Coldbrook (Hammer)(27)

‘Yes, I have it here. But the breach was stable! Everyone’s probably still celebrating, Jonah.’

‘Something came through. People are dead. Maybe everyone.’ There was no response to this, only a shocked gasp. ‘Except . . . before you do that, I need you to check the ventilation-duct housing on the services block.’

‘Why?’

‘I can’t find Vic Pearson. I’m afraid he might have made a break for it.’

‘It’s fine,’ Summerfield said. ‘I can see the cover from here, it’s intact, and Vic wouldn’t—’

‘Will you just check the bastard for me!’ Jonah said, anger creeping into his voice. It was shock and grief that were causing it and he reined it in. ‘Sorry, Rick. Please check. For this old Welshman.’

‘Okay, hold on.’ He heard mumbling in the background as Summerfield used a walkie-talkie, then he was back online. ‘Moore’s going to look right now.’

‘It’s a contagion,’ Jonah said. ‘Something I’ve never seen before. Never imagined. I’ll send the info but access the security cameras for the last hour, if you can. You’ll see. All of them. It’s horrible.’ He trailed off, shaking his head as if Summerfield were in the room and could see him.

‘Jonah?’

‘All of them, dead – but not lying down.’ And he had stated the truth of it at last, though he could not understand.

‘That doesn’t make sense.’

‘I know.’

‘Melinda? Satpal? Holly?’

‘No,’ Jonah whispered. He sat down and stared at the breach on the screen. What’s she doing now, and where, and is it even now for her? ‘Not Holly. She went through the breach.’

‘Holy shit,’ Summerfield said.

‘I know. Wherever she is now—’

‘I can see Moore at the duct housing,’ Summerfield cut in. ‘He touched the maintenance hatch and it fell off. It’s open, Jonah.’

Vic, Jonah thought, what the hell have you done? But he knew. Vic Pearson had stayed true to everything he believed in – his family.

‘Close it,’ Jonah said urgently. ‘Rick, seal that hatch, weld it, bury it in f*cking concrete but—’

‘Oh, hang on. Someone’s . . .’

‘Rick?’

‘It’s . . . it’s okay, it’s Alex. He looks—’

‘Rick!’ Jonah shouted. ‘Tell Moore to get back, tell him—’

Jonah heard the distant rattle of gunfire, and then silence, and then Rick Summerfield screamed, ‘Oh my f*cking Christ.’

‘Rick? Rick!’ But Rick had gone. Jonah closed his eyes but he couldn’t think straight. Got to contain it, keep them in, maintain the perimeter. Already he could hear the static-filled thumping and smashing of glass, as somewhere directly above him the disease spread itself.

He disconnected, but kept hold of the satphone. After so many congratulatory phone calls over the past three days, he would now be the one to spread the devastating news. ‘Contagion,’ he said, practising the word again, and then he dialled.

After breaking the news to three key people on three continents, Jonah switched off the satphone and watched another friend die. Though he tried to he could not close his eyes. He saw Andy tripped and then pushed against a wall in the electrical plant room, arms thrashing at the mutilated guard holding him there, Mot?rhead T-shirt slashed and torn and darkened with his blood, eyes wide with panic and terror and disbelief as the guard pressed forward and closed his mouth on Andy’s nose and ripped his head to the side . . . and Jonah could not close his eyes. Here was his legacy, in blood. Here was the result of everything he had thrown himself into for years. The guard bit again and again, and then moved away to let Andy slump to the floor, dead.

It was only as Andy shoved himself upright again, half a minute later, that Jonah looked away.

The temptation to turn off the viewing screens was great. In his seventy-six years he had seen two dead bodies: his dear wife Wendy, prepared and laid to rest, her hair brushed the wrong way and her visage so painfully, terribly still; and Bill Coldbrook, his old friend and boss, whom Jonah had discovered hours after his suicide. Death was no stranger to him, yet it had always been distant.

But he berated himself for his cowardice. He was responsible for Coldbrook, and he had a responsibility for almost forty staff members down here, from the most talented scientist to the canteen cook. He had to keep watching the screens to see who would survive and where they would find shelter. After that . . . he did not know.