[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.They were descending into the subterranean heart of the complex.Most of the building above ground was given over to routine administrative tasks; all the important activity was carried out deep enough down to be proof against enemy attack.Finally the lift stopped and the doors trundled open, admitting a waft of warm, stale air.A short corridor led to another pair of doors.There were signs on them saying AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY in a dozen different languages.Giselle slid her ID card into a slot and pressed digits on a keypad.The doors parted, releasing a wave of even warmer air.“Your uncle’s not here at the moment,” she told him as she led him through.“I wasn’t aware that I’d need his permission to go out.’’“I was told you were still convalescing.”“Does that make me a prisoner here?”He was pushing it, he knew, and with a woman he liked and who was extremely good at her job.She merely laughed.“Are you fit enough to go driving?” she asked.“I wouldn’t be asking if I wasn’t.”They had entered a room with metal walkways surrounding a large central well.Attentive staff sat before monitor screens, while above them animated maps showed swathes of eastern Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific islands in electric primary colours.The displays were constantly changing as if searching for a static equilibrium but never finding one.Here, deep below ground, the equipment was securely shielded from the electromagnetic interference that plagued surface transmissions.“You’ll have to excuse me a moment,” Giselle said, and promptly disappeared down one of the walkways.The large well below was dominated by a softly-lit area with dark banks of machines arranged around it.I knew from Owain that this was AEGIS, the automated tactical and strategic defence network that had been used by the Alliance to direct their military operations for the past quarter of a century.It was part of a network linked to sites in Paris, Hamburg and elsewhere.The Russians had their own equivalent, as did the Americans.All three had been seriously reduced in their operational efficiency following a catastrophic breakdown of the satellite systems on which so much of their data gathering depended.Or so it was said.One of the TV screens was showing footage of the Chancellor touring the vast concrete fortifications of New Jerusalem.A handsome middle-aged man in his customary dark suit, he was an electronic composite designed twenty years before as a permanent figurehead of the Alliance, immune to assassination, disease and ageing.The Silicon Chancellor, they called him, and he was held in greater affection than any of his flesh-and-blood predecessors.Giselle returned and led him out of the room.Owain was grateful for the relative coolness of the concrete corridor as they walked back to the lift doors.She presented him with a set of keys.“There’s a Land Rover out the back,” she said.“Canvas-topped.Make sure you’re back indoors before curfew.”The lift doors were already open.“Don’t do anything foolish,” Giselle added.“You know he’s worried about you.”She meant his uncle.“I’m fine,” he said adamantly.“I just need to remind myself that there’s a world out there.Tell Sir Gruffydd I’m available for duty whenever he needs me.”“Before dark,” she reminded him.“Otherwise my neck will be on the chopping block.”My own instinct was to retort that the British preference was for hanging, but Owain wasn’t prone to such frivolities.He was greatly tempted to take the stairs back up to the surface but knew it would be a foolish exertion in his present feeble state.He entered the lift.As I stared at his smeared image in the polished steel wall of the lift I could sense his unease.To me he looked the perfetinldier; he had been raised to it from an early age.Yet he was filled with vague, restless insecurities, not least the nagging anxiety that the lift might at any moment fail and send him plummeting.His relief was palpable when we emerged at the basement level.We passed down another concrete corridor and went through a storage area with crates piled high on cantilevered shelves.At its far end was a pair of clear plastic doors stuck with black-and-yellow striped tape for the benefit of forklift drivers.The warehouse was quiet and deserted apart from two elderly men who were crouched around a paraffin stove, sipping a golden brown liquid from glass cups.“Tea or whisky?” Owain called, surprised at his own levity, which had in fact been prompted by my own instinct to say something.The men looked back at him with blank incomprehension.I relished a mild sense of victory in my brief display of presence, though I sensed Owain stiffening his control again with a feeling of having spoken out of turn.He viewed the comment as a lax outburst, a mild breach of decorum; he had no inkling I was the originator.Beyond the doors was an extensive parking space for staff cars and All-Terrain Vehicles.Impacted snow crunched under Owain’s boots as he crossed to a sentry box where two MPs sat, playing cards.They rose and saluted.He jangled his keys, having already spotted the Land Rover.One of the men waved him on [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]