Stormbreaker (12 page)

“I had a friend staying in the village,” he said. “I was wondering if he came here. His name's Ian Rider.”

“Rider with an i or a y? I don't think we have any Riders at all.” The woman tapped a few keys on her computer, then shook her head. “No . . .”

“He was staying at Sayle Enterprises,” Alex said. “He was about forty, thin, fair haired. He drove a BMW”

“Oh yes.” The librarian smiled. “He did come here a couple of times. A nice man. Very polite. I knew he didn't come from around here. He was looking for a book. . .”

“Do you remember what book?”

“Of course I do. I can't always remember faces, but I never forget a book. He was interested in viruses.”

“Viruses?”

"Yes. That's what I said. He wanted information. . .

A computer virus! This might change everything. A computer virus was the perfect piece of sabotage: invisible and instantaneous. A single blip written into the software and every single piece of information in the Stormbreaker software could be destroyed at any time. But Herod Sayle couldn't possibly want to damage his own creation. That would make no sense at all. So maybe Alex had been wrong about him from the very start. Maybe Sayle had no idea what was really going on.

“I’m afraid I couldn't help him,“ the librarian continued. ”This is only a small library and our grant's en cut for the third year running.“ She sighed. ”Anyway, he said he'd get some books sent down from Lonon. He told me he had a box at the post office . . ."

That made sense too. Ian Rider wouldn't want information sent to Sayle Enterprises, where it could be intercepted.

“Was that the last time you saw him?” Alex asked.

“No. He came back about a week later. He must have gotten what he wanted because this time he wasn't looking for books about viruses. He was interested in local affairs.”

“What sort of local affairs?”

“Cornish local history. Shelf CL.” She pointed. “He spent an afternoon looking in one of the books and en he left. He hasn't been back since then, which is a shame. I was rather hoping he'd join the library. Would you like to?”

“Not today, thanks,” Alex said.

Local history. That wasn't going to help him. Alex nodded at the librarian and made for the door. His hand was just reaching out for the handle when he remembered: CL 475/19.

He reached into his pocket and took out the Game Boy, pulled off the back, and unfolded the square of paper he had found in his bedroom. Sure enough, the letters were the same.CL. They weren't referring to a grid reference.CL was the label on a book!

Alex went over to the shelf that the librarian had shown him. Books grow old faster when they're not being read and the ones gathered here were long past retirement, leaning tiredly against one another for support.CL 475/19-the number was printed on the spine-was calledDozmary: The Story of Cornwall's Oldest Mine.

He carried it over to a table, opened it, and quickly skimmed through it, wondering why a history of Cornish tin should have been of interest to Ian Rider. The story it told was a familiar one.

The mine had been owned by the Dozmary family for eleven generations. In the nineteenth century there had been four hundred mines in Cornwall. By the 1990s there were only three. Dozmary was still one of them. The price of tin had collapsed and the mine itself' was almost exhausted, but there was no other work in the area and the family had continued running it even though the mine was quickly exhausting them. In 199 1, Sir Rupert Dozmary, the last owner, had quietly slipped away and blown his brains out. He was buried in the local churchyard in a coffin, it was said, made of tin.

His children had closed down the mine, selling the land above it to Sayle Enterprises. The mine itself was sealed off with several of the tunnels now underwater.

The book contained a number of old black-and-white photographs: pit ponies and canaries in cages. Groups of figures standing with axes and lanterns. Now all of them would be under the ground themselves. Flicking through the pages, Alex came to a map, showing the layout of the tunnels at the time when the mine was closed:

It was hard to be sure of the scale, but there was a labyrinth of shafts, tunnels, and railway lines running for miles underground. Go down into the utter black ness of the underground and you'd be lost instantly. Had Ian Rider made his way into Dozmary? If so, what had he found?

Alex remembered the corridor at the foot of the metal staircase. The dark brown unfinished walls and the lightbulbs hanging on their wires had reminded him of something, and suddenly he knew what it was. The corridor must be nothing more than one of the shafts from the old mine! Suppose Ian Rider had also gone down the staircase. Like Alex, he had been confronted with the locked metal door and had been determined to find his way past it. But he had recognized the corridor for what it was-and that was why he had come back to the library. He had found a book on the Dozmary Mine-this book. The map had shown him a way to the other side of the door.

And he a made a note of it!

Alex took out the diagram that Ian Rider had drawn and laid it on the page, on top of the map. Holding the two sheets together, he held them up to the light.

This was what he saw:

The blue lines that Rider had drawn on the sheet fitted exactly over the shafts of the mine, showing the way through. Alex was certain of it. If he could find the entrance to Dozmary, he could follow the map through to the other side of the metal door.

Ten minutes later he left the library with a photocopy of the page. He went down to the harbor and found one of those maritime stores that seem to sell anything and everything. Here he bought himself a powerful flashlight, a jersey, a length of rope, and a box of chalk.

Then he climbed back into the hills.

Back on the quad, Alex raced across the cliff tops with the sun already sinking in the west. Ahead of him he could see the single chimney and crumbling tower that he hoped would mark the entrance to the Kerneweck Shaft ... it took its name from the ancient language of Cornwall. According to the map, this was where he should begin. At least the quad had made his life easier. It would have taken him an hour to reach it on foot.

He was running out of time and he knew it. The first Stormbreakers would have already begun leaving the plant, and in less than twenty-four hours the prime minister would be activating them. If the software really had been bugged with some sort of virus, what would happen? Some sort of humiliation for both Sayle and the British government? Or worse?

And how did a computer bug tie in with what he had seen the night before? Whatever the submarine had been delivering on the jetty, it hadn't been computer software. The silver boxes had been too large. And you don't shoot a man for dropping a diskette.

Alex parked the quad next to the tower and went in through an arched doorway. At first he thought he must have made some sort of mistake. The building looked more like a ruined church than the entrance to a mine. Other people had been here before him. There were a few crumpled beer cans and old potato chip packets on the floor and the usual graffiti on the wall. JRH WAS HERE. NICK LOVES CASS. Visitors leaving the worst parts of themselves behind in fluorescent paint.

His foot came down on something that clanged and he saw that he was standing on a metal trapdoor. Grass and weeds were sprouting around the edges, but putting his hand against the crack, he could feel a draft of air rising from below. This must be the entrance to the shaft.

The trapdoor was bolted down with a heavy padlock, several inches thick. Alex swore silently. He had left the zit cream back in his room. The cream would have eaten through the bolts in seconds, but he didn't have the time to go all the way back to Sayle Enterprises to get it. He knelt down and shook the padlock in frustration. To his surprise, it sprang open. Somebody had been here before him. Ian Rider-it had to be. He must have managed to unlock it and hadn't fully closed it again so that it would be open when he came back.

Alex pulled the padlock out and grabbed the trapdoor. It took all his strength to lift it, and as he did so, a blast of cold air hit him in the face. The trapdoor clanged back and he found himself looking into a black hole that stretched farther than the daylight could reach. Alex shone his flashlight into the hole. The beam went about fifty feet, but the shaft went farther. He found a pebble and dropped it in. At least ten seconds passed before the pebble rattled against something far below.

A rusty ladder ran down the side of the shaft. Alex checked that the quad was out of sight, then looped the rope over his shoulder and shoved the flashlight into his belt. He didn't enjoy climbing into the hole. The metal rungs were ice cold against his hands, and his shoulders had barely sunk beneath the level of the ground before the sun was blotted out and he felt him self being sucked into a darkness so total that he couldn't even be sure he had eyes. But he couldn't climb and hold on to the flashlight at the same time. He had to feel his way, a hand then a foot, descending farther until at last his heel struck the ground and he knew he had reached the bottom of the Kerneweck Shaft.

He looked up. He could just make out the entrance he had climbed through: small, round, as distant as the moon. He was breathing heavily. The air was thin and smelled faintly metallic. Trying to fight off the sense of claustrophobia, he pulled out the flashlight and flicked it on. The beam leaped out of his hand, pointing the way ahead and throwing pure white light onto his immediate surroundings. Alex was at the start of a long tunnel, the uneven walls and ceiling held back by wooden beams. The floor was already damp, and a sheen of salt water hung in the air. It was cold in the mine. He had known it would be, and before he moved, he pulled on the jersey he had bought, then chalked a large X on the wall. That had been a good idea too. Whatever happened down here, he wanted to be sure he could find the way back.

At last he was ready. He took two steps forward, away from the vertical shaft and into the start of the tunnel, and immediately felt the weight of the solid rock, the soil, and the remaining streaks of tin bearing down on him. It was horrible here, like being buried alive, and it took all his strength to force himself on. After about fifty paces he came to a second tunnel, branching off to the left. He took out the photocopied map and examined it. According to Ian Rider, this was where he had to turn off. He swung the flashlight around and followed the tunnel, which slanted downward, taking him deeper and deeper into the earth.

There was absolutely no sound in the mine apart from his own rasping breath, the crunch of his footsteps, and the quickening thud of his heart. It was as if the blackness was wiping out sound as well as vision. Alex opened his mouth and called out, just to hear something. But his voice sounded small and only reminded him of the huge weight above his head. This tunnel was in bad repair. Some of the beams had snapped and fallen in, and as he passed, a trickle of gravel hit his neck and shoulders, reminding him that the Dozmary Mine had been kept locked for a reason. It was a hellish place. It could collapse at any time.

The path took him ever deeper. He could feel the pressure pounding in his ears as the darkness grew thicker and more oppressive. He came to a tangle of iron and wire: some sort of machine, long ago buried and forgotten. He climbed over it too quickly, cutting his leg on a piece of jagged metal. He stood still for a few seconds, forcing himself to slow down. He knew he mustn't panic. He forced himself to think. Ifyou panic, you'll get lost. Think what you're doing. Be careful. One step at a time...

“Okay. Okay...” He whispered the words to reassure himself, then continued forward.

Now he emerged into a sort of wide circular chamber, formed by the meeting of six different tunnels, all coming together in a star shape. The widest of these slanted in from the left with the remains of a railway track. He swung the flashlight and saw a couple of wooden wagons that must have been used to carry equipment down or tin back up to the surface. Checking the map, he was tempted to follow the railway, which seemed to offer a shortcut across the route that Ian Rider had drawn. But he decided against it. The map told him to turn the corner and go back on himself. There had to be a reason. Alex made another two chalk crosses, one for the tunnel he had left, another for the one he was entering. He went on.

This new tunnel quickly became lower and narrower until Alex couldn't walk unless he crouched. The floor was very wet here, with pools of water rising up to his ankles. He remembered how near he was to the sea and that brought another unpleasant thought. What time was high tide? And when the water rose, what would happen inside the mine? Alex suddenly had a vision of himself trapped in blackness with water rising up to his chest, his neck, over his face. He stopped and forced himself to think of something else. Down here, on his own, far beneath the surface of the earth, he couldn't make an enemy of his imagination.

The tunnel curved then joined a second railway line, this one bent and broken, covered here and there in rubble, which must have fallen from above. But the metallic tracks made it easier to move forward, picking up the reflection of the flashlight. Alex followed them all the way to a junction with the main railway. It had taken him thirty minutes and he was almost back where he had started, but shining the flashlight around him, he saw why Ian Rider had sent him the long way around. The shorter route had been blocked by a tunnel collapse. About thirty yards up the line, the main railway came to a dead end.

He crossed the track, still following the map, and stopped. He looked at the paper, then again at the way ahead. It was impossible. And yet there was no mistake.

He had come to a small, round tunnel dipping steeply down. But after a brief stretch, the tunnel simply stopped with what looked like a sheet of metal barring the way. Alex picked up a stone and threw it. There was a splash. Now he understood. The tunnel was completely submerged in water as black as ink. The water had risen up to the ceiling of the tunnel, so even assuming he could swim in temperatures that must be close to freezing, he would be unable to breathe. After all his hard work, after all the time he had spent underground, there was no way forward.