Part 17 (2/2)

I didn't see Liz pull the trigger, because I'd turned to run. But I felt the blast as she shot me.

I fell over,. paralysed. I was aware of my body jerking convulsively and realized the gun was an electrostunner, a development of the kind used by women against a.s.sailants in the twentieth century.

Eventually I stopped jerking. But I couldn't move. Liz bent over me, peered into my eyes, took my pulse. Checking I wasn't dead. What a kind heart.

She stood up. I had a first-cla.s.s view of her boots.

I heard her take something from her pocket. It must have been a personal recorder because she began to speak into it. 'Commsystem activate.

Authority Shaw Zero-Zero-One-Alpha. Transmission to Tranquillity Base.

Message as follows: security breached Museum activated. Shutdown impossible. Recommend standby team move into target zone five; priority: investigation, possible sterilization. Recommend primary zone evac ASAP Situation critical. Casualties at sixty per cent. Be aware: targets are armed and dangerous. Condition black, repeat condition black. Agent Yellow is on the move. I'll do what I can with the serum from this end but I think it's unstoppable now. Tell Imorkal I love him. End transmission authority Shaw Zero-Zero-One-Alpha.'

Something in Liz's voice made me s.h.i.+ver. That was the second time that had happened. Was I wrong about her? What was wrong or right, anyway, in a situation like this?

Liz bent to check me once more. She said, 'I think it's too late to stop what your psychotic friend in there has started but I'm going to try anyway. We're not the bad guys, Benny-whoever-you-are. Just remember after this is all over that I could have killed you.' She walked away.

I lay there for a while. Then I heard voices. At first I thought the voices were in my head, the after-effects of the taser shock, my mind playing tricks on me. No? I recognized these voices all too easily. Liz. Liz and Tammuz. Liz's voice was slightly distorted, as though she were speaking on a tannoy - or a communications device.

She said, 'This is Operations Chief Elizabeth Shaw addressing the terrorist in the Museum. Shut down the transmission systems now. If you do not, you will endanger the lives of millions of people.'

Tammuz's response was typical. 'What you say is irrelevant. The systems are active. Targeting has commenced.'

'You don't get it, do you? Whatever you're trying to do, it won't work. I am standing in the transmission room. I am holding the only quant.i.ty of an experimental antivirus yet to be developed. If you launch now you will destroy me and the virus. There will be no possibility of any countermeasures against Agent Yellow.'

'Then a lesson will have been learnt. A lesson I wish very much to teach.'

'Listen to me. You're irrational> If you go ahead, millions will die.'

'Miss Shaw, you are repeating yourself. I will entertain no further discussion.'

The voices stopped then. In fact it was the last time I ever heard Liz speak.

Moments later, as I lay, still paralysed on the floor, shooting stars began to edge my vision. I thought I was beginning to lose consciousness but then realized the lights were coming from the machine hanging above me.

Tammuz had made good on his threat. He had activated the transmission sequence. I hoped Liz had got out of the chamber in time. My own recollections of being there were the furthest thing from pleasant I had encountered in a long while.

A ticking noise came from the machine like a Geiger counter, or a clock ticking away the last moments of someone's life. The shadows englobing the machine swirled faster and faster, oil on black water. The ticking increased to a machine-gun rattle, a painful scream of noise, then dropped abruptly to a floor-shaking subsonic rumble which made my teeth rattle and my ears itch and my flesh feel like it was being shaken off my bones. After a few moments the sound stabilized into a rhythmic pulse; a familiar sound which brought another memory clicking into place.

Apart from its size and the fact that it had obviously been etched from a block of metal by corrosive acid, the central operating system Tammuz must now be using was identical in shape to the navigation console in the Doctor's TARDIS.

As I thought this the machine went dark and silent. Transmission was complete. But transmission of what and to where? Only one person knew.

But though I lay there for hours, paralysed by the taser shock, Liz Shaw never came back.

Chapter 8.

Four hours after I waved the Russian semiautomatic at Chris we were back on Mahser Dagi. The flight had not been uneventful? After ten minutes in the air we were overflown by military jets. I had no idea what side they were on but there sure were a lot of them? About half a dozen.

That was a h.e.l.l of a force to fly over an empty mountain. Except it wasn't empty, was it? Bernice was there - and heaven alone knew who or what else with her. Ten minutes later we flew over the foothills - and over a procession of military vehicles. They seemed to be heading in the same direction, towards Tendurek, but compared with our speed they were moving at a crawl. We left them behind easily.

With the setting sun at our backs we overflew the Tendurek Formation high and fast, and that was when I saw the bodies. There were at least a dozen of them. Obviously soldiers. Lying in various positions indicating they were dead. Who had killed them? Had Bernice gone ape? Had other Iranian soldiers caught up with Samran's Iraqi forces?

I told Chris to go back? We overflew the area again and that was when I noticed the excavation - and the signs of an explosion. If Tendurek really was the Ark somebody had first dug a big hole right in the middle of it and then blown it up? So much for religious sanct.i.ty. At least it explained the bodies.

I pointed all this out to Chris and asked him if he thought it was safe to land. The big guy simply shrugged and eased the stick forward, setting the chopper down in a cloud of grit and dust a few hundred yards from the site of the explosion. Leaving the engine idling we stepped out of the chopper and on to the ground. It was cold. And dim, the setting sun casting a muted orange glow across the barren rocks. The light flickered intermittently from the tips of the newly repaired rotors. The rest of the chopper was in the shadow of the mountain.

The nearest soldiers lay still and cold. Their clothes rippled in the down-draught from the rotors. Chris stopped by one, checked for a pulse. The man was dead. A trickle of blood ran from one ear along the corner of his jaw. The blood was coated with dust - but it was long since dried.

According to Chris the man bad been dead for several hours. Chris checked another soldier. 'Iraqis and Iranians.'

'They killed each other?' 'Seems likely.'

'Now will you believe me when I say it was worth coming back for her?'

Chris straightened up, loomed over me as if he were part of the mountain.

'Jason, I don't want to discuss it. You knew the situation. You held me at gunpoint. I thought we were friends.' I saw with a shock that he was holding the soldier's sidearm. I expected him to point it at me and to order us to get the h.e.l.l out of there. He simply put the gun in his pocket. 'Well now we're here. So let's just get on with it, shall we? And hope the consequences of our actions aren't too serious.'

I turned angrily away and walked towards the Tendurek Formation, some hundred yards distant. The sun was setting over the mountaintop now, and shadows were deepening. I squinted into the sun, wis.h.i.+ng I had a pair of sungla.s.ses with me. Stupidly, I'd left them at the hotel in Dogubayazit. I could make out nothing at the site beyond a heap of earth and rubble - obviously debris from an explosion.

I moved towards the site, checking each of the bodies to make sure none of them was Bernice, and clambered up on to the pile of rubble. I looked over the edge. It took me a moment to penetrate the gloom. I don't know whether I felt relieved or disappointed to see there was nothing there. At least nothing beyond a large block of what looked like concrete.

Chris clambered up beside me. 'Look at this.' He showed me a laptop computer. It was bashed and the casing was scarred by grit - but the screen still lit up when he switched it on. 'Now look at this.' He booted the computer. Nothing happened. 'Dead as a doornail.'

'Someone wiped it?'

'Including the operating system? There's nothing in here at all. No files, no system manager, nothing.'

'So it's broken.' I shrugged. I had more important things to worry about?

'Not just broken. Wiped. As in by an EMP.'

I laughed. It came out rather more nervously than I intended? 'You see signs of a nuclear blast here?'

'Other things can cause an EMP.' 'Such as?'

Chris shrugged. 'Badly aligned matter transmitter would do the trick.'

'Could that have caused this explosion?'

'Maybe. But probably not.' He peered into the gloomy crater. 'You see anything here?'

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