Aftershock

by Sam Fisher

  ‘Thanks, Trent,’ Littleton said and closed the door on the kid.

  13

  The Neptune Hotel, Room 307

  Hilary Xavier sat in front of the TV in the family’s suite in the magnificent edifice her husband Michael had built and let the effects of the vodka soak through her. She blew a strand of peroxide blonde hair away from her face and when it fell back, she pulled it behind her ear irritably. She felt fat, but then she always felt fat, even if her doctor kept telling her to put on weight. She knew she drank too much, but she made up for it by not eating. That was supposed to keep the weight off, or at least that’s what she’d read. She was always tired these days, and she felt old, much older than her 36 years.

  She could hear her nine-year-old twins, Emily and Nick, in the next room, playing with the Wii. She was no longer paying any attention to the TV show, a rerun of Will and Grace. Her mind had started to wander, and when it wandered it always alighted on the same subject – her miserable life.

  ‘What the hell went wrong?’ she said aloud to the room, her voice drowned out by the TV and the noise from next door. ‘I was clever once. Yes, clever. A First at Oxford, no less. Plenty under the bonnet, people used to say. And I was beautiful. Brains and beauty, a rare thing, not just a Porsche without an engine. But now ... now what? Here I am, mid thirties, a mother of twins, married to a billionaire. I have homes in London, New York, Santa Barbara and Monaco. I’ve had a racehorse named after me, for Christ’s sake. I had the Rolling Stones perform at my thirtieth. The diamond of my engagement ring is the size of Madagascar, and yet I’m so unhappy I contemplate suicide every single day. How does that happen?’

  She refilled her glass.

  Yes, she had every material thing anyone could ever wish for, and more, and she loved her kids. But her marriage? That lay in tatters. Michael was a good man. Everyone loved Michael, but he was a lousy husband. She said it aloud. ‘Michael, you’re a lousy husband.’ That made her feel a little better. Once upon a time, they had been close, a great unit, a unit that had been fantastic for both of them. She had given him the stability he needed and she had been a damn good mother. ‘I’m a damn good mother,’ she announced to the TV. But this, this place had taken over. Michael had effectively divorced her and married the Neptune Hotel. ‘Well, I hope it gives a good blow job,’ she blurted into the glass and laughed loudly.

  And then there was Johnny. Oh shit, Johnny. Why? Why had she done that? She suddenly felt an overwhelming wave of sadness hit her. She swallowed hard and gazed around the room. Her focus wasn’t too good suddenly. A tear rolled down her cheek. She brushed it away with an angry swipe of her palm, smudging her makeup.

  She refilled her glass.

  All this was becoming so familiar. She drank to forget and then she had to put on a big act to make her kids believe she was sober. But sometimes, sometimes, she just wished she could really let go. ‘But what would I do?’ she asked the TV. ‘Run away?’ She started to giggle. ‘Oh, yeah!’

  She went to refill her glass and realised the bottle was empty. Flinging it to one side of the sofa, she stood up. Reaching for another bottle on the cabinet, she slipped on a slice of lemon, started to crash forward into the array of bottles and just caught herself in time. At that moment, the door opened and Michael Xavier walked in.

  ‘What’re you doing?’

  ‘What does it look like, Michael?’

  Xavier sighed heavily and walked over to his wife. He went to put a hand on her shoulder. She flinched. He took a step back, looked at the floor and said, ‘Did you have to? Tonight?’

  ‘Tonight? Oh yes, it’s your night of triumph, isn’t it, my darling?’

  Michael Xavier gave her an exasperated look that made her feel like a 10-year-old schoolgirl. It infuriated her. To cover her anger, she laughed, lost her balance again and gripped the edge of the cabinet to steady herself.

  ‘For God’s sake, Hilary. What about the...?’

  She glared at him. ‘Don’t dare say: “What about the kids?” You wouldn’t be that big a hypocrite.’

  He gave Hilary another pitying glance, and the dam burst. She stepped towards her husband and went to slap him across the face. Catching her hand before it made contact, Michael tried to guide her to the sofa, but she pulled away, seething, her eyes aflame. ‘Don’t!’ she screamed. ‘We don’t need you here, Michael. Go off to help the crews, help the staff, do something, anything, except be with us. The kids hardly know you anyway.’

  Michael stared at her, expressionless. ‘This isn’t the time...’

  ‘No, no, of course it isn’t, dear. Never is the time, is it?’

  ‘Hilary, please.’

  ‘Please? Please? You don’t need to say please. Michael dear, you do what you want. You always do. You don’t need me. You don’t need us.’ And she waved her hand towards the next room.

  Michael Xavier exhaled again. He felt exhausted. He knew he had been ignoring his family. Especially Hilary. He knew he had gone too far – knew their 11-year marriage was over. There had been no conscious decision to sacrifice it. Perhaps some subconscious impulse had driven him to choose the Neptune over her. But he never really had a choice. The two, the hotel and Hilary, had been mutually incompatible. Always would be. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, quietly.

  Hilary turned away and refilled her glass.

  14

  The Neptune Hotel, Room 320

  Johnny Xavier opened the file on his computer. In it were half a dozen emails from the past three months, all but one saying basically the same thing: ‘Stop construction.’ The last one, sent a week earlier, was slightly different. It read: ‘Stop now. This is your last warning.’

  He had told only one other person about the messages – his lawyer, Chuck Warberg. He certainly hadn’t breathed a word about them to his brother. Chuck had, as always, advised caution. But, when it came to self-preservation and retaining power, Johnny was a very cautious man. Chuck had advised him to go to the cops, but to Johnny it was obvious this was the last thing he should do. He did not like the messages, but equally he could not hold up the project because of them. And so he had decided to say nothing.

  The warnings had begun to appear as the hotel infrastructure was completed and crews were starting to fit out the interior. He had employed some tech guys to trace the emails, but they had drawn a total blank. It was then he had turned to Chuck, and been given the advice he did not need.

  He called Chuck’s mobile number. He was in London on business. It was early morning there, but he knew his lawyer would be working even if he was in his hotel room. He was always working.

  ‘Chuck, I’ve just been going through those emails again.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Johnny. I’m shaving. Can I call you back?’

  ‘No, I’ve only got a minute.’

  Xavier could hear his lawyer produce a resigned sigh. ‘I told you to go to the cops, didn’t I?’

  ‘That was not an option, Chuck.’

  The lawyer said nothing for a moment, then produced a small cough. ‘Johnny? Have you thought about ducking out of tonight?’

  Xavier laughed. ‘Chuck, for a smart guy, you can sometimes say the most fucked up things.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘By the way,’ Johnny Xavier went on, ‘ you are conspicuous by your absence here tonight. You’re probably the only person to turn down the invitation.’

  ‘I couldn’t make it.’

  ‘Whatever,’ Johnny slurred. Years of living in California had polluted what had once been the crisp British private school accent his older sibling still retained. ‘Anyway, as if I would duck out and let big brother take all the credit! So, what are you going to do about these messages?’

  ‘What do you expect me to do?’

  ‘Jesus,’ Xavier hissed. ‘Sometimes I wonder why I pay you.’

  ‘Oh please. Don’t give me that BS. You know why you pay me. Don’t forget who’s covering your arse, Johnny boy. Don’t forget who’s cleaning up the m
oney for your little hedge fund. Don’t forget who’s keeping nosy parkers off your case.’

  ‘So you’re saying there’s nothing you can do about these emails? Is that it?’ Xavier snapped.

  ‘Got it in ... what? ... Three.’

  There was a pained silence from the other end of the line.

  ‘You tried the tech guys?’ Chuck Warberg offered.

  ‘Yes. I tried the fucking tech guys. They were about as useless as you.’

  ‘Okay, Johnny. Gotta lot of work to do. I’m not going to stand here and let you insult me.’

  ‘Well go stick your bald head up your fucking arse then, you...’ But the line was dead. Johnny slammed down the phone and looked up as the doorbell sounded.

  ‘Yeah?’ he called.

  ‘It’s me.’

  Xavier sighed, pulled himself to his feet and strode to the door. Hilary pushed her way into the room and Johnny closed the door quickly.

  ‘Hilary! We’re supposed to be downstairs in 20 minutes. What the hell are you doing?’

  She turned to him, swaying slightly.

  ‘Oh fuck, you’re...’

  ‘Yes, Johnny. I’m drunk.’ She flopped onto the sofa and buried her head in her hands. Johnny looked around the room using all his reserves of patience to control his anger and frustration.

  ‘I just don’t know how that man does it.’

  ‘Which man?’

  ‘Your damn brother. Who else?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I can’t help but love him, even though he ignores me, ignores the family, cares only for this,’ and she waved her hand in air. ‘This ... place.’

  Johnny looked down at her. She used to be a really beautiful woman, he thought. Sexy, intelligent. He suddenly felt a wave of revulsion.

  Hilary gazed up at him, makeup smeared across her face, tear streaks staining her cheeks, her hair a mess. She stood up. ‘God, I’m so fucked up,’ she slurred and made for the drinks cabinet.

  ‘I think you’ve had enough,’ Johnny said and took Hilary’s arm.

  She turned. ‘Oh, Johnny. You do care about me.’

  Still the old acid tongue, even half-cut, Johnny thought to himself and smiled. Hilary fell into his arms and he held her, breathing in her perfume. In spite of himself, he started to harden. Hilary felt it too.

  ‘Oh my,’ she whispered in his ear and dropped backwards onto the sofa, pulling him on top of her.

  15

  Computer Centre, first floor, Dome Alpha

  Ralph Gafton was alone in service conduit Number 6, running off the computer centre. His Puerto Rican boss, Miguel Bandonis, had sent him in to check on a set of relays the diagnostic systems had identified as malfunctioning. He suspected a short in one of the circuits. He unscrewed the panel and lay it on the floor of the conduit. It was a tight squeeze in the narrow passage and he had to twist his body round to get the torch into the opening so he could see what was up. He flicked the light around inside the wall unit, a box about 2 metres long and a metre wide. He could see nothing at first, but on the third sweep of the torch he caught sight of a small bundle of components covered in melted plastic. ‘Yep,’ he said aloud. ‘That would be the blown relay.’

  He started to pull his head and arm from the opening. There was a flash of light and a loud pop. He jolted back, banged his head on the rim of the wall unit and cursed. A sheet of flame flew across the space inside the box.

  Gafton reacted quickly. He crawled along the conduit and tugged on the extinguisher attached to the wall, span around and headed back to the hole. Just as he pushed on the release button, a voice came through the radio attached to his shoulder. ‘Ralph, you okay? Just got a warning light.’ It was his boss, Bandonis.

  ‘Yeah, everything’s cool,’ Gafton responded. ‘There’s a small fire. I’m putting it out.’ And he shot foam into the box of electrical circuits with practised ease. He had been an electrical engineer for a dozen years, including a spell on North Sea oil rigs. He knew what he was doing.

  ‘I’m coming down,’ Bandonis said.

  ‘No need,’ Gafton replied, but the line was already cut.

  Gafton let the foam settle, then stuck his arm and head back through the opening. He flicked the torch beam around the cavity and had just pulled away, slipping back into the conduit, when Bandonis appeared at his side. ‘Let me see,’ he said. Gafton sighed and crawled along the passage to give his boss space to check on the problem. Bandonis waved a torch around inside the unit, then pulled back and leaned against the conduit wall. ‘Seems all right,’ he said. ‘It’s the secondary relay for the emergency escape doors, right?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Gafton replied. ‘The primary circuits are further back in the next conduit.’ He nodded towards the wall. ‘They’re well protected with sensors around them.’

  Bandonis paused for a moment, a stab of anxiety in the pit of his stomach. They would be well protected, he thought, if the sensors were reliable, but he couldn’t be sure they were. Bandonis had been on the engineering crew from the start of the build. He knew every nook and cranny of this place. More importantly though, he knew enough about how much Johnny Xavier had been cutting back on materials and skimming the building budget to line his own pockets.

  ‘Okay. We need to get a repair crew down here. And Ralph, don’t make a fuss about this. I’ll call Mr Xavier, but he’s made it clear any problems stay with the systems staff, capiche?’

  Bandonis crawled back along service conduit Number 6, leaving Gafton to replace the metal panel. He had no intention of phoning Xavier – he would go to see him in person. Drag him away from the table if necessary. He could do nothing about the man ripping off his brother and the other investors, but his own life and those of nearly 200 staff and guests would be on the line if this small incident got out of hand.

  And that is exactly what was starting to happen – it was getting out of hand. A strip of printed circuits to the rear of the wall unit had remained untouched by the extinguisher foam. A wire from a transformer less than 2 centimetres away from this strip slipped from its plastic cradle. The wire touched the hot chip and a spark jumped 7 centimetres, igniting a tiny rectangle of paper on a metal case. The flame slithered through an opening in the back of the wall unit.

  According to the original design of the hotel, a sensor system was designed to pick up any temperature rises inside electrical units. To save money, Johnny Xavier had cut two-thirds of the sensors. This meant each unit would have only one-third of the necessary sensors throughout the hotel or that two-thirds of the component units would be completely unprotected. Johnny had gone for the second of the two options.

  Unfortunately, service conduit Number 6 contained electrical units that were unprotected. So, when the fire in the wall unit caught hold and started to eat away at the primary emergency door circuits themselves, no one knew about it until it was much too late.

  16

  Dome Gamma

  Jim Kemple surveyed the scene and thought for perhaps the tenth time that he had never seen anything quite so awe-inspiring. Their table was close to the centre of the vast top floor of the dome. All around them, the ocean flowed. Jim couldn’t comprehend how the dome could have been constructed even though before dinner he, Alfred and the other guests had listened politely as Michael Xavier explained how the project had come to fruition. Xavier mentioned something about a new material – micro-alloyed glass – that had been used to construct the domes. Apparently it had a thousand times the strength of normal tempered glass so that it could withstand the tremendous pressure at this depth.

  The floor had been opened out. There was a stage at the north end encircled by a gantry of lights. At that moment, a contemporary dance troupe was performing a specially commissioned piece, and in a few moments Kristy Sunshine was due to walk on. Around the circumference of the banqueting hall ran the swimming pool, 6 metres wide, a ribbon of aquamarine that hugged the micro-alloyed glass dome. Eight large round tables had been arranged in the mid
dle of the space, accommodating a dozen guests each.

  Jim noted there was no head table, no hierarchy; celebrities and major shareholders intermingled with ordinary folk like him and Alfred. He scanned the table. Beside him sat a middle aged man in a rather scruffy dinner suit. He had introduced himself as Harry Flanders, a journalist who was making a TV report about the gala night. Next to him was a young couple from Boston. He was a computer whiz, his wife an anthropologist. Going round the table from them, Jim glanced at the Xavier children, the nine-year-old twins, Nick and Emily. Nick was wearing a dinner suit, white shirt and bow tie. His dark hair was slicked back. He looked like a miniature version of his father. Emily was a rather precocious little girl, Jim thought. But she did look pretty cute in her green silk ballgown. Next to Emily, her father was engaged in an animated conversation with the man to his left. Jim half-recognised him from the pages of the New York Times financial section. He was a banker, he recalled, someone important at Deutsche Bank. Next to the banker sat Hilary Xavier. She had arrived 10 minutes late. Jim thought she looked ill; her face was unnaturally gaunt as though she hadn’t slept properly in a long time. Alfred sat to her left and had been trying hard to make conversation, without much success. On Alfred’s other side was Johnny Xavier, dressed in an immaculate dinner suit. He was a good-looking man, Jim thought, but he had a hard face and an unpleasant air of self-absorption. He looked like a bad actor. Johnny, Jim decided, had secrets – nasty secrets.

  Jim turned from Johnny Xavier to the person who sat between them, an elegant woman in her sixties. She had told him her name was Sheila Hoffman and that her husband, Felix, was the architect who designed the hotel. He had been involved in a car crash a week earlier and, as much as he would have loved to be here, his doctor had forbidden it.

  ‘So, shouldn’t you be out in front of the camera, Harry?’ Jim asked, turning to the journalist on his left. The man, he