Panspermia Deorum (23 page)

Geraldine had
never quite got used to Sophie’s tendency to resort to profanities
when she couldn’t influence a situation in which she wanted
control. Elise tried to lower the tension.

“Listen,
darling, your father has told the police that only a few papers
were taken and they are of no value. When the police said they
would need to file a report, he agreed because it will be needed if
he wants to claim on the insurance for structural damage and
breakages of things which are dear to our hearts, including some of
your paintings and sculptures. Just let it go and spend more time
with that young man of yours.”

“I suppose, but
Mum…you must have noticed Dad’s horror when he realised those
papers were gone, and how quickly he pretended they weren’t
important. For Christ’s sake, the thieves took nothing else. Dad
wants the police out of here even more than I do. I’m going to ask
him to front up when he comes home tonight.”

*

The coffee
arrived and Julien asked his personal assistant to show their other
visitor into the office. As he walked through the door, Kolorov
stopped in mid-sentence and became hostage to an involuntary double
take. He recognised the man but couldn’t actually believe his
eyes.

“It can’t be…is
that really you, Alexei?” Turning to Julien he forfeited his calm
demeanour. “How did you find Bondarenko and why have you brought
him here?”

Alexei
Bondarenko was almost unrecognisable, the thick black hair was
gone, his head shaved down to the wood, he was completely bald.
What had thrown Kolorov most was the massive ugly diagonal scar
across the entire width of his forehead. The surgical treatment
he’d undergone had been administered by amateurs and caused
significant distortion of his facial features.

“Sorry, Ivan,
but I didn’t bring him here, he contacted me out of the blue. He
has a story to tell, he convinced me this would be the safest place
on earth for him following his recent near-death incident. Maybe
you should ask him yourself.”

Bondarenko
needed no further encouragement.

“I contacted Mr
Delacroix because I had no one else to turn to. You talked me into
taking the blame for the Soyuz disaster to get yourself out of the
firing line. I have participated in a lot of these kind of things,
Ivan, all of them being to protect your reputation. When you asked
me to shoot Malenkov and yourself, I expected that to be the last
such request in which you would involve me. Then, when you promised
me a sum of money which would mean I no longer had to work, I
complied. You cleverly convinced me that after my confession over
the missile cock up, I should disappear and nobody but you would
know the whereabouts of my safe house. This time you have set a
trap and walked into it yourself. The thugs who did this to me,
left me for dead, and I would have been if an old lady hadn’t
called for an ambulance and the police. That’s why you could not
believe it was me when I entered the office just now. So, my
honourable comrade, the tables are turned. You never delivered the
money you promised me, and you had this coming. I have seen the
archive content which has been preserved by Mr Delacroix and Mr
Christopher. It has now, with my recommendation, been etched on to
a new indelible surface material which can only be accessed by
Julien Delacroix. It can’t be copied, erased, transmitted or
altered in any way. I am now working for Mr Delacroix, and in that
capacity, I am the custodian of information which will cause your
downfall and perhaps your death. It would seem that it is now your
turn to look for a place where nobody can find you, but I believe
my real friends here have some questions for you.”

Kolorov was
visibly shaken by the vitriol in his former friend’s voice, even
though he could visualise the horror suffered by the man.
Nevertheless, he felt he had to deny any involvement in the attempt
on his life.

“Alexei, do you
really believe I was in any way connected to this brutal attack?
Ask yourself, why would I do that? You are correct when you stated
that only you and I knew the location of the safe house, but that
was before you actually got there. You had to hook up with someone
to get the keys for a start, maybe others, cleaners, gardeners,
delivery boys with food; you know you should really think back
about such people and how they behaved. I know we have both
previously carried out some pretty unsavoury acts in order to
survive, but I would never have allowed anything like this to
happen to you if I had known about it. Whatever else comes out of
this meeting, including my own fall from grace, you have to believe
that. In fact, I am not going to participate any further unless you
tell me so.”

Quite a
protracted silence was finally curtailed by Julien.

“Well, Alexei,
what do you think? Do you trust his word that he had nothing to do
with the attempt on your life?”

“I find it
difficult to trust him yet again, but I suppose it is possible that
there could also be people who were in Soyuz when I left who were
in a position to extract my approximate whereabouts from travel
information, passport checks and stuff like that. Now I work for
you, and that comes with around the clock protection, so I guess I
can put personal matters aside, at least until we know whether any
of us have a future to worry about.”

Julien looked
at Kolorov. It was a long time coming, but he eventually nodded his
acceptance of Bondarenko’s conciliatory gesture. The discussion
agenda could be revealed.

“Very well,
then let’s get started. Ivan, what I’m proposing is a yes or no
offer, there can be no if, maybe, or taking time out to think about
it. You are either part of the solution or you have to face a
return to Russia, after publication of everything you were involved
with in our Mars mission, then Soyuz’ abandoned mission to that
planet, and finally, the failed attempt to nuke the asteroid to
safety. Between us – Paul Christopher, Alexei Bondarenko and yours
truly, we have amassed a pretty damning bundle of evidence to show
you have lived a life of lies, corruption and sabotage. There is
more than enough to incarcerate you for the rest of your life, even
if it’s only got two more years left on the clock.”

“Also, Ivan,”
added Bondarenko, “do not rely on being safe in prison. Over the
years of covering you arse, I have run into many unsavoury
characters who would gladly see your ashes scattered into a sewage
farm. It should be no surprise to you that I have retained copies
of every detail of your little deal with Malenkov’s son. Remember,
it’s what I have always done for you. So, do not pretend that you
are merely the chief executive of Soyuz now. You acquired the
entire stock of the company for a paltry sum of electronic money.
We are your best option to avoid personal extinction.”

“Well, well, so
you broke cover to get to me and then accuse me of grassing you up.
Anyway, your information is incomplete. The second part of the deal
with Malenkov’s son requires me to sell the shares I acquired to
the Russian state, for only a modest profit. So, I will not be the
owner by the time I return. That is unless your offer is so
attractive that I do not return. Are you ever going to tell me what
it is?”

Bondarenko
could not help stop himself from filling the room with raucous
laughter.

“Ivan, do you
seriously think that the remnants of government will be interested
in taking on such a controversial company, after our revelations.
They are already sandwiched between the legions of citizens loyal
to oligarchs and the hatred of the anarchists. They need another
battleground like a mistimed nuclear explosion, and you know all
about them.”

Julien
intervened. “As I wasn’t aware of this deal regarding the fluid
ownership of Soyuz, I think we should put our offer on hold until
the picture becomes less obscure. That is unless you want to sell
your stock to me, Ivan.”

“Very astute,
Julien,” snapped Kolorov. “I’ll sleep on it, but I still need to
hear your offer.”

Eugene, trying
to remember his fake name, could hardly believe what he was
hearing, and made his first real contribution to the gathering.

“If you don’t
mind, I’m having some difficulty with this kind of scruffy
bargaining when the species is living on borrowed time. I’m
comfortable in the knowledge that Julien, Alexei, and I have the
evidence referred to earlier, it is locked away in independent
safety deposit boxes. The key codes to these individual boxes are
known only to the owner, not to each other. This at least serves as
a brake on any one of us striking obscene deals with untrustworthy
people. I’m leaving now, I have important work to get on with.
Please do not involve me in such immoral nonsense again.”

The meeting
broke up and Kolorov declined a lift to his hotel. The other three
met at the Delacroix residence. Eugene smiled and said, “Well, how
did I do, Dad? Was the timing right? I don’t think I would ever
make it as an actor.”

Both Julien and
Bondarenko patted him on the shoulder and reassured him that he’d
passed the test, primarily one of creating doubt in the mind of
Kolorov.

I
t had been a really long day and Julien was utterly
fatigued when he got home. He wasn’t expecting an interrogation. He
quickly figured out it was all down to Sophie.

“Don’t you
think you owe us an explanation, Dad? I mean, both houses trashed
but nothing of value taken other than a few papers from the safe?
There’s something you aren’t telling us. Come on, someone could
have been badly hurt.”

Julien looked
at Eugene, who shook his head.

“Sometimes we
just have to move on, Sophie. Geraldine and your mum went for a
short stroll, but they admitted to the police that they didn’t
think it was necessary to set the security alarm. You did the same
when you went to see them with your shopping list. The intruders
would never have had time to take anything if the systems had been
armed.”

“Oh, I see,
stupid me, it was our fault. Well, that explains it then. How could
we be so naïve? What about the CCTV cameras? Did we black them out
so that there would be no useful footage? No, I didn’t think so.
What’s wrong with everyone? This was obviously an inside job of
some kind. They knew exactly when to enter and how to switch off
the cameras, they even knew how to get into your bulletproof safe,
all in a matter of minutes.”

Julien was
becoming exasperated, and Eugene finally spoke up.

“Stop it, sis,
there are some things you just don’t need to know right now. Get
off dad’s back, it’s me you should be moaning about. The papers
which they took are mine. I asked dad to keep them in his safe
because we’ve made a breakthrough in our research and it had to be
protected. There are two aspects to this; first, the intellectual
property side, and then the countdown to 2039. Whether you like it
or not, there are people out there who aren’t interested in helping
the species as a whole, they only care about themselves. And this
ticking time bomb of uncertainty has exacerbated this trend. You
have pestered me to begin your treatment even though all side
effects are not yet known, but our latest project has yielded the
most effective corrective therapy so far. However, even within my
own team, I have overheard conversations which worried me. Certain
individuals have got wind of an opportunity to make the next two
years really count for them. Some of my most trusted staff could be
involved in pirating the new process, purely for personal gain. I
asked dad to store some papers in the safe for me, and made sure
people knew that the key research data were no longer stored at the
technical centre. It was a necessary, if unfortunate, means of
weeding out these opportunists. The papers were substitutes for the
bona fide ones. At the very least, the perpetrators can do no harm
now, as all they have is a bunch of failed experiments to ponder.
However, they will now know we are on to them. So, let’s guillotine
the red mist for a while, and get on with your treatment. The
ethics people are also in disarray over what they want to try to
enforce in the next two years, so I have finally accepted that I
can begin with my first human guinea pig. I’m sorry about the
stress this has caused to the family, but we had to know where to
wield the axe with these selfish sods who were only working on our
research programme because of their unfathomable greed.”

“Jesus, I never
had you down as a spook, Eugene. Surely you could have trusted us,
you could have warned us about your little scheme.”

“You aren’t
listening, Sophie, these people are extremely cautious but clever.
It wasn’t some dickheads who broke into our homes because they
needed to feed their habit, they are probably working for
prodigiously wealthy people. This latest breakthrough affords us
the chance to suspend all further research until the purge is
complete. We can start your treatment tomorrow. It will be quite
invasive, not so much in a surgical procedure respect, but
certainly with regard to your mental recuperation. You need a good
night’s sleep. Well, go on then, off to bed.”

Even though the
three women weren’t entirely happy that they’d been kept in the
dark, it was more than a palliative that Sophie’s treatment could
begin at last. Elise walked Geraldine back to the cottage and
Sophie headed for her own space. Julien turned to his son.

“You didn’t
mention the direction our enquiries will take now that the burglars
took the bait, and their handlers realise why you have fired some
of your most trusted staff.”

“I think I’d
like to see how Sophie responds to her procedure before we dig
further into who the real movers and shakers are. Thanks for your
patience, Dad, I hope the next steps with Kolorov go well for you.
That is, after all, the most important project for all
humankind.”