‘What’s over there?’
‘Not men with guns, and that’ll do me for now!’
Nina heard something over the crump of snow and their own panting, a deep rhythmic huffing like the breath of some giant animal. ‘It’s the train!’ Past the bridge, glowing embers from the steam locomotive’s funnel swirled in the air as it headed back down the valley. ‘Eddie, the track goes right along the bottom of the grounds – if we can make it stop, we can get aboard.’
He was already judging distances and speeds: of the train, himself and Nina . . . and the two groups of mercenaries closing on them. ‘There won’t be time for it to stop.’
‘Then how are we going to get on it?’
‘Jump!’
‘Jump?’
‘What, you’ve never train-surfed before?’
‘No, because it’s insane!’
‘You never want to try anything new. Come on, hoof it!’ They reached the fence and climbed over it.
The men coming from the gate had obviously been in radio contact with their comrades higher up; the dots of torchlight were all now heading along the bottom of the grounds. The group following Nina and Eddie’s trail were less than a hundred metres behind – and closing the gap.
The train was rapidly approaching, the clanking of the loco’s running gear growing louder. Another jab of pain stabbed through Eddie’s ankle, but he forced himself to run faster as the train came into view, travelling through a shallow cutting below. The carriage roofs were a couple of feet higher than the upper side. ‘There!’ he shouted, pointing at a slight rise on the cutting’s edge. ‘Get ready to jump!’ He grabbed Nina’s hand.
The locomotive surged past, belching steam and hot, sooty smoke. ‘Oh God!’ Nina cried as they ran the last few yards. ‘We’re gonna diiiie—’
They leapt, clearing the gap – and landing hard on a metal roof. Nina staggered, but kept her footing – just. It was Eddie who stumbled, one foot slipping out from under him. He skidded across the roof, legs flailing over the side . . .
Nina still had hold of his hand. She gripped it with all her strength and wedged a heel against a domed ventilator cover. The jolt as she caught his weight felt as though her arm was tearing from its socket, but she fought through the pain and held on. Eddie dangled before managing to catch the carriage’s rain gutter with his boot’s ice-shredded toe. He forced himself back on to the roof.
Nina dropped on her butt with a bang. ‘Jesus!’ she gasped, releasing his hand. ‘I thought you were going over!’
‘So did I,’ Eddie admitted, gasping for breath – and then coughing as a dirty cloud rolled over them. ‘Bloody hell! Let’s get off here before we end up smoked like fucking hams.’
He crawled along the roof, Nina behind him, and looked down. Like the locomotive, the carriages were vintage, with open platforms at each end. Eddie lowered Nina down, then thumped on to the platform himself.
A door led inside. They went through – to find the tourists taking the last train of the day staring at them in astonishment. Their touchdown on the roof had been far from quiet.
‘What?’ said Nina, deciding that nonchalance was as good a response as any. ‘I’ve got a ticket.’ She fished inside her clothing to produce it; it was indeed a return fare.
‘I don’t,’ Eddie complained.
She flopped down in a seat and smiled. ‘Well, if the conductor comes along, you’ll just have to hide in the john.’
‘They did what?’ Stikes barked into his phone.
‘Let me guess,’ said Sophia with a resigned sigh, ‘they got away from your men.’
He shot her an irritated look. ‘They jumped on the train.’ Leaning forward, he addressed the driver of the Range Rover in which he, Sophia, Warden and Larry were travelling. ‘Can we get to the next station before them?’
‘Not on this road, sir,’ came the apologetic reply. ‘The train goes through a tunnel, but the road goes the long way round.’
Stikes sat back, fuming. ‘Oh, that’s too bad,’ said Larry mockingly.
‘We still have Chase’s father,’ Warden said from the front seat, regarding the man in question with disapproval. ‘Chase and Dr Wilde came here to rescue him – they’ll do the same again.’
‘Only if we can contact them to issue an ultimatum, and I doubt they’ll be going back to the IHA to wait for one,’ Sophia told him. ‘They’ll try to find the meteorite.’
‘So they can destroy it,’ Stikes added.
‘But we have the statues,’ said Warden. ‘She can’t locate it without them.’
‘And we can’t locate it without her,’ Stikes pointed out. ‘We only know it’s somewhere in Ethiopia. And Wilde probably got a much better idea where from this . . . vision.’
Warden nodded. ‘So what do we do?’
Stikes straightened in his seat. ‘The first thing I need’, he said imperiously, ‘is total and unrestricted access to the Group’s resources worldwide. Men, information, money – everything, from all the members.’
The American eyed him suspiciously. ‘Why?’
‘If we’re going to beat Wilde and Chase to the meteorite, we can’t afford to waste time discussing how to proceed. We have to act quickly and decisively. There’s still a chance we can catch them before they leave Switzerland, or at least before they reach Africa, but unfortunately they’re very resourceful – as you’ve just seen. If we can get people and equipment in place in Ethiopia as soon as possible, we still have a chance of beating them. We can either capture Wilde and force her to locate the stone for us . . .’
‘Or let her lead us to it,’ finished Warden.
‘Exactly.’
The American nodded again. ‘All right. I’ll give you complete access.’ He took out his phone – then fixed Stikes with a warning look, raising a finger. ‘Don’t screw this up.’
‘I won’t,’ Stikes replied firmly. ‘I’m not going to let them win.’
32
Ethiopia
Peter Alderley dabbed sweat off his drooping moustache as he warily surveyed the street outside the ramshackle café. ‘I shouldn’t even be here, you know,’ he said. ‘MI6 generally isn’t too happy about its officers taking unscheduled trips to foreign countries. If anyone finds out—’
‘Hey, everyone!’ Eddie suddenly cried, pointing excitedly at him. ‘British secret agent, right here! It’s Peter Alderley! Come on, quick, get his autograph and listen to him drone on about restoring his 1973 Ford Capri!’ None of the passing residents of Dubti, some forty miles from the border with Djibouti in Ethiopia’s northeastern corner, seemed remotely interested in the revelation, or even found anything particularly unusual about the presence of three Westerners in their town. While the country in general was hardly a tourist trap, the wildlife reserve and national park to the south meant that international visitors were not uncommon.
‘Eddie,’ Nina chided. He laughed and sat back.
‘Very funny,’ Alderley muttered. ‘And it’s a 1971, actually.’
‘We do appreciate this, Peter, really,’ Nina assured him. It was two days since they had left Switzerland, having contacted Alderley and on his advice travelled first to Slovenia before flying on via Egypt to the eponymous capital of Djibouti, where the MI6 officer met them for the road trip into the neighbouring country. Alderley’s contacts in both African nations had allowed them to make the journey without any official hassles – for a modest fee.
‘And we appreciate this little lot too,’ added Eddie, nudging a rucksack beneath their table.
Alderley winced. ‘Be careful with that!’
‘Why? It’s not going to blow up.’
The MI6 man’s expression didn’t inspire confidence. ‘Is it?’ Nina asked.
‘The actual explosives should be stable. But they’re . . . well, past their sell-by date, put it that way. I couldn’t exactly requisition them from the quartermaster at Vauxhall Cross! They’ve been tucked away here for years by someone I know. So I wouldn’t throw them a
round.’
‘What about the detonators?’ said Eddie.
‘Standard RC units – you’ll have used them before in the SAS. They’ve all got new batteries, but there’s still some risk of deterioration, and since they’re one-use items there’s no way to test them in the field – other than actually firing them, I suppose. As for the trigger –’ he took a device the size of a chunky mobile phone from the rucksack – ‘it’s as reliable as any other electronic device in sub-optimal conditions, so . . . caveat emptor.’ He gave Nina an apologetic smile.
Eddie took the trigger unit from him. ‘What’s the set-up?’
‘Simple enough, even for you.’ The Yorkshireman made a sarcastic face. ‘Five channels, controlled by the dial.’ Alderley indicated the control, around which were marked the numbers one to five and the words ‘Full’ and ‘Safe’. It was currently set to the latter. ‘The numbers are for individual detonators, obviously, and “Full” blows everything simultaneously. Just switch it on and push the red button. Boom. The range is up to about a mile.’
‘What about the blast radius?’
‘I’d say you want to be at least fifty yards clear – more if you’re taking out something that might produce shrapnel.’
‘We’ll definitely want to be more than fifty yards away, then,’ said Nina.
‘I see.’ Alderley took a sip from his bottle of Coca-Cola. ‘You’re really not going to give me any more than that? Even after everything I’ve done to get you here?’
She shook her head. ‘This will probably sound like a horrible spy cliché, but the less you know the better. The people we’re trying to avoid are extremely powerful.’
‘How powerful?’
‘Enough to have the ear of presidents.’
‘And bring down ex-presidents,’ Eddie added.
Alderley’s eyebrows flicked up. ‘Dalton?’ Nina nodded. ‘I was wondering what kicked that off. The Yanks usually let their former leaders get away with anything short of murder, so I thought something major had to be going on. You know, you two really do pick quite a high class of enemies.’
‘They seem to pick us,’ Nina sighed. ‘But I’d imagine they probably have prime ministers on their speed-dials as well. Which is why we wanted to keep you out of the loop.’
‘Well, if anyone at MI6 asks why I used my holiday allowance to make a last-minute excursion to Africa,’ said Alderley unhappily, ‘I’ll just have to come up with some convincing excuse. If one exists.’
‘Tell ’em you found a 1973 Capri head gasket on the Ethiopian eBay and had to collect it in person,’ suggested Eddie with a smirk.
‘It’s a ’71,’ came the irritable reply, before his face became more sombre. ‘But . . . you found out who was behind Mac’s death, so that’s why I’m taking the risk. I owe you that much. You helped lay him to rest.’
Eddie’s mood became equally downbeat as he remembered his friend and mentor. ‘He’s not properly laid to rest yet,’ he said. ‘Not until we stop these arseholes. And I take care of Stikes.’
‘This isn’t about revenge,’ Nina gently reminded him. ‘It won’t bring Mac back. And you were the one who always said that revenge isn’t professional.’
‘Stikes stopped it being professional when he made it personal. When he made it about family. It’s the same with soldiers, cops . . . probably spooks too,’ he said, with a look at Alderley, who nodded. ‘You fuck with someone’s family, then you deserve anything you get.’
‘Speaking of family,’ said Alderley, ‘I really should get back to mine.’ He finished his Coke and stood. ‘So good luck with . . . whatever the hell you’re doing.’
Nina also stood and shook his hand, then kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you for everything, Peter.’
‘Helping your husband put me in rather an in-for-a-penny-in-for-a-pound situation, so I thought I might as well go all-out. Try not to let the world get destroyed, eh?’
‘Not on my watch,’ said Eddie. ‘Thanks, Alderley.’ There was an awkward silence before the two men finally shared a brief handshake.
‘No kiss?’ said Alderley.
‘Go on, fuck off,’ said Eddie, but with a smile. The MI6 officer grinned, then exited the café. ‘Thought he’d never leave.’
‘Oh, stop that. And we’d better leave ourselves.’ Through his contacts, Alderley had arranged supplies and transport in the form of a battered old Land Rover.
Eddie picked up the rucksack containing the explosives. ‘Where exactly are we going?’
Nina made an uncertain face. ‘That’s a very good question.’
The Afar Depression is appropriately named. Not only does the huge area contain the lowest point in Africa, over five hundred feet below sea level, but it is also likely to bring misery to anyone entering it. One of the hottest places on earth, it is also one of the most desolate, a great expanse of desert where only the hardiest scrubby vegetation survives. Within its boundaries there are no roads and, beyond a few isolated villages and nomadic tribes, no people. Adding to its inhospitability is the very nature of the region, a widening geological rift producing a chain of active volcanoes and even one of the world’s few lava lakes.
The Land Rover was three hours out of Dubti, heading north by northwest, and even that small town now seemed like a metropolis in hindsight. The baking desert stretched endlessly away to the rippling horizon in all directions. The 4×4 had a GPS receiver on its dashboard, but it couldn’t provide Nina and Eddie with a countdown of the distance to their destination. The reason was simple: they didn’t actually know where they were going.
Not on a map, at least. Nina was providing directions, but that didn’t stop Eddie, driving, from giving her a dubious look as the Land Rover jolted across the stony plain. ‘You sure we’re going the right way?’
It was not the first time he had asked the question. ‘No, I’m not sure, Eddie,’ she said tiredly, taking a mouthful of unpleasantly warm water from a plastic bottle. ‘I have a feeling, that’s all.’
‘Trusting your feelings is fine for Jedi, but I’d be a lot happier with something a bit more definite.’
‘So would I, but it’s all there is. So we’ll have to make do.’
‘Can’t you even explain it better?’
‘No, Eddie, I can’t!’ She composed herself, taking another drink before replacing the cap. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean . . .’
‘Yeah, I know.’ He was silent for a moment, then with uncharacteristic hesitation said, ‘And . . . there’s something I want to say sorry for.’
‘What?’
‘When we were in Peru, and I found out about Nan . . . I blamed you for me not being able to see her again before she died. I shouldn’t have done. It wasn’t your fault, and I’m sorry.’
She put her hand on his shoulder. ‘That’s okay. I know what you were feeling. I was the same when I learned that my parents had died.’
‘Even so, I shouldn’t—’
‘Eddie.’ She stroked his cheek. ‘It’s okay. Really.’
A small smile of gratitude. ‘Thanks.’
They drove on, Eddie surveying the parched desert. It was as inhospitable and empty a place as they had ever visited. ‘So, this feeling of yours,’ he said. ‘Wish I could figure out how it works.’
‘Yeah, me too!’ Nina regarded the desolation ahead. ‘I can’t really describe it. I just know somehow that it’s in this direction. If all life on the planet really did originate from the meteorite, then technically everybody is connected to it at a genetic level. The earth energy effect apparently lets me feel that more directly.’
‘I thought it only worked when you were holding the statues – and that you had to be somewhere where the energy lines connect.’
‘So did I. But this is more like an after-effect, an echo. It’s like . . .’ She struggled to find the words. ‘The best I can manage is that I can . . . feel it tickling my subconscious, I guess. It’s this way. Somewhere.’
‘An idea how far would be good.’
‘Afraid it’s not as precise as GPS. Sorry.’
They drove on. Another hour passed. Eddie squinted into the distance – then looked sharply round at something in his peripheral vision. ‘What?’ Nina asked.
‘There’s a plane over there.’ Sunlight glinted off a tiny dot in the sky to the northeast.
Nina’s fatigue was instantly replaced by concern. ‘The Group?’
He snorted. ‘How would I know? I don’t have bionic eyes. It’s a long way off, though.’
‘Where’s it going?’
Eddie stopped the 4×4 and stared intently into the blue void. ‘Might be on its way to Djibouti.’
‘Or it might be searching for the meteorite.’
‘Or us.’
Nina looked into the back of the Land Rover. The rucksack had been secured in the cargo bed, padded as best they could manage against the vehicle’s jolts by other bags. ‘So long as we have time to blow up the stone before they find us, that’s the most important thing.’
‘That, and us getting out alive – I think that’s pretty important too.’ He set off again. ‘Something I’ve been thinking about, though.’
‘What?’
‘Just how big is this meteorite? If it’s, I dunno, the size of a couch, or a car, we’ve got enough explosives to blow it to bits. But if it’s bigger, we might end up making the Group’s job easier. If all we can do is split it apart, then they can get right at the DNA or whatever’s inside it.’
It was a possibility Nina had also considered. ‘The best we can do is . . . the best we can do,’ she was forced to concede. ‘We just try to make it as hard for them as we possibly can. If they realise they’ve lost any chance to carry out their plan, well, like Glas said, they’re business people. Hopefully we can persuade them to free Larry without being vindictive.’
‘The Group might do that,’ said Eddie, grim-faced. ‘Stikes and Sophia won’t.’