The God Particle

by Daniel Danser

  ***

  Tom was less than three feet away from the edge of the platform when his prayers were answered. At first, he thought he had imagined the voice, like some divine intervention. But, as the words were repeated, he became aware of a presence behind him.

  ‘Sahib? Professor Sahib?’

  He strained to look over his shoulder to see the svelte-like frame of Ajay climbing over the top of the metal ladder.

  ‘Ajay! How..? What..? It doesn’t matter – we haven’t got much time. I need you to stop this thing. There’s a red button on the end of this carriage. Press it!’

  Ajay ran over and stretched up to the emergency stop button. However, even at his full height, he was a foot too short.

  ‘I can’t,’ he called out. ‘It’s too high up.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Tom. ‘You need to get on my shoulders and then you should be able to hit it. But hurry!’

  There was less than two feet before the floor ran out. Ajay scrambled onto Tom’s back and, with the agility of a chimpanzee, climbed onto his shoulders. He reached out, but he was at the wrong angle; he was too far forward to be able to stretch around the end of the carriage to press the button.

  The extra weight on Tom made the bindings on his wrists cut deeper into his flesh, making him wince, perspiration spontaneously forming on his top lip. But then, just as suddenly the pain subsided, the pressure forcing him downwards was relieved. He looked up to see that Ajay had climbed onto the rail and was edging himself backwards.

  Tom was now on the brink of being pulled off the platform. He strained to keep his footing, but his smooth-soled shoes couldn’t get a purchase on the metal floor.

  ‘Now, Ajay!’ Tom cried.

  Ajay leapt off the rail towards his target. He knew that he would only have the one chance. Fortunately, the movement was choreographed to perfection – he hit the button dead centre and the train came to a shuddering halt. He had been concentrating so much on his objective that he hadn’t contemplated his landing, and he struck the gantry with a resounding thud, knocking the wind out of him.

  Tom balanced over the edge at a forty-five degree angle; the heels of his shoes were the only part connecting him to the platform. He tried to look back to see what had caused the commotion, but couldn’t crane his neck far enough to see.

  ‘Ajay? Are you alright?’ No answer. He tried again. ‘Ajay, are you hurt?’ This time he heard movement, followed by a rasping sound as Ajay tried to catch his breath.

  ‘I’m… fine,’ Ajay gasped, still trying to suck in enough air to fill his lungs.

  ‘Thank God.’ Tom let out a sigh of relief. ‘Can you get to my bindings?’

  Ajay got unsteadily to his feet and made his way over to Tom.

  ‘Climb over me and onto the rail again,’ Tom instructed. He braced himself against the inevitable pain as Ajay clambered on his back and then onto his shoulders before leveraging himself up onto the track, with less deftness than before. Tom gritted his teeth, knowing that the agony would soon pass.

  ‘Can you bite through the ties?’

  ‘No need, Sahib. I have a penknife.’ Ajay reached into his pocket and produced his trusty Swiss army knife. He selected the sawing tool and went to work. The lightweight plastic handcuffs were no match for the sharpened teeth of the blade; within two strokes, one was completely cut through. The sudden release caught Tom off-guard, forcing him to lean against the remaining tie to stop himself toppling over.

  ‘Give me a second to get my balance,’ he shouted up to Ajay, who was poised to slice through the second thin plastic cuff. ‘Okay, but slowly this time.’

  Tom tried to anticipate the breaking point, shifting all his weight onto his heels. It still caught him out when the band snapped, but he had judged it right and he toppled backwards, landing safely, if not a little undignified, on his rear.

  ‘Sorry, Sahib,’ Ajay shouted down at him.

  With no time to waste, Tom sprang to his feet and dusted himself off. He eyed the carriage above his head that he had been shackled to and judged that, if he could just jump high enough, he should be able to cling onto it and use it to haul himself onto the rail.

  He bent his knees and launched himself upwards. His fingers caught the upper edge of the wagon and he held on. Using his upper body strength, he slowly pulled himself up. At times like these, which weren’t that often, he wished he had his brother’s physique. His arms strained to lift the dead weight, his face flushed under the exertion and veins protruded, throbbing at his temples, but he was determined not to give up. With a final gargantuan effort, he hauled his torso onto the carriage and let his legs dangle over the edge, out of breath and exhausted.

  Ajay grabbed him by the arm and gently coaxed him onto the rail. They sat side by side for a moment whilst Tom recuperated. ‘Thanks, Ajay. You may have just saved our lives,’ he managed to say between pants.

  ***

  ‘According to the plans, the lift shaft descends to a corridor, which leads to a large room.’ Gervaux pointed out the features on the drawings, which were laid out on the floor of the first floor office in the disused building.

  They had taken refuge there from the biting cold of the car park whilst waiting for the dog handler to return. Despite being indoors, Gervaux’s breath fogged as he spoke. ‘How can we get access to that room?’ He was directing his comment at the Chief Security Officer, whose curiosity had overridden his desire to stay in the warmth of his office.

  ‘I have no idea. I didn’t even know that room existed.’

  ‘Well, the lift obviously goes to it,’ Gervaux replied sharply, irked by the Security Officer’s lack of cooperation. ‘How long will it take to get a lift engineer on-site?’

  ‘The company that installed the lift are based in Lucerne. Normally it would take them three hours to get here. But, with the snow and the road blocks, I’d say you’re looking at closer to five.’

  ‘In five hours they could have tunnelled their way out the other side,’ Gervaux said morosely.

  Regretting the decision to leave the comfort of his office, the head of security decided to return. He made up an excuse that he had to get back to alert the office staff that there was going to be a possible breach of protocol by allowing the policemen officers to go underground when an experiment was running, and left them to it.

  ‘Moron,’ Gervaux muttered as the lift doors closed behind the Officer.

  ‘There is an alternative,’ Lavelle proffered.

  The inspector shot him a weary glance.

  ‘We could always ask one of the technical experts here. We’re surrounded by boffins and eggheads. Surely, if they are capable of building a machine to discover the origins of the universe, cracking a lift code should be a piece of cake to them.’

  ‘Brilliant, Lavelle! Get onto it straight away.’ Gervaux’s rare praise for his sergeant went some way towards making up for his previous faux pas.

  ***

  Tom and Ajay crawled along the track to reach Frederick. While Tom supported his weight, Ajay cut the ties. They then both dragged the scientist’s debilitated body onto the rail. Frederick seemed to be in a critical condition. At first, Tom feared for his life. However, as the bindings were cut and they hauled him up, he let out a low, guttural moan. It took him a few seconds to come round. He was initially unaware of his surroundings; but, when he saw Ajay, his eyes lit up. He reached up feebly and touched his face to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

  ‘Ajay, where have you been?’ he croaked.

  ‘Here. I didn’t know where else to go. Deiter threatened to kill me, but I knew as long as I stayed on the complex Shiva would protect me.’

  Frederick rested his hand on his son’s shoulder and looked earnestly into his eyes. ‘I’m afraid Shiva has failed you… and so have I.’

  ‘How have you survived for the past two days? What have you been eating and drinking?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Mary, from the canteen, smuggled some food out for me,’ replied Ajay. ‘I met he
r after work, behind the kitchens, when everybody had gone home. I think she took pity on me when she caught me rummaging through the bins.’

  ‘Well, thank God for Mary, and thank God you were around to save us,’ said Tom. He meant it sincerely, despite being an atheist.

  ‘I saw Deiter and those guards pushing Serena along the corridor,’ continued Ajay. ‘So I followed them here. Then I discovered you and my father tied up, so I waited in the shadows for an opportunity to rescue you.’

  ‘We’re not out of the woods yet,’ replied Tom. ‘Let’s get Frederick back to the gantry and then save Serena.’

  ***

  They were all gathered safely on the platform. It had taken Tom and Ajay fifteen minutes to free their colleagues. Frederick had recovered enough to stand on his own two feet, albeit with the support of Ajay to lean on. Serena seemed to have fared better and, apart from some deep welts where the ties had dug in, she was back to her normal, indefatigable self.

  ‘Do you think Deiter will be aware we’ve escaped?’ she asked.

  ‘I think there’s a pretty good chance of it.’ Tom pointed up to the last carriage, the one Deiter had selected to carry him to his death. ‘Watch!’ Tom walked to the far side of the gantry. The pan-tilt zoom surveillance camera followed his every move. He turned around and walked back – again, the camera tracked his path. Tom gave it a friendly wave before addressing the group. ‘Which means we’d better get the hell out of here before Deiter’s henchmen get back.’

  They made their way down the metal ladder as quickly as they could. However, it was obvious, even before they reached the last rung, that Frederick was slowing them down, despite Ajay’s assistance. Altruistically, he was the first to voice what they already knew.

  ‘You’d have more of a chance without me,’ he said. ‘You three go ahead. Perhaps I can lead them off in a different direction and give you a few minutes head start.’

  ‘I’m not leaving without you,’ Ajay stated adamantly.

  ‘Please, Ajay,’ Frederick implored. ‘Your mother needs you. How will she be able to carry the groceries in, if neither of us are around to help her?’ He smiled weakly.

  Ajay’s eyes welled up and his bottom lip began to quiver. ‘We can both get out of here and help her together.’ His response didn’t carry much conviction.

  The sound of gunfire caught everybody by surprise, echoing off the walls of the vast tunnel behind them. They turned in unison to see the two goons tearing towards them in a golf buggy, the muzzle flashes clearly visible from the automatic weapon. Although they were some distance away, the bullets were winging off the metal fixings all around them. It was obvious the shooters were going for quantity over quality, hopeful of hitting their targets through shear firepower rather than any accurately-placed shots.

  ‘Go!’ shouted Frederick over the sounds of the machine gun fire. ‘You need to escape. Millions of lives are depending on you.’

  Tom and Serena turned and sprinted away from their pursuers, bullets ricocheting around them. Fifty metres further on, Tom spotted another two figures approaching them from the opposite direction, effectively cutting off their escape route. He pulled Serena off to his left and into a small service shaft that ran adjacent to the main tunnel. He knew that the reprieve from the barrage would only be temporary, but the narrowness of this passage meant that their assailants would have to abandon their vehicle and follow them on foot, psychologically levelling the playing field, if only slightly. In reality, they would still have four, fully-armed mercenaries chasing them, intent on their annihilation.

  Ajay’s eyes darted from his father to the approaching vehicle, to the fleeing fugitives and then back to his father, trying to make up his mind what to do.

  ‘Please Ajay, save yourself,’ Frederick pleaded.

  Suddenly, he seemed to have made a decision. His body stiffened and he grabbed his father firmly underneath one arm, pulling him in the direction of the other two. The golf buggy was less than two hundred metres from them and closing fast. They needed to cover the distance to the service tunnel before the gunmen found their range. The problem now was that they had to cross open ground, the killing zone as the militia imaginatively label it. Spurts from the automatic weapons were immediately followed by the sound of bullets whizzing around them, like lightning followed by a crack of thunder when a storm’s directly overhead.

  They had less than ten metres to go when Ajay stumbled forward. However, instead of instinctively stretching out his arms to break his fall, he hit the ground, chin first and lay still. Frederick’s momentum meant that he had to backtrack to where his son lay. He knelt down beside Ajay, suddenly unaware of everything else going on around him. Grabbing him by the shoulder, he rolled him onto his back. There was a deep gash on his chin, which was bleeding profusely; rivulets of blood ran down his neck and onto his shirt, mixing with the spreading crimson patch, emanating from a small black hole in his chest.

  CHAPTER 32

  Lavelle had been right. It had taken no time at all for one of the technicians to work out that the elevator was, indeed, capable of descent from the ground floor. He had taken off the control panel and by-passed the key activation using a simple wire connection.

  Gervaux had just called in a forensics team to comb the large, windowless room for DNA samples, when they heard the faint, but distinct, sound of an automatic weapon being discharged. The two officers instinctively drew their standard issue 9mm SIG-Sauer P226 semi-automatic pistols from their shoulder holsters and made their way out of the room and across the corridor.

  The inspector cautiously opened the door, his pistol raised in front of him. Lavelle was at his shoulder adopting a similar stance. The muffled sound of the gunfire instantly became clearer, but was still remote. Crouching low to present as small a target as possible, they ran down the tunnel towards the firefight, hugging the wall for cover.

  As the chatter from the machine gun reached an almost deafening pitch, amplified by the acoustics of the tunnel, Gervaux could make out the shape of a man and woman running towards them. However, before he had time to shout out for them to stop, they veered off into a side tunnel. Behind them he could see two other people heading in his direction and, further beyond, a golf buggy closing the gap. One of the runners seemed to fall, but didn’t get up. His partner stopped and went back to attend to him.

  Intuition and training had given Gervaux the ability to read the dynamics of a situation within a split second. He instinctively assessed that the immediate threat was coming from the golf buggy and opened fire, aiming at its tyres. Lavelle, who was now standing by his side, followed his boss’s lead, hitting the front right wheel with his first volley and making the cart skid to a screeching halt. The two men quickly decamped from their vehicle and took cover behind it, returning fire.

  Finding themselves exposed, the two officers ran for the safety of the service tunnel they had seen the man and woman disappear into. Once there, they checked their weapons for ammunition. Each had a spare clip, but they knew they were no match for their adversary’s arsenal. It was time for negotiation.

  ‘Police! Put your weapons down and come out with your hands up,’ Gervaux yelled.

  He received a quick burst of automatic fire in response.

  It was time to up the ante. ‘Reinforcements are already on their way. If you give yourself up now, it will go in your favour.’

  Another burst, but this time it was followed by the sound of retreating footsteps.

  ‘Last chance!’ Gervaux shouted. ‘Hand over your weapons.’

  Silence.

  Gervaux gingerly poked his head out of their refuge. He could see the two gunmen had abandoned their position and were running flat-out in the opposite direction.

  ‘Shouldn’t we go after them?’ Lavelle enquired.

  ‘Not with these pea-shooters,’ replied Gervaux, indicating to his weapon. ‘Call in reinforcements. Give them their descriptions and tell them they are armed and extremely dangerous.’<
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  Whilst his sergeant was on the radio, the inspector made his way over to Frederick and the crumpled form on the floor, expecting the worst. He was surprised to see that the boy was still breathing – shallow breaths, but alive all the same. He bent down next to Frederick to inspect the wound. The small hole in his chest was still seeping blood. He slid his hand underneath the boy’s back but couldn’t feel any wetness.

  ‘You need to put pressure over the bullet hole to stem the bleeding,’ he told Frederick. ‘Here, use my handkerchief and press down firmly.’

  Frederick did as he was instructed. ‘Will he live?’ Frederick’s eyes searched the inspector’s, imploring him to give him the right answer.

  ‘I’m no doctor,’ replied Gervaux, ‘but I have seen enough bullet wounds to say that he must have caught a ricochet. If it had been a direct hit from an automatic rifle, there would be an exit wound the size of a grapefruit and he wouldn’t be breathing at all.’ He paused to take another look at the boy. ‘He’s still got the bullet in him; but if it’s missed his vital organs and we can get him to the hospital soon, then there’s a good chance he’ll survive.’

  Frederick’s relief was palpable. His shoulders shook as fat, wet tears ran down his face. However, he still maintained the constant pressure on his son’s wound, determined to keep him alive.

  ‘Get an air ambulance here, immediately,’ Gervaux called over to his sergeant.

  ***

  Deiter was watching his plans unravel on the CCTV cameras in the Chief Security Guard’s office, who was seated next to him, his eyes glazed, staring lifelessly at the monitor. A single trickle of blood ran down his face from the third eye drilled into his forehead by Deiter’s bullet. The back of his head was a different story. His hair was matted with blood and brain tissue as the projectile had exited and embedded itself in the wall opposite, making a splatter pattern a psychiatrist would be proud of. Deiter had already interpreted it as an eagle in full flight bearing down on a small animal, possibly a rabbit or a cat.