Standing up, Angela pulled Samantha to her feet and kissed her full on the lips.
‘Then welcome to the Bunker. You now belong to me.’
Swiping the two men through the double doors, Evelyn felt all the worrying memories crowding back in on her, and even though she knew Anderton was dead, her heart still jumped at every twist and turn in the silent gloomy maze of the honey coloured labyrinth, and reaching Merlin’s sanctum, could only look through half lowered eyes at the brass nameplate on Dudley’s door, but Frank gently took her arm and eased her away into the blank passage that led to Leonardo.
Once through the blast doors they stripped in the cubicles and stood for the cameras, with Frank knowing all too well who would see the photo’s now, and dressing in the cotton overalls and slippers, they padded along to the airport style entrance gate.
When they were all safely through, Monty nudged Frank and pointed across.
‘The entrance to the master passage is immediately to your right, and it’s hidden behind that rather large painting of the Rose Marie.’
Turning, Frank looked at the huge magnificent oil painting of a trading ship in full sail.
She was running before the wind on the high seas, her many sails being full and billowed out by the storm, and while her wretched sailors clung on to the rigging for dear life, enormous waves came to crash over the decks as they tried to carry them away.
‘I noticed that painting before, it’s fabulous, but how do I get to the entrance?’
Monty pointed, ‘Put your fingers under the bottom of the frame, at the very centre, now lift the frame out gently, but only one inch, and you should hear a click.’
Frank did as he was told, and then came the dull click of a heavy solid mechanism.
‘Okay, so what now?’
‘Swing the bottom of the painting two inches to your left.’
Another click was heard, and as they watched, the painting began to silently swing out as if being moved by invisible hands, and then a truly wonderful oak tunnel was revealed, but only for it to disappear and vanish away into the honeyed gloom.
As Frank stared, he was hardly able to believe that anyone could have conceived such a feat of workmanship, let alone to build it with such perfection it still worked effortlessly all these years later, but he frowned as he looked at the heavy brass mechanism.
‘So how do I get out after the door’s shut behind me?’
‘Well as far as I remember, the mechanism rewinds itself with the closing of the door, so all you need to do, is lift the centre lever and the door will open again.’
He saw it, ‘Right. So I’ll see you both in half an hour.’
Frank stepped into the gloom, but as Monty began to swing the door shut, he stopped when another memory returned to him.
Frank saw the look on his face. ‘What’s wrong, Monty?’
‘Oh, it’s probably nothing, but Tara was afraid for us if we went into the passage.’
‘Afraid? Why? What did she say?’
‘She was afraid the monster would catch us, or in this case, catch you.’
Frank grinned, ‘The monster? Oh, come on, you’re joking aren’t you?’
‘There you are, you see, I knew you’d laugh, but she hasn’t been wrong so far.’
He stopped grinning, ‘Okay, so what’s this monster supposed to look like.’
‘She doesn’t know, she’s never seen it, but she’s certain it’s there.’
‘So how does she know it’s there, if she hasn’t seen it?’
‘It rumbles.’
‘Rumbles?’
‘Yes, from right under the house, not always, but sometimes, and there are footsteps climbing up a long wooden staircase, but they don’t go into the master passage, they go straight into the naughty area and she doesn’t hear them anymore.’
Thinking back to all the little secrets in Thornley’s amazing old house, he knew nothing should surprise him.
‘Okay. I’ll be careful.’
Samantha knew enough of the workings of Cardinal to realise there was no way back from this, and anyway, Angela’s kiss had sealed the matter once and for all.
Sitting her down in the study, Angela took the file from her desk and placed it in her lap.
‘Now then, I need to get you up to speed with this, and as quickly as possible.’
Step by step she took her through the chain of events to the present time, and sitting back, waited to see if Sam would understand the complexity of the case.
Wasting no time reading it through, Sam’s eyes shone with the intrigue of it all.
‘You said Glenndenning was mentioned in a letter by Mr Dudley, and by the other two deceased as Mr G, so now you have the password to the Sanderson file, have you cross checked to confirm who actually recruited her?’
Angela smiled, ‘My dear Samantha, your quick grasp of the situation is either amazing, or incredibly scary, but no matter. The answer to your clever question is a definite, yes. I checked the Sanderson file right after I spoke to you this morning.’
‘And was she? Was Sanderson recruited by Glenndenning?’
‘Correct.’
‘But if he’s proven to be the organiser, he has special protection as he’s also an advisor to the government, so doesn’t that make it rather awkward for us?’
‘It does indeed, and whether to cleanse, or not to cleanse, is a rather delicate conundrum. So what would you do as Chief Executive to the Director General of Cardinal?’
Samantha sat quietly for a moment, ‘Well as this investigation is officially sanctioned by the Chiefs of Staff, I would recommend that Montague and Lewis should be allowed to try and recover the file, and then cleanse Glenndenning regardless of any political fall-out.’
Angela took a deep breath, ‘And that, my dear, is precisely why I wanted you with me, because I need someone who’s not afraid to make difficult decisions when I’m not here.’
‘Well I have made hard decisions before, and not all of them were horizontal.’
Angela smiled, ‘No doubt you have, but for now I’ve made a short list of priorities, and to start with, there’s someone who requires our immediate attention.’
‘Oh, and who’s that?’
‘Simon Harris. He’ll be one of your first assignments.’
‘Simon Harris? Do I know him? The name seems vaguely familiar.’
‘Well you might have seen his name, he’s one of the senior technicians at Thornley, and unfortunately for dear Simon, he’s learnt far too much about Cardinal.’
‘Oh dear. So is he to be cleansed?’
‘No, I must be getting soft. You see, Simon was quite helpful, so it might be sufficient if the clinic were to diagnose an acute case of stress disorder, then have him admitted and put on a high dose of anti-depressants, and when he’s dependant on the stuff we can retire him on medical grounds as psychologically disturbed.’
Samantha held back a grimace, ‘Okay. Anything else?’
Angela’s eyes narrowed, ‘Yes. There’s a bitch who needs immediate attention.’
‘And who’s that?’
‘Tara Goodwin, and if you remember from the update, she’s the spy MI5 infiltrated into Thornley, and although Mr Lewis thinks she’s innocent, I do not agree, which is why I’ve provisionally instructed my Special Operator to be aware of this target.’
Wandering over to the window, she gazed down to the stream and thought of Frank.
‘But it’s annoying, I wanted to confirm the target today but the little vixen has left Thornley and hasn’t been seen since, but never mind, I’ll issue the order regardless, and it will be up to her to follow it through. So read this, code it and send it off immediately.’
Taking the note from her pocket, Angela handed over the instruction, and as Samantha scanned over the page, she committed the details to memory.
Attn DC,
Immediate Action.
Target. Female (Sorry). Tara Goodwin.
Normal Target Location. Th
ornley Manor. (Target off location at present time)
Instruction. Find and cleanse on sight, as and when, soonest.
Best wishes.
A.
It was busy at Sheverill’s farm, with Martha furiously cleaning the kitchen, Arthur lighting the range, re-stocking the wine and fetching fresh fruit and vegetables, and then came a pattering of bare feet as Lucinda skipped down the staircase and into the kitchen.
‘Good morning, everyone, and isn’t it quite simply the most glorious day imaginable.’
Arthur looked over, ‘Yes ma’am, and I reckon it could be a hot one later.’
Martha gave a sigh of relief at her lady’s happy chatter, and scuttling across the kitchen, reached the percolator as Lucinda came across, her long creamy bathrobe swirling around her in a happy dance.
‘I’ve made fresh coffee, ma’am, if you’d like some.’
‘Oooo yes, I could drink a gallon, but where’s my Chrissy?’
Martha poured her a mug of coffee, ‘Well she’s the early bird today and gone off down the garden with her coffee, so she’ll be in the summer house, likely as not.’
Lucinda smiled, her fierce eyes glinting wickedly as thoughts of last evening returned.
‘Well she’s probably just relaxing after our exciting evening.’
She chuckled darkly.
‘And even you joined in this time, and gave us all a nice little show.’
Martha squirmed.
‘Not that you did much talking, but I suppose you couldn’t with your mouth full.’
Martha stared down to the work surface, ‘No ma’am.’
Enjoying Martha’s discomfort, she happily sat down at the table and sipped her coffee.
‘And now my darling Chrissy has come to stay, we can have fun all the time.’
Martha pretended to smile, but she was trying hard not to think of it.
‘Yes ma …’
She froze, as quite suddenly that awful sound floated out across the kitchen, and turning to the Swiss clock, saw the tiny wooden figures of a boy and girl beginning to revolve in and out of their little house, and they foretold the coming of hell as that hideous tune announced a priority message for ma’am, waiting for her up in the priest hole.
As Frank made his way along the tunnel, he saw it wasn’t complete darkness after all, the peepholes peppering the tunnel giving just enough light to see forward, and once he’d settled himself, could understand what Tara had tried to explain, and the master passage was exactly that, with tunnels and passages branching off everywhere to form an enormous horizontal tree, and as the side passages always ended in a cul-de-sac, it was virtually impossible to get lost, and he soon found he was able to keep track of his progress by looking into the rooms as he passed by, and it was amazing, sometimes travelling between rooms, beside the normal passages and occasionally under short flights of high stairs or even crawling along narrow twisting tunnels.
Passing by Dudley’s office he saw it was lifeless and silent, and looking into Merlin’s sanctum, saw the many technicians working steadily and quietly at their various computer stations, and realising he was entering the so-called, naughty area, remembered Tara’s embarrassment when she’d tried to avoid describing the various bed chambers.
And now he could see why, because the pornography was quite incredible and he could only wonder at the obscene debauchery that must have taken place in these rooms.
Moving deeper into the sex area, he saw all the rooms had the same theme and had obviously been left untouched throughout the years, but it looked incongruous to see a bed chamber full with sex objects now being used just as any normal office, because filing cabinets stood beside beds fitted with straps, while huge oil paintings of degenerate orgies hung impassively over typists’ desks.
Travelling on, one room immediately stood out. It was enormous with paintings and drawings of the most extreme obscenity while on clothes rails hung every type of fetish clothing imaginable, and shaped pieces of furniture for kneeling and splaying, all fitted with collars and chains, but most amazing of all was further over, and it was nothing less than a smaller version of flight control at Cape Canaveral.
There was bank after bank of computers, printers, monitors, televisions, phones, copiers and fax machines all sectioned off under their individual nameplates.
UK, USA, MIDDLE EAST, SOUTH AMERICA, FAR EAST, EUROPE, RUSSIA, ASIA, BALKANS, and in endless categories, sub-names were listed underneath.
Political, Financial, Industrial, Economy, Religion, Military, Subversives, Terrorists, Propaganda, Law, History, Criminal, Mafia, SIS - MI6, The World Trade Organisation, Covert Action, Lethal Funding, Communism Delta, Liaison - CIA Near East Division, Pakistan Afghanistan Mudjahideen, Liaison - Solidarity, Polish Intelligence, Section 11, but on separate banks there were the two biggest teams of all with huge nameplates. GCHQ (Encryptabust ) > Liaison < STATION X1 - HOMOGENISE - FORTY, and, MOD - NSA - MENWITH - FYLINGDALES - ECHELON > Liaison < STATION X1.
Watching through the peephole, the many operators monitored, gathered and updated the endless files and disks, and Tara was right, he was looking at Cardinal’s gathering system and their technically advanced IT computer. The Minotaur.
He’d seen enough, the Minotaur did exist, and making his way back along the passage, he heard the hum of the lift shaft motor, and realising the security office couldn’t be far away, wondered just how murky those security monitors had been. Crawling along, he followed a tunnel leading off into the gloomy darkness, but he came to a dead end, and keeping still, heard voices close by.
Looking around, he saw a chink of light coming from the wood panelling at the end of the tunnel, and putting his eye to the peephole, looked down and saw a large desk with a pile of Tits and Bums magazines, the voices coming much louder, but squinting down through the peephole, all he could see were two security guards staring hard at a monitor.
‘Well, Cardinal man or not, we’ve got to do something.’
As the guards moved away, Frank could finally see the screen, and there was Monty, leaning against Cabinet 1 and reading that damned file, page after page.
Frank watched, his mind numb, then one of the guards picked up the red phone.
32
Lucinda’s mood had flipped the very moment the old Swiss clock had burst into life, and although she’d been smiling and jovial till then, in that mesmerising second she’d become statuesque like a dark angel, silent, venomous and frightening.
Martha watched the transition through eyes fixed in horror.
She’d hoped it wouldn’t happen again for a long time, but nonetheless, they were there, the wooden boy and girl going round and round in endless circles to that hated tune.
Lucinda fell into a still darkness as in her mind’s eye she saw the fireball of the explosion that had ripped the building into broken shards, and amongst the screaming bodies lay smouldering lumps of human flesh that had once been tiny children, just playing.
Standing up slowly as if in a dream, her dark eyes now stared directly at Martha.
Someone had made the fatal mistake of directing the bomb to the wrong target.
But only the two of them were here, so that person must have been Martha …
Lucinda moved closer, and Martha, quivering, edged away backwards.
‘Please ma’am. Please … For the love of God, please …’
She came on, her feet hardly seeming to move as Martha slowly backed away, but just as Lucinda’s bright red pointed fingernails clutched at Martha’s throat, the hall door suddenly crashed open as Arthur barged through in a temper.
‘Martha. What the hell have you done to the video recor…’
He stopped dead, for after all this time, ma’am was killing Martha again.
Lucinda faltered, and shuddering, began to melt out of her trance, and releasing Martha’s throat, watched her cough and gasp for air as small rivers of blood trickled down.
Lucinda stood perfectly still, her eyes blank as if
unable to understand where she was, and when her vision at last began to clear, recoiled back from the sight of Martha laying sprawled against the wall, her piggy eyes bulging in terror while her throat ran with blood.
Yelling and screaming, Lucinda ran away into the dark morbid depths of the old house, and frantically climbing the gloomy stairs to the priest hole, stood on the landing and began to thump her head on the carving.
Frank made his way back as fast as he could through the half lit master passage, angry and confused as he scrabbled through the twists and turns of the tunnels.
So what had possessed him to do it?
Jesus, that damned file was for authorised eyes only, but he hadn’t been able to resist it, and now he’d blown everything to hell.
Monty had found the seal on the file to have been long since broken by Robin Sheverill, but the front cover was intact, and in large bold letters, he’d read:
Dr Edward Jenner, 1749 - 1823.
On the inside page was a brief description of the man and his work.
'His great discovery which has saved more lives than the work of any other man had begun on the 14th of May 1796 when a milkmaid, Sarah Nelmes came to him suffering from cowpox.'
Dr Jenner knew from country folklore that milkmaids who had contracted the mild form of cowpox could not then catch the dreaded 'smallpox' and so he conducted an experiment.
On the 14th of May 1796 he took infected material from Sarah Nelmes and scratched the infected material into the skin of his gardener’s son, James Phipps, and that in effect was the first vaccination, and when James had sufficiently recovered, he tried to infect the boy with the killer disease, smallpox, but without success.
On the next page, Monty read a brief description of how the virus affected mankind, because smallpox is highly specialised, it only attacks humans and there’s no cure.
It’s estimated that since smallpox first appeared some 3,000 years ago it has killed approximately 20 - 30 % of the world’s population, around 100 million people and left another 200 million either blind or scarred for life, and recently, in just this century alone it has killed more people than all the wars put together.
Saving Tara Goodwin (Mystery Book 1) Page 33