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

one syllable that a backwoods bumpkin like myself can understand, Major.”
Bruce smiled faintly. Locke liked to assume the backwoods bumpkin persona, but Bruce knew damn well that Locke had graduated top of his class at West Point, had lectured at several military academies in the States and abroad, and possessed two (non-honorary) degrees, one in physics, the other in languages. No, this was no racoon-hatted yokel.
“And – “ Locke continued, “ – we’re linking up with Stirling. They need to hear this. General Miller, good morning.”
The viewscreen came on right on cue. “Morning, Herb. Good to see you again. I’m routing this to some others as well, if you don’t mind. Lucas here is an experienced analyst, as well as my aide, and I thought it essential to keep the General Officer Commanding Scotland in the loop. You know Andrew Talbot, of course.”
“Of course – how are you Andrew?” The screen divided into different sections so that the faces of all concerned could be seen.
“Now, what’s this about, Herb?” asked Miller.
“I’m going to turn this over to Major Jack Bruce, Aaron. He’s produced a report on the recent Nordik IV business. I think you ought to hear it from him. Major? The floor is yours.”
“Gentlemen,” Bruce began, in his apparently confident unflappable style – but in fact he was more than a little apprehensive about reporting to this assembly of big names and ranks. “Three times in the last fifteen days, our control of the Nordik IV satellite has been compromised. The first time its attitude was altered a fraction of a degree so that, if the weapon were to fire, it would strike several miles to the west of the original target.”
“In other words,” said Locke, “it was no longer targeted on the Soros ship.”
“That’s right sir. We ran systems checks, and everything came up five by five. There was no signal received by the satellite that could have ousted our control and established another control. We verified that with all civilian and military radio frequency monitoring stations. No radio signal of any kind was sent to the satellite.”
“So what caused it to move?” asked Miller.
“We don’t know, sir. But the other two anomalies were, as you know, more serious, for on those occasions the weapon was actually fired. At first we thought human error, then we checked the system for glitches. Everything checked out fine, sir. It was like the satellite suddenly developed a mind of its own.”
“But we all know that cannot happen,” said Locke. “There is no way the comparatively simple systems in the satellite can become independent. It’s not a thinking machine, it does as we tell it.”
“So we began to look for another kind of interference.”
“What do you mean? Some physical presence up there?” asked Miller.
“We even checked for that, too, sir.”
“How?” asked Miller.
“We trained Hubble on the Nordik IV. The imaging was as clear as your holiday snaps, sir. There was nothing unusual. But then we scanned for radiation traces. We were doing that yesterday, sir, when the last anomaly occurred.”
“And what did you find?” asked Locke.
“Some sort of electro-magnetic beam was directed at the satellite.”
Silence fell heavily in conference room four. All were thinking the same thing – not a radio wave; an electro-magnetic beam: we do not have the technology for that.
It was General Talbot who asked the next question: “And what was the source of this beam?”
Bruce opened his hands in a gesture that echoed his words. “We don’t know, sir. We think it came roughly from the arctic region, but we can’t be sure. If it happens again, we may be able to find out more.”
Locke then phrased the question in everyone’s minds. “Could this have come from the Soros?”
“No one on earth has the technology to create such beam, yet. To my mind there can be no other explanation.”
Miller now looked uncomfortable. “Gentlemen,” he said, “yesterday I had an interview with their Number One. During that interview he suggested that terrorists were responsible for the explosions. He even produced pictures of two suspects. Their faces should be appearing on your viewscreens now.” The same images that had been seen by the policeman on the train were now transmitted across the Atlantic, as well notes on the biographical information analysts had managed to collate so far. “The police are looking for them as we speak. But from what I have heard now, there seems to be only one conclusion: the Soros have been lying to us.”
“But what the hell are they up to?” asked Locke. “It just doesn’t make any sense for the Soros to be trying to kill this… doctor and her son.”
“There may be some connection with the organisation called the ‘Human Freedom League’,” said Miller. “Our Criminal Intelligence people have been looking into them for some time; so have MI5. They are a highly organised group, and their resources are simply not known to us. They have rallies from time to time and they indulge in a lot of talk, and they’ve made various threats about ridding the planet of what they see as ‘the alien menace’, but they’ve also been implicated in some raids on high level security bases where some weapons and explosives have gone missing. And what is more, we have a report from MI5 that the League is suspected of – how shall I say this? – obtaining some weapons grade uranium from the old decommissioned Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria.”
“So these guys are more than just grumbling fanatics?” said Locke.
“As I said,” replied Miller, “they are highly organised, with unknown resources. Their leaders have skilfully eluded our efforts to identify them and they operate a clever cell network very difficult to penetrate, since so much of their communication is over the Supernet.”
“Could they have gained control of Nordik IV on those occasions?” asked Talbot.
“I don’t think that’s likely, but we cannot rule it out.”
If Locke had been grim-faced at the start of the conference he was even more so now. At last he said, “This does not look like a heart-warming situation, gentlemen. What do we propose to do now?”
It was General Talbot who defined the only courses of action open, and concluded, “If you continue to monitor the situation, gentlemen, I can promise you we will make it our top priority to trace those two people and find out why somebody – and I would emphasise we do not yet know who – appears to want them dead.”


16 Out of the frying pan…

The massive slope of Ben Dorain reared up dauntingly steep on their left as Janette and Mark made what speed they could down to the body of the man who had tried to kill them a few moments before. The slope was covered in awkward tussocks that made going difficult but after a couple of minutes they had descended to where the body lay. There was no doubt he was dead.
Mark turned away, feeling sick again.
Janette calmly knelt beside the body and examined briefly. “Broken neck,” she muttered. She felt inside the man’s jacket for some identification. “No identification,” she said. “But this is birdwatcher-man. I saw him board the train back at the station.”
Mark forced himself to look at the man’s face. His first sight of a dead human being. He could not help but feel a profound sense of waste and the pity of it all. It does not have to be this way. He turned away.
“A phone… oh, it’s broken. Dark glasses,” said Janette. “A member of the Human Freedom League, perhaps. Why would that lot be after us?”
“The train’s stopped,” said Mark. “People will be coming. There might be more like him.”
“Oh, God! What the hell do we do now?”
Mark moved back up the slope a little way and bent down, picking something up. When he turned round Janette saw her son was holding the odd-looking gun. “We run away,” he said. “And we might as well take this with us.” He pointed up the small glen that angled north-east away from the bridge and the road. There was a clearly defined Landrover track. “That way.”
Janette sighed. She looked at her shoes, her skirt, her thin clothing. “Shit,” she said. “Our bags are still on the train. My phone! My purse!”
“Come on, mum,” said Mark, heading down the slope.
Muttering curses to fend off despair she followed her son.
A fairly wide river had to be crossed before they reached the track, and although it was shallow and fordable, their feet got wet. Progress was slow, for they were not equipped for this and Janette’s shoes offered very little protection from sharp stones or support for ankles. But they managed to keep going at a jog-trot pace for a kilometre or so and then they were out of sight of the people from the train who by now had ventured out on to the track.
The sides of the glen loomed to the right and left of them as they ventured further along the track. Sheep viewed their passage with a range of reactions from panic to indifferent detachment. After twenty minutes the track crossed the river by a small plantation of sitka spruce and Janette called a halt.
“Need water,” she said, and cupped her hands to drink from the river. “Not as fit as once was.” She slurped the water noisily.
“Is that safe?” asked Mark.
“Don’t care,” replied Janette. “We don’t have any choice.”
Mark drank too.
“You know, Marky, your dad used to do all this sort of thing – walking, trekking. I made a few trips with him but was never really what you might call an enthusiast. I picked up a few things, though. The first one was that people die in the wild, especially if they don’t have the right gear. Clothes get wet, body heat is lost and next thing you know you’re in big trouble. And the second thing was how easy it is to get lost. Something strange happens to people who are not too used to being out in the open. They get ‘bewildered’. It’s what the word ‘bewildered’ actually means – confused by the wild. Open space confuses the inexperienced. I’m confused now. I don’t know how far we’ve come, I don’t know where this valley leads, I’m frightened, and soon we’ll both be hungry…”
Mark put a comforting arm around Janette as she sank down to sit on a boulder. “It’s all right, mum.”
Janette could not stop the tears. Quietly at first she began to cry, and then huge sobs convulsed her. The events and emotions of the last twenty-four hours were finally taking their toll. She gave in to despair.

**********

Logan rendezvoused with two of his men at the garage in Tyndrum and from there drove them to the wide track that led down to Auch farm, just a kilometre from the horseshoe curve. From this position he could see the train, still unmoving on the track above Auch Glen. They stood by the bonnet of Logan’s