All Fall Down. Mark Edwards

Чтение книги онлайн.

      9

      ‘So, Dr Maddox,’ said Agent McCarthy, leaning back in the seat and stretching his arms over his head, linking his fingers together, palms facing the car roof. The leather underneath his buttocks complained noisily. ‘Been to Sequoia before?’

      He was a big man, particularly when stretching, and his bulk seemed to fill the back of the car. His flesh had the compacted appearance of someone who works out a lot but who also loves his food a little too much.

      ‘Sequoia?’ Kate looked out of the window. All she could make out was the faint outline of bare rocky peaks rising against the deepening blue of the evening sky. ‘The big tree?’

      ‘The national park,’ said McCarthy, making a face at her.

      ‘Oh. Yeah. Sorry, I did know that. I blame the jet lag. No, I haven’t been there before. But it is the home of those giant trees, right?’

      ‘Right. We don’t get to drive through it, though.’

      ‘The park?’ The conversation felt to Kate, through her jet lag, as though it was going in claustrophobic spirals of incomprehension.

      ‘No, the real famous sequoia, the one everyone’s heard of: it fell across the road in the thirties and the sucker was way too big to be moved, its trunk is, like, twenty foot wide, so they cut a hole in it and made it into a tunnel instead.’ He made sawing gestures with his right hand, and then curved his palm in an arc, as if stroking an invisible cat’s head, to indicate the tunnel.

      ‘Redwoods are even bigger, though – they’re over the other side of the park. Those puppies are so big you can drive right through the middle of ’em, even when they’re still living.’

      Jack would love that, Kate thought, driving right through a tree. She vaguely remembered seeing photographs of sequoias – or maybe redwoods – in an encyclopaedia. It was so surreal, she thought, to be in this car with two FBI agents, making small talk about big trees.

      ‘Right,’ she repeated dully, pulling out her BlackBerry to text Paul, but there was no signal. Being separated from both him and Jack within such a short space of time was making her feel irritable and lonely. And she felt nervous too. There were people out there who wanted to kill scientists. Still, this was probably the safest place she could be – in a car with two FBI agents.

      ‘Shit signal in this whole area,’ commented McCarthy, air-texting with his thumbs. Kate couldn’t decide whether she liked him or whether he annoyed her. At least he had a bit of personality, she thought, unlike the silent Thompson behind the wheel, who hadn’t said a single word the entire journey. Apart from his arms turning the steering wheel, he hadn’t even moved. Kate had spent some time staring idly at the back of his neck, small tight rolls of flesh from his bald head descending like supersized wrinkles into the collar of his black jacket, and it had remained completely immobile.

      ‘Are we nearly there?’ she asked, and was immediately reminded of Jack again. ‘Where exactly is this lab?’

      ‘Can’t tell you that, ma’am,’ said McCarthy. ‘Not its exact location, anyway. I can tell you it’s just inside the park. Actually, it’s only about an hour’s drive cross-country from the airport, but unfortunately there ain’t no roads through Sequoia that way, so we gotta go down and round and up again. Wouldn’t want to drive through those mountains anyhow. The air gets pretty thin at twelve thousand feet.’

      ‘What’s the set-up at the lab?’

      McCarthy swivelled a forefinger into his ear and jiggled it about a bit. ‘I haven’t been there myself, but I’m told it’s a category four, state-of-the-art equipment, in a converted hunting lodge.’

      ‘Will you be staying there with me?’

      ‘For the foreseeable future, yes, ma’am. Plus we got Thompson here and some other security guards who’ll be looking after the joint. Not that anyone knows this place even exists, so you don’t have to worry.’

      Kate nodded. That was a relief. СКАЧАТЬ