Milo Moon: It Never Happened (16 page)

After an hour of discussing various options, it was agreed that an agent under Russian control, who was already based in Geneva would be given the task. Experienced and knowing Geneva well made the agent the best option available. Moscow would make the arrangements and get the operation underway within hours.

‘Hello Marie.’

‘Oh you look much better Mary. How are you feeling?’

‘I’m fine I think, but I am so worried about Anne. She’s disappeared and I’m so afraid she won’t be coming back.’

‘Have you talked to Dr. Fleury about Anne?’

‘Yes, but he doesn’t seem to know.’

‘All we can do is wait and see Mary. And hope for the best for Anne.’

‘I miss her. She is stronger and smarter than me.’

‘Oh I think you are very courageous and clever Mary. You need to be strong for Milo remember.’

‘I want to see Milo, but the doctor said he was still very sick.’

‘Yes, but Dr. Fleury told me he is making good progress. I’m sure you’ll be able to see him soon.’

‘I hope so Marie. I miss him.’

‘I’ll see what I can do Mary,’ Marie said, and paused for a moment. ‘Mary, I’m trying to find out a little more about Sootere. Do you feel like helping me with a few things?’

‘Like what Marie?’

‘Well, do you remember anything about your job?’

‘Yes of course. I was working in ARC.’

‘ARC?’

‘Alpha Reality Control.’

‘Okay. Right. And what did you do?’

‘I looked after the files. The files of clients.’

‘And what details were in the files?’

‘The erasure and re-imaging dates. Their encephalon, chimeryon or formyon status. Termination dates. That sort of thing.’

‘What are encephalon, chimeryon and formyon?’

‘Oh that’s the status of the mind map. Either in storage or imaginary state, or in a body.’

‘And what are you Mary?’

‘Well, in Sootere, Anne and I were formyon. But something went wrong. Or George did something wrong, because a formyon should only have one mind map. But he found a way to put two minds in a single formyon.’

‘Like Milo and Michael?’

‘Yes.’

‘Were there anymore formyons with two minds?’

‘Only one. But the mistake was discovered and their minds were erased.’

‘How did you know?’

‘Anne knew.’

‘Right. So when you completed the details of these clients, did you ever lose any? What I mean is, did you have any that disappeared?’

‘No never.’

‘So what would happen if a client couldn’t be found?’

‘There was a report to complete. But only in emergencies. I never had to do one.’

‘So do you think someone would have completed one of these reports about you and Milo?’

‘Oh yes. Especially if our tracking eyes couldn’t be found.’

‘Do you know where the reports went?’

‘To a supervisor.’

‘And then?’

‘I don’t know Marie. I’m sorry.’

‘That’s okay Mary. Don’t worry. That’s fine,’ Marie said, and realised Mary was tiring. ‘I’m just going to check on Milo now. I’ll let you have a rest and see you later. Okay?’

‘Oh yes Marie. Please give Milo a hug for me.’

‘Will do Mary. A big hug for sure.’

Milo was still sedated, so Marie checked at the nurse’s station. Milo’s condition was improving and Dr. Fleury would probably decide later in the day if the sedation could be reduced. Marie decided to take a break and have a coffee in the cafeteria, as it was going to be a boring day of just hanging around the hospital and checking on Mary and Milo until Dr. Fleury arrived later in the afternoon. She was glad she had a book to read in her handbag. One of her collection of eleven Agatha Christie novels she had bought recently from a second hand bookshop.

After lunch she went back up to the secure wards with the hope of finding out a little more from Mary. Unluckily, Mary was sleeping, so Marie sat in the waiting area just down the corridor from Mary and Milo’s wards and got back to reading her book. An hour later her eyelids were drooping from reading for too long and her head was nodding as she almost started falling asleep.

‘Noooooooooooooo! Oh my god! Noooooooooo!’ woke Marie from her snooze in an instant. She looked up and saw one of the nurses at the nurse’s station fall to the floor. She ran towards her and instantly saw the gunshot wound to her head. Her assistant was screaming uncontrollably in shock and nurses and orderlies were running in all directions. Marie’s immediate reaction was to attend to the shot nurse, but turned on her heels and ran to check Milo. Drawing her gun as she ran the few meters. She arrived at the door and was shocked to see a man in a balaclava aiming a gun with a silencer at Milo’s head.

‘Drop the gun!’ she shouted, and the man instantly turned his weapon towards Marie. She fired without hesitation hitting him in the chest. As he was falling to the floor of the ward, Marie jumped forward and grabbed the revolver from his hand, throwing it towards the door. The man tried to grab her, but weakened by the shot to his chest, she had little trouble in resisting and stepped back slightly and kept her gun trained on him.

‘Call the police!’ she shouted to no one in particular, and then watched as the man she had shot breathed his last breath. Her gun in her trembling hand was still trained on him, as she froze in shock momentarily. Even when a nurse came running to check Milo, Marie still had her gun aimed at the body and pool of blood on the floor.

Two security guards arrived in what was only mere seconds after the nurse had been shot, to find the carnage. As one attended to the fallen nurse, now surrounded by sobbing and screaming staff, the other went to Marie. He took the gun from Marie’s trembling hand after checking that the body on the floor was dead. He then guided her from the ward and back to the waiting area. He filled a plastic cup with water and handed it to Marie silently. Time seemed to stand still for Marie until the sound of arriving sirens woke her a little from her stupor.

‘Milo. I must check on Milo and Mary,’ she said, with a noticeable tremor in her voice. The security guard tried to reach out to stop her but she was already away. A nurse was in the room with Milo.

‘Is he okay?’

‘Yes,’ the shaken nurse confirmed. Marie then ran to Mary.

‘Oh Mary. Are you all right?’

‘Yes Marie. What happened? People are screaming.’

‘There was a problem Mary. It’s all under control now though. Don’t worry.’

‘And Milo?’

‘He’s okay Mary. Don’t worry.’

‘What happened?’

‘It’s all right now Mary. A man went crazy. It’s all over.’

‘You’re shaking Marie.’

‘It’s okay Mary. Really. I’ll be back to check on you later. All right?’

‘Yes Marie. Yes.’

Marie returned to the waiting area and sat as calmly as she could. She took some deep breaths.

‘Are you all right m’am?’ the security guard asked.

‘Yes. Fine. Thanks, really I’m fine.’

Marie started to calm just a little and then realised what had happened. Someone had wanted to kill Milo and Mary. As there were no security guards posted to the wards of Mary and Milo, it must have seemed like a simple task. It was just sheer luck that she was there, and armed. It was then immediately obvious that someone didn’t want Milo and Mary to talk. Sootere had come to the surface and they wanted their escapees dead.

As police started to flood the area, a man came towards Marie.

‘Barbara. I’m Martin. Let’s go.’ Marie hesitated for a second. ‘Now Barbara. Let’s go now.’ Marie rose and followed Martin.

Chapter 16 - Battle Stations

‘I’m sorry to have had to call you all together urgently and so late,’ the Swiss president said, as he addressed his six colleagues of the Federal Council to start their meeting at two am. ‘Just after one thirty this afternoon, an attempt was made to kill one, or perhaps more likely, both of the persons claiming to be from the human experimentation laboratory below CERN. By sheer chance, an armed policewoman was there to garner information from the two persons and was able to prevent the assassination attempt. Unfortunately however, a nurse at HUG was fatally shot during the incident.’

‘And the situation now?’ Alfred Letsch asked.

‘The location has been secured by the secret services and the Geneva Police. An investigation is already underway.’

‘Do you have any information on the assassin?’ Françoise Klausner asked hesitantly.

‘The assassin was shot by the policewoman, and he died at the scene. Preliminary investigations lead us to believe that he was Russian, but we haven’t been able to identify him.’

‘And the two escapees?’

‘They are both still in intensive care but were unscathed by the attack.’

‘They will need to be moved to a more secure location,’ Marc Guyer added.

‘Yes. Measures are being decided on as we speak. Due to their medical condition, it’s not as simple as just finding a secure location for them. The secret services are discussing options with the doctors to see what can be done. The last message I received said that a military base medical facility might be possible. I’ll have more information by morning I believe.’

‘So this is clearly not a secret anymore. Someone knows about the escapees,’ Guyer said, and stated what was on all their minds.

‘I don’t think I need much more information to assume that this facility exists after all,’ Klausner stated and continued. ‘An assassination attempt such as this clearly signals to me that someone wants this information kept secret or at least covered up. I smell trouble ahead.’

‘I think that probably goes without saying,’ the president confirmed. ‘I’m still waiting for news from our surveillance mission at Meyrin. I’d really like to have confirmation of its existence before jumping too far ahead.’

‘A dead assassin and a dead nurse are enough for me,’ Klausner reiterated firmly. Her comment greeted by nods from some other councillors.

‘Yes. I understand, but we do need more before we take any action. I think we should arrange to meet daily for the next few days. Seven thirty am from the day after tomorrow. Agreed?’

There were general nods of approval.

After the meeting, the president called and woke the head of the surveillance operation in Meyrin.

‘You have thirty-six hours to find this hell hole.’

A faceless man in Washington answered his telephone, listened and then hung up.

‘Fuck!’ was all he said, as he looked out his window. And then contemplated what to do next.

‘Not bad for someone on their first day on the job,’ Martin said, as he made coffee.

‘It was just luck,’ Marie replied.

‘That you were there yes. But not in your response. You did very well.’

‘Thank you sir.’

‘Are you feeling all right now?’

‘Yes, fine thanks. I was a little shaken by it all yesterday, but really, I’m fine now.’

‘Now, I know you haven’t had much time, but have you been able to find any more information about these two?’

‘Not from Milo but a little from Mary. She was talking about reports for missing people. It seemed like a very rare occurrence, but there clearly was a system in place to report the missing or escaped. She also spoke about encephalon, chimeryon and formyon states of being and mind mapping. Really odd stuff that,’ Marie said, with half a smile.

‘Okay. The reporting. Was there more?’

‘Only that a report would be made and then passed to a supervisor.’

‘Who would pass it to another supervisor and so on?’

‘Presumably, yes.’

‘So what is it now? Four days since you found them in the city?’

‘Yes, that’s correct.’

‘So it only took three days for the information to be acted on.’

‘I suppose so, yes.’

Martin looked thoughtful for a while before continuing. ‘You’ll be moved to Bern for your own safety, Barbara. If this attempt was state sponsored, you’ll need to keep low for a while.’

‘What? I’m a target or something?’ she said, after hesitating at his using her code name, Barbara.

‘Indeed you are.’

‘By who?’ Marie asked, with almost incredulity.

‘The Americans, Russians and English are all our friends, but they all have some deep and dirty secrets to keep.’

‘I don’t believe….’

‘I’m sorry.’

Meanwhile, Marie’s mobile phone was collecting messages from Pierre André and Jean-Paul.

She arrived two hours later by helicopter from Geneva at a military base outside Bern. Preparations were being made to receive Milo and Mary later that same evening. Medical equipment was also arriving by helicopter and installed as rapidly as possible in a secure underground bunker. She was escorted down to the bunker and shown her accommodation and the area being prepared for Milo and Mary.