Origin - Season One (40 page)

“Got you!”

He threw the binoculars into his backpack and ran across the roof to the top of the stairs. Halfway down he almost collided with a cleaning woman coming the other way. He emerged from a side door and walked to the edge of the building where he could just make out the rear spoiler of the Porsche behind a black Mercedes. Throwing his backpack over one shoulder, he lowered the sun visor of his baseball cap and rounded the corner. As he passed the car he turned and saw her hunkered down in the driver’s seat.

Francis reached into his pocket and put his hand around the butt of the small revolver there. He walked to the end of the line of cars and knelt, pretending to tie his shoe. When he glanced over at the bridge, Mike was gone.

“Take your hand out of your pocket and stand up.”

Francis turned. It was the man who had been covering the meeting on the bridge.

“Excuse me?” Francis said. “Do I know –”

“Your hand, take it out of your pocket.”

Francis did.

“Good. Now stand up and walk toward the bridge.”

Francis began to stand then crouched back down and sprang into the gap between the two cars on his right. He landed on his hands, rolled forward and darted around the front of a blue Saab. The man shouted something in German and the engine of the Porsche suddenly came to life. The rear wheels began to spin and send up clouds of smoke as the driver floored the accelerator and reversed out. Francis raised his head above the hood of the Saab and saw the man crouch from view, gun held out at arm’s length.

Francis broke cover and ran just as the Porsche drove away toward the bridge. For a split second, he caught a glimpse of her wide, terrified eyes. She swerved towards him and almost succeeded in running him over. Francis jumped and felt the wing mirror break off as it hit the heel of his shoe. She turned onto the bridge, tires screeching and gunned the four hundred horsepower engine. Francis ran after her.

As he reached the bridge the man behind him fired two shots. One of the bullets hit the metal railing and ricocheted past Francis’s head. The Porsche reached the end of the bridge and had to stop behind a van. Francis ran faster. He had almost reached the car when the van pulled out and the Porsche swerved past it and turned left along the bank of the river. He turned and saw the man who had shot at him was now running toward him.

A white Volkswagen Golf turned onto the bridge in front of him and Francis ran into the middle of the road and held up both hands. The driver stopped and rolled down his window. Before he could say anything Francis was pulling him out by the collar of his jacket and getting in behind the wheel.

The man running after him fired two more shots. One shattered the rear window, the other went through the passenger seat and lodged in the dashboard. Francis reversed straight out into the traffic behind him, forcing a large truck to swerve and mount the curb to avoid a collision. The Porsche was already several hundred yards ahead of him now.

Francis had been expecting little from the small German car, but when he put it in gear and stepped on the gas, it accelerated quickly. Ahead he could see the Porsche trying to nudge its way between two other cars, but the gap was too narrow for the wide sports car. He was only fifty yards behind her when the traffic began to move again and she turned left across the next bridge, quickly opening the gap between them. Somewhere in the distance he could hear approaching sirens. Francis hit the steering wheel with both palms and cursed.

He caught up to her again just as the road veered around to the left. She swerved into the oncoming traffic and accelerated through the red light into the intersection. Francis followed her and almost ran straight into the side of a bus. He was too intent on keeping up with the faster car to notice the black Mercedes that had been parked next to her join the chase. The first he knew of it was when it rammed him from behind as he slowed down to make a sharp right turn. The force of the impact almost sent the Golf into a spin that he just managed to bring back under control.

When he checked his rear view mirror he saw that the headlights of the Mercedes were blinking alternately, as were the blue ones behind the grill.

“Just what we fucking need,” Francis said.

Up ahead, the Porsche turned again and crossed a small bridge before flying through another red light and into a narrow street between two tall buildings. The brake lights suddenly came on and Francis saw she was trapped. A van had stopped halfway down the street, blocking the road. Francis slammed on the brakes and came to a stop in the middle of the intersection. Behind him, the Mercedes was closing in fast. When he saw her get out of the car, he backed up and blocked the road, then got out himself and ran after her.

She saw him. But instead of running, she ducked behind the front of her car. There was a loud crash behind him and Francis turned to see the Golf roll onto its roof in the middle of the intersection. A moment later the Mercedes, its grill now gone and the hood buckled, swerved past it and drove into the road behind him.

Francis didn’t see the car that pulled up behind the van. When he turned back, two men were running past the Porsche in his direction. The Mercedes screeched to a halt only twenty yards away. Both men in front of him were armed and shouting something in German. It wasn’t exactly hard to guess what they were saying. Francis weighed the odds and considered making a run for it back to the intersection. But when both doors of the Mercedes opened and two more armed men stepped out – one of them holding a large caliber machine gun – he realized the game was up.

Francis dropped the gun and raised both hands. “I’m not armed.”

They approached him cautiously, weapons raised and clearly prepared to shoot at the first sign of any trouble. They stopped several yards short and one of them – Francis thought he recognized him as the man who had spoken to Mike on the bridge – shouted something in the direction of the van blocking the road. Francis turned and saw Caroline stand up. She looked hesitant, but the man said something else to her and she started walking in their direction. Francis noticed several people standing on the balconies above watching them.

Caroline stopped between the two men in front of Francis. “Who are you?”

“Where’s my friend?” Francis said, ignoring the question.

“He’s unharmed. How long that remains the case is up to you.”

Francis looked around. “If he and I aren’t released immediately everything on the drive goes public. You know what that means? It means you fucking people are going to burn.”

The threat didn’t produce the reaction he had expected. In fact, it produced none at all.

“Take him,” Caroline said.

One of the men stepped forward and took out a set of handcuffs.

“You think I’m joking?” Francis said. “If I go down, Skyline goes with me. You hear me?”

Caroline was already walking away. The man put the cuffs on Francis and nudged him toward the waiting Mercedes. Francis turned and shouted after her. “Are you really going to throw away everything your father has done? His precious fucking spaceship?”

Caroline stopped. “What did you say?”

“I said the world will know about the ship and everything you’ve done to try and hide it.”

For a long moment she said nothing. Francis watched her, trying to read her eyes.

“Who the hell are you?” she finally said. “And where did you hear about –”

One of the men stepped forward and said something to her. Caroline shook her head. When he repeated himself she looked at Francis, bewildered. “Take the cuffs off him.”

“Miss de Villepin,” the man said in heavily accented English, “we have to take him in.”

She ignored him. “Why did you come here?”

“I want your people to back off. I’m willing to return the drive, but not the copies. They will be kept safe as long as you hold up your end of the deal. Try anything stupid and I send a copy to every newspaper and intelligence agency I can think of.”

“Drive?” Caroline said. “What are you talking about?”

Francis held out his hand for his backpack. Caroline nodded and one of the men inspected it briefly and handed it over. Francis took out the hard drive and handed it to Caroline. “This one.”

She took it. The surprise he saw on her face was genuine.

“Where did you get this?” she asked.

“Like you don’t know. I would have thought –”

A sudden wave of hot air swept past them, knocking Caroline to the ground along with the two men behind her. A split second later the explosion reached their ears. Through the heat haze Francis saw the Porsche leave the ground, rise at least eight feet into the air and fall back to the street on its side. Everything around it was engulfed in flame. The force of the blast had knocked the van onto its side and Francis saw a man run out of the building on the right, his clothes on fire.

One of the men behind him pulled Francis back by the collar of his shirt while the other ran forward to help Caroline. The man was saying something, but every car alarm in the street had gone off and Francis couldn’t make out a word of it. Caroline got to her feet and shouted something at the two men behind her. One of them ran forward, the other limped toward the sidewalk. A sliver of yellow metal was lodged in his leg just below the knee.

Suddenly Francis was being picked up and dragged toward the Mercedes. When one of the men opened the trunk, Francis was both horrified and relieved to see Mike inside. His hands were tied behind his back and his mouth had been covered with a wide strip of duct tape, but otherwise he seemed unharmed. They lifted Francis off his feet and pushed him inside. He got a final glimpse of the intersection, where a police car had stopped next to the overturned Volkswagen, then the trunk closed and the world went dark.

The Callisto

Monday 24 July 2006

1430 CEST

Captain Williams stepped into the doorway and waved the smoke out of his face.

“What the hell happened?” he asked his engineer, who was kneeling at the base of the diesel generator.

“Someone knocked out one of the oil seals,” the engineer said. “The fucking thing looks like it’s seized up completely.”

“What do you mean,
someone
?”

“I mean someone knocked it out.”

The engineer reached down and picked up a small metal disk. The floor under his feet was covered in oil. He held it up and pointed at a dent in the lip of the seal. “It was pried out with something. Probably a screwdriver or a small crowbar. Doesn’t really fucking matter which it was, because we’re stuck here either way.”

Williams took the seal and inspected it. “You’re saying someone deliberately sabotaged the generator?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Williams turned to one of the men behind him, “Get me the Master at Arms down here right away.”

He turned back to his engineer, “Can it be fixed?”

“No idea. If any of the piston rods are bent, there’s no way I’ll get her going again. I’ll have to remove the head and take a look.”

“Get it done,” Williams said. “Use as many men as you need. I’m going to contact Aurora.”

The captain left the engine room and ran back to his cabin. Titov Kargin, the organization’s unofficial chief of security and all-around mister fix-it, was sitting on the captain’s bunk reading a book. At two inches shy of seven feet, the Russian was too big to use the desk.

“What’s the problem?” Titov said when he saw Williams.

“Engine trouble,” Williams said and closed the door behind him. “We also have a saboteur on board.”

Titov raised an eyebrow. “We do?”

“Someone pulled one of the oil seals out of the generator.”

There was a knock on the door. It was the communications officer. “Sir, we’ve lost the link to Darkstar.”

Williams and Titov shared a foreboding look.

“Can it be fixed?” Williams asked.

“I’m not sure, sir.”

“Go back and try. I’ll be there in a minute. And tell the master-at-arms to get his ass in here!”

“I don’t like this,” Titov said. “You’re sure the generator was disabled deliberately?”

“Ben is. That’s good enough for me.”

“Then we need to find out who did it before he destroys anything else.”

“You mean like the comm link?”

Williams opened the door and shouted, “Where the fuck is Shane?”

A boy of about eighteen ran up to him and said, “Sir, the Master at Arms isn’t in his cabin.”

Williams looked back at Titov, who stood up – crouched might be a more accurate description – and said, “Come on, let’s go.”

They made their way to the bridge where the comms officer was busy trying to reconnect to the satellite.

“Sasha, what’s wrong with it?” Williams asked.

“I’m not getting anything back from Darkstar, sir.”

Just then the Master at Arms arrived. He was still fastening his belt.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Williams said, then looked down at the newspaper in the man’s hand and went on, “Never mind. We have a situation. Go get the chief up here.”

The Master at Arms returned a minute later with the chief engineer in tow.

“Is it possible the seal was removed before we left?” Williams asked him.

“No.”

“What if it was pushed back in?” Titov said. “Not all the way, but far enough to get us here before falling out.”

The chief considered this and nodded. “It’s possible. I only started the generator after we surfaced, so yes, maybe.”

“All right,” Williams said. “Get back down there and do what you can.”

Williams turned to Sasha. “Anything?”

Sasha shook his head. “Nothing, sir.”

“Fuck!” Williams shouted. “When I find the son of a bitch behind this I’m going to hang him. I want every man we can fit in the engine room down there helping the chief. We need to get this boat back on the move as fast as possible.”

“And if it can’t be fixed?” Titov asked.

“Then it looks like someone is going for a very fucking unpleasant swim.”

Zurich, Switzerland