Rhinoceros (68 page)

When the doors opened they walked into a spacious
living room. Rondel guided them to another door, knocked
on it, opened it and they walked into a long oblong study.

At the far end the wall was a sheet of glass with a panoramic
view across the intense blue of the empty Baltic. Behind a desk within yards of the window sat Milo Slavic. He rose
to his feet.

'Mr Tweed, welcome to Berg Island. You and I must talk. Do you mind if we go outside now?'

'I would like to do that. But may I bring Paula, my
assistant, with me?'

'Miss Grey will also be welcome. If you will follow me.'
He turned round just before they left the study. 'Blondel,
please entertain our guests.'

Blondel.
Paula saw a flash of annoyance cross the
Frenchman's face. He quickly suppressed it and bowed
his assent.

'This is it,' Paula said to herself.

Milo Slavic, heavier built than Tweed, seemed taller stand
ing up. He wore a smart pale linen jacket and trousers, buttoned up at a high collar which circled his neck. It
reminded Paula of pictures she had seen of commissars.

Leaving the study by another door, which clicked locked
when he closed it, he guided them along a wide corridor
with large rooms on either side and windows which allowed
you to see inside. He paused before one window and,
looking beyond it, Paula saw a huge room. Inside, girls
in white smocks sat in front of computers.

'My decoding room,' Milo explained. 'They constantly
surf- horrible word - the foul Internet, searching for coded messages, which they decode and bring to me. We are on the edge of a catastrophic disaster across the West unless
we act quickly. I gathered from our earlier conversation
that you don't agree with powerful dictatorships - of the
kind that Iron Fist Thunder plans for the
key countries in
the West.'

'No, I don't.'

'A lot of sensible people feel we need more discipline -in schools, in the medical systems, on the streets. I agree.
Thunder is exploiting this feeling to seize total power. It
is all about
power.
It has to be stopped and I have worked night and day to establish a weapon which will destroy the
insidious Internet. Come with me, both of you.'

He walked further down the corridor, stopped at a closed
door on the other side. It was made of steel and had a
combination box like the one at the bottom of the elevator,
but much larger. He looked at Tweed, at Paula.

'Watch me carefully. Memorize the code.'

Paula repeated it to herself inside her head as Milo
slowly pressed numbers. 8925751. Taking out a notepad
she wrote it down. Milo raised his thick bushy eyebrows.
She showed him the pad. She had recorded the code
backwards.

'Very clever,' he said with a smile.

The door opened automatically. He immediately pressed
a red button set into the door jamb, only visible with the door open.

'When we really operate the system loud buzzers go off
in the coding room. The staff immediately evacuate so
they do not suffer from what happens to the screens. But by pressing that red button I have turned off the buzzers.
Let me show you . . .'

It was a small room, occupied only by a strange circular machine with three levers projecting from it. The door had
closed behind them. They walked over to the machine.

'Watch again carefully. But before I forget, here is a
duplicate key to gain access in here.'

He handed it to Tweed, who held it in his hand. He
asked a question.

'Why do I need this?'

'In case something happens to me.'

Milo had spoken the words calmly, as though it was
something which didn't really concern him. But the words
chilled Paula. She studied his large, granite-like lined face.
It reminded her of something. Then she remembered. It reminded her of pictures she had seen of Old Testament
prophets.

'But where do you use this key?' Tweed asked.

'I am about to demonstrate.' He gazed at Tweed. 'Come
closer, both of you.' He walked the few paces to the
circular machine. 'Again, watch carefully. The sequence
is important.'

Instead of pulling down the first lever on the left, as Paula
expected, he pulled down the lever on the extreme right, then
the lever on the extreme left. The lever in the centre was the
only one with a red handle. He told them to look up as he
carefully pulled the centre lever only halfway down.

Paula looked up. She saw for the first time a huge glass
dome above the ceiling. Looking through it, she could
see the chimney-like structure she'd noticed as they'd
approached the island on the steamer. A thick steel pole emerged from the chimney's top, extended itself higher,
stopped. At the top of the pole was an incredible array
of dishes, facing in different directions. Each dish had a complex of wires protruding from it.

'Now look here, please,' Milo said.

He pointed to the central lever, which remained at right angles to the floor.

'When I pull that lever right down, the system operates
and every Internet system in the West is destroyed. Also
many further east. Have you understood?'

'Yes. It is quite clear how it is set in motion,' Tweed
assured him.

Milo was returning the levers to their original positions. Paula, looking up again, saw the pole and its dishes slide
down out of sight inside the chimney. She looked at
Milo, who had closed the machine's door, had locked
it, pocketed the key. Tweed, still holding the duplicate
key in the palm of his hand, looked at it.

'You really want me to keep this?'

'I insist.' He took hold of Tweed's arm, squeezed it
warmly. 'You are one of the very few people I can trust.
I have had you thoroughly investigated for several years.
Now, let us go into the garden and enjoy a little chat, the
three of us.'

He had just closed the outer steel door, after pressing
the concealed red button again, when Lisa appeared. Milo
took her by the arm.

'You will join us. We go for a short walk. How are they
getting on in my study?'

'Enjoying themselves. Rondel keeps telling jokes and has
us all in stitches.' She paused. 'Oh, Harry Butler said he
needed some fresh air. He went outside.'

Ah, Tweed thought, there is something in the atmos
phere Harry doesn't like. He's positioning himself so he
can intervene if necessary. I wonder why?

CHAPTER 41

At the end of the corridor Milo opened a door and they stepped out into the open. Paula gasped. The curving
pathway ahead led through a jungle of exotic plants, each
with a perspex cone close to it. The pathway Milo led
them along crossed the spine of the summit. On each
side, beyond a railing, the land dropped away down to
the sea. She looked first to her right. What she saw gave
her a shock. She couldn't believe it.

She could see the quay, tiny it was so far down, the quay
where the steamer had berthed. There was no steamer. It
had gone. Milo was ahead with Tweed by his side. Lisa
was behind them, in front of Paula. She decided she had to warn Tweed.

'Milo,' she called out. 'The steamer has gone. We
were returning to the mainland aboard it. What is hap
pening?'

Milo stopped, turned round. He had a strange smile on
his face. He looked at Tweed who had turned round to
look at Paula.

'Paula is disconcerted. She thinks I'm keeping you on
the island as prisoners. I can see it in her expression. But
she hasn't looked the other way.'

Paula quickly looked down over the other railing. Again
a slope sheered down. But instead of the shore plunging into the sea, which frothed gently against the island, she
saw a long wide platform extending a long way to the east,
a platform of concrete. At the end was a large private jet,
a Gulfstream.

'That is how you will leave Berg Island,' Milo called out
to her. 'If Tweed wishes to return direct to
Hamburg the
Gulfstream will take you all there. Blondel uses it a lot.
You feel better now, Paula? You again have confidence
in me?'

'Of course. It was just that . . .' She felt confused. '. . .
As we came in the steamer . . .'

'I understand your surprise. I assume the tourists found
it too hot down there and were happy to return early . . .'

Tweed was still looking back when Lisa gave a little
dance of joy. She waved her arms, lifted them up towards the clear blue sky. Tweed continued staring at her and she
stopped dancing and waving her arms. They walked a short
distance further and entered a large grove surrounded by palm trees. A semi-circular banquette ran halfway round
the grove. On a table were glasses covered with tissue paper, bottles, sandwiches in cartons. They sat down.

'Milo,' Tweed began, 'when you said the Internet will be destroyed by your highly advanced system surely it could be repaired — the Internet, I mean?'

'Not for years. The Internet is linked to the telephone
system. The telephone system will also be wiped out - and that will take years to build again. You know that certain
satellites orbiting the earth are also linked to the phone
system. Those satellites also will be rendered useless. We
will go back to how we were in the pre-1900 era. That will
be a good thing.'

'Why?'

'You are so busy I doubt you've had the time to trawl —
better word than "surf" - the Internet. We know Thunder
is using it - Thunder and his friends - to send coded orders
to hundreds of brigands waiting to send our world up in
flames. Soon it would be used by terrorists to plot their campaigns of murder and mayhem. Then, not to mention
the explicit sexual programmes which appear on it, it has become the lifeline for paedophiles to communicate with
each other. The Internet is
evil
- and is it a good thing
that nations can communicate with each other other in
seconds? I think not. It will lead to wars.'

'You make a powerful case against it.' Tweed looked at
Lisa. 'Now what do you think, Mrs France?'

'I think

Lisa stopped speaking, looked embarrassed, at a loss for
how to reply, flushed deeply. She sat staring at Tweed.

'He's found out our secret,' Milo said and chuckled. 'I should have guessed this would happen. Paula?'