Down: Trilogy Box Set (6 page)

John remembered how slowly time had passed during the last week of his last tour in Afghanistan. His unit hadn’t exactly been sitting on their hands waiting for wheels-up from Bagram. There were training and tactical operations every day that week and one intense firefight. He had figured that if he could just get his ass onto the plane stateside he’d have a reasonable chance for a longish life. But he could vividly remember how the hour hand on his wristwatch never seemed to move.

As stuck in tar as that week had seemed, this week ran slower.

There were endless meetings with MI5 and FBI agents and Bitterman and Smithwick arrived in person for command performances. Led by Matthew, the technical and engineering staffs began the process of preparing the collider for another restart.

John and Trevor concentrated on Brandon Woodbourne. The trail blew hot and cold. There was a report of a break-in at a residence in Dartford, a scant two miles from the lab. When the residents returned from a brief trip they saw someone exiting through the garden and found the place ransacked, food eaten, and a smear of blood on the bathtub.

John and Trevor visited the place on Carrington Road, a semi-detached house on a quiet residential street. By the time they arrived, the forensics unit had dusted for prints and confirmed that Woodbourne had been there. There was hardly a surface he hadn’t touched. There were cans of food littered about the sitting room and empty cartons of milk and juice. Apparently the owners weren’t big drinkers but every bottle of liquor and can of beer was consumed. It looked like he had managed to work the gas stove but the microwave was clean and untouched. A first-aid kit was open and a spool of gauze was largely spent, consistent with dressing a gunshot wound. Upstairs the bed was slept-in and it appeared he used a good deal of toothpaste. The forensics people took the toothbrush for DNA testing. The female owner’s underwear was scattered about the bedroom and it looked like Woodbourne had left semen behind, which, with the blood evidence, also went to the DNA lab.

In the sitting room John donned gloves and picked up the shattered TV remote control that had been hurled into the LED screen, cracking it.

“He couldn’t figure out how to turn the TV on,” John told Trevor. “In the nineteen-forties he might have seen an early TV with a couple of knobs.”

Trevor smiled and made a crack about how his mum couldn’t figure out how to turn her own set on. “He might’ve seen them glowing in the windows of the other houses and got frustrated.”

According to the homeowners the only things missing were a set of chef’s knives, ranging in size from a paring knife to a cleaver.

“He was a blade man in his day,” John said. “He strangled then sliced.”

“He also has one of our guns,” Trevor said. “He’s got eight rounds left in the mag, kitchen knives, and his bare hands. I’d say we've got our work cut out taking him alive.”

“He’ll kill again,” John said. “At the drop of a hat. Why do you think he picked this house?”

“Unoccupied for a start. The police are canvasing up and down to see if anyone heard or saw anything.”

“See if you can track down his old police files if they still exist,” John said.

“Looking for?”

“Place of residence. I’ll bet you six pints of best bitter he lived around here.”

“Wouldn’t have looked like this back then. These houses must’ve been built in the sixties or seventies.”

“Doesn’t matter. Old dogs return to their porch.”

John was in his office, watching the tape of Emily’s disappearance for the umpteenth time when he got a call to come over to Quint’s conference room. He knew that the VIPs were there but he wasn’t privy to the agenda.

When he entered the room, all eyes fell upon him. Quint briskly introduced the group but he already knew who each one was from the visitor photo badges his department had prepared—the US and UK energy secretaries, the FBI director and the head of MI5.

“The decision has been taken,” Quint said as soon as John was seated. “In three day’s time we’ll restart MAAC and replicate the conditions of the Hercules experiment. The only difference will be that, unless you’ve changed your mind, you’ll be standing where Dr. Loughty was when we hit full power.”

“I’m not changing my mind. But why wait? That’s a full week from when Emily disappeared.”

Smithwick, the energy secretary answered him. “I’m the one who urged that we take as much time as we needed to get this absolutely right,” she said. “There needs to be a robust security plan. We can’t have another Woodbourne situation. The prime minister was crystal clear on the need for safety first.”

“I concur,” George Lawrence said. “I’m putting MI5 in charge of lab security. This is particularly necessary since you, as head of security, could be heading off to parts unknown.”

“I don’t have a problem with that,” John said, “as long as Trevor Jones is tasked with getting Brandon Woodbourne back to the lab.”

Lawrence said, “I’ve had a look at his credentials and it seems that he’ll be a good man to interface with the local police. They’re more likely to cooperate with one of their own rather than one of mine. I’ll agree to your proposal.”

“How will the logistics work?” John asked. “Assuming I’m not blasted into trillions of pieces and I survive passage through Dr. Coppens’s tunnel, we don’t have any idea what I’ll find on the other side. If time is the same there, a week will have gone by. Emily might not be easy to find. I won’t be able to communicate with you. How’re we going to coordinate our transfer back here?”

Leroy Bitterman politely raised a finger to answer. “We spent some considerable time talking about that. I think the only plan which makes any sense is this—and it assumes that you, in fact, disappear and that someone else from this other dimension, if that’s what it is, appears in your place: we’ll give you one week to the second to locate Dr. Loughty and bring her back to the exact spot where she emerged. And hopefully a week will be enough time for your Mr. Jones to find Brandon Woodbourne. Then we’ll re-run Hercules and if all goes well we’ll exchange you and Dr. Loughty with Woodbourne and whomever.”

John frowned. “What if I can’t find her in a week or Trevor can’t find Woodbourne in a week?”

Quint said, “We will repeat the experiment once weekly three more times.”

“What if a month’s not enough time? Then what?” John asked.

“Then you’ll be out of luck or long dead,” Smithwick said tartly. “The government will not permit this situation to linger beyond a month. MAAC will be shut down. Permanently. We’ll come up with a story to explain Dr. Loughty’s death and lack of earthly remains to her family. Woodbourne will disappear for good once he’s captured. As he seems to be dead already I don’t think we’ll be exactly violating his due process and civil rights. That will leave only you. Do you have any family, Mr. Camp?”

He thought about it for all of a second. There was only his brother, Kyle, and they no longer talked. “I won’t be missed.”

Smithwick smiled. “Excellent.”

The day arrived.

John left his dirty dishes in the sink and turned off the lights. He considered slipping a flask of booze in his back pocket but thought better of it.

He arrived at the lab early but Trevor was already waiting for him in his office offering a hot mug.

“I hope they’ve got coffee where I’m going,” John said.

“Among other things,” Trevor said.

“Like what?”

“Oxygen for starts.”

“You’re putting my mind at ease.”

“Happy to help, guv.”

John stopped smiling. “You’ve got to find Woodbourne.”

“I’ll find him.”

With time ticking down John cloistered himself behind his closed door and got himself strapped up with a loaded 9mm pistol on his hip, five extra fifteen-round mags on his belt, a tactical knife with a seven-inch blade, a Leatherman utility tool, his old military wristwatch, a Zippo lighter, a back-up metal tube of matches and a compass. His small backpack was stuffed with a plastic poncho, a few flares, plastic restraints, some rope and wire. That was it. There wasn’t exactly a guidebook to offer tips on being a prepared traveler.

The phone rang startling him. It was Matthew calling from the control room. They were ready.

Stepping off the lift at the control-room level, John was aware that everyone in the corridor was staring at him. He entered the control room and the stares continued.

Matthew greeted him. “All set?”

“I am.”

“We’re at the five-minute countdown. The synchrotron’s at full power. You should take your mark.”

An X of electrical tape marked the precise spot where Emily had been standing. John stood on it and looked up at the theater of technicians busy with their tasks but still sneaking glances his way. He felt queasy, like an actor waiting for the curtain to rise on a play in which he hadn’t learned his lines. Quint stood at the rear clicking his ballpoint pen. Suddenly the double doors opened and Trevor came in leading a phalanx of MI5 agents kitted out in full riot gear, sporting short-barreled assault rifles, sidearms on their thighs and Tasers on their belts. They fanned out, encircling the room and when they were in position, Trevor locked the doors.

He gave John a salute and told Quint that this time, no one was getting out.

As the countdown progressed John stood like a statue on his mark, fussing with his holster and utility belt and trying to control his breathing. He found his calm by picturing himself in a more familiar situation equally fraught with imminent peril, swooping down in a helicopter onto a landing zone in enemy-controlled territory. Death was the worst-case scenario then and now. He could deal with that.

He heard the count arrive at T-minus-one minute and Matthew ordering the injection of the particle guns. He heard Quint give final authorization to proceed and Matthew following through with firing initiation.

Behind him the elliptical map of MAAC showed the proton beams looping around London.

Matthew called out the rising collision energies, his voice rising.

“Twenty-five TeV,” he shouted. “We’re approaching the critical point.”

Suddenly Trevor said from the wings, “John, it’s not too late to abort.”

“No way. Keep going.”

He closed his eyes as the count ran up, Emily’s face planted in his mind.

He heard Matthew shouting “Thirty TeV!” and then in an instant, everything went completely quiet, as if he were suddenly underwater.

Trevor was the first one to say something and it was a loud string of curses.

He reached for his pistol and closed in on the theater well with the advancing MI5 agents.

John was gone.

A dirty young man, shabbily dressed, was standing on the tape mark blinking at them in terror.

“Who are you?” Trevor shouted.

The young man replied truculently, “Who am I? Who the ’ell are you?”

The smell hit John even before the sight of the place registered, like a bad latrine in an outpost in Afghanistan but worse. The sweet, sickly aroma of decay wrinkled his nose and soured his stomach.

Disoriented, he looked from side to side. Through a cold, gray drizzle he saw he was alone on a rutted, muddy road. To his right and left, hugging the road, were small, shoddy wooden houses with thatched roofs, their shutters tightly closed. A pair of large black crows took to the air from one of the roofs and disappeared into a nearby stand of trees. Wood smoke drifted from chimneys, providing the only pleasant whiffs. He heard the whinny of an unseen horse.

His khaki trousers were loose. The ends of his belt hung free, the buckle gone. All the gear on the belt was missing, the plastic holster, the pistol, the mags and nylon mag holders, the knife and its sheath, the utility tool. He felt exposed, out in the open, as he did a frantic inventory. His watch was gone. He thrust his hands in his pockets. The compass and lighter weren’t there. Then he realized that all the zippers on his leather jacket were missing. He was also missing his zipper and the plastic buttons on his trousers and shirt were gone too. His boots felt a little loose and a quick glance downwards revealed that the metal eyelets for the rawhide laces weren’t there. The canvas backpack bag was lying in the mud behind him, without the metal buckles that had held the straps together. The bag looked deflated and when he stooped to retrieve it, the only thing left inside was the spool of rope. He quickly ran a length through his belt loops, tied it off and stuffed the spool in his pocket.

He felt certain that no more than a few seconds had elapsed since he heard Matthew calling out, “Thirty TeV.”

Where was the lab?

What was this place?

He had an urge to call out for Emily but he checked himself and took a tentative few steps forward, the mud sucking at his boots.

A muffled voice came from one of the houses, “Come on, Duck, you bird-witted fat’ead. Where are you then?”

John froze.

“Don’t be ‘angin’ about. You know it an’t safe.”

The shutters opened and a young man stuck his head out. His jaw went slack at the sight of John.

John started to run. He heard a door opening, slapping against the side of the house, and the squishy sound of footsteps behind him.

“’Ere! Stop! I an’t gonna do nuthin’ to you.”

John looked over his shoulder. The fellow didn’t appear to have a weapon. Up and down the road, shutters opened a crack. He stopped and turned to take a better look at his pursuer. He was no more than a skinny kid. John could deal with him without weapons. He could break him in two with his hands.

The kid said, “That’s it, big fellow. No need to hoof it. I’m Dirk. ’Ad a good passage, then?”

John didn’t answer.

Dirk drew closer. He was barefoot, his ankles sinking into the slop. His shirt and trousers were filthy and ragged, his hair a tangled mess. When he was a yard away he began to sniff like a dog and suddenly his face turned from crafty to alarmed.

“Bloody ’ell! Another one.”

“Another what?” John demanded.

In a flash, Dirk lost interest in him and ran back to the spot where John first appeared.