by Bill Napier
The footsteps were gone and Petrie was shaking all over and Shtyrkov was taking in air in deep, shuddering gulps. He was trying to do it quietly but without much success.
They made their way slowly up the stairs, following Hanning’s direction, with the Russian bent double and gripping the balustrade. After every few steps he would pause and wheeze. Back to the corridor. Petrie counted the doors on the right. One, two, three, four, five. He turned the handle and the door was unlocked. Good for Freya: she’d had the presence of mind to keep the room dark. So far as Hanning knew, the condemned scientists were sound asleep.
Shtyrkov found a switch and they blinked in the sudden light. Freya had pulled on her skirt and sweater but Petrie thought there was no bra underneath it. She was sitting on the broad window ledge, hair tousled and her face showing strain and tiredness. Eau de cologne lingered in the air.
Petrie sat on the edge of the unmade bed, and they waited, wordless, while Shtyrkov leaned against the door, slowly regaining his breath. Finally: ‘Hanning is a traitor.’
‘He was on the conference circuit just now,’ Petrie told Freya.
‘What does that prove?’
‘That he was communicating without our knowledge.’
‘So? Maybe he was trying to bargain for our lives.’
‘No.’ Shtyrkov’s voice was quiet but emphatic. ‘I heard him earlier. He was talking to Sangster. He was informing his lordship that we are deeply suspicious, that we would like to flee the castle but can see no way out and that we are nevertheless continuing to work on the signal.’
Freya said weakly, ‘That makes him a traitor? It’s no more than the truth.’
‘Oh, young Freya, I love you for your innocence.’ Shtyrkov managed a grin, but his face showed pain and there was a purple rim round his lips. ‘If I were thirty years younger … But no, Hanning’s tone was that of an informant. He is reporting back to Sangster and that has only one interpretation. The man is what you call a mole.’
Petrie said, ‘Damn. 158 Rock Walk.’
Shtyrkov looked bewildered, and Petrie continued: ‘Somebody sent me a warning. It reached me in London on my way here.’
‘I remember. It worried Charlie.’
‘It was lightly encoded, I cracked it in minutes but it wouldn’t have made sense to a casual reader. Vashislav, it can only have come from someone in the UK government who had access to your ET suspicions.’
‘More than that, my friend, someone who anticipated the possible reaction of your government. Someone close to your Prime Minister.’
‘That settles it,’ said Petrie. ‘Hanning’s a traitor in our midst.’
Freya asked, ‘Does it matter now?’
‘It matters very much, my dear, if we think of a way to escape. He tells your fine English lord, the lord tells your Prime Minister, he tells the President of Slovakia and then…’ Shtyrkov made a throat-cutting gesture.
‘But even if you’re right, what harm can he do? We have no way out. You said it yourself.’
‘I gave a good performance, did I not? “There is no prospect of escape.” I spoke with such bravura, such conviction!’
Petrie’s heart lurched. ‘What are you saying, Vashislav?’
‘Englishman, your life may depend on keeping your voice down.’ Shtyrkov flopped down next to Petrie on the bed. The mattress sagged under his weight. He took some breaths before continuing: ‘There is a way out, just possibly. Very likely to be terminal, and only for the desperate.’
‘Vashislav, stop playing games.’
‘Games, my friend? With the signallers waiting for our answer?’
Freya said, ‘Vashislav, for God’s sake, we’re condemned prisoners. A desperate plan will do nicely.’
‘Yes, young Freya. But listen, here is the word on my escape route. One. It is very dangerous. Two. It cannot work if Hanning knows we suspect him. And Three, the worst bit.’
They waited while Shtyrkov once again caught his breath. Then, ‘The route can only be taken by two of us. We will have to decide who goes and who stays.’
‘Well?’ Freya asked.
‘In the morning, young lady. This must be discussed by all of us together.’
30
Hanning
Sunday morning brought a blue sky with a light trace of high cirrus. The air was cold. Shtyrkov, Gibson and Petrie climbed the stairs to the high tower, slowly out of deference to the Russian. They looked out over the panorama. Hanning was already on the terrace below. He had his back to them and was handling two piles of papers, weighed down by books to keep them from fluttering away. It was impossible to believe that they were in their last hours, perhaps their last hour. Impossible to believe they couldn’t just walk away from the castle, across the sunlit fields.
‘What’s he doing?’ Petrie asked.
‘Still trying to match our downloads with pictures of known viruses,’ Gibson said. ‘That should keep him occupied for hours.’
‘Not outdoors,’ Shtyrkov suggested. ‘It’s freezing.’
‘He’s a public school type,’ Petrie said. ‘Brought up on cold showers and running around naked at sunrise.’
Shtyrkov looked at Petrie with some wonder. ‘Sometimes I think the English are a strange people.’
‘Where can we talk?’ Gibson asked.
‘Here,’ Shtyrkov proposed. ‘We can keep an eye on our English gentleman while we do so.’
‘I’ll bring the ladies up,’ Petrie said, making briskly for the door.
Petrie found the women in the kitchen. The air of normality was weird, even surreal. Freya was pouring herself cereal, and Svetlana was bringing a pot of water to the boil. His invitation to join the others in the tower was delivered quietly, as if Hanning was listening at the door.
‘I wondered where you’d all got to,’ Freya said.
‘Why the tower?’ Svetlana asked. ‘And what about Jeremy?’
‘We’re keeping him out of it and we don’t want him to know we’re having a meeting.’
Svetlana looked puzzled. Petrie added, ‘We don’t trust him. I’ll explain as we go.’
To reach the tower from the kitchen, they had to pass French windows leading to the terrace, in full view of Hanning. Petrie took Freya’s arm and they strolled past as if in conversation. Hanning looked up and nodded. They waited at the steps. A minute later Svetlana walked purposefully past, head bowed and looking neither left nor right. ‘He didn’t notice me,’ she said quietly on the stairs. ‘What’s this about?’
‘Vash will explain.’
Shtyrkov explained. They stood back from the edge of the tower, speaking in low, conspiratorial voices although there was no chance of being heard from the terrace below. Petrie glanced out from time to time, but Hanning was single-mindedly concentrating on his papers.
As the Russian talked, Gibson occasionally shook his head in disbelief, and once had to suppress a derisive laugh. Then he turned up the collar of his jacket and paced to and fro for a minute. Finally, he seemed to reach a decision. He stared from Shtyrkov to Petrie and back to the Russian again. ‘I guess it’s all we have.’
The Russian spoke the words they had all been thinking. ‘Now we have to decide who goes.’
Petrie added, ‘And what we’re going to do about Hanning.’
Shtyrkov’s face became ghoulish. ‘I have no problem with that.’
* * *
‘Something’s missing.’ Petrie was coiling pink mustard on to his plate from a tube, next to a broken-up boiled egg. He was unshaven and haggard. Svetlana sipped at her tea and looked at the mixture with distaste.
‘I agree with Thomas,’ Vashislav declared. ‘He has decoded a big hunk of energy desert, somewhere between the X and W bosons. It is wonderful. What people have called the Higgs particle turns out to be just one point in a spectrum of – I can’t even call them particles, they are entities…’
‘Maybe we just didn’t record it,’ Gibson suggested. He was adding milk with microscopic care to a cof
fee.
The Russian said, ‘No, we picked it up all right. It must still be on the second SCSI drive, in the cavern.’
Hanning looked up from a mug of tea; his voice was tinged with surprise. ‘What are you saying, Vashislav?’
‘Didn’t you know?’ Gibson said, taking a sip. ‘Yes, we have a second hard drive as a matter of course. One stays behind while we remove the other for analysis, in case particles come in, in the meantime. Clearly so much information came in that some of it was automatically shunted over to the number two drive.’
‘We need to get hold of it.’ Vashislav was being assertive.
‘With the time we have left – forgive me – surely you have more than you can handle here.’ Hanning was being casual.
Vashislav smiled tolerantly. ‘You don’t understand, Jeremy. There is a critical area beyond the energy of our particle accelerators and short of the unimaginable energies of the Creation. We know it only as a desert, but its span is immense, over thirteen powers of ten. There must be oases in this desert, new force fields we know nothing about, new forms of energy beyond anything we can visualise.’
Petrie was scooping up the pink gunge with bread. ‘If we had the hard drive here we could analyse it in a few hours. The decipherment pattern’s been cracked.’
‘Centuries of knowledge in a few hours.’ Vashislav turned to Gibson, appealing. ‘What do you say, Charlee?’
‘It’s the biggest gap,’ Petrie said. ‘We’ve enough genome stuff on site to keep the biochemists busy for a generation.’
Gibson pretended to count. ‘We’re three hours from the Tatras, another three back, say half an hour to penetrate the cavern and another half to dismantle the drive. Seven hours.’
‘I could be back late this evening and work overnight on it.’
‘This is our last full day,’ Gibson lied.
‘The bastards.’ Svetlana was looking down at the table.
Hanning was smooth. ‘Not that I go along with your paranoid fantasies, Tom, but it could be an opportunity for you to escape.’
Petrie shook his head. ‘A fact which will occur to my military escort. It’s not even worth thinking about.’
‘Still, if an opportunity should arise.’ The civil servant’s voice was still casual, but he was peering closely at the mathematician.
He suspects something. Petrie shrugged dismissively. ‘Sure.’
Gibson turned to Hanning. ‘Jeremy, can you explain to his lordship that there is vital information still stored in the cave and that we need to retrieve it in short order. Might give particle physics a jump start of a few hundred years, with God knows what outcome.’
‘Take someone with you,’ Shtyrkov said to Petrie. ‘You’ll need an extra pair of hands to dismantle the drive.’
‘Can I come?’ Freya asked. ‘I want out of here, even for a few hours.’
‘Sure.’ Petrie thought, Everyone’s being so bloody casual. Svetlana was playing her part, sitting quietly, still staring at the table. At that moment Petrie was overwhelmed by her quiet courage, felt utterly inadequate against it.
‘You know how to do it?’ Hanning asked, turning at the refectory door. ‘Get this drive thing out?’
‘Of course,’ Petrie lied, with a grandiose wave of the arm.
Hanning looked around at the scientists, then left.
‘Did he buy it?’ Gibson asked in a low, urgent voice.
‘He was suspicious,’ Freya suggested.
‘I thought so too,’ said Svetlana.
‘Who cares?’ Vashislav said. ‘So long as it gets Tom and Freya to the cave. Remember the count, Freya and Tom.’
‘Fifteen.’
‘It’s critical. Not fourteen, not sixteen. Apply the brakes fifteen seconds into the fall. If that works, if it stops you at the entrance to the Styx, then you have a chance.’
‘Split up as soon as you get away,’ said Gibson. ‘Take different routes. That way you’ll double the chance of success.’
Svetlana’s face was ashen. Petrie stretched over to her and held her hand, without saying a word. She looked at him, managed a smile. ‘You’ll make it, Tom? You’ll do it for us?’
He returned the squeeze of her warm, small hand. ‘If it’s humanly possible.’
Something about Hanning.
Petrie climbed the stairs to his room, locked the door and pulled out a sheet of paper from his rucksack.
Arthur Jeremy Winterman Hanning. Eldest son of Edward George Hanning, gentleman farmer, and Agnes Strathairn née Forsyth. Education Leatherhead, Winchester, Greats at Oxford. Began career as HEO in the Agricultural Research Council. Transferred to Central Office, attained Grade 6, transferred over again to MAFF. At age forty became Secretary to the Minister for Science, in which capacity Lord Sangster was the second minister he had served.
That much he had pulled down from the Net within an hour of Hanning’s arrival at the castle. No woman in the man’s life, no interests or hobbies, no recorded scandals or peccadillos; just a bog-standard Civil Service career route.
But now, without warning, something jumped into his head. He had no rationale for it, but it was suddenly, obviously, blindingly true. That man isn’t Hanning. He’s our assassin.
31
Tatras Ride
Up the stairs, running. Petrie stays at the foot.
Freya, gasping, reaches the top first, followed by Gibson and Svetlana. She stops at the corner of the corridor, waving them past, looking back down the stairs.
Gibson and Svetlana run to the far end of the corridor, turn right. Hanning’s door first left.
Locked.
Gibson has the master key. In his excitement it jams. Svetlana impatiently pulls his hand away, takes the key out, starts again and opens the door.
Unmade bed. The Fifth Miracle by Paul Davies on the bedside table, next to a bottle of pills. Suitcase on wooden table, lid zipped shut. Gibson opens it, rakes through the contents; Svetlana rakes through the wardrobe of clothes.
Gibson shakes his head, heads swiftly for the bathroom.
‘Here!’ From between the folds of a spare blanket in the wardrobe, Svetlana pulls out an automatic pistol, heavy and shiny.
‘Jesus!’ Gibson takes it, looks at it incredulously.
‘More!’ She pulls out a box, opens it. A hundred cartridges, it says so on the lid, and there they are, sinister little messengers of death.
Freya is whispering urgently at the door. ‘He’s coming!’ She sees the gun, gapes in open-mouthed horror.
Gibson shoves it into the belt of his trousers, the box of cartridges into a pocket. The pocket bulges. He pulls his casual shirt out, stretches it down.
Out of Hanning’s room. Svetlana locks the door and they run quietly along the corridor.
Petrie is at the foot of the steps, waving them down in an agitated manner. They take the stairs two at a time. Back into the refectory. Into their seats, Shtyrkov looking at them with alarm and curiosity. Hanning saunters in. Petrie is pouring tea and Svetlana is spreading toast, a picture of normality. They are trying not to pant.
Hanning sits down, stretches for toast, leans back in his chair. His manner is relaxed, almost insolent. He lacks the strain showing on the faces of the others. ‘I’ve spoken to Sangster. A truck will come for Tom and Freya at twelve o’clock. So, the pair of you should be back here by this evening.’
Freya, behind Hanning, is looking out of a window. She turns and puts a finger to her lips.
Gibson seems to be looking for a handkerchief in his pocket. Under the table, he puts the gun on his lap. ‘Will we need to make any more arrangements with the soldiers?’
‘No. Freya and Tom should just walk out of the castle.’
Gibson nods. ‘That’s it, then. I think it only remains to see whether we can escape from here.’ He looks directly at Hanning. ‘Do you have any suggestions?’
Hanning senses something. ‘You don’t need to escape. I think we’ve been over that.’
Gibson speaks
quietly. ‘I think you should try harder, Jeremy.’
Something in Gibson’s voice. Hanning looks round the scientists, suddenly wary. ‘You people are up to something. Is it Tom and Freya? Do they have an escape route?’
Silence.
Hanning’s face grows pale. ‘I think I’ll go to my room. Not feeling too good.’
Freya turns from the window in alarm. ‘Herregud! Soldiers in the grounds.’
‘Are they coming in?’ Shtyrkov asks.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘We must not alert them with gunshot.’
There is a moment’s shocked silence, then Hanning quickly pulls his chair back. Gibson clatters the pistol on to the table. Hanning freezes.
‘Like I said, Jeremy, try harder.’
Shtyrkov stands up, wheezes his way through to the kitchen.
Hanning, grey-faced, looks down at the table, his hands clutching each other. ‘There’s never been anything personal in this. I was hired to do a job in the service of the Queen.’
‘There’s nothing personal in any of this,’ Gibson says.
Svetlana says, ‘Speak for yourself.’ She moves away from Hanning, round the table, and sits down next to Gibson. Her face is paler than Hanning’s but her lips are thin with determination. Freya comes back from the window and joins them.
Petrie says, ‘Actually it was Horace, not Seneca. A real Oxford Greats man would have known that.’
Gibson’s voice is calm, almost conversational. ‘I’ll get no pleasure out of an execution, Jeremy.’
‘I’ll bargain with Sangster.’ Hanning’s voice is now hoarse.
Svetlana asks, ‘Is that the best you can come up with?’
‘Do we have to do this?’ Freya asks. She is biting her lip.
‘Think of something quickly, Jeremy,’ Gibson says.
Svetlana’s voice is trembling. ‘That cave is my child. I gave it twelve years and it rewarded me with the greatest discovery in history. And you and the system you represent want it all destroyed, and us along with it.’
Gibson lifts the pistol and examines it curiously, snapping the safety catch on and off. ‘You see our problem, Jeremy. When Tom and Freya go, there will only be three of us left to keep you under control. Vashislav is too slow, which makes it just Svetlana and me. But you’ve thought all this out already, haven’t you, Jeremy? You’re two moves ahead of us, and working out move number three.’
