Perfect People

by Peter James

  Naomi looked at the American agent. ‘Where do you think our children are? Have you found out anything about the plane?’

  ‘We haven’t gotten any useful information on the Gulfstream yet. But we’re closing the loop in another direction. The man who was found with a gunshot wound on your doorstep on Friday morning – who was murdered yesterday – we believe is Timon Cort, a member of the Disciples of the Third Millennium cult.’

  ‘It really exists?’ John asked.

  ‘The Disciples?’ The agent tilted his head. ‘Uh, you want to believe it exists. We’re pretty certain we’ve located their base, and we’ve been monitoring all their electronic signals for several months by satellite, picking up all their digital communication packets. We’ve been tracking this Timon Cort character through emails – all coded in weird religious tracts of the Bible – for the past eighteen months. We linked him to Iowa, where there was a mass death of a family who had been to Dr Dettore, then to Rochester, New York State, where another family who had been to Dettore were killed. Then we lost him. Turns out he comes to England and pitches up on your doorstep.’

  ‘Who shot him outside our house?’ Naomi asked, tightly, shivering.

  ‘Can’t answer that,’ Dan Norbert said. ‘You get seriously screwed-up people in these cults. Two factions disagreeing about what to do, that kind of stuff.’

  ‘And you know where they are?’ she said.

  ‘Thanks to Miss Gherardi’s left luggage ticket.’ He chewed his gum for a moment. ‘Our office in Athens has been on to the cab firm who told us where they picked this woman up from yesterday. Her photo was in Timon Cort’s wallet. She got sent to kill him, presumably to keep him from talking, but that doesn’t interest us. It’s the connection between them, that’s the thing, that’s the absolute proof for us.’

  ‘I thought the Disciples killed people – that they were dedicated to eradicating children conceived in Dr Dettore’s clinic?’ John said. ‘Why would they abduct them?’

  ‘Seems like they’ve had a change of policy. In the past week in the United States, three sets of Dettore twins have been reported missing by the parents. They’ve just vanished, leaving even less for us to go on than yours have.’

  ‘Three sets of twins?’ John said. ‘They’ve kidnapped six kids in the past week?’

  ‘We don’t have evidence the others have been kidnapped, but it seems likely. They’ve all just slipped under the radar, vanished into thin air.’

  ‘And you think they’re in the same place as Luke and Phoebe?’ asked Naomi.

  ‘We’re gonna find out pretty soon.’

  ‘How soon?’ she persisted.

  ‘Well, ma’am, appropriations are really being pumped, and we’re just getting our proactive procedural safeguards locked in – we want to ensure we don’t give these bastards one inch of wiggle room, right?’

  ‘Right,’ she echoed blankly, barely understanding a word of what he had just said.

  Then he went on. ‘I’m sorry to have to make you go back over ground you’ve been covering with these good people for the past forty-eight hours, but I’m going to need to start at the beginning with you.’

  ‘It’s not a problem,’ John said. ‘We’re very grateful for your involvement.’

  It was three in the afternoon before Special Agent Norbert was done with his questions, and Pelham escorted him out of the door, back to his car.

  112

  John and Naomi sat in silence for some moments as they waited for Pelham to return. Naomi, completely drained, looked at Tom Humbolt, who had an expression on his face that seemed to be saying, Why do guys like Special Agent Norbert treat everyone who isn’t FBI like they just fell off the back of a truck?

  ‘Three other sets of twins?’ Naomi said to him. ‘Why – why would they be taking them?’

  ‘Could it be to try to protect them?’ John asked.

  ‘Maybe to try to brainwash them?’ Humbolt ventured.

  ‘It seems positive, at least,’ Renate Harrison said. ‘If their agenda was to harm Luke and Phoebe, and these others, I don’t imagine they would have gone to these lengths of taking them away.’

  Her mobile phone rang. She answered it, then a moment later said, ‘One moment, sir, I’d like everyone to hear what you have to say. Can we call you back on a speaker phone in a couple of minutes? Thank you.’ Ending the call, she said to John and Naomi, ‘It’s Professor Chetwynde-Cunningham with some information. I suggest we wait for Detective Inspector Pelham to return.’

  A few minutes later, with a starfish-shaped conferencing phone on the middle of the table, Renate Harrison dialled the linguist’s number at Morley Park. ‘We have Dr and Mrs Klaesson, Detective Inspector Pelham and Detective Sergeant Humbolt listening, Professor.’

  ‘Jolly good. Good afternoon, everyone.’ He sounded very tired.

  They returned the greeting, then waited.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t have any good news for you. It’s a bit disappointing at the moment. We’ve all been working around the clock on this, and I’m afraid we haven’t made much progress. You are probably aware from our conversations, John, that encryption techniques have moved forward enormously in recent years, with a great deal of research money being thrown at creating uncrackable codes for secure trading on the internet. Yes?’

  ‘Sure,’ John said.

  ‘What we have here is way advanced from the code your twins were using a while ago, of reversing speech and deleting every fourth letter. I’m afraid what we are up against here is something none of us has encountered before and it’s not decipherable within current capabilities. I’m not saying it won’t be possible one day, but it could take us a month, or many months, maybe longer. Without the keys, we’re stymied in the short term.’

  Pelham leaned forward. ‘This is Detective Inspector Pelham speaking, Professor.’

  ‘Yes, hallo.’

  ‘Are you willing to keep trying?’

  ‘Of course, but I don’t want to hold out any promises – you need to be aware of that.’

  ‘We appreciate your candour, Professor.’

  ‘With your permission, I’d like to send copies of these hard disks to one of my former colleagues at GCHQ – the Government Communications Headquarters at Cheltenham. He’s willing to give his people a shot at it.’

  Pelham looked at John and Naomi for confirmation, then said, ‘You have our absolute consent to explore any avenue you consider appropriate.’

  ‘OK. I don’t think there’s much more I can add at present.’

  ‘We’re very grateful to you,’ Pelham said.

  ‘Thanks, Reggie,’ John said.

  ‘Perhaps I can offer you and your wife one small crumb in this awful predicament. If your children are smart enough to be able to communicate in this code, then they must have quite extraordinary intelligence.’

  ‘Meaning what, exactly?’ John asked.

  ‘Well, just that. Perhaps their survival skills are equally honed.’

  ‘They are still only three years old, Professor,’ Naomi said.

  ‘That may be, but they’ve got more wits about them than most adults.’

  After a long silence, John said, ‘We hear what you are saying, Reggie, thank you. We appreciate everything you and your team are doing.’

  ‘I’ll keep you posted.’

  They all thanked him, then Pelham terminated the call.

  ‘Maybe we should take a break,’ the detective inspector said. ‘I think we could all use a little air.’

  113

  It was a perfect night. They could have waited weeks for conditions like this, months even. No moon, heavy cloud cover, a light swell. They cut the motor and drifted, and within seconds, operating on synchronized watches, all the other outboards on the fleet of twenty inflatables had been cut, too.

  Sudden hush. Just the slop of the ink-black ocean, the splash of oars, the creak of rowlocks, the sound of nervous breathing, the rustle of tough clothing fabrics.

  Twe
lve miles to the south, the lights of the ships were now no longer visible. Out there in the darkness on the edge of the horizon, two aircraft carriers, one belonging to the Greek navy, one to the United States, were hove-to, on full alert. Helicopters sat on both their decks, crewed-up, waiting.

  With all electronic equipment switched off, and all conversation forbidden, the crew in the flotilla of shore craft rowed the final three miles in silence.

  *

  At half past one in the morning, Harald Gatward knelt beside his bed, face buried in his hands, communing with the Lord in a prayer vigil more intense than any he had held in months.

  He felt like he had hit a wall with his worship, the kind of wall marathon runners face after the first few miles, the wall of pain and despair you have to get beyond, because when you do, when you muster your resources and force yourself through, soon the juices start flowing, and everything becomes easier.

  Satan had put up this wall and he needed God to help him find a way through it.

  Father Yanni, the Abbot, had come to his cell and spoken to him last night, told him in that wise, lugubrious voice that the other monks had noticed he wasn’t praying so well recently. Particularly the past couple of days. Father Yanni wondered if, perhaps, the American was sickening for something? Or having doubts?

  ‘The man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin,’ Harald Gatward had replied.

  The Abbott told him the monks would pray for his faith, then had said a short prayer with him, and left.

  Gatward opened his eyes and stared into the darkness of his room. Soon it would be the drum call to matins and they would all see his troubled face. Might be better this morning to remain in his cell; he had to think through his problems, the ones he could not, dare not, share with the Abbot or any monk here.

  Timon Cort.

  Lara Gherardi.

  What a mess.

  Had Timon Cort said anything before he had died? Had Lara Gherardi? Was there anything in their possession that could yield clues to the enemy?

  It had been a mistake sending Lara, and he was bitterly regretting it now. She had been a good person; he had acted out of panic, hadn’t thought it through properly, and had not given her time to plan. It would have been better to have sent someone not emotionally attached; her love for her fellow Disciple must have affected her judgement.

  In five years, through meticulous planning and discipline, rigorously following the guidance of God, none of his Disciples had made one slip. Now, in the space of less than forty-eight hours, two were dead.

  He closed his hands over his face, and began to recite from Psalm 73.

  ‘Oh Lord, when my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before You.’

  Outside, he heard drumming. The sharp rapping of wood on wood, beginning softly, then rapidly rising in a frenzied crescendo, echoing across the flagstones below, and across the monastery walls.

  The beat was getting louder.

  As if a wooden gong was hammering inside his skull.

  I’m coming, all right, yes, yes, to matins, I will come.

  Louder still.

  His door burst open. Shocked by the intrusion, he looked up straight into blinding white light. The next moment he heard a sharp hiss, smelled a sour reek like a perfume that had gone bad, then in the same instant, he was enveloped in a moist, acrid cloud.

  It felt like acid had been thrown into his eyes. Crying out in pain, he squeezed them shut, pressing his hands back over his face, and now his throat and lungs seared as if he was breathing in flames.

  He tried to remember his military training. To stay calm. No panic. Just think the situation through before acting. But he was suffocating; his gullet was on fire, his nostrils, his lungs. He tried to open his stinging eyes. Could see nothing, just a blur of blinding light. He was trying to think, to work out what was happening.

  He stumbled against his table, fell to the floor with it, heard a sharp crack that might have been his laptop striking the floor also. Instinctively he curled up into a ball and rolled, always present the enemy with a moving target.

  He crashed against something hard. A leg of the bed. Then against the wall. Lay still. Coughing, choking, his eyes burning, fighting for air.

  Voices outside. Unfamiliar voices. The drumming had stopped. Instead there were strange footsteps, all kinds of new sounds. One very angry voice shouting down below. It sounded like Father Yanni.

  He tried to sit up, forcing his eyes open, and saw through a wall of tears a figure, just a dark blur of a figure, towering over him.

  His coughing eased; the acrid smell was fading a little; he took a deep gulp, but it was like sucking fire into his lungs and he coughed violently again. ‘Who – who are you—?’ he wheezed painfully, squinting, panic-stricken, desperately trying to blink his eyes clear, but to no avail.

  The voice was American, with a faint Kansas twang, and sounded a little muffled. It said, ‘Where are the children, motherfucker?’

  Gatward tried to speak but had another coughing fit. The light that was shining in his face was making the pain in his eyes worse, and he put his hand over them.

  ‘PUT YOUR HANDS ON TOP OF YOUR HEAD, MOTHERFUCKER. ONE ON TOP OF THE OTHER.’

  Harald Gatward hesitated, then obeyed. Who the hell was this man? Except, the pain in his eyes and throat and lungs was so bad, he almost didn’t care who the man was, he just wanted the pain to stop. He didn’t care if he died at this moment.

  ‘WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN?’

  ‘What children?’ he wheezed, before lapsing into more coughing.

  ‘You want to make this easy, or you want to make this hard, you piece of shit? Because it would give me a lot of pleasure to make this real hard. Where are the children?’

  Gatward, confused, shook his head. ‘What children?’ Moments later, someone was seizing his hands, jerking them behind his back; he tried to resist, but the moment he drew in breath, he began coughing. ‘Wharachireren?’ he managed to get out.

  Something metallic closed around one wrist then the other. Handcuffs.

  ‘Whoorrruyou?’

  ‘Special Agent Norbert, FBI. I’m here in the presence of the Greek Police and the US Military.’

  The air in the room was clearing now. The taller man lowered his gas mask, produced his ID from an inside pocket and held it out to Gatward, who, still suffering from the CS gas, was unable to see what it was, let alone read it.

  Special Agent Norbert, dressed in a flak jacket, fatigues and a balaclava, with a Uzi sub-machine gun crooked under one arm, said, ‘Colonel Harald Edgar Gatward, I’m arresting you on charges of conspiracy to murder and kidnap. You have the right to remain silent. You are coming back to the United States with us today; even as we speak your extradition papers are being stamped by the Greek authorities. They don’t want a piece of shit like you polluting their country.’

  His lungs a fraction better now, Gatward said, sullenly, ‘I saved their monastery.’

  ‘You saved their monastery? That’s funny. Who’d you save it for?’

  Gatward said nothing.

  ‘For the children? That who you saved it for?’

  ‘What children?’

  Something in the way Gatward said that gave Special Agent Norbert a distinct prick of unease.

  114

  ‘I’m sorry, Dr and Mrs Klaesson,’ Detective Inspector Pelham said. ‘I was hoping to be able to give you good news. This is a big disappointment for you, I know. It is for us, too.’

  It was Monday morning, and he was seated at the round table in his office, beside DS Humbolt and Renate Harrison. He looked drained. They all did.

  John and Naomi stared at him in stunned silence. Then John said, ‘Are you telling us it isn’t the Disciples’ people who have taken them?’

  ‘The base of the Disciples of the Third Millennium was raided in the early hours
of this morning by the Greek police, backed up by the Greek navy, a US SEALS squad and a British SAS squad. Agent Norbert told me on the phone an hour ago that they are certain beyond any reasonable doubt that they have the ringleader of the cult and the majority, if not all, of its members in custody in Greece, awaiting rubber-stamping of extradition papers.’

  ‘But they don’t have Luke and Phoebe?’ Naomi said.

  ‘I’m afraid not, no.’

  She lowered her head into her hands and wept. ‘They’re dead, aren’t they? They must have killed them.’

  There was a long, awkward silence.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Tom Humbolt said. ‘You see—’

  ‘NOT NECESSARILY???’ Naomi raised her voice at him. ‘Is that the best you can offer us? Not necessarily?’

  Humbolt raised his huge hands in the air. ‘We don’t have any reason to believe they’ve come to any harm.’

  ‘Don’t you?’ Naomi said. ‘They were abducted in the middle of the night and two people are dead, and you don’t have any reason to believe they might have come to any harm? What planet are you on, Detective Sergeant?’

  ‘Hon!’ John put a protective arm around her. ‘Hear him out.’

  ‘I’m all ears,’ Naomi said. ‘Tell me what you know about them. What do you know about the Disciples?’

  ‘Very little more than is in the papers, at this stage.’

  ‘Or than the Americans would tell you?’

  Ignoring the barb, Pelham said, ‘We know it is a religious cult dedicated to halting the progress of science. Its leader is now in custody, along with forty other members of the cult.’

  ‘They were all on this island?’ John quizzed.

  Pelham replied, ‘It could well be that their abductors hadn’t got your children there before the raid and might be holding them somewhere en route.’

  ‘And what do you think they’re going to do with them now that their organization has been busted? Take them on a fun day out to Euro Disney?’