Down: Trilogy Box Set (111 page)

“Rovers,” John said quietly. “Lots of them.”

“What are you saying?” the secretary of state for health asked.

“They’re the worst of the Hellers,” John said. “They’re gangs of completely vicious outcasts. They terrorize the rest of the population. They’re also cannibals.”

“Christ almighty,” the home secretary said. “Is that what’s happening there?”

“It looks like he’s taking some flesh,” John said. “Do you know how many of them came through?”

Sir Evan replied that a preliminary and rough estimate from CCTV and eyewitnesses pegged the number in excess of fifty.

“Where are they now?” John asked.

“We’re not sure,” the commissioner said. “Here is a live image from a police helicopter over the town centre. As you can see the streets are empty. Residents have heeded our TV, radio, and loudspeaker warnings to stay indoors. It is possible that these rovers as you call them have also taken shelter within structures. The area has been cordoned off and we are discussing how best to enter and clear it. I will have an operational plan from my field officers and the Surrey police shortly. We are concerned about the volatile mixture of armed police and civilians. We want to avoid collateral casualties if at all possible.”

The home secretary asked, “Mr. Camp, on the footage we’ve seen, these rovers don’t look all that different from members of the public. How can the police distinguish them?”

“From a distance, it won’t be easy,” John said. “Their clothes are pretty rough but they could be in people’s houses right now, doing what they do, stealing food and clothes. Up close, you can smell the difference.”

“Did you say smell?” the commissioner asked.

“They smell like meat that’s gone off,” John said. “They think we smell uncommonly fresh. You could probably get police dogs to alert to the scent. We could get an article of clothes from King Henry to train them up.”

“It’s a good idea. I’ll get that done,” Ben said.

“We’ll need to know what our rules of engagement are,” Sir Evan said. “By this I mean will we have the green light to shoot to kill?”

“My understanding is that they are already dead,” the deputy prime minister said.

“Do you hear how ridiculous that sounds?” Slaine said. “They’re running around killing innocent civilians. Of course we should shoot to kill.”

“Can they be killed?” the prime minister asked. “Mr. Wellington, I believe you had some experience apprehending some of them in Suffolk recently.”

“I’ll steer clear of semantics,” Ben answered. “They can be killed. What’s left are corpses that seem like any other corpses. What happens to them beyond that, I wouldn’t care to speculate.”

“Mr. Camp? Dr. Loughty? What do you think?” the prime minister asked.

Emily asked John to comment. “We don’t have any direct experience with that,” he said. “I’d guess after they are killed they’d wind up back in Hell but it’s only a guess.”

Slaine said, “So they can be shot and they can be killed. The army is far better positioned than the police for exercising lethal force. We should be deploying the army into the affected areas with immediate effect.”

“With respect,” Sir Evan said, “with the Metropolitan Police supplementing the county police departments, we have an adequate armed presence to deal with the situation. The police are trained to work in domestic population centers and mitigate civilian casualties. I’ll be the first to request the assistance of the army if we are in danger of losing control of the situation.”

Before Slaine could come back at the commissioner, the prime minister said, “I’ll take your suggestion under advisement, Jeremy. This committee will be in perpetual session until the crisis has been resolved. Margaret and Sir Evan, I’ll require an update on police activities in one hour’s time. And by the way, if you capture these Hellers where will you be holding them?”

“We plan to use our holding cells at New Scotland Yard,” Sir Evan said. “We’re presently clearing them of conventional prisoners.”

“Very well,” the prime minister said. “Now, I’d like to ask Dr. Loughty a few questions.”

Emily nodded and finished her coffee.

“Every time the collider has been reactivated the situation seems to have worsened. Is that also your view?”

“I’m afraid I’d have to agree,” she said. “We’re seeing increasing instability in areas, nodes if you will, along the architecture of the MAAC tunnels. To date we’ve had points of inter-dimensional contact at Dartford, South Ockendon, Sevenoaks, Upminster and Leatherhead.”

“Did we have a problem this morning at South Ockendon?” the prime minister asked.

The home secretary said she was unaware of any unusual activity there.

“It’s impossible to say why some areas are affected and others not,” Emily said. “I’d need to spend time analyzing the data. Right now the Dartford lab has been quarantined so I won’t have a way of accessing computer systems and obviously I can’t speak with my key department heads as they have disappeared. If we can get the assistance of scientific staff at the LHC, the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, perhaps I can safely tap into the servers and access key data.”

The deputy prime minister, a heavyset man whose wide forehead was beaded with sweat despite the air conditioning, raised a finger and asked, “If we permanently shutter the collider and apprehend all these Hellers, will that be the end of it?”

Slaine almost jumped out of his chair but the prime minister insisted that Emily be allowed to answer the question.

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” she said. “I’d prefer not to be so wishy-washy but there’s no scientific precedent for what’s happening. The best case scenario, which would of course be a tragedy for the people who were transported to the other dimension this morning, is that in the absence of further collider activity the problem will be cured and future dimensional transfers will cease. However, I can’t guarantee there won’t be spontaneous instability at current nodes or new nodes. Until we have a better handle on that it’s prudent to quarantine all known nodes.”

“Has that been done?” the prime minister asked.

“At Dartford, yes,” Ben said.

“Consider it done elsewhere,” the home secretary said, picking up a telephone.

Emily said, “My understanding is that in my absence an expert panel of physicists was convened and failed to come up with a solution. I’ll need to speak with these advisors urgently. However, we did make contact with the world’s greatest expert in strangelets, the exotic particles we believe are at the heart of this phenomenon.”

“Who is that?” the prime minister asked.

“Paul Loomis, the former director general of MAAC.”

The prime minister nearly shouted. “Excuse me, but Dr. Loomis is dead.”

“We found him on the other side.”

It occurred to John that Emily had been assiduously avoiding calling a spade a spade. Maybe Hell sounded too unscientific to come out of her mouth. He kept quiet.

“If you recall, he did murder two people,” Emily added. “This undoubtedly explains his presence.”

“Too fantastic for words,” the prime minister muttered.

“In any event,” Emily said, “Dr. Loomis insisted he knew how to solve the problem.”

“And?” the deputy prime minister said.

“Unfortunately we were separated before he could tell us.”

“Well that’s no bloody help, is it?” the home secretary said.

“No, it isn’t,” Emily said.

“We’re prepared to go back and find him,” John said. “And while we’re there we can try to rescue as many people as possible.”

“But that would mean firing up the collider again,” the prime minister said. “That sounds most unwise.”

“My son is over there!” Slaine thundered.

“Jeremy yes, I’m sorry. We’re making no decisions today. You’ll appreciate we have to take into account the safety of not only your son and his schoolmates but potentially millions of people.”

“Dr. Loughty, as soon as you get some rest and a meal, I’d like you to liaise with scientific colleagues in Geneva and elsewhere and keep me informed.”

“Of course.”

“Now, what instructions should we give the populace?” the prime minister asked. “How much can we and should we say? This is more than an issue of public safety. We have matters of faith and spirituality to consider. We may be speaking about physics and extra dimensions but we also have fundamental religious matters at play. Surely we’ll need to consult with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Vatican, Muslim, and Jewish leaders. Craig,” he said to the deputy prime minister, “please lead this discussion until I return. President Jackson is standing by at the White House for a briefing.”

“We wouldn’t be in the soup if they’d built the bloody thing in America,” Slaine said bitterly.

On his way out the prime minister placed his hand on Slaine’s shoulder and said, “Yes, Jeremy, you’re certainly right about that.”

Thomas Cromwell, faithful advisor to King Henry VIII in life and in death, could only stare in disbelief.

It wasn’t the gaggle of blinking strangers a hundred paces away that seized his attention. It was one small item, a knife lying in the muddy road. An instant earlier, John Camp had been holding that knife to his monarch’s throat and now Henry was gone, along with Camp and his entire party of Earthers.

Duck was the first to speak. He cried to his brother, Dirk, “My Delia’s gone! And the children. All of them, gone.”

“Well, it’s best for them,” Dirk said. “They were in for it. You don’t take the king prisoner and hope to be spared. But that load of new ’uns over there. They’re up shyte’s creek.”

A moment earlier, Solomon Wisdom had been worried that an angry John Camp would demand his head in exchange for his treachery but now he seemed intent on his next challenge. He greedily eyed the strangers and muttered to himself that in the presence of Cromwell there was no way to monetize the rich bounty of all these new arrivals.

“Seize them!” Cromwell ordered, and the soldiers slopped double-time down the muddy road, brandishing swords and pistols.

The gaggle of bewildered MAAC employees and their VIP guests were too scared to do anything but stand fast. There were twenty-five of them. The men had fared better than the eight women as to clothing. Although they were missing plastic buttons and metal zips they could keep their modesty intact by holding onto jeans or suit trousers with both hands. The women with skirts had to choose whether to hold them up or clutch their blouses until they figured out how to do both with one hand on each garment. Some of them looked for missing eyeglasses and one young man said something about a painful hole in one of his teeth.

With the soldiers fast approaching, Stuart Binford, the head of public relations for the laboratory managed to say, “Are we where I think we are?”

Leroy Bitterman, the US energy secretary, looked down at his ample belly spilling from his open shirt and suit vest and said, “I’m afraid so.”

Karen Smithwick, the UK secretary of state for energy, reached for her absent necklace before realizing her bra was open. She grabbed at her silk blouse and began to cry. Bitterman used his free hand to touch her on the shoulder.

The captain of the guard, seeing that there would be no fight from this lot, ordered his men to surround them.

“Who is your leader?” he shouted.

The senior members exchanged glances. George Lawrence, the head of MI5 and Campbell Bates, the American FBI director, both hoary men, were about to claim the mantle when Anthony Trotter, the assistant chief of MI6 and acting head of the MAAC, declared that he was. As he did so he felt in vain for the pistol he always carried in a shoulder holster.

A leering young soldier got too close to Brenda, one of the female technicians prompting her to cry out in alarm. David Laurent, a French senior scientist, protectively stepped in and the soldier cocked his pistol.

Trotter addressed the captain pugnaciously, “Don’t you dare touch any of my people. Do you understand? Are you the man in charge here?”

Cromwell was making his way through the mud. He called out, “I am. What is your name, sir?”

“Anthony Trotter. Secret Intelligence Service.”

“Are all of you among the living?” Cromwell asked.

“Well I hope we are,” Trotter said.

Cromwell drew up close enough for the two men to sniff each other’s respective aromas. “No, you do not appear to be dead,” he said. “What manner of enterprise is the Secret Intelligence Service?” he asked.

“I work for the crown,” Trotter said. “I am responsible for collecting intelligence on her majesty’s enemies.”

“You are a spy?”

“You might call me that.”

“Are all of you spies?”

“Only these two,” Trotter said, pointing at Bates and Lawrence. “The rest are scientists.” He looked down his nose at Smithwick and added, “Well, most of them.”

“Are you compatriots of John Camp and Emily Loughty?” Cromwell asked.

“We are. And who are you?” Trotter asked.

Cromwell raised his voice. “I have not finished my questions. Where is the king? What have you done with him?”

Trotter thrust out his chin but it was difficult to act the hard man with both hands engaged in holding up trousers. “We haven’t done anything with your king but if he’s missing then I expect he’s been caught up in all of this. He’s probably where we’ve just come from.”

“This would be King Henry the Eighth I presume,” Bitterman said.

“And you are?” Cromwell asked.

“One of the scientists, I suppose,” Bitterman said, “an old one.”

“You have an odd accent, like that of John Camp.”

“I’m an American too. Was Camp here?”

“He was but he is no longer.”

“And Emily Loughty?”

“She, as well. How do you know of King Henry?”

“When Camp returned a month ago he gave a full report,” Bitterman said.

“Tell me, scientist,” Cromwell said, “can you return our monarch to us?”

“I’ll be completely honest with you,” Bitterman said. “I don’t know. Most of the experts who would be working on the problem are standing in front of you. I expect our governments will try to work out a way to get us back and return your king. Right now, we’re all pretty scared. I’m not ashamed to tell you that. We’re at your mercy.”