Down: Trilogy Box Set

by Glenn Cooper

  “I understand but you don’t have a choice. They’ll put the cuffs on and carry you if you won’t go on your own power.”

  “Let ’em try.”

  Delia stood and smoothed her ever-present cardigan over her wide hips. “Look, Duck, I didn’t want to say this as not to get your hopes up, but they’ve told me they think there’s only a very small chance that this will send you back today.”

  He wiped the snot from his nose. “Really?”

  “Really. And if you behave, when you come back to your room I’ll make sure you get chocolate ice cream. All you can eat.”

  At 9:45 Duck followed Delia and his minders through the control room door and all eyes were glued to the young man as he was led to the well of the theater. Delia told him he had to stand on the taped X on the carpet and he obeyed, fidgeting and nervously looking at the scientists in before him and the monitors behind.

  “Could you do cartoons on those?” he asked Delia who was sitting nearby in the first tier of seats.

  “I don’t think so. It would distract all these nice people from their jobs.”

  Smithwick leaned over to Bitterman and whispered, “To think, we could have learned so much if we’d snagged someone with gravitas as opposed to this idiotic boy.”

  Bitterman shrugged, “What are you going to do?”

  Matthew had been instructed to keep the countdown and scientific chatter muted so as not to spook the boy. At T-minus-one-minute he quietly authorized the particle guns to be injected and in an equally quiet tone called out the rising collision energies.

  The elliptical map began showing the protons looping around London.

  Duck swiveled his neck and asked what that was and Delia told him it was like a cartoon, one he quickly characterized as boring.

  At 25 TeV, Duck began straying off his X, causing a ripple of panic throughout the room but Delia saved the day by sternly saying, “Back on the mark, Duck. Right now or they’ll be no ice cream for you.”

  Matthew said, “Twenty-six TeV, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty TeV. Steady, steady…”

  The proton beams kept looping around the ellipse.

  “Maintaining at thirty,” Matthew said.

  Duck was still there.

  Matthew turned toward Quint and pointed to his watch.

  “Give it a little longer,” Quint said.

  Duck looked like he was going to wander off but Delia talked him into staying still.

  A minute passed. Two minutes.

  Quint signaled his intention to Matthew with a cutthroat gesture and Matthew ordered a power-down.

  Duck looked around, blinking. “Do I have to keep standing ’ere?” he asked.

  Matthew told him he could relax and Delia went to his side to collect him.

  Duck grinned at her and asked, “When I’m ’aving me ice cream, can I watch the pirate vid I like?”

  Trevor was dreading the meeting because it dredged up all the worst memories he’d had as a policeman and a soldier—telling a loved one the bad news about a casualty. He had thought he would never have to do something like that again but he’d been wrong. After avoiding Dr. Loughty’s sister for the better part of a week, it was time to face the music.

  The VIPs had departed, Duck was happily back in his quarters, and there was nothing new on Woodbourne, so there was no last-minute excuse to postpone the meeting.

  He was in his office when the front desk called to let him know she had arrived, but he already knew that from the security camera feed. He was surprised she was not alone. There were two small children with her, a boy and a girl. He left his sidearm in a desk drawer and went to reception to fetch her.

  “Hi there,” he said with a small wave and a reserved smile, “I’m Trevor Jones.”

  She was younger than Emily, a little shorter, not quite as lithe, but there was no mistaking the family ties. Her hair was loose and shoulder length, her skin as fair as her sister’s. He found her very pretty.

  “Arabel Duncan.” Even the lilt of her Scottish accent was similar.

  “Pleased to meet you. I didn’t know you were bringing your kids.”

  “Sorry. No sitter.”

  Trevor dropped to a knee and asked the girl, “What’s your name?”

  The boy, who was four and bossy by nature, pushed his sister aside and said that his name was Sam and his sister was Belle. Arabel intervened to break up the ensuing squabble and apologized.

  “Not a problem,” Trevor said. “Would it be helpful if I found a lady to look after them while we talked?”

  “Could you?”

  “Phil?” Trevor asked one of the guards, “Could you ring down to Delia May to see if she could come up to the lobby for a few minutes to mind the kids?”

  In his office Trevor poured her a coffee and sat her down. He wanted to draw out the small talk as long as he could but he could only go so far without looking and sounding foolish or inappropriate. She apologized again for bringing the children, mumbled something about the unreliability of sitters and when he clumsily asked whether her husband was at work, she informed him he’d been killed in a road accident on the continent two years earlier.

  His wince let her know he regretted the question. “I’m awfully sorry.”

  She was quick to say, “Please don’t apologize,” but he looked supremely uncomfortable.

  He absently ran his hand over his close-cropped hair. “So, you’ll be wanting to know what’s going on with your sister.”

  “Of course I do. I’m worried sick. My parents are worried sick. We all thought after being visited by some government lawyer and signing the Official Secrets Act that we’d be told the score but that didn’t happen. I’m hoping you can tell me what happened and how she is.”

  He cleared his throat. “Please tell me what you’ve been told already.”

  “Only that there was some kind of trouble on the day of the MAAC experiment, that there was an armed intruder and when the collider was shut down prematurely that there was a radiation leak that affected Emily. We were told she’s in quarantine and unable to speak with us. That’s all we were told.” She began to cry. “I think she’s dead and no one will say. Please, Mr. Jones, is she dead?”

  He pulled a wad of tissues from a box and hurried around the desk. “Look, Mrs. Duncan …”

  “Arabel.”

  “Okay, Arabel. I’m not authorized to say much—this situation is quite sensitive as you can imagine, but believe me, if your sister were dead you would have been told.”

  She looked up hopefully. “Then she’s not?”

  “Like I said, you would have been told.”

  “I tried to contact John, John Camp. I hope it’s not a secret that they’ve been seeing each other. I’ve never met him but …”

  “It’s not a secret.”

  “He hasn’t answered any of my messages. Is he all right?”

  “He may have been caught up in the same situation as Emily.”

  “Oh my.”

  “I can’t say more.”

  “When do you think we’ll be given more information? When can we speak to Emily?”

  “I don’t have a timetable for you. I wish I did. But please know that the best people in the country are working on getting her well and back to you. Do you believe what I’m saying?”

  She smiled at him. “You have kind eyes and I can tell you have a good heart. I do believe you. Will you ring me the second you have any news?”

  “I will.”

  He made a call and by the time he had her back in reception, Delia had the children ready to go. When she left he stood in the lobby watching her put the kids into their car seats and driving off and for the rest of the day and into the night he couldn’t get her out of his mind.

  “Where’s your telephone?” Woodbourne demanded.

  Benona said she didn’t have one.

  He looked around the flat and didn’t see a set but he now knew about these new, pocket-sized phones and he asked if she
had one of them.

  She said no, but he searched her handbag and found her mobile.

  “What’s this? Scotch mist?” He stomped on it and it went to pieces.

  “You will wake my girl.”

  “She’s got to get up eventually.”

  “She has school tomorrow. She needs her sleep.”

  “She’s not going to school.”

  “Why not?”

  “Don’t be daft.”

  Benona lit a cigarette but Woodbourne snatched it from her lips and started smoking it. She lit another for herself. “What you going to do with us?”

  “To be honest, haven’t got a plan. I’m a fish out of water here. Alls I know is I don’t want to go back.”

  “Back where?”

  He inhaled the smoke deeply, seeming to lose himself in the taste and aroma. “You won’t believe me.”

  “For me to decide.”

  “All right then.”

  He told her the story of his life and death. He told her about Hell. He told her about his inexplicable return. He told her about his week on the run but didn’t mention the killings.

  But she knew about them anyway. “On the news it says you killed three people. Is true?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why you did this?”

  “I didn’t want to get caught.”

  “You didn’t have to kill.”

  He lit another cigarette on the spent one. “I couldn’t help myself. Never could.” He shook off his faraway gaze and changed the subject. “You didn’t say if you believe my story.”

  She took the cigarette from his mouth, used it to light her own then passed it back. He seemed disarmed by the gesture and smiled for the first time in the week.

  “I had brother who was crazy,” she said. “Schizophrenia was diagnosis by doctors. He say all kinds of things which not true or real. You don’t sound crazy like him.”

  “So you believe me?”

  She shrugged. “I believe in Heaven. I believe in Hell. So I can believe half your story. It sound like from your life and the bad things you did, you deserve to be in Hell. Coming back from there, I don’t think so.”

  “It’s all true.”

  “Okay, what you say. I don’t know.”

  “How come you’re not afraid of me?”

  “Sure I’m afraid. More for Polly than for me.”

  “You don’t show it.”

  “I had hard life. I am tough person. I been through a lot. Listen mister, you can do anything to me but I want you promise me you won’t hurt my Polly.”

  “Brandon.”

  “What?”

  “That’s my name.”

  “Okay Brandon, you promise?”

  “I promise.”

  17

  Emily’s room was so high in the turreted tower that bars were not needed on her window. Andreas, the eunuch, had exhausted himself carrying pails of hot water up the stairs to fill an iron bath basin. He sat cross-legged on the floor, resting and wholly disinterested in her naked body as she bathed.

  “Is there any soap?” she asked.

  “Ha! Soap. No. Only water.”

  “Right then, I suppose I’m done. Might you have a towel then?”

  He knocked his head with one hand and the floor with the other and told her he’d forgotten one. Panting after another climb, he returned and held out a rough but seemingly clean piece of cloth and began to dry her when she stepped out.

  “Thank you very much, but I can do it myself.”

  “Clever lass.”

  While she dressed he busied himself emptying the tub, bucket by bucket, through the open window.

  “So how long have you been here, Andreas?”

  He stopped and made a show of counting on his fingers before saying, “I don’t know. I forget.” He found that hilarious and almost pissed himself laughing.

  “How many women do you look after?” she asked when he resumed his bucket work.

  “Lots. You’re the prettiest.”

  “Why thank you. Does the king have a queen?”

  “Him? No chance of that.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Can’t say. Cat got my tongue and ate it after it ate my balls.”

  “Tell me this, then, what’s he like?”

  “He’s like a turnip.”

  “What?”

  “No, he likes turnips!”

  “Thank you, Andreas. I shall lower my expectations for future conversations.”

  “You are very welcome, fraulein. Are you clean?”

  “I believe I am as clean as water alone will make me, yes.”

  “Then come. Rainald said to bring you when you were clean.”

  Marksburg was a very large castle and it took a long time for Emily to reach the chancellor’s quarters in its own small building off one of the multiple baileys. Rainald greeted her cordially, told Andreas to wait outside, and ushered her into his reception room, a well-appointed chamber with a smattering of luxury items such as jewel-encrusted cups and silver and gold plates. He offered her food and wine and she hungrily accepted, though without the benefit of utensils, she had to tear into a warm, whole chicken with her fingers.

  He sat opposite her, sipping modestly from a cup of wine, watching in silence. When she was done she pushed away her plate and thanked him for the good food.

  “Good victuals are one of the blessings of my position.”

  “I suppose you’re a one-percenter then.”

  He was confused as to her meaning.

  “It’s an expression from my time, the one out of one hundred, the wealthiest people in society.”

  “Yes, I see. There are those far more miserable than myself, that is without question.”

  She asked about JoJo and he said she was being treated well. She pointed at the food and asked, “This well?”

  “No, not this well.”

  “Could you please have Andreas bring her this food?”

  He called Andreas in and Emily loaded a plate.

  “Would you like some of this food too, Andreas?” she said.

  “Oh no, fraulein, this food is not for the likes of me.”

  “It’s all right for you to have some.”

  The eunuch thought this was very amusing and laughed himself out the door.

  “I’d like you to reconsider having JoJo stay with me in my room,” she said to Rainald.

  “Why?”

  “I want her to receive the same treatment I do.”

  “But she is quite ordinary and you are quite extraordinary.”

  “Please. I want the company.”

  He acquiesced and she thanked him.

  “You are a good person,” Rainald said.

  “I like to think so.”

  “I had forgotten what goodness was. How very strange this must be for you. This place I mean.”

  “Indeed it is.”

  “Tell me, before coming here, how did you imagine Hell?”

  “I didn’t believe it existed.”

  “Are you not a Christian?”

  “I was born one but I never considered myself a believer. My parents are religious, my sister too, but science has given me my view of the world and the universe.”

  “And now?”

  “Well, good question, that.”

  “And your answer to that good question?”

  “If and when I get home, I’m sure I’ll spend a good deal of time thinking on it.”

  “I must say that I have spent a thousand years thinking about this question and for me, the answer is clear. If there is a Hell, there must also be a Heaven. And if Heaven and Hell exist, then God must exist, though he is far from here. Therefore, the faith which I possessed on Earth has been affirmed, at least intellectually.”

  “Do you pray?”

  Rainald tented his fingers and placed them to his lips. “I prayed to God for some time, but I stopped long ago. God cannot hear my prayers here. Without the hope of salvation, hope wanes. It is a sad state of a
ffairs and I would like to be put out of my misery and die but I cannot do so.” He tapped his hands against the table emphatically and rose. “Well, enough of this. Now that you are supped, I must take you to the king. Himmler has been filling his head with all the marvelous things you will have Germania achieve and he is most anxious to meet you.”

  “There is really nothing I can do to help him.”

  “This is not a subject for me.”

  “Is there anything I should know about the king?”

  “Only this. Be careful. He is most ruthless and most dangerous.”

  “Will he try and force himself on me?”

  “If you were a handsome young man I would fear for you. But you are quite safe.” He paused and added, “Though not from the likes of Himmler.”

  “Will you protect me?”

  “I will try.”

  Rainald walked her across the main bailey to the largest building within the castle, an imposing palace that occupied much of the edifice overlooking the Rhine. The chancellor told her that Frederick was in the great banqueting hall and when they entered it was so large and dark that she didn’t see him at first. The windowless hall had no wall hangings or floor coverings. The beamed ceiling was black with age and smoke. A host of supporting columns as thick as tree trunks rose from the floor creating the illusion of a nocturnal forest. Though it was warm outside the hall was cold and a fire was blazing in the large, hooded hearth. The only furniture was an impossibly long banqueting table and dozens of high-backed chairs and at the center of the table sat a hunched old man, who though normal in size, seemed dwarfed by the surroundings. Two muscle-bound young men flanked him drinking from goblets.

  The old man looked up from his food. He was too far away for Emily to get a good look at him but before Rainald could announce her, Himmler bounded in from an adjoining room and scurried over with mincing steps.

  Ignoring Rainald completely he said, “Your Highness, I present to you Frau Doktor Emily Loughty. As you can see for yourself, she is more than well, she is alive and well!”

  Frederick made a small hand gesture inviting her to approach and when she was close enough to make out his features she stopped dead in her tracks. She could well believe this man was a thousand years old. The skin on his face was slack and hung from his skull like laundry on a line. His eyes were dull and rheumy and if his beard was once red and defining, there were now only a few white wisps, mirroring the sparse sprouts on his eczematous scalp. For his part after the briefest of glances he lowered his gaze, seemingly more interested in spearing a leek with his knife.