The Dauntless’ brief was simple: keep everyone clear of the island, no exceptions. Even locals had been escorted away smartly – so how had a group of divers got close?
Worse, Gambetta had thought they were armed.
I’m no diving expert but even I know that sport divers don’t tend to go out tooled up. It was conceivable there were military teams training up here; I remembered from the briefing that there was a US task force on exercises south of here, their Marines playing war games in the mountains on the mainland. Too far away, no reason for them to be this far north. And our guard dog would still have warned them off, allies or not.
He’d said they’d been wearing dark, military-looking gear.
It raised the question; had Gambetta been killed because he’d seen something?
‘The weapons he described sound like AKs.’ Hurley turned back to the window, tracing a finger along the glass. ‘Russians.’
‘As I said earlier, there’s no evidence of any divers,’ said Greenbow. ‘Armed or otherwise.’
‘Where would they have come from?’ asked Marie.
‘This coastline’s got a million inlets and bays,’ said Dash. ‘Could have come from anywhere.’
‘Easy enough to park a sub right next to us.’ Hurley turned back to the room. ‘In from the north, slip through the deep channels. Deploy a Spetsnaz combat swimmer team right out the torpedo tubes without even surfacing.’
He looked at me for backup, I shrugged.
Greenbow shook his head. ‘There’s absolutely no way a submarine, Russian or otherwise, could make it into these waters with the Royal Navy’s latest destroyer anchored out there.’ He muttered something about an overactive imagination.
‘2010!’ Hurley waved a finger at Greenbow. ‘A Russian sub was caught sitting right outside Faslane, your most sensitive naval base, waiting for Brit subs to float past. Only a couple of years ago a Russian sub pack had to be scared away from the Scottish coast.’
‘You said it yourself, they were caught…’ said Greenbow, but from the look on his face it was himself he was trying to convince.
‘What about the new Borei class? Twice as quiet as the latest US subs.’
‘Commandoes could be crawling over the island as we speak!’ said Alice. ‘What if they come for us?’
There was a smash of glass.
Everyone leapt, looking for the source, Clay slumped in his chair, broken tumbler glistening in a pool of Scotch at his feet. His head lolled as he slurred thickly.
‘Nonsense, Demeter is… I’m…’
‘You’re drunk,’ said Greenbow. ‘Go to bed.’
Clay dry-retched. A strand of thick saliva escaped his lips, slowly reaching for his cardigan.
‘I’m… I’m going to bed.’
He struggled to stand. Alice and Marie took an arm each, half helping, half dragging Clay from the room.
‘Bloody fool,’ Greenbow said.
‘So now what?’ Hurley asked.
‘We radio the ship.’ Three pairs of eyes locked onto me.
‘The captain just said Demeter destroyed the radio?’ said Dash.
‘Presumably to aid his getaway,’ I said. ‘But we do have another, and we’re wasting time.’
‘Camp Vollum!’ Dash shouted. ‘I’d forgotten about Ingrid!’
‘If Demeter did sabotage our radio to cover his escape he’s probably on his way there now. He was suited up, he has a head start – we need to stop him. Captain, you and I should get up there; the rest of you stay here.’
‘You can’t go up there, Tyler. You don’t have clearance.’
‘I think we’re way past that.’
‘He’s right,’ said Dash.
Greenbow contemplated it for a second, weighing up the risk versus the threat from Demeter. ‘Fine, but you stay with me at all times.’
I nodded.
‘I’ll come too,’ said Hurley. ‘If Demeter’s there you’ll need all the help you can get.’ He was already racing down the corridor, and wouldn’t get any arguments from me. I followed, Greenbow close behind. I grabbed a fresh suit from under my bed, then a second for the return trip; I was learning. I checked my pistol again, adjusted the holster, snatched my gas mask from the side table, kicking over the almost empty Scotch bottle on the floor.
Both Greenbow and Hurley were already racing back towards me, suits in hand. We met the others in the HADU.
‘Be careful,’ Dash said, somewhat unnecessarily, as he hastily wrapped duct tape around my boots. ‘I don’t care what Greenbow says, there really could be unwanted visitors on the island.’
Hurley nodded. ‘You guys stay safe. Don’t let anyone in, make sure you barricade the door after us.’
‘Either way, Demeter’s long gone,’ I said. ‘There’s no point him returning.’
‘Then why did he take two keys?’ asked Dash.
It wasn’t the time to tell them the other key was in my pocket. I was about to push my trainers under the bench when something caught my eye. What looked like a folded piece of paper had been jammed into one of them – I must have been walking round on it since I’d come back in, hadn’t noticed it when I’d dressed.
‘Hurry up, Tyler,’ said Greenbow.
The other two were suited and ready, Greenbow’s thick, gloved finger stuck through the trigger guard of his pistol. He was watching me like a hawk, whatever was in my shoe would have to wait. I pushed the paper deeper in as I slid them under the bench.
Greenbow marched to the door with Hurley in tow. I gave my seams a quick test to ensure everything was covered, shooting one last glance at the others. Alice and Marie had returned from Clay’s room, already helping Dash slide a table towards the door, ready to seal themselves in. I gave Alice a wink, earning a smile of encouragement and a mouthed, ‘Take care,’ in response.
The wind screamed around the huts, a solid sheet of rain waiting to assault us as soon as the door slid open. I swore at the clouds as I was nearly blown off the steps but that only made them try harder. The weather meant communication was impossible as we struggled along what was now a river pouring from the hillside. Hurley went first, his light suit just about visible in the faint moonlight, bobbing as his head darted side to side. Greenbow followed, gun outstretched warily, not so sure of himself now we were outside. I brought up the rear, keeping one eye on them, the other on the island. We kept our torches off – no sense giving any unwanted visitors an easy target – which made for slower progress than I’d hoped. I envied Greenbow’s camo-green suit, almost invisible in the night, should have insisted we all wore them.
I thought about Demeter, about the mysterious divers that Gambetta claimed to have seen. If an extraction team had been sent for Demeter then perhaps the destruction of the radio was the motive, and Gambetta had got in the way.
It made sense Demeter must have killed Kyle too. Poisoning his roommate’s tea would have been easy, but what linked the two victims and their deaths, and the radio?
Had his defection all those years ago been a ploy, a long-term strategy by Russian intelligence services to get someone inside Porton Down? The public may have thought that sort of stuff had disappeared with the Berlin Wall, but I knew the Cold War was still there, tectonic plates of twenty-first century diplomacy barely hiding the magma beneath the surface, so it wasn’t too hard a leap to make.
But why the sudden violence? If he’d wanted to escape, why hadn’t he slipped quietly away on any number of other occasions, when it would’ve been so easy to just vanish? I decided the island itself held the key.
Most importantly for now, how the hell had he escaped from the room? I couldn’t see his powers stretching to teleportation. What about invisibility? I looked around, peering into the storm. Where was he?
Chapter Thirty-one
Wiltshire, early 1940s.
Despite emerging victorious from the Battle of Britain, the country is still under attack by the Luftwaffe. Their lightning advance across Europe may have faltered at the C
hannel, but the Nazi war machine has dug in, with Hitler boasting that his impenetrable ‘Atlantic Wall’ stretches all the way from Norway to Spain.
Unfortunately for him, a wall only deters people on the ground.
Whilst the Luftwaffe still leap over the Channel to bomb major cities (though for the most part without the enthusiasm they had during the Blitz), the Royal Air Force is bombing German cities with increasing ferocity, including burning them to the ground with incendiary devices.
This was the stuff I’d learned at school, forgotten, and re-learned when I was old enough to be interested in anything other than girls and grunge. I’d heard of the island before, of course, about what had happened here. The briefing pack had coloured in the detail, and as we slogged up to Camp Vollum I thought over the history, tried to wrap my head round how it could be relevant to our current situation.
Those fire-bombing campaigns against German cities incense Hitler, who demands appropriate retaliation. Of course, this being Hitler, appropriate usually means the maximum possible overreaction.
Churchill understands this only too well, and whilst he knows the RAF are able to spare the country from the worst of the air raids, he also knows that regardless of how many Hurricanes and Spitfires are built, pilots trained, regardless of the latest developments in radar, and regardless of how many anti-aircraft batteries are deployed – one or more bombers will always get through. You couple that with the latest reports about rocket-powered aircraft and flying bombs that can outpace any allied fighter aircraft, the result is that if Hitler wants to drop a bomb anywhere on mainland Britain, he can still do so – ‘finest hour’ or not. It seems victory in the Battle of Britain has bought the country time, but the Nazis, at least in this early stage of the war, can afford to play a longer game.
A natural train of thought follows, in conference rooms and labs and military briefings on both sides of the North Sea. If a single bomber can always be guaranteed to get through and land at least one bomb on a target, even if the rest of the squadron fail, how can you maximise that bomb’s effectiveness? Conventional high explosive development has reached its zenith and now physical size is a limiting factor – planes just can’t carry bigger bombs. Spies report German research into atomic bombs, which can pack a vastly bigger punch with a smaller package, but they require exotic raw materials, extensive development and testing, and the physicists who’d either been drafted or escaped to Britain and America. So what else can the Nazis be up to?
Churchill instigates an investigation into the feasibility of an attack on Great Britain using bacteriological weapons. Enter Porton Down.
Porton Down had been set up during the previous war, its original purpose being the scientific investigation and further development of chemical warfare. A sparsely populated site near Salisbury, Wiltshire was chosen – a few farms and cottages moved on. Named the ‘Royal Engineers Experimental Station’, it began researching chemical agents such as chlorine and mustard gas. By the end of the First World War the tiny huts had grown into a large camp. All gas defence and respirator research had also moved to Porton from London.
The site had almost closed in 1919, but the War Office decreed research must continue and the establishment of a permanent base was begun. Wooden huts were replaced with concrete, civilian scientists were recruited, and the pace of research accelerated.
And at what a pace. The Manhattan Project, the US Atomic Program that spawned ‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Man’ – the bombs that flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively – is regarded as being the father of the modern Weapon of Mass Destruction.
If that’s the case then the British – and Porton Down – are the grandfathers.
Chapter Thirty-two
A soft glow escaped the blinds somewhere in Camp Vollum. It looked like a peaceful haven in the storm; I hoped it was, that we weren’t too late. I looked over at the incinerator and shuddered. A heck of a lot had happened in the last few hours.
Greenbow mounted the steps, faltering at the top.
‘Hurley, open the doors.’
Hurley climbed up after him, staring at the keypad. ‘I don’t know the code. I assumed you had it.’
‘I never have need to,’ said Greenbow.
‘I thought you were in charge?’
They both stared at the keypad. I rolled my eyes.
‘23-15-63,’ I said.
Hurley punched in the code and the light above the keypad blinked green. Greenbow pulled open the door, stepped inside. With one last scan out over the blackness, I followed.
This was my first time inside Camp Vollum. Unsurprisingly the HADU, and therefore decontamination procedures, were identical. After the first spray-down we carefully disposed of the suits, skipping the next showers in favour of speed.
All three huts here were deathly quiet – no gunshots, no one attacked us. Ominously, no one came to greet us either.
Greenbow dipped his pistol in the bleach, wiping it off on a towel. He held it warily.
‘Anthrax has dropped down our priorities, Captain. If I were you I’d grip that gun more firmly.’
He held it outstretched, shaking.
‘If you’re going to hold it like that, don’t walk behind me.’
He was reluctant to venture into the base, Hurley was about to slam through the door when I stopped him.
‘Quietly.’ I gestured for him to follow, Greenbow slinking behind us, still shaking. ‘Captain, pass me your gun.’
‘Absolutely not.’
KEEP CALM AND SOLDIER ON, wasn’t it? ‘Then do me a favour; put the bloody safety on.’
I gripped the door handle, opening it slowly. The noise increased, rain performing a drum solo on the plastic link tunnel. At the other end the door was open, total darkness beyond.
I crept forward into the corridor. Hurley followed, Greenbow a respectable distance behind, still holding the gun out. I brushed my hand against my hip, touching the reassuring handgrip of my own HK. I contemplated removing it but didn’t want to overplay my hand. I also didn’t want to risk switching the lights on, navigating by the dim moonlight darting in and out of the swiftly moving clouds. When we reached the door to the first room I tapped Hurley.
‘Check it out. I’ll stay here.’
Hurley nodded, gripping the handle. He burst into the room, quickly followed by Greenbow. After a few moments’ scuffling they reappeared in the doorway.
‘Lab’s empty,’ Hurley whispered.
I nodded, motioned to move on. Again the rain hammered on the plastic connecting tunnel, into another dark hut. We followed the same procedure but this time when Hurley opened the door to the room, a chink of light sliced the floor. It grew to a dazzling triangle stretching up the far wall as he opened the door wider, sticking his head in.
‘Empty,’ he said, the light somehow telling him that there was no need to whisper. I poked my head around the door to find a laboratory, with what looked like shiny white kitchen cabinets down the far wall. Various apparatus of no interest to me adorned the worktops, rows of white filing cabinets filling the near wall. Nowhere Demeter could be hiding. I shut the door, plunging the corridor again into darkness. Greenbow was apparently satisfied with our search; he remained in the corridor, reluctant to come any further. I grabbed the handle into the final hut, waiting in silence while our eyes readjusted. After a few moments I eased open the door.
There was a different sound this time. The familiar barrage of rain on plastic but also a screaming, howling sound that could only have been the wind tearing through an open window somewhere. I had a clear view all the way through to the far end of the base. Where every other hut had a door at each end, this last hut had a window – presumably the configuration could be adjusted as required. I stepped off the bridge into the hut, started to walk forward but my shoe skidded. The temperature plummeted, my stomach with it. I pulled out my torch, motioning to Hurley.
The beam illuminated a scene reminiscent of the radio room. Greenbow immediately
backpedalled.
A pool of blood had spread across the floor, seeming to cover most of the corridor. It fanned across the windows and mixed with mud and rain running down the far wall. The sorrow I felt was the first genuine emotion I’d experienced here. Splayed out on the floor, in the spotlight of the torch beam, was Ingrid.
I didn’t need to feel for a pulse. Just like Gambetta, she’d been shot in the head, the bullet removing the back of her skull. I knelt to study the wound and heard a tinny scratching. A pair of earphones swam in the puddle next to her head. I bent closer; a German singing about balloons. Tracing the wire down to her belt revealed an iPod. I tapped it, stopping the noise, then touched my finger in the pool of blood by her head.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ asked Hurley.
‘Took us just over ten minutes to get here, right?’ I rubbed my fingers together.
‘I guess.’
‘Gambetta was shot at quarter past.’ I stood, wiping my fingers on my trousers.
‘So?’
‘So we’re about ten minutes behind Demeter.’
‘You’re losing me, buddy. What’s the significance?’
No point explaining it right now. Instead I pointed up at the door. ‘This is the comms room, right?’
Hurley nodded. ‘And break room. This is where we slept last night, before you fixed the door at X-Base. Poor Ingrid. Why would Demeter want to kill her?’
‘The same reason he killed Gambetta,’ said Greenbow, still hovering in the link tunnel fidgeting with his sidearm.
‘Demeter was standing where you are now,’ I said. ‘He shot Ingrid as she left the common room.’ My brow crumpled up as I noticed what was wrong. ‘No range at all but he still managed to miss the first time.’ I pointed at two distinct holes in the far window, the source of the screeching wind.
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