The Tower (13 page)

He turned his head to the front of the plane in time to see the nose break through the clouds revealing the stars in the clear night. The turbulence melted away almost instantly and his arms relaxed around the laptop – but only a little.

He could sense that Franklin was still smiling at him but he did not look in his direction. He might tell him the story of his lost years one day, but not yet. Not until he had learned the ending for himself. Until then, he would do his level best to stay on the investigation for as long as he could. So he closed his eyes and sifted through what he knew, trying to work out the links between a missing Nobel laureate, nearly a year’s worth of lost space data and something that had happened in the city of Ruin eight months earlier.

Gabriel slipped across the Orontes River marking the border between Syria and Turkey just after midnight on the fifth day. He had walked his horse for much of the way, resting it during the heat of the days and wary of the dry dust kicked up by galloping hooves. Several times he had spotted patrols in the distance and pulled the horse to the ground, lying beside it until they had passed, shivering despite the desert heat and the fever that rose and fell inside him like lava.

During the nights he had shivered from real cold as the chill of space settled back on the earth, the crackle and boom of distant battles showing him where the civil war raged so he could steer a course around it. He rode harder then, his way lit only by the stars and his desire to keep going.

At the height of his fever, rocked almost unconscious by the movement of his horse across the vast desert, he had imagined his father riding with him, pointing out the spots of long-ago battles and bringing forth the ghosts of those that had died here. Ottoman sultans, Persian caliphates, Roman emperors, Alexander the Great, they had all fought for a land no man could ever really own. St Paul had walked here too, converting to Christianity on the long road to Damascus, moving away from the very place Gabriel was trying so hard to get to.

By the time he reached the river marking the end of Syria and the beginning of Turkey, he was half dead from the disease that consumed him from within and half frozen from cold. He found a spot between two checkpoints and slipped into the dark night river, clinging to the swimming horse as if he were crossing the Styx and the horse was the only thing stopping him from drifting away into the underworld.

Not yet
– he told himself and held on tighter –
just a few more hours, then death could have him.

He rose with the horse, throwing his body over it so it lifted him clear of the river, then lay across its back, dripping and shivering, letting the horse drink for a long while before finally spurring it forward one last time.

The civil war had brought battalions of troops to the border, so he moved slowly at first, picking his way carefully past the military posts, before galloping the last seventy kilometres along the long dusty tracks that ran for miles through the olive and pistachio groves.

He entered the city of Ruin as dawn was lightening the sky and the city was beginning to stir. Ahead of him he could see the Citadel rising sheer and black at the centre of the city, so high the summit was lit by sunlight that had yet to rise above the rim of the surrounding mountains.

He kept to the centre of the great wide boulevard running straight to the heart of the city and away from the early risers who stared mutely at this lone horseman moving past the cars and souvenir shops. He knew the Old Town, locked each night behind its portcullises and seven-metre-thick walls, would be preparing to let the first tourists of the day inside. As soon as the sun peeped above the mountains and bathed the Old Town with light the gates would open and he would charge straight at them, relying on his appearance and the flying hooves to scatter the tourists. He would then ride to the top of the hill and ring the ascension bell at the Tribute dock, demanding that they pull him up and into the mountain. The monk Athanasius would know why he was there. They had to let him in. Just a few more minutes and his journey would be over.

He reached the end of the boulevard and cut across Suleiman Park towards the main public gate. It was the widest of all the entrances and would, he hoped, allow people to get out of his way when he charged at them. He didn’t want to hurt anyone and certainly didn’t want to touch anyone and risk passing on the fever that burned inside him.

He passed under the final tree, the foliage parting to reveal the Old Town wall. Then he saw them, two ghosts standing sentinel in shrouds of white. In his delirium he thought they must be visions of death, waiting to claim him, but as his horse carried him closer he saw that they were real.

The skull-like eyes of one turned to him then motioned to the other.

He heard the rustle of their sterile suits as they moved towards him, saw the HazMat chevrons and quarantine sign behind them, and realized – as exhaustion and defeat finally dragged him from his horse – that he was too late. The disease he had carried out of the Citadel, and travelled so far to bring back again, had already spread.

The transport plane dropped below the cloud barely two hundred feet above a field of whiteness so bright Shepherd had to squint to make out Redstone Army airfield with the space centre beyond stretching all the way to the horizon.

‘Pilot, you sure this is Alabama and not Alaska?’ Franklin’s voice crackled through the drone of the engines.

‘They got weather like this all over the South,’ the pilot replied, ‘biggest dump since records began. Christmassy though, ain’t it? If it’s nice weather you wanted we should have flown north. Apparently they got a heat wave in Chicago. World’s gone crazy.’

‘End of days,’ Franklin muttered loud enough for Shepherd to hear. ‘Maybe Kinderman was on to something.’

The tyres squealed against the frozen tarmac as they touched down on the cleared runway and the smell of scorched rubber seeped into the hold, making Shepherd feel slightly sick. He hadn’t slept all night, had barely eaten anything and the flight had been so bumpy he felt like he’d been beaten up.

‘You think NASA might stand us a little breakfast?’ Franklin asked, demonstrating again his uncanny knack of sniffing out a raw nerve and tweaking it.

‘I can take you to the canteen,’ Shepherd said, breathing in freezing air that smelt of rubber and trying hard not to think about the greasy piles of bacon and hash browns laid on each morning for the seven thousand space centre personnel.

Franklin smiled. ‘In that case I’m actually glad I brought you along.’

The plane jerked to a stop with the same lack of grace as the rest of the flight and freezing air flooded the hold as the rear-loading ramp began to lower.

Outside, a Ford Explorer was waiting for them, its engine running and sending thick clouds of exhaust fumes past the NASA logo on the side. A man in a dark blue parka with a security badge stitched on the sleeve got out of the passenger door and stood with his hands crossed in front of him. He was a carbon copy of the Security Chief at Goddard: same solid weightlifter’s build; same flat face; Shepherd bet he had the same neat office with a picture of his youthful self on the wall.

‘Dave Ellery,’ the man said, extending his hand to Franklin who led the way down the ramp. ‘I’m Chief of Security here.’ He wore gloves against the cold and didn’t bother taking them off when he shook hands. Not friendly at all. It was a territorial thing stemming from the fact that the FBI had cross-state jurisdiction and could take over an investigation if they decided to. No one likes meeting a bigger fish, especially in law enforcement. Ellery gestured to the rear doors and got back into the front passenger seat without saying another word.

The inside of the basic Explorer was like five-star luxury after the plane. It was super-heated, the seats were padded and Shepherd felt an ache in his fingers and toes as blood started working its way back into them.

‘You fellas sure picked a day for it,’ Ellery said, staring out from behind black shades at the white landscape.

‘From what I heard they done hijacked your weather and shipped it off to Chicago,’ Franklin said, subtly upping his southern accent to match Ellery’s. It was a technique they taught at Quantico called subject mirroring that implied kinship and helped promote trust, though Shepherd suspected it might be somewhat lost on the frosty Security Chief, who had probably done the same course anyway.

‘I didn’t mean just the weather,’ Ellery said without elaborating.

‘Bad day already?’

‘I’ll say. I’m running short-staffed and we’ve had to evacuate one of the research facilities because of a helium leak. You can’t mess with that stuff. Had to shut the entire building down.’ He removed a box file from an attaché case by his feet and handed it to Franklin in the back seat. ‘I dug out those documents you asked for.’

The word
THREATS
was written on the file in thick marker pen. Franklin opened it and slid out twelve clear plastic folders, each containing correspondence from a different month.
January
contained a one-page note typed on an old-fashioned typewriter that said:

Dear NASA,

Quit wasting tax dollars shooting junk up into space. The army needs equipment bad. Spend money on that you assholes or I will personally shoot the man pushing the launch button. I am deadly serious.

A Patriot

‘’Course that’s just the physical stuff,’ Ellery said. ‘We get ten times as much mail over the internet. I can show you that in my office if you want.’

Franklin sorted through the plastic folders until he found one marked
May
, the month Dr Kinderman had received his first card.

‘Is it true what I heard, Hubble got knocked offline?’ Ellery asked.

‘That’s classified information. And whatever you heard we would ’preciate you keeping it under your hat, sir. You know how rumours can get in the way of an investigation.’ Franklin’s accent was travelling down through Georgia and getting further south all the time.

He handed
January
through
April
to Shepherd and popped the fastener on
May
, carefully sliding out the contents to keep them in order. May had clearly been a bumper month for the crazies. Top of the pile was an almost illiterate letter written in crayon with some photos of astronauts stuck to it with their faces burned out by a cigarette. Below that was a photo of the Challenger shuttle exploding, with a future date and I WILL MAKE THIS HAPPEN AGEN written on it. The next item was a postcard with a Renaissance painting of the Tower of Babel on the front. Franklin showed it to Shepherd then flipped it over. On the back, in a familiar neat hand was written:

“And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name.”

‘You get any more like this?’ Franklin held up the card and Ellery’s head swivelled round to see it.

‘One a month since May, reg’lar as clockwork.’

‘Was the Professor bothered by them?’

‘Not especially.’

‘But he did see them?’

‘Sure, they were addressed to him.’

‘Did you mention them to Chief Pierce over at Goddard?’

Ellery snorted. ‘Why would I do that? Chief Pierce has his own fair share of nut-jobs to deal with I’m damn sure he don’t need any of mine.’

Franklin handed the remaining files to Shepherd leaving himself with
December
. ‘Did you get another one this month?’

‘No. Matter of fact we did not.’

Franklin popped the fastener. ‘Don’t tell me, you got a letter instead, one that was typed but similar in tone.’

Ellery paused. ‘How did you know that?’

Franklin didn’t answer. He had already found the twin of the A5 manila envelope that had been sent to Kinderman. It was in its own plastic folder next to the letter it had contained. Franklin held it out so Shepherd could read it. It was identical to the first one except for one small detail.

‘Least he didn’t call this one a Sodomite,’ Franklin said so only Shepherd could hear. ‘You follow this up?’ he asked Ellery.

‘Of course. We take threats seriously here, no matter how strange, vague or misguided they may appear. I sent the original up to Langley, that one there is just a copy. I sent one of the postcards too.’

‘They find anything?’

‘Who knows? These things don’t rank too high on the “hurry up” scale. Anything more important comes along – which is just about everything – stuff like this gets bumped to the bottom of the pile. Here we are, gentlemen.’

Shepherd looked up as the Explorer eased off the main road and approached the front of a mirrored building that reflected the sky making it seem like it was hardly there. Beyond it in the distance the launch towers rose above various research facility buildings that sprawled across the campus. One of them had a small crowd of people outside it wearing white, clean-room suits and was surrounded by parked emergency vehicles, their lights turning slowly.

‘Is that where the helium leak happened?’ Franklin asked.

‘Yup, that’s the cryo lab – biggest vacuum testing facility in the world. They got a test room there where they can suck every molecule of air right out of it and freeze it down to space temperatures. We use it to test all the expensive hardware before it gets launched, make sure it won’t break up in space.’

Something tightened in the pit of Shepherd’s empty stomach. ‘What are you testing in there now?’

‘Mirrors.’

‘What for?’

‘Same thing we’ve been testing all year – James Webb.’

Franklin jerked forward in his seat. ‘Driver, you need to take us over there right now.’

‘Now wait a second.’ Ellery swivelled round. ‘This is my facility. You can’t just come here and start ordering people …’

‘Yes I can,’ Franklin cut him off. ‘That’s exactly what I can do. Start driving, son.’

The driver obeyed, throwing the wheel hard over and sending the Explorer into a sharp U-turn. Ellery opened and closed his mouth like a landed fish but said nothing. Ahead of them the cryo lab swung back into view, leaking thick clouds of helium vapour like the whole place was ready to blow.