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Picking Through the Pieces
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Colin James made his way through the mass of people. The entire standing-point team had just spent the last two hours out on the parade ground during a bitter November evening. They were now all crowded into various barracks and mess rooms, wrapped in blankets and drinking hot tea.
The evacuation had gone relatively smoothly, thought James; only a couple of minor injuries on the arduous trek up the endless flights of steps out of the underground facility. The roll call had taken too long, but they had needed to verify the two missing persons. Apart from these, there had been only fourteen casualties directly related to the explosion. A miracle really, he thought.
But all that had only been the start of James’ troubles today. As the Maunsworth base commander, he was the focal point for what felt like endless streams of converging information. He seemed to have had at least one telephone pressed to his ear for the past two hours.
Coordinating the fire fighters trapped in the array’s labyrinthine sub-system, whilst at the same time evacuating over two hundred civilian personnel had been bad enough. But then it had just gotten whimsical.
The first device the fire fighters had discovered had been made safe fairly quickly by the bomb disposal squad — when they had finally arrived. That was half an hour ago, and now they were saying that this device had led to another, and then another.
So far they had found three huge caches of explosives, and it looked as if there were plenty more.
In the meantime, James was getting reports from the civilian lab crew that four of the expedition team were trapped in the Field. Not only that, one had returned dead, in suspicious circumstances, with possible links to the Sally Aimes murder. It seemed to be turning into a major incident.
He rubbed his temples; his head ached badly.
James pushed on through the crowd of people. Most looked pretty shaken up. Army medics picked between the hastily set up bunks, checking for any more injuries.
James was a powerfully built man, a full head taller than most of the people around him. He gazed about the hall, searching for somebody in the throng.
Eventually he caught sight of a familiar head of tangled grey hair. Grace was sitting on the edge of a bed, wrapped in a navy blue blanket. She stared vacantly ahead as the medic examined her, first taking her pulse, then shining a flashlight into her eyes.
James waited until the man had finished.
“How is she?” he asked quietly, taking the medic to one side.
“She’s pretty good, sir,” replied the medic, whilst bagging up his equipment. “She’s in shock, but it’s quite mild; she’ll be alright after a good rest.”
“Thank you, orderly,” murmured James, as he looked over in concern towards Grace. He had the feeling there wouldn’t be much chance for rest in the next few hours.
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“Grace,” he said warmly, sitting down upon the edge of the bed beside her. She blinked for a moment, and then turned questioningly to Colin; she had a wild look in her eyes.
“Colin? Oh, Colin, what’s going on? What’s happening; we need to get back down; they’re trapped; we need to —”
“It’s okay, Grace,” said James tenderly, “we are doing everything we can now. You just rest for a while, there is nothing you can do for —”
“But, Colin, they’re stuck out there! And Pattie — what happened to Pattie? No one knows what’s going on; I can’t find anything out.” Grace was shivering under her blanket.
“Look, wait here, Grace, I’ll get you some tea,” said Colin.
“Coffee, strong, three sugars,” she said bleakly.
When he got back with two mugs of coffee, James thought that Grace looked more composed than when he had left her. He sat down beside her again, and they both sipped their drinks in silence.
“So what’s going on, Colin?” Grace whispered eventually.
Colin sighed. The telephone call, which he had just received had made it clear that no civilians should be cleared for information on today’s events, but with Grace it was somehow different.
“This is strictly confidential,” he said slowly. “It was a bomb, Grace.”
“A bomb?” she echoed in a tone of disbelief.
“Or rather, one of a chain of explosives rigged throughout a large part of the array that actually went off. We were lucky the whole place didn’t go up.”
“But who? I mean why? What does anyone —” began Grace, dumbfounded.
Colin held up his hand to silence her.
“We think this is a part of a coordinated attack on the whole standing-point project,” he said gravely.
“You knew this was going to happen didn’t you?” whispered Grace accusingly. “When I asked you about Pattie’s medical reports, you rang back just afterwards and said there may be a terrorist threat — did you know about the bomb then?”
“Grace, I didn’t know anything about the bomb, trust me —”
“But you said —”
“Grace, it was a hunch — I, I received some news, and I just thought that we should be careful; I’m not trying to deceive you, Grace.”
“Just tell me what’s going on, Colin,” she sighed Grace.
“Okay,” said James at last. “Shortly before you telephoned me, to ask about Pattie’s medical records, well, I received a call from my superiors. I’m sorry, Grace, but it was to tell me that Keith Lambert was dead. He was assassinated in his hotel room a few hours ago.”
“Keith?” she breathed, open-mouthed. “He’s dead? Oh my god. Did you say assassinated? Do you think it was connected to the project?”
“We think that it was because of the whole new scale of funding he was on the verge of securing for this project.” His voice trailed off to a whisper. “I’m sorry, Grace, I know he was a good friend of yours.” James lay a heavy, reassuring hand over Grace’s.
“This is all too much to take in,” she said quietly. She took out a battered cigarette from her pocket and looked at it for a second. She let it fall through her fingers to the floor.
“So all of this is to stop the project?” she whispered sadly.
“I don’t know, Grace, it’s too early to tell. Like I said, I’m just playing a hunch really, I might be completely wrong; none of it may be connected.”
“But someone felt the need to ring you up to tell you Keith Lambert had been killed,” said Grace.
Colin looked away from her penetrating gaze. He could see that she knew there was so much he was holding back.
“I just want to get my team back,” said Grace. Her voice was steady and resolved once again.
“I know, Grace. We are going to get you back down there as soon as it is safe; we’ll get them back, don’t worry.”
“I’m going to need damage reports, replacements for any injured personnel; Jim Grayson, you know, from Hayden Hill, now I’ll definitely need —”
“I’ve called in any personnel on holiday, and replacements from Hayden, plus anyone who may be under threat because of their links to standing-point. I’ve also set you up a temporary control room in the officer’s mess — I’ve put Baker and Alison Reece at your disposal, they can link up with me.”
Grace looked instantly animated.
“Well, why didn’t you say so earlier?” she snapped, standing up and throwing off her blanket. She stooped down and picked up her fallen cigarette, tucking it behind her ear. “Let’s get going then — Jane! I’m going to need you and Morgan right away!” She stormed off through the throng of people, cursing and muttering.
“Soon back to normal,” thought James with a sigh. He stood up wearily and followed her out of the hall.