Department 19: Zero Hour (34 page)

He had lain low in Dover for several weeks, in a safe house he had procured for exactly this eventuality, waiting for the worst of the heat to die down. When he could wait no longer, he had boarded a ferry for Calais with a fake passport in one pocket and a cyanide pill in the other. His orders were absolutely clear on this point:
Do not, under any circumstances, allow yourself to be taken alive
.

From Munich, he had made his way north, travelling at night, avoiding contact with anyone other than the kindly souls who pulled over to the side of the road and offered to take him closer to his destination. He skirted round the edge of the Czech Republic, even though it was a longer route. He had no desire to cross more national borders than was absolutely necessary; they represented by far the likeliest point of capture, even the sleepy backwoods crossings of eastern Europe. He crossed into Poland at Görlitz in the late afternoon, trying not to visibly hold his breath as his passport was scrutinised. It was fine work, the best that money could buy, but it was not flawless, as no forged document ever is.

The border guard had examined the passport, held on to it for a moment that seemed to last forever, then grunted and handed it back.

From Wrocław, the man caught a dilapidated but surprisingly comfortable train north-east into Belarus, sleeping in short bursts with the straps of his bag wound tightly round his wrist and ankle to deter potential thieves. In Orsha, he bought gloves, goggles, as much thermal clothing as he could wear, the sealskin coat, and found a farmer who agreed to take him to the Russian border, but would go no further. The man didn’t try to persuade him; instead, he offered the farmer two hundred euros for the shotgun that was lying in the back seat of his truck, a deal to which he readily agreed.

A mile from the edge of Belarus, the man slung the gun over his shoulder and hiked east into the deep forest.

The trees were tall and packed tightly together, the darkness between them absolute. There was no way for the man to see whether anyone was pursuing him, so he pressed ahead, his breath hot behind the mask, the shotgun resting in his shivering hands. For long, silent hours, he hiked through falling snow, until, as dawn began to break in front of him, he crossed the border into Russia.

Frozen to the bone, barely able to keep putting one foot in front of the other, the man had stumbled on to a farm as the sun climbed overhead, and paid the hard, taciturn woman who owned it to drive him into Smolensk. From there he caught a sleeper train to St Petersburg and boarded a second train north.

The train was full of Russian soldiers and sailors, carrying order slips in their gloved hands as they headed for postings at Murmansk and Polyarny. They eyed the man with outright suspicion, but none went so far as to ask him what his business was in the Arctic heartland of the Russian military. The man kept his gaze trained out of the window, watching snow slowly obliterate the landscape, until ice coated the glass and he could see nothing but his own fractured reflection.

One more mile,
he told himself.
One step at a time. Get up.

The man allowed himself ten seconds’ more rest, then forced himself back to his feet. The warehouse in Orsha had sold snowshoes, and he could no longer remember why he had decided not to buy a pair; they were bulky, and unwieldy to carry, but would have been invaluable in the situation he now found himself. Without them, each step was a Herculean challenge, a draining, energy-sapping nightmare. For the hundredth time, he cursed his own stupidity, hauled a foot out of the deep, sucking snow, and shoved it forward.

Time passed.

He had no sense of it any more; the darkness of the polar winter was seemingly infinite, the landscape unchanging. The red numbers on his GPS, ticking down with agonising slowness, were the only evidence that he was making progress, that his lurching, laboured steps were carrying him towards his destination.

Nine hundred and seventy-one metres.

Nine hundred and sixty-seven metres.

Nine hundred and fifty-five metres.

He was close now; he could hear the thunder as ice-breakers made their way up the Murmansk Fjord in the distance, could smell the churning water on the air. He forced himself not to run, not to expend what little energy he had left in a burst that would leave him panting and breathless and still short of his destination. Instead, he focused on the slow metronomic motion of his steps: one foot, then the other, then the other.

An unknowable amount of time later, in which the man’s sense of himself had begun to disappear along with his perception of time, and he had become nothing more than pain and sweat and harsh, loud breath, he saw something ahead of him. He was part snow-blind, part delirious with desire for rest, and at first he assumed that it was nothing more than a cruel trick played by his reeling mind. But as he trudged forward, he began to believe, despite himself, that it was real; something regular and even, glimpsed through the tightly packed tree trunks and the great untouched ridges and valleys of snow.

Something with straight lines and edges.

A fence,
he thought.
It’s a fence. I’m almost there.

The man pressed forward, his eyes fixed on the interlocking diamonds of wire that sparkled in the light of the moon that had risen overhead, bright and almost full. The fence was high, topped with snow-heavy coils of razor wire, and the man knew that he was now almost certainly being watched from some distant bunker; he was well inside the perimeter that would be monitored by the men and women who populated his destination. It didn’t matter, though; he
wanted
them to see him.

He wanted them to know he was coming.

The man accelerated; he knew it was foolish, but he simply could not stop himself. What lay beyond the fence was the reason he had travelled so far, and it was finally in sight. The snow flew up around his churning legs as he panted behind his mask, his lungs working overtime, his muscles screaming at him, but his heart was suddenly full of joy.

I made it,
he thought.
I really made it. I’m home.

A low growl rumbled through the freezing air, vibrating the man’s bones and stopping him dead in his tracks. His nerves, dulled for so long by cold and monotony, were suddenly humming, as adrenaline coursed through his system. The man forced himself still, fighting back the chemical urge to run, and listened to the darkness of the forest.

Somewhere to his left, a branch snapped. Then the growl came again, longer and louder, and fear gripped at the man’s heart.

Not now. Not when I’m so close. Please not now.

He pulled his torch from his pocket and flicked it on. The beam illuminated almost nothing, a triangle perhaps three metres long and two metres wide. Beyond it, darkness crowded in, thick and malevolent. He risked a look at the fence; it had been so close, almost within reach, but now the distance between him and it seemed like miles. The man turned slowly, trying to keep the torch beam steady, searching for the source of the growl, wishing for ignorance, wishing he didn’t know what was making it.

He swung the torch, shuffling his feet round in the knee-deep snow, then stopped. In front of him, reflecting the light of his torch, was a pair of huge brown eyes. The man swallowed, his mouth dry, his limbs trembling with fear.

As he swung the shotgun slowly off his shoulder, a dark section of the forest beyond the eyes moved.

For the second time in less than an hour, Matt Browning found himself standing outside a building on his own.

SafetyNet was based inside a wide office building made of steel and glass; the charity’s logo was one of half a dozen designs attached to the wall beside the front door on small brass plates. Matt was standing in the parking lot beside it, having been stationed there with orders to make sure that nobody fitting their target’s description emerged. Given that the description comprised of little more than
male, in his forties, medium height with a deep tan
, Matt had already resolved to stop and question any man that came through the front door.

Major Simmons had given the squad their orders as they pulled up outside the building, having navigated their way through the gridlocked maze of one-way streets that comprised the centre of San Francisco. Simmons himself would wait in the lobby, Andrews would position herself at the back of the building, and Lawrence and Landsman would go up to the offices of SafetyNet to look for Adam, or John Bell, as it appeared he was once again going by. Nobody was to draw a weapon unless it was absolutely necessary, or to identify themselves in any way, to anyone. The ideal scenario was that they would find John Bell sitting behind a desk, from where he would come quietly, with the minimum of fuss. Matt doubted that any member of the squad genuinely believed it would be so straightforward, but he saw no harm in hoping.

Everything doesn’t always have to go wrong,
he thought.
Surely?

Through his earpiece, he heard Danny Lawrence’s voice as he introduced himself to someone who presumably worked for SafetyNet.

“I’m looking for an employee of yours,” said Danny. “John Bell?”

“You a cop?” asked a male voice. “What’s he done?”

Matt smiled to himself in the parking lot; it seemed as though everyone in San Francisco automatically assumed the worst when questioned.

“Nothing,” said Danny, his voice light and friendly. “I have a message for him, that’s all. It needs to be delivered in person.”

“Johnny’s working,” said the man, and Matt felt tension surge into his stomach. “He’s taking calls. I’m not going to interrupt him if he’s talking to someone.”

“Of course not,” said Danny. “We’ll wait here, and you can send him out when he’s finished with his call.”

“I suppose so,” said the man. He sounded unconvinced, but Matt was sure he would do as Danny said; the young Operator was relentlessly charming, and had a natural, easy-going authority about him. His mind raced with the confirmation that John Bell was not only real, but was sitting inside the building in front of him.

“Great,” said Danny. “We’ll be here.”

“All right,” said the man.

A few seconds later Danny spoke into his microphone. “Everyone catch all that?”

“Two minutes, Lawrence,” growled Simmons. “If he’s not standing in front of you in two minutes, you go in there and drag him out. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” said Danny.

Matt shifted his weight from one foot to the other, back and forth, excitement bubbling through him. He was suddenly aware that the moment when he would need to do his job was imminent; if Danny and Landsman brought Adam out, they would head directly to the laboratory on the University of San Francisco campus that had been commandeered, where Matt would be expected to step to the fore.

He would need to take blood, label up the samples to be sent back to Nevada and England, and complete a provisional DNA analysis as quickly as possible. His excitement at the thought of stepping back into a world he understood was tempered by the prospect that he had been trying to ignore ever since he boarded the
Mina II
: that there would be nothing of any use in Adam’s blood, that the cure would have left no genetic trace for Lazarus to work from. Matt didn’t want to believe it, but he had to allow for the possibility; if he didn’t, the potential for disappointment was enormous.

The office building sat silently in front of him. Matt stared at it, wondering why nothing was happening; a minute had to have passed already, if not the two that Simmons had given as a deadline.

Come on,
he thought.
He’s just one man. How hard can this be?

Then he remembered the photos he had looked through on the
Mina II
as it soared towards Nevada, high-resolution images taken in the aftermath of NS9’s ill-fated visit to Adam’s former cabin.

An enormous pillar of grey-black smoke rising from the orange floor of the Californian desert.

The crater where the cabin had stood, where two NS9 Operators had been almost completely atomised.

John Brady dead on a stretcher, his legs gone below the knees.

Matt raised his eyes to the third floor of the office building, looking for any sign of movement through the tall glass windows. The excitement that had briefly filled him was gone, replaced with a deep sense of unease.

Definitely more than two minutes. Way more. What’s going on in there?

His attention was so focused on the third floor that he almost didn’t notice the dark silhouette of a man appear on the roof of the building, five storeys above the parking lot. Matt craned his neck, wondering for a moment whether his eyes were playing tricks on him in the fading light of the early evening, and watched as the figure ran towards the edge of the roof and leapt off it. He sailed through the space between the building and its neighbour and landed on the lower roof with a rattling thud and a shout of pain loud enough that Matt heard it clearly, even from street level.

The sound broke his paralysis. He raised his wrist to his mouth and shouted into his microphone.