Down: Trilogy Box Set (116 page)

The security lights were blazing all around the laboratory complex so the thermal imaging on the drone camera was disabled. The tennis court was fully lit. Three people spontaneously appeared near the net then ran toward the chain-link fence and tried to get out. After a while, one of them found the door and the three of them ran off into the darkness.

“We’ve seen no more activity at Dartford. And finally, this is Upminster, at a housing estate off Litchfield Terrace. The area was completely evacuated and sealed off but we have detected this group of six individuals going in and out of vacant dwellings.”

“Are you sure these aren’t returning residents or vandals from outlying areas?” Ben asked.

“We can’t be certain,” Mendel said.

“Rewind to the place you can see them walking under the street lamp,” John said. “Can you zoom in on them there?”

Mendel found the spot, froze the footage and magnified and enhanced the image.

“You see their clothes?” John said. “They didn’t buy them at Marks and Spencer. They’re rough. They’re Heller clothes.”

“That was our working assumption,” Mendel said. “I think that’s all I have. Any questions?”

Emily asked, “Have you detected anything similar at the previous hot spots in South Ockendon and Iver?”

“No, nothing there,” Mendel said.

Ben thanked her and said, “Dr. Loughty, I think we need to have your view on what’s happening.”

Emily started by shaking her head mournfully. “I see this as a very worrying development, very worrying indeed. As you know, previously it took a restart of the collider to generate nodal activity.” She saw the blank looks around the table and added, “We’re calling the areas of contact between our dimension and theirs, nodes. So far, including today’s activity, there have been six known nodes—Dartford, South Ockendon, Iver, Leatherhead, Sevenoaks, and Upminster. Tonight the collider is quite dormant and we’ve seen bi-directional transfers at three of the nodes.”

“Bi-directional?” Ben asked. “I don’t believe we’ve seen any of
our
people disappear.”

“Your downed helicopter,” John said. “I know you haven’t been able to put boots on the ground but I’ll venture to say you’re not going to find bodies in the wreckage.”

“You think the crew wound up over there?” Ben asked.

“I do. And if I’m right, they found themselves up in the air with no place to go but down.”

“Christ,” Ben said.

“I agree with John,” Emily said. “The helicopter probably flew into a node, lost its crew and crashed. It’s not appropriate to call them nodes any longer. They’re hyper-nodes or hot zones, perhaps. They’re no longer transitory and associated with collider activity. That means we can’t simply block the channels between our dimensions by mothballing the MAAC. We have to find a different way to plug them permanently.”

Ben said, “My understanding is that the panel of experts we convened had no answer.”

“I haven’t had a chance to speak with any of them personally and all my key people were caught up in the Dartford transfer this morning. I’ll take your statement at face value and just say this: the most important expert on strangelets, Paul Loomis, told me he knows how to put an end to this.”

One of the officials at the end of the table said, “Well, let’s hear him out. Where is he?”

“He’s in Hell,” Emily said. “And that’s why I need to go back and find him.”

“Do you know where he is?” Ben asked.

“Roughly,” John said. “It won’t be easy to extract him, but with the right manpower and a little luck it’s doable. The longer we wait, the more chance he’ll have moved or worse, gotten hurt in a war that’s on full boil.”

“In the meanwhile we’re going to need a strategy to contain Hellers coming through these hot zones,” Mendel said.

“It’s going to be difficult,” Emily said. “It’s possible that the instability of the hot zones is going to increase.”

“Meaning what?” Ben asked.

“The affected zones will get larger,” she said. “If you cordon off Leatherhead, for example, it’s possible that those manning the cordon will wind up within the zone, transported to the other side.”

“We can’t just let the Hellers out to run amok in London,” Mendel said.

“No, of course not,” Ben said. “We’ll have to set a protective cordon somewhere and monitor closely for signs of a widening problem.”

“It’s going to be harder than you think,” John said. “The word is going to get out over there. Hellers are going to want to escape and make their way back to the land of milk and honey. The hot zones are going to get flooded and over-run. If the army shoots at them, fires off missiles, whatever, we’re going to see the same thing we saw on the drone footage. The Hellers are going to reappear. And if we repeat the exercise, all we’re going to have is a pile of Heller bodies—maybe multiple copies of the same bodies—and they’re going to keep coming. Eventually, they’re going to over-run your defenses.”

“Then what,” Ben said, throwing his hands up as he said, “do we just throw up our hands and surrender?”

“Not what I’m suggesting,” John said. “We’ve got to stop them on the other side. We’ve got to stop them in Hell.”

Ben arched his eyebrows. “How do you propose to do that?”

“With some brave men and the help of someone I haven’t talked to in a long time.”

Emily ran a finger over John’s dinette table and showed him the dust.

“The guy who does the cleaning’s been out of town.” John said. He cracked two cans of cold beer, gave her one, and the two of them collapsed on the sofa where she sipped and he gulped.

Emily said, “This is a nightmare.”

“Yeah, it’s bad. Do you really think Paul Loomis has the answer?”

“I take him at his word. Why would he have lied?”

“I wish we had more than that to go on. I don’t …”

She put her finger to his lips to quiet him. “I know. I know you don’t want me to go,” she said. “But you know that this has gone from bad to worse. Paul and I speak the same language. Whatever his idea is, I’ll be able to understand it and translate it into action.”

John gently pulled her finger away. “That was your dust finger,” he said. “Want me to run you a bath?”

“I’m too exhausted to want one and too dirty to say no.”

While she soaked in the tub, John stared at his telephone. He couldn’t remember the last time he rang the number but he didn’t need to look it up. It was the first phone number he’d ever learned; up until he went to college it was his own.

It was eight hours earlier in Oregon. He was so far removed from the rhythms of Kyle’s life that he had no idea whether he’d be home. He expected to get voice mail but a husky voice answered.

“Yeah?”

“Kyle?”

“Yeah, who’s this?”

“It’s John.”

“Fuck.” It wasn’t a friendly curse. The last time they had spoken was six years earlier at their father’s funeral. It had been a visit wholly devoid of brotherly love.

“Yeah, fuck.”

“Why are you calling?” Kyle asked brusquely.

“Checking in. It’s been a while, bro.”

“Yeah. You sick or something?”

“No, why?”

“You sound funny.”

“I’m all right. Worn out is all.”

“Where are you these days?”

“England. Near London.”

“Still doing embassy security?”

“I quit. You?”

“Same old same old, you know, the shop.”

“Never got married?”

“No way. I’ve got a girlfriend, sort of. You?”

“Same, but mine is more than sort of.”

“If you quit your job why’d you stay over there?”

“I got a new job a few years back. In charge of security at a government physics lab.”

“Aren’t they having some kind of situation over there? I don’t pay a lot of attention to the news but people are talking about some kind of a cluster fuck.”

“Yeah. That’s why I’m calling.”

“You involved in it?”

“Big time.”

“What’s it to me?”

“I’m putting a team together. I need a guy who can do what you do.”

“Sit around and drink beer?”

“The other thing you do.”

“Oh yeah? Why would I want to fly half way around the world to help you?”

“It’s not about helping me. It’s about a once in a lifetime opportunity to do something important. Dangerous as shit but highly kickass.”

“I’m listening.”

“You always said you wanted to do some of the things I used to do.”

“I couldn’t pass a physical then and sure as shit can’t pass one now.”

“No one’s going to give you a physical. If you want in, you’ll be in. Come over to the UK to talk about it.”

“When?”

“Tonight.”

“You’re out of your mind. I can’t afford a ticket and even if I could I don’t have a passport.”

“A chopper can pick you up in Bend in a couple of hours. You’ll rendezvous with an air force jet to bring you here. No passport needed, everything will be handled by the state department.”

There was a pregnant pause and Kyle finally said, “We’re not exactly on the best of terms, remember? I’m not real sure I want to hang out with you.”

“I need you to come over and hear me out. This is going to sound over the top but believe me, it’s not: for the sake of the human race you and I need to bury the hatchet.”

Emily was soon slumbering in his bed. John was at the point where exhaustion had given way to a restless agitation. It took a few more beers to mellow him out enough to turn in. The bed was soft. Her body had warmed and scented the sheets. He wanted to touch her but he didn’t dare wake her. Before frustration set in he was asleep too.

John was yelling, “Mike, don’t!”

Mike Entwistle was stooped over the bearded prisoner, his knife against the man’s plastic wrist ties. They were inside the ruined mud-brick farmhouse in Afghanistan amidst a pile of Taliban bodies.

The prisoner was the only one to survive the mortar fire. His squad of Green Berets had been tasked with extracting a high-value target, a Taliban commander named Fazal Toofan, but the mission had gone to shit. John had lost too many men so he lit up the farmhouse. If they couldn’t take Toofan alive, he wanted to make sure he was dead.

The prisoner had shouted in good English, “Please help me. Guys, I am interpreter for American soldiers. Taliban took me. I am injured. I can’t feel my legs.”

Before Mike could react to John’s plea, he had sliced through the plastic tie with an upward flick of the serrated blade.

The prisoner reacted with astonishing speed.

He had been hiding a cocked pistol between his legs and in an instant it was in his hand.

He fired at point-blank range into Mike’s head. John felt his friend’s blood splattering his face. As the Afghani twisted his waist to fire the next round at him, John sprang forward and smashed his face with the butt stock of his rifle. He crumpled, motionless.

The rest of his squad gathered around Mike but there was nothing to be done.

“He said he was a terp,” one of John’s men said. “He’s no terp, he’s Tali. Let me smoke the fucker.”

“Don’t,” John said, staring at Mike’s bloody head. “Cuff him, hands and feet. Double-check the bodies to make sure they’re all dead. We’re taking this motherfucker with us. When our bird lands, get a body bag for Mike.”

He sank to his haunches and allowed himself to lose it. He didn’t give a damn if his men saw him cry.

Cromwell had been correct. This Whitehall Palace bore no resemblance to the vast stone palace that Cardinal Wolsey had lavishly expanded for his own use in the 16
^th
century. That Whitehall Palace was said to be the finest house in London and the earthly King Henry had jealously seized it for his own use after deposing his loyal cardinal. Henry had expanded it even further, adding a bowling green, indoor tennis court, and a tiltyard for jousting. Although it had been destroyed by fire in 1691 it had been memorialized in countless paintings and lithographs. It was these images of Whitehall Palace that triggered dissonance when the Earthers first laid eyes upon their destination.

This palace was a substantial timber-frame building with a Tudor exoskeleton and walls of sooty plaster. It was smaller than Henry’s Hampton Court Palace, but large enough to accommodate the entirety of his court, albeit in cramped quarters. It was situated north of the Thames on flat, indefensible land. A ring of soldiers guarded it from the intrusions of hungry Londoners who eked out an existence in the densely packed city of low buildings, shabby cottages, vegetable patches, and livestock butchers. It was not a siege palace. The few times that Brittania had been under serious threat of invasion during Henry’s tenure in Hell, he had moved his court north to an impregnable hilltop stone castle near York.

Cromwell had the Earthers taken to a large banqueting hall. This would be their collective dormitory for the foreseeable future. Startled servants who had not been expecting a royal visit, much less a gaggle of highly exotic guests, brought in narrow beds and coarse blankets. The eight women segregated themselves to one end of the hall. The privies were down a long corridor but to use them, guards stationed outside the hall had to escort the prisoners one at a time. Dried, leathery meat and loaves of day-old bread were brought in with several jugs of sweet ale. Iron needles, sewing twine, and hook and eye fasteners were provided to fix their clothing.

Beyond a gender segregation, the prisoners, true to their largely British roots, further grouped themselves by station. The scientists occupied one cluster of beds and the politicians and security officials, another smaller one. Henry Quint had to make a choice. He had been the director of MAAC before his ignominious fall but he was also a physicist. But after being largely ignored by the VIPs, he chose a cot on the periphery of the scientists and glumly straddled the divide.

Likewise, Karen Smithwick had a choice to make and she aligned herself with the VIPs rather than the female scientists. As one of the few women on the front benches of government, she was adept at playing her part alongside powerful men.

Sitting on her cot, she watched Campbell Bates fumbling miserably with his sewing and took pity on the courtly American.