Fire and Water

by Simon Guerrier

Abby leaned forward eagerly.

  “You mean, why would anyone want to frame Connor?”

  “Exactly,” Sarah said firmly.

  “So you start by presuming he’s innocent,” Samuels said.

  “It’s sort of a principle of the legal system,” Connor reminded him. “But what’s so important about me?”

  “You tell us,” Sarah said. “If you hadn’t been arrested —”

  “He wasn’t arrested,” Samuels protested.

  “If you hadn’t been helping security with their enquiries,” Sarah corrected herself, “what would you have been doing?”

  All eyes were on Connor now. He could only shake his head.

  “I don’t know, nothing that special. I’d have come in, had some tea, maybe written a quick summary of our day, seen if there was any bread left for toast, checked my email and backed up the...” He stopped, a look of wonder on his face. “Oh yeah.”

  “Oh yeah?” Abby asked. “Is that in a good way?”

  “I’d have backed up the server,” he said. “I like to do it manually because I can check a few things, but if I’m not here it’s set to do it anyway. If I were a bad guy and I broke in here, I’d want to copy everything off our systems, so I’d let it back up as normal — just onto my own server. I’d just change the address that it’s going to, as no one is likely to spot that. Unless they’re doing it manually.”

  Samuels leant forward and began typing quickly on his laptop, his expression stern. The others crowded around him to see the screen.

  “Yes,” Samuels said after a moment, “I can see it. All the logs copied over at 2.15 this morning.”

  “When Connor was under arrest,” Abby pointed out.

  “Indeed.”

  Connor nudged the others aside so he could see the screen properly.

  “But you can’t just copy the logs. They’d need the actual files, and that’s going to take forever. We’ve got a lot of stuff.”

  Without asking, he swung the laptop round from Samuels and rattled his fingers over the keys. But Samuels didn’t protest. Connor’s eyes glinted with excitement as he worked. Sarah couldn’t keep up with the huge scroll of information flicking up the screen — but evidently he could.

  “Gotcha,” he said at last. “They only began at 2.15. They’re forty-eight per cent of the way through.”

  “Who?” Samuels said as Connor started typing again, his fingers blurring with speed. “We have to know who.” He seemed to have given up entirely on the theory that Connor was the culprit.

  “Working on it,” Connor told him. “There are a couple of tricky things in this code. Stuff I put in as safeguards.”

  They watched in anticipation as complex instructions filled the screen. Connor stuck his tongue out as he worked, and started humming to himself. Then he clapped his hands together and moved back from the laptop.

  “Okay,” he said easily, “who wants to tell me I’m brilliant?” The old Connor was back.

  “You blocked them,” Samuels said.

  “Aw, that would have been dead easy. I spiked the data they were downloading. Transmitted a special message the stuff they’ve already got will respond to, and it’ll start to corrupt. Might do their systems some permanent damage, too. Depends if they’re as clever as me — which I doubt.”

  A column of text began to scroll again up the laptop’s screen. He sat forward again, examined it, and his brow creased with concern.

  “What’s that?” Abby asked.

  “Oh,” Connor said, a smile forming on his face. “Oh! They’re not nearly as clever as they think.” He began typing again. Sarah marvelled at the speed and dexterity with which he worked the keys. “They’ve spotted that I’m on to them and they’re trying to stop me. Hah! How stupid are they? They’ve completely missed that the data they’re holding is already falling apart.”

  “You know who they are?” Samuels asked again.

  “No,” Connor replied, “but they’re showing me which bits of data they think are most worth fighting for. And...” He bit his bottom lip as he concentrated on his work, “I think I can do something else.”

  With a flourish he finished a complex instruction and tapped his index finger on ‘Enter’. The laptop screen went blank for a moment. And then a map of London W6 popped up, an arrow pointing to a particular building.

  “That’s them?” Samuels said.

  “Number thirty-two,” Connor told him proudly. “They’re using a mobile receiver. Satellite picked it up.”

  “I’ll get some people over there...” Samuels reached for the phone on Lester’s desk.

  Connor tutted.

  “Already done that,” he said. “Used your name, of course, since I’m technically still a prisoner. Told you I was brilliant.”

  Samuels regarded him for a moment, then smiled. He patted Connor firmly on the shoulder.

  “Yes, Connor, I think you are. I can see that nothing gets past you. All right, I think you’ve convinced me. Hope you can understand why I had to be cautious.”

  “Sure,” Connor said, still enjoying the adrenalin rush of victory, “no hard feelings. But it’s nearly five in the morning now. If you’re not going to arrest me or have me shot, can I go shower and get some sleep?”

  They’d taken over an empty third floor office in Hammersmith. It had a working toilet but little else in the way of comforts. They wore official-looking uniforms, something not quite either police or fire service, with bright armbands, and explained to anyone who got close that they were part of an exercise.

  “Boss...” said a freckled programmer working at their quickly constructed machine, “I think they’re on their way.”

  “You said we’d have another forty minutes,” his boss told him gruffly.

  “I said I only thought we would.”

  “All right, better pack this lot up. Nothing and no one gets left behind.”

  They worked quickly to dismantle the wires and antenna, packing them into canvas bags that didn’t look as though they’d contain a computer. The boss watched his men check around the room before they made their way out into the night.

  He followed, reaching for his phone.

  “Sir,” he said into it, “mission accomplished.”

  The alarm blared through the ARC facility, and Becker knew there was no one to answer it. He ran quickly down the corridor, his boots slapping against the concrete. Soldiers and technicians wisely got out of his way.

  He barrelled into the main operations room and skidded to a halt. His mouth hung open in amazement at the sight before him.

  Becker had spent the morning preparing his resignation. The short letter began with the general subject of loyalty and moved swiftly onto the specifics of Connor’s value to the team. He didn’t want to leave the ARC, but it seemed the only bargaining chip left in his possession. Samuels had refused to listen to anything else he’d said the previous night. He had to do what was right.

  All this meant he was more than a little surprised to see the subject of his letter laughing with its intended recipient. Connor and Samuels — and Abby and Sarah — stood around the ADD in the ARC’s main ops room, looking like they’d always been best friends.

  “I still don’t trust you entirely,” Samuels said wryly.

  “That’s all right,” Connor told him magnanimously. “I’m not sure about you, either.”

  He’d had some sleep since Becker last saw him, and a wash and change of clothes. In fact, he looked pretty much as good as Connor ever did.

  “Uh, excuse me,” Becker said uncertainly as he approached them. “Good afternoon.”

  “Captain Becker,” Samuels said genially. “I trust you’re fully rested.”

  “Uh, yes sir. Thank you, sir.”

  “Good,” Samuels continued. “We seem to have another anomaly. You’ll go out and put it right, won’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.” Nothing about the scene made any sense, but he decided to get the lay of the land before he made any sudden moves.<
br />
  Samuels continued: “I’ve got some people down in Hammersmith following up on our break-in, but otherwise take all the resources that you need. And I’d like you to take your orders from our specialists here.”

  “He means us,” Abby explained, and he detected a smugness in her voice.

  “We’re special,” Connor added.

  “You have to do what we say,” Sarah said.

  Well, they’re entitled.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he told her.

  “Uh,” Connor said. “Should one of the specialists stay behind here?”

  “Do you think there’s a need?” Samuels asked him.

  “Well, yeah, what happens if there’s another alarm while we’re out at Wapping?”

  They regarded him carefully.

  “You’re volunteering?”

  “Um, yeah, if you want. Don’t all look at me like that, it’s not so I can steal all the systems or whatever while you’re out of the building.”

  “I’ll stay.” Sarah stepped forward.

  “But last night...” Abby began.

  “It’s okay.” Sarah hugged her arms. “There’re a lot more security people here now. And I’ve got to get back on the horse sometime. It’s fine. Go. You’re meant to race off as soon as the alarm sounds!”

  Abby, Connor, and Becker glanced at each other. Becker nodded, and something that resembled understanding passed between them. Then, laughing, they hared off to their new assignment.

  “At least you’ll be out of the rain here,” Samuels said after they had gone.

  “Yeah.” Sarah sat down and opened up her laptop.

  “You’re sure you’re okay now? After last night?”

  “Yep, I’m fine,” she said, though she still didn’t quite feel it. How could she ever trust ARC security after what had happened? There were people with guns conspiring against them.

  And she still didn’t feel as if she knew where Samuels fitted into it all.

  He continued to gaze at her with concern — at least that was how it looked. In the end he neatly changed the subject.

  “Lester suggests that anomaly activity increases with bad weather.”

  “That was a hunch of Cutter’s. I don’t think there’s any real proof.”

  “Do you think they’re connected? We’ve had floods all over the country for the last couple of years. Are they a side effect of the anomalies?”

  Sarah looked up at him. He was standing very close to her and she found herself looking at how his muscles filled out his suit. She couldn’t decide whether it was impressive or ominous.

  “We don’t have sufficient evidence to really know,” she told him. “I can get some of our research team looking into it. Maybe the anomalies are a side effect of the climate, rather than the other way around.”

  “Mmm, at least the bad weather keeps people indoors. We seem to have significantly fewer sightings of creatures while it’s raining which must make the whole process much easier.”

  Sarah nodded.

  “Jenny had a whole team just to keep it all secret. Feed the media any excuse.” She recalled the notes she’d been making the previous evening, while sitting in this same seat.

  “You know,” she said, “I’ve been thinking about the future. Connor said we could do things better here, didn’t he?”

  “What would you like to propose?”

  “Well, just on the basis of resources, maybe it would help to go public — if we presented what we know sensibly, with academic weight behind it. We’re assuming people will go mad and panic, but maybe we’re underestimating them.”

  Samuels nodded.

  “You’d see yourself as the academic sell on this?”

  “I suppose I’d be part of it, yes.”

  “It’s an interesting idea. But you’ll need to convince more than just me. Give me something I can show a few people higher up.”

  “Er, okay. I will.”

  He turned and made his way swiftly up the walkway to Lester’s — now his — office. Sarah watched him go, surprised and impressed by the purposefulness of his stride. He was genuinely going to consider her suggestion. They might actually come out to the world.

  She knew Lester would never have countenanced the idea. And realised she might actually prefer answering to Tom Samuels.

  EIGHTEEN

  Danny drove them back to the lodge, following the tracks they’d made in the dust on their journey out. He’d always had a pretty good sense of direction, anyway, and felt himself coming to grips with the rough layout of the park. It might be bigger than Central London, but it only had a handful of roads.

  Beside him, Lester busied himself with Sophie’s mobile phone, so Danny resisted bothering him with the questions charging through his brain. Nor did he say anything when he spotted a second set of vehicle tracks, weaving over the top of their own. Whatever vehicle it might have been, its axles were wider than the SUV, the heavy treads of the tyres pressing further down into the dust. He couldn’t be sure they were left by the same vehicle whose tracks he’d spotted the previous night, but things were starting to fit together.

  It seemed quite a coincidence that the Postosuchus had been so conveniently close by to pounce on them.

  Perhaps the dinosaurs weren’t appearing in the game park via anomalies; rather they were being transported there. Whoever was moving the creatures — and using them to try and kill Danny and Lester — must also have some kind of storage facility, because they weren’t just using dinosaurs from one period. This had to be a relatively large operation.

  “Hello, Ted?” Lester said into the phone. “Do you speak any English?”

  He then explained in a few words what had happened, and said that they were bringing Sophie’s body back to the lodge.

  “Well,” he said to Danny when he’d finished the call, “he should be there ahead of us.”

  “Okay, good.”

  “Not necessarily. He was her friend. I’m sure he’s caught up in this, too.”

  “Maybe. I suppose we’ll just have to deal with that when the time comes.”

  Lester sighed.

  “You know, I’ve rather had my fill of this country.”

  “It’s not exactly been a pleasure trip. You could always upgrade our tickets home to first class.”

  “I might upgrade mine.”

  “Hey!” Danny said. “I thought we were a team. Like Butch and Sundance.”

  “More like Laurel and Hardy. If we’re such a good team, why haven’t you pointed out the other tracks on the road? Which I assume to be from the same vehicle as last night. I take it your observation skills are sharp enough to pick them up — that is, after all, what we employ you for.”

  “Er, yeah,” Danny said, surprised. “You noticed them? Didn’t think tracking was your thing.”

  “I prefer to sit behind a large desk in an air-conditioned office because I’m not a complete idiot.”

  They came to a fork in the road. Their own tracks headed left, to the lodge. The heavily laden vehicle had gone in the other direction.

  “We could follow them,” Danny offered.

  “Why bother? There’s coffee at the lodge. And they’ve already made it perfectly plain that they’re happy to come to us.”

  “Good point.”

  Ted and a number of other gamekeepers were waiting for them at the lodge. They came forward, saying nothing as Danny and Lester clambered out of the SUV. Danny tried to help them, but Lester stayed back, his face sombre as they withdrew Sophie’s bloodied body from the back of the car. Their expressions were all set and serious. Danny at least expected some kind of rebuke from one of them, but they just seemed to want to get on with the job.

  He and Lester might not have even been there.

  “She saved my life,” Danny tried to explain to Ted as they carried her inside. Ted regarded him balefully, then followed the others into the lodge.

  Danny and Lester were last to go in. They made their way through the hallway to the m
ess room which had witnessed the deaths of Sophie’s colleagues the night before. And they’d been losing people even before that, too, Danny knew. Perhaps that sense of resignation was what made the survivors so sober. He wanted to shout at them, to get some kind of reaction, but he kept quiet.

  They lay Sophie’s body on the dining table, and lifted the tablecloth up around her, wrapping her inside. A sequence of folds interlocked around her covered shoulders and ankles, creating carry handles.

  It struck Danny that you learnt this kind of quick, efficient handling of the dead by having death as a constant all around you. He wondered about the keepers’ lives, the hardships they had lived through. They seemed like quite a brutal lot. South Africa promised so much opportunity, but there were people here who’d lived so long without. Whatever Sophie had been mixed up in, he thought he could understand the temptation. He hoped they’d paid her well.

  “They blame us,” Lester told him as they watched the simple, respectful way the keepers worked.

  “So do I,” Danny responded. He clenched his fists together at his sides, surprised to find anger coursing through him, rather than grief. Anger at the injustice of the fact she’d died. Anger that — though she’d changed her mind — she’d also tried to kill them. Anger that he’d known her not quite twenty-four hours, and yet he seemed to be more affected by her death than any of her colleagues. How different it would be, he thought, were it the ARC team dealing with the body of one of their own.

  He had seen for himself how they’d all been knocked sideways by the loss of Nick Cutter...

  This stony-faced group just weren’t normal. It wasn’t a cultural thing or the weight of successive losses. These people, working closely and easily together, didn’t behave as if Sophie had been part of their gang. He glanced around at Lester, to see him scrutinising the group in his own way, perhaps thinking along similar lines.

  Sophie’s wrapped body was carried back outside and laid in the back of one of the other battered cars. Danny silently said goodbye to her as the door was closed. Then the car pulled away and headed down the road. He watched until it had disappeared out of view.

  One of the last gamekeepers to leave explained to Lester that he and Danny were to remain in the lodge for the night. A tall, weasel-faced man with few teeth, he said the keepers would be patrolling, looking for any more ‘lizards’. It would be a shame were the two British guys to get in their way, he said; there might be some kind of accident.