As she looked about the car with hooded eyes, she recognized the large bulk of Eldridge next to her and realized she had been handcuffed to him. But Matt was nowhere to be seen, and she wondered what that meant.
Had he escaped? She hoped with all her heart that this was the case. But what if he had been captured, and was in another car? What if he was dead? But the fact that she was still alive lent credence to the possibility that Matt was alive too. It made sense to hold her as a hostage if he hadn’t been killed yet.
The thought gave her hope, despite her current situation. If Matt was alive, then maybe they still had a chance.
7
Eldridge looked down at Lynn. ‘You might as well cut the pretence and open your eyes, Dr Edwards,’ he said bluntly. ‘I know you’ve been awake since the city.’
Lynn opened her eyes and stared at him. ‘Well, clever old you,’ she said sarcastically.
Eldridge smiled. ‘I don’t think you’re in any position to poke fun,’ he chided. ‘We are allowing you to live, for now. You would do well to remember that.’
She ignored him, and they proceeded in silence. The car drove through the gate to the CERN laboratories, a rather unassuming barrier that looked as if it was guarding nothing more than a regular, run-of-the-mill industrial estate. As they passed nondescript office blocks, temporary accommodation and the occasional larger concrete laboratory, Lynn wasn’t surprised to find that the rest of the complex, like the gate before it, was also not dissimilar to a standard industrial estate.
During her time in NASA, she had come to understand that many of the world’s most famous and highly regarded scientific facilities — the kind of places that the public imagined would be all spotless, gleaming stainless steel and high-end electronics — were in actual fact very often depressingly mundane, and it seemed that CERN was no different.
After a few minutes, they halted in front of what appeared to be the administrative headquarters. The front seat passenger got out and opened Eldridge’s door, and the big man got out, pulling Lynn along behind with him.
They pushed through the heavy front doors, and Lynn was surprised to see that the foyer was rather more plush than the exterior would suggest. But then, she figured, the research carried out here depended to a large extent on donations and external funding, and in her experience the people signing the cheques liked to be wined and dined in fine style.
There were a few people wandering around, and Eldridge was careful not to make a show of the fact he had a woman handcuffed to him. The desk security guard noticed but merely nodded his head at Eldridge.
They remained silent as they passed through the foyer, and Lynn noticed the first signs for the Large Hadron Collider, labelled in several different languages. They turned down a long corridor and followed it to the end, and despite circumstances, Lynn found herself excited to be here. The LHC was the world’s scientific Mecca, and she had always wanted to see it.
Eldridge noticed her interest and smiled. ‘Want to see the collider, eh?’ he asked. When Lynn just ignored him, he continued anyway. ‘Not on the agenda for today I’m afraid, Dr Edwards. But what you’re about to see is a lot more special, believe me.’
And although she hated the man next to her, Lynn suspected that in this case he might just be right.
They found the elevator at the end of the left-hand corridor and went straight in. Eldridge pushed the button for the LHC level, one hundred metres below the surface. Once the elevator had stopped, Eldridge removed a key card and entered it into a concealed slot, and the elevator started moving again, further into the bowels of the earth, and Lynn was instantly reminded of her similar subterranean trip back at Area 51.
Another minute later, surely another hundred metres below the tunnels of the LHC, the elevator eventually came to its final stop.
The door slid open to reveal an enormous, luxurious conference room. It was filled with people, well over a hundred, and as Lynn examined the faces, she was sure she recognized many of them.
There was Scott Keating, the famous Hollywood movie star; Roman Parlotti, the notorious Italian media magnate; Kristina Nyetts, the director of the world’s largest pharmaceutical company; Tony Kern, the special aide to the US President himself; and many more besides. So here they were, the Bilderberg Hundred, in addition to the men of the Alpha Brigade. The most powerful people in the world, all joined together in the hope of becoming more powerful still, no matter what it took.
And then her eyes wandered to the corner, and she saw Samuel Atkinson, the Director General of NASA, sipping casually from a champagne flute and chatting animatedly to Stephen Jacobs, the architect of this entire insane project.
Seeing her old boss, someone she had trusted and who had betrayed both her and her entire team, chatting to Jacobs as if he had not a care in the world, destroyed what little composure she had left.
‘Son of a bitch!’ she screamed at the top of her voice, and the room went deathly quiet as she launched herself across the room at the two men.
She was yanked backwards painfully by Eldridge who gave a sharp tug on the handcuff that still joined them. She tried to go again but Eldridge moved in and grabbed her in a bear hug, lifting her off her feet.
Atkinson looked at her, then down at the floor as recognition dawned. Jacobs felt no such guilt, though, and smiled across the room at her.
‘Ah, Dr Edwards,’ he said charmingly, ‘how good of you to join us. And as luck would have it, you’re just in time.’
8
Since the room was already quiet, Jacobs went on to address the assembled visitors.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, our mission here is an extraordinary one,’ he intoned, two lifetimes of public speaking ensuring he commanded everyone’s attention, ‘and we are extraordinary people. The road has been long and hard, consisting of twelve years of selection for our little group, and nearly seventy since contact was first made. Since then, we have used our influence around the globe to bring the whole world under our control. For we all know that it is not politicians who wield the power.
‘How long can a president stay in power, after all? In the United States, a maximum of eight years. You can stay in control of a company for eighty years, and the money wielded by congressional advocates on behalf of those companies ensures more political clout than any ten presidents combined. Actors, singers, writers, they change and influence the culture around us to a much greater extent than politicians can, or ever could, and yet they are not accountable to anyone.
‘What we have, gathered here today, are the one hundred most influential people in the world, people who have made the world what it is today. We have achieved this by all manner of manipulation, by corruption and, yes, sometimes through violence, but achieve it we have. As such, we are indispensable to the coming Anunnaki. We control the world as it is, so who else would they allow to survive? They need us, let us never forget that.
‘And we will soon have our reward. We will rule the world openly, and live in unimaginable luxury and comfort for the next thousand years. The world as we know it will be at an end, of course, but is this so regrettable? Humanity needs purging, we have grown too weak and need a re-injection of suffering in order to propel us to new achievements. And so I welcome our visitors, the Anunnaki, who, let us not forget, are our own ancestors, the original human race.
‘So without further ado,’ Jacobs concluded, gesturing to a set of gilded double doors behind him, ‘let us see for the first time what our efforts over the years have helped to fund and create.’