Armageddon Heights (a thriller) (22 page)

The room was small, square and windowless. A single door constructed in cheap hardboard. Damp patches on the walls. A mousetrap on the floor. Some kind of storeroom, he surmised, judging from the cardboard boxes bearing red letters in Chinese stacked against one wall near where he sat on a hard wooden chair.
Crying Dolls
, was printed in bold black letters on the boxes.

Adrian Levoir screwed up his eyes in order to help alleviate his blurred vision. His head hurt like hell, his brain swimming aimlessly through churning, murky waters. Nothing made sense. Why were his hands tied behind his back? Where was he?

He tried to cry out, but his tongue felt like it had swollen to three times its size, blocked the passage of words and had a life of its own. A dribble of saliva oozed from the corner of his mouth.

‘Don’t worry, it will soon pass.’

The voice came from directly behind him and caused him to start. The memory of recent events started to seep in, first in a trickle and then in a raging flood.

‘
Verharhurs!
’ he spat out. He struggled against his bindings to no avail.

‘Good attempt,’ said Dean Villiers, coming round to face Levoir. ‘A few minutes and you’ll be talking just fine. I sure hope so, because there’s a lot I’d like to hear.’ Villiers drew up another chair, placed it before Levoir and sat down, folding his arms. He regarded the man like a cat studies a wounded bird.

‘Wha th ell are ou doin?’ Levoir grimaced at his garbled speech and swallowed, licked his lips. Tried again. ‘What are you doing?’ he mouthed carefully. ‘Let me go!’

‘All in good time, Adrian. All in good time. You’ve been a very naughty boy, do you know that? Lindegaard and Napier are very,
very
pissed off with you.’

‘You injected me with something, you bastard!’ Levoir said. ‘What the fuck are you doing, Villiers? Untie me, for God’s sake. What’s going on? Where am I?’

‘Nice to see you’ve gained command over your expletives. Good. We can begin.’ Villiers wagged a finger and Levoir saw the familiar bulky form of Jungius come from behind him to stand in front of the door. He felt his skin go cold.

‘What’s going on? Why is that man here?’ he said, his voice tremulous, suddenly sensing the worst. ‘Untie me you red-haired, skinny little bastard!’

‘Tut-tut, Adrian. It’s all coming out now, isn’t it?’ Villiers’s expression dropped as cold and grey as a winter’s night. ‘Let me show you the lie of the land, shall I? The man trusted by Napier with retrieving and interrogating the data held on the CSL equipment has been discovered to be a CSL operative all along. He takes the vital pieces of data and hard drives and disappears, ensuring Lindegaard cannot trace CSL to its source and to Charlie Sharland. In fact he’s been a very clever mole, working his way up through the ranks to work alongside Napier himself, a man one step away on the hierarchical ladder from Dale Lindegaard. As a mole he has access to software, tremethelene supplies, to vital security upgrades, and he’s been able to warn CSL of any moves against them by Lindegaard, keeping them one step of the game at all times. But it finally gets too hot and he decides now’s the time to jump ship.’

Adrian Levoir blinked. ‘Are you mad? You’re calling me a CSL mole? That’s ridiculous! You’ve gone too far this time, Villiers; you’re going to get crucified by Mr Napier when he finds out what you’ve done.’

‘The fact is, Adrian, whilst
I
know you’re as clean as a whistle, and
you
know you’re as innocent as the day is long, both Napier and Lindegaard are doubly convinced you’re very bad meat. I’ve ensured that all fingers point to you. If you show your head above the parapet chances are you’re a dead man; they’ve already got a team looking for you. I know Lindegaard’s methods – he’ll torture you to get out of you what he wants about CSL and then dispose of you.’

‘I don’t work for CSL!’ he said angrily.

‘I’m afraid in Lindegaard’s blinkered eyes you do now,’ Villiers said evenly. ‘I’ve ensured your phone calls, your emails, your very movements over the last two years or so, have been linked directly to CSL.’

‘That’s impossible. How can you do that?’

‘I have an almost limitless amount of resources to back me up,’ Villiers explained.

‘Resources? You’re lying. You’re nothing more than a snivelling CSL turncoat and murderer looking to make a few quid and a name for yourself. You’re a slimeball, Villiers.’

‘Yes, I do give that impression, don’t I? Sadly, you know, it’s not all true.’ He fingered the ear damaged by Robert Napier. ‘Your bosses are under that impression, too – a job well done on my part, I’d say – but they couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ll come clean with you. Let me backtrack a little. Lindegaard currently dominates the tremethelene market, but there are other big players out there wanting to get in on the act. And I mean
big, big
players. They don’t just want a piece of the action, they want to take the action from Lindegaard and own it. They’d like to see him destroyed.’

‘Who are these big players exactly?’

Villiers tapped the side of his sharp nose. ‘On a need to know basis and you don’t need to know. This business – I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you – is worth billions. The stakes are huge with everything to play for. You’ve seen first hand how cutthroat it is. People are pawns in this game – disposable, sacrificed for the greater aims. It makes no difference who you are or how special you believe yourself to be, if it comes down to it then you’re dead meat. Take your case, for instance. A bright rising star that has been oh-so-easy to tarnish and bring down from its high heaven. You think Napier or Lindegaard will believe you now? There’d always be that doubt in you, at the very least, so best to err on the side of caution. Like I say, you show your head above the parapet and I wouldn’t reckon much for your chances.’

‘So you’re the mole?’ Levoir said.

He laughed. ‘Alas, no. The particular enigma that we now know as Cobalt remains at large, if indeed he really exists. Like so much with CSL, it’s hard to determine what is real and what is not. But to make this less complicated, Lindegaard and Napier now think
you
are Cobalt.’

‘That’s bullshit!’ he fired. He attempted to settle his breathing.

‘And you should know, eh, Villiers?’ Levoir said cautiously.

Villiers smiled thinly. ‘But that’s the reality we are dealing with now. I know you see through me, Adrian. You discovered something about me when you went through the CSL hard drives, didn’t you? Something you wanted to personally talk to Napier about. Come, come, you know it’s true.’

Levoir gave a slow, resigned nod. ‘Dean Villiers disappeared some time ago, according to CSL’s files. They also had him down as a stalwart and trustworthy member of the organisation.’

‘So you began to wonder why on earth had Dean Villiers turned so much against CSL, eh? Money? Didn’t fit with his profile, his core beliefs. So you thought you ought to tell Napier that the man Lindegaard had employed might not be the real Villiers after all. Well I couldn’t have you telling him That, could I? That’s why I had to make my move on you when I did. You’re right, of course. I’m not the real Villiers. Let’s say he met an untimely and unfortunate end, but not before he divested himself of valuable information to us; information on the CSL man called Roland Fuller which I used to help me wheedle my way into Lindegaard’s confidence. It was also unfortunate for Fuller that he knew the real Dean Villiers before he left their employ. It was a foolish thing he did when, during his interrogation, he whispered that he knew I wasn’t who I said I was. Perhaps he thought he could bargain with me to gain his freedom.’

Levoir’s tongue felt too large for his mouth. ‘So that’s why you killed him, in case Lindegaard or Napier ever found out.’

Villiers shrugged. ‘It had to be. Now we find ourselves in the same situation, don’t we? You, me and Jungius here in the same room together, like the good old days all over again. Except it’s you that’s tied up in the chair. We all know how that ends.’

‘Are you going to kill me?’ Levoir stammered. ‘Is that it?’

‘It needn’t come to that. But I’m afraid your choices are limited. On the one hand, if you ever got the chance, and it’s looking unlikely, you could risk going to Lindegaard and hope he believes your story. On the other hand, I really can’t afford to let you go blabbing to Lindegaard, can I? Seriously, I’d be stupid to let you go free. So then I’d have no option but to kill you to prevent that. You’re in a bit of a Catch 22 situation. It doesn’t look good from where I’m sitting. But there is one option open to you…’

Levoir tried to speak, but his eyes kept darting to take in Jungius’ immobile bulk taking up most of the door, the man’s dead, marble-like eyes never once leaving him. He coughed to clear his throat. ‘OK, so what is that option?’

‘We need CSL on our side. We need Charlie Sharland. They’re the only organisation to have successfully penetrated most of Lindegaard’s defences, to have secured workable amounts of tremethelene and to have infiltrated the Heights. I need the knowledge and skills they have to help us bring down Lindegaard, to sabotage his business to such a degree it brings him down and to pass his business baton on to my employer. Lindegaard thinks he holds the key to his monopoly of the market tight to his chest, but in truth CSL have long since developed a duplicate key. Lindegaard knows as long as they exist they threaten his market dominance. We can help CSL with their ultimate aims and make it financially worthwhile for them to become involved with us. We need to find the mole Cobalt and contact him. He’s been the lynch pin in CSL’s operations, providing them with central intelligence and access to resources. We’re sure the data on those hard drives you were working on will help us pin him down. You’re good, Adrian; we are confident you can get us the information we need.’

‘Even if you do contact Cobalt, CSL won’t touch you with a barge pole. Money and big business doesn’t interest them.’

Villiers scowled. ‘Everyone is interested in money. And the amount my employer is offering will buy anyone. It’s more than enough to buy their limp, outdated ideology.’

‘Good luck with that,’ said Levoir.

‘Luck doesn’t come into it, Adrian. And I pray for your sake I am right and you are not. Here’s the rub; if you can’t help us get CSL on our side, you’re a dead man.’ His lips set straight. The cold expression frosted his face again. ‘Let’s stop beating about the bush, eh, Levoir? We want you to continue working on the hard drives until you’ve extracted as much information from them as you can. We haven’t got much time. CSL know we have them, and through them maybe even find links to their various networks. They’ll be working like mad to cover up their tracks before we can do that. What we all know is that CSL currently have an operative in the Heights and are involved in an extraction, which means they can’t move on until that’s completed and their agent is out. That’s the time you have left to help us get the data we need to make contact.’

‘So you need me…’

Villiers angled his head. ‘After a fashion, we need you.’

‘Which means you can’t kill me.’

‘Don’t push it, Levoir,’ he snarled. He waved a finger. Jungius stepped forward to stand large and imposing beside Villiers. ‘You do not have any cards of note to play. So we can do this the easy way or the hard way. You know how persuasive Jungius can be. So I suggest we try the easy way.’ He rose to his feet, stretched out his arms and yawned as if he’d been asleep for a long time. ‘Look, I’ll make this doubly easy for you. You get me what we need and you’ll be well rewarded, given far more than ever Lindegaard has offered you. You have already been assigned a place within my organisation, a respected and powerful position. A man of your talents are far and few between. You’ll also be a very rich man.’

‘How rich?’

That cynical smile returned. ‘I see your allegiance to Lindegaard is wearing thin. Let’s say it’s open to negotiation. My employers will be extremely grateful – we’re talking grateful to the tune of millions.’

‘Millions?’ Levoir had to hide his rising interest. He considered it. ‘I want something in writing. I don’t trust you.’

‘You’re
so
naïve, Levoir. Nothing will ever be written down about this deal. You’re going to have to trust me on this.’

I’m like a rabbit bargaining with a fox, thought Levoir, feeling sick inside.

‘I don’t want to be associated with Fuller’s murder,’ he said. ‘I was nowhere near him when it happened.’

‘Consider it done.’

‘Okay, you’ve got a deal. Untie me.’

Villiers waved Jungius over to the chair and the big man yanked at the rope binding, Levoir at last feeling his hands being released. He rubbed his wrists, sore from the chaffing.

‘What did I tell you? Money can buy anyone!’ Villiers barked triumphantly. ‘But I will warn you again not to let me down.’

‘What if there’s nothing else of use on the hard drives?’ Levoir asked. ‘I can’t magic stuff out of thin air just because you want it.’

‘You’re forgetting I have been keeping a close eye on what you were up to. I’ve seen your notes, Adrian,’ said Villiers. ‘I know you have a lead that will eventually point us to Cobalt.’