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

by James Flynn

  He knew in that moment that he was on his own. He could no longer risk involving anyone higher up the chain. It was time for him to really be a hero.

  55.

  “Come on, stay with me.” Luke’s voice was shaky. Chung Su was crammed into a bathroom cubicle with him. He was stood upright with his trousers around his ankles. His underwear was on but he had pulled it up to make sure the wound on his thigh was visible. In his hand he held a cap from a bottle of vodka. It was full with the liquid, and underneath he was holding a flame from a lighter. It was a slow process but the smell told him that it was working.

  “Can’t we just take you to a local doctor? They won’t tell anyone,” Chung was pleading. Luke shook his head. Trust no one. Doctors or a hospital were out of the question.

  They had tracked along the road back into Teramo, arriving eventually at Piazza Garibaldi. Luke knew he couldn’t leave his leg wound as it was, the tourniquet had stemmed the flow but it would need changing, and it was a temporary solution. He had made the call to go shopping. The list was short: needle, thread, alcohol, lighter, material and tape.

  Once all the items had been bought he had picked the first hotel they came across. The building was not the most inviting. Upon entering the lobby, there had been no staff around at all. Without missing a step Luke had dragged Chung Su through and out into a small corridor, locating the female toilets.

  “Ok we are ready? Is the needle threaded?” Luke asked.

  Chung Su nodded. She was regretting sharing the information that her mother had taught her how to stitch and sew. Growing up, it had been more than just a nice hobby. When money was non-existent, clothes had to last many years.

  Luke handed her the bottle cap; it was warm, and without asking Chung Su dipped the needle into the hot alcohol as a crude method of sterilisation. She couldn’t quite believe she was about to use her skills to mend human flesh. She looked tentatively up at Luke; he had a determined look in his eyes. Who is this man? He had not bought any painkillers, claiming the only ones strong enough may have side effects and slow his thinking. He is insane.

  Luke took a big swig of the vodka from the bottle. It was going to hurt, but it was necessary and he had always found physical pain far easier to bear than the mental anguish that haunted him.

  “Ok, you ready? Let’s get it over with.” With that, he poured a tiny bit of the warm alcohol on the now-exposed wound, sucking air in through his teeth with the sting.

  Chung Su raised her hand and saw the shake. She took three deep breaths to try and steady it. This was not like stitching up a hole in material, this would need more force to pull the skin together and keep it that way. The needle eventually went through with a popping sensation. Luke’s leg was shaking, which didn’t help. She glanced quickly up at him; he had his head back and teeth gritted. She pulled the black thread through the tiny hole, feeling all the time the friction as the material caught on the skin. She then pushed the needle through the other side of the wound. One down …

  ***

  Chung Su finally slumped against the cubicle wall, her legs out in front, sweat on her face. Luke dropped onto the toilet seat, needing the wall as a rest; he too glistened with sweat. The wound had started to bleed as the thread had begun to pull tighter, but with a swash of alcohol, Chung Su had finished the job, and the wound was stitched up, roughly, but tight.

  Chung Su dropped her head into her hands; she couldn’t quite believe the last few days of her life. She had been moving at such a pace, and with so much trauma and emotion that her brain just couldn’t comprehend it. The sole thing that stuck in her mind and in her heart was the violence, the simple disregard of life. She could feel the tide of tears building. Do not do it, you must always be strong … be strong for the Republic. The words had somehow started to lose their effect; the events amongst which she had been thrown had begun eroding her view of the world … of herself.

  Luke raised himself so that he was sat upright. “Thank you.”

  “What is going on? I do not know what is happening.” Chung Su was desperately searching for logic, and Luke knew she wouldn’t find it. Her frames of reference were too far removed.

  “Someone knows that you know too much about the experiments, and it’s fair to assume they know about the replication you claim to have been undertaking. Your men are dead.” Luke spoke bluntly.

  “Dead?” Chung Su could not muster surprise.

  “I believe so.” It was a natural assumption.

  “But who is this someone?” Chung Su asked, her voice cracking slightly.

  “Judging from the appearance of our friends in the red car and the fact they speak Farsi I would say someone Iranian.”

  Chung Su’s surprise was followed quickly by horror. “But how? You think they know about the work?”

  Luke nodded. “Why not? Chung Su, you cannot believe that North Korea is the only state that would want such power.”

  Chung Su had truly never thought about any other country undertaking what hers had, but the thought now seemed so obvious, a blinding light.

  “There are things that can’t be ignored.” Luke now sounded stern. “People are going to great lengths to eradicate unwanted elements.”

  Chung Su’s heart went out to Professor Brun.

  Luke continued. “But there are still things we do not know …”

  “Like what?”

  “Like where is Vittorio? Like what is the significance of the test at 7 p.m. on Saturday and why are people going to die? And how has so much secrecy shrouded all of this?” The latter question had been troubling him for a while. There were men on the ground waiting for Chung Su the moment she hit Italian soil, which took planning and preparation, and all of that right under the nose of the Italian authorities. It didn’t stack up.

  “Do you think Vittorio is …” she couldn’t finish.

  There was no point lying. “Dead? I would assume so, yes. He managed a tremendous breakthrough, something that according to you could change the face of the planet as we know it.” Luke shuddered at the thought. “And everyone else connected seems to be falling pretty quickly.”

  The painful memory of Brun’s death was troubling for Chung Su. She had liked him very much, but he had not imparted any knowledge on how to harness the neutrinos, the entire reason for her being here. She felt embarrassed that the sum of her life now appeared so small. Everything was becoming too much.

  “I just want to go home, that’s all. I want to see my family again.” Chung Su could no longer hold back the tears. “I want to go back to my lab, to my work … I never wanted any of this, I wanted to help people.”

  Luke didn’t show any emotion. “Perhaps you should have questioned whether you should have done it, not whether you could. The world doesn’t let such discoveries go by just for the greater good.”

  Chung Su looked at him for a long moment. “Who are you?”

  Luke looked straight through Chung Su. It was the one question he couldn’t answer, not even to himself. He was more than one person; he was a ghost, a flicker of a memory. Who am I?

  “Who are you?” she asked again.

  “I don’t know … it’s s irrelevant,” Luke mumbled

  She examined him. “You are a killer.” It was not said with malice.

  The words grated on him. He could not deny it, but the world was not so black and white. Motivation and causality determined the context of a person’s actions.

  “Luke Temple is many things …”

  This confused Chung Su. “You talk about yourself as though you are a different person.”

  Luke was becoming uncomfortable with the conversation. He went quiet.

  “How does a man end up where you are?” Chung Su asked.

  Luke was transported back; the thought of Alex Rowland’s wife, the loss, the pain … from that pain Luke Temple was born.

  “Why do you not want me dead, Luke?” Chung Su eyed him closely.

  “Because I need you alive …” Luke sai
d mildly.

  Chung Su felt the tears well up, it was such a cold answer. Don’t cry, don’t let him see. “Why do you need me alive?”

  “This is now bigger than you and I, Chung Su. Have you ever heard of Pandora’s Box?”

  She nodded.

  “Professor Vittorio, Professor Brun, you … all of you have opened your very own Pandora’s Box. Things have changed. I came here to investigate Vittorio’s disappearance, but now … I have to stop whatever it is we are all hurtling toward. And I do not understand the science … you do.”

  Chung Su turned away and rested her head back on the cubicle wall. “So I am being used like an object.” It was true but Luke didn’t confirm it.

  “I’m going to die, Luke, aren’t I? I will not make it home from this.” Her voice cracked.

  “I don’t know … but I will make you a promise; as long as I am still alive I will do everything I can to make sure you stay that way.’ He meant it.

  She nodded slowly, her gaze becoming distant. Luke held out his hand, examining it, rotating it, then he asked earnestly, “If someone had the ability to reproduce the results that Brun claims he and Vittorio achieved, how much damage could it do?”

  In truth, she didn’t know exactly what they had created. She could say that it could be used for great things, enhance the lives of millions, but her world had shifted in the past few days. She felt as though a veil had been lifted and she knew why he asked the question. “I am still not entirely sure what they have discovered. However, if Brun is proposing that they have taken the neutrino and harnessed it for some kind of practical interaction and use, it could potentially be light years ahead of anything anyone has ever even considered. . It could be used in so many destructive ways …”

  Luke had been guessing at those ways: one overarching theme would be de-stabilisation. The world sits in an awkward harmony, a balancing act. If an unstable regime or rogue state was to have the ability to produce things others only dreamed of, there were a million opportunities for destablisation; it would bleed into everything both directly and indirectly, from weaponry to economic might. People were already willing to kill for it.

  “Chung Su, I have one question for you.” She looked at him.

  “Do you think the world is ready for it?”

  It caught Chung Su off-guard. She wanted to answer, almost felt compelled to, yet no answer came to mind, she no longer knew. Luke gave her a knowing look.

  “Will you destroy it?” she asked. The thought of everything Brun had been working for, everything she had been working for being broken and buried caused her physical anguish. Everything felt so unfinished; so much had been given for it, the pain and the death. Chung Su had a wave of guilt.

  “I don’t know,” Luke answered softly.

  “So what are you going to do once you have found out who these people are and what is going on?” Chung Su asked.

  “I will stop them.”

  Chung Su looked at him and could see the seriousness in his eyes.

  “Chung Su, the dynamic needs to change, so far we have been running, and we have been lucky. We are overexposed. Time is against us, and if we don’t achieve what we need to in the time we have left it would mean failure … and failure would be catastrophic.” Luke never entertained the thought of failure.

  “How do we even start?” Chung Su was tired.

  “We are going to take the initiative back. We are going to attack.” He stood up, unlocked the cubicle and walked out into the main bathroom. Chung Su followed him. He limped over to the wash basins, threw the tow-cord into the bin and splashed some cold water over his face; it was too late to worry about DNA contamination. He stared into the mirror; I know who I am … what I am … I am a Group 9 operative. He turned to Chung Su. “We need to take control.”

  Strategies had been dancing across his mind, and like a jigsaw he had started to slot the pieces together, the steps were now laid out. Their world was shrinking, law enforcement and Carabinieri would be crawling all over Teramo like ants, the picturesque town had been turned into a war zone. Luke knew what he needed to do. He would go on the hunt. He smiled grimly to himself. I have the perfect bait.

  56.

  “There were complications.” The man held his hand over the mouthpiece and demanded the technicians leave the room. They scurried out like rats filtering into the corridors lining the underground labyrinth. The man put the phone back to his ear. “What complications?”

  “She got away … with the man.”

  “Really?” The man had to admit he was impressed by Miss Chung. She had far more resolve than he had given her credit for. “We cannot have them disrupting anything further; we are so close … so close!”

  “I am working on it, they won’t interfere any further. They are on the run, they can’t run forever. We will destroy them.”

  “No! I want the girl brought to me alive.”

  “What? To you? What are you talking about? That is far too dangerous.”

  “I want her here to witness this. She has given her life the same as we have. She deserves to see it before she dies.” He wanted someone who would revel in his brilliance.

  “I have to object to this, I won’t allow it. Why take the risk?”

  “Stop wasting time questioning me and find them! Do you not trust me?”

  “Of course I trust you. I have a good idea where they will head next. If I’m right then we will neutralise them.”

  “Then get it done. But only him, I want her alive! She has earned the right. The time is nearly upon us. Can you feel it?”

  “Yes, I can feel it … I will not let anybody destroy what we have worked for. Allahu Akbar.”

  “Allahu Akbar.” He hung up.

  57.

  “Bongiorno, Signor. Parla Inglese?”

  “Sì, a little, Signor, how can I be of assistance?”

  Luke kept up his British tourist act. The man who stood behind the reception desk of the Hotel Gran Sasso was a short stout man; he had a round cherub-like face, with jet black gelled hair. His cheeks were rosy and his teeth a stained yellow. He had a beaming smile but Luke could see in his eyes that he was wary. He eyed the dust-stained clothes that Brun had lent him; they were a mess. Luke pressed himself against the tall counter so the man could not see the blood on his jeans.

  “My wife and I are staying in Rome on holiday. We decided we wanted to do some walking trails and get a bit active with some rock climbing. As you can see we didn’t do very well, but what an absolutely stunning place, we have fallen in love with it.”

  The man behind the desk puffed out his chest and seemed proud of the observations of his home. “It is a great place. This time of year the air is so fresh and you get the true beauty of the Gran Sasso.”

  “Oh yes, yes. We do have a slight problem though …”

  “Go on, Signor …”

  “The problem we have is that time has run away from us today, and there is still so much more to see. We have decided to stay the night so we can continue our exploration tomorrow and stumbled across your hotel. Could we perhaps book a room for the night?”

  “Of course, Signor, it would be a pleasure, let me just check.” The man turned to a computer on the counter. Luke turned his head to check Chung Su was still sat in the handful of chairs arranged in the reception area. Her head was hanging low and she was staring at the floor.

  The man sheepishly looked up, and with slight embarrassment spoke. “It seems we have lots and lots of rooms available. I must say it is unusual for us to be so quiet, but it is good news for you and your wife.”

  “Great, do you have anything on the ground floor?” Luke didn’t want to be high up; the higher up they were, the further they were from an escape route.

  “Erm … yes, sure. How about room eighteen?”

  “That’s great.”

  The man smiled and nodded. “Right, so that will be sixty-nine euros please.” Luke handed over a wad of cash.

  “Now if you co
uld just hand me your passport please, Signor …”

  Luke turned up his mouth and shook his head innocently. “Ah … well that is the thing, we actually left our passports in Rome. Obviously we didn’t think we would need them.”

  “Neither of you has a passport with you?” the man asked, frowning.

  Luke shook his head. “Sorry …”

  The man blew out his cheeks and Luke turned on the charm. “Oh, I feel so, so silly now. I suppose we had better just head back to Rome and see Teramo another year.”

  The receptionist rubbed his hand along his hairline, rolled his eyes for effect and said, “Well … ok, just this once. Here are your keys.”

  Luke gave his best fake smile. “This really is a great place …”

  The receptionist beamed. “Your room is over that way.” He pointed toward the lifts. “Just go past the lifts on the left, follow the corridor and you will see room number eighteen.”

  Luke called Chung Su over. She smiled at the man behind the counter and felt his eyes examining her dusty and ill-fitting clothes. He produced a yellow-stained smile and nodded politely.

  ***

  The room was tiny; the double bed took up the majority of floor space and a single plant pot sat on the floor with a pathetic-looking plant crammed inside.

  “You must not leave this room, understand?” Luke was checking over every inch of the space.

  “I understand.” Chung Su sat on the bed with her legs pulled up to her chest. “But I’m hungry.”

  “I will bring something back.” He turned on her. “Even if someone knocks at the door, you do not answer, you put the lock on and fake being asleep … clear?”

  “Yes, yes, yes. How many times! Where are you going?”

  Luke moved into the bathroom to check it over. Never assume an environment is safe. “I am going to Professor Vittorio’s apartment in L’Aquila.”

  “Then let me come, please,” Chung Su begged.