by Hammond, Ray
‘You two, get something to eat.’ It was Ramon Resigo calling to them as he strode across the farmyard. ‘When you’ve eaten, help these men load up. There will be a briefing on the mission at nineteen hundred in the main farmhouse.’
Nineteen
Told you so! said Sue suddenly. There was a triumphant note in her voice and Ray Fox’s head flicked up. Incoming email from Floyd! Without waiting for her owner’s instruction the VA removed the map and projected the email onto the wall screen.
August 2nd 2047
Parachuted into the Jura mountains, France. Nearest town Morbier. 200 heavily-armed HFDA volunteers her with some FARC mercenaries. Target unknown. Attack imminent. Talk of global-scale super weapon to be used as climax to campaign.
Floyd.
L4, B22, H91.
Fox gasped, then smiled, then laughed. Fucking great! he told Sue, leaping to his feet. Get Dave in here now.
A few seconds later the burly, bearded figure of David Evans was through the doorway.
Fox pointed to his wall screen.
‘Look, it’s Floyd,’ he told Evans.
The deputy director read the message carefully. ‘What trace do we have on the message?’
The IP address is a public proxy, said Sue.
‘It’s a proxy,’ Fox repeated for Evans’s benefit. ‘We’ll copy it to Cheltenham SigInt to see if they can dig any deeper.’ It’s done, said Sue.
‘Why the hell would they be in eastern France?’ asked Evans as he stared up at the message.
Want to see a map? asked Sue.
The wall screen refreshed with a map of Europe and then zoomed in rapidly towards the Jura mountains in rural France. Sue selected an overlay which provided visual and textural information about buildings and infrastructure in the region. The she began pouring web information and images about the Jura region and the town of Morbier into a side panel on the screen. Morbier was famous for cheese making.
Fox glanced quickly at the large area of countryside that was displayed, and then Sue zoomed in more closely on the area around Morbier. It’s a national park, she reported. No obvious transhuman or computer development targets.
‘There’s sod-all there,’ remarked Evans in puzzlement.
Fox glanced up at the map and shook his head as he tried to imagine what target Humans First could have in mind and why they had transported an entire company of FARC-trained HFDA terrorists from Venezuela.
‘But we know Floyd’s alive, and we know roughly where he is,’ said the director.
Evans nodded agreement and turned to his boss for orders.
‘The ATA had a lead yesterday that Makowski might be in the border region between France and Switzerland,’ Fox told his deputy as he suddenly made the connection. ‘At the time I didn’t think the information was of sufficient importance to circulate it.’
‘Bloody hell!’ exclaimed Evans. ‘What if we–’
‘Where is the nearest Commandement des Operations Speciales’ base?’ Fox asked Sue, interrupting his deputy.
Sue, a hardened virtual assistant with the same access to classified material as her boss, scrolled the wall map rapidly to the west.
‘Here. At a town called Ardentes,’ she told Fox and Evans, speaking out loud. ‘Two hundred miles away.’
‘They can’t drive across country quickly enough,’ observed Evans. ‘They’ll have to fly.’
‘O.K. I’ll speak with our French friends,’ Fox told Evans as he lifted his communicator. ‘You speak to the PM’s office. I want the SAS scrambled immediately. It’ll have to be a French show, but I want the SAS to be the ones who take the lead once we find Humans First’s base.’
*
‘Your mission is to capture the world’s largest particle accelerator,’ Dr Sergy Larov told the eagerly attentive company of trained HFDA volunteers and the group of FARC mercenaries. ‘It is called the Large Hadron Collider and it lies one hundred and fifty metres beneath the ground, underneath the CERN research institute, forty-five kilometres from here – on the other side of the Jura mountains.’
The HFDA scientist paused to ensure his words were understood.
‘With your help, Professor Makowski and I will take control of the collider and turn it into a weapon of global scale – a weapon ten thousand times more powerful than the bomb we exploded in London, a weapon so powerful that we will never have to use it. With such a threat we will finally force the Americans and the other technocratic regimes to abandon the development of all transhuman technologies. Human beings must not be ruled by computers!’
There was a loud and deep-throated roar of approval from the 200 anti-technology neo-Luddites seated on the floor. All of the HFDA volunteers, the FARC mercenaries and the score or so officers of HFDA’s high command were packed into the farmhouse’s large living area – but there was still no sign of Alexander Makowski himself. Colonel Andreas Poliza, the head of HFDA military operations, stood beside Dr Larov, his arms folded, ready to take over the briefing.
All the men in the room were wearing camouflaged combat fatigues and all had recently been fed. It was seven p.m. on a Saturday and there was a sense of high excitement in the air. The rumor was that the company was going to move out later in the evening.
A virtual 3-D model of the Large Hadron Collider was displayed on a wall screen. The circular structure lay deep underground and was supported by a vast administration and residential campus on the surface above. There were so many buildings that the above-ground complex looked like a small city. According to overlay captions, facilities on the surface included a hotel, supermarkets, a hospital, lecture theatres and a cinema.
‘The circular underground tunnel which houses the particle accelerator is over twenty-six kilometers long,’ Colonel Poliza told the attentive company, pointing to the schematic. ‘Most of it is buried under open countryside – under one hundred and eighty square kilometers of farmland – but there are only four access shafts in total. If we control these, we control the collider. The underground facility is entirely self-sufficient – including power, water and transport. Nothing is needed from above, except air.’
The colonel turned back from the projected image and faced the assembled men. ‘Best of all, this complex lies ten times deeper than any American bunker-busting bomb can reach. And it is surrounded by reinforced concrete to prevent vibration. Once we’re inside, they won’t be able to touch us.’
As he stared at the complex 3-D model, Floyd felt a sense of disbelief. The structure was simply immense – like the Channel Tunnel bent into a great ring and buried thirty storeys underground.
Poliza touched his remote control and changed the display to show a two-dimensional surface map of the complex.
‘There is one main access shaft to the collider tunnel located within the main CERN campus,’ he explained. ‘And three smaller shafts are out in open countryside. All are controlled electronically from the CERN Security Centre which is located on the campus, close to the main administration block. The CERN Security Centre also controls security all around the surface complex. After entering the campus, your first task will be to deploy explosives at the entrances and the perimeter to delay any police entrance, then to take and hold the Security Centre.’
Floyd felt an encouraging hand grip his shoulder firmly. Sergeant Ramon Resigo was squatting beside him, an intense grimace of enthusiastic anticipation on his face.
‘The second task will be for our teams out in the countryside to lay explosives in all the remote entry shafts,’ continued Poliza. ‘But these shafts must not, repeat NOT, be blown unless we are directly attacked. These access shafts also serve as supply vents for the underground air conditioning system. If two or more of the shafts are blocked, the system will shut down the collider automatically. It’s an integral safety feature, and if were to try and over-ride it the collider would be unusable.’
The HFDA military chief paused again. It was vital that then men understood this particular warning.
/> ‘And we definitely do not want the system to shut down unexpectedly,’ the German-born colonel added. ‘We will be running the collider in permanent fail-safe mode to deter attack from outside. We will inform the transhumanists that if they make any attempt to put it out of action, or if two or more of the shafts are blocked, the particle weapon will detonate automatically and create a massive black hole implosion. That will also occur if any other type of damage occurs to the collider. Is that clear?’
*
Six hundred miles to the east a senior SAS combat-training sergeant rapped on an open door marked ‘Commanding Officer’.
‘Sir? Sorry to disturb you, sir.’ Sergeant Reginald Truman came to attention with a snap and threw off a brisk salute.
Outside of the colonel’s office the SAS training camp in Herefordshire was filled with activity. Two vertical take-off personnel troop carriers were on the ground at the launch pad, their scram-jet engines already idling. They were waiting to whisk four SAS platoons – eighty men and their high-tech equipment – straight to Geneva. All around the camp jeeps and trucks were speeding men and supplies towards the point where the supersonic jump-jets were waiting.
The regiment’s commander was seated behind his desk issuing instructions to his computer system. Scrambling part of his force on active service overseas required substantial administrative clearance and support. He nodded and indicated for the regiment’s well-respected and much-liked veteran combat instructor to stand easy.
‘What is it, sergeant?’ he asked, looking up from one his bank of screens. To his surprise, the colonel realised that the NCO himself was in full black battle dress. His weapons and back-pack of high-tech field gear lay propped against the wall just outside the office door.
The two men had known each other for over fifteen years. As a cadet officer the colonel had been one of Truman’s very first trainees – when the sergeant, still a corporal in those days, had first elected to stay on with the regiment after seven highly successful tours of active service.
‘Sir, if it isn’t asking too much, I’d like permission to join this sortie.’
The colonel couldn’t suppress a smile. Then he saw that the older man was deadly serious.
‘You must talk to Captain Walker, you know, not me,’ he said kindly.
‘I did, sir,’ said Truman, still standing more to attention than at ease. ‘Just after the op briefing. He’s denied me permission, sir.’ The sergeant hesitated, then added, ‘Because of my age.’
The veteran combat instructor seemed to stand even more upright as the colonel’s gaze swept over him. Even though he was almost fifty, everybody in the camp regarded Truman as the toughest bastard of all in a regiment of right tough bastards. He was known throughout the regiment as ‘Old RTB.’
The colonel smiled again and shook his head. He admired the instructor’s courage and eagerness to serve.
‘It’s a young man’s game, Sergeant, as you and I both know,’ he said. ‘Captain Walker’s quite right. We need you here to maintain standards for the future.’
The sergeant nodded once, briskly. ‘Sir, with your permission, I believe this is a special mission. I think our Captain Floyd could be involved.’
The colonel stared in surprise at his combat instructor. Alone in the regiment both men had served long enough to remember Captain Harry Floyd before he had transferred from the regiment to the Counter Terrorism-Unit ten years before.
Taking a deep breath the colonel sat back in his chair, put his elbows on its padded arms and folded his hands together in front of his flat stomach.
‘What makes you think so?’ he asked.
‘I hear we’re deploying at the request of the CTU, sir, going after Makowski and the HFDA,’ said Truman. ‘That’s Captain Floyd’s territory.’
‘You have very good sources,’ said the colonel, reaching for his radio handset. ‘Very well. I will have a word with Captain Walker.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Truman, snapping to attention again.
Twenty
The four-wheel drives, trucks and mini-vans rolled up to the farmhouse yard according to a minute-perfect schedule. The first groups to leave were those who had the furthest to travel. These fighters were going to break into the three rural shafts that provided elevator access and the vital air-conditioning feeds to the underground tunnel. As the detailed pre-op briefing had made clear, all of the remote access shafts were housed in small, fenced-off buildings that, unless in use by maintenance people or researchers, remained unmanned. For security the CERN organization relied entirely on the electronically controlled gates, metal shutters and elevator immobilisers that were controlled remotely from the Security Centre inside the main campus.
Floyd ached for a means of relaying what he had discovered to London. All of his focus was now on finding some means of communication once he was inside the CERN complex itself.
Before leaving the farmhouse, each commando unit had reported individually to the armoury that was housed in a low stone building behind one of the barns. In addition to his laser-sighted automatic rifle and combat knife, Floyd had now been issued with four further magazines of ammunition, a pouched combat vest, a field dressing kit, a filled water bottle and a back-pack of C6+ plastic explosive.
*
‘Take a look at this!’ said Nagourney from a motel room in Mountain View. He was speaking directly into Nicole Sanderson’s auditory nerves. Since they had been thrown together on their trip to London, they had begun mind linking in conference mode – including their virtual assistants in their exchanges.
Images of intricate pipework, dials and controls appeared in Nicole’s mind. In the digital age, the gleaming steel plumbing of the miniaturised black hole weapons technology looked like a relic from the industrial era.
It’s like something from the Smithsonian, said Carl, speaking to Nicole and Alain Nagourney – and to Bob, the physicist’s own VA.
The ATA agent was seated in the back of a limousine that the U.S. consulate had sent to pick her up from Geneva airport. The consulting physicist had mind-linked her to report his first impressions of the particle weapon that had been recovered by the Mountain View Police.
‘It seems as if they’ve integrated the beam-steering magnets into the collider bore itself,’ Nagourney said, highlighting a section of the image in Nicole’s mind.
‘Really?’ said Nicole Sanderson absently. Her private thoughts were focussed on the interrogation she was about to attend. A CIA team from the Berne Embassy had now arrived in Geneva but, at the ATA’s request, they were waiting for Nicole to arrive before beginning their questioning of man who claimed to have been Makowski’s cook.
Mike Ryan wants you urgently, said Carl.
Nicole nodded, told her VA to put Nagourney and Bob on hold and then greeted her boss. As she listened her eyes widened. Then she nodded her head. ‘I understand, sir,’ she said. ‘ I’ll wait for further instructions.’
‘Get this,’ she said to Nagourney when they had resumed their connection. ‘The Brits say a large number of HFDA men have parachuted into the countryside near here – in the Geneva region. They’re planning a big military operation somewhere in this area!’
Then they’re after CERN, broke in Bob authoritatively. They’ve been building particle weapons and CERN is the ultimate particle collider.
‘He’s right, FUCK!’ shouted Nagourney, momentarily forgetting the etiquette of mind linking. Nicole closed her eyes as his voice thundered in her brain. ‘It’s the world’s biggest particle accelerator – the Large Hadron Collider. It’s just outside Geneva, on the French-Swiss border. God knows what they could do if they got hold of that thing!’
‘I’ve heard of it,’ said Nicole. Then she sat forward in her seat. ‘Driver, do you know where CERN is? It’s a …’
‘Put me on a speaker,’ demanded the physicist. Carl transferred the link to the vehicle’s speaker system.
‘It’s a research institute – the Organisation
Européenne pour la Recherche Nucléaire,’ Nagourney’s remote voice told the driver. ‘In St. Genis – on the Route de Mayrin.’
‘Get me there as fast as you can,’ ordered Nicole.
*
Floyd’s unit had been almost the last to leave the farmhouse and now he and sixteen other men were crouched in the rear of a large unmarked white van as it slowly approached Entrance A on the south side of the CERN campus.
Ramon Resigo studied his large wrist-watch. He was ensuring that they would start their attack at precisely the same moment as a second advance force that was now at Entrance B on the north side of large campus.
‘O.K.. Drive up and stop at the barrier,’ he ordered quietly from the back of the vehicle.