Interface: A Techno Thriller (20 page)

Tom heard a click then there was just static on the line. He wanted to believe her, but he could not bring himself to do so. There could be more than one group that meant him harm. He glanced at the woman waiting near the entrance, tapping on her phone. She was too alert, too coiled. He put the phone down, then beckoned to the waiter and asked where the bathrooms were. The man pointed directly behind him. Tom nodded and walked that way. Quietly, he opened the fire exit. No alarm sounded.

He stepped through and ran.

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Lentz switched off the jamming device, the whining noise fading away. Too long active and they would trace her. Her scanner flickered back into life and she cursed as she saw the dot: it was in the wrong place. He wasn't running towards her but away. In his position she might have done the same. She could try to pick him up immediately but perhaps it was better to make sure he got away safely.

For that she needed a distraction.

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In the café the fire alarm started ringing. The woman standing at the entrance ran over to the bathrooms, but was chased away by the café manager.

"My boyfriend is in there!" she protested.

"It's empty. You must have missed him go outside."

Cursing, she ran out, looking around, but Tom was nowhere to be seen. A second later and a figure was at her side.

"What happened?" asked Alex.

"He got out. I thought he was in the bathroom."

"The scanners went dark for thirty seconds. We assumed it was a glitch. And that you had a visual."

"I watched him go in. There was no other way out. The fire door was alarmed: we checked."

"It must have been deactivated."

"Then he had help. Who was the phone call from?"

"What phone call?" asked Alex. "Why didn't you flag it?"

"You were tapping all the lines. I assumed you were listening in."

Alex cursed. "Lentz is messing with us." She touched her earpiece. "Recalibrate the scan for a broader area. Assume he's at least 500 metres away. Find him. Fast."

SIXTY

THE GUESTHOUSE WAS LOCATED IN a shabby, run-down block half a mile east of Liverpool Street. It was not mentioned in any tourist handbook, not rated in any official hotel or accommodation guide, nor did it have a website. Tom had never been there; he had found it by randomly selecting a page from an old London A-to-Z, then strolling until he found something suitable. Its only sign had fallen from the wall, so it was a miracle that he located it at all. Less surprisingly, they had a vacancy. He signed in under a false name and paid with cash.

He couldn't be any more anonymous: he couldn't vanish any more completely.

And still they found him.

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He woke in the middle of the night, his head throbbing, knowing something was wrong. Instinctively, he grabbed for his backpack, pleased that he had chosen to stay fully dressed. He moved to the door and listened. From three floors below there was the faint sound of footsteps in the entrance hall. Looking at his watch he saw it was 3am. He eased the door open a crack. Four figures were quietly climbing the central staircase. One was holding out something like a large smartphone. Tom eased the door closed again. He had prepared before he went to sleep and now, shouldering his pack, he moved over to the only window. With a sharp tug, he opened it and stepped out onto a metal fire escape. The air was cold and the fire escape wobbled disconcertingly, but he did not hesitate and began clambering down.
 

As he reached the ground, he heard a shout from above. He had been spotted. Throwing caution aside, he sprinted down the street. He was only twenty metres from the comparative safety of the busy main road when a van door suddenly opened in front of him. Tom froze as a figure emerged from the shadows: a woman he recognised.
 

The woman who had used the taser.

"Tom, you need to trust me."

He took a step back. "Who the hell are you? And how did you know I was here?"

"My name is Dominique Lentz. And I know a great deal more than simply how to find you, Thomas Faraday."

Behind Tom people were rushing down the fire escape.
 

The woman brought out a calculator-sized device from her pocket and pressed a button. Tom felt the faintest buzzing in the air. Behind him he heard a muffled shout of "I've lost him."

Lentz raised her eyebrows. "I've just jammed their signal, but I can only do it for about sixty seconds so we should get going."

"Where?"

She held the door open for him. "Somewhere safe."

He jumped in as she ran round to the driver's side.
 

"How are they tracing me?" he asked, as she started the vehicle and pulled away.
 

"It's what is in your head. The interface." She looked at him. "From your expression, that's not a total surprise."

"It's been a strange week. How do you know about it?"

She reached the main road and merged into the traffic. "I know about it," replied Lentz, "because I designed it."

SIXTY-ONE

BERN BURST INTO THE LEVEL 64 lab, his heart pounding. The room was lit with pulses of red light, beating in time with a low-frequency siren. Waiting for him were a very serious-looking Heidn, Holm and Bradley. "What is going on?" he asked. "Who activated the alarm?"

"We have a problem," Holm said. "With the nanites."

"In the lab? A containment issue?"

"No. In the subjects." Holm ran a hand through his short hair. "The nanites are ignoring their programming. They won't stop."

Bern frowned. "I don't understand."

"Neither do we," Heidn said. "Everything was progressing perfectly. The nanites had created nodes connected to each subject's cerebral cortex, but after that they should have deactivated, awaiting further instructions. They did not."

"Then what are they doing?"

"They decided to anchor themselves more permanently to the brain. They're doing it by replacing brain tissue with a network of greater structural strength, but they're creating it from the raw materials available – and killing the subjects in the process." Heidn hesitated. "All of them."

"Then do something!"

Heidn cleared his throat. "We've already exhausted the options."

"Including wiping the nanites?"

"It won't make any difference at this point. They've already caused irreparable brain damage."
 

Bern pinched the bridge of nose. "How did you allow this to happen?"

"It happened so fast. By the time we understood what was going on, it was too late." Heidn shook his head. "We ran simulations. We made our best possible projections, but simulations can only take you so far. We always knew this was pushing the limits."

Bradley shook his head, his voice trembling. "Do you have any idea how Leskov will react if we fail to deliver this technology?"

"You are the one who
promised
," Heidn said. "We just undertook to try."

"If Leskov did kill Armstrong and Chatsworth, what's he going to do to us?" Holm asked.

Bern cleared his throat. "Can we start over? Commence with new subjects?"

"We could," said Heidn, "but we'd need to find them, vet them. And now we don't have Chatsworth or the clinic. Plus there's the rather big issue that we don't yet know how to stop the same thing happening again. It could take months to resolve.
If
it is resolvable."

"Maybe," Holm said, "we need to accept the reality that this isn't going to happen."

"I," said Bern, "am the only one who gets to say when something isn't going to happen." He placed his palms together. "Stay here. There's someone I need to speak to." He turned and walked out of the room. Behind him a life support system sounded an alarm.

It didn't slow him one step.

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When Bern arrived back in his office, Marron was waiting for him. "You saw all that?" asked the CEO, as he sat at his desk.

"I did."
 

Bern looked at his phone. "Leskov's due his daily update. What should I tell him?"
 

"In my experience, one always tells rich people what they want to hear. If that happens to be the truth then so much the better."

"I'll bear that in mind." Bern narrowed his eyes. "Tell me you prepared for such a contingency."

Marron frowned. "We always handle that sort of information on a need to know basis."

"Yes. And now I need to know."

"Then the answer to that question is 'yes,
but
'. I authorised an additional test subject, known only to Chatsworth and myself. That test subject is still alive."

"That's great news. Do you know why?"

"It's not certain, but the answer is probably at an even greater level of need to know. I'm just protecting you, William. Let's just say that I chose someone I could observe easily: a CERUS employee. Unfortunately, there's been a complication there too and he is currently unavailable to us. I'm seeking to resolve the issue, but there are other players in the mix."

"We need him
here
."

Marron nodded. "I'll handle that. You should watch Heidn and Holm. I'm worried they're losing focus."

Bern sighed. "If only Dominique Lentz was still on the team. She wouldn't be throwing in the towel."

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Alex answered Marron's call on the first ring.

"Please tell me you failed," he said.

"We had him in sight, but Lentz helped him escape again. It's very--" Alex paused. "You're
glad
we failed?"

"The situation has changed. The other subjects are no longer viable."
 

"I see."

"Faraday seems to be unique and the scientists have to know why. I need you to bring him here."

There was a pause. "With Lentz helping him that may prove even more challenging than killing him. She seems to have found a way to prevent tracking."

Marron paused. "If we can't find him then we look for someone we
can
find and make him come to us."

SIXTY-TWO

THEY DROVE THROUGH THE NIGHT, apparently free from pursuit. Tom watched as Lentz nursed the old van through every turn and gear change. For the first half hour he had barraged her with questions:
Who is that woman who's been trying to kill me? Who are you? Are you working for CERUS or against them? Why are you helping me? What is this thing in my head?
She had just told him to wait.

Tom shifted in his seat and felt his head-covering crinkle. He was wearing a hat made of tin foil. Had he been less fatigued or grief-stricken, he might have laughed when Lentz asked him to wear it. Instead he had simply said, "Will this stop them tracking me?"

"Until I devise a more permanent solution," she had replied.

So he had put it on. Jo would have had a field day, he thought sadly.
 

Now he stared out of the window at the occasional streetlight, watching the reflections off the windscreen, listening to the knocking of the old diesel engine. He was tired and desperately hungry. But he was safe. At least for a while.

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He woke to find that the van had stopped. The sun was up. And he smelt coffee. Lentz opened his door and held out a plastic cup.

"It's not that fresh or hot, but it is strong," she said.

He took it, nodding thanks. "Where are we?" The van was parked in the shadow of a large tree on a gravel road beside an old wooden building.

"My secret lair."

"I was expecting some kind of cave, but this looks like a barn."

"It's what's inside that counts. Come on, I'll show you."

Tom eased himself from the front seat and stretched awkwardly. "Are we safe here?"

She ran a hand through her hair, unkempt and shot through with grey. "As safe as we can be."

"I need to make contact with a friend to let her know I'm OK."

"In good time. We have lots to do first, Tom."

"Like answering some of my questions?"

Lentz pulled open the door of the barn. "Some of them."

SIXTY-THREE

THE PUB WAS CROWDED EVEN at 6am, though at this time of day it was more of a breakfast café. Its early-morning fry-ups were legendary in central London and, with Smithfield meat market only two minutes away, the odours of sweat, chopped meat and cooking oil layered the air in a combination that was frequently overpowering. A steady stream of customers arrived, ate and left.
 

Among the crowds, a slim figure wearing a cap and jacket stepped through the entrance. She glanced around then moved to a booth at the back and slid in next to a man wearing jeans and a grubby sweatshirt. He nodded but before he could speak a waitress appeared and pulled out her notepad. They ordered by pointing, which was what most of the clientele did, exhausted after coming off an all-night shift or having emerged from a nearby nightclub. The waitress smiled, yawned and moved on to the next table.

"This is your disguise?" asked Kate, once the woman had left.

"Would you prefer a high collar and dark glasses?" replied Croft. "And I'd take your cap off inside, unless you really want to look odd. Did you tell anyone about this meeting?"

Kate shrugged and removed the hat. "The only other person who knows where I am is Geraldine. And, while I may not always agree with her, I trust her with my life."
 

He looked around the room then locked his gaze on her again. "So what's the story, Ms Turner?"

"You go first."

Croft folded his arms. "At some point, we're going to have to start trusting each other."

"I suppose." She leaned closer, lowering her voice. "Richard Armstrong approached me. I think he'd worked on the Tantalus project twenty-five years ago and understood just how dangerous CERUS' latest experiments really were, but he died before we could discuss most of the details. I decided to look into who else might have been with the company that long and came up with a few names: Bern, obviously, and the head of HR, a man named Peter Marron. Then there was a scientist and former brain surgeon called Stefan Heidn. When I started searching those names, they cropped up in relation to another scientist: Dominique Lentz. She died twenty-five years ago, apparently in an accident, but I found archive photos of Lentz and Armstrong together; Lentz's responsibilities included project-managing work on neural interfaces. Then I started trying to figure out if what happened twenty-five years ago could help me figure out what was happening now." Kate paused. "So what did happen with Armstrong? How come you were monitoring the crime scene?"