Vortex (16 page)

'That was where they gave me the injections,' Joseph finished his sentence for him. 'And that was why I had to come back. For fifty years they've been telling me that my memories are the figments of a paranoid imagination. I had to see the place once more just to prove to myself that they weren't.'

Annie was still staring at the old man. 'Fifty years,' she repeated. 'Fifty years in institutions, and you're not even mad.'

Joseph blinked. Then he smiled. He turned his bloodshot eyes to look at Annie. He stared at her for a full thirty seconds, and she winced under the force of that terrible gaze. Finally the old man spoke in a cracked, hoarse whisper.

'Oh, I'm mad, young lady,' he said. 'If that's the word you want to use, I'm perfectly mad. The drugs did their work very, very well. I'm prone to frequent psychotic episodes. I always was, even as a child, but milder then, easier to pass off as eccentricity; Lucian's treatment had the effect he wanted it to. And now, you see, I am without my medication, which only makes things worse.'

Ben and Annie glanced nervously at each other.

'But,' Joseph said suddenly and with a certain amount of force that startled the two of them, 'just because I'm mad, it doesn't make me wrong.' And as he spoke, the full vigour of his belief shone in his face. It made him look wild.

Annie shuffled uncomfortably, but Ben had another question. 'Joseph,' he asked seriously, 'if you've been in an institution for fifty years, if you're still prone to psychosis, if you need medication to keep it under control, can I ask you one thing?'

'What?' the old man said flatly.

'Why did they let you out?'

Joseph raised an eyebrow, as though he was surprised that Ben should have asked such a question. 'Let me out?' he said. 'Oh, they didn't let me out.'

'Then how--?' But Ben knew what the old man would say almost before he said it.

'I escaped,' Joseph replied matter-of-factly.

And as if that were an end to the matter, he huddled himself up again and carried on staring ahead of him, as if Ben and Annie weren't even there.

Chapter Fourteen

Air Commodore James Macpherson walked briskly down London's Horseferry Road and abruptly turned the corner into Marsham Street. It was dark now, and he was silently cursing to himself. He should have been on the motorway by this time, driving back up to Macclesfield for twenty-four hours' well-deserved leave. He had been looking forward to seeing his wife for ages, and it was just a shame Annie was away for a couple of days with her cousin. He smiled briefly to himself. Little Annie had grown up so fast - who'd have thought that she was old enough now to take a holiday on her own. At least she was just bird-watching - something nice and sedate, something safe, not like the kind of things some teenagers got up to nowadays.

Anyway, if he could get this meeting over and done with, maybe it wasn't too late to make a move. He looked up ahead of him and saw the modern black and white building of the Home Office looming up ahead. It didn't fill him with much hope for an early getaway - meetings at the Home Office were seldom speedy.

Minutes later he was being ushered to a far corner of the building, where a prim secretary asked him to wait in the comfortable ante-room to the office of the man he was coming to see. His name was Richardson. He had the bearing of a military man, but Macpherson did not know where or with whom he had served; that sort of information was classified. All he knew was that what Richardson didn't know about security matters you could write on the back of a postage stamp, and although he was irritated at the prospect of having to meet him, he was intrigued as well.

It was difficult for Macpherson to sit with his characteristically straight back in the comfortable leather chair he had been given, and he was glad when Richardson's door clicked open and the man himself beckoned him in with a wordless nod.

'Air Commodore,' Richardson greeted him curtly once they were both inside.

'It's nice to see you again,' Macpherson replied blandly.

'Have a seat. There's something I'd like you to take a look at.' Macpherson sat opposite Richardson's large oak desk and was handed two pieces of paper. He studied them closely.

One of them contained a short paragraph of text in a language he didn't understand - Chinese, maybe, he thought to himself. He flicked to the second sheet, which was in English, presumably a translation.

I have to write quickly, because they will find me soon. A weapon codenamed Vortex is being developed in the UK. It has been commissioned by a Russian oligarch and bought for a great price by the government of my country, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Strikes are planned against London, Los Angeles, New York and Madrid, and the weapons detection systems of none of these countries will be sufficient to counteract it. All I know is that the weapon is being developed covertly at a UK air force base without the knowledge of the authorities, and that its delivery is imminent. This must not happen. I cannot write more. They are coming for me. It is in your hands now.

The air commodore read it through several times, then looked up enquiringly at Richardson.

'North Korean origin,' the Home Office man said shortly. 'It came through earlier today.'

'Authentic?'

'That's what we're trying to determine. There's been a certain amount of intelligence chatter - satellite intercepts and the like - about the word "vortex", which is why this was brought to my attention so quickly. But a lot of things don't make sense.'

'Such as?'

Richardson stood up. 'You are aware that this discussion falls under the constraints of the Official Secrets Act?'

'Of course.'

'Good. All right then. Only a small percentage of North Koreans have access to the Internet. Those who do are closely monitored. It is unlikely that anyone would be able to get a message like this through to the Ministry of Defence servers unless they were
extremely
technically adept.'

'You're saying it's a hoax?'

'I'm not saying anything yet. It certainly
came
from North Korea; but we know for sure that there are certain factions in their government who do not like the recent nuclear step-down that the Koreans are hinting at. This looks to me like a fairly standard piece of misinformation.'

'By some kind of breakaway group that wants to see North Korea as a major nuclear power?'

'Exactly.'

Macpherson looked back at the message. From his limited experience, he certainly couldn't say that it resembled the usual scraps of intelligence that came the way of the security services. Richardson was right: it was too obvious, as though someone were trying to fool them. He put the pieces of paper back down on Richardson's desk. 'I'm sure there's a reason you wanted to see me in particular about this.'

'Indeed,' Richardson replied. 'I want to know your opinion about the suggestion that this so-called weapon is being covertly developed at an RAF base.'

Macpherson thought carefully before answering. He considered the implications of what was being said: that at an RAF base somewhere in Britain, a high-level, top-secret weapon was being developed without the knowledge or authority of those in command; that there was some kind of renegade, covert operation in place. There were plenty of military research projects going on, of that there was no doubt. But they were controlled, overseen and documented. The idea that something of this magnitude could be going on without people like himself being in the know was, well, unthinkable.

He cleared his voice before he spoke. 'If you're asking my professional opinion,' he said clearly, 'I'd have to tell you that I think the idea is preposterous.'

Richardson nodded with satisfaction. 'Thank you, Air Commodore. I appreciate your frankness. I see no reason to suggest to the Home Secretary that we up the state of alert unless we receive any further evidence to corroborate what is being suggested here.'

'You'll let me know before that happens?' the air commodore asked.

'Of course,' Richardson replied. He stood up and offered Macpherson his hand, which was duly shaken. 'Thanks for your time. Family OK?'

'Fine, thank you,' Macpherson replied with a gentle smile.

'That daughter of yours, er . . .'

'Annie.'

'Of course, she must be, what . . .'

'Thirteen.'

'She's well?'

'Very well, thank you. Looking forward to joining the RAF herself one day. Now if you'll excuse me . . .'

'Of course,' Richardson said. 'Thanks again.'

Macpherson turned, walked out of the room, and left the building as quickly as possible. He couldn't wait to get home.

Ben and Annie stared at the old man in horror. His words seemed to echo round the concrete cell.
I escaped
.

'I know what you're thinking,' Joseph said, his voice unnaturally calm and level. 'You're thinking, how did we end up locked in a room with a paranoid psychotic who's just escaped from a mental institution?'

Ben bit his lip. 'No offence or anything, Joseph,' he said in a slightly strangled voice, 'but I was sort of thinking that, yes.'

'Of course you were,' the old man replied. 'You're a bright lad. But you don't need to worry, not about me - at least, not at the moment.'

Ben's eyes flicked towards Annie and then back to the old man. 'What do you mean, not at the moment?' he asked.

'Psychotic episodes,' Joseph replied distractedly. 'They come and go. At the moment, my mind is clear.'

One of Ben's eyebrows shot up. 'At the moment? What's that supposed to mean?'

'I hear voices,' he said. 'Not all the time, but more and more of late. Sometimes a shock - much like the one I have just experienced - will force them to recede. But without my medication, I know they will return. They tell me to do things, and sometimes I cannot distinguish between what is real and what is not.'

The old man's startling honesty silenced Ben.

'If I were you, however,' Joseph continued, 'I would not concern yourself unduly with my state of mind. I would ask yourself a different question. Like, why have we just been blindfolded, handcuffed and locked up.'

'Because we were following you,' Annie said hotly.

'Indeed. You followed me into Spadeadam, which was the one thing I advised you not to do. Tell me, young lady, how old are you?'

'Thirteen,' Annie replied bullishly.

'And you, Ben?'

'Thirteen too.'

'I see,' Joseph continued. 'I myself am in my seventies. You'll understand, I hope, that I seem to have lost track of my precise age. I stopped celebrating birthdays a long time ago.'

'What's your point, Joseph?' Ben asked. He was beginning to get a bit tired of the old man's constantly cryptic comments - it was like being stuck in a cell with a teacher who knew the answer but refused to give it to them.

'Two young teenagers and a seventy-something,' Joseph answered. 'Not a huge threat to a troop of RAF soldiers, I'd have thought. Do you think the way we've been treated over the past couple of hours is how ordinary members of the RAF would be likely to treat us.'