The Sons of Scarlatti. John McNally

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       THREE

       “Help-me-Mrs-Murphy – come to my aid!

       You’re gonna flip the pin on my love-grenade!

       I-mean boom I-mean bust I-mean whom I-mean us!”

      “I wrote that. I was in a band. Do you ‘dig’ that? No. Because you lack the life experience to appreciate the majesty of—”

      “Do you see that helicopter?” interrupted Finn, looking back out of the window of the Mangusta.

      “That what?”

      Al believed in the to and fro of vigorous debate on long journeys and, as such, he and Finn had spent much of the morning arguing about wind turbines, football, whether Concorde could be revived and adapted to fly into space, whether snow was better than powered flight and, if the Nazis had taken over, which of Grandma’s friends would have turned collaborator.

      They were just starting on Al’s assertion that “rock music is wasted on kids” when Finn first noticed the chopper.

      He craned his neck to get a good look back up the road. Al tried to locate it in his mirrors.

      The route was winding and the tree cover heavy, as they were on the edge of the New Forest, but unmistakably, less than a couple of hundred metres behind and above them, a helicopter was swinging back and forth, following the line of the road, getting lower and lower as it went.

      “It’s getting really low,” said Finn. “What do you think they’re doing?”

      “I hope it’s not your truant officer…” said Al, letting the joke trail off as he became more concerned.

      The chopper was approaching fast now, almost skimming the tops of the trees. A couple of cars behind them had both slowed and pulled over.

      Al carried on – the chopper didn’t have police markings after all – but as they came over a ridge into more open country it closed in, violently large and loud, bringing itself right up alongside the Mangusta.

      “What are they doing?” said Al.

      Then a voice echoed out of a loudhailer on the chopper’s belly.

      “DR ALLENBY, PULL OVER.”

      “They know you?” squealed Finn, impressed.

      Al slowed to a halt. The chopper went to land in the road ahead.

      “What is this? What’s going on?” said Finn.

      Al paused for a moment. “I’m not sure, but at the very least it’s bad manners.”

      He suddenly put his foot down. The car shot off. Then Al threw it into a screeching handbrake turn which spun them back the way they came. The V8 engine roared and Finn felt himself pushed back into the leather seat as the acceleration bit – there was no doubt about it, these cars were built to thrill.

      “Why aren’t we stopping?” Finn shouted.

      “Might be agents of a foreign state… Might be an old girlfriend trying to kill me… But don’t worry, we can lose them in the woods up here.”

      Was he joking? He must be joking. Then Finn noticed that Al’s knuckles were white where he gripped the wheel. Finn hunkered down lower in his seat, heart hammering with excitement.

      “Drive fast, Al.”

      “Check.”

      They were closing on the woods, but the chopper was almost upon them.

      Again came the voice from the chopper’s loudhailer: “PULL OVER, DR ALLENBY, BY ORDER OF COMMANDER KING.”

      Al cursed, slammed on the brakes and spun the Mangusta back to a halt at the side of the road, just short of the trees. The chopper descended gently on to the grass beside them.

      Finn was transfixed. “Al…?” he started to ask, but his uncle, too furious to speak, just folded his arms and waited.

      Further down the road two police 4 × 4s were approaching. Two men in Security Service suits leapt out of the chopper and made their way over as the engine powered down.

      “Sir, you’ve got to come with—”

      “Do thank the Commander,” Al interrupted, “but tell him we’re on holiday, tell him we’re ‘en route’, and he’ll have to get in touch next week, and tell him he doesn’t need to bother with all this either. I’m on email, Facebook or even the telephone. Oh, and don’t forget to tell him he’ll have to come crawling to me on his hands and knees while you’re at it…”

      “Sir, I have been instructed to inform you the matter pertains to Project Boldklub.”

      Project Boldklub? Finn laughed. What a bizarre name. “Who’s that? Some Viking?” He looked at Al.

      Al’s face was suddenly still and serious.

      DAY ONE 12:38 (BST). Siberia, Russia

       The Arctic fox confused it with a lemming at first, but the scent soon became richer and sweeter.

       The temperature was 2°C. Summer. Bog and meltwater pools characterised the surface at this time of year, the illusion of thaw. As the fox drew in towards the scent, the salt and sweet notes increased, grew irresistible, sending his nervous system wild.

       And then he saw something he didn’t understand.

       A man.

       The man raised an arm. Fired. Then continued eating his hot dog.

       The impact propelled the fox into a gully. As blood seeped through his crystal-white fur, a last survival instinct kicked in, and he curled and clamped his mouth round the wound.

       A disc of congealed blood formed on the surface of the tundra. Insects and micro-organisms, adapted to the extreme environment, drew in to feed greedily upon it.

       Fourteen metres beneath, in a vast insulated bunker and in simulated tropical luxury, David Anthony Pytor Kaparis lay in his iron lung ¹ and waited.

       The lung СКАЧАТЬ