And the World Changes - A M Kirk (books to read fiction txt) 📗

it. Mark knew it had his electronic image on it. How did he know that?
He reached out with his mind and saw –
School files, a picture of Mark, aged 13, his last official school photograph, stored in the school’s admin computer. Accessed and downloaded with no problem. Sent shooting through the Internet to a central computer somewhere in Glasgow, and from there to all the terminals in all the police stations and cars up and down the West Highland Line and all over the Highlands. His face was on every policeman’s electronic notepad. So was his mother’s.
I know this, but can I change it?
Now he imagined himself reaching out with his mind and –
Abruptly two mobile phones simultaneously set up a crazy buzzing cacophony further down the carriage. The policeman stopped. He frowned at his notepad. It’s gone blank.
The policeman shook it.
Not technically minded, then, thought Mark, for there are no moving parts to it. Even the keys are touch-sensitive.
Janette appeared behind the back of the policeman. She rolled her eyes to express her appreciation of the irony of the situation. Mark got up and moved along the aisle to join her. As he moved past the policeman he said “Excuse me,” but the policeman was too busy pushing keys to even pay any attention. He joined his mother further up the carriage, at a table for four. No one paid them any attention.
“He’s already checked up this way, so I should be all right for now,” said Janette. “Anyway, I haven’t had my picture taken for over ten years, at least not one that would appear on any database, but the Soros wouldn’t know that. So whatever resemblance of me he has on his notepad is not likely to be very close.”
“He doesn’t have anything on his notepad any more. I think I’ve wiped it clean.”
“How?”
“I think magnetism.”
“But that’s fantastic. You’ll be bending spoons next!”
“Why would I want to bend spoons?”
“A guy called Uri – oh never mind. So how did you do it?”
“Like this.” Mark held out the wrist that carried his quartz watch. “There’s a little electric current in this, and the display is something to do with magnetism, I think, so…”
The display went blank. Then it flashed alternately black and grey. Then the word “HI” appeared, followed by “SEE?”
“The face is magnetised. The current reverses the magnetism in certain places and that’s what causes the numbers to appear. It seems I can play with that. It’s like passing a magnet over the face of it.”
“Then you’d better stay away from my CD collection.”
“CDs, computer disks, tapes, anything that depends on magnetism.”
“This could be very useful.”
“I had the same thought, mum.”
They paused, looking out the window at the passing hillside.
“I just haven’t figured out how!”
Janette said, “I’ve just remembered – I don’t have a CD collection any more.”
Mark, in a very adult gesture, reached over and took her hand. “So what’s this with spoon-bending?” he asked.
At that moment Mark’s headrest exploded in a shower of cloth and foamy fragments.

**********

The word had come through: Now! Before the train reaches the horseshoe curve. Kill the boy now! He almost swerved into the grass at the side of the road. The horseshoe curve was just a couple of klicks from Bridge of Orchy, a huge feat of Victorian railway engineering that followed a contour along the slopes of two hills, joined by a long, curving bridge that spanned a wide grassy valley.
Logan’s heart leapt. He almost felt sick. This was really it! He fumbled the keys on his G5, but succeeded in connecting to Cameron.
“Go!” said Logan. “Do it now! Then make your way to the road and I’ll pick you up.”
“You’re on.”
Cameron replaced his hand set and turned from the door window where he had stationed himself. He had been keeping an eye both on his targets and on the Jeep trailing the train, which was visible from time to time through the trees that lined the track. He stepped into the carriage and took out his gun. The boy was right there, twenty feet away. Right there, a sitting duck! This would be a piece of cake.
He raised the weapon and it did not shake. His finger squeezed the trigger, gently, as he had practised it, and he felt the soft kick in his hand.
But, inexplicably, the boy had moved his head. He leaned forward, saying something to his mother. The back of the seat disintegrated, just completely blew apart, its stuffing flying through the air. The pistol was virtually silent; the only noise had come from the impact of the bullet. The boy’s mother was on her feet screaming “Look out!”
Instinctively the other passengers in the carriage ducked, although they had no real idea what was going on. All except the boy. He got to his feet and turned.
Cameron felt the next cartridge click into place as he walked forward. A snarl of fury contorted his face. Then he was grabbed from behind and a strong grip forced his arm upwards. The bullet shot through the roof leaving a gaping hole through which he saw sky. The boy and his mother were out of their seats now, running down the aisle, running away. It was a policeman who had Cameron’s arm and would not let go. But the confined space was awkward and Cameron stamped down hard on the policeman’s foot. He pushed the man back and a hand came free. He managed to strike the policeman’s nose, then head-butted him. Now the gun hand was free. Hardly thinking at all, he fired a bullet into the man’s chest and saw a lot of blood come out from behind before the man collapsed against the luggage storage compartment.
Cameron turned in pursuit of the boy and his mother, oblivious to the screams of the others.

**********

The external carriage doors were locked and could not be opened from the inside without a special key. Mark stepped up and placed a hand over the “open/lock” control panel. He imagined the layout of the controls. With a swift rush of air from outside the door slid open.
“We have to jump,” said Mark.
“I can’t jump from a moving train!”
“It’s that or be shot.”
Janette swore and peered out of the opening at the track ahead. “There’s some kind of bridge coming up. “
“Before the bridge, then. We don’t want to go plunging over bridges. On three?”
They both heard the internal sliding door hiss open behind them, and knew it was the killer. Both felt a jolt of fear that made them damn the consequences. “Three!” Janette shouted and pushed Mark out of the train, flinging herself out immediately afterwards. There was a sickening flight through the air, a terrifying glimpse of a wire fence coming up to meet her, then she had cleared it and with a bone-jarring thump smacked hard into the grassy slope of Ben Dorain. The train rolled on towards the bridge. She swore again.
A face appeared at the open doorway. Then she saw the gun. But by now a considerable distance had opened up between them. Nevertheless she screamed and shielded her head as bullets whacked into the ground to her right and ricocheted off the boulder she rolled behind for cover.
There followed a calm of a few seconds. Mark managed to get up and approach Janette. He was not hurt but the jolt of hitting the ground seemed to have shaken up his internal organs. He felt very ill, and wanted nothing more than to lie still for a while. Janette hugged him.
The train rolled on, rhythmically clanking over the spaces between the rails. Then the sound changed as it moved on to the bridge. At that moment, a figure came through the open door. It was the killer. But his judgement had mis-timed.
Cameron had delayed those precious seconds in order to tell Logan what had happened. Those few seconds were important. His carriage was now on the bridge. He had to try to jump just right so that he landed on this side of the fence, otherwise he would go flying over the side of the bridge. And now it was a long way down.
Gun in hand he flung himself out of the door. But he was moving too fast and his angle was wrong. If only he could have practised this, he thought, as saw himself fall towards the metal fence. If only he had not been so damned tired from his uncomfortable night’s sleep he would not have misjudged. But it was too late now – it was all too late, now. He hit it at thirty miles an hour and it knocked the wind right out of him, breaking his ribs. His body kept on going. He was going over the edge. Frantically he scrabbled to grab a hold of the top rail, but his pain, and the confusion swirling in his reeling mind, and the clumsy gun in his hand made a good grip impossible. He cartwheeled over the rail and fell twenty metres to the valley slope.
Mark saw it happen. Janette too. He vomited his breakfast on the ground. The train curved away from them now, but wild curious faces were appearing at the windows. Finally someone had the presence of mind to pull the emergency cord, but it would be a minute at least before it could come to a halt.
Trees had obscured Logan’s view, and the train’s open door through which they had jumped had been on the side he could not see anyway. But Cameron’s last call had alarmed Logan. When he finally found a space to park and to use his binoculars, the train was stopping at the far end of the horseshoe curve. Tracing the line of the track back, however, he could make out two figures trying to descend into the valley. So they had jumped from the train and were on the run. Well, they would not escape. He picked up his G5 and began to summon his men. And this time there would be no mistakes. He would tighten his net and have them both.


15 Conference Room 4

In conference room four in the United States Defence Control Command there were tense faces. Major Jack Bruce was there, and Sam Webster. The meeting was chaired by General Herbert Locke.
General Locke began. “I’m sorry to call you two out of your beds at this goddam time in the morning, but it’s ten thirty British time and people have been up and doing for some time over there.”
Locke was a grim faced man at the best of times, a veteran of many conflicts. He was overall Commander–in-Chief of the Cheyenne facility and Bruce reported directly to him. Locke was now even more grim faced than usual as he held up Bruce’s report on the recent satellite “behavioural anomalies”. “Give this to me in words of