CHAPTER 25
‘I received a call from Control at seventeen-thirty-five hours two days ago,’ Brennan said, ‘notifying me of an incident at the PathGen laboratories.’
He stood in a plush office, straight-backed – with his chin high and hands clasped behind his back – as though he were in the presence of a commanding officer. The bandage across his nose was now only a small dressing but the area around his left eye had turned colourful shades of yellow and purple following the effects of his first encounter with Daniel. Streams of daylight speared in through slatted blinds.
Margaret Coulson sat facing him behind a large, leather-topped desk – her chin resting on the tips of her fingers. ‘And then what did you do?’
‘I commandeered the Unit’s helicopter and headed straight for the location.’
‘Despite the condition you were in?’
‘Control gave me to believe that the situation was urgent.’
Margaret looked down to the desk and at the Tablet which showed a report of the smoldering PathGen labs. ‘That’s putting it mildly.’ She looked back up to Brennan. ‘So what happened when you got there?’
‘I landed at the empty Heli-pad and entered through the secure access point leading down to Control’s office.’
‘How?’
Brennan shrugged his shoulders. ‘It was open. Debris from the roof explosions prevented the upper door from closing and one of Control’s shoes was wedging the inner door open.’
‘One of his shoes?’
‘That’s what it looked like.’
‘And just how did one of his shoes get to be there?’
‘Couldn’t say, ma’am. Happened before I arrived.’
‘I see.’ She made a note on her Tablet. ‘Go on.’
‘I was too late. The Thorium reactor had already reached a critical level and triggered a number of explosions throughout the building. One of which occurred as I entered the office. Control was at the far end, in the lobby area; it looked as if he was trying to get down to the ground floor. The lift doors opened just as one explosion happened. From what I saw there wasn’t any lift in the shaft and Control was blown into it. I’m guessing that the inertia-free drive mechanisms must have failed with the original series of explosions. I raced to see if I could do anything but it was too late. There was a fire in the bottom of the shaft and I could see Control’s body lying on top of the lift several floors below. He wasn’t moving and appeared to be dead.’
‘And what medical training do you have to support that assumption?’
‘None, formally.’
Margaret paused and made a sucking sound through her teeth. ‘I see.’
‘But my years of experience told me that he hadn’t survived the fall.’
‘So at that point he may still have been alive?’
It was Brennan’s turn to pause. ‘It’s possible. But unlikely.’
Margaret leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. ‘And then what did you do?’
‘There were more explosions going off. It appeared as if the whole building was being ripped apart –’
‘And it would’ve done if the team of technicians hadn’t have managed to bring the situation back under control. Even so, we still lost half of the site.’ She looked back up to him. ‘So what did you do then?’
‘I headed back to my helicopter, departed the scene and returned to London.’
Margaret tapped at the Tablet and the screen showed a report containing Gregory Dryden’s photo. ‘You say that the Heli-pad was empty?’
‘Yes.’
‘So where was Control’s helicopter?’
Brennan shook his head. ‘Wouldn’t like to guess. You’d have to ask his pilot that.’
‘We would if we could find him.’ Margaret tilted her head slightly to one side, looked back up at Brennan and tapped the desk with one of her fingers. ‘So there was nothing you could do to save him? Control, that is.’
‘No. Not in my opinion.’
‘And there was no sign of Tiberius?’
‘Tiberius?’ Brennan asked, frowning.
She paused. ‘Yes.’
‘I thought he was dead.’
‘And why would you think that?’
Brennan shrugged his shoulders. ‘I read a report that stated he died whilst trying to break into the PathGen labs shortly before the explosions started.’
‘Let me put it this way: Did you see Tiberius, at all, while you were there?’ She emphasised each word.
‘No. Wouldn’t he have been in the morgue?’
‘Quite. The sub-levels suffered the most damage though and … well, let’s just say I don’t like leaving any loose ends.’ Margaret gave a slight nod of her head. ‘Right, well I think that’ll be all for now. I’ll expect a full, written report from you about what happened by the end of the day.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘We may have other questions for you so make sure you’re available. Dismissed.’
‘Ma’am.’
Brennan spun on one heel and, with a slight limp, made his way out of her office. Margaret watched him go and as the door closed tapped at the screen on her Tablet once more. The image of a man in a white coat, consulting a diagnostic Tablet showed in a small window – the view of a camera in a medical suite – along with the sound of a phone ringing. The man answered the call and looked up at the camera.
‘Dr Farrage.’
‘It’s Margaret Coulson here, doctor.’ She paused as if considering her words. ‘What’s his current condition?’
The man looked off to his right, at something the camera couldn’t see. ‘No real change. He’s alive, effectively.’ He looked back to the camera, his expression stern. ‘Although, I’ve no idea how. Brain functionality is now stable but he’s still on life-support. We still haven’t been able to remove the … the clothing.’
‘I see. Keep me informed, immediately, if there’s any development.’
‘Absolutely.’
Margaret ended the call and the image on her Tablet closed.
There was a knock at her office door; a young woman opened it and poked her head through the gap. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt you, ma’am, but the Board are waiting for you in the conference room.’
Margaret smiled. ‘Yes. Thank you, Sarah. I’m on my way.’
Doctor Farrage moved away from the area in front of the camera and over to the only bed in the room. Gregory Dryden lay on his back; his eyes closed and with his arms flat by his side. A number of small ceramic monitors were attached to his bruised, shaved head and a respirator covered his mouth. A white, padded bandage covered most of the back of his head.
His chest rose and fell with each pulse of a life-support system. The shoulders of his maroon jacket showed above the pale blue bed sheet covering him. No outward sign of dirt or damage showed on the fabric.
Doctor Farrage checked the readouts from the monitors and entered some notes onto the Tablet he held. He paused; watching Dryden’s breathing then glanced out through the glass walls of the medical suite. Three nurses were talking to each other further along the corridor but the area immediately outside was empty. He moved to the doorway and tapped a sensor. The glass walls turned opaque.
He gripped his Tablet in his left hand and approached the bed, rubbing the tips of his right fingers together. He glanced back over one shoulder to make sure that no one was looking then slowly, gingerly, reached out towards the maroon suit. Perhaps it was a trick of the light but it was almost as if the material rippled in anticipation. His fingertips were a hair’s breadth away when he thought better of it and drew his hand back.
The maroon fabric seemed to relax back into the uniform flatness that it usually was.
‘No,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Not a good idea, Michael.’
He spun around and headed for the door, closing it behind him.
She sat alone in the same place she always did. He checked his watch; she should be leaving for lunch any time now. It felt odd having the watch
on his right wrist but it wouldn’t be long before he could move it back. His damaged arm sat cradled in a blue, padded sling and he’d been able to move his fingers only a few hours after it had been re-set.
It was strange; it’d only been four days since he’d last seen her – two since they’d last spoken – but somehow it seemed much longer. Daniel wondered what that meant but deep down thought he knew the answer.
He sat facing her in one of the seats in the adjacent line of terminals in the New York Public Library, not really sure what to say to her, and kicked himself for not calling her as soon as he’d left the PathGen labs. Or at least once he’d made the decision to return to America.
Eleanor closed her laptop down and slipped it into the brown shoulder bag she wore. Daniel realised that he caught his breath as she stood up; her hair bounced and there was something about the way it moved that made him feel funny.
Her eyes went wide as she glanced up and caught sight of him. She held one hand to her mouth and tears welled up in her eyes. Daniel smiled and waved with his good hand.
‘The best iced Mocha in town,’ Daniel said as the vendor in Bryant Park passed Eleanor a cardboard cup. ‘With extra whipped cream.’
‘You remembered.’
‘Yeah, that’s something I’m good at.’ He paid the man for the drinks, took his coffee then pointed towards one of the empty benches. Despite it being a warm, sunny day the park wasn’t busy. ‘Shall we?’
‘So are you going to tell me what happened?’ she asked as they sat down. ‘I was so worried after we spoke on Wednesday. You sounded so … so determined; it scared me. And then when your cell stopped working ... I didn’t know what to think. Why didn’t you call? Even if it was just to let me know you were okay.’
‘I wanted to. Really. I just wasn’t sure what to say. The thing is I wasn’t even sure if I’d be coming back to New York.’
‘Oh.’
‘Okay that didn’t come out the way I wanted. What I meant was that Dryden and all those other people knew about you, knew that we were friends and that made you a target. They thought they could get to me by threatening you and I didn’t want that. I thought that maybe if I never saw you again then they wouldn’t have any reason to … Well, you know.’
‘So you thought that by making me think you were dead you were actually doing me a favour?’
Daniel shrugged his shoulders. ‘I guess.’
‘For a smart guy you’re really pretty dumb.’ She looked him square in the eye. ‘I’m not a kid, Danny; I can take care of myself. I’m half-French after all, remember? And if I like someone then it’s up to me to decide if, or when, I stop seeing them. Whatever the risk. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘Good. So are you going to tell me what did happen over there?’
Daniel looked into her brown eyes and for a moment considered telling her everything. ‘There’s not much to tell: I met Dryden, confronted him and … and that’s it.’
‘Simple as that?’
‘Simple as that.’
‘Only on Wednesday I saw on the news about an explosion in some research labs near Oxford. Was that just a coincidence?’
‘Right, I forgot about you wanting to join the FBI. Good detective work. No, no coincidence.’
‘So?’
‘Long story short: we had a fight. There were explosions going off and we ended up in the lift shaft. The thing is, even after all the things he’d done, after all the people he’d killed because of me, I still couldn’t kill him. I went there thinking that if the only way I could stop him was by killing him then that’s what I’d do. But when it came to it, I just couldn’t.’
‘You say that like it’s a bad thing. It just proves that you were the better man.’
‘I don’t know what I’d have done if Brennan hadn’t have turned up.’
‘Brennan?’
‘He was someone I … bumped into. I thought he was one of Dryden’s men but …’ Daniel paused as he groped for the right words, ‘but I guess he was some sort of double agent. He stopped me from falling into the lift at PathGen and took hold of Dryden’s hand. Then he let him go. Brennan killed him. Said he was following orders. It was Brennan who flew me out of there in a helicopter.’
‘So it’s all over, then? For good? ’
‘It’s over. They think I’m dead.’ It sounded more like he was trying to convince himself more than her.
‘The man who flew you away from the labs; this Brennan, was he working with the guy who came to the house?’
‘He didn’t say so precisely but that’s what he wanted me to think.’
‘So who do they work for?’
‘I still don’t know,’ Daniel said shaking his head. ‘He promised to tell me but it was all such of a rush once we’d landed – medics were hurrying me up to get my arm looked at and by the time I thought to ask again, he’d gone. But he did save me.’
‘So maybe they were good guys, after all?’
‘Yeah, maybe.’ Daniel took a sip of his coffee and looked out across the park. ‘But I think it’s going to take me a long time before I can just trust anyone again.’
‘Oh, right.’
He looked at her. ‘There are only two people in the whole world I do trust; one lives and works in a basement, the other has a really cute smile.’
Across the park, from his car parked on 6th Avenue, William Cross held a small pair of binoculars up to his eyes and watched as the two teenagers leaned into each other and shared a tender kiss.
‘So do you think you’re still going to be around on the seventeenth?’ Eleanor asked, resting her head on Daniel’s shoulder. ‘For the Ball?’
‘I think I can manage that.’
‘Shame about your arm. Still, I’m sure we can do some dancing.’
‘Yeah, about that.’ Daniel released the catches holding the sling’s strapping. He flexed his hand and straightened the arm. ‘Give it a few days and we’ll be Tangoing with the best of them.’
Brennan walked across the carpeted lobby from the tenth-floor lift and opened the door marked “CLIFTON INTERNATIONAL INVESTMENTS”. He tucked the tight vacuum-sealed bag under his arm and moved along a series of corridors before opening a wide, wooden door. The five men sitting around the conference table didn’t even acknowledge his arrival.
‘We were expecting you before now,’ the man sitting at the head of the table muttered.
‘The attention I was getting was too hot after what happened at PathGen,’ Brennan said. ‘This was the earliest I could get here without being trailed.’
‘And how did the meeting with Mrs Coulson go?’
‘You knew about that?’
The man looked up. ‘We know everything, Captain Brennan.’
‘Not quite.’ He tossed the bag onto the table so that it slid up to him.
‘Ah.’ The man released the grip-strip and pulled out a clear plastic bag. Inside was the jacket Brennan had given Daniel as a sling. It was stained with blood.
‘Will that be good enough?’
The man smiled for the first time. ‘We’ll see. Good work, Miles. Why don’t you take a seat?’
The private medical suite lay quiet and dark; the stillness interrupted only by the uniform wheeze of the life-support system and the bleep of monitors. Dryden’s chest rose and fell with mechanical regularity. The clack of heels and conversation sounded in the corridor outside as two nurses walked past.
The maroon suit rippled. Dryden’s eyes moved under his closed lids; slowly at first but then frantically. His eyelids flickered open and he winced as they adjusted to the light. He raised an arm from under the blue bed sheet and pulled the respirator away from his mouth.
The End
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andrew is a writer of not only novels but also short stories and short- and full-length screenplays. He currently works as a teacher in an adult-learning environment, but hopes to be able to write full-time in the near future.
He lives i
n the UK with his Welsh Terrier, Ceiwyn.
Follow him on Twitter - @agwriting
Daniel’s story will continue in Tiberius Bound.
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