Saskia switched off her hood and breathed the air of the glen. It was clear and cold. The computer on her arm indicated that she was in a valley on the south side of the research centre. It was likely that David Proctor and his colleagues were working directly beneath her.
She was alone. Help was twenty years away.
Five minutes later they came for her. A parachutist descending on the complex would not be ignored. She checked again that her suit contained no markings. She had no weapon, food or spare clothing. If Michaels was correct, Hartfield would arrive at the same place in twenty minutes’ time.
She fantasised that she would hide nearby and tackle him. She would destroy his notes on the nanotechnology, allow him to be captured, and make good her own escape. But she was destined to write a message for her future self, place it under a rock outside Proctor’s laboratory, and write another message on the nearby wall.
So the guards came. She smiled. They ignored her German ramblings.
They took her downhill towards the River Almond and up again, past the tennis courts she and Scottie had seen, to the front entrance of the hotel. Again she felt the gravel crunch under her feet; again she smelled the pine. The hotel loomed. The east and west wings were welcoming arms, but Saskia had not felt welcome on her first visit and she certainly didn’t now. An unarmed guard walked alongside while three others walked ten paces behind. There were no blind spots, no escape.
Again she walked past the statue of Prometheus. It was running. She thought of him chained to a rock, punished by Zeus, but now the thought was the key to a room that was already unlocked. It had no power.
They entered the foyer. Her boots were silent. The same chandelier; the same green felt; fewer paintings but each, when viewed as an individual, was still the odd one out.
A man emerged from the left. She disliked him after two steps. He was similar to Garrel. He had grey hair, bleached blue eyes and a pencil-thin moustache. He was handsome and intimidating.
“Can I help you, miss?”
Saskia’s smile was blinding. She pushed some hair behind her ear. “Ja, ja. Ich habe mich verlaufen. So. I am lost. Understand, ja?”
His mouth twitched. “You’re German.”
“Ja. Genau.”
He stepped forward and offered his hand. “My name is Harrison McWhirter. I’m in charge of the hotel.” He turned to the guards. “Back to your duties.” They fell away. The foyer was suddenly empty but for herself and McWhirter, whose body was undergoing a autopsy at the time of her last visit.
She shook his hand. Her right heel raised slightly from the floor. She was thinking fast. There were two certainties: first, she was destined to get into the research centre; second, she was destined to stop Hartfield. She realised that they might have made a wrong assumption about the man’s objective. Yes, he had a new nanotechnology treatment, but it was not necessarily the case that it needed to be administered before the first dose. The treatment may repair. Perhaps nanotechnology was being developed in the West Lothian Centre.
No; that didn’t work. Why should Hartfield choose to arrive on the day of the bombing? He would have little time to achieve anything. Was Hartfield here to plant the bomb? Absolutely not. He would have nothing gain and much to lose.
She released McWhirter’s hand.
Hartfield wanted to foil the bombers. The man was insane. The bomb would explode because it had already exploded. There was no way to stop something that had already happened.
“My name is Adler. Sabine Adler.”
McWhirter nodded. “Perhaps you could tell me how you came to be parachuting into my hotel.”
“I am with a – how do you call it – ‘parachute school’? I have lost my friends.”
“I’ll get you a phone so that you can call them,” he said.
“Thank you.”
She held her left wrist as though it were injured.
He walked around the reception desk and lifted the receiver on the courtesy phone. When he offered it to his visitor, she was gone. He snorted. He reached for the red security button beneath the desk. There was movement on the edge of his vision. He paused and a figure in glass swept towards him. Something struck his throat and groin simultaneously. He lost his breath. His head found the edge of the desk. He heard the sound quite objectivity – a mallet on a tent peg – and faded to his knees.
Saskia became visible again. She switched off the hood. The space beneath the desk was large enough to hide McWhirter’s body if she folded it, so she did. She wondered if this was the correct action. McWhirter was sure to remember her when he awoke. But nothing could be changed; she could do nothing wrong.
There were ten minutes until Hartfield arrived.
“Good afternoon,” said a cheerful voice.
The hood flicked up. Saskia became transparent and motionless. The camouflage worked by capturing light on one side and sending it out the other. But her eyes needed those light rays, needed to stop them dead at the retina. She was blind.
She heard the man’s footsteps stop. “I must say that you’re looking well today, Colonel McWhirter.” Saskia could hear the smile. Only a blind man would compliment an empty desk.
His footsteps moved away.
Saskia switched off her transparency and followed. He headed for the cloakroom that Garrel would show her twenty years later. She checked for cameras. None. A guard walked by. She became transparent and curled into a ball behind a plant. She held her breath. The guard walked past.
One corner before the cloak room, the man stopped. He turned. His eyes roamed. He had high cheekbones and a restless, smiling mouth.
