown, but workers were shipped out quickly and regularly to the various food production plants in the area. She would need to avoid detection, stay away from conventional r
outes and make her way north on foot, picking up a train on the trans-Siberian route to Samara. From Samara it was a ten-hour hike across the Zhiguli Mountains to drop straight down onto the target: the Shiryaevo Vault. The plan required improvisation at nearly every step. It was dangerous, but the only plan that offered a chance of remaining undetected – and also, importantly, the only plan that retained an element of surprise.

  For Nathan it was simple: take a commercial flight into Kurumoch International and find a hotel in the nearby town of Tolyatti. He had assembled basic floor layouts of the Vault, and once Jen was inside he would be able to guide her using close-range communication. She would enable him to hack from the inside.

  ‘You know we might not find anything, right?’ he said carefully.

  ‘We have the number of the server room and the code. We’ll find something.’

  Later that evening, bags were packed and there was nothing else to do but wait. Nathan pushed the remaining food around his plate. They hadn’t talked much during dinner.

  ‘What was it like?’ she asked, ‘leaving your life behind?’

  Nathan curled his lip and shrugged. ‘In the end I didn’t have much of a life to leave, I guess.’

  Jen cast her mind back. Was it really possible that only a month ago her life had seemed so on track? So full of purpose? He looked up at her, his right eye bloodshot, and it seemed again as though he might say something but then thought better of it. He frowned, looking tired.

  ‘We’ve got an early start,’ he said, scooping up the dishes suddenly. ‘We should get some sleep.’

  Nice going, Jen, she thought, and spent the rest of the evening wishing she hadn’t asked about before. She wasn’t good at talking, particularly not about matters of the heart. She took her time cleaning the apartment, convincing herself it was for Thomas’s eventual return and not to shake the feeling that the walls were closing in on her. In the end there was nothing left to do but sleep or wait.

  ‘Up at 4am,’ she said to Nathan, who was standing in the doorway.

  He nodded, the kitchen light bleaching his face. Jen sighed and turned to leave.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘I was happy once.’ He spoke quietly and with sadness. ‘I try not to think about that anymore.’

  Jen nodded gently. ‘I can understand that.’

  Nathan stepped towards her and she could see a determination within him. She’d seen it the night of the break-in, too, like a fire glowing under the surface.

  ‘I’m going to find out what happened to her,’ he said defiantly. ‘And we’re going to find out the truth, about Hibernation, about your father. All of it.’

  Jen realised, perhaps a little late, that he was attempting a motivational speech. She was shocked. Not by his attempt – that was actually pretty good. She was surprised by her apparent need to hear it.

  Sometimes maybe that’s all we need, she thought. Just one person to care, to try. Someone to believe in.

  Without warning, her mind was thrown back in time. She became lost for a moment, transported back to her childhood. She was maybe eight or nine and had been watching a family of tree sparrows build a nest for weeks, excited by the chance to see the birds hatch and eventually fly. A few days later she caught a large crow eating the eggs – that was a feeling that would never leave her. Nature at its most brutal, tiny birds that would never hatch, never get a chance at life.

  When she discovered one single egg had survived the attack, there had been no debate. It was her duty to give that single egg a fighting chance. She camped out all night in the garden, and as dawn was breaking, the morning dew soaking her blanket, she saw her mother walking from the house, lamp in hand. Jen expected to be gently reprimanded or marched off to bed, but was instead handed a mug of hot chocolate. Had a drink had ever tasted so good? Steaming and sweet, but more importantly full of love, a sign of support, of belief. Her body and heart had been warmed by her mother’s gesture of solidarity. Jen could still remember her triumphant cries when the crow returned to an empty nest. The bird had hatched, the crow defeated.

  The following day her mother had brought her a gift, a simple, inexpensive ring. She had said that it was for Jen’s determination, that even if you could only save one life, it was still worth it. Jen had worn it with pride until her finger grew too wide and could no longer take it.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Nathan asked, pulling her back into the present.

  ‘Yes,’ Jen replied, confused, still consumed by the power of past. ‘You bought back an old memory for some reason.’

  ‘Of what?’

  Jen stared past him, her eyes unfocussed, a frown spreading across her face. Nathan placed his hand on her shoulder. She looked up and shook her head, smiling limply.

  ‘I’m okay,’ she reassured him. ‘I’ll be happier when we’re moving.’

  ‘You and me both.’

  Later that night, in the privacy of her bedroom, she pulled a small pouch from her bag and tipped the small ring into her hand. It was way too small for her now and had been dulled black and purple over time. She threaded a thin bootlace through it and tied it securely around her neck. Sleep eluded her for a while and she lay there in the darkness, working her fingers over the makeshift necklace.

  She didn’t think of her mother very often. After she left Brook Mill they hadn’t spoken much, and their relationship had eventually been severed completely. Memories before her father’s death, like the one about the bird she had experienced earlier, were nearly always good. Afterwards was a different story. For the first time in years, Jen wished she could go back and start again. Make things right. It wasn’t her mother’s fault. As she slipped through the invisible membrane of consciousness, her last thoughts were of her mother, of home, of happier times. Questions drifted, tugging at her as she descended into the depths of sleep.

  Where did she end up? Was she happy? Was she even alive?

  Hours passed, lost in a heavy dreamless sleep. When her alarm sounded, Jen was surprised to feel unusually refreshed. She dressed in what she hoped would pass for typical farm workers’ attire and checked through her kit. If last night had been about her mother, then this morning her thoughts were with her father. He had inadvertently given her this chance and she wasn’t going to let him down. She wrapped the Histeridae in a small black cloth and pushed it deep into her bag before joining Nathan in the lounge.

  ‘Your car’s here,’ he said, nervously looking through a crack in the curtains, the morning sun on his face.

  She looked him over. He was dressed smartly in warm, expensive-looking clothing. His reason for travel should stand up. Samara could be beautiful at this time of year and a freelance photographer traveling alone for a few days was believable. They hugged briefly, neither of them wanting to prolong the good-bye. Thomas’s place had been their home, a sanctuary and a prison. Both of them were glad to be leaving, even if they were heading into the unknown.

  ‘Good luck,’ Jen said.

  ‘And you. Be careful.’

  Nathan watched her leave, waited until her car disappeared from view and checked his watch. His flight wasn’t until midday, but he went through his kit one more time. The night before he’d asked Jen how cold it was in Russia.

  ‘It’s minus thirty,’ she had said with a wry smile. ‘And for the record, that’s really fucking cold.’

  Chapter 41

  The taxi dropped her off a couple of miles short, as planned, just after 5am. It felt good to finally be outside again. Jen pulled her cap down and walked, keeping her head low, aware that a strategically placed camera could expose her at any moment. After an hour, she saw signs informing her she was nearing Lyneham. The airport was a major European hub, transporting food, machinery and workers, the bulk of them destined for Russia. She heard a vehicle approaching, its lights casting a deep shadow along the pavement. A charge of adrenalin fired through her. If this was her ride, it was bang on time.

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sp; The vehicle passed her and stopped, brake lights bathing the road. She heard the tug of a handbrake followed by a door slamming and footsteps. The driver appeared and without any acknowledgement opened the back of the truck.

  ‘Get in,’ he ordered.

  Inside Jen could see hundreds of identical steel containers and, blinking in the darkness, eyes peering back at her.

  ‘I said get in,’ the driver’s voice was forceful and impatient.

  Jen jumped up and found space, aware of the souls around her even if she couldn’t see them. They traveled in silence for about ten minutes before the truck slowed to a stop. Jen presumed they had reached the airport entrance and wondered how Lynch would circumvent the security checks. As they pulled away, Jen let out a sigh. The usual weakness, she guessed. People and money.

  After a number of slow, weaving turns, the truck finally came to a stop. The driver killed the engine. Jen heard the sound of doors slamming and then the truck’s iron shutters flew up, bathing them in brilliant artificial light. The driver gestured impatiently for them to get out. Jen jumped down and three other stowaways followed her, squinting against the sudden brightness. The truck was one of many parked in a large refrigerated hangar, crates and boxes piled high around them. The driver gathered them together, pulled a scanning device from his jacket and individually checked them, ensuring the ID’s and retinals read correctly. Each one a green light. He looked around nervously before herding them into a nearby portable hut. It was dark and smelt of sweat and rubber. Jen could see overalls hanging on the walls.

  ‘Wait here,’ the driver said, looking at his watch. ‘In less than an hour the trucks arrive, and there will be a lot of people. Join the crowd.’ He eyeballed them individually. ‘Then you’re on your own.’

  The man left and Jen picked a corner to sit and wait. The group consisted of a man, a woman and a younger girl. The man looked Polish, the woman and girl Indian, perhaps. Wherever they came from, they were clearly scared.