The killing has already begun; check your personal govlink to verify this.
You have perhaps five minutes before Assassins arrive in your private apartment.
Claudia smiled. It had to be a joke, right? A wind-up of monumental proportions by one or any numbers of her nerdy colleagues downstairs in the programme suite. The bastards! She had almost believed them!
The grin still beaming across her attractive face, she typed: # Who is winding me up?
# Not a wind up — check your Gov-link NOW… The word NOW continuously scrolled down the screen. The grin fell from Claudia’s face. She moved back into the bedroom and went quickly to the side of her bed, felt for and located what she was looking for, and withdrew it. She had pulled free a tablet computer. Hit the power switch and watched its screen come to life. The 10” screen split into six smaller screens, each with a live feed from the facilities own security surveillance cams. She punched in the digits for one of her co-workers apartment, and her mouth dropped open. Then closed again. Quickly.
There was lone black-clad figure; black balaclava; it was standing outside the bedroom door. It held a silenced machine pistol. It did not turn as another figure — another Assassin — dragged the man from the bedroom. A tiny neat hole in the centre of his forehead. His head twisted towards the camera, eyes staring blankly straight ahead. Blood was running down over his left eye and cheek, and dripped as he was being dragged across the tiled floor and dumped by the door. Claudia switched channels.
Bateman — hands held high above his head, a look of disbelief and horror on his face.
The knife flashed across his throat, severing major arteries cleanly, spraying blood up the wall and ceiling, spattering the large watercolour that he had loved so much. As he slumped down onto the hard floor in a heap, a red pool instantaneously gathered around his head.
Claudia flicked through the other channels.
More rooms were empty.
Some of them contained mutilated bodies.
She punched in another series of commands and a moment later the upper cargo level appeared on the screen. There were three Chinook transport helicopters, rotors idling, their cargo doors fully lowered and open, two of the three interiors revealing a plethora of dead bodies. Men and women, with whom Claudia had worked, bantered and talked with only a few short hours ago.
Claudia hastily moved back to her terminal.
The screen was blank.
Why? Screamed her brain.
Why are they doing this?
Why are they killing them? Because they know too much? Because of the blueprint leak?
She was sweating, suddenly panicked now. She ran back into her bedroom, opened the wardrobe, and pulled out a small prepacked travelling rucksack. She threw her laptop inside and zipped it back up. She paused for a moment, thinking, what the hell was her next move going to be. Claudia ran to the door and halted abruptly, hesitating before opening it. They could be in the corridor outside. They could be in the lifts. They could be watching her right now on the security system, ready to terminate her contract of employment — permanently…
She inhaled slowly, trying to calm her breathing.
Keep your wits about you: think how you are going to survive this nightmare.
She looked up, as the air-con cut in. Hissing quietly.
Claudia Dax went over to her desk and dragged a chair back to the shaft and, reaching up, used the bronze sculpture to dislodge the stainless steel grille. It was going to be a tight squeeze but — but then; did she really have a choice?
She ran back into her bedroom randomly pulled out clothes from her wardrobe, and scattered them across the floor and bed. Then she went to the kitchen and picked out a long handle floor brush from the utility cupboard. From the chair she could just about reach the rim of the shaft, which bit into the soft skin of her fingers, and hauled herself up into the narrow tight confines of the metallic shaft. With trembling fingers she manoeuvred the chair away from below with the brush handle, and then replaced the grille cover back into place, shifted her position just to the right of the grille and waited, her heart thumping in her ears.
Three minutes passed.
Claudia heard it; a tiny click. The front door to her apartment eased open. Two Assassins slid through the opening like ghosts; they moved silently from room to room. They were very thorough as they moved around her apartment, communicating only with hand signals. As quickly as they had arrived, they were gone again out into the corridor.
“She is not here.” The voice was soft and feminine.
“We will find her.”
“Report back to the control room; we’ll come back in ten minutes and check again then.”
They left the corridor.
Claudia pushed herself backwards along the narrow shaft, deeper in, the cool draught making her shiver, her proximity to death made her shiver even more. I don’t believe it, she kept telling herself. I just don’t believe it.
She moved on through the shaft, her mind pondering her current precarious situation. She had actually been lulled into believing that she was building Chimera to help in the fight against terrorism. Ezra had been the only one telling her the truth all along…
And now?
Now she was in the firing line.
Claudia Dax shivered again, and started to weep into her hands.
It was nearing dawn.
Kirill stood behind the parapet, watching the sun come up over some of the highest mountain peaks in Scotland, smoking a black Russian cigarette and enjoying the experience immensely. The freshly ground Columbian coffee, only adding to his pleasure.
A breeze stirred, and powder snow blew over his shoes.
He watched idly as black uniformed soldiers of Ramus’s personal security detail, supervised the loading of the facility’s hi-tech computer equipment into the cavernous belly of one of the Chinooks. The other helicopter was preparing to take-off, large rotors spinning, waiting to disappear to a secret location…
The comm. buzzed.
“Yes?”
“Are you ready? Have you ensured that everything has been removed, the last two helicopters are waiting to leave?”
“All technical items and Chimera related equipment have already been shipped to the mobile stealth facility. There is just the nuclear device to arm — I will send two Assassins to carry this out.” Tobacco stained teeth smiled in the glare of artificial lighting.
“Good. After all, we don’t want to leave your former masters in Whitehall with anything to allow replication of our unique toy, eh, Kirill? I assume that the individuals, who did not wish to join us, have now been liquidated?”
“All, except one employee; but I’ve got two of our best Assassins out tracking her down. But if they don’t find her, the explosion will.”
“Okay, Kirill — but you make sure she is found and dealt with.”
“I think the Scottish Government might be somewhat pissed off when we set off this nuclear device. It was considered a great compliment when the SAS chose to build their Arctic training centre here.”
“Save your sentiment, Kirill. I could not care less about governments and what they think. They can all go to hell, as far as I’m concerned.”