The Lucifer Code (36 page)

The boy was standing in the middle of the large room on a parquet floor strewn with battered old-fashioned toys - Lego, GI Joe and countless wooden bricks, which were now in towers, each almost four feet high. When he heard the door opening the boy turned.

'Hello, Jake,' said Soames. 'Great towers.'

'Where's Uncle Milo?' the child demanded. He examined Soames's scarred skin with frank scrutiny. 'What's wrong with your face?'

Soames stepped closer to him, bent down and brought his face to within inches of Jake's. 'I don't like sunlight,' Soames said, 'and sunlight doesn't like me. What's wrong with your legs?'

Jake didn't flinch. 'They're okay.'

'But they're not your legs, are they?' Soames sneered.

Jake kept his gaze steady. 'Yes, they are. Uncle Milo gave them to me.'

Soames straightened up and moved towards one of the towers. 'I used to love building towers as high as I could then knocking them over. Why don't you knock this one over first?'

'No, thank you,' Jake said quietly. His posture had stiffened and Carvelli could tell he was scared, but he kept his head up and looked straight ahead.

'Go on, be as rough as you like, throw the bricks around the room. No one's going to tell you off,' urged Soames. The wolves moved closer and sat, panting, a few feet behind Jake. 'Try the other tower first, if you like.'

Jake shook his head.

'Or both together perhaps.'

Still Jake didn't move.

'I think you should do it,' Soames said, his voice colder. The wolves moved closer, until they were almost breathing down the back of Jake's neck. The child's knees were shaking and his lip trembled, but he didn't move. Carvelli knew what Soames and the wolves were capable of, and he wanted Jake to give in and knock down the towers, but part of him cheered on the boy's defiance. He wished he had the same courage.

Soames bent down and again pushed his face close to the boy's - even if Jake had wanted to step back, the growling wolves barred his way. Soames was angry now: his scarred lips peeled back from his incongruously perfect white teeth in a snarl. 'Knock down the fucking tower.'

The boy's whole body was trembling, his face ashen, but he stood his ground.

'You think your uncle's here,' Soames taunted. 'Don't you, Jake?'

The boy looked accusingly at Carvelli: his eyes were bright with tears but not one leaked on to his cheek. Carvelli felt himself shrivel inside. 'No, I don't,' the boy said. 'But when Milo comes to get me he'll-'

'He'll what? roared Soames. 'If Miles comes, he'll die, like your father and your whore mother died, and they'll meet up in Hell, like everyone's going to meet up in fucking Hell, including you!'

Jake scrunched up his face and put his hands over his ears.

Soames's face was red now - Carvelli had never seen him so angry. The wolves were panting, waiting for the order to attack. The back of Jake's jacket and trouser legs were flecked with their spittle. 'Your uncle Milo's probably already dead!' Soames screamed. 'Soon your grandparents will be dead too and then - and then-' Soames let out a roar of rage and pushed over the towers. Then he stormed out of the door, followed by his wolves, leaving Carvelli standing alone with Jake.

Filled with awe, Carvelli moved to the boy and laid a hand on his shoulder. 'They've gone.'

With his fingers pushed into his ears, the child shook his shoulder, trying to dislodge Carvelli's hand.

A wave of shame swept over Carvelli. removed his hand and left the room.

It was only then, when he knew he was alone, that Jake collapsed on the ground and began to cry.

*

Four hours later

'There it is,' said Fleming, squinting at the spiralling light show ahead. As the rotating shards of brightness pierced the darkness he could see the borehole.

'God, it's hot,' said the FBI tech agent, a tall black guy called Howie.

'And bright,' said Kovac. 'Better put on your masks.'

After donning his, Fleming looked up at the vast rotating fan, blowing hot air out of the red sector above. The light beyond it was so bright that even with his mask Fleming couldn't discern anything through the rotating blades except a blinding radiance. 'Wait,' he said. 'The fan's slowing.'

'It's on a thermostat,' said Amber. 'Its speed's constantly changing. There are other more sensitive temperature stabilizers in the red sector. The fan moves hot air away from the sphere. Depending on the ambient air temperature it accelerates or slows to a virtual stop.'

'So if we wait for it to stop we can get through?' said Fleming.

Amber nodded.

'How will we know when it's going to speed up again?' asked the second Delta Force operator, a thickset blond man with blue eyes.

'We won't - except when it starts going faster,' Amber replied.

'The important thing at this stage,' said Fleming, 'is to get Amber and Howie to the computer so they can do what they need to do while we run defence.'

I'll go through first,' said Kovac. 'I'll check out any problems and recon the other side.' He gestured to the other D-boy. 'You take up the rear, Olsen.'

Fleming watched Kovac dash across the gantry and scale the steel inspection ladder welded to the side of the borehole. At the top he waited just beneath the slowing blades. Now that the fan was virtually stationary Fleming could see that it had only four blades and that a man should be able to slide through the gaps between them.

Kovac extended his right arm to test the force of one of the blades coming to rest. Suddenly there was a click and the blades speeded up. Not too fast, but fast enough to give Kovac and those watching a shock.

'I'm not sure the blades actually stop,' Fleming heard Kovac say in his helmet speaker. 'I'll try while they're still moving.'

Then, before Fleming could counsel him to wait, the Delta Force leader lunged for one of the blades and gripped it. As the blade rotated above the pit, Kovac shinned up on to its curved surface and mounted it then vanished into the brightness beyond. Fleming felt dizzy.

'I'm through,' said Kovac casually. 'Looking good. There's a maintenance ledge to one side and the ladder carries on up. Who's next?'

They all looked at each other then up at the fan, which was still rotating a few clicks faster than looked safe. Fleming stepped forward and ran across the gantry. He climbed the ladder and waited, as Kovac had, just below the fan. Up close, even at this speed, the blades still seemed to be moving too fast. He waited, gathering his courage, feeling like a pedestrian trying to cross a Formula One racetrack. The blades slowed, there was a click and the fan stopped.

Two hands appeared through one of the gaps above him. 'Come on, I'll pull you through.'

He reached up and felt Kovac's powerful hands take his arms and lift him through the fan.

Half-way up, when the blades were level with his groin, he heard another click and the blades moved. His heart almost stopped and his first instinct was to let go, but the fan barely moved, just pushed him closer to the ledge where Kovac was standing.

There, Fleming looked around him. Soames's sphere of light was suspended within two intersecting hoops no more than ten feet above him. The fireball seemed brighter and more volatile than the last time he had seen it and, even with his eye protection, he had to squint. To his right was a ladder that ran up the side of the borehole to a doorway twenty feet above, which led into the control room and the laboratories that encircled the globe of light. He could just make out the tinted viewing window's and wondered if the doorway accessed the laboratory where he, Bukowski and Tripp had developed the upgraded NeuroTranslator for Soames.

'Come on,' Kovac whispered into his microphone.

Amber was next and since the fan remained static her light frame was easy to pull through the gaps. Special Agent Howie followed.

Only one more to come: the second Delta Force operator.

The fan clicked and picked up speed.

'Shit,' whispered Kovac. He checked his watch and glanced at Amber. 'We'll wait a few minutes for it to slow again but if it doesn't we'll have to go on without him. We've lost so much time and I don't know how long you're going to need to do your stuff.'

'Neither do I,' said Amber.

Another click. The fan slowed.

'Come on, Olsen,' Kovac whispered.

Fleming braced himself and, with Kovac, reached down as the blades came to a stop. He took the Delta Force operator's right arm and Kovac took the left. The man was heavy with all his kit but they wrestled him through the gap. He was almost clear of the fan when it clicked again.

Nothing happened.

The man looked up at Fleming and grinned with relief.

Then he was no longer grinning.

It happened so fast that Fleming could only stare in horror as the fan kicked into high speed, wrenching the man from his and Kovac's grip. For some seconds the Delta Force operator rotated with the fan blades as if he was on a carousel. But as the speed picked up he was squeezed down through the blades like a carrot through a blender. All the time, as the fan macerated him from the feet up, his surprised face stared up at Fleming.

It was over in seconds and Fleming didn't even hear the thump as the man's remains fell into the pit below. In many ways that was the most startling and unsettling thing: aside from the blades chewing up his body, the man had made no sound.

The FBI agent leant forward and vomited.

Kovac turned to Amber, who was staring into the whirring fan. His jaw muscles twitched but otherwise he showed no emotion. 'This makes it even more important to finish what we came here to do.'

Amber was still staring at the fan.

Kovac took her head in one massive hand and forced her to look at him. 'Are you up for this, Dr Grant? Because if you're not then this whole fuck-up has been a waste of time.'

Amber blinked.

Fleming put a hand on her shoulder. 'Come on, Amber, let's get on with it.'

She nodded. Her face was still pale but the fire had returned to her eyes.

'Let's go,' said Kovac, turning to climb the ladder.

The door at the top of the ladder opened on to a deserted laboratory. Following Kovac's lead Amber crouched low and shuffled into the white room behind him and Fleming. To her left, she saw a body surrogate like the one Fleming had shown her at Barley Hall. What had he called it? Brian.

Next to the mannequin, atop a gleaming workbench, she recognized Fleming's updated NeuroTranslator and Soames's soul-capture head-sphere. 'I thought that stuff was on the Red Ark,' she said.

'The bastard was leaving nothing to chance - he made a back-up.' Frowning as he spoke, Fleming stared at the apparatus as if he was thinking something through. Then he looked through the tinted window to the pulsing orb of light beyond. Amber?' His eyes were bright with excitement.

'Yes.'

'Ssh,' hissed Kovac ahead of them. He pointed to his right.

Amber looked through the tinted viewing screen, past the glass sphere of light and into the laboratory area on the other side of the borehole. A guard stood outside the sliding doors and inside someone was at a console staring into a screen. His tall frame and bald head were familiar: Walter Tripp. Amber scanned the laboratory circuit surrounding the glass sphere, searching for Bukowski, but there was no sign of her.

'That must be where the master controls are,' she whispered. 'We must get him away from the console before he can warn anyone. How do we do that?'

Kovac turned to her. 'You need to interrogate him?'

'Not really. I can find out everything we need to know from the computer, and I wouldn't trust what he told us, anyway. I just need him away from the controls. Can you do that?'

The Delta Force leader smiled at her; it was a cold, hard smile. 'Sure. Wait here.'

Crouched beside Fleming and the FBI agent, she watched through the tinted glass as Kovac stole round the circle of interconnecting laboratories, passing the steps to the raised elevator platform. She lost sight of him for a moment, then saw the guard on the other side of the borehole collapse. Seconds later Kovac rose in his place, crouching outside the sliding doors to the area where Tripp was standing.

She watched them open and Tripp turn. He appeared puzzled rather than alarmed, no doubt secure in this impregnable fortress of technology. She saw him say something, but couldn't hear what. Then he left his station and wandered to the door. He seemed to be calling someone.

Suddenly he disappeared below the viewing window and Kovac beckoned to them through the glass.

Amber followed in his footsteps and found herself in the main control centre. Both the guard and Tripp lay motionless on the ground, eyes wide open, their necks bent at an odd angle. Tripp looked as worried in death as he always had in life, and Amber turned away hurriedly: she had seen enough of death in the last few days to last her a lifetime.

The control room hadn't changed since she had been here last a few years ago, and she was relieved to see that the main screen in front of her was live. Tripp had been monitoring the progress of the vast computer and was already in the system, which meant she wouldn't have to break in. At last their luck was changing. Reaching for the on-screen controls, she touched the Datafile Manager icon and pressed the quick-browse button. The screen scrolled down lists of files so fast it was impossible to read each line. At the bottom there was a number of at least seven digits.