The suits on the floor acknowledged that they’d received the message and carried on striding through the hordes of people, their heads slightly above everybody else’s as if they hoped that their field of vision would bend in a perfect parabola and end in the spot where the two young men would appear.
But the men were nowhere to be found. And the suits continued scanning the staircases and escalators, exchanging looks in the gaps between people, discreet signals to ensure that they had all exits covered.
They couldn’t be allowed to escape.
But the time was just after ten in the morning. The station was heaving with people, and it was virtually impossible to move around.
And things were about to get even more chaotic.
The task force commander’s name was Peter Tressing, his rank was lieutenant colonel, and when he climbed out of his large four-wheel-drive LMV outside the main entrance to the Hauptbahnhof he was not a happy man.
His task would be impossible to carry out. In fact, it had failed even before it got underway.
More than an hour had passed since the train arrived at the station, and no matter how many exits they sealed there wasn’t a cat in hell’s chance that all the passengers from the infected train – if any – were still in the terminus.
They were already on their way home to their families or to new destinations or sitting in buses on their way somewhere else, and if any one of them had been in contact with that family yesterday, if anyone had chatted with or been coughed on or whatever it took, if only one or two or three had caught the disease and brought it out into the world, there was only one word for it.
Disaster.
And this he knew, just as he knew that the chance of any other scenario was as good as nil.
Nevertheless, he busied himself giving orders as all around him men in green uniforms climbed out of vehicles identical to his own, and he ordered them to lock down the station and to seal off the area. What would happen next was going to look like civil war and cause nothing but panic.
And Peter Tressing already knew it was going to be in vain.
Like every other terminal building in the world, Berlin Hauptbahnhof was planned with impeccable logic. And in common with every other terminal building, that was something a visitor would never have guessed.
Everything was a mess, and it was a mess full of people.
Leo and Albert had moved between staircases, across walkways that seemed to float in the air between platforms and trains, on between shops and new staircases, and every now and then they passed a nook or a corner where someone had put a bank of lockers. But not one of the numbers on the hatches matched the one on their receipt.
They moved quickly, quickly but not anxiously, careful to look as though they knew exactly where they were going even when they didn’t. Watkins’ nerves seemed to have rubbed off on them, and at regular intervals they peered over their shoulders to check that they weren’t followed, knowing it would be glaringly apparent to anyone following them what they were up to.
They were on the verge of aborting their search and coming back to resume it the following day when they realised that they were standing in front of another row of lockers, and the sequence of numbers was in the same range as the one on the receipt.
And there it was.
The smallest locker size, tucked as far into the corner as possible. And blocked by an elderly man.
He was crouching in front of the locker next to it, carefully depositing his luggage inside. A suitcase and a paper bag and wait, perhaps the paper bag had better go on top of the suitcase, or no, perhaps it was better the way it was.
And they kept their distance. Waited impatiently in the stairwell for him to depart.
Eventually, he closed the door. Fumbled with the lock. And wandered off, leaving the place to them.
The code on the receipt.
They punched it in on the keypad located in the middle of the row of lockers.
And waited.
It felt as if the entire world was holding its breath, as if the number they had punched in was about to change history and cause everything around them to magically transform.
But it didn’t.
There was a soft click, and one of the locker doors popped open. Not fully, just a centimetre or two.
They bent down, opened it, and reached in.
It contained a yellow envelope.
And for a second, Albert felt an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. It was the exact same kind of envelope that Janine had sent to him. He stood up, trying to catch Leo’s eye. They were getting closer to the answer. From this moment, nothing could go wrong.
It was Leo who saw them first.
They appeared on the other side of the deck.
The dark suits, a man who pointed at them across the walkway, pushed his headset against his ear and set off at a sprint.
And Leo grabbed Albert’s arm.
There was only one thing to do.
Run.
They say people are individuals, but when fear strikes the pack mentality sets in and we’re really just a mob of running bodies, acting as one.
The main entrance was closed.
People on their way out to Europaplatz were met by revolving doors that didn’t revolve, and outside were men in military uniforms with firearms and nobody knew what was happening.
Like a school of fish in the shadow of a shark the mass of people turned and bolted; everyone was afraid and wanted to get out fast. As soon as one started to run, the rest followed.
And Lieutenant Colonel Peter Tressing had time against him, time and geography. There was no way he could seal all exits before anyone got out.
But those were his orders.
He remained in position, outside in the cold winter sun, watching the sea of people moving inside the glass façade. He could see his men spreading further and further away along the exterior towards other doors. And he asked himself how long it would be before panic set in. And what would happen then.
The black-suited man on the gangway far above the crowd saw everything unfold below him.
It was a bull-run without bulls, a whirling stampede of directionless people, and all he heard was the sound of voices, screaming, shouting, afraid of something they couldn’t see but that made them push forward, desperate to get out.
He saw the army trucks outside.
Saw the crowd below discover alternate exits, saw those at the front being trapped against the glass when the new doors wouldn’t open, saw the tide of human beings surge and ebb and spill in other directions, spreading through the hall like rills of lava on a horizontal mountain.
The station was in lockdown. And why in heaven’s name would it be?
In his ear he heard the shouts from his colleagues. Colleagues who were stuck in the moving crowd, who couldn’t change direction for fear of being trampled, who couldn’t see Watkins or the two young men and who couldn’t understand what the panic was all about.
And then, the voices of his three colleagues on the basement level, the ones who had spotted them.
Two men with a yellow envelope.
They had been so close, just across the floor from them and with a perfectly clear view, and the next moment people had started to stream down the escalators and everybody was screaming and there was panic in the air and then the men were gone.
The suited man stood helpless on his walkway. All he could do was order them to keep trying, to wrestle their way through the crowd and take up the hunt. Their quarry couldn’t be allowed to escape, too much was at stake.
And he closed his eyes and hoped that whatever was happening.
Whatever the reason the station was closed off.
Whatever the cause, he hoped it would stop the young men and the envelope from getting out.
Albert van Dijk crouched in the front seat, hiding his head under his arms as they sped through the underground parking garage.
Not because he didn’t want to be seen.
But because he didn’t dare look.
He already knew that Leo Björk was a lousy driver, but even so it came as a surprise that he lacked not only good judgement but also survival instincts. The force from the sharp turn pressed Albert into the side of the door, and the only thing drowning his screams was the engine, still accelerating in second gear, squealing as it negotiated the curved ramp that would hopefully bring them out into daylight.
Behind them all hell had broken loose.
It had started with three men chasing them, four at most, but by the time they made it to the car there was a great swarm of people running after them.
Before they sped up the ramp Albert caught a final glimpse of one of their initial pursuers pressing a headset to his ear.
That wasn’t a good sign.
There were more of them.
They were almost at the top of the ramp now, Leo steering them round the bend and out towards the street, and Albert was about to warn him that there could be more suits waiting in cars outside, ready to take up the chase, when Leo shouted at him:
‘Hold on!’
Albert was already hanging on with both hands, and he opened his mouth to shout that he couldn’t hold on any more than he already was, when he suddenly realised what Leo meant.
Outside, there was chaos.
A green military truck was positioned sideways across the road. It was the size of a small bus with massive, rugged tyres, and behind it two more identical trucks were rolling into position and men in camouflage gear were spreading out spike strips and what the hell was this about?
‘Careful!’ he screamed back.
But judging from the sound of the engine, being careful wasn’t on Leo’s agenda.
His eyes scanned the car park entrance for an escape route, and spotted a gap to the side of the green truck where there were no spike strips and no other vehicles. On the other hand, there was a kerb and pavement. In theory, it offered just enough room for them to pass, but in practice it wasn’t a very attractive option.
Realising what Leo had in mind, Albert did as he’d been told and held on for dear life, pressing his feet so hard to the floor that he wondered if it wouldn’t give way. He felt the wheels bounce and the car moan, two tyres on the pavement and two in the street, and he silently prayed the rubber would withstand the pressure.
Men in uniform came running from all directions, but Leo kept his foot on the accelerator and the men disappeared behind them. Albert ducked down again, hoping they wouldn’t open fire.
No bullets came. And for a second he let himself exhale. I’ll be damned. We got away.
Then he realised what was about to happen.
In front of them was a junction: four lanes of fast-moving traffic blocked their path.
And Leo was planning to make them a part of it, without waiting to be let in.
They hurtled past a host of signs telling them not to, and with their engine revving and at high speed, Leo piloted their tormented rental car through a ninety-degree turn, taking them off the end of the ramp and straight into the speeding traffic, swerving into a gap that wasn’t there.
For Albert, everything blended together in a concert of horns and screeching wheels, cars flashing past only centimetres away, and he screamed something in Dutch that he knew Leo would neither understand nor care about, and he heard metal crunch against metal and thought that if this car was ever to be returned Leo would have do it himself.
And then, it was over.
He heard Leo change gears. The engine settled down; the vehicle was moving in one direction only, and that direction was forward. And he realised that his eyes were closed and that it was okay to open them now.
Beside him Leo sat behind the wheel, focused to the point of desperation.
‘What the hell’s going on, Albert? What is this about?’ He clenched his teeth, still accelerating.
And Albert tried to assess the situation, the men inside the station, the military personnel outside, the blockade they had somehow managed to slip through.
Nothing made sense. Twenty minutes earlier they’d been drinking coffee in a bistro. Then they’d been chased by men in dark suits, and surrounded by a virtual army —
‘They’re behind us!’
It was Albert’s own voice. It came as a reflex, sudden and panicking and just a bit too loud.
Leo threw a glance in the mirror. It made no sense, but Albert was right.
A black Audi had materialised behind them. It came bolting up from the garage, running through the cordon and forcing soldiers to throw themselves to the ground. But instead of merging into the traffic like Leo, it steered straight across the pavement, taking down a bicycle rack and steadily getting closer until a bus shelter forced it off of the pavement and into the lane of cars behind them.
Leo looked ahead. There had to be a way out.
And then he heard Albert’s voice again.
‘Red!’ it screamed.
In front of them, a line of traffic lights were suspended in the air, with others mounted on poles to the side, shining red at them from every side to stop them proceeding across the intersection. And yet Leo hadn’t seen them until it was too late.
But what he lacked in attention he made up for in reflexes.
He slammed on the brakes.
The result, however, wasn’t quite what he’d expected. They were travelling too fast, and the car kept sliding forward, straight into the intersection. There were cars coming from the left and cars coming from the right and it couldn’t end any other way but badly; everywhere brakes were screaming, and Albert was curled up next to the gear stick, hoping that the car had airbags and that they would save them from being crushed. He couldn’t see the road, only Leo’s hand shifting. To a lower gear. And his one thought was: oh my god, what is he doing?
Leo was speeding up.
Because there was no other choice. There was one way to get out alive and that was to go faster and try to drive through.
The car skated with the automatic brakes rattling under them, the engine howled, and Leo threw the wheel back and forth, whether to save their lives or just out of sheer terror Albert couldn’t tell. Because his face was buried in the middle armrest and whatever happened, he didn’t want to see.
More screaming brakes around them.
And then that sound, that instantly recognisable sound of cars failing to stop, smashing into each other and pushing each other into a spin.
The sound that should have come from all around them. But it didn’t.
It came from behind.
And it stayed there. The distance between them and the sound grew, and for the second time in too short a time Albert forced himself to open his eyes. To sit straight. To look around.
Leo’s gaze was fixed in the rear-view mirror.
His hands were clamped to the wheel. The road in front of them was empty.
They’d made it through the intersection.
Far behind them they could make out the black Audi that had followed them up from the garage. It had tried to speed through the crossing just like Leo, but it hadn’t succeeded. Everything in front of the windscreen looked like a discarded piece of foil, one of the wheels had collapsed leaving the whole car sloping towards the ground, and seamlessly close to it was a grey taxi with its front embedded so deep in the Audi it was impossible to tell where one car ended and the other one began.
‘Well done,’ said Albert. And then: ‘Never, ever do it again.’
Leo nodded.
And they pushed on.
Didn’t speak until they’d driven for a long time.
On the dashboard in front of them lay the yellow envelope.
Vibrating against the windscreen with every bump in the road.
And Albert didn’t take his eyes off it once.
42
Connors walked up the narrow, twisting passageway, his head bent to avoid striking the low ceiling, hurried steps along the spiral staircase.
On the open
courtyard outside, the helicopter waited, ready for departure, the clatter of rotors between stone walls hitting him like a rumbling echo as he stepped out into the evening air.
The crew-cut pilot sat behind the controls. Drumming his fingers against the levers the way he always did, as if he was the one with the critical mission rather than Connors. He waited impatiently as his superior took a seat, and then they rose into the dark sky, the castle shrinking beneath them, ultimately vanishing behind the mountains as they turned out over the valley and headed west.
The castle.
It had been the topic of more discussions than he wanted to remember.
There were so many reasons for them to stay; the place was hard to reach and few even knew it existed.
It seemed secure. But seemed wasn’t enough. It was hidden and protected, true, but it wasn’t completely impossible to get there. And they would only be getting one chance, and then seemed wouldn’t cut it.
What they needed was a place where the epidemic couldn’t go.
Where no one could come, and that could be moved if somebody tried.
Now that place was ready and waiting. Their cargo bay was loaded with equipment and material to be delivered to the base, and this was just the first trip of many that Connors would have to make over the next couple of days.
He didn’t like it. But things were what they were.
From the air, everything looked normal. The landscape lay below them like a billowing model railway, silent and still and secure. And yet, somewhere, in one of those houses, someone would soon start coughing. A soft tickly cough that would feel like the beginnings of a cold, but that would prove to be something much, much worse.
It wasn’t right to give up. At least, he ought to try.
But he couldn’t.
The decision wasn’t Connors’ to make. The protocols would dictate what he did next, and it didn’t matter who had written them. People would die but there was nothing to do about it, he was part of a process and all he could do were the things that had already been decided.
Chain of Events Page 33