Helix liberated a piece of laboratory grown bacon from between his teeth. The coffee was excellent; the caffeine was winning the war with the malaise.
‘What happened to you?’ Sofi asked.
Helix stared into his cup. ‘Were you listening when I spotted the big guy watching me from the alley?’
‘Of course,’ she nodded.
‘I took my eye off the ball when Ormandy called. The last thing I saw was man mountain looming out of the darkness having shot me in the neck with a dart.’ He ordered a second coffee. ‘Long story short, I woke up in the company of said giant and his boss, Ulyana Lytkin.’
‘Lytkin?’
‘Valerian Lytkin’s no-longer-lost sister.’ Helix collected his coffee while Sofi processed the information, given away by the micro movements of her eyes. ‘Except she doesn’t use the name, naturally. But she slithered from whatever rock she’d been hiding under to claim her inheritance following the tragic passing of her brother.’
‘She killed General Yawlander and Blackburn.’
‘Not her exactly. I’m guessing it was the big guy. I expect she was too busy pulling the legs off spiders in her dungeon.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Don’t worry about it. She’s holding Ethan.’ He pinched his nose thoughfully. ‘I have to bring Gabrielle to her and I have less than forty-eight hours to do so.’
‘And if not?’
‘I thought the “I” in AI meant intelligence.’ He sighed. ‘Work it out, or use that other “I” as in imagination.’
‘She means to murder all of you in revenge. Given that she commissioned the murder of the general and his pets - a facsimile of his family and Blackburn, his family and pets—’
‘Welcome back, Sofi. I doubt it will be a simple case of murder.’
‘What are the next steps?’
‘Find Gabrielle. Rescue Ethan. Kill that bitch.’
‘The odds of mission success are—’
‘Don’t even—’ He folded back the flap covering the graphene comms screen in the arm of his jacket. ‘Fucking hell, here we go again,’ he muttered, answering the call. ‘Home Secretary.’
‘I hope you can explain Gabrielle Stepper’s letter in which she admits to murdering a prominent industrialist and to her apparent romantic feelings toward you, Major Helix.’
Helix tilted his head onto the wall behind him. ‘Where—’
‘A scanned copy of it arrived anonymously this morning, Major. We’ve already verified the handwriting as Stepper’s. You’re looking at a court martial with a dishonourable discharge if you’re lucky, halo-confinement if I have my way.’
‘Stop talking, Home Secretary.’
‘I beg your—’
‘Shut up!’ His hand tightened around his cup. ‘The explosion at the Observatory.’
‘What about it?’
‘You haven’t found Ethan.’
‘Our search of the site is ongoing.’
‘You’re wasting your time. Ethan’s been kidnapped. They’re going to kill him unless I bring Gabrielle Stepper in.’
‘How convenient, Maj—’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You’re AWOL, your brother has disappeared into the wind after General Yawlander was murdered along with Blackburn. Who’s next?’
‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’
‘Who, apart from you and your brother, knew of Gabrielle Stepper’s plans for Valerian Lytkin?’
‘If she had a plan at all, it wasn’t something she shared with us in advance. The first I knew about what had happened was when I received that letter.’
‘The same letter you chose not to disclose as part of the investigation into Lytkin’s links to the Government.’
‘As I told you. Ethan’s been taken hostage. I’m going to find Gabrielle Stepper and get him released.’
‘If you intend to continue with your charade, I can make it easy for you, Major.’
He moved his cup to his mouth. ‘How’s that?’ He took a sip.
‘I have resources mobilising with orders to detain Stepper and return her to London.’
‘What resources? You don’t even know where she is.’ He got to his feet. How many people had Gabrielle told about her plan? Did anyone apart from him and Ethan know where she was heading?
‘As for you, Major,’ Ormandy continued. ‘I have convened a disciplinary panel. I want you in the MoHD building within the hour.’
‘Sorry, Home Secretary, other plans,’ Helix said, looking over Sofi’s head toward the two police officers approaching the door. He ended the call. Ormandy had sent a couple of chaperones. He picked up his jacket. ‘Can you take care of those?’ he said, nodding towards the door.
Sofi pushed her chair back. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Down Street. Meet me at my gaff.’
Sofi turned towards the door as the two officers stepped inside. Helix took the exit via the kitchen, tossing his jacket into a recycling container before pushing through the emergency door into the alley.
11
46 Hours
The intensifying snow cloaked the deserted Thames memorial garden. Snow carpeted the grass, ornamental borders and benches and clung to naked tree boughs and bushes. Covering the meandering river, the normally verdant gardens stretched for ten miles from Hammersmith in the west to Greenwich in the east. Built in honour of the lost and those who whose service brought an end to the Ebola pandemic of 2019 – 2021, it sprawled before Helix in a winter postcard panorama.
Although interrupted, breakfast had cleared his head. Sticking to alleys and underpasses to avoid the crowds, he sheltered beneath Blackfriars Bridge, next to one of the access points for the 15-mile-long Thames Tideway tunnel, built to augment London’s Victorian sewage network. It was being built in response to what was London’s growing population that had reached 7.5 million. Post pandemic that number plummeted to 1.5 million on account of the high mortality rate and the stampede out of the major cities by everyone apart from the wealthy and well connected.
Clumsy footprints in the snow-covered grass stretched back in the direction he’d come from. He rubbed at his jacketless arms. Pressing his thumb to a scanner on the wall next to the tunnel’s entrance, visible only to those in the know, he counted the three seconds before a weak green glow bloomed beneath it. Glancing back again, he leaned into the iris scanner long enough for the door to yield and grant him access.
Progress down the sixty metre
