‘Come to my office when you’re finished,’ he said when I finally looked up.
He trudged away without another word, leaving me alone with my test tubes. I’d be visiting his office far sooner than that. His appearance had been annoying; I wanted to know what more Alice knew about Demeter, but he obviously suspected something. On the upside, I could spin him being out here to my advantage.
I picked up the toolbox and walked along the string.
Chapter Twenty-two
I’d diligently taken samples for all of five minutes before heading back to base. Greenbow hadn’t been kidding about the storm, the wind had increased still more, something I hadn’t thought possible. It whipped around the side of the base, threatening to push me over as I leaned into it. The benefit was that it had cleared the mist, the downside was that visibility was even worse as the rain fired horizontally across the exposed ground. I stabbed at the keypad and stumbled into the HADU.
The binoculars had come in useful – as far as I knew the team were now all outside, except one person. As I’d returned I’d watched the others before leaving the binoculars out of sight under the steps. Demeter and Marie were occupied with the pipes on the cliffs, Alice and Hurley were helping Gambetta, Demeter, Greenbow and Ingrid were inside the other base. Dash was still tinkering with the generator. Only Clay had remained inside, and I figured he’d be in the radio room.
Which meant there was a good chance he was on the other side of the CCTV lens watching me as I decontaminated – a perfect opportunity.
I needed to test a theory, and for that I was set on getting into Greenbow’s office one way or another. Using just a couple of items from my washbag I was pretty sure I could pick his lock, but I was rusty and fairly confident there was an easier way. This wasn’t a security-conscious bunch, no way would Greenbow take his keys with him. Not in an already secure base on a military-controlled island.
After dressing I went straight to the lounge, to the radio on the shelf, turning it on, volume all the way up. Eighties classic rock echoed around the base. I left the door open and quickly crossed through the link bridge back into the HADU, pressing myself against the door, under the camera, careful to stay out of its line of sight. I didn’t have to wait long.
I peered through the porthole to watch Clay storming down the corridor. He marched straight to the lounge, seconds later the music stopped. He reappeared, flustered, slamming the door and stamping back up the corridor.
I was already moving, counting down from thirty as I crossed to the line of hooks on the opposite wall. Greenbow’s gear hung at the end. Nothing in the shirt pockets. Twenty-five. I unfolded his trousers. Nothing in the pockets. Twenty. I carefully refolded them and stared. Fifteen seconds before Clay made it back to the radio room and the CCTV screen. Maybe I was wrong; lock-pick it is, then.
Greenbow’s polished shoes were sitting under the bench. I slid them out, one jangled. Inside was a key ring with three keys on it. I pocketed it, slid the shoes back under, then made my way out of the HADU.
I’d have bet Clay would be back in the comms room, but equally he could have been anywhere in the base, looking for me. Between the HADU and my bedroom I could easily make an excuse, so I strolled casually but quietly through the base. No signs of life.
I passed my bedroom and crept further through the corridors, along the link bridges. Dangerous territory now – I was ready with some bullshit about looking for Greenbow, but just as Clay had said, I had no business being here. Static burst from the radio room ahead and I paused, not breathing. No other sounds. I was outside Greenbow’s bedroom now, loitering would be impossible to explain so I changed to speed rather than stealth to reach the next door.
A flash of colour outside caught my eye. At first I thought Dash was looking in, but no, it wasn’t outside. It was out the window, but I was looking across at the last section of base, the labs. Blurry through two sets of streaky glass, I could only make out vague movement. Clay was making his way from the labs at the far end of the base towards me.
He was moving steadily past the windows, not rushing – he hadn’t seen me. I looked at the keys. Only one was a door key, the others were too small. I stuck it in the lock, tried to turn it but it jammed. I risked a glance over my shoulder but couldn’t see Clay any more. I could hear him now, though, plastic shoe soles tapping plastic flooring, getting louder.
I took the key out and steadied my hand, pushed it back in gently, all the way. This time it turned. Clay’s shoes rapped on the link bridge at the far end of the corridor. I pushed the door and slid inside, closing it behind me, letting the handle up slowly, careful not to let the latch click.
I remained motionless until a slamming door told me it was clear; Clay was back in the comms room. I let out my breath and looked at the door key. A simple five-tumbler mechanism, I could probably have picked it in under a minute anyway but was grateful for Greenbow’s assistance.
I looked around his office. Gloomy in the dimming afternoon light, but just as it had been when I’d seen it earlier. I fought the urge to mess up the papers on the desk and looked out the window, checking no one was about to wander past and look in. Empty dismal moorland and vast swollen sky. I closed the blind, checked the keys again, looked at the short filing cabinet behind the desk. I half wanted to pick it with the paperclips on the desk for my own entertainment, but ego usually equals trouble.
It was the second key I tried; the drawers slid open easily. Nothing but a couple of large-scale maps of Scotland in the top. The middle drawer was just packs of paper, ink cartridges, Sellotape, an empty notepad. Top-secret stuff indeed. I found what I was after in the bottom drawer; the window keys, in a lidless Tupperware overflowing with Post-its and pens with no lids. I tipped it out and placed the keys in a row.
Lounge, dining room, kitchen, my room, Marie’s room. Three more bedrooms. Greenbow’s office. The last bedroom and radio room. Three labs.
Assuming there was a key for each room, which seemed logical, there were two keys missing. I looked again at Greenbow’s key ring, this third key was one of them.
Which left one key unaccounted for.
I’d suspected Gambetta had used a window to get his lighter and cigs inside, avoiding the HADU’s CCTV; he must have the key. I was pretty confident someone had opened my window to drop the tea tin outside, hence why I saw the figure creeping under the window. In my book that meant Gambetta’s guilt for the incinerator trick was pretty nailed on.
No, not necessarily, there are other explanations. Gambetta could have shared the key with someone else. It could have been Captain Greenbow, or he could have willingly given someone a key. A third person could have broken into the office just like I had, and then returned the key after. Too many explanations, not enough facts. I stood and stared at the keys as if they’d yield an answer. My gut said Gambetta was the man I’d been sent to find, but men’s organs aren’t always the best decision-makers.
As I bent to tidy up, the papers on the desk caught my eye; my name, scrawled across on a red cardboard folder. I carefully moved an L-102 expenses form out of the way and opened the flap.
Paperclipped sheets of paper, a B-107 form topped with a photo of a burned-out Toyota Landcruiser, half its front end missing. I swallowed hard, sweat prickling my face, eyebrow scar on fire. There was a ringing in my ears and I was back in the dirt, in the fire, in the blood. Face down, breath ripped away. Somewhere the Beastie Boys are playing but it’s distant, muffled, like it’s under water. So are the shouts, the cries, the screams. The sporadic gunfire. I’d been specifically told to come this way. This road’s been swept, they’d said. I could feel my fists clenching at my sides. They’d told me it was clear.
I was dizzy, could feel myself swaying, had to force my knees to lock, focusing on the stupid fucking painting behind the desk.
‘Captain?’
A knock at the door. I blinked several times, shook my hands out. Shit. Clay knocked again. ‘Captain, are you in there?�
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I looked at the door. No bolt showing by the mechanism, I hadn’t locked it after me. If he turned the handle…
Surely he must know Greenbow hadn’t returned yet, via the CCTV. Maybe he was due back?
His shoes clicked away, I finally exhaled. I gathered the keys back up, put the tub back in the drawer then, deciding to even out the odds a bit, reached back in and pocketed one.
No noise outside the door. I waited for my heart to slow then eased the handle down and pulled it open. The corridor was empty. I silently closed the door behind me, locked it, then set off back towards my own room.
Steps again, coming from in front, moving towards me. I picked up the pace and grabbed the nearest door handle, throwing myself into a room and closing the door behind me.
The steps moved on. What the hell was Clay up to, doing rounds like a security guard? Looking for me?
I was in the next hut along from mine, one of the other bedrooms. I waited by the door as the steps faded, then grabbed the handle.
A light blazed on, the room lit up. I froze. No one spoke, nothing moved.
Slowly I turned, hands open at my sides, an automatic reaction. ‘Sorry, I think I’m in the wrong room. I’m not used to all these doors…’
Nothing but an empty room, a lot like mine. I was alone. One of the bedside lamps glowed, it’d somehow turned itself on. Ingrid’s words came back to haunt me. Ghosts. Echoes of what happened here. Cold trickled up my spine. I stared at the lamp for nearly a minute, not daring to move. The wire snaked under the bed – where it was stuck into a timer plug.
The island really did have everyone strung out. This was Dash’s room; I remembered what he’d said about life in the Antarctic, about the perpetual winter night and the need to create time breaks to keep your sanity. I’m an idiot.
I opened the door and slowly peered out into an empty corridor. I only had to make it as far as my room, a straight run. I shut the door and jogged it, closing my door behind me. I crossed straight to the window to test the key. I cracked it open an inch – confirming the locks and keys were all the same. I opened a bottle of Scotch from next to the bed and poured a good third outside, cheap fumes blowing in with the rain and searing my nostrils. I closed and locked the window, mopped the rain up with a T-shirt, grabbed a pair of socks and another disposable suit, and made my way to the HADU.
‘Tyler!’ A shout from behind me. I turned, Clay was approaching. ‘What are you doing?’
I held up the socks. ‘My feet are freezing.’
‘Where have you been?’
I put on my best frown. ‘In my room.’
‘You weren’t in there a minute ago.’
I shrugged and pulled open the door to the HADU. ‘Getting a drink.’
I let the door close before Clay could get to it, turned, and nearly collided with Greenbow.
‘Shouldn’t you be gathering samples?’ he growled.
I held up the socks again and repeated the story about my feet being cold. He smirked. ‘Not acclimatised to this sort of work, are you? Get a move on, then.’
He picked up his shoes and tipped them, frowning. Clay barged through the door.
‘Captain, I’m glad you’re here. I don’t know what Tyler is doing—’
‘Helping Alice,’ barked Greenbow, cutting Clay off. He thrust a hand in his shoe and cast his eyes about wildly.
‘But—’ Clay tried but Greenbow held up his hand.
‘Who else has entered the base in the last hour?’
Clay blinked. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘You’ve been monitoring the entrance?’ He pointed at the camera.
Clay flushed. ‘Yes. Marie came back briefly, then Tyler. But I’ve been in the labs as well…’
I sat down on the bench and removed my trainers, pushing them under the bench and dropping the keys with them at the same time. They jangled as they hit the floor. Greenbow spun.
I made a show of moving my trainers and reaching under, holding the keys out. ‘Are these anyone’s?’ I asked.
He snatched them and bent to put his shoes on, glaring at Clay. ‘Just want to ensure everyone’s following correct decontamination procedures.’ He paused for a moment, staring at me, then pushed through the door with Clay protesting in his wake, leaving me to suit up in peace.
Chapter Twenty-three
The clouds were a black duvet above, depositing an inexorable torrent of water, which bounced from every surface, creating rivers criss-crossing the well-trodden paths across the island.
Rather than complete the survey, I retrieved the binoculars and went to find Alice, catching her outside Camp Vollum. Marie and Hurley stuck to her like glue, giving us no opportunity to talk, though things had moved on quickly and I wasn’t sure she had anything of value to tell me any more. Gambetta, true to form, wasn’t far away; tinkering with the pumping equipment, looking busy whilst eying us suspiciously. I spoke to Dash again by the incinerator for a while, watching the others carefully. Demeter came by to discuss soil densities before heading up onto the cliffs to continue whatever he was doing up there. At that point Gambetta lost interest in us, skulking after the Russian, disappearing into the rain. Helping Demeter run some tests near the cliffs, finally doing something useful, Hurley remarked. I almost followed to confront him about the key but decided I’d nothing to gain; neither a lie nor the truth would advance my thinking.
I meandered back and forth, looking busy whilst watching the team, and as afternoon turned to early evening I slipped away alone, taking care I wasn’t followed.
I walked back up the hill towards the beach, searching for a decent vantage point overlooking X-Base, somewhere overgrown, back to the sea. I crawled along the ridge until I found a depression that would suit my purpose then pressed myself into the heather, burrowing in, tearing clumps of mud and grass to cover me like a ghillie-suited sniper, settling down to lie in wait. Eyes trained on the base, watching through the binoculars.
Shadows lengthened as minutes ticked round an hour. I counted people entering the decontamination chamber. It was impossible to tell some of them apart in the suits, but through the binoculars I scrutinised the windows of the base carefully, the common areas, seeing flashes of the team, striking people off in my mind – Hurley making a drink, Gambetta reading – I kept a tally of who was inside and who was still out wandering the island. More of the rooms lit up, including bedrooms and the radio room further down the base, but the angle meant I couldn’t see who was in there.
Cold seeped upwards from the streams trickling beneath me. Twilight lent the crashing surf a menacing resonance, booming but muffled under oppressive rain. The island would be impossible to navigate at night, particularly in this weather. Anyone out now was using a torch, which made it easier to pick out the others – including anyone approaching in this direction.
No one did.
During the surveillance I thought about my conversations with the others, when I’d taken the opportunity to learn a little more about my French friend. Apparently he’d been brought in to look at the effects of the anthrax on the geology – whether the resurgence of the anthrax was due to its seepage into the substrata through groundwater, or whether the contamination remained surface-borne. He didn’t seem to have made too much headway with the research so far. Hurley had said he didn’t have much time for him, despite the fact they looked friendly enough. Marie had said similar, though I’d noticed her talking animatedly to him.
I wondered if Greenbow suspected Gambetta was DGSE. The Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure – France’s intelligence service. A fair guess, given his recent secondment to the project, his hobby of wandering the island keeping tabs on people, and his complete lack of discernible skill in relation to decontamination of anthrax-infected land. Definitely top of my list of suspicious persons, I thought as I adjusted the binoculars and scanned the dark horizon.
I used the time alone to go back over my theory.
Kyle’s tea had been i
nside the base, he’d been infected inside the base. The anthrax was outside the base. Somewhere there had to have been a crossover. It was difficult to take anything in and out, unless you wanted it contaminated. You’d have to carry it under your suit, like my gun. If you were outside, that meant breaking the seal to get at it (I’d gambled that if I needed to tear the suit to use my gun, I had bigger and more immediate problems than anthrax).
It was difficult enough to take things out, but impossible to bring anything into the base. All tools were stored in the shed, remaining on the ‘dirty’ side. Torches were hung on racks by the door. Vials of anthrax samples – much like those I’d collected for Alice – were brought in but rigorously controlled and signed in by two people, for obvious reasons. I’d watched them do it – at each base, containers of heavily chlorinated water, kept in lockers in the decontamination chambers, were used to transport tubes of soil samples to the labs. They had to be signed in, catalogued and stored by either Ingrid or Clay – and all of them could be accounted for at any time by either of them. Let’s not forget, this was a weapon of mass destruction, after all.
Until I’d seen Gambetta earlier I’d wondered how the murderer had smuggled the toxin inside, because – unlike my gun – a vial of anthrax, like Gambetta’s lighter and cigs, would be on the outside of their suit with nowhere to hide it.
The missing key had confirmed the simplest of explanations, and the reason I’d been lying here alone, waiting for complete darkness.
Chapter Twenty-four
I pulled myself out of my bracken hide, brushed myself off, and headed for the bright lights of X-Base. It was a straight run, no need for a torch, no cliffs for me to walk off.
After a trip to the shed I paused by the steps, safe in the amber glow of the lamp above the door. It highlighted the rain around me, but beyond the pool of light the island was absolutely black. I strained my eyes but there was nothing. I strained my ears but the rain pounded on my plastic hood. I thought I heard a helicopter roar overhead at one point, but the already muffled sound was swallowed by the storm before I could pinpoint it.
Anthrax Island Page 9