Rhinoceros

CHAPTER 44

Standing outside the steel door, Milo asked Paula to check that he pressed the right sequence of digits in the combination box to open the door. Up to that point she had been astounded at the glacial calm Milo had displayed during the whole ordeal. Now she realized he had hidden the inevitable tension he had experienced.

She watched him and he pressed the correct digits. As he opened the heavy door he looked at the red button but did not press it. Putting his hand in his pocket, he turned to her.

'You might like to see the end of the Internet. Stand well clear of the door into the computer room. The staff in there will rush out at top speed. Here they come.'

The alarm had gone off inside the room. About twenty girls in white coats left their computers, jumped up, ran for the door which Paula had opened for them. They kept on running down the corridor and disappeared. Looking into the room, Paula thought it looked strange – all those screens still working and no one left in the room.

'Put on these dark glasses and insert these earplugs,' Milo told her.

She was doing so when Tweed and Milo went inside, closed the door behind them. She checked her watch. From her previous experience she guessed it would take no more than five minutes for the system to emerge from the top of the chimney.

She imagined Milo opening the door of the circular machine, then pulling down the extreme right lever and the one on the left. The system would appear as the two men watched, looking up at the glass dome. Again, she imagined a pause before Milo pulled the red-handled lever down to its fullest extent. Later, Tweed told her Milo had not paused.

She was staring into the computer room, after closing the door, seeing it darkly through her glassess. She checked her watch again. Nothing had happened. Had Rondel sabotaged the sytem? He might well have done so, if he knew how.

Hell broke loose. She blinked even though wearing the dark glasses. The screens had gone mad. It was worse than the 'glitch' they had witnessed at Park Crescent, so long ago, it seemed to her. Much larger missiles seemed to be shooting at all angles across the screens. Some screens had blacked out altogether. Then she saw them fracturing, spilling whatever they were made of onto the floor. Even with plugs protecting her ears she could hear the most devilish screaming sounds. It was chaos, wiping out across the West a system people had worshipped, had indulged in perverse practices.

She thought of Monica, saw a phone on the wall, picked it up in the hope of calling Monica. The phone was dead, had also been destroyed.

At Park Crescent, Monica, sitting in front of her screen, warned by her previous experience, had fled from the room as the sound mounted to fresh crescendoes. She had slammed the door shut behind her.

Paula continued to stare into the room as more screens were shattered. In some cases the material they were made of stayed in place. These screens were fractured and showed instead a complex series of spider's webs. Someone touched her arm and she jumped. It was Tweed's hand.

He gestured for her to return to the study as Milo came out behind him. When they re-entered the study everyone, including Harry, was seated at the banquette, eating and drinking as though they had starved for days. Milo went back to his desk, stubbed his smoking cigar, lit another.

'It's all over,' said Paula as she sank into her seat.

'Not quite,' Milo told her. 'I am waiting to hear from Danzer. He is close to the island of Sylt.'

Had Tweed been able to observe Danzer, standing behind a tree in a wood immediately above where the Sikorsky helicopter had landed, transporting its four VIPs from Hamburg Airport to Sylt, he would have been impressed. Danzer had waited patiently for several days while the meetings took place inside Inselende. He looked straight down on the grounded chopper, seen through a haze of brambles.

He had catnapped when he could, but for hours he had watched, checking the routine of American guards protecting the machine. As he had hoped, at night, after exercising great vigilance, the guards had got fed up, had become sloppy. Instead of patrolling round the machine they sat together in a hollow some distance away, playing cards.

Danzer had also noticed that a mechanic came just before dark to check the machine. He had further noticed that the mechanic took a flask from his pocket before boarding the chopper, gulped some of its contents, then climbed the staircase, which remained lowered. An appalling breach of security.

It was on the third night, or so Danzer thought – he was beginning to lose track of time – when the mechanic was staggering when he arrived. Clearly he had indulged his liking for the flask earlier. Danzer decided it was now or never. He had picked up his satchel, clambered down the slope, coming up behind the mechanic who had stopped to take another gulp from his flask. Bourbon, Danzer guessed. He tapped the mechanic hard on the back of his head with a leather-covered sap. The mechanic had sagged to the ground.

Checking his pulse, Danzer was relieved to feel it chugging steadily. He picked up the flask the mechanic had dropped, poured a small quantity down the front of his victim's boiler suit.

He next picked up the clipboard the mechanic had carried under his arm. Once an inspection was completed die mechanic had ticked the box alongside die date, confirming he had checked the machine. A fat pencil, attached to the clipboard, hung loose. There was just enough light left for Danzer to tick the clipboard in the way the mechanic always did.

With a last glance towards the hollow, where he could hear the guards singing, Danzer, carrying his satchel, climbed aboard. He then worked quickly, knowing he would be trapped if a guard appeared.

From his satchel he lifted out carefully a long black box with wires protruding. Lying down, he placed the box in what he hoped was an invisible position at the front of the control cabin. He elevated die small aerial, took a deep breath, pressed the button which activated the device. A small red light, out of sight almost, came on.

Standing up, he grasped the now empty satchel, peered out, ran silently down the telescopic staircase. He walked quickly back up the hill where he had waited for so long. Slipping inside the trees, he glanced back, startled to see the mechanic sitting up, rubbing the back of his head with his hand.

With luck he'd associate the pain with a hangover. Danzer saw him stagger to his feet, pick up his clipboard. He looked up at the staircase, fumbled with a torch, shone die beam on his clipboard. He obviously couldn't recall whether he had maintained the chopper. He peered closely at the clipboard. Apparently satisfied that the tick showed he'd done the job, he stumbled back away from the machine.

Danzer sighed with relief, made his way across to a more distant hilltop closer to Denmark. Inside the copse at its summit he extracted a pair of binoculars from the capacious pockets of his dark jacket, looped them round his neck, leant against a tree and closed his eyes.

Raucous voices woke him the following morning. It was broad daylight and a lot was happening. He saw a large trolley packed with luggage driven to the foot of the chopper's staircase. Soldiers carried it aboard.

Minutes later a black stretch limousine arrived, stopped at the staircase. Uniformed military officers opened the doors. By now Danzer had the binoculars pressed to his eyes. He checked the passengers aboard one by one.

First Gavin Thunder, thinking this was the last time he would agree to fly by helicopter. Followed by the American Secretary of State, then the Deputy Chancellor of Germany and the French PM. Danzer saw all their faces.

He had picked up the small red box with three buttons along its top. Two white, one blue. He raised the aerial as the staircase withdrew inside the machine. Then, to Danzer's horror, he saw an American soldier holding a rifle climbing up the hill towards him. Danzer froze. Movement attracts attention. The soldier stopped behind a bush and Danzer realized he was answering a call of nature.

Above the fuselage of the Sikorsky the main rotor and the tail rotor began to whirl slowly, then more rapidly. The pilot began to lift his machine carrying its valuable cargo off the ground. A squad of soldiers on the ground stood to attention, saluted.

The machine was about two hundred feet up when Danzer pressed the blue button of his radio device. The chopper exploded. Pieces of the rotors, of the fuselage, were hurled into the sky. The machine crumbled, fell heavily to the ground, lay there like a scrapyard. Danzer had expected fire but for seconds there was a terrible silence. Then the fuel tank detonated. Great orange flames flared up an incredible height, followed by black smoke. Danzer shoved the master control box into his satchel, ran through the wood to where his old Volvo was parked. The engine started immediately and he began the long drive to the north, into Denmark and across Jutland.