It was both an impregnable fortress and a technologically sophisticated nerve centre. The perfect kind of place to sit out what was coming.
‘Okay, so a guy named Chucks Bello sent an email,’ Peterson explained. ‘DATA picked it up using keywords based on name-check combinations. There’s more than one Chucks Bello active on the internet, but this one grabbed our attention. There are several districts in the Nairobi slums. One – Mathare – lit up with this Chucks Bello’s comms.’
‘Which means?’ Kammler demanded impatiently.
‘We’re ninety-nine per cent certain this is your guy. Chucks Bello sent an email to one Julius Mburu, who runs something called the Mburu Foundation. It’s a social-action kind of charity that works in the Mathare slum. With kids. A lot of them are orphans. I’ll forward you the email. We’re sure this is your guy.’
‘So d’you have a fix? A location?’
‘We do. The email was generated from a commercial address: guest@amanibeachretreat.com. There is an Amani Beach Retreat approximately four hundred miles south of Nairobi. It’s a high-end, exclusive resort set on the Indian Ocean.’
‘Great. Forward me the comms chain. And keep digging. I want to be absolutely one hundred per cent certain this is our guy.’
‘Understood, sir.’
Kammler cut the IntelCom link. He punched the words ‘Amani Beach Resort’ into the Google search engine, then clicked on the website. It showed images of a pristine white crescent of sand, washed with stunning turquoise waters. A glimmering, crystal-clear swimming pool situated on the very fringes of the beach, complete with a discreet bar service and shaded sunloungers. Locals in traditional-looking batique dress serving fine food to the elegant foreign guests.
No slum kid ever went to a place like this.
If the kid was at Amani Beach, someone must have taken him there. It could only be Jaeger and his group, and they could only have done so for one reason: to hide him. And if they were shielding him, maybe they had realised the impossible hope that a penniless kid from the African slums might offer humankind.
Kammler checked his email. He clicked on the message from Peterson, running his eye down Simon Chucks Bello’s email.
This Dale guy gave me maganji. Spending money – like real maganji. Like, Jules man, I’m gonna pay you back. All I owe you. And you know what I’ll do next, man? I’m gonna hire a jumbo jet with a casino and a swimming pool and dancing girls from all over – London, Paris, Brazil and Russia and China and Planet Mars and even America; yeah – Miss USA by the busload – and you’ll all be invited ’cause you’re my brothers and we’ll zoom above the city dropping empty beer bottles ’n’ stuff so that everyone will know what a cool party we’re having, and behind that jumbo we’ll drag a banner announcing: MOTO’S JUMBO BIRTHDAY PARTY – BY INVITATION ONLY!
Mburu had replied:
Yeah, well you don’t even know your own age, Moto, so how will you know when it’s your birthday? Plus where’s all the dough gonna come from? You need a lot of maganji to hire a jumbo. Just take it easy and lie low and do as the mzungu tells you. Plenty of time for partying when all this is over.
Clearly ‘Moto’ was the kid’s nickname. And clearly he was being treated well by his mzungu benefactors, mzungu being a word that Kammler knew well. In fact, the kid was being treated so nicely that he was even planning a birthday party.
Oh no, Moto, I don’t think so. Today it’s my time to party.
Kammler punched in Steve Jones’s ID on his IntelCom link with furious fingers. After a few short rings Jones answered.
‘Listen, I have a location,’ Kammler hissed. ‘I need you to get there with your team and eliminate the threat. You’ll have Reaper overhead if you need backup. But it’s one slum kid and whoever is guarding him. It should be – forgive the pun – child’s play.’
‘Got it. Send me the details. We’re on our way.’
Kammler typed a short email providing a link to the resort, then sent it to Jones. Next, he googled the word ‘Amani’. It turned out to be Swahili for ‘peace’. He smiled his thin smile.
Not for much longer.
That peace – it was about to be ripped asunder.
82
Jaeger shoulder-barged the last of the doors with all of the force of his cumulative rage. It was coursing through his veins like burning acid.
He stopped for an instant, the cumbersome space suit snagging on the door frame, and then he was through, his torch beam sweeping the darkened interior, his weapon doing likewise. The light reflected off shelves of gleaming scientific equipment, most of which Jaeger couldn’t begin to recognise.
The lab was deserted.
Not a soul anywhere.
Just as they’d discovered with the rest of the complex.
No guard force. No boffins. All he and his team had used their guns on were the disease-ravaged monkeys.
Finding this place so deserted was utterly eerie; chilling. And Jaeger felt cruelly cheated. Against all odds they’d found Kammler’s lair. But Kammler – and his people – had flown the nest before justice and retribution could be visited upon them.
But mostly Jaeger felt tortured by the emptiness – the lack of life – where it hit him most personally: there was no sign of Ruth and Luke anywhere.
He stepped forward, and the last man in closed the door behind him. It was a precaution to prevent contamination spreading from one room to another.
As the door clicked shut, Jaeger heard a sharp, deafening hiss. It had come from just above the door frame, and it had sounded like a truck letting off its air brakes. Like a compressed-air explosion.
At the same instant he felt a wave of tiny pinpricks pierce his skin. His head and neck seemed fine, protected as they were by the thick rubber of the FM54 mask, and the tough filter unit seemed to have shielded his back.
But his legs and arms were on fire.
He glanced down at his suit. The tiny puncture holes were clearly visible. He’d been hit by some kind of booby-trapped device, which had pierced the fabric of the Trellchem. He had to presume the rest of the team were likewise hit.
‘Tape up!’ he screamed. ‘Tape up vents! Every man help the other!’
In a flurry of near-panic, he turned to Raff and began ripping off lengths of gaffer tape to seal up the tiny holes torn in the big Maori’s suit. Once he was finished, Raff did the same for him.
Jaeger had kept monitoring his suit pressure the entire time. It had remained positive – the filter pack automatically blowing in clean air, which would have kept flowing out through the tears in the fabric. That outward pressure should have kept any contamination at bay.
‘Sitrep,’ Jaeger demanded.
One by one his team reported in. All their suits were compromised, but they had been resealed effectively. Positive air pressure seemed to have been maintained by all, thanks to their powered-air units.
But still Jaeger could feel a tingling sensation where whatever it was that had been blasted through his suit had cut into his skin. He didn’t doubt that it was time to get out of there. They had to head back to the wet decon line at the beach and do a damage inspection.
He was just about to issue the order when the utterly unexpected happened.
There was a faint hum, and the electric power came to life in the complex, bathing the lab in blinding halogen light. At one end of the room a giant flat-screen terminal flickered into life, and a figure appeared on what had to be some kind of live link.