Chasing The Dawn (Luke Temple - Book 2) (Luke Temple Series)

by James Flynn

  “They want you dead,” Luke said calmly.

  “Is he …?” Chung Su’s voice faltered.

  “Dead.”

  She let out a whimper. “But that was Brun’s house, that wasn’t for me …”

  “They want you both dead. I was lucky enough to get in the middle.”

  “Who are they?” Chung Su asked.

  “I don’t know, but they will be connected to the men who came for you at the Observatory.”

  Luke gritted his teeth and propped himself up on his knees, facing into the passenger seat. “I think now is finally the time to tell me the whole truth … you are here for more than finding out what happened to Vittorio. What do you know?”

  Chung Su looked up past Luke’s shoulder, the expression on her face didn’t change. She wanted to be back in her own country, with people she knew, the safety of theoretical experimentation, exploring nothing more dangerous than sub-atomic reactions in a controlled environment … a controlled environment, the thought aroused a distant irony. As though someone else were guiding her she focused back on Luke’s eyes. No longer feeling in control of her hands she felt them raise up and press against his cheeks; his growing stubble felt rough against her palms. No longer was she enveloped with a need to close up, to defend, she put herself first, her immediate need … the need to talk.

  “You are right …” she was searching to remember the real name he had offered. “Luke.” She took her hands away from his face. “I am not tasked with just finding out what happened to Professor Vittorio. I love my country, we are aware of the contempt that many around the world feel for us, but this does not change the fact we could achieve greatness if we were allowed.”

  Luke listened in silence.

  Chung Su could feel the barriers crumbling; her body was in shock, words fell out, she was numb to their taste. “Why should we not live with the same freedom that is granted to you? Answer me! Why can’t we look for the same advancements to improve our world? We heard about the work that Vittorio was undertaking. The idea of the ghost particle had always fascinated us …”

  “Chung Su, we have no time …” Luke needed the short version.

  Understanding him, she jumped ahead. “We wanted to develop our own neutrino experiments. But we did not have the resources. We had the financial backing of the state but money was not enough. We didn’t have the minds. We couldn’t attract them, and besides the state would not allow us to bring people in from outside …”

  She stepped up from the seat, the thoughts were tumbling and she felt confined. “There were calibrations to machinery I just couldn’t understand, and we had nothing to compare to, we had no idea what was happening here.” She was pacing up and down. “But our reports were showing that the possibility of measuring the particle could actually be a reality, and once we could measure it then …” she stopped short. “We rightly gave our update reports to the state, then gradually my superiors at our facility started making bigger and bigger breakthroughs. I know now that I ignored it on purpose, but those breakthroughs were not our breakthroughs.”

  “They were coming from here,” Luke said.

  Chung Su stopped pacing and stared at him, the freedom of letting go of the last piece came with a shot of embarrassment and shame. “Yes, we had sent state-sponsored agents into the Gran Sasso facility. They were tasked with feeding us back key information so we could replicate the experiment.”

  Luke gingerly stood up. It didn’t take his mind long to start slotting the pieces together. “How far had you got?”

  “We were using the nuclear reactions to produce the neutrino beams, but we couldn’t get the calibrations right to capture the data.”

  “Are your agents still here?”

  “I don’t know. That is what I must find out before I will be allowed to return. They disappeared some weeks ago. But the data they were giving us must have meant they worked at the heart of the OPERA team.”

  Luke thought fast. Where have they gone? Were they discovered? Who else was involved? The past few days rattled through his mind, the attention Chung Su was receiving now made far more sense.

  “I am sorry I did not tell you before, but I must serve my country. We could have created something great.”

  Luke shook his head; he had nothing to say to her. He needed to outline a strategy.

  “Why do you shake your head? Do you think it is only people in the West who can dream to change the world, to give it something so great.”

  “They sent people here to steal information because they wanted to be the first, and by being the first they could own it, harness it and exploit it. And you know the first people who would have suffered? You … the North Korean people.”

  Chung Su was getting angry, “Why must everything …”

  “Shut up!” Luke snapped. “Do you have any idea where the agents went? Any trails at all that they informed you of before you came?”

  Chung Su began crying, she knew nothing. “I thought Professor Brun might ...”

  Luke gave a brittle laugh. “Well, someone found them. And whoever found them now wants to find you ...”

  Chung Su could not contain her frustrations and fears any longer; she let out a scream. There was so much to take in, it was crushing, and the reality of almost dying was hitting home. Brun was dead and she would never see home again.

  Luke closed his eyes and took a moment to breathe. “If this new OPERA discovery is as big as you say, then it has the power to cause devastation on a mass scale, that is a potent power for more than one regime around the world.”

  Chung Su was lost to despair.

  “Are you any closer to knowing what they are meant to have created?” Luke asked harshly.

  The words hurt Chung Su, they pricked her ego. She did not know what they had done or how they had done it. She replayed word and ideas: fission … balance … opposite. They were just words; she tried to form a theory. Nothing came. All she knew was that if they had managed to harness the neutrino it would be a miracle and change the world as they knew it.

  “What was Brun talking about? What the hell is happening at 7 p.m. on Saturday?” Luke asked in anger.

  She was about to shake her head, but then the time and day struck a chord. She had heard them before, but where? She couldn’t concentrate; her hands were shaking. She touched the dried blood on her face, her cheeks so cold she felt no pain.

  7 p.m. Saturday … 7 p.m. Saturday … 7 p.m. Saturday. Then it hit. “CERN!”

  “What?” Luke asked.

  “Brun told me that at 7 p.m. on Saturday CERN were firing another beam of neutrinos at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory.”

  “Why?” Luke snapped.

  “I don’t know … further tests.”

  Luke was reaching maximum frustration. His life revolved around being in control, and his whole training focused on him taking control of situations and achieving objectives. But here was a growing threat that he could not decipher, it had claimed Vittorio, Brun and would take Chung Su. How the hell can I stop what I don’t understand? Normal survival instincts would take someone away from danger, but Luke Temple knew he had to travel into the heart of it if he stood a chance of stopping it. He took a series of deep breaths, the cold air hurting his throat.

  What do you have in play?

  He had two primary interested parties, North Korea and potentially Iran. He would put money on the gunmen at the Observatory being of Iranian descent. What do the Iranians want? He assumed the same as Chung Su’s people. That was bad. At that moment, an image unexpectedly jumped into his head; it was the photo of Brun and Vittorio that the professor had held at his home. There was something about Vittorio in the picture, a familiarity, something that had stuck with him.

  I need to go back to the start, I need to go back to Vittorio. Luke heard the distant engine over the breeze. He turned and scanned the area, the night was approaching fast, a silver sky was fading to grey. The engine was faint but he knew straight away it was
approaching their position and fast.

  “Get in the car,” Luke ordered.

  Chung Su refused; she turned and folded her arms, staring out into the distance. The engine was getting louder.

  “Get in the car!”

  She watched him move around to the driver’s side and caved. Luke checked his watch, it was 4.57 p.m. He sat waiting for the approaching vehicle.

  After another couple of minutes a car came screaming into view in the distance. They are driving too fast. Luke slipped down in his seat; he had parked at a bend in the road. The red Nissan whipped past. In the split second the cars were level Luke took a glance at the passengers … shit, the car was being driven by the two assailants from the Observatory. The driver was the curly mop and his shaven-headed mate was sat in the passenger seat cradling a pistol.

  The Nissan passengers overshot their position. Both Chung Su and Luke held their breath, but then the red lights flashed on and smoke erupted from the tyres. The Nissan skidded right around, facing back towards them.

  “Go!” Chung Su screamed.

  Luke gunned the engine and slammed his foot down on the accelerator, grunting with the pain in his leg.

  52.

  The man ended the call. Placing the receiver back down he stared at the floor. Men were dancing round him but he took no notice. He had advocated sacrifice his whole life, but he was not immune to the pain.

  It was necessary ... it was inevitable.

  He did not want to be confined; he exited the room and headed along the watery blue tunnel. For the first time since descending he sensed the weight of the earth above.

  It was necessary.

  He reached a singular door, this one was open; the deafening noise and heat hit him as he walked through.

  Placing his hands on the bright yellow railings he gripped tightly, his protective suit crumpling around his arms, sweat forming on his skin. One of the great natural effects of working so deep underground and with such a vast array of different machine components was the wonder of each room having its own atmosphere, each creating its own unique heartbeat.

  He stood over sixty feet above the floor of the cavernous chamber. Below him, the place was awash with movement, a hotbed of hard hats scurrying in and out amongst a host of industrial-looking machinery. The floor itself was laced with an array of white lines painted in various different directions. He knew that each set of lines was a simple indication of perimeters and flow. Simplicity out of chaos.

  High up on the viewing gallery for the first time in many years, the man allowed himself a moment of reflection on a life fraught with sacrifice. He had not returned to his beloved homeland for almost twenty years, and now, so close to achieving the pinnacle of his life’s work it was the memory of his homeland that gave him a fleeting moment of pride.

  He had been born the eldest of two sons in the northern Iranian city of Babol just shy of the Caspian Sea, in the Mazandaran Province, born to an Iranian father and Sicilian mother. This mix of national heritage set the brothers apart from any of their friends and classmates.

  His mother was a brilliant woman; she had been a renowned physicist, an original founding employee of CERN in 1954. It was whilst working at CERN in Switzerland that she met his father, a man who himself had a keen love for molecular structures, but he applied his curiosity to macro-biology and had been awarded a research grant at the world-famous institute as part of a knowledge share project. The unlikely pair soon caught each other’s eye and as the story goes melded together like compatible cells.

  It was that love which tore her away from her beloved work as his father was recalled to Iran to head up a new biochemical government department. His mother followed, and soon their love was to produce a baby.

  The man sighed at the earliest memories of his mother, long dark hair, soft brown eyes … she was beautiful. He began strolling along the upper gantry of the chamber. But not all memories ran with so much affection. He had been enrolled into an exclusive school, exclusive in the sense that anyone of government stature or military prowess sent their children there. But both he and his brother were never accepted, being admonished daily for having an infidel whore as a mother.

  As time went on he saw the distance growing between his parents. The real problem lay in the recognition of his mother’s brilliance in the field of particle physics and the research she was doing. The government was very conscious that to match the might of the West they needed an edge, something that could transform the balance of power … particle physics was it. Soon the biochemical work his father was undertaking became more and more marginalised.

  Eventually, in his eighteenth year, his parents’ marriage broke down and his mother chose to move to Tehran to lose herself in her work. His father was devastated and became ever more obsessed with his own work, developing a belief that it was his wife’s European blood that had caused her to leave.

  The man’s bond with his brother became ever deeper, and it was a hardship when he had to accept his place at the University of Tehran, following in his mother’s footsteps into the world of physics and advanced mathematics.

  His brother had gone in a completely different direction. He had plenty of brain power and had passed with good grades, yet his heart belonged to an alternative fight, a more physical and overt battle, and at the age of sixteen he had joined the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran, specifically the army division. The Iranian forces had once been called the Middle East’s most powerful by General John Abizaid, the US commander for the region, an accolade that puffed the chest of the forces.

  Now staring down on his triumph he could appreciate the fate of it all, his path laid out by Allah.

  On one scorching hot day his life was to change forever, and be set on a path that would ultimately lead him this very point, the brink of liberation. The heat of the chamber transported him back as if it were yesterday. Standing in the central square of the university was a man cloaked in black. He stood alone, yelling rhetoric into any open ears. He spoke with so much power and authority that it was impossible not to listen. Drawn in, he approached and began to learn. It was as if the preacher had delved into his soul and pulled out his thoughts and feelings. Do not fear the emptiness, it is part of God’s will, he has hollowed us out to be filled by the purging of the ones who want to destroy us. With each progression of rhetoric the words hit their target like a sniper’s bullet. He outlined the action that must be taken, how to stand up and deny we are lesser beings. And then, as if he had been hovering overhead the whole time awaiting his moment … his brother appeared. His face looked older and more weathered. It transpired that the preacher was the leader of a sect that called themselves The Golden Brotherhood. They were a splinter group formed out of the Mojahedin-e-Khalq. The members felt greater action needed to be seen, not just to liberate Iran from itself, but to liberate Iran from the West. The members had devoted their lives to restoring Iran’s power through the application of advanced thinking and exploration. His brother appeared to be a leading member of the group.

  My life would never be the same again … I became a piece of the whole.

  He could not explain the joy and resolve it gave him to be part of something he truly believed in, something with which he could bond with his brother to form one goal … one soul. It gave vigor back to his studies, for he felt the answer to all of their prayers lay in the heart of science. He would find a way to destroy the repressors, to hand power back to its rightful place. And to think that I stand here almost forty years later on the brink … the memories flooded over him.

  The chamber suddenly exploded with a high-pitched siren. Two large signs began flashing red, each illuminating two words: Magnet On. He didn’t flinch, understanding it was merely testing. The next second a range of amber lights flashed on, spraying over the walls. The man felt his pulse quicken, it was coming to life.

  53.

  Brun’s old car whined and groaned as Luke pushed it to its limit. He kept the accelera
tor fully down, throwing it around the winding country roads. Every time he feathered the accelerator pain shot up his leg, but he kept focused and pushed the pain away.

  The Nissan was keeping up; checking the speedometer he saw that he was taking corners at ninety-six kilometres per hour. Each time the rusted frame grinded against the tyres, the balance was atrocious. As he came out of the next turn the car slipped away from him and scraped a stone wall running along the right-hand side of the road, sending sparks into the air. Chung Su screamed.

  The roads were lined with trees along the left, and a stone-built wall along the right; it was narrow. Think Luke, think. He fought to get his brain into gear.

  A crack sounded from behind. Luke glanced at the rear view mirror; the passenger of the Nissan was taking pot shots with a pistol.

  “Get your head down.” Luke pressed on Chung Su’s hair.

  The steering wheel was rattling with the strain. The Nissan was faster and more powerful and Luke would need all of his ability to evade them. He knew it was pointless to open fire from a driving position, at the speeds he was travelling his focus had to be on feeling the car. Driving is about feeling, forget relying on just your eyes. At speed, eyesight becomes unreliable; you need to listen to what the car is telling you.

  Another shot cracked from behind. Luke heard a loud ping as the bullet hit the rear bumper; they are going for the tyres …

  Luke looked over at Chung Su and was amazed to see her slouching down in the seat with the Sig Sauer in her hand, eyeing the wing mirror. Luke picked up the Beretta and rested it on his lap.

  Another shot cracked from behind.

  “We can’t outrun them,” Luke shouted. If he couldn’t outrun the men he would have to outmanoeuvre them. His Group 9 driving instructor floated into his mind; To outmanoeuvre someone on a road, you have to do the unexpected. Decisions have to be fast and unpredictable. Do not overthink a move, just act.

  “Hold on!” Luke yelled as he threw the steering wheel down and pointed the car through the shrubbery. Chung Su screamed as the wheels smashed into a large branch on the floor, sending the whole vehicle into the air before smashing down and tearing through the undergrowth and trees. Luke shouted at the pain in his leg. The car lost traction on the frozen ground but without slowing the front of the car sparked off the new road as they burst out of the trees,