Martín had looked across at Jacqueline in despair; what could he tell them that would possibly help? If someone had stopped him in the street a week ago with the same information he had now, how would he have reacted? If he told them to flee Paris, they would think he was mad, and yet if he told them how to get to their hotel, he may live to regret it for the rest of his life. He’d sent messages to any family member or friend he could think of: simple and short, it had advised them to get away from any large cities. To people you knew that was an easy thing to do. It was something else entirely to stop random people on the streets and spread panic.
He remembered looking down at the little girl, twisting on her heels and humming a tune to herself as she gazed around the brightly-lit train station, her eyes wide with anticipation.
And so he had told them to flee.
Maybe it was the look of earnest in his eyes, the tone in his voice, possibly even having Jacqueline with him; after all, madmen rarely had accomplices, did they? In any case their ESA identity cards had definitely helped. And it was as he had explained to them: if he was wrong, they could get off at St Jean de Luz, and return the following day. He would pay their hotel, and even phone ahead to book a room just in case. Just as long as they passed Bordeaux; that was all he had asked.
Back on the train, he looked along the aisle to the other end of the carriage, where he could see the young girl was now jumping on her father’s lap. Their eyes met and they nodded at each other solemnly.
In the end it was a simple matter of planting that seed of doubt in a parent’s mind. And then their instinct to protect, combined with Martín’s powers of persuasion, meant that they only had one real option, and that was to get back on the train and leave Paris.
If Martín was wrong, then it was a ten hour round trip with two hyperactive children. On the other hand, that was a small price to pay if he was right.
They all hoped that wouldn’t be the case; and if he was wrong, he was due some holiday, anyway. Despite it being early days for their relationship, he thought it was an ideal opportunity for Jacqueline to meet his family.
The TGV would take them direct to San Sebastián, where they would hop on a relatively slow train to the family home in Asturias, sandwiched on a cliff-top between the snow-capped Picos de Europa and the rolling waves of the Bay of Biscay.
And so Martín closed his eyes and thought of home, his family and of Jacqueline as the last remnants of Parisian banlieue disappeared into the darkness.
Chapter 85
Mallus looked at the computer display: the warnings told him they were coming for him. Sooner than he had expected; but nonetheless, it had been expected.
Warnings were flashing all over the place, showing breaches on all sides and on the roof of DEFCOMM headquarters. Of course, he couldn’t see the soldiers enter the building – their light-bending body armour saw to that – but he knew the sensors never lied.
He had well-armed ex-military security personnel in the building – it wasn’t all sensors and alarms – but he decided not to send them in; it really didn’t matter anymore, because nothing could stop his code from executing in the SDN. He looked at his watch; only seconds to go.
He heard the footsteps before he saw the tell-tale warping of air in front of him. In case either of those details passed him by, the computer’s soft female voice told him someone else was in the room. It was interrupted by a gritty, military voice.
“Sir, you are under arrest. Step away from the keyboard and do not attempt any sudden movements.” The voice attached itself to a fully-suited soldier as the cloaking device was disabled halfway through the statement.
Mallus got to his feet slowly and took a step back, his hands in the air. The soldier was joined by two more who de-cloaked near the door. He was sure there were many more in the underground bunker. They would certainly find his stores and living compartments, the staff and guards who he had allowed into his circle of trust, and all the rest of the evidence needed to justify his arrest.
But that didn’t matter. With billions of taxpayer’s dollars invested in DEFCOMM over the years, many millions had been diverted into personal projects.
These included automated security systems: as the soldiers had walked round the building looking for him, they had already ingested hundreds, if not thousands, of microscopic capsules, which now circulated their bloodstream, waiting for the ultrasonic command that would unleash their deadly poison, targeting the victims’ central nervous systems. The capsules were contained in controlled bursts of vapour, fired from tiny concealed turrets along the main entrances and corridors of the building into the path of any intruders, which the system automatically identified as anyone without a valid ID chip in their forearm; you would need a spacesuit to get through unaffected, and he noted with satisfaction that these soldiers, while fully kitted-up, were not wearing full self-contained breathing apparatus. Instead, they wore the more comfortable and practical full-face respirators.
The respirator’s particulate filter was designed to remove any particles from air larger than a third of a micron. This represented over three hundred times smaller than the width of the average human hair, and was just sufficient to get rid of spores and bacteria such as anthrax. The capsules transmitted in the spray were little more than a quarter of a micron wide, and he knew from testing that his defence solution would have sailed straight through the filters, as if they hadn’t even been there.
The respirator’s second line of defence was, he knew, an activated charcoal filter; it would absorb impurities in the air, which would bind to the carbon, letting the treated air pass through. Nevertheless, even chemically treated charcoal, capable of extracting Sarin and any number of other known nerve agents, would let the silicone-based capsules through unhindered.
There was, he knew, no defence. Which was why to-date the experimental capsules had still not been certified for active use: if you couldn’t defend your own forces against it, you couldn’t use it in the field.
So, with one carefully selected voice-command from him to his computer, an ultrasonic wave would run through the building, killing all of the soldiers almost instantly.
He smiled as he looked the soldier in the eyes.
Seth Mallus, Aniquilus, would lead the New World that would rise from the ashes of the old. The loss of life was a shame, and the fallout would take time to disperse, but he would be there to see it through. His would be a different world, a more just world, safe from the out-of-control population explosions, energy crises, food shortages and petty wars and conflicts.
Sometimes, you had to start afresh, and only Aniquilus could make that happen. The ends would justify the means, he was sure of that. He looked down at his screen and saw the SDN’s display fill with missile trajectories as the war to end all wars finally began.
Looking into the soldier’s eyes coldly, he cocked his head slightly. He showed no fear, but saw only opportunity. This man, with his advanced training and high-tech weaponry, would be useful in the dark years to come.
“You’re too late,” he said simply. And as he explained the situation to the soldier, he made his proposition, taking great care not to mention that he was entirely responsible for the global devastation that was unfolding on the screen before them.
The phantom missiles crossed the Arctic Ocean and passed over the vastness of Canada. Their trajectories parted, and they homed in on their targets. Somewhere deep in the Satellite Defence Network, the sub-routine sent its alerts and confirmation codes.