“We should stay together,” Abby said anxiously.
“Koshkin’s armed,” Yushenko replied.
“Koshkin’s a fool,” Suvova said in an undertone.
With the soldiers lagging after them, Cutter, Abby and the members of the science group scrambled through the forest to catch up with the vanishing FSB specialist. Though the rain was still dismal and the light poor, it seemed somehow to be getting brighter.
They clambered a little further and saw why.
“Oh my God,” Abby said in surprise.
A great deal more of the wan Siberian sunlight was reaching the ground because the tree cover was gone. Ahead of them, a broad swathe of the ancient forest had been demolished. Hundreds of trees had been felled, and the canopy had been torn down.
Yushenko muttered a curse as he was forced to stop and load a fresh memory card into his camcorder.
Koshkin was picking his way out into the ravaged, open space. Heat and pressure had reduced the ground and pulverised the plant life. Splintered tree trunks lay everywhere, most of them blackened and smouldering. A fug of steam and slow wood-smoke hung over the landscape, filtering slowly up into the frail sunlight.
Cutter surveyed the scene. A circle of scorched and ruined destruction had been planted in the woodland, as if seared by a branding iron a kilometre in diameter. The intact trees of the forest ringed the scorched circle like mourners.
Koshkin had found the impact site.
THIRTY
As she walked out to her car at the end of a particularly long day, Jenny was aware that her briefcase felt depressingly heavy.
It was late afternoon, drearily overcast, and the ARC building behind her resembled an alien mothership that had settled gently on the English landscape.
She wondered how much longer she’d stay working there. She’d spent most of the day arguing heatedly with Lester — more heatedly than she’d ever dared before — and in the end, the arguments had stopped because she’d realised he was, in fact, being reasonable, no matter how unreasonable he sounded.
Cutter, Abby and Connor were gone. The ARC operation was entirely powerless to find them or rescue them. The best anyone could hope for was that quiet but steady pressure could be applied to the Russians through diplomatic back-channels, in an effort to get them to admit they had Cutter and the others, and then release them.
Lester didn’t hold out much hope. Even if it was ultimately successful, the process might take months or years, but the chances were that the Russians would never acknowledge what they had done. There were, Lester had explained, too many secrets involved.
In the meantime, the work had to continue. ARC missions had effectively been suspended when Cutter disappeared, and Lester had been told that the entire project would be shut down — mothballed — unless operational activity resumed. His superiors considered it a strategic flaw that so much depended on so few key personnel.
“We need to get moving by the end of the week,” Lester had told her, “or our program will be cancelled and responsibility handed to the Ministry of Defence. I’m sorry, Jenny. I’m quite aware that there is a significant personal component to this problem. The three of them were close colleagues, and it seems callous to just give up on them, but we must get our act together. I’m hoping you can cast a professional eye over these.”
These were personnel dossiers, a stack of manilla folders that contained the intelligence briefs and résumés of several dozen individuals vetted by the government. Every single one of them had the potential to make a valuable addition to the ARC’s multi-disciplinary team. They were replacements for Abby, Connor and even Cutter.
She’d stuffed the clutch of dossiers in her briefcase, adding considerably to its weight, and told Lester she’d be going home for the rest of the day to review them. On her way out, she wondered if she would review them, if she could even bring herself to open any of them. She suspected she might spend most of the evening preparing her letter of resignation.
She also suspected that if she resigned, she’d never, ever find another job that was quite so marvellous.
She unlocked her car, threw the heavy briefcase onto the passenger seat and got in. She sat for a moment staring at the ARC building. Maybe she could learn to be as pragmatic as Lester. Maybe she’d feel different about things in the morning.
She put the key in the ignition.
“Where’s Nick?”
Jenny froze. The voice had come from behind her. There was somebody in the back seat, somebody who’d been lying in wait for her like an ambush predator. She could smell a soft, primitive fragrance, a mix of fresh air and volcanic dust and wildflowers.
“Where’s Nick?” the voice asked again.
She looked in the rear-view mirror. The dark eyes of Helen Cutter stared back at her.
Jenny paused a moment and collected herself. She felt trapped.
“I don’t —” she began to reply.
“Don’t waste my time,” Helen said quickly. “I need to speak to Nick. I’ve been waiting for an opportunity. But there’s been no sign of him. Where is he?”
“You’re asking the wrong person,” Jenny answered.
Helen breathed a perfunctory, exasperated sigh.
“Okay, fine. I’ll find him myself.” Jenny heard her move to open the rear door.
“Why did you come to me?” she asked.
“What?” Helen paused.
“Why me? Oh, wait a minute, is it because your usual line of communication isn’t there any more?”
Jenny turned in her seat and looked back at Helen. The expression on the face of Nick Cutter’s estranged wife was unreadable. She couldn’t tell if Helen was angry or sad.
“If you mean Stephen —” Helen began.
“I do mean Stephen,” Jenny acknowledged.
“Don’t you dare taunt me. I didn’t want Stephen to die.” She hesitated for a moment. “You know nothing about it. You know nothing about our relationship, and —”
“I don’t think Nick knew much about your relationship, either,” Jenny said. She didn’t care what reaction her words might provoke. Helen Cutter’s eyes had grown so hard, it seemed possible that she would attack her.
“I need to speak to Nick,” Helen said. “It’s very important, to everyone, all our futures.”
She reached again for the door handle.
“He’s missing,” Jenny said.
“He’s what?”
“He’s missing. He’s gone. He’s not here.”
Helen stared at her. There was a fragment of shock in her face that made her seem surprisingly vulnerable for a second.
“Missing? You mean lost? Lost through an anomaly?”
“I wish it was that simple,” Jenny said.
“Tell me what happened!” Helen demanded.
“As far as I know,” Jenny said, “he’s been kidnapped by a foreign power.”
Helen blinked.
“He’s been what? What? That’s ridiculous. You’re lying.”
“Why did you want to speak to him?”
“You’re lying!” Helen spat, and then she froze suddenly, and looked around sharply.
“I know what you’re doing. Very clever.”
“What am I doing?” Jenny asked curiously.
“Keeping me busy. Keeping me talking. Sorry, but it won’t work.” She threw open the rear door and scrambled out.
“Funnily enough, it will,” Jake Hemple said. He was standing beside the car, aiming a nine-millimetre automatic in a double-handed grip. Helen came to a halt, and sagged slightly in resignation, a sneer appear-ing on her face.
Jenny got out of the car.
“And funnily enough,” she said, “it was the truth, too.”
THIRTY-ONE
“Thanks,” Jenny said.
Hemple smiled. “No problem.”
He was unloading the clip from the pistol, and returning both to a gun locker in Prep.
“Ever since Cutter and the others got snatched, I’
ve been trying to raise my game,” he admitted. “I can’t keep letting ARC staffers get pounced on by strangers. It really doesn’t do my rep as a protection officer much good.”
Hemple slammed the locker shut and looked at her.
“I saw you leaving on the monitors. I saw you in the car park heading for your car. Then I realised you’d been sitting in your car for quite some time, so I cranked up the magnification. Bingo.”
“Well, thank you anyway,” Jenny said. “What do we do with her?”
“We find out what she knows,” Lester said, appearing beside them.
“What did you want to talk to him about?” Hemple asked her.
“Whatever I like,” Helen replied, toying with a plastic cup and staring at the middle of the table. “He’s my husband, after all. I have the right.”
“You said it was important,” Jenny put in, “for all of us.”
Helen arched her eyebrows and said nothing.
Lester pursed his lips and sat back in his seat. He smoothed his silk tie, stared up at the ceiling of the ARC’s interview room, and then brushed an imaginary crumb off the polished top of the table around which they were seated.
“Well, I can’t stay and chat like this all day,” he said. He pushed his chair back. “If she’s got nothing interesting to contribute, I suggest we get her carted off to somewhere secure, where she won’t be our concern any more.”
He looked down the table at Helen, who held his stare with a steady, perhaps even superior gaze.
“We don’t even need charges for you, you know? The Official Secrets and National Security Acts alone give us enough scope to hold you without charge or process for an unimaginably long time. Until, for example, you decide to be useful.”
Lester paused.
“And I have a feeling,” he added, standing up, “you know better than most people what an unimaginably long time feels like.”
Helen raised her eyebrows again, and remained silent.
Lester turned towards the door.
“Okay,” he said, “I’ve tried. I’ve played good cop, bad cop, and best cop in a supporting character role. I’ve got things to do. Get her off the property.”
“Who kidnapped him?” Helen demanded steadily, her voice echoing around the interview room.
Lester turned back and looked at her.
“Why should you care?”
“Because I don’t believe you,” she snapped. “When she —” Helen aimed the words at Jenny. “— said he was missing, I presumed he’d come to a sticky end in some primeval era. Very sad, but only to be expected. But... kidnapping. It’s like Yuri Gagarin dying in a plane crash.”
“Or Al Capone getting done for tax fraud,” Lester said.
Helen smiled wryly.
“Who kidnapped him?”
Lester leaned on the back of the chair he had vacated.
“At first, we suspected a malicious ex-wife,” he replied.
Helen kept smiling and gave no reaction.
Lester sat down at the table again.
“The Russians,” he stated.
“Russians?” Helen repeated. “Interesting.”
“Russian agents, we’re fairly sure,” Lester said, in an off-hand way.
Helen’s smile slipped slightly, her eyes calculating.
“Why?”
“We’re guessing they’ve got the same problem we have,” Jenny said.
“Why did you want to talk to him?” Hemple demanded more fiercely this time.
Helen glanced at the alpha team leader, unruffled by his tone.
“There were certain things I wanted to discuss with Nick. Certain concerns.”
“It must have been important,” Hemple echoed.
Helen just ignored him.
“Do you know where they’ve taken him?” she asked Lester.
“Yes,” he said.
“You know where they’re holding him?”
“We’ve got a pretty tight fix.”
“Can you get him back?”
“No,” Lester said. “They’ve taken him overseas. The location is far, far too remote for us to have any access whatsoever.”
“But you know where?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I’m not just going to tell you —” Lester began.
“Do you know where?” Jenny interjected.
Helen looked at her.
“Do you know where?” Jenny repeated. “You suspect, don’t you? What do you know? Where do you think he is?” Helen seemed to hesitate for a moment, as if marshalling her thoughts, as if what she was contemplating saying was vastly consequential.
“Are the Russians detaining him,” she asked at last, “at a place called Tunguska?”
“She knew!” Lester said. He was pacing.
“Of course she knew,” Jenny countered.
“I mean,” he went on, “at first, she didn’t know. She thought he’d be here, but when she found out that he wasn’t, she knew where he must be. I mean, spot on.”
There seemed to be a growing danger that Lester’s office wasn’t going to be large enough to accommodate the sort of agitated pacing he had in mind.
“It rather nicely confirms our theory that the kidnapping is anomaly related,” Jenny observed. “That’s the only way she could have known.”
“Yes, yes,” Lester agreed.
“She’s scared of something,” Jenny went on.
“She should be scared of me,” Lester said.
“With respect, I think it’s something else.”
Abruptly he stopped pacing and faced her.
“Something’s up, isn’t it?” he said. “I mean, the Russians, and now... her. This is not business as usual, is it?”
“It doesn’t feel like it.”
“Suggestions?”
“I think we need to give her something.”
“Such as? Truth serum? A hard slap?”
Jenny shook her head.
“No, I didn’t mean that. But I’m convinced she knows a great deal more than she’s letting on. She’d trust Nick with it, but lord knows she’s got no reason to trust us. So we have to give her something. We have to make some kind of concession and meet her halfway in the hope that she’ll give us something back.”
“Could we not just tie her to a chair and aim a spotlight in her eyes?”
“I don’t think that’s allowed any more,” Jenny replied with a smile, as if the thought appealed. “And I don’t think it would work anyway. Helen Cutter is a real piece of work. She’s harder than steel. She’s harder than you or me and I think she’d give Hemple a run for his money. She’s lived wild and alone for longer than we can imagine in some of the most dangerous and inhospitable eras in Earth’s history. Tough questions and a lamp in the eyes isn’t really going to cut it.”
“You make her sound like Tarzan,” Lester said.
“I think she makes Tarzan look refined and civilised,” Jenny responded.
“So what are you suggesting?” he asked.
“We have to make a concession. We have to give her something that matters to her.”
“Like what?”
“Freedom,” Jenny stated. “I think that’s the only thing she’s interested in.”
“And how do we do that? Open the cell door? Let her out? She’ll vanish, and that won’t really get us anything, will it?”
“No.”
“No, I didn’t think so. So what do we do?”
“I don’t know,” Jenny said. Lester resumed his urgent pacing.
Hemple tapped on the glass door and entered the office. The bustle and hum of the main control chamber followed him in through the door before he closed it.
“What is it?” Lester demanded, still pacing.
“I’ve talked to her a little more,” Hemple said. “She’s a tough one, all right.”
“And?”
“She wants to make us an offer.”
Lester frowned.
“What kind of off
er?”
“If we let her go,” Hemple said, “she’ll take us straight to Cutter.”
THIRTY-TWO
There were no birds singing, not even in the nearest trees that had survived the impact. A haze of ash and smoke overwhelmed the mist and lay in a broad slant across the burned circle that had been, until the middle of the previous night, dense Siberian forest.
The site was at least a kilometre across and seemed almost perfectly circular. Abby followed Cutter out into the smouldering emptiness of the circle’s heart. She could feel heat radiating from the burned stumps and charred, shattered tree trunks around her. It was even throbbing up out of the ground.
Around the circumference of the huge impact zone, hundreds of blackened tree trunks were laid out lengthways along the line of the blast, arranged like petals around a flowerhead in a pattern that looked deliberate and artificial. The fringes of the standing forest around the site were seared and caked with white dust. Some of the trees around the rim were perfectly intact on the sides that faced away from the impact site, and stripped bare to the heart on the blastward side.
As Cutter had predicted, there was no crater.
“It’s huge,” Yushenko said in disbelief, clambering across the still-burning debris and filming as he went.
“It is,” Cutter agreed, “but nowhere near as big as the 1908 event. A fiftieth of the size. Less than that, perhaps.”
“Still no more than base-level radiation,” Bulov reported. “It’s elevated, but not greatly.” He adjusted the geiger counter and then coughed.
The smoke and ash was getting in their throats.
A wind was picking up. The rain increased in intensity again. They could hear it sizzling as it fell on still-glowing logs. And it was becoming more difficult to see.
“The light’s going early today,” Koshkin observed.
“We’re not going to get back to the advance camp tonight, are we?” Abby asked.
Koshkin shrugged, as if it didn’t matter.
“I suggest you get your men to set up a secure camp around the vehicles in the trees,” Cutter said.
“I know what to do,” Koshkin replied tersely.