THE CAMBRIDGE ANNEX: THE TRILOGY

by Peter Damon

  There had been some changes to the Emma Maersk. The hatches had been sealed and the massive spaces within the hull, once used for carrying containers, converted into spacious rooms. The motors had been pulled out and the fuel tanks replaced with water tanks. Other spaces had been set aside for hydroponics, meeting rooms, sports halls, a theatre, a gym, recreational spaces and tool rooms. A massive warehouse had been created, and now held items as diverse as shoes, hair clips and electrical and mechanical spare parts.

  The superstructure of the ship had been completely removed and the helm room was now in the centre of the hull; the most protected part of the ship. The aft of the ship had been changed too. It now sported two large doors that could open in just seconds, revealing a large and well lit hanger-like space, more than large enough to take all the vehicles they would acquire.

  +++++++++++++++++

  With their visitors gone and the hatches sealed, the pressure within the ship increased beyond that of the air outside for a short time as the ship automatically tested for leaks.

  “We’re good,” Leanne called from her desk in the control room as the pressure returned to normal and a yellow App changed to green on her screen.

  Thomas stripped off his shirt to reveal the rubber wet-suit he wore beneath. Leanne, Gary and David copied him, storing their removed clothing in a locker at the end of the room. With their shirts removed, the small microphone at the neck of their suits could be used; ensuring everyone on board the ship heard them.

  Thomas took his position at the helm and cleared his throat. “Cast off, fore and aft,” he called, his eyes beginning to scan the large table in front of him.

  The table was far from being a normal table. Circular and six feet diameter, the surface was a touch responsive screen that showed all the details of the ship and the area surrounding it. It was possibly the most expensive item on board the ship, not only in terms of money, but in the man hours that had been spent developing and testing the interface.

  Far from just allowing everything to be observed, the Android based application directly interfaced with all the major systems on board ship, and many of those working outside of the ship.

  Six members of the Essex Rovers Rugby team; three forward and three astern, pulled the heavy hawsers from their bollards and sent them, un-needed, into the water. It was one of the tasks they had never automated. There was little point; it was only going to be done the once.

  Thomas listened to the men as they confirmed release, and watched the map of the ship on the table as it showed the brief opening and closing of two air-locks as the men re-entered the sealed ship.

  Taking a deep breath, he touched his finger to one of the coloured boxes on the screen in front of him and instructed the ship to move out of the bay, away from South Korean waters and towards the Philippine Sea. A list of parameters appeared, allowing him to select acceleration, velocity and height.

  “We’re on our way,” he said needlessly, selecting the parameters he wanted. Every member of the crew was watching through screens and monitors as the ship slid smoothly from the dock and began making its way with ponderous deliberation from the shipping channels and into international waters.

  +++++++++++++++++

  “Maddy, are you sure you want to be taking that?” Mickey asked the young woman as she tried carrying the four feet tall marble statue of Venus to the coach.

  “Why? No one said I couldn’t,” she told him defensively, putting it down between them.

  “Where are you going to put it?” he asked.

  Madeline thought about it, looking at it and thinking. “If I leave it, it’s going to be nicked,” she explained.

  “Do you care, now?” he asked her patiently.

  “Oh well, I suppose,” she told him, continuing to look at it sadly as she got onto the coach with the other ladies, leaving it where she had put it down.

  Others were arriving in a stream now, the women with their hair recently styled, their best clothes over the skin tight suits they’d all been told they had to wear, the men in the Sunday best clothes, all completely sober.

  Mickey checked off their names as they got onto the coach and began phoning those he couldn’t already see walking down towards him to make sure they were on the way. Frankie had been very specific about that. No one was to be left behind.

  A police car turned the corner to come into the estate and drove very slowly towards him.

  “Well, well, if it isn’t Mickey McKee,” said the policeman sitting in the front, his eyes looking over everything that was happening.

  The gypsies glared at the policemen but otherwise ignored them. Not so Mickey though, who grinned at the uniformed officers as he continued to check off the people onto the coach from his list. “Constable Plod! How are you?” he asked in fake good humour.

  “So, what you up to?” the officer asked, his own humour deserting him.

  “We’re off for a day out at the sea-side,” Mickey answered. “I’d like to invite you too, but you’re not on my list,” he told them.

  “Anywhere in particular; so we can warn the inhabitants of the crime wave that’s about to wash over their poor and unsuspecting township?” the officer asked drily.

  Mickey chuckled as he ticked off yet another name. “Now, where would the fun be in that?” he asked. “And beside, I’m a British citizen and allowed to go where I want,” he teased.

  “Yes, this misconception that you can go where you want has got you into trouble before, my lad. You should think carefully on that,” he was reminded. The police car moved slowly off, the policeman on the radio to alert his superiors.

  Mickey swore under his breath, getting a slap and an angry look from Agnes who just happened to be boarding the bus then. “Be good, Mickey McKee,” she warned him, waggling a finger in his face. “You’re to take care of us properly or I’ll tell your mother!” she told him. That frightened him. His mother had been dead for the last ten years.

  +++++++++++++++++

  Warned that DI Wilson was waiting for him at his office, Sir Richard Phillips walked quickly from his lodgings, nodding and smiling at those he passed, while his mind was full of the day’s events.

  What could a Detective Inspector of Cambridge Constabulary want of him so early in the morning, he wondered. News on the death of poor Rolle didn’t fit in, and so it could only be something to do with the Rolle project. That worried him, and he tried anticipating her line of questioning.

  He would have liked Dr Cannon or Professor Lovell to have been present at the meeting, but it would probably give more away than it provided, he reflected, taking the stairs and feeling comforted by the sound of his steps on the old oak flooring as he stepped into the outer-room of his suite of offices.

  His smiled a sympathetic smile towards his worried secretary and walked into his office, relief flowing over him as he saw the Detective Inspector had already received a cup of tea.

  “So sorry you had to wait, Detective Inspector,” he told her as he put down his books and tablet, and reached for the tea-pot to fill a second cup with the dark brew.

  “That’s alright, Vice Chancellor. I appreciate I came early and with no appointment,” she explained.

  “So it must be urgent and equally important,” he surmised, and sat down across from her to sigh with relief as he tasted the fine tea.

  The DI brought out a small black box, one he recognised as being one of Michael’s preferred toys. He watched her, his face bleached of expression, as like Michael had often done before her, she turned it on to and glanced fleetingly at her phone.

  “You must have Michael in custody,” he said, all the while wondering what her game was.

  “We do. British Intelligence ordered his arrest yesterday on a terrorist charge,” she agreed.

  “Poppycock!” Sir Richard stormed. “However, I’m sure Michael would have suspected something of this sort, and I’m sure he knows how to look after himself.”

  Heather Wilson shrugged. “Mic
hael suggested I come here with this,” she explained, nodding towards the box.

  “Michael did?” he asked, momentarily confused. “For what reason?” he asked.

  “What’s happening?” she countered. “Right now, today. There’s an air of excitement throughout the whole university,” she explained.

  “Yes, there would be,” he told her, and chuckled. “Oh what a tangled web we weave,

  when first we practise to deceive!” he quoted.

  “Marmion. Sir Walter Scott, 1808,” Heather recalled.

  “Quite right my dear. Well done!” he chuckled, momentarily the English Professor once more. “We think ourselves so clever in our schemes, never once thinking that all know of it; that the silence is only through their agreement,” he told her.

  “I’m sorry?” she asked.

  Sir Richard stopped and looked towards her in deep consideration. “What’s happening, eh? And who wishes to know? Ms Wilson, or DI Wilson?”

  Heather licked her lips. “Ms Wilson,” she told him. Her official side could wait for business hours, she decided.

  Sir Richard straightened and filled his lungs. “It all happens today, you see,” he explained. “The body that Michael represents, and with whom we have a close working association, launched six commercial satellites into a Geosynchronous Orbit early this morning. The money received as payment for the launch is the balance needed to pay for a ship, although I sincerely hope the authorities do not know this last part yet.”

  “A ship; a spaceship?” she asked with a gasp.

  “Spaceship? No, well, yes, but not what you’re thinking,” he answered with a wave of his hand. “We, and by ‘we’ I actually mean Michael and the late Professor Rolle, have bought a container ship and organised a team of students to convert it into a spaceship.”

  “A container ship? But they’re huge, aren’t they?” she gasped.

  “This one certainly is. 180,000 tonnes,” Sir Richard chuckled. “You have no idea how many noses are going to be out of joint once it’s in orbit.”

  “Launch a container ship into earth orbit,” Heather gasped, and sat back with her mouth hanging open.

  Sir Richard chuckled and began to explain some of the finer details; the people involved, the other universities, the vehicles, the new technology.

  “You appreciate how confidential this all is?” he asked in finishing, his finger tapping the little black box.

  The DI nodded, her expression unreadable. “Thank you, Sir Richard,” she said, extending her hand. “I’ve got to go now. I have some work to do,” she explained, and turned off the box before putting it into her pocket.

  +++++++++++++++++

  Stan Charway took the call on his mobile and answered in monosyllables, sometimes looking towards Michael seated across from him, but more often just looking at the walls or beyond them, his imagination drawing details behind his eyes.

  Michael watched him from the desk, his hands together on the table, manicured nails looking the worse for wear.

  “Alright. Bring him in for questioning,” Stan told his caller. “I don’t care who or what he is. This is a matter of National Security and I need him here, now!” he cried.

  He put the phone away and inhaled, turning his glare on Michael, saying nothing for a long period of time.

  “You’re in deep shit now, Bennett,” he said at last, nodding sagely towards the seated journalist.

  “I would tell you that I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m more worried about your sanity,” Michael said.

  “Ah yes; disparage the sanity of your questioner. Classic dissembling,” Stan agreed. “Unfortunately, I know that we were too late getting to that ship down in Japan; their army got there first. Whatever secrets you had on the ship, they’re now in the hands of the Japanese,” Stan told him.

  “So, what will you do next?” Michael asked.

  “Me? It’s not me who has to make a decision, Bennett, but you. They haven’t found the boys yet. You could help us, perhaps get them out before they’re captured!” he told him with urgency.

  “Sorry. I can’t do that,” Michael admitted.

  “Then we’ll just wait for the other gentleman to arrive. I’m sure he’ll be more forthcoming,” Stan told him.

  “But Matt and Jake should be able to help you,” Michael teased. “Were they not about to be placed in custody?” he asked innocently.

  +++++++++++++++++

  Frankie was in the first of the box trucks, drawing them up behind the brown brick building and next to the double wooden doors that needed a new coat of paint. He ignored the CCTV camera as he got out and sauntered to the intercom beside the doors. “Professor Rogers?” he asked of the metal grille. “Removals are here,” he explained in as light a voice as he could manage as he saw an unmarked police car ease back, out of sight around the far corner of the building.

  “I’ll be right there,” said a sharp woman’s voice. A couple of minutes later the doors rattled, and then opened.

  “You’ll be careful, won’t you?” she begged.

  “Just tell us what you want moved and how, and we’ll move them,” he agreed.

  Juliet nodded and led him and his friends into the main unit, breaking the seal on the doors that had been in place for over ten years.

  Frankie chuckled as the professor began to explain what was needed. She stopped to glare at him. “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  “This is like one of those marijuana plant factories, isn’t it?” he said as he looked down the large hall where row upon row of metal tables stood, each supporting a wealth of plant life. Special lighting stood above each table, while small tubes fed water and other nutrients to the plants. “Oh, I know they’re not Marijuana, but it’s the same thing for care and transport, isn’t it?” he asked. “I mean, they’re all important plants at the end of it all, yes?”

  “Well, yes, in fact,” she agreed.

  Frankie’s grin was broad and infectious as he turned to his gang of removal men. “Ok boys, just like we did with that job in Wimbledon last year, remember lads?” he asked.

  The men laughed and moved forward, all showing the same amount of care and respect that she herself would have given to the plants the professor noted. “Here,” one of the men asked. “Do we get free samples too?”

  “Yes,” the professor told him, and she picked a ripe tomato to throw it to him.

  +++++++++

  Heather returned to the police station and showed her ID and face to the receptionist to gain entry to the back room offices, only to be told instead. “Mr Charway would like to see you straight away in Interview Room 5.”

  Sighing with frustration, Heather turned to the other door to walk past the Duty Sergeant with a nod at his expressionless look, and enter the designated interview room.

  Along with Michael and Stan Charway, was Ken Birch, the Chief Constable. He stood against the grey wall, his face grim and pale while Stan Charway greeted her warmly and invited her to sit at the table.

  “What’s happening?” she asked, wondering why the most senior man in the Cambridgeshire Constabulary was there.

  “Turn out your pockets, DI Wilson,” the Chief Constable told her.

  Heather felt a sickening turn in her stomach as she realised what they were after. She looked towards Michael, wondering how they could know of the device. Only Michael and Sir Richard knew she had it, and she couldn’t imagine Sir Richard telling the police, not after what he’d told her.

  With little choice, she emptied the items from her pockets onto the table and watched their expressions as the little black box dropped onto it beside some loose change.

  The Chief Constable sighed. “DI Wilson, you are hereby suspended from duty, and arrested on suspicion of assisting an individual or individuals in terrorist activities on mainland Britain. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court,” he began. Heather wasn�
��t listening; she was staring at Michael wondering what he had said to them, Stan Charway’s gloating smile exacerbating the sickness she felt.

  +++++++++

  Stan listened as DC Laughton brought him up to date with movement at Frankie Hill’s enterprise. He considered the news, excitement racing through him as he thought of the coaches having been driven off to pick people up, and four box vans having moved to the Cambridge University’s Closed Hydroponic facility at the other end of the estate.

  If they were picking up people, then something big was about to happen.

  “Shall I order them stopped, Sir?” the detective constable asked him.

  Stan shook his head. They were going somewhere, a meeting place, a launch site. “Keep following them Laughton. We need to know where they’re going,” he explained.

  +++++++++

  Paddy drove the rebuilt coach sedately through Cambridge to draw up beside the doctors’ surgery in the North West Cambridge Community project. A slender man was already there, leaning against an old and reliable Volvo with a small holdall on the ground in front of him.

  Paddy looked fondly towards the car, knowing it would take him less than five seconds to release the door lock, and only slightly longer to start the engine. There was always a good market for Volvo spares.

  Paddy turned off the engine and lifted the sign Frankie had given him. Opening the door, he fixed it to the outside of the first window and stood back to admire it. ‘Orbital Tours’ it said in big black letters.

  The man who stood beside the Volvo came over as Paddy picked up his list of names.

  “Hello. I’m Paul Wright,” the man said with a note of uncertainty, watching him a little nervously.

  Paddy checked his list and grinned, ticking off his very first name. “There you go, Mr Wright. Make yourself at home. We’ll be off at ten,” he told him.

  The man half sobbed with relief and gave a sharp laugh. “I didn’t believe it,” he murmured almost to himself as he climbed into the coach. “Still can’t!”