by Eric Brown
“I’ve heard the argument before, and I don’t buy it.”
Kat smiled at the woman. She knew she should engage with her, try to make her feel they were on the same side. “Believe me,” she said, “I’m very sympathetic to your cause. I’m just coming at it from different perspective. But…but how do you think abducting me will help? I’m a minor player, you know, a lowly psychologist. You’re mistaken if you think they’ll halt the launch of the shuttle.”
The woman made for the door. Quickly Kat said, “What do you intend…?”
The woman hesitated, then said, “Don’t worry. We won’t harm you. We have nothing against you, personally. You’re safe here. You have my word on that.”
“So you’ll let me go?”
At the door, the woman paused and turned to look at Kat, before giving a brief nod. “In a few days.”
“A few days? But I’ll miss the launch.”
“Yes,” the woman said, “you will.”
She left the room and locked the door behind her.
Kat stared down at the stew, picked up the spoon, and paused. So she had learned one thing from the little dialogue: her abduction was not intended to halt the launch. So was it merely a means of making some money, of adding to the Allianz’s coffers?
She savoured a mouthful of stew, then sipped her coffee. Maybe the caffeine would help clear the anaesthetic fug that still muddled her senses.
She heard a sound beyond the room: another door opening and what sounded like a scuffle, then a brief cry. A second later the door burst open and the woman staggered through. Startled, Kat dropped her cup and sent coffee swilling across the table. Someone followed the woman into the room, a big man who wrestled her to the ground.
“Daniel!” she cried in surprise. “The canister—spray it in her face.”
Daniel pinned the woman to the floor with one hand and tore the canister from its holster at her waist. Then he sprayed the front of the woman’s balaclava as she lay beneath him. She groaned and went limp.
Kat stood up, impeded by the rope securing her ankles. “Daniel!”
He turned, grinning. “Didn’t expect to see the cavalry, girl?”
A second figure entered the room and rushed over to her. “You’re okay?” Travis said. “They haven’t harmed you?”
“I’m fine.” She swallowed, struggling to catch up with events. “But how the hell did you—?”
“Later,” Daniel said, pulling the balaclava from the woman’s head to reveal the pretty, brown face of someone not long out of her teens.
Travis slipped through the door and returned with a kitchen knife. He cut Kat free and she bent to massage feeling back into her ankles.
“Give me that rope,” Daniel said to Travis, indicating the nylon washing line. “This bastard’s going nowhere.”
Kat said, “What about the others? There were two men—”
“There was only one,” Travis said, passing Daniel the rope. “The second left on his bike while we were scoping this place out. The other guy…” He thumbed over his shoulder. “Daniel dealt with him.”
Daniel started to bind the washing line around the woman’s wrists.
On impulse, Kat said, “Don’t.”
Daniel looked up, “What?” He sounded incredulous.
“Don’t tie her up. Give her a chance to get away.”
Daniel laughed, without humour. “You’re not serious, girl? These bastards threatened your life.”
“They did nothing of the kind,” she said. “She gave me her word they wouldn’t harm me.”
Travis touched her forearm. “They put out a statement, Kat, just after you were taken. They said that if the launch went ahead, they’d kill you.”
Kat stared from Travis to Daniel. “She didn’t,” she said.
“Shit!” Daniel said, throwing the washing line aside and climbing to his feet. “Okay, let’s get out of here.”
Kat looked past Travis, into what was revealed as a kitchen. “Where are the others? Security? Police?”
Daniel grinned. “What others? We’re the extent of the SWAT team, Kat. Travis, here, didn’t want me calling for backup. He has a hunch.”
Kat looked at Travis. “A hunch?”
“We should get away from here,” Travis said. “We can talk in the car, okay?”
He took her elbow and hurried her from the cottage. She stepped into the shockingly cold, star-filled night, catching a glimpse of a man in leathers, prostrate beside the front path.
She paused, said, “Did you…? Is he—?”
“He’ll be okay,” Daniel said. “Sore head is all. Unless the hypo-thermia gets him, and that’s not my lookout.”
Travis led her from the garden and along a lane towards his VW parked beside the wall of a tumbledown church. He opened the back door and climbed in beside her.
Daniel eased himself into the front and looked over his shoulder. “Where to, boy?”
Travis said immediately, “My place. Ely. We need to be somewhere secure and out of the spotlight.”
“That’s the other side of the base, though,” Daniel said. “What…an hour, an hour-and-a-half’s drive? Look at her, boy: the girl can barely sit up straight in her seat. Whatever they drugged her with, she needs some rest. Kat, your dome isn’t far, is it? Is the place secure?”
She nodded. “State of the art,” she told him. She gave him a little smile. She felt sick and dizzy after the short walk from the cottage; she just wanted to sleep.
While Daniel gave the car the address, Kat said, bemused, “Why do we need somewhere”—how had he put it?—“‘secure and out of the spotlight’, Travis?”
The VW started up and pulled away from the church. “We can’t risk going back to the base,” Travis said. He hesitated, then went on, “Kat, at any time while they were holding you, did you hear anything—helicopters, drones, even a car?”
She thought about it, then shook her head. “No, nothing.”
Travis exchanged a glance with Daniel. “What did I say?”
Daniel said, “You sure about that? Nothing at all?”
“Not a thing. It’s been…” she shrugged, “deadly silent.” She looked from Daniel to Travis. “What’s going on?”
Travis said, “It didn’t take much to work out where they were holding you. We found you pretty damned easily, right, Daniel?”
“Too right, boy.”
Kat shrugged. “So?”
Travis went on, “The road to the north of the base, the one leading here, leading to your place…They didn’t even send out a search party that way. ‘They’ being security back at the base. Major Danvers. Nothing. If they were serious about finding you, they’d have had personnel swarming all over the place.”
“But why wouldn’t they be serious?” She stopped.
“Earlier this afternoon,” Travis said, “Lauren had me arrested. She and Danvers questioned me. Almost accused me of being in league with Allianz, and helping them grab you.” He shook his head. “It was a diversionary tactic, to put me off the scent.”
“I don’t understand.”
Daniel said, quietly, “Travis thinks they were behind your abduction, Kat. Lauren and Danvers. Does that make sense to you?”
Lauren Miekle? Major Danvers? Her head was spinning, and not just from the drugs.
¤¤¤
The three sat by the dome’s big, bowed landscape window. It was almost fully dark now, but the dome’s lights illuminated the sea through a fluctuating wall of mist. The low waves rose and fell in slow motion, frozen to the consistency of slush.
Clutching a mug of thick hot chocolate laced with Scotch, and wrapped in a heavy throw, Kat was starting to feel vaguely human again, even though her head still spun dizzyingly every time she tried to move.
“Travis,” she said, “you said Allianz threatened to kill me if the launch went ahead.”
He nodded, studying her closely. “According to all the news reports, yes.”
“But that can’t h
ave been why they abducted me,” she said. “It was never about getting the launch aborted. They treated me well. The girl told me they’d free me after the launch. She knew it would go ahead! Don’t you see—if it wasn’t about having the launch aborted, then it was about me. Something particular to do with me…”
“I don’t get it,” Daniel said. “You mean, they wanted you out of the way until after the launch? But why the hell…?”
“Why make the public statement?” asked Travis. “Why the threat to kill you if the launch went ahead when they never thought it would be abandoned?”
“A distraction?” she said. “A way to direct attention away from their real goal?”
“Well, if we accept for now that it wasn’t to halt the launch,” Travis said, “what does that leave?”
“A publicity coup?” Daniel said. “How much newsfeed have they occupied over the last day or so?”
“But to what end?” asked Travis.
“Why me?” she asked softly. “If they weren’t trying to stop the launch, then why was it so important to take me out of the picture for a few days?”
“Something to do with your work?” Travis said.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It must be more than that.” She sipped at her drink and stared out into the frozen night.
“Why not me, then?” Daniel said. “Come on, we do the same work, you and me, girl. We’re pretty much interchangeable. So why not me?”
“Apart from you being built like the side of a barn?” Kat said. She’d seen how efficiently he’d taken out her female captor, and he’d already taken down one of the big guys in leathers outside by that stage.
She stared at him. There was one more key difference between the two of them. “The clones,” she said. “That’s the other big difference, Daniel: I was selected for the core team, and you weren’t.”
He looked away. She knew that was still a sore point between them, but it was relevant now.
She swallowed. “I’ve spent time in the Isolation Unit. And there was something Ward told me when I was there: he said it was Lauren who’d put pressure on him to keep me away, for fear of disruption. If she wanted to keep me away then, why not now?”
Travis shook his head, looking mystified. “But why the hell would she want to do that?”
She looked at him. “I know that this is out of left field…But what if Lauren and Danvers planning to sabotage the clones somehow, to block the mission?”
¤¤¤
“Let me go with you,” she said again.
The three stood at the dome’s main doorway, Daniel poised to reactivate the security systems when they closed the door.
Travis shook his head. There was no shifting him.
“No,” he insisted. “If I’m right about Miekle and Danvers, we’ve no idea what they might do if they see you at the base.”
He put a gloved hand on her arm, then, and added, “And look at you: you can barely stand.” He turned to Daniel and said, “Look after her. Keep those security systems on max, and wait to hear from me, okay?”
She watched him head down to the VW, shrugging his coat off as he climbed in. She felt Daniel’s arm around her waist, his big bulk against her side, a hint of warmth against the night’s chill.
Moments later, the car’s lights were lost to the fog.
“I hope he won’t do anything stupid.”
Daniel laughed. “Travis? No, he’ll be fine, girl. Travis isn’t the kind of guy to take unnecessary risks, is he?”
Later, inside the dome, with the security systems fully reactivated, they sat side by side on the settee and drank cheap red wine. “What you did back there…Thank you, Daniel.”
She turned to face him, and he leaned towards her, then paused.
He seemed hesitant, so unlike Daniel.
Then he was dipping his head to meet her, but paused again, drew back and laid a big hand on her arm.
“Hey, girl,” he said, his voice low, almost husky. “You’re in shock. You’re still affected by whatever drugs they used on you.”
“I had you down as many things,” she said, “but never a gentleman.”
He laughed again. “Me neither. There’s always a first time, though, eh? Then again…”
“Yes?”
He kissed her.
TRAVIS
THE MORE HE THOUGHT ABOUT IT, THE MORE SURE HE was that there must have been inside involvement in Kat’s abduction. Someone who knew the project well enough to know her movements and routines. Someone who had identified her as some kind of threat that needed to be sidelined for a time.
He still couldn’t work out why, but as soon as Kat had pointed out that the only real difference between her and Daniel was that she’d involved herself in the activities of the Isolation Unit, he knew that must be it. And if there was a plot against the Unit, and neither Miekle nor Danvers could be trusted, he had to get there and try to work out what the hell was going on.
He’d never had himself down as a man of action, but then he’d led such a closeted, privileged life…It was only now that he’d been tested in such a way.
This late in the night the roads were even more deserted than usual. He allowed himself to close his eyes, but was too wired to doze.
Instead, his mind raced with possibilities and scenarios, and he tried hard not to think about the image of Daniel and Kat standing by the dome, Kat leaning into Daniel’s enfolding arm.
¤¤¤
Despite the late hour, and the freezing fog, the protest at the base had grown with the approach of tomorrow’s launch. Fires burned in the encampment and kettling area; plasma-burners and braziers in the VIP protest zone by the main gates.
As Travis’s VW slowed at the outer gates, figures loomed in the fog. How many people were here for the final protest? Ironic, perhaps, that the weather might make it hard to assess numbers.
Pausing between outer and inner gates, Travis flashed his carpal at one of the guards who had seized him only earlier today.
“Dr Denholme,” the man said, somewhat awkwardly.
The inner gates swung open, and instead of heading for its usual parking slot the car headed for Unit 7, the Isolation Unit.
Ward Richards was waiting just inside the doors. Travis had called ahead, knowing Ward would be here, as he was one of the key members of staff who’d been instructed to remain on base for the duration of the current security alert.
The clone division director was an arrogant and frustrating character, but he was also passionately protective of his branch of the Kon-Tiki project. If Kat was right, and the clones were somehow at risk, then there could be no one more protective of them than Ward Richards.
But there was an obvious risk in opening up to him, Travis knew.
He stepped inside, clapping his hands to warm them up, as the doors closed behind him.
“What is it, Travis? Why the cloak and dagger?”
Travis studied the man carefully, trying to judge his approach.
“Just let me speak,” he said. “Hear me out. Can you do that, Ward?”
Ward shrugged. “Okay, but this had better be worth it.”
“Kat Manning is now somewhere safe.” Travis said. Already, Ward had opened his mouth to interrupt, but held back. “She’s safe, and from what she’s been able to tell me, I have every reason to believe that there’s been Allianz infiltration of this project at a very high level.”
“What? Who?”
Travis raised a hand to silence his colleague.
“I believe Major Danvers, and…and Lauren Miekle—”
He raised his hand again, fixing Richards with a hard stare, and went on: “That they’ve been taking steps to somehow sabotage your work—that Lauren’s been using you, somehow, Ward. I know it’s hard to—”
“Oh, come on!” snapped Ward. “Seriously? I’m going to call her now. Tell her what you’re saying. You’ve gone mad.”
“Maybe I have,” Travis said, keeping his voice calm—a trick he’d pick
ed up from Kat. “But humour me, then. Let’s look around, right now, and make sure nothing’s amiss. Do what you like after that, but surely you need to be absolutely sure there’s no chance I’m onto something?”
He hadn’t known how else to do this. He’d agreed with Kat and Daniel they needed to somehow get inside Unit 7 to make sure nothing was wrong, and playing on Ward’s protectiveness was the best way. But if he called Lauren now, they were screwed.
Ward’s shoulders slumped. “I can’t believe I’m even listening to this.”
Travis saw curiosity in the man’s eyes, though: Ward realised he couldn’t not listen, not at this stage, when emotions and fears were running so high.
“You do realise we’re on pretty much full lockdown here, don’t you? The base is on high alert and that protocol gives me complete authority within this area.”
“That’s why I came to you, Ward.” At a time when the conventional power structure had been compromised, Ward presented the only viable alternative.
“So, tell me,” Ward said, “what do you want to know, what do you want to see? The core team are mostly sleeping, and they’re all in isolation.”
By ‘core team’ Travis realised he meant the clones of Kat, Sanjeev, Anna and the others.
“Just think it all through,” Travis said. “Talk me through the last day or two. Has anything happened that’s been unexpected, out of the normal? Any anomalies in your systems? Unusual interventions?”
“Well, your bloody Kat for starters,” Ward said. “I could have done without her getting Patel to weigh in and give her access yesterday. Too much distraction and risk. But you don’t mean that, do you? You mean…”
Ward had started to walk as he answered, indicating a corridor that led deeper into the building.
“We’ve been monitoring everything to the finest detail,” he said. “Believe me, if there had been any anomalies or indicators of potential issues, I’d know about it.”
They entered an office and Ward waved at a wall, activating the smartsurface with a stream of figures and graphs. Another wave, and twenty or so thumbnail video feeds sprayed across the top of the display, views of rooms that Travis realised must be in the isolation wing. Some of the rooms were empty, others showed figures sleeping, covered by sheets; one showed a communal area where figures in snug bodysuits sat with feet up on tables, or leaned forward clutching steaming cups. He recognised the team’s captain, Anna Eriksen, and the biologist David Vine sitting beside her on a sofa; Petra Schlesinger stood by a counter where they had a coffee machine and a jug of orange juice.