Ken Follett - Code to Zero (2000)

On the passenger seat beside her was her attache case. She opened it and took out the Colt She disliked the heavy touch of the dark steel on the palm of her hand. The men she had worked with, in the war, had enjoyed handling guns. It gave a man sensual pleasure to close his fist around a pistol grip, spin the cylinder of a revolver, or fit the stock of a rifle into the hollow of his shoulder. She felt none of that To her, guns were brutal and cruel, made to tear and crush the flesh and bones of living, breathing people. They made her skin crawl.

With the pistol in her lap, she turned the car around and returned to Luke's house.

She screeched to a halt outside, threw the car door open, grabbed her gun and leaped out. Before anyone inside might have time to react, she jumped the low wall and ran across the lawn to the side of the house.

She heard no sound from within.

She ran around to the back, ducked past the door, and looked in at a window. The dim light of a distant street lamp enabled her to see that it was a simple casement with a single latch. The room seemed empty. She reversed her grip on the gun and smashed the glass, all the time waiting for the gunshot that would end her life. Nothing happened. She reached through the broken pane, undid the latch, and pulled open the window. She climbed in, holding the gun in her right hand, and flattened herself against a wall. She could make out vague shapes of furniture, a desk and some bookshelves. This was a little study. Her instinct told her she was alone. But she was terrified of stumbling over Luke's body in the dark.

Moving slowly, she crossed the room and located the doorway. Her dark-accustomed eyes saw an empty hall. She stepped cautiously out, gun at the ready. She moved through the house in the gloom, dreading at every step that she would see Luke on the floor. All the rooms were empty.

At the end of her search she stood in the largest bedroom, staring at the double bed where Luke slept with Elspeth, wondering what to do next. She felt tearfully grateful that Luke was not lying here dead. But where was he? Had he changed his plans, and decided not to come here? Or had the body been spirited away? Had Anthony somehow failed to kill him? Or had one of her warnings got through?

One person who might have some answers was Marigold.

Billie returned to Luke's study and turned on the light A medical encyclopedia lay on the desk, open at the page about female sterilization. Billie frowned in puzzlement, then put aside her questions. She called information and asked for a number for Marigold dark. After a moment the voice on the line gave her a Huntsville number.

A man answered. 'She gone to singing practice,' he said.

Billie guessed he was Marigold's husband. 'Miz Lucas is down to Florida, so Marigold conducting the choir till she come back.'

Billie recalled that Elspeth had been conductor of the Radcliffe Choral Society, and later of an orchestra for black kids in Washington. It seemed she was doing something of that sort here in Huntsville, and Marigold was her deputy. 'I need to talk to Marigold real bad,' Billie said. 'Do you think it would be all right if I interrupted the choir for a minute?'

'Guess so. They're at the Calvary Gospel Church on Mill Street'

'Thank you, I sure appreciate it.'

Billie went out to her car. She found Mill Street on the Hertz map and drove there. The church was a fine brick building in a poor neighbourhood. She heard the choir as soon as she opened the car door. When she stepped inside the church, the music washed over her like a tidal wave. The singers stood at the far end. There were only about thirty men and women, but they sounded like a hundred. The hymn went 'Everybody's gonna have a wonderful time up there -oh! Glory, hallelujah!' They clapped and swayed as they sang. A pianist played a rhythmic barrelhouse accompaniment, and a large woman with her back to Billie conducted vigorously.

The pews were neat rows of wooden folding seats. She sat in the rear, conscious that hers was the only white face in the place. Despite her anxiety, the music tugged at her heartstrings. She had been born in Texas and, to her, these thrilling harmonies represented the soul of the South.

She was impatient to question Marigold, but she felt sure she would get a better response by showing respect and waiting for the end of the song.

They finished on a high chord, and the conductor immediately looked around. 'I wondered what happened to disturb your concentration,'- she said to the choir. 'Take a short break.'

Billie walked up the aisle. 'I'm sorry to interrupt,' she said. 'Are you Marigold Clark?'

'Yes,' she said warily. She was a woman of about fifty, wearing fancy spectacles. 'But I don't know you.'

'We spoke on the phone earlier, I'm Billie Josephson.'

'Oh, hi, Dr Josephson.'

They walked a few steps away from the others. Billie said: 'Have you heard from Luke?'

'Not since this morning. I expected him to show up at the base this afternoon, but he didn't Do you think he's all right?'

'I don't know. I went to his house, but there was no one there. I'm afraid he might have been killed.'

Marigold shook her head in bewilderment 'I've worked for the army twenty years and I never heard of anything like this.'

'If he is alive, he's in great danger,' Billie said. She looked Marigold in the eye. 'Do you believe me?'

Marigold hesitated for a long moment 'Yes, ma'am, I do,' she said at last 'Then you have to help me,' Billie told her.

.

9.30 P. M.

The radio signal from the more powerful transmitter may be picked up by radio hams all over the world. The weaker signal from the second can be picked up only by specially equipped stations.

Anthony was at Redstone Arsenal, sitting in his army Ford, peering through the darkness, anxiously watching the door of the Computation Laboratory. He was in the parking lot in front of the headquarters building, a couple of hundred yards away.

Luke was in the lab, searching for his file folder. Anthony knew he would not find it there, just as he had known Luke would not find it at his home - because he had already searched there. But Anthony was no longer able to anticipate Luke's movements. He could only wait until Luke decided where to go next, then try to follow him.

However, time was on his side. Every minute that passed made Luke less dangerous. The rocket would be launched in one hour. Could Luke ruin everything in an hour? Anthony knew only that over the last two days his old friend had proved again and again that he should not be underestimated.

As he was thinking this, the door to the lab opened, spilling yellow light into the night, and a figure emerged and approached the black Chrysler parked at the curb. As Anthony had expected, Luke was empty-handed. He got in and drove off.

Anthony's heartbeat quickened.. He started his engine, switched on his headlights, and followed.

The road went south in a dead-straight line. After about a mile, Luke slowed hi front of a long one-storey building and pulled into its parking lot. Anthony drove past, accelerating hi to the night. A quarter of a mile down the road, out of sight of Luke, he turned around. When he came back, Luke's car was still there, but Luke had gone. .

Anthony pulled into the parking lot and killed his engine.

Luke had felt sure he would find the folder in the Computation Lab, where his office was. That was why he had spent so long there. He had looked at every file in his own room, then in the main office where the secretaries sat And he had found nothing.

But there was one more possibility. Marigold had said that he also went to the Engineering Building on Monday. There must have been a reason for that. Anyway, it was his last hope. If the file were not here, he did not know where else to look. And anyway, he would by then have run out of time. In a few minutes, the rocket would either be launched - or be sabotaged.