The Darkfall Switch (19 page)

Joe Worzniak hurled the telephone away from him in a fit of rage. As it crashed to the floor he stood up and walked over to the window to glare angrily at the bright dome of the Capitol shining in the far distance on the darkening horizon. A light rain had started to fall, and the dome seemed to shimmer as the droplets slid down the window. He stood there for a long while, weighing up the options open to him, trying to come to a decision.

One thing was certain: it was going to be impossible to remove Foster from the equation now. They’d tried once and failed. It would be too dangerous to try again.

So what now? That sonofabitch was coming to the US in the company of some high-ranking Britisher, and Worzniak’s lords and masters were adamant that he should act with great circumspection, so any dealings with the engineer would have to be very carefully handled.

That in itself angered him. Because of Foster’s meddling, years of careful work had been compromised, months of careful planning wasted, and millions of dollars were down the pan. Worst of all, Worzniak’s career had been jeopardized; an indelible black mark placed against his records in many files. He had even suffered the humiliation and indignity of being escorted out of his office in full view of his colleagues, clutching a pathetic cardboard box containing a few personal items, and ejected from the building.

He had not taken it lying down. Joe Worzniak wasn’t the type to concede defeat easily. It had taken much pleading and appealing to his
superiors to convince them that matters could not simply be left as they were. Too much had happened, too many irrevocable actions taken, to allow a simple cover-up to succeed. Too many people had been involved: embarrassing exposure would need only a small slip of the tongue, or the offer of riches from a newspaper or TV station. Then heads really would roll.

He sniffed angrily as he remembered it all: how they had tried to cut him off; doors had remained stubbornly shut; nobody answered his calls.

But in the end sheer, desperate persistence had paid off. Just as he was on the point of giving up, he had managed to get a brief hearing with one of the executives who had finally listened to his argument. And the outcome had been as though a blinding shaft of light had lit up the scene. After a few days’ silence, his mobile had rung and he had been invited to attend a meeting at his old headquarters.

He had prepared his argument carefully and, as he stood at the end of the long table, watched in nervous silence by a dozen or so heads of departments, he rolled off the facts with calm confidence. Nearly all of the people there were newcomers: the incoming administration had pretty well swept the board clean, so all his previous superiors had disappeared. There was just a scattering of familiar faces: junior staff who had little inkling of what had transpired before, and who had little or no administrative power previously. They had been little more than passive observers then; now they were eager to move up the pecking order of power. But the real power was still outside their reach: that rested with the hard-faced newcomers that had been moved in by the new administration, and they were clearly unprepared for what he had to say. For them, Worzniak’s points hit home like hammer blows from a prize-fighter. He experienced the pleasure of seeing their initial expressions of bored indifference turn to disbelief, then anger, followed by panic, as the full, awful reality dawned on them.

When he had finished they asked him to leave the room while they discussed matters. They would call him back as soon as they had finished.

He could not resist giving a sardonic smirk as he left. Of course, he had known all along that it would be impossible for them to restore his position completely, that was obvious, but perhaps some sense would prevail.

He had waited outside the meeting room for the best part of an hour,
alternately sitting restlessly on one of the chairs there and then pacing up and down the corridor in anxious frustration. Then at last he had been called in and told that his argument had been accepted and that he would henceforth be partially reinstated. He would be given a small but very special role. They were offering him a slender lifeline; it would be a narrow window of opportunity, one of very limited duration. His performance in that role would determine his future: if he handled it well his career could be back on track; if he bungled it, the end would be extremely swift. And permanent.

Within a few days he had been allocated this small office and the shared services of a secretary. It had been made very clear that any move – particularly one requiring the services of other personnel, in his old department or anywhere else – would require specific, written authorization before it could be executed.

One odd quirk of his new office was that it afforded a tantalizing view of the Capitol in the distance; it was a constant and frustrating reminder of the power that he had once held in his hands.

The situation had been a bitter pill to swallow, but it was far, far better than the bleak options that he had faced without it. Yes, it had cost him dearly, both financially and in terms of sheer effort, but at least he was back in some sort of executive office. Limited as his powers might be, he could at least keep an eye on Foster, and make sure he could do no more damage.

Sir James Ballantyne smiled at Foster over his gin and tonic. They were sitting in the wood-panelled opulence of the Brown Palace’s Churchill bar. The engineer was sipping thoughtfully at his malt.

Ballantyne looked around the room, listening to the sound of many quiet conversations that rustled through it. People were lounging in the deep-buttoned leather chairs under the flags that seemed to hang everywhere here. Huge oil paintings adorned the walls. It spoke of quiet, refined elegance, through and through.

Eventually Foster said, ‘Thanks for sending me the information on the meeting with Zak tomorrow. Did you have any trouble setting it up?’

‘None at all. They were very compliant. Incidentally, you’ll be pleased to know that Worzniak’s going to be present.’

Foster growled. ‘I await the pleasure of meeting him again. But I can see it complicates things.’

‘Because he’ll get between us and Beckermann?’

Foster smiled. ‘Right!’ he said. ‘But I only need a moment with Zak, alone. There are two of us, and only one Worzniak. Can you engage Joe for me?’

Ballantyne looked at him and gradually a smile broke across his face as he agreed to try.

As Foster pulled off the highway, he looked at the dashboard clock and saw that they were right on time. It was barely mid-morning and within a few moments they had parked outside Powerplant Dynamics’ headquarters. They looked at each other across the top of the car as they emerged from it and gave encouraging smiles. It was time to enter the arena.

At the reception desk they were issued with ID badges and very soon Beckermann’s secretary arrived to take them up. She smiled recognition at Foster and he introduced her to Sir James. She was visibly affected by the fact of meeting a real knight. Foster felt that she was about to effect a curtsy but then she relaxed and led them away.

As they arrived in the CEO’s office Beckermann stood up. Joe Worzniak was sitting facing him across his desk, his back to the door. When Beckermann stood, Worzniak looked over his shoulder and then he, too, rose to meet the visitors.

The introductions over and the requisite refreshment ordered, they all sat down.

Beckermann opened the game by addressing Ballantyne. ‘This is Joe Worzniak,’ he said. ‘He’s from the Office of Strategic Projects.’

‘I know,’ Ballantyne said, as he shook Worzniak’s hand. ‘Dan’s told me about him.’

A frown darkened Worzniak’s face. In a deferential tone he said, ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Sir James.’ Then, he added, in a mocking tone, ‘Don’t believe everything Foster’s told you about me.’

Beckermann interrupted. ‘I haven’t met an English lord before,’ he said. ‘I’m honoured.’

‘Not a lord,’ Ballantyne corrected him, smiling indulgently. ‘Only a humble knight of the realm, I’m afraid.’

‘Oh,’ Beckermann said. He flashed a look at Worzniak and Foster realized that the mistake had been the government man’s. It was hardly surprising – Worzniak would have been amongst the last on earth to
claim any understanding of the subtle differences between English peers and knights.

‘Well, anyway, have you been up to this part of the States before?’ Beckermann asked.

‘No. And now I wonder why I haven’t. It’s very beautiful.’

‘Yes. We’re certainly very lucky to live and work here, near the
mile-high
city and surrounded by the beautiful Rocky Mountains.’

‘And to be involved with such a successful company,’ Ballantyne said, moving the game on.

‘Thanks,’ Beckermann said, almost visibly glowing with pride. ‘Would you like to take a look round?’

Sir James nodded and Beckermann said he would be pleased to escort him personally after they had finished their coffe.

Foster cursed silently: he should have realized that this would happen; it should have been obvious that Ballantyne’s guide would be Beckermann, not Worzniak. His mind raced to find a solution, but none came to him before Beckermann stood up to take Sir James on the promised tour. After they had left, Foster and Worzniak sat in stony silence for a few moments, neither looking directly at the other. The atmosphere chilled noticeably. Foster sensed that the gloves were off now and that there would be no pretending while they were alone together.

In the silence, Worzniak made a great show of pointedly ignoring Foster as he consulted his Blackberry. Finally he turned and broke the silence. There was a smirk on his face that Foster didn’t like. ‘I don’t know what you think you’re up to this time, Foster,’ he said acidly, ‘but you should know that you’re playing a dangerous game, a very dangerous one. You’re interfering in things that shouldn’t concern you.’

Foster stared at him in amazement. So it was indeed open warfare now. Then he quietly replied, ‘Listen, Joe. I’m being paid to investigate what happened; how an American kid managed to bring down two power stations in my country and, in the process, kill a lot of people—’

‘How many times do you have to be told, Foster?’ Worzniak interrupted. ‘It was a complete fucking fluke. These people’ – he nodded toward the factory complex outside the window – ‘they’ve found out what happened, and they’ve fixed it. I can’t understand why you want to carry on, stirring around in dead ashes. It’s all over.’

‘I’m carrying on, Joe,’ Foster said, as levelly as he could, ‘because I’m
not at all convinced that it is all over. In fact, I suspect that there’s a lot more to all of this than you or Zak will admit. And, what’s more, I’m going to prove it.’

After a few moments of silence, Worzniak spoke. ‘There’s nothing you can prove, Foster,’ he said. Then he took a deep breath and dropped his voice as he added conspiratorially, ‘Look, pal, this is strictly between you and me. As far as I’m concerned you’re a fucking nuisance, and I can’t wait until you’re off the scene.’ His words were spoken very quietly, but that somehow made the implied threat more sinister. It was abundantly clear now that the mask of innocence had dropped.

‘You’ve already written off a lot of our effort,’ Worzniak continued bitterly. ‘And screwed up my life in the process.’

‘Screwed up? Your life? How?’

Worzniak gave a sharp, bitter laugh. ‘You’ll never know the full scale of it, my friend,’ he snarled. ‘It’s enough that you should know that before you turned up everything was goin’ sweetly for me: I had power and position; I was really goin’ somewhere.

‘And then you arrived and started diggin’ around; pokin’ your nose in and askin’ too many questions.’ His expression brightened. ‘But I’m back on track now, and I’m goin’ to put it all right.’

Foster asked, ‘It was you, wasn’t it? First, Luke Proctor’s apparent suicide, then Joel Matthews’ accident and, finally, the helicopter.’

Worzniak maintained a blank poker-face. ‘You don’t think I’d get involved with stuff like that, do you?’ he said. ‘It’s just ridiculous.’

‘OK, so you called in the troops to do your dirty work for you,’ Foster said. ‘What’s the difference? You were still behind it all.’

Worzniak looked pointedly at the wall somewhere behind Foster as he responded, ‘That’s for you to prove.’

‘A teenager murdered? An only child? How can you live with that?’

Worzniak’s face darkened. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I don’t know anything about that. Perhaps the kid wasn’t planning to do anything but run away from home that night, but somebody got to him just as he made the break. So they killed him and made it look like suicide.’

Foster looked at him hard. Was Worzniak giving him a hint? ‘Why would they do that?’ he asked.

The American shrugged and opened his hands in a gesture of innocence. ‘Beats me, but it was nothing to do with me.’ There was no pity or remorse in his voice now. ‘Yeah. It was tough on his folks – I liked
them, you know – they were real nice folks.’

Foster goggled. The man was talking about people he had actually met, saying he liked them, when he – or his colleagues – had been responsible for their only son’s death.

‘Yeah,’ Worzniak continued impassively, ‘real nice. Pity about the kid.’

‘You bastard!’ Foster breathed. His tone showed his utter contempt.

‘Innocent people die in wars,’ Worzniak continued, unfazed by Foster’s condemnation. ‘Collateral damage, it’s called. Has to happen, sometimes. One death now to prevent thousands later, perhaps millions.’

The phrase puzzled Foster, but he had to proceed. ‘So this is war?’ he asked.

Worzniak looked at him before coldly responding, ‘You’d better believe it, pal.’

Foster shook his head. ‘And Joel Matthews?’ he asked. ‘Was his death just an accident? Or was it murder? It was certainly very convenient for you, either way.’

Worzniak nodded grimly. ‘Matthews was a traitor,’ he said, ‘an out and out traitor to our country. He sold out on us when he gave you the disk – now that was a complete shock to us. Luckily he had that accident—’