THE CAMBRIDGE ANNEX: THE TRILOGY

by Peter Damon

  “I wouldn’t have seen it, but for her name being on my search list,” Oliver told him softly.

  Michael nodded, allowing his breathing to be the main focus of his attention.

  “Should we tell the travellers?” Oliver asked.

  “I’ll tell Frankie and let him decide,” Michael nodded. “Thank you,” he added before walking away.

  Oliver returned to his tasks while Michael retreated to his suite to put a call through to earth.

  “Changed your mind?” Stanley asked, answering the call.

  “No. Did you see the piece about Emily Trotter?” he asked, wasting no time in pleasantries in his need to learn more about what had happened to Emily.

  “Yes, I did. We’re trying to find Paddy. Would you happen to know where he is?” Stanley asked.

  “No, I don’t. Are you still protecting our next of kin?” Michael asked.

  “Yes; blood kin. I’m not protecting every single traveller who calls anyone up there ‘cousin’ or ‘brother’,” he pointed out.

  “Clearly,” Michael said before closing the link again, his breathing loud as he kept himself in control of his feelings.

  November 22nd.

  Viktor sat in the passenger seat of the people carrier, wrapped up in his overcoat while smoking the bland cigarettes that were the only type being sold in the UK, and those at a price he would not have believed back in Moscow. Outside the car, it was a dark night with heavy clouds racing above them, sometimes bringing squalls of freezing rain. It could almost have been Moscow, but for the temperature remaining above zero.

  He felt the disapproval of the men around him as he blew out the cigarette smoke. He ignored them, continuing to look at the semi-detached house that stood on one side of the narrow lane, facing the fields across from them. It was one of a group of five houses, the last one built more recently and serving as a small grocers and Post Office.

  He savoured the forthcoming ‘interview’ with more relish than the cigarette he slowly consumed. He missed such tasks since his seniority had taken him away from Syria and Turkey.

  “Go,” he told his small troop of men, opening the door to step out, wrapping his coat more closely about him as the biting wind tried opening it.

  The men were out in front of him, walking briskly to the house marked as number four. Two men stood watch while a third worked deftly with lock-picks to unlock and open the front door.

  There was no alarm, just a control unit for the central heating beside the door. His men, experienced at this sort of thing, separated to move soundlessly through the property, looking for Jake but also verifying it was otherwise empty, and safe.

  Viktor entered the sitting room, looking about him in the limited light of his torch. A digital picture frame on the sideboard showed a team of spacemen on the moon, recovering ice from a dark fissure on the surface. The image changed and an SUV was silhouetted in front of the earth. He watched it for a minute, seeing five more images before his men returned. The property was empty.

  “We wait,” he told his men. He checked his watch and nodded, and returned to watching the photographs.

  A car drove by and his men were still, waiting expectantly until the vehicle drove by without stopping. They then breathed again, only the occasional small movement giving their position away.

  Another car approached and slid to a stop outside. Someone, a male, called good night and a car door closed before the vehicle moved off again. Viktor moved deeper into the dark shadows of the front room while his men prepared themselves. He breathed deeply, imagining the pale skin of the young man, lean he hoped. The clench of muscles looked much better when there was no fat to mask it.

  The door opened. Viktor inhaled, imagining that he could smell the young man. There was a grunt and someone large and heavy fell. Before the sound had died, there was a second sound as air was forcefully expelled from a throat, and the sound of rapid steps in the hall.

  Something was wrong Viktor sensed, even as he caught a glimpse of one of his men, darker than his surroundings, doubling over, his head then jerking back as a knee rose to smash into his nose.

  All of a sudden, as quickly as it had started, the room was silent once more. The light was turned on and Viktor blinked, his hand on his small knife while he gauged the three tough men he faced. Under their hard gaze, Viktor released the implement and brought his pale hands into the open.

  A smaller, stooped man, a hand rising to smooth his hair over his balding pate, stepped forward to smile coldly up at him.

  “I am a member of the Russian diplomatic corps and have diplomatic immunity,” Viktor told him, smiling his most friendly of smiles.

  “Oh? You have ID on you then?” the stooped man asked, his smile thin, his eyes cold. “No? I didn’t think so,” he said. “Take him,” he told his men.

  “I demand you return me to the embassy. You will be in deep trouble if you do not,” Viktor warned, struggling futilely in the grip of a British man.

  “I don’t think so, Viktor, my old son,” the stooped man chuckled. “We’ve been waiting for you to show yourself, ever since you ordered a certain car to be blown up,” he was told.

  Outside, as he was marched into a new vehicle, he saw his driver had been captured too. There was no one to alert the embassy. Pushed into the back of a car, he tried recalling what car he had ordered bombed and when, using it to deflect his mind from his immediate future.

  November 30th.

  The seven tugs that were to move the asteroid were no more than 1 metre wide cubes that had been filled with HYPORT. On top of each was placed the 600 kilowatt turbines that would operate in outer-space, a small parabolic dish set at the side giving information and directions directly from Allan’s command table on Freedom One.

  Five SUVs stood well off, but close enough to monitor the movement of the asteroid as Allan issued the instruction that would keep it in a geosynchronous, but diminishing orbit, above the African continent.

  The African nations had kicked up a storm when they had learnt that the asteroid was to be moved into low earth orbit directly above them, and had petitioned the United Nations to obtain guarantees and financial penalties from the ARC should anything go awry. Unfortunately, the United Nations had to point out that the ARC was not under their control, but a privately operated enterprise and outside their jurisdiction.

  As the asteroid began its careful descent towards the earth, the auction for its metals was closed. Over a dozen large corporations demanded the process be halted to allow them more time to complete the legal agreements with other companies that would allow them to bid. Oliver denied their requests and suffered another flurry of rapid communication as Prime Ministers, Presidents and Chief Executive Officers all tried to change his mind.

  Cheryl unlocked her account to look at the five bids that they had received.

  The values did not differ by much, and a couple matched each other. What did differ were the terms of payment, with many of the bids stipulating a small down-payment, followed by regular payments of the balance, most linked with proof of the asteroids metal content as it was broken up and mined.

  Cheryl ignored these and selected the winner.

  “Oliver,” Michael murmured, turning to smile towards him having confirmed the winner with Cheryl and Gary. “Please publish the winner of the auction, and our congratulations on their successful bid, the People’s Republic of China.”

  “How much was it?” Gary asked Cheryl softly.

  “85 billion US Dollars,” she told him, her eyes twinkling.

  +++++++++++++

  “Michael,” Allan called from the control-room, his voice tense and low. “We have a growing situation here,” he murmured.

  Michael joined him and looked towards the forward monitors to see them filled with images from earth. Sally was seated at one of the side tables, working through her satellites to bring up more images.

  At first, he didn’t recognise what he was looking at. When it came to him, i
t was as if a cup of cold water had been poured down his back.

  “They’re silos,” he murmured. “Missile silos.”

  “These are out of Russia, but the US has prepared their own, either in retaliation to Russia, or in with them against a shared target, I don’t know,” she told him, continuing to switch images.

  “We’re getting chatter too, all of it too heavily encoded for us to decipher. My bet is, that for every ten silos we see opening, there is a submarine that has just been placed on alert,” Allan said, his eyes held by the images on the far screens.

  “Ok,” Michael nodded. He drew a deep breath. “Can the ARC outrun a missile?” he asked.

  Allan shook his head.

  Michael guessed that would be the answer and nodded. “What if we get a head start? If we begin moving away now, would they catch up if they launched later?” he asked.

  Allan shrugged. “How much later? I guess if they gave us a couple of days,” he pointed out. “We never designed the ARC to ‘run’ anywhere, Michael. The ARC is huge, and we prepared it in a tight timeframe, with limited resources, and on a tight budget,” he reminded him.

  All of which Michael knew and nodded again. “Best we turn the hull towards the earth then, and alter our orbit; keep us over the northern hemisphere, sitting above the Atlantic.”

  Allan looked towards him sharply. “That’s got to be the worst place Michael. We’re going to have scarcely two minutes warning of any incoming missile,” he pointed out.

  “Yes, but I want them to think we’ve got something we can shoot back at them,” he told the younger man.

  “You’re going to play ‘Chicken’ with the USA and Russia,” Allan accused, and not very happy about it.

  Michael shrugged and nodded. “Unless you have a better idea,” he suggested. “Keep me informed, yes?” he begged.

  “Oh yes,” Allan agreed.

  +++++++++++++

  The docking bay of Freedom One was a composed of series of cubes, some suitable for garaging a single SUV, others twice the size, and some four times the size. Each could be moved back and forth within the overall hanger space, and represented Ricky’s solution for storing the same number of vehicles that had once been in the ARC while dramatically reducing the amount of space needed to maintain and manage them all.

  The group met in one of the larger cubes, where three SUV’s waited, Maddy standing beside one of them, Mickey at another, while Frankie stood beside the third.

  “We’re going to miss you,” Michael was saying, kissing Cheryl’s cheek and smiling a farewell as he moved to shake Gary’s hand. Gary’s powerful handshake was followed by Robert Fuller’s, who grinned excitedly as he said his own farewells.

  “You’ll come and visit, when you get back, yes?” Robert asked, his role as Space Correspondent for the Telegraph secured.

  “When we get back,” Heather agreed, kissing his cheek.

  “You two are planning on getting married, I hear,” Michael said as he embraced Joyce Davers, then shook hands with Ricky Williams.

  “Yes. Then finish off our degrees,” Ricky explained, continuing to shake hands.

  “Tony. Stay out of trouble?” Michael hoped, saying farewell to the mathematician who had helped Allan for several months.

  “I hope to,” he agreed, grinning weakly. He had declined lucrative positions within both NASA and ROSCOSMO and just hoped he had made the right decision. Hong Kong had won his services, requesting he assist them with new software to manage their air traffic control, a system that they hoped to roll out right across China, South Korea and Taiwan should it match their expectations.

  “I think you’ve made the right decisions,” Michael told them all, smiling towards them as a group. “But only time will tell,” he admitted, his smile slipping as he thought of earth’s apparent readiness to launch missiles towards him.

  There were more shaking hands and hugs before the group got into their respective vehicles. Then those still on board had to step out of the docking module to allow it to be moved into position, and the air removed before the outer door swung open and the SUVs were allowed out to begin their passage down to earth.

  +++++++++++++

  Alarm bells sounded across the USA and Russia as their observatories saw objects appear over the side of the ARC and turn to begin racing towards the earth.

  Military minds, thinking with the same purpose, contacted their political masters and urged immediate retaliation, while those very same masters, untrained for such decision making, and in such haste, sought the views of others in their peer group before making decisions.

  The United Nations urged calm and opened communication with the ARC.

  Samuel smiled at Oliver’s explicative response and privately thought it more appropriate than his own more conservative response would have been. After all, all they were doing was moving staff from the firing line.

  +++++++++++++

  Frankie parked the SUV on the arrivals car park of the Dover Ferry terminal and shook Robert’s hand one last time before waving him off towards the Customs hut where he could get his passports properly checked with British immigration before being allowed into the country. He, meanwhile, didn’t wait to see if armed police were going to rush out and try and detain him, but lifted the SUV back into the cold November sky to head upwards to where a less dense atmosphere would allow him to travel more quickly, and with less buffeting and wind-noise.

  Michael hadn’t been all that sure of location, other than to tell him that it would be somewhere to the south west of the Azores, and unlikely to be doing much speed.

  Frankie angled his climb towards the distant equator and west of the European mainland. Noise from his detectors reminded him to turn on the stealth mode as he rose above 20,000 metres and moved more rapidly over Western France, continuing to climb until above 40,000 metres where the air was thinner and he was above the commercial airline ceiling. European radar seemed keener than usual, with faster, smaller planes that could only the military, blindly seeking him.

  As he finished flying over Europe, leaving Portugal behind him, he descended, passing over the Azores at 20,000 metres. He turned on the app that would monitor one particular radio frequency and was surprised when it immediately responded with a new course, angling him further west and with a strength that suggested he should descend still further.

  In a short time he saw a 12 metre yacht sailing north with just its jib-sail up, a solitary sailor at the helm.

  The man saw him as Frankie slowed his descent, and he turned the rudder to take the wind from his sail, leaving him to rise and fall on the slight swell of the sea. It allowed Frankie to draw nearer and, instructing the SUV to remain a constant distance to one side of the yacht, he opened his door so he could talk to the grinning sailor.

  “So this is where you got to,” Frankie greeted Professor Derek Lovell.

  “Been years since I’ve been able to put so much time into just sailing,” he grinned. “Oh, by the way, I have a couple of cartons full of tea bags. Michael asked me to bring them along.”

  A second man popped his head out of the cabin and grinned. “Hello Frankie,” Chas Brewer said, waving a hand in welcome.

  Frankie laughed and set about lowering the SUV until they could tie the boat alongside, and transfer all of the two professors’ belongings, including the tea bags, into the SUV as it moved in harmony with the roll of the yacht.

  “You don’t mind losing the yacht?” Frankie asked as Professor Lovell made himself comfortable in the awkwardly shaped seat of the SUV.

  He shook his head. “Michael has promised me a larger one, brand new too,” he grinned.

  +++++++++++++

  Maddy finished dropping Gary and Cheryl off at the Chang International airport in Singapore, and rose once again as army vehicles, their lights flashing urgently, wove towards her along the airport’s service roads. At a reasonable height, she angled the SUV to head still further east, taking a route similar to that taken by the
ARC when the ship had risen from the sea to venture into space for the very first time. Her speed quickly left the military aircraft behind her.

  The long flight over the Pacific gave her time to consider her own life and how it had changed. Life had been exciting enough while on earth, everyday an adrenaline rush as she kept one step in front of the law, but none of that came close to the excitement she experienced every time she stepped out of an SUV to walk, practically naked, out in space. There was nothing to come close to the sensation, heightened by the incredible views.

  Despite her achievements, she felt unnerved by what the future held. In some ways she envied Cheryl and Gary and their immediate future; two rich and young individuals about to enjoy a much sought after vacation. Yet, on reflection, she knew she’d never give up her life in space. Maddy could no longer imagine a life on earth, glued to a pavement, unable to float above the earth.

  Half way across the Pacific, with the Andes of South America in view on the horizon, Maddy began to descend again, coming down with the Galapagos Islands directly in front of her.

  A small ship was at anchor in the bay, just off Puerto Ayora on the southern side of the Galapagos National Park. It was a research vessel under the flag of Chile with a group of Animal-Science professors onboard who were undertaking field work for their Masters degrees.

  Maddy slowed her descent to land the SUV on the forecastle, her slow descent allowing the crew and passengers to step forward, watching in curiosity but keeping their distance.

  Maddy opened the door and smiled for those eager to take pictures. “I’m told there’s someone to come with me,” she told those nearest to her, only to have them look at each other, all shaking their heads.

  “Make way, make way,” came a voice from the back. Maddy didn’t need to see the man who carried an old leather laptop case, an Asian cabin boy following him with a larger case, to know who it was.

  “Hello Professor Graves. Good to see you again,” she smiled.