Blind Angel had the allegiance of the Gundam Collective. A bunch of geeks, sitting in darkened rooms across the globe, running furious hacks. “Gundam? What the hell’s that?” said Juliet, reading the message.
“Think air support, I s’pose, just digital. I’m still getting my head ‘round this 21st Century warfare lark,” I replied.
Sticking to the treeline, we skirted the lawn. Oz and Fendt lay by the garages, weapons trained on a sturdy-looking door. We snuck up and tried the handle. It was unlocked, like Blind Angel promised.
Juliet leading the way, we stepped inside. No movement. The ground floor consisted of kitchens, utility and ready rooms for domestic staff. There were rows of emergency ration packs, bottled water and other supplies. Enough to last for years.
“Okay, it’s clear,” I whispered into my mic.
Fendt and Oz padded into the room, weapons shouldered. “Our intel says the server is somewhere on the third floor,” Fendt whispered.
“Where’s the rest of the guard force?” asked Oz.
“Maybe Drexler killed them too?” Juliet replied.
We crept up the stairs, one team covering the other. We entered a spacious reception hall. Modern art studded the white-painted walls, the furniture fashionably uncomfortable-looking. Panoramic windows gave a view across the dunes and sea beyond. “Over here,” said Oz. A woman lay on the floor, blood pooling beneath her. She was in her sixties, dressed in a black trouser suit. There was a neat hole in her temple, glistening with blood.
“It’s Kathryn, Paradis’ wife,” Juliet whispered. “She couldn’t have posed any threat to Drexler.”
“Not a physical threat, anyhow,” said Fendt, padding over to the opposite door.
“It’s a deep-clean,” I replied, looking at the body.
“You sound very sure.” Juliet knelt by the body, checking for a pulse, “why so certain?”
I shrugged. “I’d have done the same thing. People knowing too much? It’s the primary reason we’re sent out to kill.”
“I see,” she replied.
“Yeah, pretty shitty when you think about it,” said Oz, stepping over the corpse.
“Let’s clear this floor.” I adjusted my throat mic, “Alex, see anything?”
“Nuthin’ Cal. It’s a ghost-town out here. I got both approaches to the house covered.”
“Roger that. We’re clearing level two right now.”
“I can’t see shit on the level above, it’s all privacy glazed,” said Alex.
We made our away along a corridor. It was littered with more bodies, men dressed in matching polo shirts and fatigue pants. I knelt down to examine them, laminated ID cards identifying them as contractors from an IT security company. All had been made to kneel before taking a bullet to the back of the head. We followed glittering cartridge cases, the trail ending in a reception area with a locked metal door. Next to it was an iris scanner, a credit-card sized rectangle of smoky black glass.
“This must run off the inner network,” I said, running a finger along the seal between the frame and door.
“Which only recognises Drexler or Paradis’ biometrics,” Juliet replied. “This is armoured. We aren’t going to break it.”
“Blind Angel’s people must be struggling,” I replied. “We’d need explosives to put a dent in this bastard.”
“We don’t need to,” said Oz, a grin spreading across his camouflage-streaked face.
“What do you mean?” I replied.
Oz pointed upwards. “You just blew a bloody great hole in the wall of the floor above. Our mate Martin would call that a glitch, right?”
“Yeah, he would,” I said. I wondered where the urban explorer was now, in riot-shattered London. Underground, I hoped.
Leaving the reception area, we made for the west side of the mansion, passing through a guest bedroom. Like the rest of the place, it was painted white. A king-sized bed sat on a raised platform, a plasma screen covering a wall. Fendt knelt by the door and covered us, glancing nervously up and down the corridor.
Juliet walked to the window and opened it. She stuck her head outside. “Oz was right, the window you blew out is directly above us.”
I joined her. The void where the rocket had struck was no more than four metres up, within reach of a curved steel beam. The exterior wall was wet and greasy to touch, the wind snapping about me.
“I’ll get up there,” said Oz, slapping my back. “You’re a clumsy fucker.”
Juliet stripped off her armour and chest rig. “I’ll go with you.”
“Ladies first, then,” Oz replied, also dumping kit for the climb. He stuffed spare magazines in the map pockets of his fatigues, handing two more to Juliet.
Juliet stowed the ammo, nodded, and wriggled out of the window. She shimmied up like a squirrel, fingers finding purchase in the gnarled bolts studding the beam. Her legs disappeared inside the window above. Oz joined her, scrambling up the side of the building.
“They good?” said Fendt, ducking back into the room.
Movement, by the door.
A hulking man. Black tactical gear.
He smashed Fendt’s helmeted head against the wall with a huge fist. Twice. Fendt flopped to the ground, eyes glazed and nose bloodied. The giant had got the drop on me too, a handgun levelled at my head. “Lose the weapon,” he ordered in German-accented English. Debris had ripped his cheek and forehead, blood seeping from the wounds. A handsome Mauser hunting rifle was slung across his back.
I unslung my MCX and tossed it to the ground.
“Pistol and radio too,” he said.
My .45 and comms kit joined my carbine on the floor.
“My name is Falkenrath,” said the German, not unpleasantly. “Herr Paradis would speak with you.”
“Why?”
“Erik Drexler is running loose,” the German replied. “Drexler thinks he can walk away from this with no witnesses. I’m worried his people will be here soon.”
“Drexler’s people?”
“Yes. They are on the mainland, with two fast boats. Drexler will have sent a signal.”
“How long ‘til they reach us?” I said.
The German shrugged. “From Norden? Perhaps an hour. How long have you been on the island?”
I checked my watch. Fifty minutes since we’d left the gun emplacement, the earliest opportunity for Drexler to contact his people. “Nearly an hour. Where’s the rest of the guard force?” I remember Drexler saying The Firm had eight people on Nördhaus and two of his own people.
“Three are dead, including my colleague. You killed him with your rocket. The others are with Herr Paradis. They know Drexler intends to kill us all. He can deal with any eventuality except failure.”
“What happens if I kill Drexler for him?”
The German’s eyes narrowed. “That’s up to the boss. I would have shot you, but orders are orders.”
“Your boss is trying to start a war,” I replied.
The German pulled a face. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“I don’t need to, but I need to get the rest of my people,” I replied, pointing at the ceiling.
“The woman and the little guy? They are safer up there. The entire level is locked-down.”
“Okay,” I said, hands raised. I nodded at Fendt. “What about him.”
Falkenrath picked up the American and shrugged him into a fireman’s carry. He saw me considering rushing him, and shook his head. All the while he kept the gun on me with his free hand. “That would be unwise. Please, I’d rather not kill you. Besides, there is strength in numbers.”
We trooped through the mansion, along a grand corridor covered in yet more priceless art. How many rooms does one man need? Falkenrath dumped Fendt on the ground, the dazed American moaning.
“What now?” I said.
The German held a finger to his lips and walked to a door. It was metal, like the sort you get on a lift. He looked at a panel, and with a soft bleep it turned green. The door slid sil
ently open. “Through there,” he said.
I walked into a windowless chamber, high-ceilinged and spartanly furnished. Two men in fatigues stood guard, weapons ready. I recognised one of them, a Serb from The Firm’s Trieste Cell.
“These men will guard your friend until he comes around,” said Falkenrath.
The Firm’s operators nodded, the brawnier of the men dragging Fendt onto a sofa. He prised off the American’s helmet and poured water over his head from a plastic bottle.
“Can I keep my pack?” I said.
Falkenrath unzipped it. “A computer and a satellite phone?”
“I need them,” I replied, “if we’re getting out of this thing alive.”
“Let him keep his stuff,” said a Trieste Cell guy. I think he was called Emile, a weasel-faced killer from Novi Sad. “I recognise this guy, he used to be one of ours.”
“Okay then.” Falkenrath pushed me through another door, into a security airlock. Beyond lay a dimly lit room, “go on. Herr Paradis will speak with you now.”
“You’re not coming?”
The German shook his head. “No. He wants to speak privately. It is in your interest to listen. Or are you a madman, like Drexler?”
It was a good question. “No. I’m not.”
Falkenrath pointed into the room. “Speak with him. I will go and collect your friends, okay?”
Nodding, I brushed a muddy hand across my chest. I felt the shape of the Silent Soldier knife hanging at my neck. Hiding the blade in my palm, I stepped through the airlock.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Jacque Paradis’ chamber overlooked the North Sea, a vista of gunmetal waves and sky. Paradis lay on a gurney, covered by a sheet. He was surrounded by a cohort of glittering medical devices, tubes snaking from drips into his arms and sunken chest. The old man turned his head towards me, eyes heavy-lidded.
“I’m Cal Winter.”
“I know,” Paradis replied croakily. The skin on his face looked sand-blasted to his skull, eyes milky and dead. A greasy lick of hair pasted to his forehead, spindly fingers draped across his chest. His English was fluent, no trace of an accent. “I studied The Firm’s files. Reading takes my mind off the pain.”
Wall-mounted screens played newsfeeds: Russian warships powered across the Baltic, bombers making perfect contrails overhead. In a field full of sunflowers, men combed the wreckage of a passenger aircraft. In Naples, police besieged a burning building, the black flag of an Islamist group fluttering from a window. In another benighted place, refugee camps burned, riot cops fighting with ragged youths. Maniacs in trucks barrelled into shopping malls.
“You wanted to see me,” I said. “Why?”
“I think you can put Erik Drexler’s head on a pike,” he replied croakily. “As they say in your country, he wants to have his cake and eat it too. At the first suggestion of compromise, he panicked. I am disappointed.”
I ran a finger along the life support apparatus. “You’re dying. Why should you care?”
Paradis locked his corpse-eyes onto mine. “Posterity: I have other interests unconnected to Drexler. His change of heart threatens their success. Now, a man like you? You could be a king in the world to come, especially if you were rich.”
“I never wanted to be a king.” I pulled up a chair next to the gurney, legs scraping on the floor. We both looked at the tubes and monitors hooked up to his carcass. I flexed a blood-filled line with my fingers. “I know you were stood down as a CIA asset. Is this a grand gesture, to prove the Americans wrong?”
“CIA asset? No, they were my asset.” Paradis tried to sit, grimaced, and lay back down. “Then they sent Erik to kill me. They threw down the gauntlet, Winter, not me. I would like to be a fly on the wall at Langley, right now. Those bastards will be cast into purgatory. My only regret is I won’t be around to see their disgrace. You must have met such people. Ignominy for them is worse than death.”
“But why target London first? Why not Washington DC?”
“Britain, host to the disease that brought us all down?” said Paradis. He smiled. “Perfidious Albion? The obvious place to start, given its betrayal of Europe. The Project has failed. The contagion is systemic, like the cancer in my bones.”
I felt the blade in my palm. I could cut the bastard’s throat and have done with it. We sat in silence for a moment, watching the screens. Armoured vehicles patrolled Heathrow, terrified passengers in survival blankets huddled in terminal buildings. “You must have the influence to change things, without resorting to this.”
Paradis sighed wheezily. “Those bastards in Berlaymont? They need shock treatment, to understand their foolishness. Nothing less. Like a heart attack survivor must stop smoking and drinking whisky.”
“You realise the end of the Hoffman Curve is war with Russia?” I said. On-screen, tanks roared down a dusty road in Ukraine, men singing and waving flags. Their comrades cowed bloody prisoners with boots and rifle butts.
“Perhaps. Conversely, the end of the Curve might be unity,” Paradis replied. “We only learn to step back once we’ve teetered on the brink. Felt the ground crumble beneath our feet. Even the Russians know that. I respect their clarity of purpose.”
“Just give me your half of the kill-code,” I said.
Paradis’ sneered. “Kill code, Monsieur Winter? What on earth are you talking about?”
“You’re a bad liar. Drexler told me you shared a code, for the program that stops the virus.”
The old man coughed wetly. “Preposterous. I will not be dictated to by a common murderer like you. A disgrace. A stain on humanity.”
“I’m all of those things. Mind you, it does give me an advantage.” I tapped at the netbook. It sniffed the Wi-Fi connection in the secure suite and latched onto it, pinging green.
The results of the task I’d set Blind Angel, on Blackheath, appeared.
“What is this?” said Paradis.
A dozen wall-mounted monitors showed a younger Paradis. Handsome, with thick black hair and a winning smile. He stood with a little girl, somewhere on a sun-drenched Paris street. The child wore a neat school uniform and beret. Both smiled for the camera.
“The 8th Arrondissement, October 1989,” I said.
Paradis’ eyes widened. “Marie…”
“Yes. Your daughter,” I said. “Let’s see… typical Énarque, you got her a job at the EU before she hopped on the UN gravy train. Ended up as a human rights lawyer. She married a Swiss financier in 2007. Lives in Zurich with their two kids, Alexander and Coco. Last year they earned 5.5 million Swiss Francs after tax and holidayed in Mauritius. Skiing is in Klosters, naturally. Oh, and they’ve got a cat called Asterix...”
“How do you know these things?” Paradis croaked, lurching forward.
“She has a place on the Guggerstrasse, near Lake Zurich, right?” I continued. “Drives a new BMW X6, bought it last month in Annecy. She thinks the prices are more competitive in France, apparently. Her kids go to school at…”
Paradis pointed a claw at me. “How. Do. You. Know?”
“Drexler’s hackers jumped ship. I asked them to find out everything there is to know about Marie,” I replied. “When this is over, I’m going to kill your daughter. That’s the end of her Hoffman Curve.”
Paradis fell back onto the gurney. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“I’m a murderer. You said so yourself. You’ve attacked my country, Paradis. I’ve never seen myself as much of a patriot, but for some reason I’m taking it personally. Tell me how to stop this thing, or the last thing your grandkids’ll see is their mother’s corpse.”
Paradis shook his head. “You bluff.”
I opened the VOIP talk application on the netbook. “Blind Angel? You getting this?”
Blind Angel’s voice drifted from the device. “Yeah, all this gig needs is some violin music. I’m all over Marie-Christine Oberlin, nee Paradis. She opened the email attachment I sent from her father’s EU account, the virus is downloading now. You want me
to switch off the ABS on her car? Surge the electricity in her apartment?”
I glowered at Jacques Paradis. “It’d save me a trip and some bullets, I suppose. You know we can do that, don’t you? It’s how Erik killed The Firm’s bosses.”
Paradis clawed his bedsheets. Like a man who finds himself awake in his coffin. “No!”
“How do we stop this?” I demanded. “The Hoffman Curve. The virus.”
Paradis looked at the picture of his daughter, then at me. Tears rolled down sunken cheeks. “There is an emergency program on the server. One of Erik’s people installed it. But I have no password for it, I swear.”
“Blind Angel, hold on Marie Oberlin’s car,” I said. “Where’s the server?”
“At the other end of this floor, in a vault. I do not understand technology, but the computer holds a special program. It’s a virus that kills a virus, that is how it was explained it to me. Erik said if our virus was influenza, this was the vaccine. Professor Hoffman wanted to be able to stop the Curve, if it went out of control.”
“And the original Hoffman algorithm, the source code?”
“On the server too,” Paradis replied, “but it’s all booby-trapped.”
“What sort of trap?” I said.
Paradis’ face twisted in concentration, words clipped and precise. “Drexler called it an electromagnetic pulse weapon. EMP. They bought it from the Chinese military. It will destroy the drive, the source code and every electronic device on the island. Hoffman said it would remove all evidence of our involvement, in the event of something going badly wrong.”
Next to Paradis’ bed was a nightstand covered with papers. I took one and passed it to the old man. “Draw me a map of this floor, and how I find the vault.”
Unscrewing a Montblanc pen, Paradis scrawled a schematic with trembling fingers. The third floor was designed as Paradis’ main living area, dominated by a wide corridor. At one end was the room I stood in now. At the other lay a semi-circular chamber.
“An electromagnetic weapon is hefty,” I said. “It’ll need an explosive charge to set off.” I’d seen video of EMP devices. Some were drone-mounted, capable of pin-point targeting specific buildings. I doubted Drexler had access to that sort of hardware – the cruder versions required a big bang to initiate the electromagnet. Big enough, maybe, to destroy a building.
The Saint Jude Rules (Cal Winter Book 3) Page 21