Vortex

'Exactly.'

Macpherson looked back at the message. From his limited experience, he certainly couldn't say that it resembled the usual scraps of intelligence that came the way of the security services. Richardson was right: it was too obvious, as though someone were trying to fool them. He put the pieces of paper back down on Richardson's desk. 'I'm sure there's a reason you wanted to see me in particular about this.'

'Indeed,' Richardson replied. 'I want to know your opinion about the suggestion that this so-called weapon is being covertly developed at an RAF base.'

Macpherson thought carefully before answering. He considered the implications of what was being said: that at an RAF base somewhere in Britain, a high-level, top-secret weapon was being developed without the knowledge or authority of those in command; that there was some kind of renegade, covert operation in place. There were plenty of military research projects going on, of that there was no doubt. But they were controlled, overseen and documented. The idea that something of this magnitude could be going on without people like himself being in the know was, well, unthinkable.

He cleared his voice before he spoke. 'If you're asking my professional opinion,' he said clearly, 'I'd have to tell you that I think the idea is preposterous.'

Richardson nodded with satisfaction. 'Thank you, Air Commodore. I appreciate your frankness. I see no reason to suggest to the Home Secretary that we up the state of alert unless we receive any further evidence to corroborate what is being suggested here.'

'You'll let me know before that happens?' the air commodore asked.

'Of course,' Richardson replied. He stood up and offered Macpherson his hand, which was duly shaken. 'Thanks for your time. Family OK?'

'Fine, thank you,' Macpherson replied with a gentle smile.

'That daughter of yours, er…'

'Annie.'

'Of course, she must be, what…'

'Thirteen.'

'She's well?'

'Very well, thank you. Looking forward to joining the RAF herself one day. Now if you'll excuse me…'

'Of course,' Richardson said. 'Thanks again.'

Macpherson turned, walked out of the room, and left the building as quickly as possible. He couldn't wait to get home.

Ben and Annie stared at the old man in horror. His words seemed to echo round the concrete cell.

I escaped.

'I know what you're thinking,' Joseph said, his voice unnaturally calm and level. 'You're thinking, how did we end up locked in a room with a paranoid psychotic who's just escaped from a mental institution?'

Ben bit his lip. 'No offence or anything, Joseph,' he said in a slightly strangled voice, 'but I was sort of thinking that, yes.'

'Of course you were,' the old man replied. 'You're a bright lad. But you don't need to worry, not about me — at least, not at the moment.'

Ben's eyes flicked towards Annie and then back to the old man. 'What do you mean, not at the moment?' he asked.

'Psychotic episodes,' Joseph replied distractedly. 'They come and go. At the moment, my mind is clear.'

One of Ben's eyebrows shot up. 'At the moment? What's that supposed to mean?'

'I hear voices,' he said. 'Not all the time, but more and more of late. Sometimes a shock — much like the one I have just experienced — will force them to recede. But without my medication, I know they will return. They tell me to do things, and sometimes I cannot distinguish between what is real and what is not.'

The old man's startling honesty silenced Ben.

'If I were you, however,' Joseph continued, 'I would not concern yourself unduly with my state of mind. I would ask yourself a different question. Like, why have we just been blindfolded, handcuffed and locked up.'

'Because we were following you,' Annie said hotly.

'Indeed. You followed me into Spadeadam, which was the one thing I advised you not to do. Tell me, young lady, how old are you?'

'Thirteen,' Annie replied bullishly.

'And you, Ben?'

'Thirteen too.'

'I see,' Joseph continued. 'I myself am in my seventies. You'll understand, I hope, that I seem to have lost track of my precise age. I stopped celebrating birthdays a long time ago.'

'What's your point, Joseph?' Ben asked. He was beginning to get a bit tired of the old man's constantly cryptic comments — it was like being stuck in a cell with a teacher who knew the answer but refused to give it to them.

'Two young teenagers and a seventy-something,' Joseph answered. 'Not a huge threat to a troop of RAF soldiers, I'd have thought. Do you think the way we've been treated over the past couple of hours is how ordinary members of the RAF would be likely to treat us.'

'No,' Annie said immediately. 'They're well out of order, and when I tell—'

'Forgive me, my dear,' Joseph interrupted, 'but unless I'm very mistaken, you won't be telling anyone about what's happened. Not, at least, until it's too late.'

'You know what's going on, don't you, Joseph?' Ben asked suspiciously.

'Not really,' the old man replied. 'But I can make a few intelligent guesses.'

'Like what?'

Slowly, like an old deer rising precariously to his feet, Joseph stood up. The cut on his face looked swollen and sore. He wandered towards the metal doors of the cell and started absent-mindedly fiddling with the steel plate on the wall. 'Does it not strike you as odd,' he asked in that infuriatingly measured way, 'that my brother should still be here, in the same place where he was fifty years ago?'

Annie and Ben looked at each other and shrugged. 'I suppose,' Annie replied.

'So we must ask ourselves why that is.' Joseph continued to scratch at the metal plate with his fingernail. 'I think we can safely say that it is not on account of his love of rare birds, can we not?'

The three of them stood in silence for a moment. His brow furrowed, Ben tried to work out what Joseph's mind was edging towards. 'You said you and your brother were physicists,' he ventured after a while.

'Good,' murmured Joseph, once more giving Ben the feeling he was some kind of apprentice to this strange old man.

Ben turned to Annie. 'Electronic warfare. Isn't that what you said they got up to at this place?'

Annie nodded mutely.

'Well that's it, isn't it? He stayed at Spadeadam because it gave him the opportunity to be around the field of study that interested him so much.'

Joseph continued to pick at the metal plate. 'I think you're right, Ben. But there's more to it than that.'

'Like what?'

The old man turned round sharply, and then waved his arms around him. 'All this,' he said.

'A cell?' Annie asked.

'Not just the cell. The entire underground bunker. You see, Lucian was here fifty years ago. He knew about these bunkers when they were built for their' — his lip curled into an expression of distaste — 'scientific research projects. I feel confident that the existence of the place where we are now is not common knowledge, and the opportunity to be able to continue his research in secret would be extremely attractive to my brother.'

As Joseph spoke, Ben found himself barely believing what the old man was suggesting. But then he remembered something — something he had read on the Internet back at the youth hostel. Hadn't he learned that excavations for a secret underground missile silo had been found at Spadeadam only a few years ago? There had been no plans or documents on record — officially the silo didn't even exist.

'Are you trying to tell me,' he asked slowly, 'that your brother has renegade RAF soldiers under his control, and that he's keeping us prisoner in an underground bunker which nobody knows exists while he continues his scientific research?'

'And he thinks we know what he's up to?' Annie added. 'This Vortex thing, whatever it is, he thinks we know what it is and that we're here to stop him?'