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‘Seen the car following us?’

She glanced nervously out of the rear window.

‘Don’t be silly.’ Hazel was smiling, but the smile had an edge.

Petrie said, ‘How do we even know you are who you say you are?’

Freya attempted a light tone. ‘It’s the castle. It had an effect on everyone in it. We all ended up paranoid.’

Nobody smiled. She turned to Petrie. ‘Tom, if they want the knowledge of the signallers suppressed they’ll bump us off with or without the password. We’re in their hands.’

The even chance. ‘It kills me to say this, Freya, but we have to focus on getting the signal out. That matters more than us.’

Sullivan closed his eyes. ‘Young man, there are people at the Farm who’d have the password out of you before the day’s end.’

Petrie remained silent. Yes, the duress one, the one that would wipe the disk clean. Beside him, Freya had frozen, and suddenly the air was thick with hostility.

Hazel tried to break the tension. ‘It must be the jet lag, Tom. May I call you Tom? You have to trust someone.’

It’s not going well. Not the devastating game that Vash demanded. Petrie tried to unclench his fists, think carefully. The car was stuffy and he felt sweat down his back.

Freya broke the long silence. ‘I trust you. You’re nice people.’

There was a mystified silence. ‘But before I knew you were such nice people, I made several copies of the disk when I was in Prague and sent them around to colleagues and friends, with instructions. If there was an accident, everything would go out, including the exact location of the signallers. To sub-arcsecond accuracy, if you understand that. Do you know how many backyard radio telescopes there are in the States alone? Hundreds! All convertible to answering devices.’

There was a brief silence as they assimilated Freya’s bombshell. Hazel broke it; she threw back her head and laughed. The driver glanced in the mirror.

‘There’s another condition,’ said Sullivan. ‘A little rewriting of history. No mention must ever be made of the attempts to muzzle you people and suppress this discovery. The British and the Russians insist.’

Hazel said, ‘And we’re happy to agree. What else are friends for?’

Petrie asked, ‘But what about our colleagues, Svetlana, Charlie and Vashislav? How will you explain their deaths?’

Hazel said, ‘They’re alive.’

Freya raised clenched fists, squealed with delight. ‘Fantastisk! Hvordan ei all verden…?’

‘All in due course, Dr Størmer,’ Hazel said.

Sullivan spoke quietly. ‘The password?’

Petrie looked out of the window. The facts were in and he had them analysed in a second. Freya, probably, was lying in her teeth. He glanced over at her. She nodded, almost imperceptibly; it was little more than a slight narrowing of her eyes. But Vashislav alive was like the Bismarck loose on the high seas; the genie practically out of the bottle; membership of the club all but guaranteed. This thing was beyond stopping.

He turned again to the window. ‘Origin of Species, chapter three, paragraph three, first sentence. “We will now discuss in a little more detail the struggle for existence.” Join the words up and write the sentence backwards.’

The DCI scowled. ‘This guy Darwin has a lot to answer for.’

50

Afterglow

His small fat wife was mouthing some words, but he couldn’t make them out. Slightly irritated — he’d reached the climax of the thriller — the President of UCLA put down the book and took the proffered receiver.

‘Professor Goldsmith? Would you wait for a call from the President’s Science Adviser?’

He tried to keep the surprise out of his voice. He’d met the woman a few times, but a call at home, at eight in the evening, California time, which made it eleven at night in Washington …

‘Professor Goldsmith? Hazel Baxendale here.’ Her voice was coming over a background of chatter and clattering plates, like a dinner party or something. Goldsmith thought she was using a mobile phone.

‘I have a favour to ask,’ continued the Science Adviser. ‘We’d be grateful if the University could take on board two young people — a British man and a Norwegian lady — for a few years. It would have to be in the Berkeley campus. Not to put too fine a point on it, the country owes them a favour.’

Wisdom and experience had taught Goldsmith that a White House whim was a University President’s command. He didn’t hesitate. ‘Of course. Delighted to do so. What exactly do you have in mind?’

‘Perhaps scholarships of some sort. She has a doctorate in planetary science and I understand he’s a first-rate mathematician. Work permits and the like won’t be a problem.’

‘I’ll arrange five-year appointments and fund them through the University. Have them call into my office whenever they’re ready.’

‘We appreciate it. Also, in confidence, we anticipate a little seed funding — maybe fifty million dollars to be going on with — to look into the ET question which I dare say you’ve been seeing ad nauseam on the box.’

Fifty million dollars. To be going on with. Goldsmith felt a light sweat developing on his brow. ‘Ah, yes.’

‘Would Berkeley be able to contemplate administering this money? It still needs Congressional approval but I’m told that this will be forthcoming.’

‘I’m sure the University could manage.’

‘Good. Good.’

The Science Adviser rang off. A young Norwegian planetary scientist. A British mathematician. The country owes them a favour. The clues could hardly be more direct. He opened a diary, skimmed over the telephone pages, and dialled a number. ‘Dorothy? Henry Goldsmith here. I’d appreciate it if your Faculty could take on board two young people…’

* * *

The morning papers were waiting for them when they giggled their way into the Willard penthouse at midnight. A bunch of red roses on a dressing-table was accompanied by a handwritten card: In appreciation. Seth Bull, President of the United States. Freya slipped out of her new shoes while Petrie disappeared to the bathroom. By the time he returned she was under the sheets of the king-size bed.

They fell asleep with the newspapers untouched, the champagne in the bucket and the lights still on.

* * *

‘Tom! Are you awake?’

Petrie drags himself up from subterranean depths.

‘I know how Charlie and Vash and Svetlana escaped. They set the castle alight.’

‘What?’

‘Yes.’ Freya laughs. ‘That Melanie girl told me. The flames were a hundred metres high. Anyway, when the local fire brigade appeared, Svetlana was unconscious ha-ha and Charlie and Vash insisted on going with her in the ambulance to the nearest town, which is a place called Trnava, it seems. They had a police escort all the way.’

Petrie struggles into a sitting position. ‘That would confuse the soldiers.’

‘Most of whom were away chasing us over the Tatras. It seems one of the ambulancemen had a mobile phone. Vash borrowed it and got through to the American Embassy. Trnava’s halfway between Bratislava and the castle, and people from the Embassy got there as soon as they arrived, and spirited them away. Like you, Tom, they were kept safe. “On ice”, Melanie said.’

‘That had to be Vashislav. Sometimes I think our Russian friend comes from outer space.’

Freya pulls a face. ‘All that beautiful Hapsburg furniture.’

‘I expect they spared the library.’

‘Tom, why didn’t he let us in on his plan?’

‘In case we were caught, stupid. The less we knew the better. By the way, his temporal lobe stuff. It won’t get worse, and it can be controlled by drugs.’