The Locke Cipher

by Gabriel Kron

  “Oh I want to get away

  I want to fly away

  Yeah yeah yeah....” she sang out to Lenny Kravitz, enjoying the sweeping bends of what was now becoming a regular journey, usually accompanying Daniel to visit his parents at a different care home from where she worked. The last couple of trips had been on her own to see George and Vivian Bateman and she’d be lying if she said she didn’t enjoy the visits. George and Viv were both bright cookies, good at cards and both had a good sense of humour.

  West Street went from tarmac to a gravel track that ran parallel to the beach past the coast-guard tower. Their white brick bungalow couldn’t get much closer to the sea. From their front room window they could see the pebble beach and the windmill sited at the Leisure Park caravan site.

  As Becs turned the Volvo onto the gravel track, she pulled over and parked behind a white Ford Transit van.

  West Street Retirement Cottages, or the 'West Streeters', as the residents of the fifteen cottages liked to call themselves, were a close knit community of silver haired pensioners lucky enough to have been in the right place, at the right time, with the right pension. Beyond the West Streeters’ cottages, The Old Coast Guard Cottages at the end of West Street provided twenty-four hour nurse care for those requiring sheltered housing. It really was a far cry from Owlbeech Lodge’s institutional insipidity.

  The view from the road along the beach towards Bracklesham Bay at this time of evening was special and Becs stood for a minute taking in the view and fresh sea air.

  Before going to see the Batemans, she sent a quick text message to Daniel to let him know she had arrived. She noticed that there was someone in the Transit, probably also admiring the view.

  The Batemans never locked their front door as neighbours were frequent visitors.

  “Hi. It’s only me,” she called out as she entered.

  Unusually there was no answer.

  Not only no answer, but no sound at all. Something felt wrong, sounded wrong. She hung her coat next to the front door and called out again as she approached the front room door.

  Her legs suddenly felt weak and she stumbled. She steadied herself against the wall before seeing the twisted legs of Mrs Bateman across the doorway. As she reached out, her vision began to fade, the silence becoming a deafening hum and her legs eventually gave way from under her. As she hit the floor, she was faced with Mrs. Bateman staring straight back at her. Neither saw the other. It was a vacant, lifeless stare.

  West Street Retirement Cottages 8:30pm Day 51.

  Agent Cornell couldn’t believe his luck. He was about to go and vent the bungalow when a Volvo pulled up directly behind and a nurse got out. He hoped she was going to continue up the road to the nursing home, she was certainly dressed as such.

  As she turned to walk towards the Bateman’s bungalow he immediately recognised her as Rebecca Taylor, associate and girlfriend of Daniel Bateman. He checked the photograph in the dossier just to be certain.

  The bungalow was still mostly full of nitrogen, Cornell’s preferred method of extermination. He truly believed he was doing his victims a favour by using it. It was odourless, colourless and painless, or so he believed. Asphyxiation was usually painful as the body fought the build-up of carbon dioxide, but since the nitrogen displaced any oxygen in the air, the body could no longer make the toxic by-product. Instead it just shut down through lack of oxygen. Cornell also thought that he would choose nitrogen asphyxiation over any other form, other than maybe a sniper’s bullet, for himself when the time came. Both were quick and painless — at least no-one had ever reported back otherwise.

  The Batemans were a nice old couple, understanding and like most people gullible. Half an hour earlier he had knocked on their door and introduced himself as a contractor for the council.

  “Hello there, Mr Bateman?” he had asked looking at his smart phone as if he were reading a work-order. “We’re doing some spraying today around the bungalows for the treatment of Japanese Knotweed that’s been reported recently and have to advise you to stay indoors for the next half hour with all your windows closed please...”

  Giving the nurse a full minute before following her, he opened the front door and peered in seeing how far she had managed to get before being overcome. He then walked around the side of the bungalow to the rear, removing the duct-tape covers from the air bricks as he went and opened the back door. He waited another minute before entering through the kitchen.

  George Bateman was still sitting in his armchair, his head rested gently back, his mouth wide open from his final breath. His wife, Vivian, lay on her side. She was still clutching the broken handle of a cup of tea she had just made.

  Cornell smiled when he saw the nurse.

  “Hmm, Miss Taylor, what a fortunate bonus,” he said as he knelt down next to her. “For me at least.”

  Her skin colour told Cornell that she wasn’t dead and was still breathing. A lot of nitrogen would have escaped when she first entered and it was now practically back to normal. She would be unconscious for a while yet and have a blast of a headache when she woke plus a couple of nice little surprises he was going to leave her.

  He unbuttoned the front of her uniform and was pleased with her choice of underwear, white with not too much lace and not too skimpy. He cupped one her breasts in his calloused hand and slipped a finger under the cup. Nurse Taylor was going to deliver an important message to Daniel Bateman.

  “This should rattle your boyfriend’s cage a bit and bring him out into the open,” Cornell said softly and gently allowed a fingertip to stroke the curve of her waist.

  West Street Retirement Cottages. 8:55pm Day 51.

  Becs' head pounded as she sat up and almost screamed at the sight of Vivian Bateman dead on the floor. Remembering where she was, she realised her uniform was completely unbuttoned. She pushed herself backward into the hallway away from the dead corpse staring back at her. At the same time she covered herself back up and started to button up her uniform. She was frantic when she couldn’t find the top button. The top button was missing.

  What if the attacker was still here? What had just happened? She felt paralysed and scared as she remembered seeing both the Batemans, and then blacking out. She hadn’t fainted; it wasn’t something she had ever been prone to. She checked herself over, especially her head to see if she had been knocked out and as she did so, felt something uncomfortable in her bra. She checked and found a folded photograph. As she unfolded it and readjusted herself, she felt as if the ground below had opened up and swallowed her.

  The photograph was a close up of herself, taken on the day of Jack’s funeral. Daniel was beside her. A message in pen had been scrawled across the bottom of the picture: “You’re next if your boyfriend doesn’t give himself up.”

  She finally managed to stand up, the pounding of her head making her kneel back down. She wanted to help the Batemans, but she knew they were long dead and she knew she had to be the one to tell Daniel and report it to the authorities.

  She ran out of the Bateman’s bungalow and vomited as she remembered the white Transit van that had been parked outside. It was now gone.

  Locking herself into what felt like the safety of the Volvo, she dialled the latest number for Daniel. He answered after a long twenty seconds of ringing.

  “Dan, it’s me,” she managed to say as she tried hard to steady her voice. She could hear Clive in the background.

  The Yard. 9:00pm Day 51.

  “Hi,” I answered and then added, “Hey, what’s up, what’s happened?” realising something was wrong in Becs' voice.

  As Becs told me what had just happened, the pit of my stomach was free falling and my heart beat hard and fast in my hollow shell. I thought this couldn’t get any worse, that they had done the worst that they could already.

  I struggled to remember Mum and Dad’s faces, actually more feared I would forget them. I hadn’t seen them for nearly a week, which was nothing unusual and Becs had volunteered to drop by
every now and then as well. They had taken a liking to her the first time I took her with me to visit. Mum especially seemed to have an affinity with her. Dad had said that she reminded him of Mum when she was younger, not in looks, but in spirit.

  I could feel myself welling up and then getting angry as Becs described exactly what had happened. Silently I screamed inside as I listened in horror and anger.

  “Dan, Dan?” I could hear Becs saying on the phone. Clive had come out from the workshop and was sitting close by looking concerned. “Dan? What should I do? I’m scared,” she was asking.

  I heard the words, but couldn’t answer, so many thoughts and images went through my mind.

  “Dan!” I finally heard and forced myself to focus.

  “Get out of there. Now,” I said, trying to guess what the right thing to do was. “Get out now and come straight back here, but don’t drive all the way, I’ll come and get you from the BP in town, all right? Call me as soon as you’re there please. I need you Becs, I need you here. Don’t worry about phoning the police or ambulance, I’ll call the Care centre. Just get back here now. Can you drive okay?”

  “Yes, yes, I’ll be fine, just a head-ache. Dan, I’m sorry about your parents, I know they—” Becs stopped as she cried but quickly composed herself.

  “Try to make sure no-one’s following you,” I said.

  “How?”

  “You’ll know, I’m sure. Park in town and walk to the BP, I’ll be watching from across the road and can check if there’s anyone following you. Go into the shop and wait for my call.”

  “Okay,” was all Becs said and hung up.

  I checked my watch and calculated that she would get to the BP service station any time after 11.30pm. I had over two hours to kill. To kill. I wanted to kill the bastards behind this. I wanted to kill and expose and bring down their empire.

  I finally screamed, “No! No! No!” each one accompanied with a crushing punch into the punch bag hanging between the containers.

  “What’s happened?” Clive asked.

  “They’ve, they’ve, killed my parents!” I started to cry uncontrollably, it taking me right down to no breath and leaving me on my knees.

  After what could have been seconds or even minutes, I managed to take a controlling breath.

  I explained to Clive as best I could what Becs had told me. What she had found in Selsey and what was done to her in order to send me a message.

  “Perhaps I should,” I said.

  “What?” asked Clive.

  “Give myself up, hand myself in. What can they do, lock me up? I'd have to fight it from the inside, but hopefully they'd leave everyone else alone.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Clive said, “What if they extradite you to the States? What then? And if we can’t get it working or expose whoever is behind this, then all you have is your word against the state. You’ll end up in isolation.”

  Clive was right. In an ideal world I would give myself up to the system and let it prove me innocent and then I’d be free again. Except we were so far removed from the ideal that to extradition back to Germany or the US, was almost a certainty. A fair trial in America was unlikely considering their plea bargaining justice system — plead guilty to get a reduced sentence — plead innocent and commit to spending a fortune fighting a long legal battle which, if you lost could result in spending sixty plus years in prison.

  It was better to remain on the run.

  “Clive, I need to go and pick Becs up from town. Do you mind hanging around for bit, I think we’d both like some company for a while?”

  “Certainly. No worries, it’ll give me a chance to work on what we’ve got and try to get hold of Lee.”

  Potsdam Germany. 9:10pm Day 52.

  Lee’s BMW rolled slowly through the grounds of the Albert Einstein Science Park, Potsdam. Dr. Karin Friedmann had instructed him to meet her at the Great Refractor Observatory, one of many observatories sited on top of Telegrafenberg, Telegraph Hill. The science park was home to several scientific institutes and Karin's affiliation was via the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences.

  “Not many people actually know we have another GCMS here, I guess they don’t want too many people using it,” Karin said as they walked around the domed observatory, the fifth largest refracting telescope in the world. The building was impressive and imposing, especially in the moonlight.

  “Clive said you use it to analyse meteorites.”

  “Amongst other things, but yes, here I have had the privilege of doing a mass spec on a rock from space. What you’ve got is far more interesting I think,” Karin said referring to the radioactive carbon brush.

  With the moon full and high, Lee was astounded at the sight of the Einstein Tower before them. Beneath its cute curvaceous phallic moulded architecture lies a highly functional solar observatory, one that happened to have a Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometer in its basement lab

  Karin led the way down the curved staircase to the ground floor laboratory. As the lights flickered on, she removed her long trench coat and donned one of the labs coats hanging by the door. Lee followed suit and removed the brush for the first time since leaving Daniel and Clive at the Yard.

  Where the envelope had been resting against his chest, Lee could feel a sore patch of skin. It might have been rubbing, but Lee knew that he had been a little careless in the excitement of the discovery. He knew the health and safety hazards, risks and controls for radioactive materials. He checked his chest and found what appeared to be a small burn on his skin.

  “Oh shit,” he said as he examined the reddened skin.

  “Let me see,” Karin said and put her glasses on to inspect. “Hmm... You are lucky, first degree beta burn, the damage will largely be limited to the epidermis. Dry or wet desquamation will occur, depending. It will form a dry scab, and then heal quickly. No lasting damage.”

  “Thank you. I’ve never done a mass spec before, is there anything I can do to help?” Lee asked as he buttoned up the lab coat.

  “You can watch,” Karin said and opened the envelope containing the brush. “Most of the work is in the preparation.”

  Lee watched as Karin placed the brush on the bench and using an expensive looking camera with a ring flash, started taking photographs.

  “Here, you can do this,” she said and handed Lee the camera. “If this is the secret to a new source of electricity then these procedures should be recorded.”

  Lee took the camera and was relieved to see it was a point and shoot fully automatic digital one He started taking pictures as Karin began to process the brush for testing.

  She carefully scraped samples of the graphite into small glass sample vials. Then, carefully, with hands that Lee had never seen so steady and precise, she managed to scrape off several ultra-thin slivers of the white centre separator material. She then filled each vial with solvent and used a worktop shaker to thoroughly dissolve the samples.

  “If your Daniel is right, and you turn the lights off...” Karin said. Lee switched the labs lights off and there in one of the sample vials was a faint glow of blue light. The brush itself had a line of blue radiant light showing.

  Karin took the samples over to the HP 6890 and using a pipette she loaded small samples into the Analyser. It looked like a large white complicated photocopier. Once prepared, the 6890 automatically processed them through the gas chromatograph and analysed the output through the mass spectrometer. Each sample would only take a few minutes.

  Whilst the 6890 was working they debated how the device could work. A white board was conveniently close by and before long, cross sectional diagrams of the brush with arrows, chemical formulae, electrical equations and plenty of question marks soon covered it. Lee made sure to record it all photographically. It was important to record every avenue they discussed as each may not be correct in its entirety, but would have valuable lessons, discoveries and data that would help understand what could turn out to be a new science.

  The 6890 G
CMS analyser finished its work announcing it with little more than a ping like that of a cheap microwave oven.

  A ping that promised so much.

  Karin scrolled down the results screen and Lee waited in anticipation.

  A graph was displayed on the screen that showed several spikes displayed across it at various positions and heights.

  “Okay, we have lots of carbon, and lead for each of the outer parts and—” Just then the power tripped out and the laboratory was plunged into darkness with only the bright moonlight streaming in through the organic shaped windows. The lab quickly became silent as the air-conditioning, lab equipment and the 6890 powered down.

  “Oh what!” Lee exclaimed. “Did you get the results?”

  Before Karin could answer, a bright light blinded her.

  “Hold it right there,” an American voice said from behind the bright torch light. “Don’t say, don’t do, anything. Nod if you understand.”

  Lee felt himself nodding, but it was obviously not enough.

  “I said nod if you fucking understand,” the American said with more venom than before.

  Lee nodded again and could see Karin doing the same next to him.

  “Good. Do as I say and you won’t get hurt. Now, Doctor Gregson, carefully pass me the brush,” The American stepped forward into the light and held his hand out. In his other hand was a Colt .45 ACP handgun.

  Lee realised that the torch was being held by someone else. Any thoughts of rushing the guy vanished.

  Lee picked the brush up and handed it to the American.

  “Now get me the samples. Quickly.”

  Lee again did as he was told and handed the sample vials from the HP6809.

  “Good, now both of you turn around and kneel down,” the American said. “Now!” he shouted and fired three shots.