“What are you looking for?” Linwood asked.
“A way in.”
“You might not want to do that. We should find out what’s in there first.”
Linwood’s heart raced. She needed to access whatever logs she could and take it from there. “If they’ve contained something. I don’t think we should just let it out.”
But Dean wasn’t listening. He found clasps built into the side of the unit and without warning Linwood, he flicked them across. With a hiss of escaping air, a line appeared around the circumference of the unit. The seal was broken.
“You bloody idiot,” she hissed at him.
He gasped in pain again. The silver inside him was still reacting to something. All Linwood’s instincts were screaming at her to get away from here—that whatever TALOS was doing wasn’t safe.
But it was too late. She grabbed at Dean’s hands as he scrabbled to lift the lid from the unit, but he knocked her aside with surprising force. She fell back and stumbled into the workstation chair, grabbing a console to prevent falling.
Dean flipped the lid up and it opened on hidden hinges. A cloud of gas escaped and drifted over the top of the open casket, obscuring its contents. Dean wafted some of this gas away with his hand, trying to see what was inside. Linwood looked at his wide eyes and was suddenly frightened by his expression.
“I don’t understand,” was all he could say.
A noise to her left drew Linwood’s attention, and she turned to see the doors to the section opening. A troop of security guards rushed into the room, guns raised, shouting at the pair of them to back away from the equipment and raise their hands.
“What is it?” Linwood asked Dean, trying to ignore the onrushing guards.
Winborn made his way through the men to stand in front of them. His eyes were narrow, his smile thin and scalpel sharp.
“I thought you were waiting for me in my office,” he said dryly.
“I wanted the backstage tour,” she replied.
He wasn’t amused. “And according to our records, you’re Dean Sharman. You’re a wanted man. Taking a risk, aren’t you? Breaking into a top-secret research station.”
Dean stared solidly at the director but didn’t say a word. Linwood could see the shock still in his eyes. She wanted to look down into the casket but he was blocking her view.
As if reading her mind, Winborn nodded at the casket. “I’d appreciate it if you both stepped away from that. It’s a delicate project.”
They obliged.
“Breaking into a secure facility is bad enough. Just doing so would see you with some serious jail time, but as agents of the security service, your punishment will be far more severe. I wouldn’t count on seeing your freedom any decade soon,” Winborn said. He was loving this.
“I’m glad it won’t be your decision then,” Linwood said. “I’m happy to be taken into your custody, but I’m not happy with your authority. I want to speak to Toby Kingston.”
“That won’t be possible.”
“You can’t hold us here.”
“You’re a security threat,” Winborn said. “We’ve had a major incursion attempt at Jodrell Bank and you two are circumventing the rest of your security agencies. Why aren’t you liaising with Department 5?”
Linwood bristled. “Does Jaq know about Project Lantern?”
He smiled but said nothing.
Dean had been quiet. Unusually so for him. When he spoke, therefore, it made her jump in surprise.
“They’re got Carey’s remains in there,” he said, pointing at the casket.
35
3rd June 2013
Linwood had a sour taste at the back of her throat. She glanced at Dean, then at Winborn before taking a deep breath and strolling to the side of the casket. The guns in the arms of the guards tracked her. “Carey died in a police cell,” she said. “He can’t be in here.” Carey had been another one of her team that had been sequestered by Thadeus and made to kill for his plan. On the night she’d first introduced herself to DI Spencer Payne, Carey had been arrested. Payne had witnessed him shatter into a million fragments—consumed and destroyed by the silver.
His being in the casket was an impossibility.
The chilling mist had cleared now, and it was possible to see down to the bottom. At first, Linwood couldn’t comprehend what she was seeing. A load of old broken silver rocks lay littered across the bottom of the casket.
What had Dean seen that she couldn’t? It made little sense.
Then she saw it. There were shapes amongst the rocks. Fingers. A hand. But they looked to have been carved out of the silver rocks with meticulous precision. Could these really be the remains of a human?
The rocks were moving. Slowly. Crawling, as if a colony of ants had gone underneath the things and were rearranging them for a mystifying purpose. At one end, the rocks could almost be described as resting in columns, two foot long. These columns led to almost an oval shape that in turn was connected to another mound. Stubs were growing from the oval shape. At the far end where the smallest mound was, she saw something, and it made her step away.
An eye. A nose. The outline of a cheek.
Dean wasn’t going crazy. This was the remains of Carey. This was what the silver could do to you.
“You had his remains from the police station collected and then you brought them here.” Linwood was speaking her thoughts out loud. She glanced at Dean who was shifting from foot to foot, looking decidedly uncomfortable. “How you doing, Dean?” she asked.
“What the hell’s going on?” A woman’s voice came from the back of the lab, somewhere behind the guards, close to the entrance. It was Jaq. Linwood felt the first warmth of relief. Jaq would put a stop to this. She had to.
Winborn’s face dropped. His eyes flicked left where the men were parting to make way for the Department 5 leader.
“Why have you not been answering your messages?” she said. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you for twenty minutes.”
And then Jaq saw who else was in the room and she hit a glass wall. “What? Why are you here?”
“I came to bring Max Harding back home. But I’m more interested in whatever's going on in this restricted section.”
Winborn strode around to the casket and he peered in. “It’s quite something. I’ve never studied something so alien before. Well, nothing this world-changing.”
“Why do you have him here? What are you doing to him?”
“Have who here?” Jaq asked as she walked around the casket to peer inside. “Oh my,” she said, freezing.
But there was more to her tone. Linwood heard it. Recognition.
“You knew he was here,” she said to Jaq, frowning.
“It’s Carey,” Jaq said. “I knew we’d cleared up the mess after what happened. TALOS was meant to be disposing of his remains.”
Winborn smirked. “Why would we dispose of him? This could lead to the greatest scientific discoveries of our lifetime.”
Linwood thought about the night they’d destroyed Irulal—the first time they’d destroyed her back in 1984. There’d been nothing left—nothing visible, anyway. The nanites she was composed of were scattered to the wind.
And yet, she’d managed to come back.
This casket had a large mass of alien nanites in it and they were active. These two didn’t know what they were dealing with.
“You need to destroy them. They will cause untold damage. If you can’t terminate them, you need to properly contain them. And not study them. Bury them in concrete. Blast them off into space.”
“The nanites are in all of us,” Winborn replied, and when Linwood looked surprised, he continued. “I’ve read your report. I know what Irulal told you. They’re in all of us.”
“So, that being the case you don’t need these here.”
“But these are special. We’re still having trouble extracting a large enough sample of nanites from a living host. This has been a perfect gift-wrapped surprise and I inte
nd to make the most of the opportunity.”
“You’re crazy. You can’t mess with them. You don’t know what they’re capable of.”
“But, that’s why we need them, so we can find out.”
“Jaq, you can’t let this happen,” Linwood said. “Does Kingston know about this?”
A pause, and then Jaq deflected the question. “I’ve got full authority over the investigation into the Jodrell Bank Incident. That includes examining any assets that remain.”
“You consider these assets?” Linwood couldn’t contain her fury. “You’re not seriously thinking you can control these?”
“Winborn’s right. They’re in all of us. We need to find a way to disable them. If they’re controlled by a signal, we should be able to isolate that signal and reprogram them. Make them safe.”
“And it doesn’t concern you that those are active? That they’re still receiving a signal at all?”
Doubt crossed Jaq’s face for a moment then was gone. “You don’t know that.”
“The nanites are in the Faceless and the Faceless are on the move. One of them tried to kill me in the Tombs. They are acting with intelligence and to a plan.”
Winborn laughed and though he probably intended it to sound confident, to Linwood she could hear the uncertainty. “You’re talking nonsense.”
“You want to take that chance?”
“Yes,” he replied. “I really think I do.” He walked around to the other side of the open casket and took a moment to look over his prize. “It’s incredible. We’ve been trying to develop nanorobotics for a decade, and we’ve never been close to any kind of breakthrough. This puts our research into the shade. It’s remarkable.”
The nanites in the casket chose that moment to act.
From where Linwood was standing, she couldn’t see the full effect, but what looked like a silver stream had risen out of the casket and reached as high as Winborn’s face.
“Shut the casket!” Jaq was running to the casket lid, but it was clear she wouldn’t make it in time. Winborn would be consumed.
36
3rd June 2013
But as Jaq ran towards Winborn, the controller’s face looked almost serene, not a hint of panic. Jaq tried to knock the silver stream aside.
Linwood wanted to shout a warning, but she stood paralysed, not sure what the hell would happen.
Jaq screamed. She stopped trying to brush the nanites from Winborn and stood back, but the nanites had other ideas. The ones she’d tried to brush off Winborn were moving up her arm now. “Get them off me!” she screamed.
Winborn stared at her, unmoved by her desperation.
Dean approached but Linwood grabbed his arm. “There’s nothing you can do,” she told him and he looked at her like he might say something smart back, but even he knew that she was right.
The silver that had been flowing over Winborn struck out like a razor thin tendril and met with the rest of the mass on Jaq’s arm, and it pulsed as more mass moved across to Jaq. She ran to Winborn and grabbed him by the shirt, pleading for him to help, but he shrugged. Then she turned to face Linwood. Her face was taut with panic. “Please, help—” her plea silenced as the silver shaped itself to a point and dove into Jaq’s face, pressing against her nose and mouth.
Linwood ran to the casket and slammed the lid shut, hoping that she could sever the connection to the main body of silver, but the nanites no longer needed anything to support them—the remaining mass swung down onto Jaq.
Jaq had stopped trying to scream, instead, she was putting all her efforts into clawing at her face, trying to scrape the nanites from her airways. But Linwood could see what a useless exercise this was. The woman couldn’t breathe. She would die.
Gently, she pulled on Dean’s arm and directed him away from the centre of the lab. All eyes were on Jaq and the silver. Winborn’s eyes were piercing, locked on to the ghastly vision. The guards had stepped in closer, but wisely they were keeping their distance.
Jaq’s eyes locked with Linwood’s. Wide and scared. Then the silver crossed them and she was blinded.
Choking noises came from her throat as the silver continued forcing its way along her windpipe. A second later and there was no silver left outside her body. Jaq stood. Frozen to the spot. Immobilised.
“You need to secure this lab,” Linwood said.
A couple from the security team glanced in her direction but it was clear they were no longer concerned with her and Dean being there.
Winborn ignored Linwood’s advice. He was focused on Jaq’s still frame, transfixed.
Softly, so no one else could hear, she spoke to Dean. “We’ve got to get out of here. Warn Kingston.” And together the two of them, hurried away from the lab, leaving Jaq’s still form frozen at its centre.
37
3rd June 2013
Payne was tired. It had been days since he'd last had a good night’s sleep. The hotel was hot and noisy at night and he'd been drinking far too much coffee to get his brain relaxing of an evening. He should have taken up the offer to stay at his sister-in-law’s where he could at least have been guaranteed a good meal and the ability to open his bedroom window at night. But, Rebecca, his niece, was already scared, and he didn't want to make her more uptight by being around during this investigation.
So instead, he was tired and relying more on caffeine than was good for his heart or nerves. He'd been in the operations room since early hours trying to get a handle on the situation. Linwood hadn't been returning his calls. Perhaps that meant his involvement in this situation was over. He didn’t know how to feel about that. It wasn’t a situation he’d ever wanted to get involved with in the first place, but being dumped from the investigation, no it wasn’t even that, being forgotten from the investigation stung.
Carter opened his door. She had a bag of takeaway. “It’s here.”
“Good, I’m starving.”
He smiled, lifted his weary frame from his chair and followed her out into the operations room. It was still light outside, the fading light of a summer’s evening, and the room had a slightly unreal quality about it. The whiteboards that had once been filled with notes and documents relating to Max Harding had been cleared and wheeled away to the edge of the room. The other desks that had once been filled with eager CID tasked with tracking down Heather Hudson’s killer, were abandoned, computers not having been switched on for weeks now. Patinas of dust layered.
The reality was that this CID unit was not relevant today. All efforts were being coordinated from the larger stations in Liverpool. Personnel had been reassigned to other duties that Payne wasn’t privy to.
Nixon had grabbed some plates from the tiny kitchen and was laying them out on an empty desk. Carter put the bag down and pulled out boxes of Chinese, lifting the lids before setting them down. A ginger and garlic aroma hit the air and Payne breathed it in.
“Help yourself. I got a bit of a random selection,” Carter said.
Payne’s stomach growled in anticipation as he watched his friends load up their plates, only helping himself when they were done.
They sat around a desk, having dragged over chairs and began to tuck in. The sweet and sour chicken was a tad rubbery but Payne barely cared, just glad that he wasn’t eating alone again.
“How long before you can move back into your house?” Nixon asked, between mouthfuls of noodles.
“The builders are saying another four weeks, so I reckon that means eight.”
“You’re lucky it’s even salvageable, after what happened.”
They continued eating, Payne preferring not to remember how he’d almost died in the explosion.
“I had a good long talk with DCI Taylor this morning,” Payne eventually said, putting down his fork. “He wants us to curtail our investigations into the missing Faceless and to hand over any intelligence we’ve gathered to the proper agencies.”
“Oh,” Carter said. “But where are the proper agencies? We’ve been left on our own since
the event. No one else seems to care that there are dozens of Faceless out there somewhere.”
Nixon was shaking his head. “Taylor’s right. We shouldn’t be doing this.” Payne’s head jerked up at those words, and Nixon held his stare. “I’m sorry, sir. But we shouldn’t be. This has nothing to do with us. We’re not investigating any crime here. We’re just running around doing the work of the security services.”
“There may not be any crime, but we’ve got a responsibility to protect the public and those creatures are the very definition of a clear danger to the public.”
Carter helped herself to another spoonful of rice. She eyed her colleague suspiciously. “You never said you weren’t happy doing this.”
“I didn’t think it was my place to do so. We’ve all been through a lot since the event and I was happy when I thought we might be contributing to the wider investigation, but we’ve been chasing dead leads and instinct. We’re randomly checking out sites capable of hiding dozens of people. How many of those are there in Southport? How many are we going to have to check out?”
“They almost killed you,” Payne said.
Nixon nodded. “Yes. But they didn’t.”
“They’re a danger to the public.”
“There hasn’t been a single confirmed sighting since the Osmon’s.”
“Just because no one’s seen them, it doesn’t mean that they’re no longer a threat,” Payne said, trying to control his voice.
“What if they’ve gone? They might have spread out so thinly that we’ve got no chance to catch any of them. We already saw at the Osmon’s that one had broken off from the pack.”
“That was injured,” Carter reminded him.
“Even so. We don’t know that the rest haven’t split up.”
“And that would have increased the likelihood of us getting more sightings—which we haven’t.” Payne put his hands in front of him and wiped them on a napkin. “What’s this really about?”
The Faceless Stratagem Page 17