Wapping scowled and took out a white plastic card. He held it against a raised panel beside the door. With a gentle click, the door swung outwards.
Michael and the guards went in first behind Wapping. After that, it was Jennifer, followed by everyone else. She found herself in a corridor that smelled partly of damp and much of electricity. There was a desk here for guards, and a body scanner. The desk was empty, the scanner unplugged. Wapping led the way round a corner, and along a wider corridor carpeted in red. It ended in another metal door. Here, Wapping had to stand before a camera and wait for a manual inspection. It needed three mentions of Hooper, and a cautious showing of his left forearm, before the door opened. Inside, a lone guard sat at a desk. He didn’t blink, or move his right hand from a button on a control panel. He took the creased letter that Wapping produced from a pocket, his eyes flickering cautiously between the sheet and the six people before him. He barely relaxed when the other guards came in behind Radleigh. He had them line everyone up for photographs and eye scans, and give out the plasticized badges that were made from these. Meanwhile—hand still close by his control panel—he spoke softly into a telephone. He read out the names he’d been given. He listened. He spoke again, evidently troubled by an order not to have everyone disrobe and walk through his body scanner.
He finished his conversation. “Don’t lose your ID tickets,” he warned Michael. “Once through that door, you’re in the high security zone. Orders are to shoot suspected intruders on sight.” Wapping pushed in front of Michael. His effort at nonchalance didn’t impress.
From here, they were directed into another corridor, lined with cameras, that widened insensibly into a long room. It was here that Wapping seemed more sure of himself. He stopped at a door where the linoleum was dirtiest and most worn. He swiped his plastic card, and rocked the door backwards and forward to free its securing bars.
Jennifer had to shut her eyes in the unexpected and dazzling glare of daylight. She’d had no feeling that they were going uphill. But they were in a courtyard enclosed by buildings that had no windows. In the middle of this was a low brick building topped by a dome of glass bricks. Making sure the everyone was close behind him, Wapping stepped over to its entrance. This time, he pulled up his left sleeve and showed the silver spot on his forearm. There was no doubt this time of its function. It shone brighter than the sun, and he moved his bare arm over a glass panel “Wapping, Francis,” he rapped in a voice that invited wonder in all who beheld his importance—“CT76482.”
If he’d wanted to impress, he failed. For all the door of brushed and unstained metal moved, he might have shouted “open sesame” at a brick wall. He coughed and stepped back. He tried again, and nothing happened. “You could try wiping that panel,” Radleigh suggested. “Some of us wouldn’t wish to be out here all afternoon.” Wapping glared back, but took out his handkerchief again. He rubbed at the panel and repeated his code with a pause between each character. With a clicking of unseen bolts, the door slid open.
They were now on a landing at the top of a spiral staircase that hugged the edge of a wide central column and went down perhaps a hundred feet. The wall panels might have glowed softly, or might have reflected the cold light that was filtered through the dome. His dignity returning, Wapping stopped after one turn of the spiral. He waved dramatically about. “Do you remember those atom bomb shelters from the Olden Days?” He looked at Radleigh, as if challenging him to try for a deflating comment. He took another step down and leaned against the wall. “Well, here is what used to be the biggest one of all. It was meant to keep all the necessary people safe if the Russians ever turned nasty. It was two years in the building, and has been extended and changed almost every year since the 1960s.”
Jennifer looked up at the glass dome. What little she’d thought about blast and fallout shelters didn’t correspond to any of this. Nor had anything she’d seen since landing prepared her for its newness and cool elegance. Had this entrance been built since The Break? But she was in no mood to ask questions, and didn’t suppose Wapping would be inclined or able to give straight answers. She waited for him to tire of showing off, before letting Radleigh keep her steady for the rest of the winding descent. The deeper she went, the stronger became the smell of electricity and of new rubber flooring.
From the bottom of the stairs, they passed along an arched corridor. After a dozen yards, this inclined left, and they faced a door of glass that might have been three inches thick. “We’re on Red Alert security,” Wapping explained. “We’ve five seconds to get through. Then the door slides shut and can’t be opened again for another half hour.” He looked at Robert. “Get him through last,” he said to one of the guards. “Tough titty if he gets cut in half.” He bared his forearm and repeated his code. As above, the door slid open. They stepped through into a blast of air conditioned heat. The door closed behind them, and they were sealed within a world for which nothing that happened outside might have direct significance.
Jennifer looked at Michael. Though he’d made his face a careful blank, she could see that he was as scared and overawed as she was—as scared and overawed, and as worried about what might be waiting.
Chapter Forty Two
The main room of this underground complex was more cavernous than the entrance to the Jubilee Line. It was, so far as Jennifer could tell, a high and broad circle with an inner hub. Wherever she looked, there was equipment of a sort she’d never seen outside of elderly science fiction films, though all was modern in its details. This was looked after by a small army of men in white coats, who darted from place to place, looking at bright displays and comparing readings with each other. Beyond their activity, and just by the inner hub of the complex, there was a railed off oval gap in the floor, from which it seemed possible to look down to a lower floor. There was a now overpowering smell of electricity and a low purring that seemed to come from all directions.
Radleigh looked about. “So here, I take it,” he called with a slight evidence of joy in the lack of echo made by his voice, “is the place where the Gateway is kept guarded but ever open—the place from where an entire world shall soon be governed with many rods of iron.”
Wapping was still busy with the door security. “You’ve got your orders,” he said impatiently. He waved at the card readers and body wands held at the ready. “Abigail’s in a hurry. Yes, the Norman is in chain mail. But, if you think he’s got a bomb under that lot, I can get you moved to checking railway permits.” He laughed and turned to Radleigh. “Basil, you haven’t seen the half of this!” He led the way to the railed gap in the floor. Jennifer had been right about a lower floor. Lit brightly, this was filled with more mainframe computer equipment. More men in white paid no attention to the watching strangers above, but hurried about work that they found of compelling interest.
Radleigh grunted and took a bunch of keys from his pocket. He sorted through them and unlocked Michael and Jennifer. He stepped back from where they were embracing. He seemed to have forgotten the orders about no contact. Wapping was hurrying about with other thoughts on his mind. Radleigh was still taking no chances. “There is nowhere for you to run.” He motioned at the guards who’d come in with them, and who were keeping close to Michael. “But I would remind you, dearest Jennifer, of your need to keep every movement you make slow and predictable. These men have orders to wound in the first instance. Please don’t require them to act.”
He stopped at a sound of footsteps on the left. “Oh, darling Abigail!” he gushed. “This place is more than I ever expected. It was well worth waiting for.” Hooper glanced at him before going back into conversation with a couple of men in white. One of them was holding up a long strip of perforated listing paper. The other looked worried. Hooper jabbed a finger at one of the sheets and stared both men into silence.