The God Particle (22 page)

There was less than two feet before the floor ran out. Ajay
scrambled onto Tom’s back and, with the agility of a chimpanzee, climbed onto
his shoulders. He reached out, but he was at the wrong angle; he was too far
forward to be able to stretch around the end of the carriage to press the
button.

The extra weight on Tom made the bindings on his wrists cut
deeper into his flesh, making him wince, perspiration spontaneously forming on
his top lip. But then, just as suddenly the pain subsided, the pressure forcing
him downwards was relieved. He looked up to see that Ajay had climbed onto the
rail and was edging himself backwards.

Tom was now on the brink of being pulled off the platform.
He strained to keep his footing, but his smooth-soled shoes couldn’t get a
purchase on the metal floor.

‘Now, Ajay!’ Tom cried.

Ajay leapt off the rail towards his target. He knew that he
would only have the one chance. Fortunately, the movement was choreographed to
perfection – he hit the button dead centre and the train came to a shuddering
halt. He had been concentrating so much on his objective that he hadn’t
contemplated his landing, and he struck the gantry with a resounding thud,
knocking the wind out of him.

Tom balanced over the edge at a forty-five degree angle; the
heels of his shoes were the only part connecting him to the platform. He tried
to look back to see what had caused the commotion, but couldn’t crane his neck
far enough to see.

‘Ajay? Are you alright?’ No answer. He tried again. ‘Ajay,
are you hurt?’ This time he heard movement, followed by a rasping sound as Ajay
tried to catch his breath.

‘I’m… fine,’ Ajay gasped, still trying to suck in enough air
to fill his lungs.

‘Thank God.’ Tom let out a sigh of relief. ‘Can you get to
my bindings?’

Ajay got unsteadily to his feet and made his way over to
Tom.

‘Climb over me and onto the rail again,’ Tom instructed. He
braced himself against the inevitable pain as Ajay clambered on his back and
then onto his shoulders before leveraging himself up onto the track, with less
deftness than before. Tom gritted his teeth, knowing that the agony would soon
pass.

‘Can you bite through the ties?’

‘No need, Sahib. I have a penknife.’ Ajay reached into his
pocket and produced his trusty Swiss army knife. He selected the sawing tool
and went to work. The lightweight plastic handcuffs were no match for the
sharpened teeth of the blade; within two strokes, one was completely cut
through. The sudden release caught Tom off-guard, forcing him to lean against
the remaining tie to stop himself toppling over.

‘Give me a second to get my balance,’ he shouted up to Ajay,
who was poised to slice through the second thin plastic cuff. ‘Okay, but slowly
this time.’

Tom tried to anticipate the breaking point, shifting all his
weight onto his heels. It still caught him out when the band snapped, but he
had judged it right and he toppled backwards, landing safely, if not a little
undignified, on his rear.

‘Sorry, Sahib,’ Ajay shouted down at him.

With no time to waste, Tom sprang to his feet and dusted
himself off. He eyed the carriage above his head that he had been shackled to
and judged that, if he could just jump high enough, he should be able to cling
onto it and use it to haul himself onto the rail.

He bent his knees and launched himself upwards. His fingers
caught the upper edge of the wagon and he held on. Using his upper body
strength, he slowly pulled himself up. At times like these, which weren’t that
often, he wished he had his brother’s physique. His arms strained to lift the
dead weight, his face flushed under the exertion and veins protruded, throbbing
at his temples, but he was determined not to give up. With a final gargantuan
effort, he hauled his torso onto the carriage and let his legs dangle over the
edge, out of breath and exhausted.

Ajay grabbed him by the arm and gently coaxed him onto the
rail. They sat side by side for a moment whilst Tom recuperated. ‘Thanks, Ajay.
You may have just saved our lives,’ he managed to say between pants.

***

‘According to the plans, the lift shaft descends to a
corridor, which leads to a large room.’ Gervaux pointed out the features on the
drawings, which were laid out on the floor of the first floor office in the
disused building.

They had taken refuge there from the biting cold of the car
park whilst waiting for the dog handler to return. Despite being indoors,
Gervaux’s breath fogged as he spoke. ‘How can we get access to that room?’ He
was directing his comment at the Chief Security Officer, whose curiosity had
overridden his desire to stay in the warmth of his office.

‘I have no idea. I didn’t even know that room existed.’

‘Well, the lift obviously goes to it,’ Gervaux replied
sharply, irked by the Security Officer’s lack of cooperation. ‘How long will it
take to get a lift engineer on-site?’

‘The company that installed the lift are based in Lucerne.
Normally it would take them three hours to get here. But, with the snow and the
road blocks, I’d say you’re looking at closer to five.’

‘In five hours they could have tunnelled their way out the
other side,’ Gervaux said morosely.

Regretting the decision to leave the comfort of his office,
the head of security decided to return. He made up an excuse that he had to get
back to alert the office staff that there was going to be a possible breach of
protocol by allowing the policemen officers to go underground when an
experiment was running, and left them to it.

‘Moron,’ Gervaux muttered as the lift doors closed behind
the Officer.

‘There is an alternative,’ Lavelle proffered.

The inspector shot him a weary glance.

‘We could always ask one of the technical experts here.
We’re surrounded by boffins and eggheads. Surely, if they are capable of
building a machine to discover the origins of the universe, cracking a lift code
should be a piece of cake to them.’

‘Brilliant, Lavelle! Get onto it straight away.’ Gervaux’s
rare praise for his sergeant went some way towards making up for his previous
faux pas.

***

Tom and Ajay crawled along the track to reach Frederick.
While Tom supported his weight, Ajay cut the ties. They then both dragged the
scientist’s debilitated body onto the rail. Frederick seemed to be in a
critical condition. At first, Tom feared for his life. However, as the bindings
were cut and they hauled him up, he let out a low, guttural moan. It took him a
few seconds to come round. He was initially unaware of his surroundings; but,
when he saw Ajay, his eyes lit up. He reached up feebly and touched his face to
make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

‘Ajay, where have you been?’ he croaked.

‘Here. I didn’t know where else to go. Deiter threatened to
kill me, but I knew as long as I stayed on the complex Shiva would protect me.’

Frederick rested his hand on his son’s shoulder and looked
earnestly into his eyes. ‘I’m afraid Shiva has failed you… and so have I.’

‘How have you survived for the past two days? What have you
been eating and drinking?’ Tom asked.

‘Mary, from the canteen, smuggled some food out for me,’
replied Ajay. ‘I met her after work, behind the kitchens, when everybody had
gone home. I think she took pity on me when she caught me rummaging through the
bins.’

‘Well, thank God for Mary, and thank God you were around to
save us,’ said Tom. He meant it sincerely, despite being an atheist.

‘I saw Deiter and those guards pushing Serena along the
corridor,’ continued Ajay. ‘So I followed them here. Then I discovered you and
my father tied up, so I waited in the shadows for an opportunity to rescue
you.’

‘We’re not out of the woods yet,’ replied Tom. ‘Let’s get
Frederick back to the gantry and then save Serena.’

***

They were all gathered safely on the platform. It had taken
Tom and Ajay fifteen minutes to free their colleagues. Frederick had recovered
enough to stand on his own two feet, albeit with the support of Ajay to lean
on. Serena seemed to have fared better and, apart from some deep welts where
the ties had dug in, she was back to her normal, indefatigable self.

‘Do you think Deiter will be aware we’ve escaped?’ she
asked.

‘I think there’s a pretty good chance of it.’ Tom pointed up
to the last carriage, the one Deiter had selected to carry him to his death.
‘Watch!’ Tom walked to the far side of the gantry. The pan-tilt zoom
surveillance camera followed his every move. He turned around and walked back –
again, the camera tracked his path. Tom gave it a friendly wave before
addressing the group. ‘Which means we’d better get the hell out of here before
Deiter’s henchmen get back.’

They made their way down the metal ladder as quickly as they
could. However, it was obvious, even before they reached the last rung, that
Frederick was slowing them down, despite Ajay’s assistance. Altruistically, he
was the first to voice what they already knew.

‘You’d have more of a chance without me,’ he said. ‘You
three go ahead. Perhaps I can lead them off in a different direction and give
you a few minutes head start.’

‘I’m not leaving without you,’ Ajay stated adamantly.

‘Please, Ajay,’ Frederick implored. ‘Your mother needs you.
How will she be able to carry the groceries in, if neither of us are around to
help her?’ He smiled weakly.

Ajay’s eyes welled up and his bottom lip began to quiver.
‘We can both get out of here and help her together.’ His response didn’t carry
much conviction.

The sound of gunfire caught everybody by surprise, echoing
off the walls of the vast tunnel behind them. They turned in unison to see the
two goons tearing towards them in a golf buggy, the muzzle flashes clearly
visible from the automatic weapon. Although they were some distance away, the
bullets were winging off the metal fixings all around them. It was obvious the
shooters were going for quantity over quality, hopeful of hitting their targets
through shear firepower rather than any accurately-placed shots.

‘Go!’ shouted Frederick over the sounds of the machine gun
fire. ‘You need to escape. Millions of lives are depending on you.’

Tom and Serena turned and sprinted away from their pursuers,
bullets ricocheting around them. Fifty metres further on, Tom spotted another
two figures approaching them from the opposite direction, effectively cutting
off their escape route. He pulled Serena off to his left and into a small
service shaft that ran adjacent to the main tunnel. He knew that the reprieve
from the barrage would only be temporary, but the narrowness of this passage
meant that their assailants would have to abandon their vehicle and follow them
on foot, psychologically levelling the playing field, if only slightly. In
reality, they would still have four, fully-armed mercenaries chasing them, intent
on their annihilation.

Ajay’s eyes darted from his father to the approaching
vehicle, to the fleeing fugitives and then back to his father, trying to make
up his mind what to do.

‘Please Ajay, save yourself,’ Frederick pleaded.

Suddenly, he seemed to have made a decision. His body
stiffened and he grabbed his father firmly underneath one arm, pulling him in
the direction of the other two. The golf buggy was less than two hundred metres
from them and closing fast. They needed to cover the distance to the service
tunnel before the gunmen found their range. The problem now was that they had
to cross open ground,
the killing zone
as the militia imaginatively
label it. Spurts from the automatic weapons were immediately followed by the
sound of bullets whizzing around them, like lightning followed by a crack of
thunder when a storm’s directly overhead.

They had less than ten metres to go when Ajay stumbled
forward. However, instead of instinctively stretching out his arms to break his
fall, he hit the ground, chin first and lay still. Frederick’s momentum meant
that he had to backtrack to where his son lay. He knelt down beside Ajay,
suddenly unaware of everything else going on around him. Grabbing him by the
shoulder, he rolled him onto his back. There was a deep gash on his chin, which
was bleeding profusely; rivulets of blood ran down his neck and onto his shirt,
mixing with the spreading crimson patch, emanating from a small black hole in
his chest.

Lavelle had been right. It had taken no time at all for one
of the technicians to work out that the elevator was, indeed, capable of
descent from the ground floor. He had taken off the control panel and by-passed
the key activation using a simple wire connection.

Gervaux had just called in a forensics team to comb the
large, windowless room for DNA samples, when they heard the faint, but
distinct, sound of an automatic weapon being discharged. The two officers
instinctively drew their standard issue 9mm SIG-Sauer P226 semi-automatic
pistols from their shoulder holsters and made their way out of the room and
across the corridor.

The inspector cautiously opened the door, his pistol raised
in front of him. Lavelle was at his shoulder adopting a similar stance. The
muffled sound of the gunfire instantly became clearer, but was still remote.
Crouching low to present as small a target as possible, they ran down the
tunnel towards the firefight, hugging the wall for cover.

As the chatter from the machine gun reached an almost
deafening pitch, amplified by the acoustics of the tunnel, Gervaux could make
out the shape of a man and woman running towards them. However, before he had
time to shout out for them to stop, they veered off into a side tunnel. Behind
them he could see two other people heading in his direction and, further
beyond, a golf buggy closing the gap. One of the runners seemed to fall, but
didn’t get up. His partner stopped and went back to attend to him.

Intuition and training had given Gervaux the ability to read
the dynamics of a situation within a split second. He instinctively assessed
that the immediate threat was coming from the golf buggy and opened fire,
aiming at its tyres. Lavelle, who was now standing by his side, followed his
boss’s lead, hitting the front right wheel with his first volley and making the
cart skid to a screeching halt. The two men quickly decamped from their vehicle
and took cover behind it, returning fire.

Finding themselves exposed, the two officers ran for the
safety of the service tunnel they had seen the man and woman disappear into.
Once there, they checked their weapons for ammunition. Each had a spare clip,
but they knew they were no match for their adversary’s arsenal. It was time for
negotiation.

‘Police! Put your weapons down and come out with your hands
up,’ Gervaux yelled.

He received a quick burst of automatic fire in response.

It was time to up the ante. ‘Reinforcements are already on
their way. If you give yourself up now, it will go in your favour.’

Another burst, but this time it was followed by the sound of
retreating footsteps.

‘Last chance!’ Gervaux shouted. ‘Hand over your weapons.’

Silence.

Gervaux gingerly poked his head out of their refuge. He
could see the two gunmen had abandoned their position and were running flat-out
in the opposite direction.

‘Shouldn’t we go after them?’ Lavelle enquired.

‘Not with these pea-shooters,’ replied Gervaux, indicating
to his weapon. ‘Call in reinforcements. Give them their descriptions and tell
them they are armed and extremely dangerous.’

Whilst his sergeant was on the radio, the inspector made his
way over to Frederick and the crumpled form on the floor, expecting the worst.
He was surprised to see that the boy was still breathing – shallow breaths, but
alive all the same. He bent down next to Frederick to inspect the wound. The
small hole in his chest was still seeping blood. He slid his hand underneath
the boy’s back but couldn’t feel any wetness.

‘You need to put pressure over the bullet hole to stem the
bleeding,’ he told Frederick. ‘Here, use my handkerchief and press down
firmly.’

Frederick did as he was instructed. ‘Will he live?’
Frederick’s eyes searched the inspector’s, imploring him to give him the right
answer.

‘I’m no doctor,’ replied Gervaux, ‘but I have seen enough
bullet wounds to say that he must have caught a ricochet. If it had been a
direct hit from an automatic rifle, there would be an exit wound the size of a
grapefruit and he wouldn’t be breathing at all.’ He paused to take another look
at the boy. ‘He’s still got the bullet in him; but if it’s missed his vital
organs and we can get him to the hospital soon, then there’s a good chance
he’ll survive.’

Frederick’s relief was palpable. His shoulders shook as fat,
wet tears ran down his face. However, he still maintained the constant pressure
on his son’s wound, determined to keep him alive.

‘Get an air ambulance here, immediately,’ Gervaux called
over to his sergeant.

***

Deiter was watching his plans unravel on the CCTV cameras in
the Chief Security Guard’s office, who was seated next to him, his eyes glazed,
staring lifelessly at the monitor. A single trickle of blood ran down his face
from the third eye drilled into his forehead by Deiter’s bullet. The back of
his head was a different story. His hair was matted with blood and brain tissue
as the projectile had exited and embedded itself in the wall opposite, making a
splatter pattern a psychiatrist would be proud of. Deiter had already
interpreted it as an eagle in full flight bearing down on a small animal,
possibly a rabbit or a cat.

Everything had seemed to be going so well. He had seen the
Chief Security Officer leaving his hut, on the way back to the control room
with his two henchmen, so he had not terminated him there and then, as was the
original plan. He sent one of his men into the security office to monitor the
progress of his passenger train, while he went to the main building to
initialise the Collider start-up procedure. He was halfway through the sequence
when the guard ran in to tell him that the prisoners were escaping. He
immediately dispatched both men to put a stop to it, while he went to the
security office to orchestrate proceedings via a two-way radio.

Expecting to find it empty, he was surprised to see the
Chief Security Officer in his seat, eyes glued to the monitor, watching the
drama unfold. He was about to alert his team when he noticed Deiter in the
doorway attaching a suppressor to his handgun. Without a word, Deiter closed
the door behind him, sat down next to the petrified man, put the muzzle to his
forehead and pulled the trigger. Then, after deciphering the ink blot image on
the wall behind him, he calmly returned his gaze to the screen.

His frustration at seeing Ajay rescuing Tom and then the
others had turned to a seething rage by the time his men had reached the scene.
Why hadn’t he killed the little bastard when he’d had the chance?
What
was even more annoying was the fact that these highly-trained killers, who he’d
paid a small fortune for, wouldn’t win a prize in a duck shoot at a fairground
let alone hit a moving target. He watched helplessly as Tom and Serena escaped
down a service tunnel. Then Ajay hit the floor and he almost jumped out of his
seat with excitement. Unfortunately, his elation was short-lived as he noticed
the two policemen returning fire.

‘Kill them! Kill them!’ he shouted into the radio-mic. But,
to his disgust, instead of putting up a fight, his two operatives high-tailed
it back down the tunnel.

He slumped back in his chair, deflated. But then he realised
that, although Tom and Serena were still on the loose, he could track them
using the face recognition software installed in the CCTV cameras. He leant
forward and flicked through the screens, picking the two of them up as they
headed back to the accommodation block.
Surely they weren’t going to hide in
there?

The cameras tracked them entering their rooms, only to exit
seconds later.
Obviously they’d gone to retrieve something. Morantz’s file,
maybe?
But Deiter couldn’t see any evidence that either of them were
carrying it. He watched as they surreptitiously made their way through the
complex, checking each corridor before making their moves. The CCTV screens in
the security office changed as they left one surveillance zone and into the
range of another camera.

‘Where are you going?’ Deiter said out loud to himself. He
checked the plan of the facility on the wall against their movements. They
seemed to be heading for the visitor centre.
But why? It didn’t make any
sense.
He checked the map again.
No, not the visitor centre – the
private airstrip behind it.

***

The detour to their rooms to collect their passports was a
necessary risk. Although private air travel affords its passengers a greater
degree of flexibility and less red tape, documents would still need to be
checked and verified by the receiving airport on arrival. New York’s Long
Island MacArthur Airport was no different.

Although still some two hundred miles and three hours by car
from MIT, Tom felt like he was going home and, with it, came a sense of
security. They had chosen the regional airport over JFK, LaGuardia or Newark
for two specific reasons. Firstly, Tom was unsure whether the manhunt Deiter
had alluded to extended to international boundaries. If it did, they would have
a better chance of avoiding detection through a smaller provincial airport
where officials tended to be more parochial.

Secondly, it was the nearest airport to their destination
and time was of the essence. The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) was
located at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, less than twenty-five miles
away from the airport.

The RHIC was the only other particle collider in existence
and, although smaller than its Swiss counterpart, the electromagnetic fields
generated during its operation still made it the world’s second largest
man-made magnet.

During their incarceration, Tom, Frederick and Serena had
theorised that, if the butterfly effect of the LHC had instigated the polar
reversal in the first place, then, hypothetically speaking, if a similar force
were generated in an opposing geographical area, then the resultant reaction
could slow down the polar progression enough to give the Earth time to adjust
to its new environment, lessening the destructive phenomena they had witnessed
over the last few days. Stopping the polar reversal itself was impossible; it
would be like a swimmer trying to halt a cruise liner in mid-voyage. However,
by using the RHIC as a tugboat to pull the Earth’s magnetic core the other way,
then, in theory…

That’s all it was, though. A theory,
Tom thought to
himself. He went over their masterplan again as he reclined in the black
leather seat in the French-built Dassault Falcon
. But what options did they
have left
? He had to rely on his scientific doctrine in the hope that it
bore fruit.

He looked across the aisle to the seat opposite him, where
Serena was curled up in a tight ball, like a cat asleep in front of an open
fire. They had cleaned and dressed each other’s wounds using the rudimentary
first aid kit on board and now sported matching crepe bandages, which could
pass as sweatbands at a quick glance. Tom noticed Serena’s shoulders
shuddering; she was either sobbing or having a bad dream. Either was
understandable given what they had just been through. He tried to reassure her.

‘It’s alright, we’re safe now,’ he said, but there was no
answer.

He picked up the in-flight satellite phone and placed a
call. Towards the end of the conversation, he realised he was slurring his
words through exhaustion. He hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since leaving
American soil and, with the adrenalin-fuelled activities over the past couple
of days, he was totally spent. The last thoughts he had before drifting off
were of Frederick and Ajay and he did something he seemed to be making a habit
of recently – said a silent prayer for them.

***

‘Welcome to the United States of America,’ came the pilot’s
voice over the intercom, stirring the two passengers from their deep slumber.
‘Please put your seatbelts on and return your chairs to an upright position as
we will be landing shortly. Thank you.’

Tom awoke, disoriented. He cleared the sleep from his eyes
and took in the plush features of the private jet: polished walnut trim, finest
Italian calf leather seats and thick-pile carpet.

When they had discussed their plan back in the Bunker, Tom
expressed his concern that its success was dependent on them getting out of the
country and that they would probably be arrested as soon as they stepped foot
in either Geneva or Zurich airport. Frederick pointed out that, as Director
General of CERN, he had at his disposal the two Dassault Falcons, one of the
few perks of the job. They could file a flight plan under an alias and explain
the mix-up as a clerical error once they were on American soil. Their US
passports should help expedite the repatriation.

‘Morning,’ said Serena, stretching her arms over her head to
wake herself up.

‘Is it?’ Tom replied groggily.

‘Well, not strictly speaking,’ she replied, yawning. ‘My
watch says it’s eleven o’clock in the evening, but then you Americans are a bit
backward. Six hours, to be precise. So that would be… five o’clock Eastern
Daylight Time.’

‘Don’t you class yourself as a US citizen?’

‘Only when it suits.’

‘You do hold an American passport, though, don’t you?’ A note
of anxiety edged into Tom’s voice.

‘It’s a little bit late to be asking those sorts of
questions, Mr Halligan,’ Serena replied. ‘We’re about to touch down in the good
ol’ US of A.’ To placate him, she reached into her breast pocket and produced
the navy blue booklet emblazoned with the bald eagle coat of arms.

‘You had me worried for a minute, there.’

She smiled impishly. ‘You’re so easy to wind up.’