The Stone Man - A Science Fiction Thriller (52 page)

“And have they failed?”

There wasn’t an answer for a moment, but when it came Paul felt his fresh hope shatter.

“They have, Winter, and the remaining protocol in that instance was immediate elimination of identified targets. Preparation was to begin
after
that, straight away, for the next arrival. I’m sorry. We’re talking about the lives of six against … well, who knows. The decision isn’t a difficult one.” Despite her words, Straub did actually sound sorry.

Just before blind panic set in, something clicked in Paul’s head. It had taken a moment or two to register, but Straub had just given something away.

“The bloodhounds,” he said in a near-whisper. “The new guys. Did they get everyone?”

“Pardon?”

“The targets. You said the lives of
six
. There should be seven. Did they get all the targets? They didn’t, did they?”

That silence again, but only briefly.

“No,” admitted Straub. “They were … disconnected before they could get the seventh. It would seem our friends elsewhere have gotten more efficient at detecting interlopers. Presumably they’ve learned to be on the lookout since you two.”

Hope gently raised its broken head once more, wincing and barely alive, but still clinging on.

“And replacements,” he said, his breath quickening again, “how many reliable replacements are coming forward? Obviously, whoever you have at the moment will be next, but unless you have seven of those guys at the moment I think you lot are shagged for knowing where the next lot of targets are when the big stone bastards come back. Right?”

“What’s your point, Winter?” snapped Straub, and now her temper was showing. Straub seemed to be someone who thrived on pressure, but she was only human. “More people will come forward. By the looks of things, if this pattern continues, we’ll have months to find them, and we’re planning our own widespread recruitment tests. We’ll get them.”

“But you don’t
know!
” shouted Paul, desperation and hope combining to take his voice to a crescendo. “Those fuckers could come back and you could have
no one
, and they’ll tear up half the country tracking down their people. And the one chance you had to try something out, the last chance to have your target and
experiment
, with enough time before the Stone Man is right on him and you have to blow their brains out at the last minute to stop them being caught … you’re choosing to put a bullet right up that last chance’s arse. And even better, I’m right in the middle of fucking nowhere!” He shouted this last part to the field around him, throwing his free arm out wide and turning on the spot. “This is the best case bloody scenario! Yes, it won’t be planned, it’ll be done on the fly, but you have
some
prep, don’t you? You can adapt, can’t you? Can’t you?”

When the response wasn’t immediate, Paul found that he couldn’t take any more. All pretence dropped away, and the tears came straight away, as he thought of his wife, his life, even Andy.

“Aren’t I owed a bastard chance?” he sobbed, wheedling and pleading and not caring, thinking only about his losses and the unfairness of it all. “I mean … haven’t I been useful? You know things now, thanks to me and Andy, right? Haven’t I done something worthwhile?” Paul buried his face in his free hand, and cursed himself as he played his dirtiest hand. “Isn’t
Andy’s
death worth something? His, his … self fucking sacrifice? He was a good servant, right? He’d want you to try.”

“That won’t wash with me I’m afraid, Winter,” replied Straub, her voice shocking Paul with its coldness. “Andy did an extremely brave thing, and a great service to his country, but as much as I respect that, I have a service of my own to perform for the
same
country. And whilst I sympathise greatly with your plight, at the same time you waited for an awfully long time to get in touch with us, knowing what might happen in the meantime. And I notice that you only really seemed to do so once you had this plan of your own to help the country … and coincidentally, to also possibly help yourself.”

Paul wanted to scream
you bitch
at her, but he couldn’t, both because the possible saving of his life was in her hands, and that her words had weight, so much awful weight. He stood instead in silence, and waited for her to continue.

“But I will discuss it,” she said at last, and in a quiet tone Paul hadn’t heard her use before. “If a similar plan hadn’t already been talked about, one that could be adapted without too much planning, well, I wouldn’t even bother wasting my breath. But lucky for you, it has, and despite my strong reservations over your recent actions, your past work has saved lives. On balance, you’re owed enough for me to at least ask the question. And it makes some sense. I’ll call you back,” she said with another sigh, this time with a slightly sad-sounding one. “I might be a while. Our men will be with you very shortly anyway.”

Paul heard her move away from the phone, about to hang up, and then he screamed down the line.

“
Wait!
”

“Jesus, Winter, what?”

“Will I speak to you again? I mean … I mean … either way?”

His trembling voice made clear what he really meant. With the reality this close, in the now much louder noise of the oncoming choppers—their lights now visible in the near distance of the night sky—he found that he couldn’t say it.

Straub hung up.

Shortly afterwards Paul was seated in the back of a parked helicopter, one that was floodlit by a searchlight mounted on the side of its twin, both standing side by side in the now partially lit field. He’d been handcuffed, but not roughly so, and there had been a minimum of shouting and pushing. It was almost as if they’d been instructed to treat him with a degree of respect, or at least gentleness, and he thought that his clear willingness to cooperate upon their arrival might have helped matters. He had volunteered himself, after all. Either way, sitting and waiting whilst armed men stood by, ready to execute him should the order go out, meant that Paul’s mood was far from relaxed. Despite the cold, the inside of his clothes were damp with sweat.

They can’t risk it, surely
he thought to himself, and realised that he believed it, too.
Now the bloodhounds are useless for next time, they can’t get rid of me before trying this out. I’m much, much farther away than they’d like … but surely they need to try out all possibilities, even if the cost is high? Surely? They need to experiment now that everything else has failed?
He was desperate, he knew that, the word not enough to describe the frantic terror inside of him, but he didn’t think these thoughts were delusional.

Out of nowhere, a radio was handed to him.

“She wants to talk to you,” said the surprisingly posh-sounding voice from inside the balaclava, the one covering the head of the soldier who had appeared in the helicopter doorway. All of these soldiers were clad in black, from the top of their heads to the tips of their boots. He pushed the radio into Paul’s hand, and walked away, leaving him in the care of the men seated either side of him and the two standing outside the chopper. Heart pounding like a lead piston, Paul lifted the radio to his ear. When he spoke, his throat and mouth were so dry that his voice was barely more than a croak.

If she’s calling … there’s a chance.

“Hello?”

“Find the barriers,” said Straub’s voice, tinnier over the radio’s speaker than on the phone. “We need to know how much room we have.” Paul barely heard what Straub said next as relief washed over him, but he forced himself to concentrate despite the voice screaming about time, blessed
time
in his head. “I’m not going to lie to you, Winter, if seeing this thing through means we end up turning you into a vegetable like Patrick Marshall, but you stay alive so we can see if it works or not, we’ll do it. Whilst your continued life is paramount to us in terms of this experiment, your state of mind is not. You need to understand this.”

“I do, I do,” said Paul, not caring and thinking only about what was next, how long it might take to either get an answer, or for them to decide enough was enough and pull the plug. Months, or years? The rest of his life? It didn’t matter, it was
time
, and Paul was aware, in that moment, of just how much had gone out of him in that field. He was someone else now, and that was better—to his thinking—than the alternative.

“At the same time,” Straub continued, the background noise wherever she was far louder now, alive with activity as things were already getting under way. Straub even had to raise her voice slightly. “If we can keep you conscious and aware, and still have the operation working at an efficient level, we would rather do that. We may need to be able to instruct you, and have you able to respond to us; we have no idea what this thing may bring up, after all. So we would rather keep you
compus
mentis
, so to speak. But you do need to be aware that the prime factor for this experiment to work is keeping you alive, and if that means taking you just past the barrier, then we will.” Paul’s delirious optimism caught that remark this time, the repetition finally breaking through. That would be the same as death, the death of his mind if not his body.
But that might not happen, might not NEED to happen
, said the voice in his head, and with that he was away again, not listening.

“From what I gather, the people at the very top were split about this, but it was the Prime Minister’s call and he’s approved it,” said Straub, unaware. “Operation Paquirri is now officially under way. But you need to find the barriers, Paul, for your sake. If you can’t, then we’re still going ahead with this and that will almost certainly mean you entering into a permanently vegetative state. We’d rather not have that, as I say—it benefits us for that not to be the case—but we’re doing it anyway. So find the barriers if you can, and do it fast; very shortly that field and the surrounding area are going to become incredibly busy and loud, so if you need to move around and concentrate, you need to do it now. Do you think you can do that?”

“Yes, yes,” gibbered Paul, almost weeping with relief even though he had no idea if he could find the barriers or not. He thought he could, though. He’d been cut off one way, but as he still had enough of a connection to the Stone Men to know he was a target, to feel them start to move, then he thought he could find the barriers. He thought that maybe even Patrick and Henry could have, if they’d have known what they were looking for.
If Patrick hadn’t been running in a blind panic, he could have felt it too,
thought Paul.
Like running into a glass door.
At speed, not checking, you wouldn’t even know it was there. But f you’d gone slowly, feeling as you went …

Once Straub had signed off, Paul was escorted out of the helicopter by two of the soldiers, and shortly after that he found himself wandering around the nearby immediate area, surrounded by torchlight and concentrating with all of the willpower in his body. It was a fresh terror for him, like being forced to walk through a minefield. He didn’t truly know how it worked, after all; was merely touching a barrier enough to render him catatonic? Or would he have to try to break through it for that to happen? Would he be able to feel it beforehand, sense that he was drawing near? Was it even there yet, even though the previous evidence said that it should be? Paul moved forward with shuffling, terrified steps, feeling with his mind and his hands, and constantly waited for the shock that signalled the end of his consciousness.

He found that, unlike his previous time in the darkened field, he could find the willpower required of him. His body screamed at him to stand still, and abject fear pleaded with him to stay rooted to the spot, but he continued to walk forward blindly even though it might have meant his end. If asked, Paul wouldn’t have called it bravery, however. His life depended on him risking it, and the act would save only himself. Fear conquered by greater fear of something worse is still
fear
, and he didn’t know if there was a name for great undertakings that come as a result of it.

Paul had learned this, just as he had learned a great deal about himself in the last twenty-four hours. He knew that this was just something he could do, and that it was fortunate for him that he could.

Eventually, as he continued to walk and concentrate so hard that he had a violent headache, Paul felt the beginning of a shift in his head, and a slight tingle in his fingertips. He went only slightly farther, enough to confirm that he wasn’t imagining it, and then stopped. He wasn’t going to risk any more than that. It was close, very close, and he didn’t know where the exact tipping point was. He didn’t want to find out the hard way.