The Tower: Part Three. Simon Toyne

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      The transport plane dropped below the cloud barely two hundred feet above a field of whiteness so bright Shepherd had to squint to make out Redstone Army airfield with the space centre beyond stretching all the way to the horizon.

      ‘Pilot, you sure this is Alabama and not Alaska?’ Franklin’s voice crackled through the drone of the engines.

      ‘They got weather like this all over the South,’ the pilot replied, ‘biggest dump since records began. Christmassy though, ain’t it? If it’s nice weather you wanted we should have flown north. Apparently they got a heat wave in Chicago. World’s gone crazy.’

      ‘End of days,’ Franklin muttered loud enough for Shepherd to hear. ‘Maybe Kinderman was on to something.’

      The tyres squealed against the frozen tarmac as they touched down on the cleared runway and the smell of scorched rubber seeped into the hold, making Shepherd feel slightly sick. He hadn’t slept all night, had barely eaten anything and the flight had been so bumpy he felt like he’d been beaten up.

      ‘You think NASA might stand us a little breakfast?’ Franklin asked, demonstrating again his uncanny knack of sniffing out a raw nerve and tweaking it.

      ‘I can take you to the canteen,’ Shepherd said, breathing in freezing air that smelt of rubber and trying hard not to think about the greasy piles of bacon and hash browns laid on each morning for the seven thousand space centre personnel.

      Franklin smiled. ‘In that case I’m actually glad I brought you along.’

      The plane jerked to a stop with the same lack of grace as the rest of the flight and freezing air flooded the hold as the rear-loading ramp began to lower.

      Outside, a Ford Explorer was waiting for them, its engine running and sending thick clouds of exhaust fumes past the NASA logo on the side. A man in a dark blue parka with a security badge stitched on the sleeve got out of the passenger door and stood with his hands crossed in front of him. He was a carbon copy of the Security Chief at Goddard: same solid weightlifter’s build; same flat face; Shepherd bet he had the same neat office with a picture of his youthful self on the wall.

      ‘Dave Ellery,’ the man said, extending his hand to Franklin who led the way down the ramp. ‘I’m Chief of Security here.’ He wore gloves against the cold and didn’t bother taking them off when he shook hands. Not friendly at all. It was a territorial thing stemming from the fact that the FBI had cross-state jurisdiction and could take over an investigation if they decided to. No one likes meeting a bigger fish, especially in law enforcement. Ellery gestured to the rear doors and got back into the front passenger seat without saying another word.

      The inside of the basic Explorer was like five-star luxury after the plane. It was super-heated, the seats were padded and Shepherd felt an ache in his fingers and toes as blood started working its way back into them.

      ‘You fellas sure picked a day for it,’ Ellery said, staring out from behind black shades at the white landscape.

      ‘From what I heard they done hijacked your weather and shipped it off to Chicago,’ Franklin said, subtly upping his southern accent to match Ellery’s. It was a technique they taught at Quantico called subject mirroring that implied kinship and helped promote trust, though Shepherd suspected it might be somewhat lost on the frosty Security Chief, who had probably done the same course anyway.

      ‘I didn’t mean just the weather,’ Ellery said without elaborating.

      ‘Bad day already?’

      ‘I’ll say. I’m running short-staffed and we’ve had to evacuate one of the research facilities because of a helium leak. You can’t mess with that stuff. Had to shut the entire building down.’ He removed a box file from an attaché case by his feet and handed it to Franklin in the back seat. ‘I dug out those documents СКАЧАТЬ