Engineman - Eric Brown [84]
Hunter remained sitting in the darkness. "What is it, Mr Sassoon?"
"It's Fekete and Elliott, sir."
Fekete and Elliott? He picked up the remote control and turned on the lights. "What are they doing here, Mr-"
He was silenced by the look on Sassoon's face. "They're not here, sir. Fekete died in a flier accident this afternoon. Elliott was shot dead an hour ago."
Hunter just stared at him. "That's impossible! No-one could possibly know that we planned to use them..."
"But that's three, sir - three out of six, dead."
Hunter shook his head. "I don't understand it, Sassoon. If the Organisation knew of our plans, then surely they'd hit us?"
"I don't understand it either, sir. But the fact remains..."
Hunter looked up. "The others! Round up the others and get them to safety this minute!"
"Yes, sir." Sassoon ran from the room and across to the lift, followed by Rossilini.
Hunter calmly climbed to his feet and closed the door. He crossed to the window and stared out, tears blurring his vision.
The day had started so well. How could it end so tragically?
From his pocket he pulled out the photographs of his daughter and sorted through them, lovingly.
Chapter Fourteen
They hurried to the end of the avenue and Dan hailed an air-taxi. He bundled Mirren into the back and climbed in beside him. Mirren felt numb. He heard Dan give their destination as St Genevieve's, then suffered a wave of nausea as the air-taxi lifted and accelerated. He seemed to have weakened appreciably in the last five minutes, since learning about Macready. He wondered how much of it was auto-suggestion; for most of the night he'd felt fine.
Dawn lacerated the horizon. They flew south over familiar suburbs. Dan said nothing. Mirren considered the incredible misfortune of mistaking the drunken Engineman for a KVI ghost. He should have let the bastard fry.
The air-taxi banked over the morning-silvered Seine and approached the ancient, mausoleum-like slab of the hospital caught in a loop of the river. They came down on the rooftop and, when the turbos cut out, the air rang with an explosion of silence as absolute as death itself.
Dan paid the driver, took Mirren by the arm and hurried him to a downchute. They dropped three floors and stepped out into a crowded corridor. The sick and injured sat on benches on either side of the passage; others, too ill to sit, lay on blankets. They had a collective air about them of patient resignation, as if they had been waiting here for years. Mirren heard the occasional whimper and cry. A hundred pairs of eyes watched them as they made their way carefully along the corridor, stepping over the tightly-packed bodies. They arrived at a reception kiosk. Dan said, "I need to see Dr Sita Nahendra."
The receptionist checked a register. "Do you have an appointment?"
"This is an emergency. I really need to see Dr Nahendra."
"If you don't have an appointment..."
Dan leaned over the counter and whispered something to the woman.
The receptionist looked up, saw his desperation and his infinity symbol, then glanced at Mirren.
"If you'd care to wait in that room..." She indicated a peeling door across the corridor, and then bent to a microphone.
They pushed their way through a crowd of patients standing by the kiosk, crossed the corridor and entered a white-walled room: one desk, two chairs, an old diagnostic device hanging from a loose boom on the ceiling. Mirren stood by the door like a spare player awaiting his lines.
Dan said, "Hell, Ralph. Things were going so well. I should have known..."
"What about the others?" Mirren said. "Hunter, Fekete, the Enginemen at the Church? If Heine's is as contagious as they say..." He found a chair and collapsed into it, the sudden enormity of the situation burdening him like a physical weight. He stared at Dan. "You..."
Dan said, "We'll see what the tests say, then I'll contact the others." He looked up at Mirren as if in sudden inspiration. "But there's