He shook his head.
‘It’s exactly the same.’
William had remained standing with the papers spread out in front of him. All hope had run out, all that was left of him was an empty, silent shell, standing there, trying to find the words to explain what he’d found.
It was the same material.
The documents in the envelope were identical to the papers that had covered his wall in the castle, identical to the numbers and figures he’d paced up and down in front of day after day, that he’d studied and tracked and tried to understand without success. These were the same calculations he’d read in her binders. The same arrows and the same assumptions and the same extrapolations he’d already seen. And that he already knew were wrong.
There was nothing new. And the solution that Albert and Leo thought they were carrying. The answer they thought they had found.
It was nothing more than a copy of the question.
Nothing more.
‘Why?’ she asked.
Janine’s voice was so weak that she barely heard herself.
‘Why on earth would she send out something like that?’
William shrugged. How could he know?
Perhaps she thought she’d got it right, perhaps she believed this was the answer and her calculations would solve all their problems if only they were made public. Maybe that was it, and perhaps it was just another dark paradox that she would die too, that she had died from a virus she had helped to develop herself and that she had believed would work.
Or maybe she’d come to the same decision they had. Maybe she’d seen the end was drawing closer and felt she had to act. Maybe she’d realised she couldn’t make it on her own, and decided that the only way to succeed was to spread the secret to people on the outside.
It was exactly what they had been trying to do.
So why wouldn’t she?
And her papers had travelled in a circle, out from the castle and to Berlin, and there they’d been collected and brought back and here they were again. People had died along the way, fought to bring the secret into new hands as the Organisation did everything in its power to stop them. And now the envelope was back at the foot of the mountain where it started.
It was one terrible irony after another.
As if life had decided to laugh in William Sandberg’s face one final time, as if it wanted to tell him that it wouldn’t stop laughing at him until everything was over.
The irony that the solution was no solution.
The irony that, in her anxiety to stop the virus, Helena Watkins dispatched the courier who spread it beyond the castle.
The irony that all of this was predicted in everyone’s DNA.
And the irony that what finally made everything happen were the decisions made by the people who’d made it their mission to stop the prediction being fulfilled.
Nobody spoke for a long time.
But then again, William had said all there was to say.
They were all thinking the same thoughts, they all saw how the last glow of hope had faded out, if it had ever been there to begin with, if it hadn’t just been their own wishes that had made it seem so.
All hope was lost.
Nobody said it, but everyone knew.
And with that, William turned and walked away.
Helena Watkins had been aware that she was dying.
She’d been lying in a coffin of glass, feeling her time run out, and in a way what she felt had been gratitude.
They’d given her her own room, far away from the sad rows of beds where men and women slowly bled to death.
They’d given her the best treatment there was, lessened her suffering far more than with any of the others, and slowed down the development as much as it could be slowed down. But she knew it wouldn’t change the outcome. Knew that all they were doing was to delay the inevitable.
And she knew it was her own fault.
She had believed he was healthy. He hadn’t shown any symptoms. And if he was well, that was proof that she’d finally succeeded.
Nevertheless, they wanted to wait. But Helena couldn’t wait: she had found the solution, a solution that needed to get out there now, out to molecular biologists and researchers and institutions all over the world. Out to everyone who might understand it so they could start manufacturing a working virus before the predictions came true.
There was a world out there that had to be rescued.
And there was a man who thought he’d lost his fiancé.
And Helena Watkins had taken upon herself the task of putting everything right, that was how she’d seen it. And when the homeless man disappeared with the formulas and the envelope and her brief message of comfort to a professor she didn’t know but whose name she believed was Albert, just a few words to tell him his girlfriend was alive and well, when she knew he was on his way she could feel how everything would at last be put right.
Instead, that had been exactly how it had started.
And she had been the one who started it.
She woke to the sound of someone coming into her room. On the other side of the acrylic glass that marked the edge of her universe stood the woman they’d kidnapped, she who’d been brought to translate the cuneiform signs and who’d had a boyfriend and who they should’ve known would become depressed in captivity.
Janine. Only centimetres away, but out of reach all the same, and next to her was a strange man who couldn’t be anything but her own successor.
And she had a thousand things to say and no energy to say them.
She had already tried once, but didn’t know what she’d managed to say, she was scared then and even more scared now and all she wanted was to warn them.
About the virus, about the codes, about time running out for all of them.
About the project that nobody called Noah’s Ark, about how they’d ceased trying to save the world, and started to choose the people to build a new one.
All of that, she wanted to tell them.
But her mouth had already given up, her tongue was swollen and tasted of blood, and as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t speak.
The word she whispered was run.
And behind Janine she saw the door being blown from its frame, guards in hazard suits pointing guns at them, and perhaps they’d been trying to run and what she was witnessing was their failure.
And Helena Watkins knew what that meant.
It meant that hope was lost.
And with that thought, she’d stopped breathing.
54
The first time Franquin summoned Rodriguez, twelve hours had passed since Connors’ last contact. He informed Rodriguez of the situation, because protocol dictated that he must and there was no reason not to comply.
After twenty-four hours they had a second meeting. And so when Franquin heard the knock on his cabin door again, he knew what it meant.
‘Thirty-six hours,’ said Rodriguez. ‘You want me to do it?’
The question drew a shake of the head. This was Franquin’s responsibility.
It concerned him that he didn’t have full control of the situation. Connors didn’t seem to have made it on board the helicopter. The pilot had refused to follow his orders – either that, or he’d experienced communication problems, there was no way of knowing – and then they’d lost all contact and it had accident written all over it, even if there was no telling there either.
If Connors had been on board, there were two possibilities.
Either they’d gone down together or the two of them had made the decision to leave the Organisation and fly out of there.
But that hadn’t been the case. Connors hadn’t come to the helipad. So regardless of whether the pilot had died in a crash or chosen to run away and die of the pandemic instead, Connors’ whereabouts remained a mystery.
And it was Connors’ task to ensure that the data was delivered, that it remained secure.
And if he failed there were protocols for that, too
.
‘Give me three men,’ Franquin said. ‘We leave as soon as we can.’
Rodriguez turned on his heel, leaving Franquin standing at the steel table in his cabin.
He’d thought he wouldn’t ever see the castle again.
Now he would, after less than two days.
William had stopped at the end of the village street.
He was looking down the slope, past the mounds of frozen grass stretching into the valley, to the hills that he and Janine had climbed the day before.
Leo had spotted him from a distance. He’d followed him outside, felt he had to keep an eye on him. No, not had to, but wanted to. He wanted to see how William was doing, if there was anything to say, anything that he could do to help.
After all, William was the entire reason why he was there. This was the man Christina had been so determined to find. And now he was standing in the middle of the street, shoulders hanging and a body that had given up on the future.
Leo walked up to him. Slow steps on the frozen ground. Stopped abreast of him, not close but at the edge of the road, half a street between them to show he wasn’t trying to intrude.
‘I know I don’t know you,’ he said eventually.
William looked up at him. A sharp glance to interrupt whatever was about to be said.
‘I don’t know what you’re planning to say to me,’ he said. ‘But don’t.’
It came out of the depths of his lungs and through gritted teeth, as if the muscles in his jaws were the only things stopping him from grabbing Leo and doing something stupid.
‘I just wanted to say,’ Leo began. And then he ran out of words and ground to a halt and realised he didn’t know where he’d been going to begin with.
A pause before he started over.
‘I know I haven’t gone through all the things you have. I know I can’t, what’s it called? Imagine. What you two have been through, here.’
He spoke to William’s profile. Hoped he was listening.
‘And of course I’m not the right person to tell you who you are. But if I could, all the same?’ A pause. And then he did: ‘You’re not the type of person who quits.’
That drew William’s reaction. The sound he made through his nose was not a breath by any stretch of the imagination, William snorted at him, and he made no attempt to hide it.
‘What would you know about that?’
‘It’s the information I’ve gathered.’
What?
Oh. It took a second for William to understand what he meant, and when he did it stung him, hard and unexpectedly and much more brutally than he deserved. Christina had talked about him, she must have, and now the little brat was standing across the road thinking he had William all sussed out.
‘In that case I think you need to double check your sources,’ William said, his lips tightening over his teeth to keep his emotions at bay. ‘I’m the best quitter there is.’
He paused before concluding.
‘And if she told you something else it’s because that’s how she wanted me to be.’
He turned to look over the valley again.
Cursed to himself. It wasn’t the kid’s fault that he was standing here, the boy had the best intentions; he wanted to make contact, and of course he couldn’t help it if William’s own feelings were trying to pull him back down into the abyss again.
He’d allowed himself to hope. And that had been his big mistake.
‘We’ve reached the end of the road,’ he said. ‘We’re not getting any further. And that’s not going to change just because you come running with a bunch of notes that don’t mean anything.’
He sighed. That was the reality. He was back to square one.
No, square one had come to him, square one had travelled in a yellow envelope out of here and to Berlin and all the way back.
‘Stop trying, Leo. It’s over. It’s pointless.’
There was a second of silence.
‘I don’t believe that,’ said Leo.
William looked at him from so far out of the corner of his eye that all that showed was a pupil and a whole lot of contempt.
‘What is it you don’t believe?’
‘That it’s pointless.’
William said nothing.
‘I think it’s the opposite. I think this is the point. I think we were meant to give you that envelope. I think we were meant to, so that you wouldn’t give up, so that you could get another try. This isn’t life being ironic, William, it’s the other way around. It’s a chance. Life gave you a chance, because you were meant to have it.’
The corner of the eye.
The same amount of contempt.
‘Meant to?’
‘Yes.’
‘Nothing is meant to happen, Leo.’
He spat out the words. As if meant was a vulgarity, as if the mere word made him want to give Leo a slap, as if it were an insult that mustn’t be spoken again.
‘My wife died, and you saw it happen. Was that meant to be? I was half a continent away and saw it happen in widescreen. Meant to be, was it? People are dying all over the world, nobody knows how to stop it, are you trying to tell me that’s meant to be, too? Meant?’
His voice was a roar now.
And that was unfair, nothing was Leo’s fault, but William was past being fair. He couldn’t take any more well-intentioned, empty words of support, he couldn’t take all the people who wanted to comfort him and who thought that everything would feel better simply because things maybe, perhaps, potentially, had a higher meaning.
Life was too short for bullshit.
Life was too short to say everything was mapped out and steered by someone who knew better and that when life got tough it was because you didn’t understand that the problems were actually teaching you a valuable lesson. You can’t change fate. What happens, happens. If something is meant to be then that is what will happen and there’s nothing to be done about it.
Bullshit, that’s what it was. And he said as much to Leo.
‘What happens to you is your own decision,’ he said. ‘And what happens to me is mine. And if we happen to be fortunate then something good may come of it, and if we’re not then everything turns to crap. But if you come to me and surrender your responsibility by saying the future is what it is… No, if you try to take my responsibility away…’
He stopped, let the sentence trail off into silence. Started over. Calmer now.
‘Christina didn’t die because it was meant to happen. She died because a whole lot of people made a whole lot of decisions that led up to it.’
A pause.
‘And you didn’t turn up here with that envelope because someone or something meant it. There is no meaning. And if you want to believe the future is predetermined, then be my guest. But it isn’t. The future is what you make of it.’
There had been a long silence. And Leo had watched him intently.
Inside, he was picking his words, one by one, stacking them together. He wanted them to come in the right order, no stumbling, no hesitation or starting over. He meant every word he was going to say, and he wanted them to carry weight.
‘In that case,’ he said. Paused for effect. For precisely as long as he’d planned. His eyes on William’s, sincere and steady. ‘In that case I don’t understand why you’re standing here.’
William looked at him.
And Leo didn’t move.
And then came the rest of it. Clearly. Calmly.
‘Because if we create our future ourselves, I think you should pick up those codes and do something about it.’
55
William stormed back into the house, half angry as hell and half full of admiration. As a motivator it was one of the best combinations.
He was a sucker for logic. Simple as that.
Nothing impressed him more than a well-constructed argument, and the brat had stood there in his stupid baseball hat and hit him square in the face with his own argument, reversed and used against him.
He didn’t believe in fate. Nothing was predetermined.
Ergo the prophecies couldn’t be impossible to crack, and ergo the only one who shaped the future now was he who didn’t try to.
Quod erat fucking demonstrandum.
He’d asked Janine to follow him into the dining room, recreate the room the way it was laid out at the castle, and this time they would begin at the beginning and do it the right way and on his terms.
There were no computers. No software. And that was exactly how he wanted it.
In one of the bedrooms they found a desk, and in the drawers were pens in different sizes, rulers and a calculator, and an unopened, shrink-wrapped pack of notepads.
It was going to be a gargantuan task. In front of them lay endless amounts of numbers and they had very little time, but the only thing they could do was to start afresh.
William browsed the pens until he settled for one with enough weight and a nice, gliding ballpoint, took out two of the notepads from the plastic and placed them next to him on the table. And then he asked Janine to start reading.
And so she did.
Digit by digit she read the first of the sheets: one, three, zero, two, three, long lines of code that seemed to mean nothing but that still held all those verses of Sumerian signs. And she saw William write them down into the first pad, number by number until the first page was full and he tore it out from the pad and pinned it to the wall.
Next page.
And so it went on. And for every new sequence he wrote, for every new page he pinned up and the more the material grew in front of him, the more he became a part of the codes. He could find his way back and forth along the walls, see the connections, feel the rhythm.
This was what he should have done from the start.
He should have gone back to the source, he should have torn everything down from his stone walls and started from scratch, what he and Janine did now he should have forced himself to do back then.
Chain of Events Page 41