Stormbreaker (13 page)

Alex turned in frustration. He was about to leave, but even as he swung the flashlight around, the beam picked up something lying in a heap on the ground. He went over to it and leaned down. It was a diver's dry suit and it looked brand-new. Alex walked back to the water's edge and examined it with the flashlight. This time he saw something else. A rope had been tied to a rock. It slanted diagonally into the water and disappeared. Alex knew what it meant.

Ian Rider had swum through the submerged tunnel. He had worn a dry suit and he had managed to fix a rope to guide him through. Obviously he had planned to come back. That was why he had left the dry suit there. And why he had left the padlock open.

Alex picked up the dry suit. It was too big for him, although it would probably keep out the worst of the chill.

But the cold wasn't the only problem. The tunnel might run for ten yards. It might run for a hundred. How could he be sure that Ian hadn't used scuba equipment to swim through? If Alex went down there, into the water, and ran out of breath halfway, he would drown. Again his imagination got the better of him. He could see himself, pinned underneath the rock in the freezing blackness. He couldn't imagine a worse way to die.

He stood for a moment, holding the suit in his hands. Suddenly everything seemed unfair. He had never asked to be here. He had been forced into this by M16 and he'd already done more than enough. There was nothing on earth that would make him enter the blackness of the water. It was simply too much to ask.

But Ian Rider had swum through. Ian Rider had done it all, on his own, and he had never stopped ... not until the day they had killed him. And Alex had always assumed he was nothing more than a bank manager! He felt his resolve give way to anger. These people--Sayle, Yassen, whoever-had snuffed out his uncle's life simply because it had suited them. Well, he didn't die for nothing. Alex would see to that.

He pulled on the dry suit. It was cold, clammy, and uncomfortable. He zipped it up at the front. He hadn't taken off his street clothes and that had perhaps helped. The suit was loose in places, but he was sure it would keep the water out.

Moving quickly now, afraid that if he hesitated he would change his mind, Alex approached the water's edge. He reached out and took the rope in one hand. It would be faster swimming with both hands, but he didn't dare risk it. Getting lost in the underwater tunnel would be as bad as running out of air. The result would be exactly the same. He had to keep hold of the rope to allow it to guide him through. Alex took several deep breaths, hyperventilating and oxygenating his blood, knowing it would give him a few precious extra seconds. Then he plunged in.

The cold was ferocious, a hammer blow that nearly forced the air out of his lungs. The water pounded at his head, swirling around his nose and eyes. His fingers were instantly numb. His whole system felt the shock but the dry suit was holding, sealing in at least some of his body warmth. Clinging to the rope, he kicked for ward. He had committed himself. There could be no going back.

Pull, kick. Pull, kick. Alex had been underwater for less than a minute, but already his lungs were feeling the strain. The roof of the tunnel was scraping his shoulders and he was afraid that it would tear through the dry suit and gouge into his skin as well. But he didn't dare slow down.

Pull, kick. Pull, kick. The freezing cold was sucking the strength out of him. How long had he been under? Ninety seconds? A hundred? His eyes were shut tight, but if he opened them there would be no difference. He was in a black, swirling, freezing version of hell. And his breath was running out.

He pulled himself forward along the rope, scratching the skin off the palms of his hands. He had been swimming for almost two minutes, but it felt closer to ten. He had to open his mouth and breathe ... even if it was water, and not air, that rushed into his throat. A silent scream exploded inside him. Pull, kick. Pull, kick. And then the rope tilted upward and he felt his shoulders come clear and his mouth was wrenched open in a great gasp as he breathed air and knew that he had just made it.

But made it to where?

Alex couldn't see anything. He was floating in utter darkness, unable to see even where the water ended. He had left the flashlight on the other side, and he knew that even if he wanted to, he didn't have the strength to go back. He had followed the trail left by a dead man. It was only now that he realized it might lead only to a grave.

ALEX SWAM F0RWARD slowly, completely blind, afraid that at any moment he would crack his head against rock. Despite the dry suit, he had long ago felt the chill of the water and knew that he had to find his way onto dry land soon. His hand brushed against something, but his fingers were too numb to tell what it was. He reached out and pulled himself forward. His feet touched the bottom. And it was then that he realized he could see. Somehow, from somewhere, light was seeping into the area beyond the submerged tunnel.

Slowly, his vision adjusted itself. Waving his hand in front of his face, he could just make out his fingers. He was holding on to a wooden beam, a collapsed roof support. He closed his eyes, then opened them again. The darkness had retreated, showing him a crossroads cut into the rock, the meeting place of three tunnels. The fourth, behind him, was the one that was flooded. As vague as the light was, it gave him strength. Using the beam as a makeshift jetty, he clambered onto the rock. At the same time, he became aware of a soft throbbing sound. He couldn't be sure if it was near or far, but he remembered what he had heard under Block D, in front of the metal door, and he knew that he had arrived.

He stripped off the dry suit. It had served him well.

The main part of his body was dry, even though ice cold water dripped out of his hair and down his neck. His shoes and socks were sodden. When he moved forward his feet squelched and he had to take off his shoes and shake them out before he could go on. Ian Rider's map was still folded in his pocket, but he no longer had any need of it. All he had to do was follow the light.

He went straight forward to another intersection, then turned right. The light was so bright now that he could actually make out the color of the rock-dark brown and gray. The throbbing was also getting louder, and Alex could feel a rush of cool air streaming down toward him. He moved forward cautiously, wondering what he was about to come to. He turned a corner and suddenly the rock on both sides gave way to new brick with metal grills set at intervals just above the level of the floor. The old mine shaft had been converted. It was being used as the outlet for some sort of air-conditioning system. The light that had guided Alex here was coming out of the grills.

He knelt beside the first of these and looked through into a large white-tiled room, a laboratory with complicated glass and steel equipment laid out over work surfaces. The room was empty. Tentatively, Alex took hold of the grill, but it was firmly secured, bolted into the rock face. The second grill belonged to the same room. It was also screwed in tight. Alex continued up the tunnel to a third grill. This one looked into a storage room filled with the silver boxes that Alex had seen being delivered by the submarine the night before.

He took the grill in both hands and pulled. It came away from the wall easily, and looking closer, he understood why. Once again, Ian Rider had been here ahead of him. He had cut through the bolts holding it in place. Alex set the grill down silently, glad that he had found the strength to go forward.

Carefully, he squeezed through the rectangular hole in the wall and into the room. At the last minute, lying on his stomach with his feet dangling below, he reached for the grill and set it back in place. Provided nobody looked too closely, they wouldn't see anything wrong. The ground was a long way away, at least twice his own height, but that wasn't going to stop him now. He dropped down and landed , catlike, on the balls of his feet. The throbbing was louder, coming from somewhere outside. It would cover any noise he made. He went over to the nearest of the silver boxes and examined it. He found two catches on the lid and pressed. The box clicked open in his hands, but when he looked inside, it was empty. Whatever had been delivered was already in use.

He checked for cameras, found none, then crossed to the door. It was unlocked. He opened it, one inch at a time, and peered out. The door led onto a wide corridor with an automatic sliding door at each end and a silver rail running its full length.

“Nineteen hundred hours. Red shift to assembly line. Blue shift to decontamination.”

The voice rang out over a loudspeaker system, neither male nor female; emotionless, inhuman. Alex glanced at his watch. It was already seven o'clock in the evening. It had taken him longer than he had thought to get through the mine. He stole forward. It wasn't exactly a passage that he had found. It was more an observation platform. He reached the rail and looked down.

Alex hadn't had any idea what he would find behind the metal door, but what he was seeing now was far beyond anything he could have imagined. It was a huge chamber, the walls-half naked rock, half polished steel-lined with computer equipment, electronic meters, machines that blinked and flickered with a life of their own. It was staffed by forty or fifty people, some in white coats, others in overalls, all wearing armbands of different colors: red, yellow, blue, and green. Arc lights beamed down from above. Armed guards stood at each doorway, watching the work with blank faces.

For this was where the Stormbreakers were being assembled. The computers were being slowly carried in a long, continuous line along a conveyor belt, past the various scientists and technicians. The strange thing was that they already looked finished ... and of course they had to be. Sayle had told him. They were actually being shipped out during the course of the afternoon and night. So what last-minute adjustment was being made here in this secret factory? And why was so much of the production line hidden away? What Alex had seen as he crept around Sayle Enterprises had only been the tip of the iceberg. The main body of the factory was here, underground.

He looked more closely. He remembered the Stormbreaker that he had used and now he noticed something that he hadn't seen then. A strip of plastic had been drawn back in the casing above each of the screens to reveal a small compartment, cylindrical and about five inches deep. The computers were passing underneath a bizarre machine-cantilevers, wires, and hydraulic arms. Opaque, silver test tubes were being fed along a narrow cage, moving forward as if to greet the computers: one tube for each computer. There was a meeting point. With infinite precision, the tubes were lifted out, brought around, and then dropped into the exposed compartments. After that, the Stormbreakers were accelerated forward. A second machine closed and heatsealed the plastic strip. By the time the computers reached the end of the line, where they were packed into red-and-white Sayle Enterprises boxes, the compartments were completely invisible.

A movement caught his eye and Alex looked beyond the assembly line and through a huge window into the chamber next door. Two men in space suits were walking clumsily together, as if in slow motion. They stopped. An alarm began to sound and suddenly they disappeared in a cloud of white steam. Alex remembered what he had just heard. Were they being decontaminated? But if the Stormbreakers were based on the round processor there couldn't possibly be any need for such extremes-and anyway, this was like nothing Alex had ever seen before. If the men were being decontaminated, what were they being decontaminated from?

“Agent Gregorovich, report to the biocontainment zone. This is a call for agent Gregorovich.”

A lean, fair-haired figure dressed in black detached himself from the assembly line and walked languidly toward a door that slid open to receive him. For the second time Alex found himself looking at the Russian contract killer, Yassen Gregorovich. What was going on? Alex thought back to the submarine and the vacuum-sealed boxes. Of course. Yassen had brought the test tubes that were even now being inserted into the computers. The test tubes were some sort of weapon that he was using to sabotage them. No. That wasn't possible. Back in Port Tallon, the librarian had told him that Ian Rider had been asking for books about computer viruses.

Viruses.

Decontamination.

The biocontainment zone ...

Understanding came and with it something cold and solid jabbing into the back of his neck. Alex hadn't even heard the door open behind him, but he slowly straightened up as a voice spoke softly into his ear.

“Stand up. Keep your hands by your sides. If you make any sudden move, I'll shoot you in the head.”

He looked slowly around. A single guard stood behind him, a gun in his hand. It was the sort of thing that Alex had seen a thousand times in films and on television, and he was shocked by how different the reality was. The gun was a Browning automatic pistol and one twitch of the man's finger would send a 9mm bullet shattering through his skull and into his brain. The very thought of it made him feel sick.

He stood up. The guard was in his twenties, pale faced and puzzled. Alex had never seen him before, but more importantly, he had never seen Alex. He hadn't expected to come across a boy. That might help.

“Who are you?” he asked. “What are you doing here?”

“I'm staying with Mr. Sayle,” Alex said. He stared at the gun. “Why are you pointing that at me? I'm not doing anything wrong.”

He sounded pathetic. Little boy lost. But it had the desired effect. The guard hesitated, slightly lowering the gun. At that moment Alex struck. It was another classic karate blow, this time twisting his body around and driving his elbow into the side of the man's head, just below his ear. The guard didn't even cry out. His eyes rolled and he went limp. Alex had almost certainly knocked him out with the single punch, but he couldn't take chances and followed it through with a knee into the groin. The guard folded, his pistol falling to the ground. Quickly, Alex dragged him back, away from the railings. He looked down. Nobody had seen what had happened.