INCARNATION (71 page)

‘Take the gun away from her head.’

Farrar did as he asked. Cautiously, David slipped the rifle behind him and let it lie just within reach.

‘I don’t need your money,' he shouted. ‘Contrary to what you said, Lizzie didn’t get round to changing her will. There’s no point in trying to bribe me.’

‘You always did take things at face value, didn’t you? If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were a little stupid. However, neither of us is stupid, which is why I would like to talk with you. Perhaps you can tell me why you think I came up to this Godforsaken hole in the first place.’

‘I don’t know, Anthony, and I don’t care. From the look of it, you came here to seduce my daughter.’

Farrar smiled deprecatingly.

‘How sweet of you to imagine it. Your daughter is certainly very lovely. She may even grow into a beauty one day, like her mother. But I don’t really think of her as anything but a harmless screw, a means of passing the time. I’ve seen one truly beautiful woman in my life. Seen her and made love to her. Her name was Meihua, and she made every other woman seem worthless. She was like a key, Laing, a password to unimaginable pleasures. If she was here now, you’d understand. You’d want her more than you’ve ever wanted anything. And I’d give her to you. She’d be your reward and your downfall.

‘Now, don’t you want to see the end of your great adventure?’

‘My adventure?’

In Sinkiang, man, in Sinkiang. You didn’t think it was that simple, did you?’

‘Simple? I never thought it simple for a moment.’

‘I don’t doubt it. Nevertheless, it isn’t over yet. Not by a long chalk.’

‘Meaning?’

‘First of all, please get rid of that rifle.’

‘I’d prefer to hang on to it.’

‘I’m sure you would. But I’d like to even the odds a little. I’m not going to hurt Maddie, not unless she attacks me again. In fact, you may as well have her back once I’ve finished.’

‘Finished?’

‘Unveiling the mystery to you, of course. You didn’t think for a moment that all there was to that business was destroying Chaofe Ling? Chaofe Ling was important, and the deal with Iraq was brilliantly conceived - until you came along. But it wasn’t the only show in town. You don’t really think I’d have left my back uncovered, do you?’

‘I’m sure you didn’t. But that’s of no interest to me. I just want to take Maddie back home. I want to shut my front door on the lot of you and live some sort of normal existence.’

‘That’s not possible.’ Farrar’s voice had become hard. ‘Like myself, you’ve been drawn too deeply into this thing. I need your help to sort it all through. In return, you can name your price, financial or otherwise.’

‘I’m not interested.’

‘You will be. Tell me, what can you see just over there? In the water.’

David strained. A pale sweep of moonlight lay on the surface of the water like cream. Ripples formed in it. And then he saw something about ten yards past Farrar’s boat. A buoy.

‘It has a little transmitter on board,’ Farrar explained. ‘I pick the signals up on a gadget in my pocket. Incidentally, if anyone tries to tamper with it without switching off the transmitter first, it will blow up in his hands.’

He took something from his pocket, and David could hear the beeps as he entered a string of commands.

‘Now, I think it’s safe to go in. Don’t worry, I’m not about to fly off anywhere.’

He bent down and fumbled in the bottom of the boat, coming up with an oar, which he proceeded to fit in a rowlock. A few cautious strokes brought him alongside the buoy. He reached out and caught it, then put his hand in the water, pulling out the upper end of a nylon rope. Slowly he pulled the rope up, drawing on something heavy tied to the other end.

What emerged at last was a flat object, about the size and shape of a briefcase. Farrar hauled it over the gunnel and brought it round in front of him, balancing it on the thwart.

‘There’s no need to try guessing,’ he said. ‘You won’t come within miles. If you’re patient, I’ll explain everything.’

He wiped his hand across the box, removing strings of water weeds and green slime.

‘Totally waterproof,’ he said. ‘You could put a heap of gunpowder in here, take it out in ten years’ time, and fire it seconds later.’

‘This is all very interesting,’ said David, ‘but I’m losing my patience.’

‘Don’t worry, it will all make sense in the end. Let me continue. The removal of Chaofe Ling has created an enormous problem, particularly for Saddam Hussein. He can’t pull out from his current positions in Kuwait and Jordan, but he can’t win the war without the weapons he was promised. He’s facing military defeat and political humiliation.’

He opened the box and took out a slim lap-top computer.

‘But that could all change.’

He pressed a button, and the computer leapt into life.

He tapped some keys and figures started to scroll up the screen.

‘Excuse me, Laing, but I have to pay attention to this thing. I heartily wish the computer had not been invented.’

He began to type in snatches of text - passwords, commands, confirmations. The computer beeped and warbled and twittered back at him.

When not keying in commands, he would look round him at the blackness of the night and the whiteness of the moon. Music lapped across the water, and he felt himself calmed and made whole by it. He placed his palm on the bright screen, and a brighter light read it and pronounced it genuine.

‘I believe that sees everything in place,’ he said. ‘Now, as to its purpose. You’re as aware as I am that weapons development is an ongoing process. Like this computer here, a modern weapon is out of date the moment it leaves the factory. What you destroyed at Chaofe Ling were finished devices designed for a battlefield situation.’

He placed the computer back inside the box and sealed it with a series of rubber fastenings. When it was secure, he dropped it over the edge of the boat and let the rope out slowly, returning it to its place at the bottom of the lake.

‘What you did not destroy were the prototypes for a new generation of these wonderful devices. There are seventeen of them in all, and they were removed from Chaofe Ling several weeks ago. These weapons will detonate at ground level, and they will not require delivery by plane or missile. To be precise, they have been designed as terrorist weapons, although they would, of course, be completely outside the reach of any ordinary terrorist organization. Unless, of course, it turned out to be a state-sponsored organization.

‘Several of these weapons have been taken to the United States, where they have been distributed to a number of major cities. One is in Paris, one in Moscow, one in Rome, one in Berlin, one in Sydney, one in Tokyo. The rest are being held in reserve, except for one currently in London.’

David felt his breath grow cold. The warm night turned to ice around him.

‘Anthony, this is insane. You can’t possibly…’

‘I just have done.’

He clicked the little gadget he had used to control the anti-tamper device on the buoy. Several lights flickered then went off again, leaving one to show the device was live. Farrar tossed the remote control over his shoulder into the lake.

‘When the bomb wipes out half of London, Saddam Hussein will become the world’s most powerful man. I don’t much like him, if the truth be told, but things being as they are, I reckon he’s the man to go with. And this is where you come in. You

‘How long? How long before it detonates?’

‘I’m not really sure. Not very long. Half an hour, fifteen minutes. If you had a radio, you could try tuning in to a London station, let it play until it blanks out. Maybe it’s gone already, though.’

Suddenly, Maddie let out a cry that would have torn the moon from its moorings had that been possible. David snapped his head up to catch sight of her leaping forward. She grabbed Farrar round the neck, then toppled sideways over the gunnel, her weight dragging him with her.

David rowed up quickly, but there was no sign of either of them near the boat. He threw down his oars and leaped into the water, taking in a deep breath before plunging downwards.

The water on the surface had been lukewarm after a long day’s exposure to sunlight. But within a few feet it grew frighteningly cold, and colder still every foot he went down, and he knew he was at the top of a very deep lake, and if he drowned in it he would never rise to the light again.

It was pitch dark in the water, and he lost his bearings at once, and could scarcely tell up from down.

He sank further, and he thought he was dying. His lungs were growing desperate for air. He went further down and felt a skin of ice had covered him, and then there were thick weeds reaching out for him, tough and slimy. He kicked free, pushing up for the surface again.

He rose to the top, spluttering, gasping for air, and the moment he could open his eyes he looked all round in desperation, but there was nothing and no one. He dived again, and suddenly he saw her, not far from the surface, floating, her whiteness marking her out.

He caught her by the armpits and brought her fast to the surface, then kicked out till they were next to the dinghy. He hauled her on board, flattened her on her belly as best he could, and pumped the water from her lungs. She did not move or breathe. He bent down and put his mouth to hers, frantically trying to fill her dying lungs with his own breath.

He collapsed across her at last, unable to get any response. And for the first time, he began to cry without control or help, in pure agony for all he had lost, but above all for Nabila and Maddie.

‘Dad?’

Her voice was very weak, but it was her voice. His name was followed by a string of coughs and splutters. He straightened her and helped her throw up more water, and when that was done and her eyes were open, he held her so tightly that she might have died from that alone.

H
e did not hold her long; dared not. Every moment counted, a second’s delay could be fatal.

‘Maddie, I have to try to stop the bomb exploding. Did he say anything at all about it to you?’

She shook her head, still coughing.

‘All right. I’ll have to get the computer up first. I want you to rest in the dinghy and wait till I come back.’

‘I don’t have much …’ She started coughing again.

‘Try not to exert yourself, love.’ He squeezed her gently.

‘… choice,’ she said. She drew him to her, shivering. ‘He said he’d … booby-trapped the buoy.’

‘I’m going to have to take care of that.’

‘Can’t you … just go down for the briefcase … and leave the buoy alone?’

‘I’ve thought of that, but it’s too much of a risk. The moment I touch the case, the buoy will be triggered, and for all I know the box is wired to blow or send out an electric charge.’

He leaned back hard on the oars, pulling away from the other boat and the buoy behind it. When he reckoned they’d gone far enough, he shipped the oars and fetched the rifle from behind. He glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes had passed since Farrar had pushed the button.

He lay down against the curved side of the dinghy and brought the rifle back against his cheek. It took him moments to track and find the buoy. What would constitute "interference"? he wondered. And then he had the anti-temper mechanism in his sights. What the hell? he thought, and pulled the trigger.

A deafening explosion ripped the night from end to end. What had been endless silence was for a moment the very embodiment of noise. Pieces of debris swept over their bowed heads and fell into the water in a sequence of splashes. The surface of the lake shook, and ripples appeared everywhere, rings of silver in the moonlight.

Quickly, David rowed the dinghy back to where the other boat still bobbed miraculously up and down. It was taking in water slowly through the bullet-hole he had made earlier and one or two gaps left by the explosion. The buoy was nowhere to be seen.

The dinghy carried an old killick anchor. David threw it in and told Maddie to do her best to keep both dinghy and boat steady.

He jumped in with a tremendous splash. He’d taken the night-sight from the rifle. He’d always heard this model was waterproof, and he hoped that extended to a little more than getting a few raindrops on the lens.

Taking a deep breath, he plunged down, sucked in at once by the darkness. Kicking hard, he felt himself drop through the smoothness of ancient water and draw nearer and nearer the awful bottom of the lake. His lungs were crushed by the depth and by the knowledge that he could not breathe. Every second brought an increase in the pain in his chest, and in the panic that mounted remorselessly in the back of his skull.

He knew he could lose the race by as little as a fraction of a second. But whether a second or ten minutes, the result would be the same. Perhaps one man in a car driving out of the city would be spared; and perhaps a family, driving in, would be caught up in the holocaust. He judged himself to be near the bottom. Bringing the sight to his eye, he struggled to make sense of the green world he saw through it. Fish startled him, scurrying away from his flailing left arm as he swept through their normally undisturbed habitat. Then he saw weeds flapping, and steadied himself to avoid becoming entangled in them. They were everywhere, rank, rotting, thick as mummy cloth, swaying like decaying silk, green and green and green. He could see nothing of the box among all this luxuriance, and he wondered how far from it he’d wandered in his descent.

He wanted to kick his way back up again, to burst out of the water and drag in all the air and sweetness between here and the mountains. Instead, he swam in a diminishing circle, all the while doing mental arithmetic to estimate how much longer he could risk staying down.

He saw it suddenly, almost hidden in a vast clump of weeds that reminded him of overgrown jungle plants. Dipping down, he fumbled for the handle to which the rope had been attached. He grabbed it and pulled up hard, tearing it from the weeds, and kicking for the surface. As he did so, the night-sight showed him Farrar’s body, waving like a dark trophy captured by the water plants and the fish in the dark, open-eyed and circling. He shuddered and kicked again.