Brett headed back to the driver’s side of his car.
“The passenger seat, Chief,” I said.
He raised a hand and walked around to the other side, ducked in, and slammed the door. Jack closely tracked him with the rifle. He looked over the roof at me. “Are you sure about this?”
“Let’s play out our hand. He seems genuine. We need some food, water, and clean clothes,” I said.
“We’re going into the enemy’s camp. If I suspect a single thing… I’ll take him out.”
“Jack, no more shooting unless we face a confrontation. We got away from Ron’s, God knows how. Don’t put us in that position again unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
He shrugged. “I’m just saying it’s an option.”
Jack climbed into the rear directly behind Brett. I familiarized myself with the controls, flicked on the lights, and turned the car around.
“Which way, Brett?” I asked.
“Straight on. I’ll tell you when to turn.”
Nobody spoke as we traveled the short distance to a deserted farmhouse. Brett used his radio to confirm his arrival and directed me to park at the side of the property.
“It’s a walk from here,” he said.
We headed away from the farmhouse and across a sodden field. I could see the logic: park the cars at one place, then continue on foot to the real location. Brett carefully slogged through the mud. It wasn’t a concern for Jack and me; our filthy clothes and boots couldn’t get any dirtier.
After scrambling through a hedge, I could see a dim outline of a building in the distance, flanked on both sides by trees. Brett stopped and clicked his radio. “About to arrive with our two guests.”
A red laser appeared on my chest. I looked across at Jack, who also noticed, and we both instinctively dived for cover.
“Don’t worry, guys—it’s a laser pointer. On nights like this, it’s a handy way of avoiding the swamp to our left. Come on—we need to get inside.”
Brett continued forward. I followed a few yards behind, trying to position Brett between the thin red line and myself. If a sniper had us in his sights, the game was up anyway. When we got within a few yards of the two-story house, its front door creaked open. Brett wiped his boots on the mat outside and entered without saying a word. Jack and I followed into the gloom. All rooms appeared to be in total darkness.
Two figures moved out of the shadows. I tensed and curled my finger around the rifle’s trigger.
“This way,” a male voice said.
We thumped over creaking wooden floorboards, along a narrow hallway, to an internal trapdoor at the end of it. Steps led down into further darkness. I held my hand against the rough brick wall for guidance as I descended. Flecks of old paint cracked and flicked off it as I swept my hand down.
A light flared into life, causing me to squint and peer half-lidded into a musty-smelling room. The basement wasn’t decorated like a hidden emergency bunker. Rusting bicycle frames and farm implements were stacked against the right side, next to old boxes and tools. A table with six chairs and three silver suitcases sat in the middle. At the back, four mattresses with sheets scruffily pulled over them lined the wall.
“This is our crash location,” Brett said. “There’s a small kitchen and store through that door on the right.”
“How many of you are here?” I said.
“There’s six out on guard and four in the house, including me.”
I swept back my greasy hair and received a sharp reminder from my wounded arm. “Don’t suppose you’ve got a first-aid kit?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
He disappeared into the storeroom and returned with a roll of crisp white cloth, bottled water, and prepackaged burritos, and sat at the table. Jack and I joined him, and he pushed the items across.
“Get cleaned up and have a bite to eat, guys,” he said. “It’s the best I can do.”
I poured water over my arm and wrapped the cloth around it. A crimson pool immediately formed on the cloth, so I wound another three layers around the cut.
We probably smelled revolting, but I didn’t feel a shred of guilt about that. Jack and I hungrily demolished the snacks and drained the bottles of water. Brett watched and forced a smile. Now that I had the chance of getting more information on GA and the next activation, I wasn’t going to let it slip. I decided to try the soft approach.
“What’s your story?” I asked. “You seem like a decent guy. How did you end up getting involved?”
“I worked on a network planning project in the UK. It was coming to an end so I made my CV available on the CommServe website.”
“CommServe?” Jack asked.
“It’s a specialist website for IT developers. A bloke called Steve from Fairfax Industries e-mailed me the next day and asked if I was interested in meeting him in London. I googled them and found they had a huge renewable energy division that stretched all over the world.”
“Renewable energy?” I said. “I don’t get the link.”
“Who would? They were big, interested, and offered a decent daily rate on an extended contract for a position on their technology team. I popped a few champagne corks at simply having an opportunity to speak with them and looked forward to the meeting.”
Jack frowned. “What’s this got to do with anything?”
Brett’s face dropped, and he glowered at Jack. “Everything. Steve e-mailed again with directions to their London office on Euston Road. I turned up in my best suit, feeling confident after doing plenty of research on Fairfax Industries. He guided me very politely into a small office with a single chair and a plasma screen on the wall. I thought it must be some kind of orientation.”
In a dark corner of the basement, a man bitterly laughed. “You had it easy compared to me.”
Brett rolled his eyes and continued. “A video started playing, showing my wife and kids on a street, being bundled into the back of a black Range Rover. It cut to a close-up of my wife’s crying face. She said, ‘Brett, if you do as they say, they’ve promised to let us go. They’re watching you all the time, and if you speak about this to anyone, we’ll be executed.’ ”
Jack sat back in his chair. “Fuck me, are you serious?”
“You couldn’t make this shit up,” Brett said. “The screen went black, and I looked around the room in complete shock. I jumped out of the chair and tried to leave, but the door was locked. They left me there for an hour. Steve eventually opened the door; he was flanked by two large men and simply said, ‘You can go now, be ready to start work in a week.’ ”
“Christ, what happened after that?” I asked.
“Before I left, they showed me photos of a dead man with a woman and child, riddled with bullets in a shallow grave. The man apparently told the authorities about GA. They didn’t believe him. You can guess the rest. I felt scared and drained. What could I do? I left the building and went straight home. The organization seemed to be so big and slick that it would be like an ant trying to fight a shoe.”
“The more I hear about these people…” I trailed off. Just as I thought GA couldn’t get any worse, I found out they press-ganged poor buggers into working for them too.
“A week later, they couriered tickets to my house, and I traveled to Estonia. They picked me up at the airport and whisked me to a compound just outside Tallinn. The workers called it ‘Doctor Death’s Military Academy.’ Most of us were in similar situations, and no one dared disobey orders. We had a simple goal of bringing a global communications network online. To effectively activate all the devices simultaneously.”
Brett held his head in his hands. I considered what I’d do in his situation and concluded I would probably act in a similar way. Although as a part of the technology team, he couldn’t have been completely blind to the ultimate solution. “Hold on, if GA is activating these gizmos simultaneously, why the need for local controllers like Jerry?”