Origin - Season One (43 page)

“I really hope we don’t run into any trouble ashore,” Titov said. “Because if we do, we’re fucked.”

Aurora

Tuesday 25 July 2006

0200 EEST

Brendan was lighting another cigar when the guard entered his office and handed him a small sheet of folded paper. “Chief, we found this in his apartment.”

Both Heinz and Erik were seated in the chairs in front of the chief’s desk.

“Show me that,” Heinz said.

The guard looked at the chief who nodded. “Give it to him.”

Heinz unfolded it and looked at it for only a moment. “It’s the password to the Darkstar control interface.”

“Find Rainey,” the chief said to the guard. “I want him in his quarters and under guard.”

When the guard had left Erik said, “Listen, Brendan, I honestly – we honestly didn’t –”

“I’m going to stop you there, Erik,” the chief said, holding up a hand. “What either of you think when it comes to the security of this facility is irrelevant. If it wasn’t true before that little shit arrived, it certainly is now.”

The chief took the piece of paper from Heinz and said, “You said he had unsupervised access to the system. Could he have shut down the link to Darkstar knowing this password?”

Heinz nodded, but didn’t look up. “Yes.”

The chief stood and leaned forward with both hands spread out on his desk. “It didn’t occur to you that that might be a really fucking bad idea? That maybe that’s the reason he’s here?”

When Heinz only kept looking down, the chief turned to Erik. “It’s my ass on the line, Erik. Although I’d really appreciate it if you make it clear to Richelle just how adamant you were that he be given the run of the place. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got a clusterfuck to attend to. I suggest you get busy re-establishing the link to Darkstar, Heinz.”

Both men stood and left the room. A moment later the radio on the chief’s hip squalled. “Sir, we’ve got him. Miss Breland is asking to see you.”

“Not now,” the chief said. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

The Pandora

The Baltic Sea

Tuesday 25 July 2006

0250 CEST

They were standing on the observation platform above the bridge. Five men and two women, each looking up, transfixed, into the black cloudless sky. In another setting they might have resembled a clan of superstitious Neanderthals gaping in fear, or wonder, or both, at the mystery of the heavens.

Captain Almila studied the people around him with a growing sense of detachment, recounting the events that had led them all to this surreal moment. He had been the first officer on board a Finnish navy patrol cruiser less than four years ago. Recently divorced, childless and increasingly disillusioned with life, he had accepted the offer of a job abroad, not so much as a career move but as an opportunity to put the past behind him.

His first encounter with the Pandora had been in the Korean shipyard at Busan, where her hull was still under construction, and her purpose as much a mystery as the reason he had been selected to captain her.

His mind skipped ahead to his first day at Aurora, meeting the beautiful young woman who was now both his friend and superior. Like so many before him, the truth of what he was involved in arrived in stages between intermittent bouts of disbelief and incredulity. Unlike Mitch Rainey, he had at least been warned to expect the unbelievable. Yet, for all the wonder of that subterranean paradise and the progress on the Pandora, whose design and construction became increasingly shrouded in secrecy as her true purpose was revealed, none of it could really prepare a person for this.

“Sir, we’ve lost the link to Darkstar.”

Almila turned to see his chief officer standing behind him.

“It’s probably just temporary interference,” Almila said. “Try again in a minute. I’m going to stay up here a little longer.”

Utska, Poland

Tuesday 25 July 2006

0230 CEST

Caroline put the phone down and looked around at the faces in the room.

“Well? What did she say?” Richelle asked.

“Carl left her a note saying he had to fly to California,” Caroline said. “But she says she hasn’t booked a flight and doesn’t know anything about it.”

“So where the hell is Jack?”

“She doesn’t know.”

“Has she asked Marius? He’ll know where they are.”

Caroline shook her head. “She hasn’t seen Marius since yesterday.”

“Who’s Marius?” Francis asked.

“He runs all our security systems out there,” Richelle said.

Caroline looked close to tears.

“What is it?” Richelle asked.

“What the hell is going on?” Caroline said. “I don’t understand. Everyone’s missing. Jack should have called by now.”

Francis sat turning over a pen in his hand. He seemed to be concentrating on the top row of one of the bookshelves in the small library.

“I don’t want to panic anyone,” Francis said, “but you should prepare yourselves for the worst.”

Caroline only looked at Richelle. “What does he mean?”

“Nothing. It’s okay.”

“How well do you know Jack?” Francis asked.

“Jack’s been with us for over ten years,” Richelle said, clearly annoyed at the implication. “I trust him with my life.”

“Hey, I’m just ask –”

Francis suddenly cocked his head to one side and held up a hand.

“What is it?” Richelle asked.

Francis stood and walked to the balcony overlooking the long slope of woodland that ran from the end of the front garden to the coast less than half a mile away. He leaned down until his head was below the stone railing and listened.

“Are you expecting company?” he asked.

Richelle shook her head. “No. Why?”

Before he could answer her one of the guards ran into the room. “Ma’am, the perimeters sensor array is down. I can’t reach any of the –”

There was a sudden burst of gunfire from somewhere outside.

“Everyone get down!” Francis shouted.

There were several more shots, followed by an explosion that shook the whole building and shattered several of the glass panes in the balcony doors.

“Get her out of here,” Francis said to Mike, pointing to Caroline. To the guard he said, “How many men do you have in the building?”

The man looked at Richelle.

“Tell him,” she said.

“Six. They were on their way out to replace the patrols but I called them back.”

“Good. Get them all up here now. If you have surplus weapons, have them bring whatever they can carry with them and as much ammunition as possible. And if you have any grenades, we need them all.”

The man ran back out.

“What’s going on?” Richelle asked.

“I think we’re about to find out,” Francis said. “Are you as good with the barrel of a gun as you are with the butt?”

“Better.”

“Good.”

There was another burst of gunfire, much closer to the house this time. Francis heard footsteps running up the stairs, but the sound was cut off by another volley of gunfire. Then the front doors downstairs burst open.

“Move!” Francis shouted at Richelle, but it was too late. One of the heavy oak doors of the library flew off its hinges and passed a foot above her head before crashing into the bookshelf behind her. Richelle was knocked off her feet by the blast. One of the guards staggered in through the open doorway. When he sank to his knees and turned to look back, Francis saw the back of his head was gone. He dropped face-first onto the floor.

Francis ran forward, rolled the body over with the heel of his shoe and picked up the man’s weapon. It was a 7.62mm HK 417 battle rifle. Francis recognized the man as the one he had assaulted himself less than an hour ago. Richelle was back on her feet and kneeling behind the table, her eyes wild, but not hysterical. Francis held a finger to his lips and moved toward the door.

He listened.

Several people were coming up the stairs. They were moving cautiously now that it was quiet again. As they reached the landing Francis moved his head to peer through the crack of the door still on its frame.

There were three of them. They had stopped at the top of the stairs and were looking around. Two of them had PP-2000 compact submachine guns. The third man carried a Dragunov SVU sniper rifle. They were dressed in black and all three wore balaclavas.

Francis turned to Richelle who had moved out of sight behind a chair. He held up three fingers and pointed toward the door, then walked two of them across his palm and held up his hand to indicate they should wait.

She nodded.

The group split up. Two of the men walked away toward the door at the other end of the landing while the other passed the door to the library and followed the bannister. Francis slipped off his shoes and moved slowly across the polished hardwood floor, checking each step for a weak board before moving on. When he was in front of the doorway he moved onto his stomach. The men emerged from the room at the other end of the landing together. One of them saw Francis, but his attempt to raise the alarm was cut off by the first shot, which opened a hole in his throat big enough to look through. The second shot hit the man beside him just above the chin, shattering his top teeth before exiting at the base of his skull. Francis adjusted his position and waited for the third man to return, but when he pulled the trigger again, it produced nothing but a soft dry click. The man heard it and raised his own weapon. As the man pulled the trigger, a book – Francis thought it must have been the Oxford unabridged dictionary judging by the size of it – hit him in the right shoulder and sent the shot wild. The man stumbled back, readjusted his aim and fired again. Only this time there was no muzzle flash, and instead of finding his own brains splattered across the library floor, Francis watched the man twist and fall to the floor.

“Mike?” Francis said.

“Did I get him?” Mike shouted.

Francis stood up and looked around the corner. “Oh Christ, Mike.”

Mike was sitting with his back against the wall below the window at the end of the landing. Half his face was covered in blood. But what caught Francis’s eye was the blood flowing from beneath the hand on his right hip. The carpet was already soaked with it.

“You got him, Mike,” Francis said. “But someone got you first, buddy. Don’t move.”

“Grenade fragment,” Mike said.

“And don’t talk either.”

Francis moved his hand and saw that Mike was at least partially right. A splinter of wood the size of a stick of dynamite was protruding from the left side of his groin.

“Is he okay?”

Francis turned and saw Caroline standing in the doorway. She was bleeding herself, but the cuts were small and she seemed not to even notice.

“Not for long,” Francis said. “I need you to find me a towel.”

Caroline didn’t move. Francis stood and pushed past her into the room. He found several towels stacked on the granite counter of the on-suite bathroom. When he came back out Richelle was standing over Mike. She had taken the weapons from all three of the dead men and was looking around nervously. Francis called to Caroline again and when she still didn’t move he reached out and pinched her earlobe. “Hey, eyes on me.”

He tore one of the towels into three strips, then rolled and twisted one of them and coiled it around itself to form what looked a bit like a large doughnut.

“Whatever you do, don’t try to pull it out,” he said, and pushed the makeshift compress around the splinter. He took Caroline’s hand and placed it over the towel. “I need you to push down on this as hard as you can. Use both hands and put your weight behind it. If he screams you just keep pushing. Got it?”

Caroline nodded.

“Good. I have to go.”

Francis stood and Richelle handed him the sniper rifle.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“You need to stay –” Francis began.

“I’m not staying,” Richelle said. “Now are you coming, or not?”

One look at her face told him they would all be dead by the time he changed her mind.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs Richelle knelt beside the body of one of her guards and pulled a grenade from his hand. She threw it to Francis, who caught it.

“They’ll have come in from the beach,” Francis said. “Any idea how they shut down the security system?”

Richelle considered this for a moment and pointed at the doors leading into the east wing of the house. “There’s a tunnel that runs a few hundred yards into the woods between here and the sea. It comes out in the emergency generator room.”

“Lead the way,” Francis said.

They moved along the ground floor and through the kitchen to a door leading out into the courtyard. Richelle pointed to a small stone annex about twenty yards from the house. “It’s in there.”

She began to walk but Francis grabbed her arm and pulled her back. He put a hand on her shoulder and forced her to kneel beside him.

“Look,” he said, pointing to the right of the small building.

Two men had emerged from the tree line and were running across the open lawn toward the front door of the house. Still kneeling, Francis raised the rifle and bent his head to the scope. He focused the crosshairs on the lead man, then moved it slightly ahead of him and raised it a notch before pulling the trigger. The man behind him ran straight into the back of his colleague just as the top of his head exploded.

“Go on, hit the deck, idiot,” Francis murmured under his breath.

But the man didn’t. Instead he turned toward the sound of the shot and ran, weaving to the left and right every few paces.

“All right, I take it back. You’re not an idiot,” Francis said.

When the man was only twenty yards away Francis told Richelle to get up. The man saw her and stopped weaving. He began to raise his rifle, but Francis shot him twice in the chest before he had a chance to aim.

“I make that five,” Francis said. “If they knew what they would find here we should expect at least double that, maybe a dozen at most.”