THE CAMBRIDGE ANNEX: THE TRILOGY Read online

  “So, it’s a German communications satellite owned by Fernsehen Zentral for their fucking TV programs,” he told the room as phones were returned to cradles and eyes turned towards him. “God damn it, give me one good reason why I shouldn’t blast the thing to hell!” he cried.

  He took a breath and quickly calmed. “Get a hold of the American Ambassador in Germany please. This satellite is commercial and his baby,” he said somewhat sourly.

  “And the launch technology?” Glen asked in a murmur.

  Pat nodded. The launch technology was another matter, and he stared at the world map that stood on the facing wall, imagining the impact that a new launch vehicle would have on the world stage, one that could lift at least 4 tonnes and put a satellite into geosynchronous orbit. The implications were staggering.

  “Let’s make sure the Pentagon is fully briefed. We’re going to need men on the ground as well as reconnaissance photographs in order to determine just who and what has this launch ability,” he proposed.

  “Yes. The presence of a new satellite in orbit is obviously of great concern. But I’m much more concerned by the technology that put it there,” Glen said. “No one in Europe has a platform of sufficient power or size to lift something this large and apparently heavy into a GE Orbit.”

  “Well, they do now,” Pat pointed out.

  “Begs the question; why didn’t we know of this before now.”

  +++++++++++++++++

  The large black four-wheel drive vehicle, its windows tinted black, came to a slow stop outside one of the studios of Fernsehen Zentral. For all its attempts at obscurity and privacy, the CD plates on the front and back gave it away as an American Embassy car. Inside the vehicle sat three square jawed young Americans, dark suits and conservative ties, dark glasses obscuring their pale blue eyes. One drove, one took pictures, and the third watched and waited, a satellite phone beside him.

  Within the perimeter fence and across an extensive car park stood a large studio, warehouse in size, its double doors open to reveal an empty clean-room inside. Whatever had been there had gone and only a gantry remained, six metres long, two wide.

  The young and clean-cut American seated beside the driver took pictures with his Nikon while the man in the back picked up the satellite phone to talk to his masters. As he moved to select the location for his call he stopped, his eyes drawn to the car that was slowly driving by them.

  As dark as their own, the new car sat low on its suspension, as if heavily laden. Having seen the interior of the studio, it picked up speed and drove off. The Americans had seen its number plate though, and knew it was registered to the Russian Embassy.

  As the call progressed, yet another car drove by; a grey Mercedes with three very distinctive Chinese men inside.

  +++++++++++++++++

  Bonn City authorities reacted quickly to the warnings from both the Russian and the American authorities. They immediately introduced a half mile exclusion zone about the studio and created an isolation camp for all the personnel who had been in it. Special units began arriving, container-like offices, showers and laboratories slung under huge Mi14 helicopters were lowered into position on the perimeter of the exclusion zone, before they filled with faceless men in orange anti-radiation suits.

  Senior members of the Bundespolizei arrived at the offices of Fernsehen Zentral to discuss the occurrences of the night, and Jonas was called into the meeting by his superiors to provide details. Once they learnt that he had been present at the launch, he was bustled quickly into an ambulance and taken to the rapidly growing isolation unit.

  As if the Bonn City authorities didn’t have enough on their hands, requests marked ‘Urgent, Respond Immediately’ arrived from the Mayor’s office. Both the Russian and American Embassies had requested a list of all foreign nationals staying in Bonn hotels over the previous five days.

  +++++++++++++++++

  John Dalton parked the rental car at the drop-off point in the basement of the Frankfurt International Airport car park, and took the lift to the departure hall for Terminal 2.

  The layout was simple compared to that of Heathrow, and he quickly found the check-in desk. There though, he had to queue for almost half an hour as each person in front of him seemed to need protracted personal attention with their bags or their travel documents.

  John tried not to look too nervous as the armed police who kept a watchful eye for terrorists sauntered back and forth, but he had begun to notice the cameras; dozens of them recording every movement made in the terminal.

  Sweat broke out on his brow as he thought of the intelligence men watching him from their darkened room, their whispered instructions to the plain-clothed men on the floor, any of whom could be watching him, right that very second.

  His turn at the desk came, and he hurriedly gave the desk clerk his passport, then mechanically answered the woman’s questions while he tried not to look too obviously at everything around him.

  The woman at the desk gazed at the passport for an overly long period of time. He was certain they were ready to close in on him as she typed his passport number into her system, her smile deserting her as she gazed at the information on her screen.

  John looked about him as his nerves got the better of him, his eyes darting back and forth as he tried to discern the best method of escaping the horde of plain-clothed men ready to pounce upon him.

  “There we are sir. Sorry for the delay,” the check-in attendant said, smiling politely at him as she returned his passport, his boarding card tucked safely between its pages.

  He smiled his thanks as he picked them up, and made his way quickly towards Security and the departure lounge.

  There was another queue at Security as the old style metal detectors seemed to bleep at every person who stepped through them.

  John whimpered, and recognising the sound as his own, bit his lip in an effort to keep quiet. There were four or five guards to each machine and, above them, hanging from a slender metallic tube, another camera.

  John tried not to look at the little dark lenses as they peered down towards him, but his mind was full of their presence and their scrutiny of him.

  His turn at the machine came, and he put his case, jacket, belt and watch in the plastic crate to make its way through the X-ray machine while he stepped hurriedly through the metal detector, almost certain someone would stop him.

  He tried smiling at the stern faced guard as the unit remained silent, and walked to the far end of the conveyor to pick up his belongings. Perhaps he had been unnecessarily worried, he considered.

  His hands and legs shook with the adrenaline pouring through him as he slid his belt through his trousers once more and returned his watch to his wrist. He was still fumbling with the strap when a guard stepped forward and indicated his case. “Yes, I’m taking it now,” John said, thinking the man wanted the plastic crate back. His urgent need to move on, away from the cameras and their surveillance returned threefold causing him to fumble with his case, his heart hammering with his need for haste.

  “Kann ich, bitte?” asked the guard loudly and firmly.

  “What?” John asked, his German poor, even when he could concentrate. “What? No, not now, later!” he begged, his breathing ragged and his brow running with sweat. He pulled his case free and turned to hurry into the Duty Free area while shouts rang out behind him.

  “Turn them off!” John shouted, swivelling around under the massive presence of all those cameras. He whimpered, lifting his case to press it to his chest, his hand awkwardly turning on the grip as his thumb was painfully bent backwards. “Turn them off, do you hear?” he screamed, sweat and tears blurring his vision.

  There were more strident cries and John saw more guards running forward, hands working to free their guns. He lifted his arms, his case held between them, and felt the harsh strike of bullets against his chest, the force driving him back and over, his sight blurring even as he hit his head painfully on the polished marble floor.

&
nbsp; +++++++++++++++++

  Michael sat in the grandly named Press Room of the Cambridge Chronicle, waiting anxiously for one of the media companies to pick up on news of the new satellite and the mystery of how it got up there. CNN, Bloomberg, SKY, all the main players seems to be oblivious to the new participant in the space and media game, or had been told to remain quiet.

  Late in the morning another story broke, about an exclusion zone having been placed around the studio just outside of Bonn of a TV Station, after it was believed that there had been a large leakage of radiation from just outside their gates.

  Michael forced a chuckle and shook his head. He had to admire how well the authorities reacted to the unknown. They threw shit at it. Some of it would stick, obviously. He hoped not a lot.

  By mid afternoon he had become reconciled to the news of the launch remaining private, at least for the moment, when suddenly there was another major news item to take his attention.

  “News just coming in from our correspondent in Frankfurt,” Nancy Peters from the CNN news desk was saying. “Frankfurt International Airport has been closed following the shooting of a possible suicide bomber. Brad Solomon is over there for us. Brad, what can you tell us about this shooting?”

  “Yes Nancy. Apparently a Caucasian male aged about 40, well dressed and groomed, got pretty much all the way through Security before a member of the security staff, suspicious of what was in his case but also of his manner, his demeanour, challenged him to open his case.

  “At that point the man attempted to rush towards the duty free shops where there were possibly fifty to sixty passengers browsing the goods. He was told to stop, at which point he raised his case and the police, fearing he was about to detonate some sort of device, shot him in the chest.”

  Michael looked at the grainy pictures released by the German authorities from one of the CCTV cameras and his sense of foreboding sunk beneath the weight of grief. A car exploded in his mind, again and again, and again.

  “We understand the man was rushed by ambulance to the nearby University Hospital, but died en route.”

  He sat heavily on his chair without having realised he was standing and looked at his empty desk rather than at the screen as the report continued.

  Nancy had turned to the weather for the region over the next 24 hours before Michael felt able to return his eyes to the screen.

  +++++++++++++++++

  “Gentlemen, if it were really British, do you think we would have used it to lift a German Satellite?” Sir Arthur Coleman asked the American, Russian and Chinese men on the video link.

  “Oh, cut the crap, Sir Arthur. “The war wasn’t even in your life-time, so what do you care?” the American asked angrily.

  “Someone has new technology, but they are also stealing work from the others. Fernsehen Zentral had an agreement with ROSCOSMO to lift that satellite. This is theft!” the small Russian man shouted angrily.

  “Well, I assure you, it wasn’t the British!” Sir Arthur told him tersely.

  “A satellite today, a missile tomorrow,” the Chinese delegate told them.

  “Really? I think history shows us that the opposite is true, Minister.” Sir Arthur said.

  “It is in all our interests to find this marauder,” Pat told the room.”They’ll be taking business from all of us.”

  “Britain does not have a launch capability,” Sir Arthur reminded the American.

  “European then!” Pat cried with frustration.

  “Mainly French in reality,” Sir Arthur pointed out.

  “This is getting us nowhere. If we cannot agree, then we disagree,” the Russian stated. “And disagreement now will mean division of our resources when we should be working together!”

  “Can we at least agree to share information?” Pat asked soothingly.

  “I don’t see how that is in our interests, General,” Sir Arthur told the American as he settled in for a long meeting. “Certainly not with America’s track record.”

  “You have been bleating for information sharing at every turn, and suddenly it is not in your interests?” the Chinese noted.

  “You suggest that Britain is the only country that shares information for its own gain?” Sir Arthur asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “I suggest you know more than you are telling us,” the Russian observed.

  “But why should I share such information?” Sir Arthur asked. “What’s in it for me, gentlemen, what’s in it for me?”

  +++++++++++++++++

  “No Sir. No. I can categorically state, there is no radioactivity, toxic gas, harmful substances or pollutants generated by our technology,” Cheryl said over her phone.

  She was parked at a petrol station somewhere between Cologne and Dusseldorf, a list of clients resting on her lap while she tried to phone each one and allay their fears. They in turn were all trying to get in touch with her, the latest news out of Bonn causing serious concern.

  +++++++++++++++++

  Dr Joanne Cannon swept through the Halls as she made her way to Professor Rolle’s office. Her face was strained and her stride long, more than enough to stop anyone from greeting her or trying to stop her for a conversation.

  She nodded to Rolle’s part-time secretary as she swept through his outer office, then closed the door quietly behind her to look worriedly towards the professor, seated behind his desk with the telephone at his ear.

  “No, thank you Sir, we appreciate your phone call,” he said, finishing the call and sighing as he put the phone down.

  “That was Doctor Wackman from the Bonn University,” he explained.

  “Did something go wrong?” Dr Cannon asked.

  “Go wrong? Of course not Doctor. This isn’t anything the Howard chemical would or even could create; that’s absolutely and chemically impossible,” he stated firmly. “No, I suspect this is a ploy by either the Americans or the Russians to discredit our product, and dissuade anyone else from using it.”

  “Well, I should think it’s doing its job rather well,” Dr Cannon suggested.

  Rolle nodded. “I need to talk to Cheryl and make sure she’s on top of this. We were rather hoping the first big launch would help our credibility and allow us to raise our prices. I think that’s pretty much shot at the moment,” he admitted.

  “Alright. I’ll talk to the top people in the German universities. Fight fires where I need to, and squirrel out any further information where I can,” she told him, and with a nod was gone.

  Rolle turned to the phone once more and tried contacting Cheryl, but her phone was engaged.

  May 21st

  The news finally broke at 2am Central European Time. Michael watched CNN and then BBC 24 as news of a launch from the outskirts of Bonn was announced, followed by details of upheaval in the city after the immediate creation of a seclusion zone around the launch site was introduced. News reports spoke frequently about the dangers that the launch had created, although none of them was able to find a scientist who could quantify what the dangers were. Nonetheless, thousands of people had received medical examinations while hundreds of scientists had begun testing the soil, buildings and water for contamination.

  Fernsehen Zentral was adamant that the process used to launch their satellite was safe, but were unable to give any details of how exactly their satellite had been put into space. Meanwhile, scientists from the USA and Russia muttered in general terms about unknown radioactive elements and the risks of allowing unknown processes to be conducted so close to areas of large population. They all urged the developers of the launch process to step forward and allow full and exhaustive tests to be conducted, before innocent people died.

  Michael ground his teeth, knowing there was nothing he could do to help Cheryl or the university. If he so much as lifted a finger, British Intelligence would be all over him. Instead, he obtained what details he could from his friends in the news trade, and opened a Blog on the Chronicle web site to provide a single source of information. Hopefully Rolle and the
others could read between the lines and would do what they could to help.

  +++++++++++++++++

  Rolle was too preoccupied with the issues arising from the Bonn launch to notice the large Chinese gentleman who fell in behind him as he walked towards home that afternoon.

  Half their clients had become undecided following the press the launch had received, and Cheryl was only one person, despite her abilities. Unless they could find a way to discredit the number of scientists both America and Russia had wheeled out to cast aspersions on their lift method, then they would have trouble finding one satellite to launch, let alone six.

  Suddenly, without warning, he felt himself pushed off the pavement and into the front garden of one of the houses lining the street, a large privet hedge masking him from the street.

  “What!” he asked, stopping his struggles as he saw Xu Dain approach.

  “What is this?” he asked, brushing himself down with an indignant air.

  “The chemical you gave us. It is rubbish,” he was told.

  “Rubbish? Of course it’s not rubbish! What did you do with it? Where is it?” he asked sharply.

  “Stop playing with us, Professor. We have an agreement. Please do not consider us fools.”

  “I don’t know what you mean. If you don’t know how to use the chemical, then it’s no fault of mine!” Rolle told him.

  Xu Dain nodded to one of his compatriots, and the man moved in to swing his fist into the British man’s rounded belly. Rolle lost his breath and doubled over, his hands holding himself while his face expressed his pain, bulging eyes questioning his internal organs as he considered vomiting.

  Xu Dain crouched to meet Rolle’s pain-filled eyes. “You have until the end of the month Rolle. We then expect you to give us a sample of the chemical, as agreed. Do you understand?”

  “No. I’ve done as you asked!” Rolle gasped, sucking in much needed air.

  “The end of the month Rolle,” Xu Dain told him.