Vortex (8 page)

Chin-Hwa closed his eyes and took a deep breath. 'All right,' he said. 'You win. What is it that you want from me?'

The official smiled. 'Well,' he said, ushering Chin-Hwa back to the waiting car, 'that is rather complicated.'

And so it had all started

Every week since then, and sometimes twice a week, the reluctant scientist had been escorted by the same black limousine in which he now sat on that rainy morning, to the government building of the Supreme People's Assembly. What he had learned there he never told anyone, even his mother. It was not just because he had been forbidden to do so; it was because he was ashamed. Ashamed of being a part of what was going on. Ashamed that, unlike his father before him, he was unable to refuse to use his scientific knowledge for purposes such as this.

As the limousine drove him closer to the government buildings, Chin-Hwa remembered that day seventeen years ago when his father had been taken from them. Ki-Woon had told him to look after his mother. Well, in a way that was what he was doing. He wondered if his father would have accepted that as an excuse for being involved in the government's terrible plans. He wondered what his father would have done.

A few months previously, there had been a buzz on the streets of North Korea. The government had announced that it was to dismantle its nuclear reactor. It had been hinting to the world that its nuclear capabilities would soon be given up. This was cause for optimism, everybody said. A turning point. There was hope for a new future.

But they didn't know what Chin-Hwa knew.

They hadn't heard the powerful men talking.

They hadn't seen the plans.

They didn't know about Vortex.

Chapter Seven

The early-morning mist hovered eerily above the marshland.

Ben and Annie stood silently at a barbed-wire boundary fence to RAF Spadeadam, only a hundred metres away from where they had witnessed the shooting of the hen harrier the previous day. In front of them was a metal sign on a post. It seemed out of place here, in the middle of this vast expanse of nature where there were no roads or electricity pylons or any of the usual debris of modern life. Its message was clear enough, however:
DANGER. LOW-FLYING AIRCRAFT. LIVE AMMUNITION TRAINING. KEEP OUT
.

Ben Tracey stared at it, hotly aware of the prickly silence emanating from his cousin. 'How are we going to get in?' he asked, half to himself. The fence was not that high - perhaps only as high as Ben himself - but it was covered by a wicked-looking roll of barbed wire that meant they could never climb over it without ripping their skin to shreds; and the fence itself was constructed of lines of barbed wire close together which meant they couldn't squeeze through.

He glanced at Annie. She had barely said a word since they'd left the youth hostel - her way, Ben realized, of making her thoughts about their expedition entirely clear - but he noticed that she was looking up and down the fence with interest, clearly trying to work out a way in. He smiled to himself. Annie wasn't the sort of person to let something like a bit of barbed wire get in her way.

As she stared at the fence, Ben had an idea. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a Swiss Army penknife that had lingered unused in his bedroom for a couple of years, but which he had picked up on a whim as he left home. From the many blades, he selected a small pair of pliers, then approached the barbed wire and attempted to cut through them. It only took one snip, however, to realize that the pliers were far too flimsy for the job: they buckled and dented as Ben cursed and struggled to fold them away back into the penknife before returning it to his pocket.

His eyes flicked to Annie's rucksack. 'I suppose you bird-watchers don't have much call for a good pair of wire-cutters,' he said archly.

Annie ignored the question and continued scanning up and down the fence. Finally she spoke.

'The posts.'

Ben raised an eyebrow at her. 'What?'

'The posts,' Annie repeated. 'They're made of wood, I think.' She trotted towards one of the posts that held the fence up at regular intervals, and rapped her hand against it. 'Wood,' she confirmed with a certain sense of satisfaction.

'Great,' Ben said, coming up to join her. 'So what?'

'It looks pretty old and weathered, that's all,' Annie replied. 'A few good kicks and we might be able to knock it down.'

'Do you think?'

Annie shrugged. 'It's not really seriously designed to keep people out, is it? I mean, like you said, if you really want to get in, all you have to do is bring a pair of wire-cutters, or some pliers or something. It's just a deterrent, a safety measure - like that sign.' She eyed it up again. 'A few good kicks near the top of the post should do it.'

Annie removed her rucksack from her back and handed it to him. She looked down at her heavy, muddy walking boots and furrowed her forehead. 'Not the ideal shoes,' she muttered, taking a couple of steps back then looking towards the post and sizing it up. She raised her arms and appeared to balance herself.

The first kick took Ben by surprise. Annie jumped up and struck the post near the top, before landing catlike back on her feet again. The post wobbled slightly, sending shockwaves repeating down the wire fence on either side. 'It'll come,' Annie said with satisfaction.

It took four kicks before the bottom of the post started to split. When that happened, Ben put Annie's rucksack on the ground, dropped his own, and assisted by using his strength to push the post down onto its side. The fence dipped with it. 'We should be able to walk along the post and jump over the top of the barbed wire,' Ben observed as he picked up his rucksack. He turned to Annie and grinned. 'Nice one,' he said. 'You really are my partner in crime now.'

'Yeah.' Annie rolled her eyes at him. 'Well, if we get caught, I'm telling them it was all your stupid idea.' Deftly she skipped onto the post and jumped over the boundary. A few seconds later, they were both in.

They had only gone from one side of the fence to another - hardly any distance at all - but somehow it felt different on the other side. More exposed. Ben had the impression Annie felt it too. As soon as they had made it across the fence, they both started looking around a bit shiftily, trying to see if anyone was watching them. Ben found he was glad of the mist.

'Where to now, pathfinder?' Annie asked in a hushed voice.

Ben thought for a moment. 'Well,' he said, 'there's no point following the boundary now that we've crossed over. And anyway, however he managed to get in, I'm sure the old man will have headed towards the centre of Spadeadam rather than skirting around the edges.' He pointed in a direction that was at right angles to the fence. 'So I guess it means that way.'

Annie inclined her head. 'Whatever you say,' she agreed, and strode out in the direction Ben had indicated.

As they walked, the ground became marshy underfoot and the mist, which had been hovering around their knees, became thicker and more pervasive. It wasn't long before they were unable to see more than twenty metres in any direction. 'It's getting cold,' Annie said after a while.

Ben nodded. 'Hopefully the sun will burn this mist off as it gets later. Maybe we should stop and put an extra jumper on.'

'Good idea,' Annie replied, shivering. She peered through the mist. 'Is that a copse of trees up ahead?'

Ben looked. Sure enough he could see the ghostly outline of some trees a little way in front of them. 'Let's get there,' he said. 'We can put on some warm clothes and have a look at the map. Maybe the trees will be marked, and it'd be a good idea to keep track of where we are.'

It didn't take them long to reach the trees. Ben and Annie dumped their rucksacks with a certain amount of relief - walking through the marshy terrain was a lot harder work than they'd expected, and they were glad of a few moments' rest. Once they had rummaged around and found a jumper each, they sat on top of their rucksacks and ate some chocolate to give them a bit of instant energy and warmth.

'I can't believe it isn't even autumn yet,' Ben commented. 'I suppose they won't be doing much in the way of live ammo training today.'

'Why not?'

'Well,' Ben faltered, 'the mist, I suppose. Difficult for planes to see and everything.'

'Oh, come on, Ben,' Annie replied with a smile. 'It's not the First World War, you know. Pilots don't fly by sight alone. Anyway' - she looked around her and then upwards - 'this mist might seem thick to us, but it's probably just ground cover. Like you say, it'll burn away--'

'Shhhhh!' Ben interrupted her, holding up his hand and straining his ear to hear.

Annie fell silent. 'What is it?' she mouthed.

They both sat perfectly still. There was a shuffling sound nearby, but for some reason the mist seemed to obscure where it was coming from.

It stopped, and all around them seemed deadly quiet. Ben and Annie looked at each other, neither of them able to stop an expression of worry from showing in their faces. In his mind's eye, Ben saw the image of the soldier from yesterday, the one who had shot down the birds, and he found himself holding his breath, acutely aware of the heavy thump-thump of his own heartbeat.

The shuffling started up again. This time there was no mistaking the regular pattern of footsteps.

Somebody coughed, a harsh, hacking, sandpaper sound that echoed through the still, early-morning air. And then the footsteps. Regular. Determined. And coming nearer.

It was only by chance that Ben was looking in the right direction to see the figure approaching out of the mist. It was just a shadow at first, a silhouette becoming gradually more distinct as it approached. Ben lightly brushed Annie's hand to get her attention, then pointed in the direction of the figure. They watched, wide-eyed, as it approached.

He was muttering to himself, the old man. His head was bowed, but although he walked slowly he was not as infirm as some people his age might have been. As he came closer, Ben could hear him muttering, a low, indistinct murmur of words that made no sense to his ears. Occasionally he would stop, raise his head and look all around. He seemed for all the world as though he were searching for something, but each time he did it, Ben had the impression that he believed himself to be somewhere completely different to where he was ten seconds ago. He strained his ears, desperately trying to catch some of that indecipherable muttering, but it was impossible. Ben couldn't help thinking that there
were
no real words coming out of the old man's mouth.

Just as Ben thought he was going to walk straight towards them, he stopped, looked around once more, and veered off in a different direction. But when he came to the trees, he halted and sat down against one of them, just as Ben and Annie had done.

The two of them sat in silence for a moment. 'He didn't see us,' Annie breathed. Ben looked at her and saw anxiety etched on her face - the arrival of the old man had clearly frightened her a bit, and if Ben was honest he would have to admit to feeling a bit spooked himself.

The old man was rummaging inside a plastic carrier bag now. He pulled out a Thermos flask and, with slightly shaky hands, unscrewed it and poured himself a cup of something hot. He breathed in the welcome steam escaping from his cup and closed his eyes, as though that simple thing had given him more pleasure than anyone could know, then he sipped gratefully before resting his head against the bark of the tree.

'I feel a bit sorry for him,' Annie whispered.

'Yeah, me too. See why I wanted to come and find him? Look, I'm going to go and talk to him--'

'No, don't,' Annie said, just a bit too quickly.

'He's harmless, Annie,' Ben assured her.