Terrifying or not.” The heavy sarcasm could not be missed. Kirill paused. Some of his earlier composure had returned and he cursed himself; he had displayed weakness. And to Ramus of all people… But Kirill could still remember Dillon’s white hot bullet drilling into his body, a manoeuvre so fast he had seen nothing: merely wondered why the hell he was lying on his back with blackness quickly descending upon him…
“Twenty-four hours? When Ezra jumped over that cliff to his certain death on Santorini. He took with him the last piece to the
Chimera jigsaw puzzle. The programme is ninety-five percent ready.
And that is where it is likely to remain — short of a miracle. Operative but not fully effective…”
“Your people will just have to work harder, then. Won’t they?”
There it was again, that razor edge to Ramus’ words; the implicit challenge to Kirill’s authority was there. “The majority of your people are with us; but there is a hard-core element who do not know when they are being offered a once in a life-time opportunity. The days of an orderly and calm world are numbered — if they will not join us, they will die. Along with anyone one else who dare to oppose us.” “Ramus, may I ask why there is such urgency? We are simply not ready yet…”
“You may. Ezra is dead; but the Chimera blueprint has not been recovered. And as we speak, Ezra’s body has also not been recovered.
If Scorpion or Ferran & Cardini have copies of those blueprints, they could write an identical Chimera Programme to challenge us — the difference being, that their virus will be smarter than ours because it will be able to run at one-hundred percent efficiency. Our plans would not stand any chance of success, Kirill, not a damned hope in hell.
We need to be strong! Assertive! And we can’t do that until every last remnant of Scorpion and Ferran & Cardini has been erased.” Ramus sighed through the microphone of the comm. “Just get on with the task, Kirilclass="underline" twenty-four hours. You know what the alternative is… All of your equipment is to be transferred to my stealth ship; even as we speak, everything except what you and your team will need to work with, is being transported by my fleet of helicopters and moved to a temporary secure facility awaiting my arrival.”
Kirill ground his teeth hard. Ramus had no right to talk to him in this way, after all, they were supposed to be equals, and after a moment of awkward silence, he said, simply. “I’ll start right away.”
He cut the connection and stood, stunned, gazing at the large wall mounted monitor, which showed the snow-capped mountain range of the Scottish Highlands.
He could sense them; sense the programmers, from basic right up to level one — the highest, the analysts, the coders, the hackers -
sense them all around, below and above him. All of them going about their duties, some of themwill see another Highland dawn break -
some of them would not…
We know who you are and where you are, he thought. And those bureaucratic buffoons in Whitehall, who had placed
Scorpion on such a high pedestal, only for it to be knocked off so easily, was to be their ultimate weapon against global terrorism. Your time has come.
Oh, how I have waited for this moment, he thought, his mind rethreading the path of time, retracing years and decades. Visions resurrected in his mind; resurrected, re-visited, and buried again.
Kirill remembered the time he had defected to the west, and the many murders that were carried out because of his actions.
You are all finished. Almost finished, he thought.
And yes. We will take control.
But first? First we must ensure that those who oppose us are taken out of the equation.
The A-25M flying boat banked gently, gaining altitude as it approached the mountainous regions of the Scottish Highlands. Vast and wild, and still an adventure.
Tatiana gazed down at the mountains, the narrow crevasses and rocky gullies, the deep depressions, some filled with the freshest crystal clear water of the mountain streams, the occasional herd of deer on the lower slopes casting their gaze upwards and scattering as the small aircraft droned low overhead, below the prying radar. Tatiana spotted lone shepherd huts and the occasional village; as they made their way through valleys and over snow-capped peaks and the further north they went, the colder it became and the harsher the landscape appeared.
Dillon shifted in his seat, groaning with the effort of the movement.
“How are you feeling?” Asked Tatiana.
“Like a piece of tenderised meat. Beaten black and blue to within an inch of its life.”
“Much pain?”
“I’ve had worse,” said Dillon.
“Well, I’ll give you a shot of painkiller when we touch down, just to take the edge off. I think you’ll probably be stiff for a few weeks.”
“What’s new. It’s an occupational hazard.” Dillon gazed out of his side window, down at the mountains, the thought of his home being not far away, a tempting proposition as a stop-off. He rubbed the back of his head, mind spinning, confused after recent events. He glanced across at Tatiana — who was staring down at the landscape flowing like a river below them.
“How about you, Tats? Are you okay?”
Tatiana did not turn, her gaze fixed on some distant non-existent point.
“I’m fine.” Her voice was cold.
He reached over and took her hand and squeezed her warm flesh.
“I’m sorry about Ezra — what he did was brave and selfless. He did it to protect his people, his facility. But most of all, he did it because he knew what would happen if the content of that optical disc fell into the hands of the enemy. He was the key to their success — and their failure. He also knew that by sacrificing himself, he would be giving us more time and slow down their progress finishing the Chimera scripts… If this terrorist Ramus is in league with professor Kirill, he obviously wants that programme running perfectly, and obviously has big plans for it. And ifit really can take down the mainframes and networks of every major banking and finance institution around the globe, as Ezra said, then…”
“If?”
Dillon shrugged. “Sounds too far-fetched to me. But ifit can
— then whoever controls such a weapon, for that is what it is — will become extremely powerful and, in the process, wealthy beyond comprehension.”
“There’s more to it than that, Dillon.”
“Dillon frowned.”
“This programme — the blueprints that I saw when it was in its infancy of inception: they were mind-blowing. If it became fully operational in the wrong hands — it could completely re-map and take over the banking world. It would fuck-up every stock market around the planet. But more than that, it would worm its way into every computer in every government computer system, and it would not discriminate. It learns on the run, intuitively adapting itself, making itself invisible. But remains there, inside, waiting for the command. The command to terminate. Chimera is the ultimate weapon that will be in control of every weapon’s system in existence…” Tatiana rubbed taut muscles in the back of her neck, in an attempt to ease the tension.
“Don’t you see, Jake. Everything is computerised and connected to the biggest highway in the universe. The Internet. Everything…”
“A sobering thought, wouldn’t you say?” Dillon said with a brief sideways glance.
“Oh yes, it’s sobering alright, Dillon.”
She glanced back at him, her eyes red-rimmed. “I was really quite fond of Ezra, you know. Even though we didn’t always see eye-to-eye. He was an impressive man, who made the ultimate sacrifice because he knew it would give us more time. He knew that it would give you more time but…”