The Dead Speak Ill Of The Living (The Dead Speak Paranormal Mysteries Book 1) (33 page)

  
“I’m unsure. I can try my best to penetrate into this, but I am by no means
guaranteed to find a result. I could claim my assets are being harassed by
another unit and try that, but I am in a very secretive unit myself.

  
“I understand,” and Dee looked at the group. They all looked scared. There was
some gentle chat, and Peters went.

  
“Well that’s a worst case scenario,” Nazir said as he leaned back.

  
“It might not be,” Joe tried.

  
“No? There’s a branch of MI5 spying on us. MI5 aren’t very keen on brown people
breaking the law.”

  
“Ah, but really we’re involved with two branches of MI5. We’re involved in a
friendly unit who we helped, and now this other unit, who we can assume are
hostile.”

  
Dee pulled a face. “I’m not sure being in the middle of a tug of war between
MI5 units is really anything other than a worst case scenario.”

  
“It is an other,” and Pohl looked grim, “because the worst case is a civil
war.”

  
Joe left Dee’s house planning to cram his planned day’s activities into just a
few afternoon hours, because everyone was meeting back up for pasta that
evening. Homemade, because the group enjoyed cooking for each other and weren’t
sure they should start spending their windfall on trips to restaurants just
yet. This meant he had to get home, take a shower, get…

  
He didn’t see the van driving down the street before him, and didn’t hear it
break next to him perfectly, with no squeal. He was in his own head, so when
two pairs of strong hands took each of his arms, almost physically picked up
him, and carried him quickly into the now open doors of the van he couldn’t
react. By the time his mind had realised and sent a command to his nerves he
was blind because a bag had been pulled over his head, he felt a hard metal
floor beneath his prostrate body, and his hands were wrenched behind his bag
and secured with plastic ties. This took just seconds, and the van was driving
off at a speed that wouldn’t raise attention.

  
No one saw, no one knew.

  
Joe felt a wave of panic coming towards him at speed, but knew if he lost his
mind and control of his bowels he’d lose his edge, such as it was, so he fought
back, fought hard, and managed to get in control of a breathing made harder by
the bag. After a few minutes Joe was pulled up and deliberately sat in a
corner, and he began to experience a new feeling, a coldness, a calmness. It
was obvious why he’d been taken: the machine. They had it, taken along with
him, but they needed him to work it, or explain it. So they weren’t going to
kill him and dump him in a ditch, there would be a future to work on.

  
Joe wasn’t wrong. Although kept blind, thirsty and in need of the toilet, the journey
was over relatively quickly, and soon the bag was pulled off. Joe didn’t have
time to check out the people around him, as he was pulled out of the van, hands
unfastened, moved through a building at speed, and then sat in a small, dark
room, on a basic wooden chair. There looked like a table of some sort behind
him, and a pair of chairs in front.

  
He paid for the squinting when the light was switched on, and when the stinging
went away and he looked round he found a smartly dressed man with a build to
play rugby at one of the more violent positions.

  
“Hello Doctor le Tissier, my name is Kosar.”

  
“Who do you work for?” Joe forced out, then coughed.

  
“Let’s get you a drink,” Kosar ordered, and a flunky squirted water into Joe’s
mouth, which he savoured.

  
“Does it matter who I work for?”

  
“Yes.”

  
“I see. You will make an extra special effort to stay silent if I’m with the
Chinese, but perhaps you’ll weaken quicker if I’m CIA?” He smiled at Joe. “Well
Doctor, I work for MI5. Does this appeal to your patriotism?”

  
“No.” Could it be?”

  
“It also means absolutely no one is coming to rescue you. Shall we begin?” Joe
stayed silent. “You were a leading part of a research team which invented a
special device that can talk to the dead.”

  
“No idea what you’re talking about.”

  
Kosar smiled. “We’ve been bugging you for weeks, we have enough recordings to
know this is true,” and Kosar waved a finger. Joe heard his own voice
explaining the machine.

  
“Fuck.”

  
“The question is not, does this machine exist? The question is, how does it
work?” Kosar was expecting many reactions, but not Joe smiling. “What does that
mean?”

  
“I don’t know how it works. Honestly, I don’t. It was a magical accident in the
lab. I couldn’t even begin to explain it.”

  
Joe stuck to the story during the next hour, as Kosar quizzed him constantly to
break down his defences. But Joe had an advantage, he had nothing to hide. He
could give only the truth. This didn’t satisfy Kosar.

  
“Tie him down to the table.”

  
Dee pulled up a spoonful of the pasta sauce, smelt it, licked it, looked back
down and shouted into the lounge “if Joe takes any longer this is going to turn
into napalm.”

  
“I thought we weren’t having one of your curries tonight,” Nazir shouted back,
and Dee just smirked and looked back down. You’d think spaghetti bolognaise
would be easy, just mix it all together and make sure the pasta didn’t stick,
but when Joe was already forty minutes late the timings were off.

  
“He better have a good excuse,” Dee shouted back.

  
“Maybe he’s been buying you an extra-large box of wine.”

  
“He better fucking have.”

  
They didn’t want to start without Joe, they never wanted to start without any
of them, although of course they would if one let them know they’d be late. But
on this occasion Joe hadn’t said anything.

  
“Try his mobile again,” Dee called out. Nazir did so, and listened to it
ringing before shouting back “still no answer.”

  
Which was odd, because a tech nerd like Joe was strapped to his phone at all
times. He’d even given the other three in the group ringtones, although Dee
wasn’t sure why hers had recently been changed to the Imperial March from Star
Wars. Perhaps their friendly chat had unexpected repercussions.

  
“Maybe his car has broken down?” Pohl suggested.

  
“And his phone too?” Nazir replied.

  
“Maybe he took it apart to add GPS to the machine.”

  
“That is very much the sort of thing he’d do professor.”

  
“I…” and Pohl stopped.

  
“Professor?”

  
“Dee, come in here a minute,” and she did as Pohl’s raised voice bid her.

  
“What is it Pohl?”

  
“Joe is late. His phone isn’t being answered. He’s never late for anything
involving you. One might even go as so far to say he’s missing.”

  
Dee and Nazir pondered on the weight she gave to that final word. Then they
realised.

  
“We’ve been bugged, one of us has dropped out of contact,” Dee gasped.

  
“The one who knows about the machine. Oh shit.”

  
Dee yanked a phone out of her pocket. “Who are you calling?” Nazir asked.

  
“Peters….hello, Peters, it’s Dee Nettleship.”

  
“Hello Dee, I haven’t concluded anything yet I’m afraid.”

  
“It’s not that. Joe, the scientist, we don’t know where he is.”

  
Peters became grave. “You’re sure he’s missing?”

  
“He’s uncharacteristically late, and even more uncharacteristically not
answering his phone, the same day we find bugs.”

  
“I see your concern.”

  
“Could you, err, MI5 have taken him?”

  
“I’m sad to say, but that is something we do. Let me make a few urgent calls,
but first I have a few questions for you.”

  
Joe was tied down to a table, his body stretched out. A thin plastic sheet had
been placed over his face, particularly his mouth, and this was held in place
while water was poured down onto his head. He felt like he was drowning,
desperate for air, suffocating as he struggled, and every so often the sheet
would be removed, he would gulp air down, and the question would be asked: “how
does the machine work.”

  
Joe had lost all sense of time, he could have been in there for a whole day,
and the calm and control he’d fought to achieve earlier had gone. He was now a
panicked, a drowning animal.

  
Finally Kosar stood, walked over and looked down at his notes. He was prepared
to believe this scientist really didn’t have any specific detail on how his
machine worked. There was almost no chance Joe was resisting the interrogation,
which made him a declining asset. The question now remained: did he take the
machine apart to solve its design by working backwards, or was the scientist
right and any attempt to examine it would destroy the quantum state inside and
render it useless? A question well outside his area of understanding, but one
he could pass on. It was time to ring some experts and get information from
sweet talking, although he’d have loved to waterboard them too.

  
Dee snatched the phone from the table, jabbed the button, and Nazir and Pohl
craned their heads in to see what was said.

  
“Peters!”

  
“Yes, it’s me, how are you all doing Dee?”

  
“Fine, fine, what have you found?”

  
“There’s good news and there’s bad news. The former is that, based on the
situation, I’m happy to conclude that MI5 is currently in possession of Joe.”
Dee pulled a ‘we knew that already’ face to the others.

  
“You’ve got a strange definition of good news.”

  
“The bad news is I have no idea who’s got him, or where he might be.”

  
“Okay, your definition of bad news is spot on. So what are you doing about it?”

  
“Firstly, there will be a car outside your door in two minutes. I want you all
to get inside, and be driven to a safe location. I won’t give it over this
line, but be assured I am here, as are a few other things.”

  
“And secondly?”

  
“I have the germ of a plan, but it needs time.”

  
“What if Joe doesn’t have time? He could be on a plane to Guantanamo by now.”

  
“I appreciate that Joe is at risk, but I need a little longer. Please, just get
in the car and get here.”

  
Peters now went, and Dee had to explain it to the others, although it took two
attempts as she was tripping over her tongue so much. Then the doorbell rang,
and the group went en masse just to make sure no one else vanished. But there
was a man with a car that looked like any other, so they grabbed bags, got in
and were driven off.

  
“Where are going?” Dee asked from the front passenger seat.

  
“London.”

  
“Any more specific?”

  
“No.”

  
“Can we at least put some tunes on,” Nazir said fearing a long and boring
journey.

  
“Of course. But no jazz.”

  
They drove for several hours, until the car pulled up down at the entrance to
what could only be described as a base: barbed wire fences, guards who were no
doubt armed, all credentials checked. It was like the lab complex Joe had once
worked on if a competent government was really in charge.

  
Nazir tensed, expecting trouble, but the driver showed a pass and was let
straight through. They even ignored the car park and drove through the complex
of brick buildings, until they parked up.

   “Is
this it?” Dee asked to try and wheedle some information, but the driver
remained quiet. A minute later Peters appeared from the door, so the trio got
out with their stuff and shook hands.

  
“Very pleased you could make it.”

  
“We didn’t exactly have a choice. So where are we?”

  
“Now you’re here I can tell you. This is where we moved the Array.”

  
“The brains are all here? It still exists?” Pohl gasped.

  
“Yes, we moved the whole thing.”

  
“Does it work?” Nazir said.

  
“Come inside, we need to talk.”

  
“About your plan?” Dee said. “You’ve had a few hours, have you had enough
time?”

  
“Yes.”

  
“And what did you discover?”

 
“My limits.”

  
“Your what? I thought you were finding Joe not having therapy.”

  
“No Dee, the limits on what I am prepared to do. And I discovered I’m happy to
break the rules to rescue someone like Joe.”

  
“How?” Dee said growing excited.

  
By now the group had reached an internal checkpoint and Peters had them all
signed in and allowed through a large, safe like door. Then there was a brief
corridor and another, smaller, door was opened. Inside was the array, a room
filled with brains organised on long rows.