‘Morning, darling. Coffee?’ Tom whispered.
She managed a weak smile, which vanished the minute she saw Deiter. Frederick was also awake and eyeing his captor warily.
‘I trust you all slept well?’ Deiter enquired. When nobody answered he continued. ‘As you can see, the experiment is progressing as planned.’ He turned to the TV, which was showing the devastation caused by the floodwaters along the Gold Coast. ‘It’s a pity that none of you will be around to see the final conclusion.’
He watched the scenes intensely, enraptured by the catastrophic damage caused by the tsunami. He forced himself to turn away. ‘Still, look on the bright side. At least you won’t have to spend years in a maximum security prison for a crime you didn’t commit. Inspector Gervaux is convinced that the three of you, along with Ajay, are some sort of scientific terrorist cell. He suspects you are on the run and has set up road blocks, closed the airports and train stations and has hundreds of men combing the countryside looking for you. You’re quite famous, really. All the news stations are running the story, along with the pictures of you that I kindly provided Inspector Gervaux with. So, when your bodies are discovered in the Collider, it can all be explained away as a tragic accident. Unbeknown to anybody, you must have holed up there, waiting for the heat to die down before you made your getaway — all very dramatic stuff. The media are going to lap it up.’
‘Leaving you in the clear to wreak havoc on the world,’ Tom concluded.
‘Precisely,’ Deiter beamed.
‘And what if we don’t go along with your plan?’ Serena asked.
‘Then I’ll shoot you here and drag your bodies into one of the service tunnels.’
‘Won’t that look a bit suspicious?’ she countered.
‘Not really. The public have already been warned not to approach any of you as you are armed and extremely dangerous. So, all we have to do is tell the authorities that we discovered you whilst doing a routine inspection of the tunnels and tried to apprehend you. You resisted, shots were fired, but thankfully you were the only casualties. I don’t think there’s going to be much sympathy from the general public about your demise. In fact, I can see myself as being a bit of a hero.’ Deiter seemed to thrive on this idea. ‘Your choice. Shall we go?’
Tom couldn’t see much of a choice. He had never really considered how he would die. He had always assumed that it was far enough in the future not to worry about it. But, at the moment, that future was beginning to look decidedly close. He certainly didn’t want to be shot where he sat, like a rat in a trap. And, whilst he was still alive, there was always the possibility that he could escape. No, he had to escape. Perhaps there would still be an opportunity for the three of them to overpower the guards on the way down to the Collider. It had to be worth a risk.
‘Okay, let’s get on with it,’ Tom instructed, with as much courage in his voice as he could muster.
‘Good, I’m glad you’ve seen sense. Who wants to go down first?’
Fuck! So much for plan A.
CHAPTER 30
Inspector Gervaux had commandeered the whole floor above his office and turned it into an incident room, much to the chagrin of the filing clerks who had previously occupied it. He had direct communication with all points of exit from the country. Roadblocks had been set up on all major and minor roads. Photos of the four terrorists had been widely circulated, the media doing their bit for once. He had requested and been granted additional personnel from the Swiss army to strengthen the border crossings. He had over a hundred officers on the ground conducting door-to-door enquiries. Helicopters had been deployed to carry out wide-sweeping aerial searches. This was the biggest manhunt that Switzerland had ever seen. So why wasn’t there so much as a single sighting of the fugitives?
‘Are you certain you covered off every single inch of the complex?’ Gervaux must have asked this question of Sergeant Lavelle over a dozen times during the last twenty-four hours.
‘Yes, I told you. I supervised the search personally,’ Lavelle replied exasperated.
‘Then where are they? Not a single sighting, not even a hoax call.’ Gervaux turned back to the whiteboard on which the four individuals’ photographs were pinned at the top, the rest of the board being completely blank.
‘How are we getting on tracking their mobile phone signals?’ He was staring searchingly at the photos in the hope they would give up their owners’ whereabouts.
Lavelle shifted uncomfortably. ‘Nothing. There hasn’t been a signal transmitted since around midday yesterday, which was when we saw them last.’
‘How many officers did you leave at CERN?’
‘Two at each entrance and a four-man dog team patrolling the perimeter.’
‘Something doesn’t stack up. We follow them into a disused building and they just vanish off the face of the earth. We’re missing something.’ Gervaux ran a hand through his receding hair, then seemed to make up his mind. ‘Get your coat, Lavelle. You and I are going to have another look at that building.’
CHAPTER 31
As Gervaux and Lavelle were leaving the office for the short drive to CERN, Serena’s hands were being re-tied above her head to TIM — or Train Inspection Monorail, to give it its full title. The ‘train’ itself consisted of three stainless steel wagons, each about the size of four microwave ovens laid end to end: control, motor and battery. A pan-tilt zoom surveillance camera, spotlight, anti-collision detector and emergency stop button were fitted to each end of the train. The rail, which was anchored to the roof of the tunnel, ran around the entire length of the Collider. The train was piloted remotely from the safety of the control centre and had a top speed of 10km/hour. TIM could send back crucial data on environmental conditions within the tunnel, a task that would otherwise be impossible to achieve manually due to the extremely high levels of radiation whilst in operation.
Serena’s bodyweight was being supported by the platform she was standing on, some ten metres above the floor of the tunnel. Her arms were stretched to capacity and secured to the control section of the small train by PlastiCuffs, forcing her onto tip-toes to relieve the burning sensation in her shoulders.
She glanced back and could see Frederick about four feet behind her; he was bound to the motor carriage and was also finding it difficult to alleviate the discomfort. A further four feet beyond him and, hitched to the final wagon, was Tom. Being that much taller than both of them, he didn’t appear to be having the same issues. He nodded a reassurance to her, but she could tell from the fear in his eyes that the gesture lacked sincerity and did little to console her.
‘As you’ve probably worked out, you’ll be going on a little ride,’ continued Deiter. ‘Unfortunately, I could only get you one-way tickets.’ He stepped back from the passengers, admiring his efforts. The two armed guards were already making their way down the metal ladder to the safety of the control room, having performed their duties impeccably.
It had taken nearly thirty minutes to get to where they were now. They had avoided the most direct route from the Bunker, which would have taken them less than half that time, through the main tunnel; instead, they had traversed through a warren of deserted corridors and service shafts, in order to elude detection.
Whilst waiting for the other two to join him, Tom had already run through the probable scenario of his demise in his mind. The proton beams would travel along low magnetic permeability stainless steel tubes for the majority of their 27-kilometre journey around the Collider and, as such, present little risk to life. However, at the four points where the two opposing beams impacted, the composition of the tubes would change to Beryllium, a metal chosen for its transparency, to radiation.