Ken Follett - Code to Zero (2000)

Billie sat opposite her son and said: 'I want you to skip school today.'

'But I'll miss swimming!' he protested.

'Maybe Daddy will take you swimming.'

'But I'm not sick!'

'I know, honey, but you had kind of a tiring morning, and you need to rest.' Larry's protests reassured Billie. He seemed to be recovering fast All the same, she would not be comfortable letting him go to school, not until this whole business was over.

But she could leave him with his father. Bern was a trained agent and could protect his kid from just about anything. She made a decision. She would' go to Huntsville. 'Have a fun day with Daddy and maybe you'll go to school tomorrow, okay?'

'Okay.'

'Mommie has to go now.' She did not want to make a drama of saying goodbye, for that would only scare the child. I'll see you later,' she said casually.

As she went out, she heard Bern say: 'I bet you couldn't eat another slice of that French toast.'

'I could too!' Larry replied.

Billie closed the door.

*

PART 5

10.45 A. M.

The missile will take off vertically, then be tilted into a trajectory inclined forty degrees to the horizon. The first stage is guided, during powered flight, by aerodynamic tail surfaces and by movable carbon vanes in the engine exhaust jet.

Luke fell asleep as soon as he had fastened his seat belt, and he was unaware of the take-off from Newport News. He slept heavily while the plane was in the air, but woke up every time it bumped down at yet another airstrip on its stop-go flight west across Virginia and North Carolina. Each time his eyes opened he felt a rush of anxiety, and checked his watch to see how many hours and minutes were left until the launch. He would fidget in his seat while the little aircraft taxied across the apron. A few people would leave, one or two more would get on, and the plane would take off again. It was like riding the bus.

The plane refuelled at Winston-Salem, and the passengers got off for a few minutes. Luke called Redstone Arsenal from the terminal and got his secretary, Marigold dark, on the phone.

'Dr Lucas!' she said. 'Are you okay?'

I'm fine, but I only have a minute or two. Is the launch still scheduled for tonight?'

'Yes, ten-thirty.'

I'm on my way to Huntsville - my plane lands at two twenty-three. I'm trying to figure out why I went there on Monday.'

'You still don't have your memory back?'

'No. Now, you don't know why I made that trip.'

'Like I said, you didn't tell me.'

'What did I do there?'

'Well, now, let me see. I met you at the airport in an army car and brought you here to the base. You went into the Computation Lab, then drove yourself down to the south end.'

'What's there, at the south end?'

'The static test pads. I imagine you went into the Engineering Building - you sometimes work there -but I don't know for sure, because I wasn't with you.'

'And then?'

'You asked me to drive you to your home,' Luke heard a prim note enter her voice. 'I waited in the car while you stepped inside for a minute or two. Then I took you to the airport.'

'That's it?'

That's all I know.'

Luke grunted with frustration. He had felt sure Marigold would come up with some clue.

Desperately, he cast about for another line of questioning. 'How did I look?'

'Okay, but your mind was someplace else. Preoccupied, that's the word I'm searching for. I figured you were worried about something. Happens all the time with you scientists. I don't let it trouble me.'

'Wearing my usual clothes?'

'One of them nice tweed jackets.'

'Carrying anything?'

'Just your little suitcase. Oh, and a file.'

Luke stopped breathing for a moment. 'A file?' he said. He swallowed.

A stewardess interrupted him. 'Time to board the aircraft, please, Dr Lucas.'

He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and said: 'Just one minute.' Then he said to Marigold: 'Was it any special kind of file?'

'A standard army file folder, thin cardboard, buff-coloured, large enough to hold business letters.'

'Any idea what was in it?' .

'Just papers, it looked like.'

Luke tried to breathe normally. 'How many sheets of paper? One, ten, a hundred?'

'Maybe fifteen or twenty, I guess.'

'Did you happen to see what was on the sheets?'

'No, sir, you didn't take them out'

'And did I still have this file when you took me to the airport?'

There was a silence at the other end.

The stewardess returned. 'Dr Lucas, if you won't board the plane, we'll have to go without you.'

'I'm coming, I'm coming.' He began to repeat his question to Marigold. 'Did I still have the file-'

'I heard you,' she interrupted. 'I'm trying to remember.'

He bit his lip. Take your time.'

'Whether you had it at the house, I can't tell.'

'But at the airport?'

'You know, I don't believe you had it then. I'm picturing you walking away from me into the terminal, and I see you have your bag in one hand, and in the other ... nothing.'

'Are you sure?'

Yes, now I am. You must have left that file here somewhere, either at the base or at home.'

Luke's mind was racing. The file was the reason for his trip to Huntsville, he felt sure. It contained the secret he had found out, the one that Anthony was so desperate for him to forget. Maybe it was a Xerox copy of the original, and he had stashed it somewhere for safekeeping. That was why he had asked Marigold not to tell anyone of his visit it seemed ultra-cautious, but not doubt he had learned such habits in the war.

Now, if he could find the file, he could discover the secret The stewardess had abandoned him, and he saw her running across the tarmac. The plane's propellers were already turning.

'I think that file could be very important,' he told Marigold. 'Could you look around and see if it's there?'

'My lord, Dr Lucas, this is the army! Don't you know there must be a million of them buff-coloured file folders here? How would I know which is the one you were carrying?'

'Just check around, see if there's one someplace where it shouldn't be. As soon as I land at Huntsville, I'll go to the house and search there. Then, if I don't find it, I'll come to the base.' Luke hung up and ran for the plane.

.

11 A. M.

The flight plan is programmed in advance. During flight, signals telemetered to the computer activate the guidance system to keep it on course.

The MATS flight to Huntsville was full of generals. Redstone Arsenal did more than design space rockets. It was the headquarters of the Army Ordnance Missile Command. Anthony, who kept track of this kind of thing, knew that a whole range of weapons were being developed and tested at the base - from the baseball-bat-sized Redeye, for ground troops to use against enemy aircraft, up to the huge surface-to-surface Honest John. The base undoubtedly saw a lot of brass.

Anthony wore sunglasses to conceal the two black eyes Billie had given him. His lip had stopped bleeding, and the broken tooth showed only when he talked. Despite his injuries, he felt energized: Luke was within his grasp.

Should he simply take the first opportunity to kill him? It was temptingly simple. But he worried that he did not know exactly what Luke was up to, He had to make a decision. However, by the time he boarded the plane he had been awake for forty-eight hours straight, and he fell asleep. He dreamed he was twenty-one again, and there were new leaves on the tall trees in Harvard Yard, and a life full of glorious possibilities stretched before him like an open road. Next thing he knew, Pete was shaking him as a corporal opened the aircraft door, and he woke up inhaling' a warm Alabama breeze.

Huntsville had a civilian airport, but this was not it MATS flights came down on the airstrip within Redstone Arsenal. The terminal building was a small wooden hut, the tower an open steel gantry with a one-room flight-control post on top.