Extinction (15 page)

The roar of the tsunami filled his head, drowning out all other sounds, all other thoughts, and Jaywood turned to his family on the other side of the rift and waved goodbye.

He cradled his son closer in his arms, letting him feel warm and safe. He bent his head to kiss the little boy on the head, tears in his eyes.

And then the tidal wave hit, destroying everything in its path.

‘J
UST WHAT IS
going on here?’ Alyssa asked.

She was sitting on a chair at the small card table in Jack’s room, while he lay back on his bed, hands covering his face.

He sat up and looked at her. ‘I’ll be damned if I know,’ he said eventually.

‘You must have heard talk about this place,’ she probed.

Jack sighed and shook his head, and then got up from the bed and started to pace the room. Alyssa was worried that he wouldn’t say anything else, but then he turned to her. ‘OK. But before I tell you what the rumours are, you have to understand that I don’t believe them, and I’ve worked here for years. OK?’

Alyssa nodded her head, and then he began. ‘Well, obviously anything with any military connection becomes the target for conspiracy theories of all kinds, especially when some of the research is secret, and kept out of the public eye. But what some people –
crazy
people, in my humble opinion – believe is that the radar array can be used to influence the weather; you know, heat up clouds
here
and make it rain
there
, that sort of thing. Other people think that by influencing the ionosphere, sonic properties can be sent around the globe to be directed towards certain targets, to achieve all sorts of crazy things – natural disasters; electro-magnetic pulse waves which are supposed to shut off all electronic devices, sabotaging an entire country’s infrastructure with one simple move; direct-hit weapons that can shoot missiles out of the sky; even mind control.’

‘Mind control?’ Alyssa asked.

Jack nodded. ‘I told you the whole thing is crazy. Some folk believe the “light rays” shot out by the radars can brainwash people; indeed, they believe that we already are brainwashing people all over the world, our own citizens included.’

‘It does seem a bit far-fetched,’ Alyssa agreed.

‘You bet.’ Jack sat down on the bed once more. ‘I’ll tell you why this place attracts this sort of attention – because the real work that goes on here, quite mundane and boring as it is, is just too hard for most people to understand. And if people can’t understand something, they’ll create a story around it that they can understand. And people understand weapons, and they understand war.’

Alyssa knew that Jack was probably right, but she was convinced something more was going on. ‘Look, I’ll be gone tomorrow,’ she said, ‘and I’m sorry for being so nosy. I guess I’m just trying to understand the kind of place Karl was working in, you know, what he was doing for the last few years. We didn’t see each other much after he started work here.’ The manner of Karl’s death came back to her in vivid detail, and she hugged herself, trying not to tremble.

She didn’t resist as Jack pulled her on to the bed and put his arms round her. And then, as they sat looking at one another, their hands suddenly sought each other’s, entwining so naturally that they hardly realized it had happened. Their lips came together gently, then more forcefully, and Alyssa soon found herself lying next to him and he was brushing his lips across the smooth, soft skin of her neck. She felt herself melting under his touch and at that moment she wanted him more than she could remember wanting anything in her life.

A
S
A
LYSSA CREPT
from Jack’s room later that night, she hated herself.

It wasn’t for sleeping with him, she didn’t regret that for a second. In fact, lying in bed with him, his arm round her, she’d felt happier than she had in years. But after he’d fallen asleep, she had gone to his jacket and detached the security card that she had seen him using all evening. It was a betrayal of his trust but time was short. She would have to pick up Karl’s things in the morning, and then she’d be on her way, never allowed on to the base again. She’d seen with her own eyes what the radar array could do to the Northern Lights, and if it could do that then surely it could also affect other aspects of nature, perhaps even create natural disasters. If there was even the slightest chance of a connection, she knew she had to investigate it. At the very least, she felt she owed it to Karl to make the attempt.

As she slipped down the quiet corridors, she hoped she would make it back before Jack woke up. At least she had a chance of remaining unobserved, thanks unwittingly to him. He had told her that while she had been taking a shower, he had returned to his computer station in the main command centre under the pretence of correcting a systems failure. Once there, he had logged on to the security mainframe and set about redirecting some of the computer systems.

That was how he’d thought of it – ‘redirection’. It was much better than the arguably more accurate term of ‘sabotage’. But the result was the same: certain key security cameras had been turned to face in different directions, other sensors had been fed inaccurate data, and an ‘escape corridor’, unobserved by the base’s hi-tech surveillance, had been left open for their trip to view the Northern Lights.

Jack was in charge of all of the base’s computer operating systems. He wasn’t attached to the security section of the command centre, but because he had designed the software that the section used, he could control the base’s electronic surveillance capabilities. He could shut down the entire system and replace it with a useless ‘mock’ system, and the security section would be none the wiser. Not that this had been his plan tonight; his intention tonight had been much more modest. And the redirection had worked. The two of them had managed to get up on the roof and back to Jack’s room completely unchallenged. Jack told her he would switch the system back to normal in the morning, which meant that it was still streaming incorrect information through to the security centre. Alyssa hoped that this meant she would get to the computer centre undiscovered.

She retraced her steps from earlier, using Jack’s access card to pass through doors, always alert for other people, and finally entered the main command centre instead of climbing up the side of it.

Despite the lights which still shone brightly from the mobile command centres over on the radar field, this building was mercifully empty, as she’d hoped it would be at three in the morning. She quickly found the signs for the computer centre, and had to hide only once as a security guard made his rounds. She made a mental note of the time, hoping that he wouldn’t be back for at least an hour.

Eventually, she reached the computer centre, a room of glass-enclosed cubicles separated from the rest of the building by a huge smoked-glass wall. She used Jack’s access card again, and a glass door slid open to admit her.

She searched the cubicles until she found Jack’s – helpfully, all the desks had nameplates – and sat down, hunching over in the seat to minimize her shape, should any more security guards come round and peer through the glass. The desk was cluttered with work but empty of personal effects. There were no family pictures, nothing of any noticeable sentimental nature. The only thing that indicated a real person worked there at all was a canvas print hanging to one side. It was of a train crashing though the foyer wall of a station. She recognized it instantly as the main railway station of her home town. She wondered briefly if Jack used to live there too, or if he just thought it was an interesting picture.

She used the key card to turn on the computer, praying that the light from the screen wouldn’t alert anyone.

‘Are you sure?’ Anderson asked the chief analyst. The security command centre was hidden underground, along with many of the research elements surrounding Spectrum Nine. The place was a hive of activity after the successful test earlier, but nobody else working on the base would ever realize.

‘Yes, sir,’ came the reply. ‘She’s not there. Alyssa Durham isn’t at her apartment, and she hasn’t been seen at work since yesterday morning. It was hard getting information, but from what we can gather, she’s gone away somewhere for a work assignment, although we haven’t yet found out exactly what she’s working on. Her editor, James Rushton, wouldn’t give us anything. Her bags were gone from her apartment but we can’t find plane tickets or any other type of ticket booked in her name.’

Anderson considered the matter, and could feel his blood pressure rising. After such a glorious evening, with the full might of Spectrum Nine finally being utilized, here was the bad news. Alyssa Durham was still out there somewhere.

Perhaps she had just been spooked and run off somewhere. Understandable, considering he’d been trying to kill her. And yet from her performance in the park, and the information on her file, she didn’t seem the type of woman to run away from anything. On the contrary, she seemed the kind of person who would just as soon attack.

He spun round to address the analyst. ‘Do we have a home number for Elizabeth Gatsby?’ he asked.

The analyst called up some data on his screen, and read it off to Anderson, who typed it into his phone and connected the call.

He held the phone to his ear and waited, hearing it ring and ring. No answer. He hung up. ‘What time is it there?’ he asked next.

‘Er . . . eight in the morning?’ the analyst suggested.

‘Maybe she’s already on her way to school,’ Anderson muttered to himself. He asked for the school’s telephone number and was put through straight away.

‘Hello, I was wondering if Mrs Elizabeth Gatsby is expected in at work this morning?’ he asked politely.

He listened as the receptionist on the other end of the line went to check her records. ‘Yes, she’s due in today. In fact, I can just see her pulling up outside now. Do you want to hold for her? Who shall I say is calling?’

But Anderson had already hung up and was racing towards the elevator that would take him from the control room to the dormitory block and Room E14.

A
LYSSA DIDN’T KNOW
exactly what she was looking for. How did you go about finding a ‘black’ research project, something that wasn’t ever supposed to be found?

But Jack had said that he had access to the base’s security mainframe, and she was therefore confident that she would find something. She trawled security logs, staff records, maintenance requests; anything and everything. And then she stumbled upon some transcripts.

These were written records of conversations between certain base personnel – telephone calls, emails, even chats in the rest room, it was all there. Obviously anyone suspected of leaking intelligence was closely watched.

There wasn’t anything that shouted at her, but she noticed continual references to S-9, Spectrum Nine, and something known mysteriously as the ninth spectrum.

With these key words, she inserted a search program into the system and set it running. Further security clearance was needed, but when she flashed Jack’s card across the infrared reader, access was instantly granted.

Vast swathes of information came up, and it wasn’t long before she found what she was looking for – technical schematics for a project known as Spectrum Nine, presumably the secret project that many people believed lay behind the HIRP base.

She quickly inserted a flash drive that she was carrying and started the download. Clicking off the page as the system laboriously downloaded the schematics to her portable memory stick, she began to go through the rest of the pages. The technical info should tell her what Spectrum Nine was, and what it was capable of, but she wanted names too, to find the people who were behind the project. Was it legitimate? And if so, who was authorizing it? Who—

‘Would you mind telling me just what the hell you think you’re doing?’

With a start, Alyssa looked up from her computer, to see Jack standing in the doorway.

Anderson knocked loudly on the door and when it wasn’t answered within five seconds he drew his handgun and kicked it down, bursting into the room with his weapon up and aimed.

Nothing. She wasn’t there.
She
, the woman who was impersonating Elizabeth Gatsby; the same woman who had evaded assassination and then capture at the amusement park.
Alyssa Durham
.

He raced from the room, thinking he had one last chance before he had to sound the general alarm. Across the hallway he came to Jack’s room. Again he knocked, waited five seconds, and then kicked it down, handgun scanning the space beyond.

Empty.

Damn it!
How could he have been so stupid? It was no coincidence that Jack had met her at the bar; they were obviously in on it together, which meant only one thing.

They would both have to die.

It took no more than a minute for Alyssa to tell Jack everything; her real name, what she did for a living, how she had seen Karl Janklow assassinated right next to her, which had set in motion all her subsequent actions.

‘I’m sorry, Jack,’ she said, hoping with all her heart that he believed her.

‘And me?’ he asked.

‘Jack,’ she said, ‘please believe me, I never wanted to involve anyone else. What we did . . . I really wanted to. But I also needed information. I saw your card there, I remembered what you said about having security access, I saw my chance and I took it. I’m sorry,’ she said again.

Jack stared at her silently, his expression unreadable.

‘If what you’ve told me is true,’ he said finally, collapsing into a chair opposite her, ‘then I guess I—’

He was cut off by the shrill, ear-shattering blare of a warning klaxon.

The alarm had been sounded.

The security guard doing the rounds of the main command centre received the message over his intercom just as the alarm started.

Colonel Anderson was ordering all available security personnel to make a hard search of the base for two targets. Jack Murray was HIRP’s chief computer technician, and the guard knew him well enough; Alyssa Durham/Elizabeth Gatsby was an unknown entity, but her description was sent over even as the guard pulled his pistol from its holster and made his way down the corridor.