The Lucifer Code (35 page)

Eventually he laid the bloodied whip on the floor and bent forward over the bed. He seemed calmer. Then, to Carvelli's astonishment, he clasped his hands together, lowered his head and began to pray: 'Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name . . .'

Carvelli stood in the doorway, frozen with shock, disbelief. He was unable to reconcile what Soames had revealed to him earlier with what he was witnessing now: a recitation of the only prayer in the Bible attributed to Jesus Christ. But before he could make sense of it, Soames lowered his hands and raised his head. Without turning, he said, 'Frank, you've brought my insurance with you?'

'Y-y-yes,' Carvelli stammered. 'In the white sector.'

'Well done.'

'You want to see him?'

Soames nodded. 'I'll be along shortly' he said. Then he turned towards Carvelli, moving his profile into the beam of light from the half-open door. Carvelli looked away, covering his eyes with his hand, filled with the irrational certainty that if he saw Soames's face he would die.

*

The Brooks mountain range.

Alaska

The storm buffeted the Black Hawk helicopter so hard its whole frame shook and creaked. Through the snow-lashed glass, Fleming could see fork lightning crack open the darkness, revealing flashes of white mountain peaks rising above him, like the cresting waves of a storm-tossed sea. If, as the General had hoped, there was a God, then as far as Fleming could see He wasn't with them on this mission.

Over the last few hours, he and Amber had remained in the rangers' cabin, becoming increasingly apprehensive as the weather deteriorated. Twice he had tried to contact his parents in England but there had been no reply, so he and Amber had used the time to eat and get some sleep while they waited for the helicopters. When they arrived, the weather was a whiteout and the pilots hadn't dared land. Instead Amber and he had been winched aboard.

'Buckle up and hold tight,' the pilot said grimly, as the helicopter rose higher. 'We're flying blind and this is only going to get worse.'

Fleming glanced around the cabin. Most of his fellow passengers looked equally grim. In addition to the pilot, there were four Delta Force operators, or D-boys, including Kovac, and two FBI tech agents who were assigned to assist Amber. She sat beside Fleming, looking small and vulnerable among the men in full combat gear.

The D-boys wore Arctic combat suits, white with a ghosted camouflage pattern. Each was weighed down with a backpack, grenades and a black oily CAR-15 pump-action shotgun or M-60 machine gun. The G-men wore the black Ninja suits favoured by the FBI hostage rescue team and carried more modest - Fleming thought more appropriate - rifles.

Somewhere out in the swirling darkness a second helicopter was carrying another four FBI HRT agents, including Special-Agent-in-Charge Wayne Thomas, and a further four Delta Force operators. A third back-up helicopter with another team was on standby just north of Fairbanks.

The plan was simple: fly low to avoid detection-maintaining radio silence as long as possible - to the unfinished refinery on the lower peak behind VenTec. Here the helicopters would hover as close to the ground as possible, allowing them to abseil-or, as the D-boys called it, fast-rope - on to the mountain. After regrouping at the refinery, Fleming would lead them to the pipe and retrace the steps he and Amber had taken when escaping. They planned to reach the borehole under the red sector and infiltrate Soames's computer from beneath. The first part, returning to the refinery, was supposed to have been straightforward. But the storm had changed that. Because the global positioning system relied on data that had been lost with the Red Pope's second sign, the pilot was forced to navigate in the old-fashioned way using maps and eyesight. But eyesight didn't work in a whiteout like this. In these conditions it was like speeding blindfold at Mach 3 through Manhattan, and any other mission would have been aborted. But if they didn't stop Soames's computer before the final signs were triggered, it would be too late.

Kovac tried to make light of it. 'The conditions are fine,' he said. 'We've got excellent cover and the element of surprise.'

Suddenly the chopper swerved to the left, and in the lightning Fleming saw the second helicopter appear on their right. Shit, he thought. They can't even see each other in this mess. Amber was staring at him - she had seen the near-miss too.

'How will we see the landing area in this storm?' she asked Kovac.

He turned to her, still appearing vaguely bored. 'You probably won't even see it,' he drawled, as if the landing area was some kind of need-to-know secret to which she wasn't privy, 'but don't worry about it.'

Fleming and Amber exchanged looks. 'You ever fast-roped before, Dr Grant?' one of the Delta Force soldiers asked her. She shook her head. 'It's okay. I'm taking her down on my rope,' said Fleming.

'You sure you're happy to do that?' Kovac asked. 'She's mission critical. We don't want her damaged. Perhaps one of us should do it.'

'Thanks for your concern,' said Amber hurriedly, 'but I'm sure I'll be fine with Miles.'

Kovac looked hard at Fleming, then shrugged.

'Getting close,' said the pilot, in the calm, reassuring tone that all pilots acquire, but Fleming heard the underlying strain when he told them to 'prepare the ropes and get ready'. The chopper was rocking in the air, taking all the pilot's physical strength to control it.

Three bolts of lightning lit the sky, turning the black night a blue-white more blinding than the darkness. Then a garbled message came to them over the radio.

'Hit . . . lightning . . electric's gone . . . going down . . . Black Hawk down. Black Hawk down . . .'

Silence.

Fleming peered out of the window to his right. In the crackling, electrified air he could see the second helicopter reeling as it tried to steady itself. There was a black charred gash above the cabin beneath the main rotors, which appeared to stutter in the turbulent air. Then the chopper lurched forward and spiralled downwards like a leaf in autumn.

Fleming's heart dropped with the helicopter. He watched it disappear into the whiteout. The brightness of the subsequent fireball briefly illuminated the dark abyss into which the Black Hawk had plummeted.

In the ensuing silence no one in the cabin met anyone else's eye. They needed to absorb what had happened in their own way, each trying to fend off the paralysing fear that it might happen to them.

'Hatches open. We're going in,' said the pilot, pointing down into the churning snow, where Fleming could make out the two empty steel frames designed to house the refinery's vast drum-shaped storage tanks. 'Throw the ropes.'

The helicopter doors slid open and freezing air blasted through the cabin. Kovac kicked out the ropes - four on each side.

'I'll try and hold it steady,' the pilot said, 'but I can't guarantee shit in this.'

Kovac was shouting for his men and the FBI agents to go down in the agreed order: 'Two by two. Go! Go! Go!'

In turn each man gripped a rope, backed out of the hatch and jumped, sliding down the swaying ropes, towards the swirling snow and what they hoped was the ground.

Fleming reached for Amber and waited his turn. He could feel her trembling when he wrapped his arms round her and placed his hands on the rope above hers.

'Don't worry, I've got you,' he whispered, harnessing his suit to hers, using his body to block her view of the swirling storm outside as he backed out of the hatch and into the void.

Amber couldn't remember feeling more physically frightened. Her stomach lurched and her heart beat so fast she thought she might faint. The heavy rope swayed like cotton in the gale-force winds and her gloved hands burned with friction. The rope and the helicopter were swinging so much that she might as well have been attached to a pendulum. But whenever she lost control she could feel Fleming's body close in, gripping her to him, checking her speed.

The descent seemed to take for ever: everything happened in slow motion. Looking down, she had no idea where the ground was in the swirling snow. Then to her left there was a clear gap and for an instant she saw what was below. If she had been scared before she was terrified now.

The helicopter had been pushed out of position by the storm and was hovering over the edge of the mountain. Below the opposite rope on the other side of the helicopter there was nothing. She screamed a warning at the Delta Force operator on the rope as he reached the end of his descent, but the wind was so fierce she could barely hear her own voice. Helpless, she watched him abseil to the base of the rope then release his grip. He seemed to hang for a second in the air as if kept buoyant by the force of the storm. Then he slipped silently into the darkness. To her right another man did the same. Neither let out a cry.

She began to swing even more violently and realized Fleming was purposely shifting his balance as they neared the end of their rope. He was swinging into the mountain.

He shouted in her ear, 'Bend your knees and roll.'

Seconds later she felt the impact as she hit the ground on her feet and crumpled into a ball. Fleming rolled with her in the snow. Before she could get her breath Fleming was pulling her to her feet. 'You okay?' she heard him ask in her helmet speaker.

She nodded once, then doubled over in pain.

'What's wrong?'

'Nothing,' she gasped.

Kovac was on them, shepherding them away from the edge of the mountain, towards the refinery. 'You hurt?'

She grimaced. 'Just winded.'

'Walk it off,' he said. 'There ain't much time.'

Nearing the refinery area, there was more protection from the storm. 'How many of us are left?' Fleming asked.

'Five who are fit to go on,' said Kovac. His voice was even. 'We lost two off the edge and one broke his leg.'

Ahead, Amber could see two figures standing in the swirling snow; one was bending over a prostrate man whose left leg was bent back on itself. She was relieved that one fit man was in the black FBI uniform of the tech agents. At least she and Fleming weren't the only technically qualified members of the team.

Fleming was trying to get his bearings. 'There'll be shelter in the pipe. We need to get your injured man out of the storm. What do you want to do about him?'

Kovac didn't hesitate. 'We'll get him comfortable and warm, then leave him with a radio. If we're not back for him in six hours he can break radio silence and call the back-up helicopter. By then we'll have either failed or succeeded. It may be immaterial anyway' He moved towards his colleague.

The weather was worsening. Their team was depleted. However Amber looked at it, the omens weren't good. It was almost as if God - or whoever was really in charge - didn't want Soames stopped.

Fleming turned to her. 'Don't worry, Amber, our luck must change soon. It can't get any worse.'

But it could.

Minutes later he shouted, T can't find the pipe. The snow's covered it. I think it's over there but we've got to dig for it.'

'Okay' said Kovac, inured to changing plans and shifting fortunes.

'Okay,' agreed Amber. But she didn't feel okay. All she could think about was how everything that could have gone wrong had gone wrong. She had escaped intending to call the cavalry, not realizing that she and Fleming were the cavalry.

She thought of her godfather waiting on the Red Ark. 'I'll pray for you until you return victorious,' he had promised, confident that they would succeed in their mission because it was 'God's will'.

Gritting her teeth, Amber followed Fleming's footsteps in the snow. 'Papa Pete, I hope to God you haven't been praying until now,' she muttered, under her breath, 'because if this is what happens after you've been praying, then we're in deep shit.'

*

The white sector

Carvelli rubbed his clammy palms together, trying to dispel the disturbing image of Soames flagellating himself.

Soames was now fully dressed, standing in one of the deserted recreation rooms in the white sector, his wolves sitting patiently at either side of him. Bending over, he peered through the etched-glass door into the next room. He had already put through an excited call to Tripp and Bukowski in the red sector to check on the status of his computer, and in the last few minutes he'd twice asked Carvelli the time. With each update, he said, 'Almost there, almost there,' repeating the two words like a mantra.

As he looked through the glass he grinned. 'Well done, Frank,' he said. 'Was it difficult, getting hold of my insurance policy?'

Carvelli was unsure what to say. He wanted Soames's approval but he was frightened of deceiving him in case he was punished. If he was honest, he hadn't done much, except wait for the men to pick up the 'package' from school then spend the flight reassuring the kid that he was on a surprise trip to see his uncle. 'He's pretty together, if that's what you mean.'

'Not even a little scared?'

'He misses his grandma and grandpa and I'm not sure he believes my surprise-trip story. But he's a tough one.'

Soames gestured Carvelli over. 'Look what he's doing.'

Carvelli moved closer to the window, keeping as far from the wolves as possible. He already knew what the boy was doing: he had been playing with him for the last half hour.

'Look at him piling up my old bricks,' Soames said, with a distant smile. 'He's so meticulous with each tower, making sure every brick is perfectly placed.' Soames pushed open the door. 'I must talk to him.'