Alchemist

  Seligman inclined his head.

  Crowe continued his gentle stroking. ‘I am unclear, Miss Bannerman, exactly how much information on the Medici Trials you or your father or Mr Molloy have in your possession and to whom you have passed it on. I don’t need the information now, you understand, not this minute. We are going to leave you in peace for a while to think about what you would like to tell us.’ He paused for a moment. ‘I am sure that when you have – ah – helped us with our experiments, your father will become far more willing to assist than he has been to date. In the meantime, I can think of no more appropriate place for you to contemplate how it will feel to see the world through the eyes of a frog. That’s if the operation is successful, of course.’

  He turned and lobbed the frog into the darkness.

  ‘Please don’t leave me in here,’ Monty pleaded. ‘Not here. I can tell you what I know – but it’s very little.’

  Crowe studied her face thoughtfully for a moment, then rested his hands gently on her shoulders. ‘I want you to think very carefully about every little detail of what you know and whom you have told. You have caused us a lot of anxiety, my dear, a very great deal.’ He smiled.

  Then, brutally, he kicked her legs away from under her and pushed her backwards. She fell with an agonizing jar on to the metal floor, letting out a gasp of pain and shock.

  There was a sharp click as the door closed on the two men. She was alone with the croaking of the frogs and the splashing of water. The croaking seemed to be getting louder, more frogs joining in as it rose to a crescendo. In her terror it sounded as if the frogs were massing around her for an attack.

  Then she remembered something.

  125

  Conor paced restlessly around the atrium. Monty was here; he could feel her fear in his bones. He looked at his watch: zero minus four hours and seven minutes. Worst case scenario. It was in place and the clock was running. If all else failed, he would have done what he came here to do. But at what price?

  He stared angrily at the security guard behind the desk. Come on, come on. He clenched his hands in anguish and frustration. Don’t let it be too late, please, please, don’t let it be too late. He walked back to the desk. ‘What the hell’s happening?’

  The guard flinched, said nervously, ‘Any minute, sir; should be on the telephone any minute.’

  Fifteen minutes had elapsed since Conor had arrived. Still plenty of time. Enough to get the message across; not enough for them to do anything about it. They would have to release Monty, they would have no choice.

  ‘OK, you go see him now. You take the Directors’ express lift.’

  Conor turned, startled by the guard’s voice, and stood up. ‘Directors’ express? He’s in the building? In his office?’

  ‘Yes, sir, seem that way.’

  Conor looked at him belligerently. Dr Crowe had been here all the time?

  ‘Got to let you in.’ The guard walked alongside Conor down to the lift and slipped his card into the panel. The doors opened immediately. Conor stepped inside and was surprised when instead of going up, as he had been expecting, the lift began to descend, dropping rapidly for some seconds. Then it stopped and the doors opened on to a small anteroom with an unoccupied security desk with a closed steel door beyond it. He stepped out and the doors shut behind him. Monty was down here; he could feel her even more strongly now.

  He waited some moments then looked again at the desk. It had a built-in keyboard and a monitor that was switched off. He tapped a few keys but nothing happened, then something on the ceiling caught his eye and he looked up. It was an orange strobe light beside a complex arrangement of fire sprinkler nozzles. Beside them was a warning plate:

  DANGER. HALON GAS AUTOMATIC EXTINGUISHER SYSTEM. WHEN LIGHT FLASHES EVACUATE ROOM INSTANTLY. KLAXON INDICATES FIFTEEN SECONDS TO ACTIVATION.

  They had to be paranoid about fires to have that kind of system in a room used by people rather than machines, he reflected.

  Minutes passed. His anxiety increasing, he tried the steel door behind the security desk, inserting his card once, twice, but the door’s red touch pad – something he had not encountered on the upper floors – would not operate with his code.

  He sat down on the edge of the desk. Ten minutes passed. Twenty. What the hell was going on?

  Time was starting to run short. He paced the room desperately, shouting at the walls, ‘Dr Crowe, read your eMail! Don’t fool around with me, you don’t have time! Read your goddamned eMail!’

  126

  ‘Soldier, I don’t like this game any more.’

  Gunn chewed his thumbnail.

  ‘Soldier, I mean it. I really don’t like this game any more.’

  Nikky’s face, framed by her long red hair. Looking up at him as she lay naked, strapped down on to the altar six floors beneath the atrium.

  That moment when her expression had changed, when she had realized it wasn’t a kinky sex game and they really were going to cut her heart from her chest while she was still alive; he would carry that moment with him to his deathbed.

  Now they had to deal with the Bannerman woman.

  Flanked by two guards, he stepped out of the lift and walked along the corridor to the hatchery. Damnit, he didn’t like this game any more either. Seals, Rowley, the reporter Zandra Wollerton – they’d got what they deserved. But Nikky was different. Hell, he’d really loved her.

  And now the Bannerman woman. You’re losing it, he thought. Losing your fucking nerve. He went through the airlock into the hatchery, into the cloying humid air, the stink of pondweed, the echoing croaks, his feet changing on the slatted metal grid, and stared into the infra-red darkness.

  She wasn’t there.

  127

  Monty watched the three men, through the slats of the louvred door, come running back down the corridor towards the hatchery. The one in the suit was speaking urgently into a two-way radio, but his words were drowned by the din of the huge pump pressed against her.

  All you got to do is look confident …

  The suit and one of the guards took the lift; the other retraced his steps slowly up and down the corridor and stopped right in front of her, staring at the slats. She could see his face clearly; thick, rubbery lips, hooded eyes, mean.

  Monty braced herself, beyond fear now, gripped with just one desperate thought: survival. Somehow she was going to do it, get out of here, tell the world.

  The guard gripped the handle. Her heart banged in her chest. Surprise was her only weapon; if she kicked him hard between the legs, snatched at his eyes with her fingers, she might have a chance –

  He shook the door, testing to make sure it was properly shut, then walked away. Stunned with disbelief, she remained motionless.

  Several minutes passed and he did not return. All you got to do is look confident …

  Easy to say. She gripped the thin plastic card Winston Smith had given her. His note had said it would open every door in the building and on this one, at least, it had worked; it had got her out of the hatchery.

  Cautiously, she pushed open the door and peered out. The corridor was empty. She looked around her: no signposts, arrows, area names. A television camera pointed in her direction. Got to move, keep moving, get away.

  Roger. The name on Winston Smith’s note. My friend Roger is there Monday to Friday, 8 a.m.–4 p.m. He will show you all you want to see. You can trust him. I am sorry I never had the courage myself. If she could find Roger maybe he could help her, get her out. Except it was Saturday today, she realized. But there was still a chance. She remembered that Winston Smith’s shifts seemed to change randomly.

  Bearings. Get my bearings. She tried to calculate what floor she was now on. The lift was an option, but risky; it could stop at any floor and there would be a camera in it. Best to stay with the corridors and the stairs. And she might just find Roger.

  She scanned the corridor again. A clicking sound was coming from the left and she hurried in that direction, hopes rising,
then stopped, disappointed to see only a rest area with washrooms, drinks vending machines, and a table and chairs. It was the hot drinks machine that was making the clicking sound.

  She checked out the washrooms in case there was a concealed exit beyond them, but could find nothing, and ran back down the corridor.

  A few yards on the corridor dog-legged to the right, and as she rounded it, she saw to her relief a steel door with a keypad. She slid the card in carefully, then tapped out the pin number Winston Smith had given her. 0626. The lock clicked and the tiny red flashing light turned green.

  She passed through the door, into the concrete stairwell. Her eyes darted nervously up into the gloom above her, then down. There was just one flight below her and she could see clearly where it ended, at another door and a blank wall.

  A sharp crack rang out, making her jump. She spun round and saw the door closing and locking behind her. She looked up, and was relieved to see no signs of life. Was there a hiding place here? But she could see no recesses, or closets.

  She paused, trying to collect her thoughts. Got to go up, got to work her way upwards. Then she froze as a door opened two levels above. Saw a shadow; heard urgent voices.

  No time to get the card back in. She fled down the stairs, winding round and round, then crouched in the darkness at the bottom and listened, praying they weren’t going to come down here.

  Footsteps descended then stopped just above her. There was a sharp click, then silence. She breathed out but stayed crouched, peering upwards, until she was sure they had really gone.

  A couple of cigarette butts and a discarded polystyrene cup lay on the concrete floor in front of her; she found the sight of the butts oddly reassuring, as if it was a secret signal that there were rebels to the Bendix creed down here. Then she slipped her card into the slot, keyed in the numbers, and tentatively pushed the door.

  It opened into a small anteroom, with a small console behind which sat an elderly, black security guard, who looked up, straight at her.

  She froze.

  Then she heard more footsteps coming down the stairwell above her. In desperation she lunged into the room. The guard was of a similar age to Winston Smith, his hair greying and the skin of his emaciated face blotched with large patches of red scales. There was something in the way he looked at her, with kindness not hostility, that made her know, instantly, who he was. ‘May I see your identity, please, madam?’ he said.

  Glancing nervously at the door behind her, she tore Winston Smith’s letter from her handbag and handed it to him. He unfolded it, read it and thrust it back at her with a shaking hand. He looked quickly up at the ceiling then leaned towards her and whispered, ‘I can’t help you. I want to but I can’t. It’s not possible.’ His eyes went again to the ceiling, widening with fear.

  She followed his stare up to the television camera and panic rose inside her. There was a door right behind him. She had to go through it. ‘Roger, Winston Smith is dead. They could have cured him but they didn’t, they killed him. They could make you better but instead they give you drugs to keep you bad. Please help me get out of here. Let me go through. Tell them you didn’t see me.’

  The door behind him burst open. Two guards came in, the one she had seen through the slats and another, followed by the suit. There was a loud click as the door automatically locked behind them.

  128

  ‘I trust you are comfortable, Dr Bannerman?’

  A drip line still ran from Dick Bannerman’s wrist, but he was no longer intubated and was breathing unaided. He was aware that during the night he had been moved, in very doped state, from the Bendix Hammersmith Clinic to this small, sparsely furnished and windowless room.

  He was awake and alert, although his body felt leaden and it was an effort to raise an arm a few inches or flex his fingers. He slowly rotated his head towards the door and saw Dr Crowe standing there, dressed in green scrubs, a surgical mask hanging below his chin.

  ‘Where the hell am I?’

  ‘I wouldn’t clutter your head with details of geography, Dr Bannerman. You have more important matters to consider.’ Crowe closed the door and walked to the bed. ‘I would have preferred it not to be this way; one rarely gets the best out of people by threatening them, but sometimes there is no alternative. Do we understand each other?’

  Bannerman eyed him levelly. ‘I don’t think you understand me at all, Crowe. You can do anything you want to me, but I won’t help you or your stinking company one iota. Is that clear?’

  The Chief Executive inclined his head. ‘I think you might change your mind.’ He turned and looked pointedly at a television set in the corner of the room and said, ‘You see, Dr Bannerman, it’s not you who we’re going to hurt.’

  He switched on the television. An operating theatre appeared on the screen. A gurney was being wheeled in by two people in scrubs. They moved it into position beneath the massive octopus lamp, pulled the brake lever, which retracted the wheels, then stepped out of sight.

  As they did so, Dick Bannerman could see very clearly that it was his daughter lying on the gurney. She was restrained by leather straps around her legs, arms and neck. The camera zoomed in, as if for his sole benefit, to show in full close-up the stark terror on her face.

  ‘We’ll talk later, Dr Bannerman,’ Crowe said. ‘Give you a chance to think things over.’

  The door closed and he was gone.

  Conor stared in desperation at his watch. The bargaining time he had calculated was fast running out. His knuckles were raw from pounding the walls and he brought them to his mouth, sucked them, tasted the coppery tang of blood.

  The door opened. A guard came in holding a gun. ‘Dr Crowe would like you to see something, Mr Molloy,’ he said, with a smirk.

  ‘I have to speak to Dr Crowe,’ Conor said. ‘I have to speak with him right away. Can you take me to him? I have to speak with him.’

  The guard shook his head. ‘Sorry, no can do.’ Keeping the gun pointed at Conor, he inserted a card into the workstation and with one finger tapped four numbers on the keys. Moments later the monitor came to life. Swinging his gaze from Conor to the keyboard and back to Conor, he tapped more keys. There was a pause, then on the screen appeared a clear image of the inside of an operating theatre. Conor saw Monty lying strapped to a gurney, with several people in scrubs gathering around her.

  Conor gaped in horror. ‘What’s going on? What the hell’s going on?’

  ‘Dr Crowe thought you’d like to see this,’ the guard said smugly.

  He stared at the screen again. He could see the terror in Monty’s face. It was difficult to make out the other people. Crowe – he could see Crowe adjusting his mask over his mouth and nose, and beside him a smooth-looking man pulling on surgical gloves. ‘What in God’s name are they doing to her?’

  The camera zoomed in close on to Monty’s face, then pulled back to a wide angle. Something caught his eye on the ceiling, right at the top of the monitor, only just in frame; an orange warning light and nozzles of a fire extinguisher system, the same as in here. Halon gas.

  He stared at the guard, straight into his eyes. The guard returned his stare smugly. Conor stared harder, harder, concentrating, desperately concentrating in spite of his blind panic, concentrating, pouring all his energies into those two round beads. Kept on staring. The guard’s smile was slackening, his jaw dropping. The hand holding the gun began to lower. The guard’s eyes were glazing now, losing their focus, he was drifting. Drifting …

  Now!

  Conor leapt at him, grabbed the wrist of his gun hand with his left hand, heard a bang as the weapon discharged, slammed the knuckles of his right fist as hard as he could into the guard’s nose and fell against the desk with him, bringing his knee sharply up between the man’s legs. He punched him again, then again, gripped his gun and jerked his arm down on the edge of the desk, sending the gun clattering to the floor.

  The guard flailed with his free arm, catching Conor’s ear a glancing blow.
In blind fury Conor grabbed him by the hair and smashed his face into the keyboard. ‘Where is she?’ He smashed the guard’s face down again. ‘Where is she, you motherfucker?’ He smashed it down again, then again.

  The guard screamed, ‘Please don’t! Stop. Please stop.’

  Conor twisted him round by his hair. ‘Where is she? Tell me now!’ He jammed a hand into the guard’s groin, squeezed hard.

  The guard howled in agony.

  ‘Where? Tell me or I’ll rip your fucking balls off.’

  ‘Le – level two.’

  Conor squeezed again.

  ‘L-l-lift. Lift. Level two.’ The man was panting and blood trickled from his mouth and nose. ‘T-turn right. Sign. Signed.’

  Without letting go of his hair, Conor pulled the card out of the slot on the workstation and held it up in front of his nose. ‘Do I use this?’

  The guard nodded.

  ‘Pin number? What’s the fucking pin number?’

  ‘Zero six two six.’

  ‘You’re shitting me and I’m coming back for you, you understand that?’

  The guard signalled with his eyes.

  Conor gripped the card in his teeth, pulled the guard’s head as far back as he could, then slammed his fist up into the base of his chin. The guard’s eyes rolled. Conor released his hair and he fell motionless on to the floor.

  Conor knelt and grabbed the gun and raced to the lift.

  129

  The room smelled of antiseptic. Monty blinked in the glare of the lamp overhead. Her arms and legs felt as if they were being gripped in a vice. She tried to raise her head, to turn it, but that, too, was clamped tight.