by Andy Lucas
The neighbourhood was peaceful and affluent, being no more than a dozen large properties spread over several hundred acres of steep hillside and accessible via only one winding, dusty road. It was a glorious day and the sun shone brightly over the vista of green and brown that typified the scenery.
He used a remote built into the car’s steering wheel to de-activate a host of concealed security devices as he turned off the main road and wound his way up a twisting track the few hundred feet to a set of impressive brick gateposts. Between them hung a pair of huge, solid metal gates standing well over ten feet tall.
A brick wall of some seven feet average height stretched out from the gateposts to completely encircle the property. Another button on the dashboard activated the gates, which swung obediently open for him on silent hinges.
Driving his luxury black Mercedes saloon through, he headed up the drive, stopping in front of a huge converted winery dating back nearly two hundred years. The vineyards had long since been replaced by a walled garden, divided into areas of lawn, paths, flowerbeds, ponds and elegant fountains.
The building itself boasted eighteen bedrooms and had a sweeping, crescent-moon swimming pool that curled around one side, arcing front to back. Rather too many large statues dotted the grounds and the tiling on the bottom of the swimming pool was a vulgar mosaic depicting battling gladiators and beasts.
The fighting men were not the only inhabitants of the oddly-shaped pool that day.
As he escaped the confines of his car and approached the pool, the man eyed the occupant slowly. She was very pretty, in her mid-twenties, and twelve years his junior. She wore her dark hair cropped close to her skull and her slim figure was modestly contained by a full, high-leg swimsuit, in canary yellow. She watched him draw closer with a similar look of interest.
‘How did it go?’
‘Very well, as always,’ replied the man. As he spoke, he stripped off the cheap suit and discarded it on the neatly trimmed grass close to the pool. With it he cast off the identity of Browner. In a pair of designer boxer shorts, he joined her in the water and they stood facing each other in the clear heat of the afternoon.
‘That is good, brother,’ she replied evenly. ‘Will you be able to stay for a while?’
‘No, I have just been contacted about another job by the same source. Very big money, I have to say.’
‘I like the sound of it already,’ she giggled.
Together, brother and sister spent a pleasant hour swimming and discussing plans for future, lucrative murders. If anyone had been there and looked closely, they would have noted that both pairs of eyes were cold and unclouded by sentiment.
If the eyes were truly windows onto the soul, theirs were indeed souls far, far beyond redemption.
11
The laboratory was perfect for her needs; much better equipped than any other she had yet been forced to slave away in, she was sure of. And slaving was just how she saw it.
Ten years after finishing what seemed like a lifetime of study, Brenda Richards was bitter with the world.
A bright, ambitious youngster, she had been astute enough to understand that the world would soon have to shelve its distain for nuclear energy, as other power generation options dried up, or simply proved too expensive to be a practical replacement for the thousands of oil and coal-fired power stations due to come to the end of their working lives in the next thirty years. She had moved into the nuclear power industry with high hopes of rapid success.
Sadly, her unpleasant personality, controlling nature and spiteful temper had so far thwarted her plans to rise quickly to the top of her field, retire early, and live a life of pampered luxury on a Caribbean island of her choosing.
Adding to her woes was a rapidly expanding waistline, due to several years of seeking solace inside her favourite iced cakes and chocolate bars. She was only five feet four inches tall and tipped the scales at over fifteen stone. Her straight, auburn hair was cut into a short, bob style which accentuated the roundness of her pale, flabby face.
At only thirty-two years old, she had the body of a much older woman. Unfortunately, she failed to accept the additional five stone of fat that she’d piled on since hitting her third decade; still squashing herself into clothes that were far too small for her; stretching buttons and threatening seams to bursting point.
Before the weight, she had not been bad to look at. She had good bone structure, pretty blue eyes, full lips and dimples in her cheeks that had captivated many men, until they grew to know her better and headed for the door at speed. She’d been desirable, but those days were gone.
In fact, when working in the nuclear power industry should have been a sure-fire winner for someone with so many academic trump cards, Brenda’s career could be considered a spectacular flop. Until now. Now, she was on her way. Now, she had finally fallen on her feet. She grinned to herself, the world would finally see things her way.
Cathera’s approach, as always, had come through several different intermediaries. At the time, she’d been working as a junior technical manager at a reprocessing site in Wiltshire, England. She knew she was better than anyone else there; that she should have been running the entire site, and she blamed her superiors for deliberately ignoring her for promotion.
She was right too; they had seen how reckless she was when dealing with her colleagues, and how her ego always put in an appearance whenever there was a staff issue, quickly transforming any awkward situation into a crisis. But Brenda was blind to her own flaws. As far as she was concerned, it was always somebody else’s fault. She was always the innocent victim.
Still, she had to admit, while her current job offered her the chance to finally earn the money she deserved, the living conditions weren’t good. Her laboratory was air-conditioned, but it was the only place aboard that was. The generators that fed its systems were separate from the boat’s other systems, which is why she was so happy to spend as much time in there as she could.
When she did have to return to her tatty cabin, purely to sleep, she tossed and turned in pools of her own sweat, locked beneath a stained mosquito net, until she could stand it no longer and hurried back to the cool sanctity of the laboratory.
The Amazon was not her idea of a fun place to be, and being on an ancient river boat made things worse. If she’d been seeing the river at a wider point, closer to the mouth of the Atlantic perhaps, aboard a luxurious cruise liner she might have been able to stomach it more easily. This job had paid so much, on a no questions to be asked basis, that she had agreed to do anything; signing a binding contract to that end. She was stuck with the consequences of her decision.
It was eight o’clock in the evening. Brenda had been working solidly in her laboratory since dawn and was exhausted. It wasn’t physically taxing work, but the materials she was working with and the configuration of the delivery system she’d been asked to design, made mental focus essential. Her head ached; pounding behind her right eye with the worrying suggestion of an impending migraine and her vision was beginning to blur with strain.
‘No use,’ she told herself. There was nobody else allowed in the laboratory with her so she couldn’t have spoken to anybody, even if she’d wanted to. ‘Time to get back into that sweatbox that we call home and get some sleep.’
The journey had already lasted for twelve days, heading upriver to an unknown destination. Apparently, according to the crew briefing on the first day, it was a thirteen day trip. With only one more day to go, she knew things would be tight. She’d made good progress but a few snags along the way had eaten into her safety margin.
It wasn’t the plutonium that had caused her a problem. She was adept at handling radioactive material after all. Even her previous superiors would have grudgingly admitted that she was damned good at her job; at least the part that dealt with inanimate material. The problems had occurred with the bio-hazardous material she’d been asked to work with too. It wasn’t her speciality but the unknown, unseen person, or pe
ople, who were paying her nearly a million pounds sterling for a one month job, had insisted that she work alone on the project.
Still, dangerous substances were all one and the same to her. Both types of material were encased behind protective glass; in a large, sealed box measuring five feet on each side. A set of special gloves were built into each side of the centrally positioned protective glass cube, allowing her to work with the material safely, and computer controlled manipulator arms gave her the ability to extract the material from their safe, internally-housed storage boxes, at the beginning of every day.
The risk of radiation poisoning, or contamination from the secondary material, was effectively non-existent.
Leaving the cool sanctity of the laboratory, Brenda made her way up a rickety set of wooden steps and headed out onto the water-stained outer deck. The riverboat had been plying its trade since the early twentieth century. At some point, its steam engine had been replaced by a large diesel engine but everything about the vessel creaked, groaned and cried out to be mothballed.
The ravages of the damp, humid climate had taken their toll on the wooden hull and superstructure. Any of the red paint still visible was flaking, and the wood was rotten in large sections across the deck. Flat bottomed, with the water rippling barely twelve inches below the deck planking, the boat looked like a floating box.
Cathera had bought the boat for a single purpose, deliberately selecting an older vessel which would pass any checkpoints without raising suspicion. Although arrangements had been hurried; like the installation of a completely sealed laboratory, he had achieved his aim by throwing money at the problem. A suitably criminal, and therefore quiet, crew had been mustered and the services of a scientist with dubious morality had been engaged.
Money was still no object for Cathera. Despite using up most of his personal fortune in his bid for power, he knew that the keys to Brazil’s tax coffers would soon be his. Anyway, he planned to murder the scientist; Richards, as soon as she’d finished her job, so he would be saving on the wages that had been generously promised.
Looking out over the muddy water that passed slowly beneath their keel, Brenda wondered for the thousandth time where they would end up. She knew what she was doing was wrong. Although her verbal instructions were to ensure that both materials were suitably encased in a simple delivery system that could be handled without protective gear, she had been faithfully promised that devices she developed would never be used.
She conveniently convinced herself that she was actually doing the world a great service by showing how easily material could be obtained, and then turned into a viable weapon. She had been assured that the devices were being shipped up the Amazon, away from centres of population, as proof that they would not be used. This was purely a game of pretend terrorism, to make the world stand up and realize that it had to take the profusion of radioactive and bio-hazardous material seriously.
Brenda saw this as her chance for fame and fortune. Not only would she end up a wealthy woman but she would then be catapulted onto the international stage. Lectures and interviews, related to preventing terrorist networks developing weapons of mass destruction, beckoned her. It was everything she’d ever dreamed about finally coming true. Greed and self-obsession blinded her to the possibilities that she was being fooled. Do the job, get the money and milk the fame was the mantra she now lived by.
It turned out that they were very nearly at their destination when, at a little after three o’clock in the morning, Brenda’s fitful sleep was interrupted by the sound of the diesel engine being cut, accompanied almost immediately by the tell-tale bump as the boat impacted against the riverbank. She had been hungry enough to risk a dinner of tinned meat and potatoes with the crew before turning in, and this rather dubious meal now churned excitedly in her stomach. Although there were no fanfares, bells, or whistles, she sensed that they had reached the end of their journey.
Getting up and struggling into a pair of tight, full-length leggings, she threw on a long-sleeved tee-shirt and slipped her small feet into a pair of long socks, then into a pair of worn running shoes. Keen as she was to get out onto the deck, she knew the electric lights would have attracted swarms of biting insects and she wanted as much of her skin covered as possible. Despite religiously swallowing anti-malarial drugs every day, even the slightest risk of getting sick with a parasitic blood disorder was not high on her wish list.
Out on deck, a heavy curtain of rain enclosed the battered hulk of the boat. Several exposed bulbs lit the deck brightly, casting their harsh light out into the pitch blackness. She didn’t quite know what she expected to see, but she was only one of two people seeing it. The deck was completely deserted.
The crewman assigned to the night watch was missing. Only the captain himself was visible, climbing back aboard having tied the boat off to a couple of stout wooden mooring poles set into the mud of the riverbank.
Satisfied, she watched him nod to himself. Turning, he spotted her and his old weathered face broke into a humourless smile. He knew she was a light sleeper and had half expected her to appear. Hard and cruel as he was; and with several murders to his credit, committed over the years in various, seedy river stops along the Amazon’s vast length, he still found a part of his heart saddened when he watched her innocent face contort into a return smile. She had no idea what was about to happen to her. He did, the crew all knew, and so did the people paying for the trip. They had their orders and he swallowed back his pity as he resolved himself to the task.
The land beyond the river’s edge was darker than the moonless night sky. There was no flicker of light, nor hint of sound except the rain. An irrational wave of fear suddenly washed over her and she instinctively took a step backwards.
Feeling stupid at once, she was grateful only the old captain was there to see it, although he was already making his way back to his own cabin on the upper deck, clambering up a rusty metal ladder screwed into the side of the wooden structure.
Unable to see where they had landed, she realised that bed was the most sensible option, so she slipped back to her sweatbox and went to sleep. The rain pattered rhythmically against all the boat’s wooden walls; its comforting repetition helping her to slumber in peace.
The next day dawned bright and cloudless. She woke to the smell of frying bacon and sausage. The crew were celebrating arriving at their destination safely and were having a celebration that included rum and cold beer. Settling for coffee, Brenda ate a hearty breakfast before heading back down to the laboratory. The timing of their arrival could hardly have been better. She had a couple more hours work to do and the devices would be ready to go. She had explained as much to the captain at breakfast. Not usually interested in her work, he’d seemed pleased to hear that she was very close to finishing. The other crewmen had all exchanged knowing glances, which she mistook for relief. Little did she know what lurked, with anticipation, behind a dozen pairs of cold eyes.
Heart filled with a rising sense of anticipation, she finished her work in under an hour and went off to tell the captain. He was ready for her.
Pace eventually calmed down enough to take a warm bath in an ornate round tub in the en-suite. He soaked for well over an hour before drying himself and slipping on a silk robe he found conveniently hung on a hook behind the door. He raided the well-stocked bookcase and chose a new Clive Cussler novel he found there; a crisp and untouched paperback. He then examined the little refrigerator and pulled out a chilled bottle of Michelob beer.
Settling deeply onto the sofa, sipping the delicious liquid straight from the bottle, he was soon totally absorbed. He had read every book that Mr Cussler had set to print and was glad to be back with familiar characters again, each of whom would have handled his current predicament standing on their heads while downing a select brand of tequila.
Darkness was thick and Pace was reading by the light of a beautifully decorated glass lamp when another knock roused him from the midst of a titanic life-and-death st
ruggle three hundred feet beneath the sea. He checked his watch and was surprised to see it pushing midnight. In the same moment came the realisation that so many hours of engrossed concentration had tired him out. He was on his second yawn by the time he begrudgingly reached the door.
‘Who is it?’ His voice was hoarse and dry, and he made no move to unlock the door. The only thought in his head was of the large bed and of how long it would take him to get into it.
‘James,’ said the recognisable voice softly. ‘It’s me.’
Roused, he shook the tiredness from his mind and watched his hands unlock the door as if they belonged to somebody else. He opened it and stepped back, motioning her to come in.
Sarah was dressed in a plain, deep crimson evening dress, cut off at the shoulder, with only a conservative sliver of cleavage on show. The length hung well below the knee but carried a near thigh-high split on one side through which her leg emerged and returned as she stepped inside. Her naked legs were capped with flat, open-toed black sandals. Her expression was drawn and doubtful; beauty radiated from her but it was overshadowed by her troubled posture.
‘How was dinner?’ Pace asked, unsure of what to say to her. It was as if they’d never met before. ‘I’m sure they served up a fine menu.’ Part of him still felt angry with her.
‘Why didn’t you come to dinner?’ The question was blunt and direct.
‘I didn’t want to,’ Pace replied, not elaborating.
She had stopped only a few feet inside the stateroom and she showed no sign of moving further inside. The distance between them was barely six inches and her scent, typically intriguing, already pervaded the air.
‘You’ve had as long a day as anyone else. You need to eat if you’re going to keep your strength up.’ Her tone was level but the earlier hints of uncertainty on her face were still there. She wanted to be more forceful but wasn’t sure how he would react.