Down: Trilogy Box Set

by Glenn Cooper

  “One of us.”

  “All right, keep going.”

  “We was happening by, looking for a place to sleep in the wood. Got caught out in the morning. We don’t like moving about during the day.”

  “And you saw the women and you chased after them.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And what would you have done to them if you’d have caught them?”

  Mitchum sniggered. “Fucked them good and carved them I expect. We was awful hungry.”

  John clenched a fist behind his back. “All right, I hear you. Tell me this—and you’re doing great—were any of the other rovers recent arrivals in Hell.”

  “How do you mean, recent?”

  “I don’t know. Last twenty, thirty, forty years, something like that.”

  “Hathaway’s recent.”

  “How recent?”

  “Couldn’t say exactly. He was always going on about the strange things he had, like picture boxes in houses, flying machines.”

  “I see. Do you recall where he said he lived when he was alive?”

  He went quiet, thinking. “London.”

  “Which part of London?”

  “Don’t know. He never talked about London much.”

  “Where did he talk about?”

  “Nottingham. That’s what he talked about. He was from there. Talked about it all the time till Talley told him to shut his gob about it.”

  “Nottingham. Okay. When you landed here inside a house were the two women with you?”

  He nodded.

  “Then what happened?”

  “The house was empty. No people about. Talley saw there were people outside another house, two men and a woman. We grabbed them, pulled them inside.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Youngblood found a knife and carved the men, then the woman. Then we had some victuals.”

  “Cannie food.”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “And the two women you came with. Where were they?”

  “With us. Barrow and Chambers were sitting on them, by manner of speaking.”

  “How’d you get separated from the rest of them?”

  “I wandered up the stairs to have a look about and must’ve dozed off on one of the soft beds up there. When I woke up, everyone was gone.”

  “The two women also?”

  “Yeah, the whole lot of them.”

  “And then?”

  “I hid in a wardrobe until the bobbies arrived. Then I woke up here.”

  “Okay, Mitchum, you’ve been very helpful.”

  “What’s to come of me? When do I get the luxuries you spoke of?”

  John dropped all pretenses and his face hardened. He had extracted every useful morsel this animal had to offer. “Here’s what’s going to happen to you. You’ll be treated better than you’ve got a right to be treated, a damned sight better than you would have treated those two women. When you’re healed you’ll be locked in a cage so you can’t hurt anyone and as soon as we can, we’re going to ship you back to Hell.”

  If someone had set out to design the ideal medieval fighter, the result would have been a man who looked very much like Brian Kilmeade. Everything about him was optimized for speed, power, and efficiency. He was no giant. His body was hard and compact with a low center of gravity that made him difficult to knock down. His legs were squat and thick, his arms, prodigious, his shaved head and muscular neck projected an air of menace, that is until he decided to ruin his hard-man image by sporting an impish smile. He was also aerobically fit, a marathon runner who had set records in over-fifty brackets. He liked to preach, “If you get winded before the other chap, you will be killed, no matter how good your skills.”

  Trevor helped him wheel trunks of gear into the MAAC recreation center but before opening any, he sat Brian down for what he knew would be an awkward conversation.

  “First off,” Trevor said, “I’m a big fan of your show.”

  It was true. Brian Kilmeade: Fighting Man was one of his favorite TV programs.

  A northern accent resonated from Brian’s barrel chest. “That’s very nice of you to say, but I’m keen to hear the second-off part.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. This has got to be a bit out of the ordinary.”

  “You think? I get contacted by the MI5 to do a consult at a high-energy physics lab that’s been in the news because of the break-in last month, I get offered a king’s ransom to drop everything and show up at twenty-four-hours notice with all of my kit, then get stitched up by the Official Secrets Act—no, that’s more than out of the ordinary, mate. It’s bonkers.”

  Trevor hunted for the right words. “This is going to be frustrating for you but even with your signature on the gag order, I’m not going to be able to tell you what this is all in aid of.”

  “Bloody marvelous. The only good bit is that I can’t even tell my agent I was even here, so no commission for good old Ronnie-Ten-Percent.”

  “Silver lining,” Trevor said, grinning.

  “Why don’t you tell me what you can tell me then let’s get on with it, shall we?”

  Trevor produced a list, prepared by John, of the weapons for which he needed skills training. Brian read it and shook his head. “Two-handed broadsword, Roman short sword, saber, dagger, axe, longbow, crossbow, spear, pike, mace, flint-lock pistol, black-powder musket. You’ve got to be joking.”

  “No joke. You got all of that with you?”

  “Pretty much. How much time do you have to master what it’s taken me a lifetime to learn?”

  “Four days.”

  He snorted. “Four days. Sure. No sweat. And you can’t even tell me what you need these mad skills for?”

  “Sorry, no.”

  “And what’s your background, son?”

  “Police, army, combat tours in Afghanistan, private security.”

  “You mean to say the police and the army aren’t schooling the lads on sword play these days?”

  “I must’ve slept in those mornings.”

  Brian popped the latches on one of the equipment trunks and said, “Well, let’s get a move-on,” he sighed. “Tempus fugit and all that. I hope you’re as fit as you look for I am about to run you ragged, son.”

  John heard a light tapping at the door to his hospital room and told the visitor to enter. Malcolm Gough, Professor of History, was a very tall beanpole, nearly a foot taller than John but half the weight. He was one of the youngest professors at Cambridge, a prodigy with the complexion of a beaker of cream and delicate, almost feminine features. John had seen his photo attached to the curriculum vitae Ben had sent over but he was unprepared for the man’s height.

  “Is this Mr. Camp?” he asked, towering over John’s lounge chair.

  “It is. Thanks for coming on short notice, Professor.”

  “Of course. Your colleague, Mr. Wellington, was good enough to send a car for me all the way from Cambridge. The train wouldn’t have been a problem.”

  “Well, I’m glad you could make it.”

  Malcolm folded himself into a chair, his eyes wandering from the bag of antibiotics running into John’s arm to a copy of his book, The Life and Times of Henry VIII, on the bed stand.

  “If you have my book, I’m not sure why you need me.”

  “I wish I had time to read it, but I’m on a short timetable.”

  “I must admit, I’ve never been asked to sign the Official Secrets Act before talking about Tudor England. I am intrigued. My curiosity has been piqued.”

  “You’re going to hate me for saying this, but I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to tell you why I want to know about Henry.”

  “This is quite fantastic. Mr. Wellington said I couldn’t even talk to my wife about this trip.”

  “That’s right.”

  “He did say you were a history buff.”

  “Military history mainly.”

  “Have you studied formally?”

  “That’s a nice way of asking if I�
��m educated. I was at West Point.”

  “I see. And what is it you would like to know about King Henry?”

  “His personality. What makes him tick?”

  “Made him tick. He’s quite dead, you know.”

  “Sorry. Made him tick. What made him happy, made him angry? What kind of people did he like, what kind did he hate? Did he see through flattery? How did people manage to influence him? Who did he trust and how did someone earn that trust? Who did he admire? What did he think of Thomas Cromwell and vice versa? I need him profiled. I need to get inside his head.”

  Malcolm nervously worked the knuckles of his long, bony hands. “I admit to being rather dazed and confused by your questions.”

  “Seems to me they’re on the straightforward side.”

  “Only if Henry were a living, breathing man with whom you wished to have dealings of some sort.”

  “I’d like us to get beyond my motivations.”

  “Put yourself in my shoes, Mr. Camp.”

  “Are you a drinking man, Professor?”

  “I’ve been known to hoist a glass.”

  “And are you patriotic?”

  “I’m fond of my country, yes.”

  “Well, how about this? One day, I’d like nothing better than to invite you to a nice long drinking session to talk all about my interest in Henry but it’s not going to be today. Today is the day you’re going to exercise your duty as a patriot, for Queen and country, and tell me everything you know about Henry, the man.”

  Emily’s thumb was getting sore pushing the reverse and play buttons on the remote control. She was sitting between Matthew Coppens and David Laurent reviewing all the video recordings of the MAAC restarts, particularly the one that had brought her home.

  “What do you make of it?”

  She was referring to the alternating cycles of Duck and Woodbourne switching dimensions with her and John, before Trevor and Ben dove into the field and tackled them to safety.

  David shrugged and said that in his view it was obvious. The energy fields were getting increasingly unstable.

  Emily, always data driven, asked to see the plots. David had them on his tablet.

  She flipped through several screens and had only one word: “Wow.”

  The strangelet production on the last restart had risen logarithmically.

  “What about the gravitons?” she asked.

  David tapped on another file. “The sample size is small so it’s not at five sigma but the trend is the same. Big rise in gravitons too.”

  “But why South Ockendon? What’s going on there?” she asked.

  Again David answered. Matthew was silent, his expression stony. “Well, there’s a magnet there. There could be some interaction we don’t understand between the strangelet-graviton complex and the magnetic fields.”

  She shook her head. “God, I hope you’re wrong. We have magnets ringing the entire city of London. Matthew, you’ve been awfully quiet. What do you think?”

  The simple question seemed to crumble his defenses and he began to blubber pathetically.

  She asked what was wrong but she knew the answer.

  “I’m so sorry, Emily. This was all my fault.”

  A hand on his shoulder only seemed to make him more miserable.

  “Look, I don’t blame you,” she said, looking him squarely in the eyes. He and his wife were devoted to their autistic son who was finally improving in a specialist school near the lab. If he had lost his job, it would have been devastating for them. “I blame Quint. You were worried about your position. You were worried about your family. He bullied you and you were vulnerable. I know how he can be.”

  “I should have told you. It was a betrayal.”

  “Yes, you should have done that,” David said coldly.

  “Guys, I don’t want to spend another second talking about the past,” she insisted. “Right now we need you, Matthew. I need you. When I go back, you’re going to be in charge of the collider. You have to get your head in the game.”

  Matthew slowly nodded and wiped his face with his hand. “All right. Thank you. I was so worried about you and so terribly guilty. I was overjoyed you came back and now I’m beside myself you’re going again. If anything were to happen to you I don’t know what I’d do.”

  “I’ll be fine. John and Trevor will be there to protect me. I’ll come home again and I’ll bring my family back.”

  “You’re stronger than I am.”

  “Don’t underestimate yourself,” she said. “You held things together for a month. I talked to people. You were magnificent.”

  David tapped the table impatiently. “Yes, we were all magnifique, me including.”

  With that, the mood lightened, but only for a moment.

  “We need to talk about the elephant in the room,” Emily said.

  Unburdened, Matthew became engaged. “You’re right. There’s every reason to believe that each restart has the potential to propagate additional nodes.” It was Quint’s term; they almost hated using it but it was apt.

  “But we have a minimum of two more actuations,” David said. “One to send you over again and one to bring you back.”

  “The only thing we can do is power down as rapidly as possible after the transfer,” Matthew said.

  “You’ll need to have your finger on the button then,” Emily said.

  Matthew said he could do better. “I’ve been thinking about this. In the best of circumstances it would take me the better part of a second, maybe two, to react to the situation and switch off the collider. I can write a program to integrate the video capture and auto-initiate the power-down the instant you disappear. It might reduce the reaction time to a few milliseconds and every millisecond saved might mean less field instability.”

  “Brilliant,” she said, “Do it. Now both of you: while I’m away, it will be vitally important to work with the new advisory committee to deal with worst-case scenarios. You’ll have access to the best and the brightest minds in physics.”

  The two men nodded. No one wanted to say it out loud but they knew what she was saying.

  They needed to come up with ways to plug the infernal holes for good if the situation got out of hand.

  Ben pulled his government Jaguar into a visitor space outside the low, 1980s manufacturing complex. The drab industrial park was on the outskirts of Birmingham, off the Middle Ring Road. Rocketing along at almost 100 mph he had made excellent time from London even counting the time it had taken to squash a speeding ticket with his ministry credentials.

  The managing director of Midlands Green Printing, Ltd, met him at the reception and brought him back to his office. Simeon Locke had the right kind of look for environmental trade shows, Ben supposed, with a tied-back ponytail, long sideburns, and a thin leather vest over an open-collared shirt.

  Locke seemed impressed with Ben’s business card and made some awkward small talk about never wanting to be on the wrong side of the security services.

  “So, very intrigued by your call, Ben. Can I call you Ben?”

  “You may, indeed.”

  “I imagine you lot have established vendors for your printing needs. Is there some government initiative I’m unaware of that requires a certain percentage of green product?”

  “Probably not a bad idea but no, this is a one-off.”

  “All right. Which services were you interested in?”

  “We need 100% natural paper and 100% natural ink. No synthetics. Not a trace.”

  “We can do that, Ben. That’s our Rain Forest line. Like the name?”

  “Yes, it speaks volumes.”

  “We can do a variety of paper stocks, matte only, of course, given the synthetic-free process. And we can do a lovely palette of colors, all with natural vegetable-based inks. No surfactants, no extraneous substances. Pure vegetable extracts.”

  “Thin paper to reduce weight and black ink. And some kind of light, protective cover, also synthetic-free.”

  Locke look
ed up from his notes. “I see. Not a problem. We can work with you on designs. Are we talking about training manuals, reference materials?”

  “No, books.”

  “All right. Again, not a problem. Bound books, is that correct?”

  “Yes. The binding material must also be all-natural.”

  “Of course. Natural glues, pure cotton thread for the oversewing. How many books will you be printing?”

  “Six.”

  “I see. Six books. And how many copies of each?”

  “Two.”

  Locke thrust his head forward like an ostrich that had just extracted it from a hole to have a look around. “I’m sorry, did you say, two?”

  “That’s right. Two copies of six books.” He reached into his briefcase and placed them on Locke’s desk. “These six.”

  Locke inspected them, his mouth partly agape. The gap grew wider when Ben added that he needed them in forty-eight hours.

  “That’s quite impossible, Ben. First of all, we don’t take jobs that small, whoever the client might be, and second, that’s not in any way a realistic timeframe, even presuming you had the Word files for these texts.”

  “No files. The pages would need to be scanned.”

  Locke looked flabbergasted. “I’d like to be helpful to the MI5, given the excellent work you do, but even if I could accept this work, which I can’t, my next production slot is in two week’s time, so I don’t believe we’re going to find a way to do business. I might be able to call around and find you one or two green artisans who might take on this kind of small assignment but I’m sure it would take any of them several weeks at best.”

  Ben smiled. “No, we’ve decided your company is the best one for us, Simeon.”

  “Look here, this isn’t some kind of communist state where the government decides something and a company kowtows. The last I checked my firm was in the private sector.”

  “You are absolutely correct. Spot on. And my colleagues at Inland Revenue tell me your turnover last year was 674,900 pounds and 16 pence.”

  “Is it legal for them to divulge that? We’re a private company.”

  “Yes, perfectly legal, with the court order we obtained.”