The Shadow Project, page 11
“Thank you,” Dorothy said. “Take more than a stroke to send me off. Tough as old boots. Besides, I have things to do. Going home today, same as you. Only they’ve hid my clothes somewhere and I can’t find them. I was looking for a nurse when I came blundering in disturbing you.”
“I’m very pleased you did.”
“Me too,” Dorothy said. Then, inconsequentially, “You’re a very pretty girl.”
“Thank you.” It was nice to have a compliment after Michael’s rejection, even if it only came from an old woman. She decided she liked Dorothy, and even though she strongly suspected she shouldn’t ask, she did: “How is it you’re in the clinic, Dorothy?”
“Had a stroke, dear—I just told you.”
“No, I mean, how did you come to be in this clinic?” Opal smiled encouragingly.
“Search me, dearie. My boy arranged it all.”
“Your son?” Opal asked. Perhaps he was an MI6 operative.
“Grandson,” Dorothy said. “Just as well, too. I was out of it, let me tell you. Couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, no money to go private. It was National Health for me and no mistake. Fate worse than death. But you and me’s the lucky ones, ain’t we, Opal? We ended up in here. Nice place, innit? Know what I like most about it?”
“No,” Opal said, bemused.
“It’s clean,” said Dorothy. “Everything’s spotless. My room’s spotless. Your room’s spotless. The corridor outside is spotless. Won’t find superbugs lurking in here, I can tell you.” She leaned forward to stare into Opal’s face, smiling slightly—then, without the slightest warning, her eyes glazed over and her mouth fell slackly open.
“Dorothy?” Opal said.
The old woman sat immobile as a statue on the bed.
“Dorothy?” Opal said again in sudden panic. She leaned forward, then began to scramble out of the bed. Dorothy was having another stroke.
Opal was reaching for the bell that would call a nurse when Dorothy said, “Beware the Devourer!” The voice froze Opal. It was deep and resonant, scarcely human, and so loud, it echoed through the inside of her skull. She spun around to look at Dorothy, whose eyes were bright again, whose mouth was no longer slack. There seemed to be some sort of halo around her head, but it was fading fast.
Dorothy pushed herself to her feet. “Best be off now,” she said in her normal voice. “Need to get dressed and make myself presentable. Did I tell you I was going home today?”
“Yes,” Opal said, openmouthed. “Yes, you did.” Her mind was racing. What had just happened? There was something about the voice that chilled her to the bone.
Opal watched nervelessly as Dorothy shuffled toward the door. “Won’t be sorry,” Dorothy said, half to herself. “Nice enough place this, but there’s no bed like your own bed, is there? No place like home.”
32
Danny, the Shadow Project
Fran said, “I want to try an experiment.”
Danny said suspiciously, “What you want me to do?”
“You’re a bit of a natural. So I thought it might be interesting to try a new technique I’ve been working on.”
“Sure,” Danny said. “What is it?”
“Part of the gear here is a standing wave generator—I integrated it into the system just yesterday. Our specialists think it could trigger a projection without the helmet. This will be the first time we’ve actually tried it out. If you’re game?”
Danny thought he quite liked Fran. Now that she’d dropped the Bad Cop act, her bark seemed a lot worse than her bite. He didn’t know what a standing wave was, but anything that could get you out of your body without the helmet had to be an improvement on their electric chair. “Bring it on!” he said. “What do you want me to do?”
Fran looked pleased. “All I really want you to do is stand here,” she said, pointing. “On the chalk mark. That’s where the standing wave will generate.”
“Won’t I fall down?”
Fran blinked. “You’re right, you might—hadn’t thought of that.” She grabbed an upright chair and pushed it in his direction. “Sit on that, on the mark. You should be all right.” She paused, then added, “Or would you like me to tie you in?”
Danny grinned at her. “Some other time, eh? I think I’ll be fine.” He pushed the chair onto the chalk mark and sat down. “Where are you going to send me?”
“Nowhere,” Fran said. “The coordinates are set to this room, so you should simply come out of your body and stay”—she waved one hand vaguely—“around here somewhere.” She frowned suddenly and added severely, “I don’t want you flying off to see your grandmother again.”
“Promise,” Danny said. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Fran said. “You’ll hear quite a loud sound when I switch on, like a swelling organ note. But it will keep dropping in pitch until you think it’s stopped. Except it won’t have stopped, just dropped below the threshold of your hearing. There’s a possibility that you may be able to feel it as a vibration for a little while: some people are sensitive enough to pick that up. But once you stop hearing it, you can expect the standing wave to propagate within about five seconds.”
“I’ll wave to you as I come out of my body,” Danny grinned.
“That would be nice.” Fran smirked. “Are you all set?”
“Hit the juice!” Danny told her.
The organ note began at once and lasted longer than he expected, but dropped quickly in pitch until it was a low animal growl, then stopped altogether. Danny began to count mentally one hundred and one, one hundred and two, one hundred and three, one hundred and—
Something hideous hurled itself from a cabinet. It struck Danny with such force that he was flung from his chair to hurtle across the room and smash a glass-topped display. He landed bruised and dazed amid the wreckage on the floor. He had a fleeting impression of claws and fangs as the creature attacked Fran with such ferocity that it opened her arm from shoulder to wrist with a single slash. Blood spurted in a spray that fanned across the gleaming surface of the control panel. There was a scream as Fran went down, then the thing was on top of her, squatting on her chest.
Danny scrabbled wildly until his hand gripped something sound enough to support him as he climbed shakily to his feet. The thing on Fran’s chest glanced around to look at him with fiery eyes. “Hey!” Danny roared. He moved unsteadily toward it.
The creature made a sound that, horribly, could only have been a laugh. There was blood all around its mouth. It climbed slowly off Fran and began to lope toward him, crouched, eyes gleaming, growling softly.
Danny’s heart was racing and he wanted desperately to run, but he’d been in enough street fights to know that was the worst thing you could do. The creature was smaller than he was, about the size of an Alsatian dog, so maybe if he got his hands on it he could wring its neck. He was terrified after what he’d seen it do, almost paralyzed by fear, but he forced himself to move toward it. The thing stopped, watching him. Danny feinted to one side, then dashed forward, arms outstretched. He was feet away when the creature struck and ripped open his leg. He staggered, hit a table, and nearly fell again.
The thing rounded to attack him again, and he knew he was a goner. His leg felt on fire, and he couldn’t use it anymore, couldn’t run, couldn’t get away, and he was starting to think if he stood still he’d likely bleed to death. After which it hit him again, ripping a wound across his throat. The creature crouched, leaped, and it was definitely laughing.
Acting of its own accord, Danny’s hand reached out to grip the Tibetan phurba on the tabletop beside him. As the thing jumped at him again, he thrust out blindly.
There was an explosion of black light.
33
Opal, the Shadow Project
Opal felt wound up to the breaking point. First Michael humiliating her, then the old woman. She’d been absolutely sure Dorothy was having another stroke, absolutely sure she was going to die right there on the edge of the bed. Then the voice, so strange that she was beginning to wonder if she’d heard it at all. Now Dr. Holroyd was on his way to sign her out.
On his way to sign her out and she wasn’t even dressed!
Opal swung her feet out of the bed and ran for the wardrobe. Quickly she pulled on T-shirt, sweater, and jeans, looked for her shoes, couldn’t find them, found them, pulled them on while hopping on one leg, then sat down on the bed to wait.
She looked out the window, in a quandary over what to do about transportation. Should she ring for a car, or had the clinic organized one for her? She wouldn’t know that until Dr. Holroyd got here with the paperwork. Perhaps her father had arranged something. She wondered if he wanted her to go home or come straight to the Project. But she didn’t want to go home. She felt fine now, and she was bored after her stay in the hospital.
Bored and mad. She was angry with Michael now. No longer shocked at the way he’d positively stomped out just because she’d asked him to the ball, but actively furious. She suspected girls didn’t ask boys out in his country—some cultures were positively medieval the way they treated women—but talk about overreacting!
She was mad at Dorothy as well. She must have done the funny voice as a joke. But it was terrifying when you didn’t know the person. Especially when they said, “Beware the Devourer!” That sounded like something out of a horror movie.
Where was Dr. Holroyd? Opal was annoyed with him for keeping her waiting. She flicked on the TV and glared at some stupid soccer match.
She was anxious to go back to the Project. She wanted to find out if they’d caught the Skull and what they planned to do about that terrifying old man who’d trapped her when everybody said that wasn’t possible—
Opal stopped. It wasn’t a soccer match on the television, just the sports section of a news program, and they’d gone back to the main bulletin. The screen was showing an airport, Heathrow probably, with passengers disembarking from a plane. What caught her attention was Guy Manton, a friend of her father, who worked at the Ministry of Defence, shaking hands with two men at the bottom of the steps.
“…Spiros Avramides,” the voice-over was saying, “and his associate, Peter Kanska.”
Then the clip finished, and they were back in the studio as the broadcaster smiled directly into the camera and said, “And now let’s find out what the weather has in store for us.”
Opal switched off the television, but somehow could not take her eyes off the screen. It was as if the images at the airport had burned themselves onto her brain. The plane, the passengers, the runway. Spiros Avramides and Peter Kanska shaking hands with Uncle Guy. The cameraman had been some distance away, but he’d used a zoom lens, so the faces were visible enough. Even in the second or two before the clip finished, she had no problem recognizing them.
Her paralysis broke and she scrambled for her cell phone. To hell with Dr. Holroyd—she had to get back to the Project now. She thumbed her speed dial for the Project, gave her code ID, and asked the switchboard to transfer her to the motor pool. She didn’t recognize the voice that answered, but it didn’t matter: her ID was enough to get a car dispatched to the clinic. “Priority,” she said.
As she cut the connection, there was a knock on her door. Bloody Dr. Holroyd at last, exactly when she really didn’t need him. Well, she had too much on her mind to start filling out a bunch of silly forms. She—
But it wasn’t Dr. Holroyd, it was Michael. Opal stared at him. For a moment she waited for him to apologize, to tell her of course he would escort her to the ball, but then she saw the strain on his face, the fear in his eyes.
Michael said, “You have to come at once—something’s happened. I have your driver and a car outside.”
34
Opal, the Shadow Project
Michael didn’t mention what had happened between them earlier. Nor did Opal when she saw his face. There were armed guards in the car. Their driver, Harry Byrne, was also carrying a gun, tucked into a shoulder holster. Harry never went armed. Nobody in the Project wore shoulder holsters.
Something horrible had happened.
Michael didn’t know the details, but she realized it was serious when Harry took them through the tunnel entrance rather than the gate. And security was tighter than she’d seen it, ever. There were uniformed soldiers everywhere, with semiautomatic rifles.
Then they arrived at her father’s office, and all she needed was a glance at their faces. Her father, George Hanover, and Gary Carradine—all three of them looked as though someone had been assassinated.
Her father walked directly toward them as they entered the room. His face was the color of cigar ash as he said, “I’m terribly sorry, Opal. Fran is dead.”
Opal stared at him as if he’d struck her. Then she decided she must have misheard. But the tightness in her stomach didn’t ease. Nor did the sense of shock. She felt someone take her hand and realized it was Michael. “What?”
Her father said, “Something dreadful has happened. I’m afraid Fran is dead.”
Opal said breathlessly, “What are you talking about?”
Michael said, “It’s true, Opal. Fran Hitchin is dead.”
“That’s not possible.” She didn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe it. But if anything, it was the sheer brutality of her father’s announcement that convinced her. He’d always been that way. Bad news was something to get out in the open and deal with. He would no more have considered breaking it gently than lying. All the same, she caught her breath and said, “She can’t be.” Then, when her father said nothing, she said, “What happened? Was she ill?”
She heard Mr. Carradine release something close to a sigh before he said, “She was murdered.”
She turned to look at him blankly. “Who killed her?”
“Danny,” Carradine said.
“We think Danny,” her father amended.
“It’s just happened,” George Hanover told her. “They were working together.”
“Danny?” Opal echoed. She glanced at Michael, who was still holding her hand. Danny had assaulted Michael. But assault was a long way from murder. She looked back at her father. “Are you sure?”
Carradine shrugged. “He was the only one with her.”
“But somebody from outside—”
“No signs of forced entry. Just the two of them together in the room. They were working on projection training. Fran locked the outer door—standard procedure.”
George Hanover said, “We’ll know exactly what’s happened when we review the tapes.”
Carradine said, “Meanwhile Danny Lipman is in custody.”
Her father said, “But this isn’t why we called you in, you and Michael.”
Opal was so upset, she scarcely took in what he’d said. It was Michael who asked, “Why did you call us in, Sir Roland?”
Roland reached out to lay a protective hand on his daughter’s arm. “We’ve received intelligence of a possible attempt on Opal’s life.”
35
Opal, the Shadow Project
“Who’d want to kill me?” Opal asked, bewildered. She still couldn’t understand what was happening, but part of her wondered if this could have anything to do with Fran’s murder.
“Épée de la Colère—Sword of Wrath—apparently,” George Hanover said. “According to MI5.”
“Sword of Wrath doesn’t even know I exist!” Opal exclaimed, looking from face to face. But even as she spoke, she realized it was nonsense. Sword of Wrath was run by the Skull. And the Skull—or rather, the Skull’s adviser—had caught her spying. The old man, Farrakhan, hadn’t believed her story for a moment, and she’d stupidly given him both her name and her location. Admittedly it was only her first name, but that would make little difference. It might not be possible to track down a particular girl named Opal in a city the size of London if you were starting from scratch, but all you had to do was start with the premise that Opal worked for MI6—which would make sense if she was a British spy—and your job got a whole lot easier. Any good espionage service would quickly find out that the senior MI6 executive, Sir Roland Harrington, had a daughter named Opal who matched the age and description of the girl they were looking for. After that, it was only a matter of time before their agents caught up with her. “Oh my God,” she breathed.
“You’re in no danger here, of course,” her father said, “but they are looking for you. The question is why?” He knuckled one eye tiredly. “I think it may have been a mistake not to debrief you straightaway.”
She caught the awkward looks on the faces of the others. It was a strict rule that agents must be fully debriefed at the earliest possible moment after their return, and her father had broken it. She’d told him what happened, of course, told him about the Skull and the two men who’d visited him, told him about the old man who somehow managed to imprison her second body, but that didn’t amount to a full debriefing. That would have involved days, perhaps weeks, of questioning by Carradine and his staff, the sifting through every nuance of her conversations, relentless examination of whole computer libraries of photographs in an attempt to identify the people she’d seen. There might even have been hypnosis to help her fill any blanks in her memory. But she’d been so shaky when she returned that her father had cut through all of that, sent her directly to the clinic for her tests.
Carradine cut through the silence. “Maybe we shouldn’t waste any more time…?”
Sir Roland stared at him for a moment, then said abruptly, “You’re right. We must start this at once. It will take precedence over Fran’s murder.” The living came before the dead. It was an MI6 maxim.
Carradine said, “I have my people on Fran’s case. They’re studying the surveillance tapes and will get back to us.”
“Can Michael sit in?” Opal asked suddenly. Despite his earlier behavior, she found his presence comforting.
