Codex

by Adrian Dawson

  Placing his tools back in the bag, he shouted for Pete who was at the furthest end of the NetCenter stuffing all the empty packaging into a black refuse sack. Pete nodded and tied the bag, placing it alongside five others.

  “I still don’t see how Boston Water could have held you up for so long,” Jon said. “I mean, their fuck-up wasn’t even on our site.”

  Tom threw him a disapproving look. “True, but where the hell do you think your power comes from exactly? On-site? Ya got your own little power station hidden away somewhere, have ya? No, you ain’t and as such your power comes from a main feed. And that main feed is rarely next door to where you decide you want to throw up a building, now is it? We’ve had to put about two hundred metres of extra cabling in to get you guys powered-up.”

  “So where is this feed?”

  Tom shook his head in disbelief. He could not believe that some people were so stupid. “It’s about two hundred metres down the street,” he said. “That’s kinda why we needed the cabling. It’s out front of the John Hancock, down access tubes sealed by steel plates.”

  Jon thought for a minute, then grabbed the faxed schematics from the desk behind him and checked through the pages. “I have no mention of a main feed or any access tubes,” he said.

  “Yeah?” Tom said, slinging his toolbag over his shoulder and turning to leave. “Well, trust me they’re there.”

  “I need you to show me,” Jon said suddenly. He wondered if any of the other sites knew about this ‘main feed’.

  “Not a chance,” Howitt said, turning around. “I had enough trouble with the asshole from the Environment Department wanting to go down and check it out. I sure as hell ain’t stopping traffic to take those plates up again.”

  Jon’s eyes narrowed. Even Howitt could see that there was something seriously wrong. The look in the security guy’s eyes was actually unnerving him. The silence stayed for longer than it should have done before he finally posed the question that was spinning through his mind:

  “What do you mean?” he asked suspiciously. “What guy from the Environment Department?”

  * * * * *

  “As part of my training I studied the United Nations photographs of Iraq taken during the Gulf War,” Tommy said. “Got my arse kicked big time for failing to spot installations like these.”

  He pointed to the top right of the grainy image on the screen. “These two buildings here,” he said, “are what we would call ‘weedkillers’. Whenever the United Nations found a chemical facility in Iraq, the government there always protested that it was ‘an agricultural plant’ producing nothing more dangerous than pesticides. Nine times out of ten, an unannounced inspection revealed that it was actually producing either chemical or biological agents. It was usually one or more of the famous four: VX, sarin, ebola or anthrax. All very nasty.”

  “Sarin?” Berkeley said, alerted by a word he recognised and understood. “You mean like in the Clearwater case?”

  Warner said nothing. He just smiled contentedly as though he had known this all along.

  “The reason we call them ‘weedkillers’,” Tommy continued, “is because if you look closely at the surrounding areas, the natural vegetation is suffering. When they have people manufacturing gases as opposed to culturing diseases, they are usually so concerned with preventing leaks of the end results that they don’t dispose of the by-products properly. These sometimes have mildly harmful effects, but are never lethal so they just tip them down the drains or dump them nearby. What they achieve is a contamination of the soils. Hence, nothing grows. Even the nearby trees look a little stunted and their leaves are a paler green.” He nodded confidently. “Yep, you can spot a facility like this a mile off.”

  “So you would say that this is a chemical weapons facility?” Warner asked.

  Tommy curled his mouth. “I wouldn’t want to go on-record, just in case I’m wrong, but yeah, I’d say so...” he said. “The second I saw it I knew you were looking for one. It bears all the hallmarks.”

  “So what are you looking for, Frank?” Berkeley asked.

  Warner exhaled. “My concern is not what these guys may or may not have done,” he said. “My fear is what they’re going to do. I think they’re planning something. Now, based on the sheer size of this facility, I think it’s going to be big. I think what we have witnessed recently is merely an attempt to suppress exposure of a much larger plan; something that involves extensive use of the products being manufactured on this site.”

  “Such as?”

  Warner widened his eyes. “You tell me,” he said. “We already know that these people are nasty. We already know that they kill indiscriminately. I firmly believe that their plans, whatever they may be, will be adequately reflecting those qualities.”

  “You’re suggesting we pre-empt them?”

  “We need to do something,” Warner said. “Before it’s too late.”

  Berkeley rose to his feet and paced backwards and forwards. He stopped and looked at the map, then to the clock which displayed Eastern Time. “We need to take this a little further up the ladder,” he said.

  He picked up one of the telephones and waited for a connection. “This is Ronald J. Berkeley. Get me Assistant Director William Kessel in Washington.” He cupped his hand over the receiver and spoke to Warner. “I need a full report within two hours, Frank. I’m not getting on a plane until I have all the facts... Yes... Hello, Bill, it’s Ron. Sorry to drop this on you but I need an urgent conference putting together. I’ll need representatives from the United Nations, the C.I.A. and the Navy. We’ve uncovered a possible private chemical weapons facility near the Ægean coast in Turkey. It may be connected with the death of Senator McKinnock and the sarin gas attack in Lancaster. That makes it of United States interest.”

  He listened whilst Bill Kessel seemingly voiced his concerns. “Yes, Sir, I understand that, but we may be looking at government knowledge and possibly even payoffs. We might just have to clear the diplomatic bullshit up after the event. It looks big enough to hold it from where I’m sitting.”

  He listened again. “Yes, Sir. I’ll be looking to put in a request to sideline a United Nations Peacekeeping Team from Bosnia. I’ll need at least fifty marines and as many Sikorsky’s as we can get hold of. I’ll also need at least two UNSCOM Inspectors, a clean-up team and representatives of the International Red Cross, plus a holding facility capable of accommodating at least three hundred personnel....” There was another pause. “That’s right, Sir, three hundred.”

  “Yes, I do realise that, Sir, but I do have a full report and some very disturbing pictures..... Yes, Sir, it is related to the Hercules.... I understand. Yes, Sir. I’ll be with you for eighteen hundred.”

  Tommy had already started printing off enlarged colour pictures of the area they had studied and the overviews.

  “Wait for the prints, Frank, then gather your report together and meet me at the airport,” Berkeley said, placing the receiver down and preparing to leave. “I’m not going in alone on this.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Oh, and Frank...” he said, pausing in the open doorway.

  “Yes, Sir?”

  He looked Warner straight in the eye, his menace clearly defined.

  “You’d damn well better be right about this.”

  * * * * *

  Howitt was becoming more annoyed by the minute. Jon had cleared it to close one lane of traffic for a maximum of thirty minutes, but it was Howitt Electrical employees who had taken it in the neck from irate drivers as they carefully taped off the area. Always the same.

  And Jon was just standing there, looking nervous and biting his nails. His foot tapped impatiently on the wet road surface, causing a repetitive splashing sound that was starting to grate through Tom’s head. He should be in the bar with the team now. They were waiting for him and Pete to arrive so that they could celebrate. A job completed; a job well done.

  He should not be having to kneel on the wet floor, undoing the se
curing bolts with a socket set.

  Once he’d loosened all six, he returned to the first and removed it completely, then the other five. He and Pete grabbed hooks and looped them through the holes in the plate, grunting slightly as they heaved it out of the recess and placed it to one side. To Jon, the hole looked deep. And way too dark. A faint drip-drip sound emanated from somewhere at its base as the rainwater fell into puddles at the bottom.

  “Can we go down?” he asked, taking a deep breath of courage.

  “We can’t, but you can,” Howitt said, spitting slightly as he chewed gum. “It’s a one-man access and I don’t have the first idea what you expect to find down there. Here’s my sheets, though.” He handed Jon a set of A4 diagrams in a clear plastic wallet. “If it’s down there, it’s on that sheet. If it ain’t on that sheet, then it shouldn’t be down there. That simple enough for ya?”

  Jon nodded, then looked down the tube and winced. He had been claustrophobic as a child. Looking into the darkness now he could not be entirely sure that he wasn’t still.

  “Don’t worry,” Howitt said, noting his expression. “It does open out a little at the bottom.”

  “Do you have a torch?”

  Howitt rolled his eyes and looked at Pete, who sniggered. Howitt then crouched down, reached his hand into the ground, underneath the rim of the tube, and flicked a switch. One by one a series of lights came on, accentuating just how deep the tube actually was.

  “I’m an electrician and I have the maintenance contract on this thing,” he said. “Did you think I wouldn’t bother to wire a few lights in?”

  Jon removed his bright yellow IntelliSoft Security jacket and placed the diagrams down the back of his pants. The rain was still falling gently and it started to soak into his shirt, creating dark blue spots against the pale. He sat at the edge of the tube and lowered himself onto the third rung of the ladder, Howitt and Pete stayed close, poised in case his wet soles slipped on the steel.

  There was very little spare space within the tube. He presumed that Howitt had wired the tubes himself for the simple reason that, given his size, there was no way Pete would fit. As he descended he was unable to look down for his feet but he kept looking up and catching the look of amusement on the two faces as they watched his descent. He smiled as he heard Pete say, ‘shall we put the plate back now?’ and Howitt respond, ‘Hey, don’t tempt me.’

  Twenty five feet down he reached the base, the floor wet from the rain which had leaked through the hook-holes in the plate. True to Howitt’s words it did open out, but not much. He turned around to see a small sheltered recess which housed seven black boxes, each the size of a laptop computer. Each box had a thick grey cable running into its base and each was labelled in white stencilling; Box-1 to Box-7.

  Pulling the clear plastic wallet from his pants he found the sheet for Box-1 and opened the box itself. The diagram on the paper seemed to match the layout of the box, but what did he know? He wasn’t an electrician. He knew he should have made Howitt come down instead.

  He did the same for boxes two to six but hit a snag when he got to seven. There was no sheet seven in the sleeve. He took a step backward and tipped his head to look up the tube. “Hey,” he shouted and Howitt’s face appeared again. “Where’s the diagram for Box-7?”

  “Are you tuggin’ at my ass?” Howitt shouted.

  Jon shrugged. “No, why?”

  “Because there ain’t no Box-7. We only added one box down there and that was Box-6.”

  Jon did not like the sound of that. He disappeared under the overhang once more and reached out to open Box-7. It was the same design as the others, with the same stencilled title across its face but, as soon as he opened the door to this box, he knew that something was wrong. Because the inside of Box-7 was not laid out like any of its counterparts.

  The large wire which entered the base was merely a dummy, unconnected to anything, and the wiring inside was much smaller than the others, certainly not heavy-duty. At the base of the box was a circuit board and at the top, held in place by a black elastic retaining band, were two silver canisters each bearing a radioactive warning symbol.

  What shocked him most, however, was what he could see mounted in the centre of the box. Six inches wide by three deep was a digital timer. It read 237:31:09

  It was counting down.

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” he said, staggering backward with his eyes forced wide and his jaw hanging open in disbelief. His breathing was heavy and fast as it bounced from the narrow walls around him and brought his childhood claustrophobia back with a vengeance. He slipped on the wet floor, soaking the seat of his pants as he landed. But he did not even notice.

  By the time he had scrambled back to the top of the ladder he had repeated the same expletive a further eleven times, never once daring to pause for breath.

  an end to darkness

  Job 28:3

  The F.B.I. Headquarters Building, which occupied 2.5 million square feet of space on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C was, in Frank Warner’s eyes, the perfect example of how not to design a building. Rather than being perfectly square the structure, occupied by the F.B.I. since 1974, was actually a slightly skewed tetrahedron. In order for it to conform with local restrictions the building was seven stories high along Pennsylvania Avenue itself but rose to eleven stories at the rear. This left a desperate overhang which made the whole structure look as though it might topple onto pedestrians at any point.

  Passing through the shade of the low trees which lined the Avenue, he noted once again the slabs of stone which covered the exterior of the building. Supposedly part of the architect’s design brief, the slabs were pitted by small arrays of regular holes which resembled bullet holes or an as yet unimplemented plan for the building to be covered by facing stones; the holes having been drilled in readiness to secure them.

  He remembered the first time he had seen the building; a visit and tour as part of an ongoing initiative to keep all agents up-to-date with the workings of the Bureau as a whole. Warner had been a staunch supporter of J. Edgar Hoover, a believer in the sense of intrigue and secrecy that the former Director had carefully crafted for the F.B.I. but, following his death in 1972 and Clarence M. Kelly’s succession to the post, he had seen a watering down of the organisation he had previously loved. It was to be, Kelly had said, ‘a more modern and open F.B.I.’ What that had meant, ultimately, is that it had started to be run like a business rather than an elite organisation. Every process was systematically distilled to the point where Frank had started to feel more like an employee than an agent. The F.B.I. had become big and ugly after Hoover’s death, much like the Headquarters that now bore his name.

  Warner and Berkeley passed through the employee entrance on the ground floor and into the small lobby area. Berkeley was empty handed whilst Warner carried a brown attaché case and some rolled-up drawings. The lobby looked out across a bricked courtyard which possessed park benches, lined up as though ready for a lecture or concert. The reception area had the appearance of a well-used living room with broad stuffed and chairs and coffee tables. Both men were signed-in and took a seat, Frank glancing to the large mirror which faced the door and knowing full well that it was, in fact, two-way glass. There would undoubtedly be security personnel watching him from behind his own reflection. It gave him an uncomfortable feeling, knowing that he was being watched without being able to see those responsible.

  Feeling somewhat paranoid, he checked his briefcase, ensuring yet again that he had brought along the relevant files. Having reassured himself that they were in place, he sighed heavily.

  “This ain’t gonna be easy,” Berkeley offered, his voice heavy.

  Warner smiled lamely. “Never is,” he said. “Too much red tape.” Berkeley had discussed the case at length with Warner on the flight from Los Angeles and both had decided that they would probably have a fight on their hands. “Worth it if we get the bastards, though.” he added.

  Within five minut
es they were summoned to Floor 11 where, they were told, a member of staff would be waiting to escort them to the relevant boardroom. The main lift took them swiftly upward and a young brunette in her early twenties greeted them as they alighted. They walked to heel along the beige painted corridor, past a series of bland charcoal doors before they finally arrived at the double-doored ‘Conference Suite-3’.

  The other attendees were already in position, seated around the long table with expectancy and jetlag heavy in their eyes. Only William Kessel stood to greet the two men.

  “Ron, good to see you again. And Special Agent Warner... nice to meet you. Please, gentlemen, take a seat. Sounds to me like you have something quite serious on your hands.”

  William Kessel looked very young for his forty-eight years with almost boyish Ivy League features, sandy brown hair and a smoothly tanned face. He had graduated from the University of Massachusetts in 1985 with a B.A. in law and had subsequently served in the Air Force Office of Special Investigations before joining the F.B.I. in 1987. He had risen swiftly, becoming Assistant Director in 2001.

  Berkeley nodded as he and Warner took their respective chairs and Kessel handled the numerous introductions. Each attendee greeted them with a nod and a smile. “Gentlemen,” he began, “this is Alan Firth from the United Nations Security Commission; Montel Keef, who heads the C.I.A.’s overseas operations; Kate Morris from the State Department; General Roger Kerr from the United States Navy; and Barbara Standish, Chemical and Biological Weapons Advisor to President Clarke. Now then, Ron, if you’d like to explain the situation?”

  Berkeley stood and walked to the base of the table, offering all attendees a better view of the concern which carved harsh lines across his face.

  “As you are all most probably aware,” he began, “Senator Andrew McKinnock was murdered by a car bomb the day before yesterday. Forensics inform us that the device was a remote-operated one-point-three pound Semtex device. Very professional and definitively not the work of a crackpot or an amateur. The bomb was manufactured by somebody, and I’m quoting here, with ‘extensive experience in the manufacture and operation of this kind of device’. In other words, these people have killed before. Also discovered in the wreckage was a twenty-four carat gold plaque which was inscribed with a chess reference, namely ‘Knight takes Knight’.”