The Lure Read online

  Gibson said, ‘Vashislav, like I keep saying, I’m the chief investigator here. It’s my name on the application form.’

  ‘Charlee, you’re only the big chief because we needed your name up front for the British grant money.’

  Gibson’s face was threatening to turn purple. ‘You have an idea, Vash? Tell me about it and I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Go to hell.’ Shtyrkov glanced at the wall clock. He muttered to himself: ‘On, vozmozhno, eschye spit.’ Then he picked up a telephone, turning his back to the others.

  Svetlana translated Shtyrkov’s Russian to Gibson. Gradually, as the phone calls were made, Gibson’s worried expression gave way to a grudging satisfaction. By the time the fat scientist put the telephone down, Gibson was nodding agreement.

  Svetlana and Shtyrkov picked their way along the narrow tunnels. The rope bridge was designed to take six normal people and in theory Shtyrkov could have joined her on it, but out of deference to human psychology he let her over first. The little bridge sagged and swayed dramatically as he waddled across, Svetlana lighting his way with shaky torchlight.

  The elevator could take two individuals but the fat Russian counted as two. Svetlana disappeared from sight through the cavern ceiling, the cage sliding rapidly up on its metal poles. It always reminded Shtyrkov of an American movie he had seen once, with Batman sliding down a pole into his Batcave. He waited, alone in the big gloomy cavern, his mind racing.

  Some minutes later the steel door opened and Gibson appeared, a woollen ski cap pulled down over his ears. He was holding a small plastic box protectively to his chest.

  ‘The disk?’ Shtyrkov looked greedily at the box.

  ‘Ye-es.’

  ‘I’m glad the rope bridge held,’ Shtyrkov said. ‘Imagine losing it.’

  ‘And me.’

  ‘A life is replaceable, Charlee.’

  Gibson thought that was probably Russian humour. ‘I’ve cancelled our rooms at the Tatra. We’ll drive straight to the castle. If it’s where I think it is we’ll be there in four or five hours.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘You have influential friends, Vash, I’m impressed. We’ll have the castle to ourselves. The administrator’s setting things up as we speak. Three picohertz Alphas and a Sun workstation, though where they got these from in this neck of the woods I don’t know. We’ll be connected to the Net by the time we arrive, and they’re giving us a video conferencing facility in case of need.’

  ‘How long have we got?’ Shtyrkov wanted to know.

  Gibson made a face. ‘Until next Sunday morning.’

  ‘But this is Sunday,’ Shtyrkov complained, his face showing dismay. ‘We need more than a week to get a grip on this.’

  ‘They have some linguists’ conference on the Monday after we leave. The staff will have to set things up for them the day before.’

  ‘Seven days.’ Shtyrkov’s eyes were still glancing slyly at Gibson’s little box. ‘The most valuable disk on the planet.’

  Gibson held it closer to his chest in a mock-childish gesture. ‘I know, Vashislav, I know. And you’d like to take it up top with you, so that by the time I get there the van, the disk and the fat scientist have vanished into the Ukrainian steppes.’

  ‘Charlee!’ Shtyrkov had a hurt tone. ‘We are colleagues. How could you even think such a thought?’

  The elevator suddenly whined into view, sinking briskly down from the cavern roof. They contemplated the yellow cage. Shtyrkov said, ‘I’ll be waiting up top.’

  * * *

  Shtyrkov drove, Gibson navigated and they hammered over remote mountain roads, utterly lost. It was pitch black and pouring rain. As they began to climb the Little Carpathians the rain turned first to sleet and then snow, the roads worsened, and the Dormobile began to bounce and slide over the potholed surfaces. Svetlana managed to sleep in the back, stretched out on a seat.

  Their first sight of the castle came after seven hours of remitting grimness, and it took the form of a silhouette against a distant flash of sheet lightning. It was pure Gothic horror and Gibson, exhausted though he was, laughed with delight. Shtyrkov gave him a puzzled look.

  A few lights were on and the administrator, a stooped, curly-haired man of about forty, was waiting just inside the door. He brushed aside their apologies and led them up endless stairs to a corridor with rooms off.

  The scientists were now in a state of mental, nervous and physical exhaustion. With little more than mumbled goodnights they collapsed into their rooms. As she slipped between icy sheets, Svetlana could already hear Shtyrkov’s heavy snoring next door.

  * * *

  In the morning, while a bleak dawn light was still creeping into her room, Svetlana dressed quietly in black sweater and jeans. An early morning sun was trying to penetrate heavy snow-laden clouds. The landscape was white.

  The corridors were gloomy in the half-dark, but in spite of the sub-Arctic environment outside the big empty castle was warm. She wandered randomly through it, her trainers sometimes squeaking on the marble floors. On the ground floor, an oak-panelled door labelled Administrator was ajar. She pushed it open and switched on the lights. An impressive array of computers was sitting on the polished oak tables. She sat down on a chair embroidered with some royal crest, fired a machine up, and was gratified to find that an internet connection had been established. Then she left the machine humming, climbed back up the stairs, and listened at Gibson’s door.

  The door was unlocked and she slipped in. Gibson was still dead to the world, his mouth open and a hairy leg sticking out from under the covers. Clothes had been dropped on the floor. She noticed with amusement that he wore tartan boxer shorts.

  On a table next to the bed were a wrist watch, spectacles, wallet and a little plastic box. She picked up the box and left, closing the door quietly behind her.

  3

  Celtic Tiger

  A casual observer would not have distinguished him, as a type, from the students scurrying in the rain towards the Georgian façade of Dublin’s Trinity College. He was thin, and wearing a worn black leather jacket and red and blue scarf. He carried a small blue rucksack, quite sodden. He was in his late twenties which would put him, most probably, in the category of a post-doc, or even a junior grade lecturer. He had short, untidy black hair, a two-day-old stubble and dark, intelligent eyes behind wet, round-framed spectacles which made him look slightly like an unshaven owl. The eyes were bloodshot and his skin was slightly pallid, as if he hadn’t slept.

  He passed under the sheltered archway of Front Gate and crossed Parliament Square, its cobbles shiny and slippery. Here the wind was erratic and buffeting, and he hurried under the bell-tower, past the Old Library, the museum and the mathematics department. He turned into a building with a ‘Chaos Institute’ sign and climbed steps, trailing water and puffing from his run.

  Priscilla the Hun was typing at high speed, overcoat still on and door ajar. Her nose was red and she had a box of paper handkerchiefs to hand.

  ‘Good morning, Priscilla. Did you have a good weekend?’

  She gave him a frosty stare and the typing stuttered to a halt. ‘Professor Kavanagh wants to see you right away,’ she said with a malicious smirk.

  Trouble. He went into the small office marked Dr Tom Petrie, switched on his computer, draped his sodden jacket over a radiator and wiped his spectacles dry.

  • A conference announcement: New Ideas in Quantum Cryptography, to be held in Palermo in the summer. Save.

  • A message from the Hun: three work-placement students arrive next week. You have been assigned to supervise them. Delete.

  • A paper from a Sheffield colleague: A Symplectic Approach to Chaos. Print.

  • Another message from the Hun, this one heavy with menace: you are three weeks overdue with your coffee money. Delete.

  • Buy your Viagra here! Discounts for bulk orders. Delete.

  • A lengthy message from a Brazilian he’d never heard of: I have proved the Goldbach con
jecture. A crackpot. Delete.

  The morning’s e-mail done, he pulled a heap of papers out of his rucksack and spread them over his desk. Rain had seeped through the damp canvas and some of the sheets were almost illegible.

  This isn’t a good day, he told himself.

  Having delayed as long as he dared, he left the office, walked reluctantly along the corridor and knocked nervously at a door.

  ‘Come.’

  The office was large, dark and smelled of stale cigarettes. The man behind the desk was near-bald, brown-suited with a trim moustache. The air of disapproval was a permanent feature; Petrie thought it might come with the moustache. A golf bag propped up against a bookcase reminded Petrie that this was Monday.

  ‘Have you finished the PRTLI bid yet?’

  Petrie’s stomach flumped. ‘I had intended to get it done this weekend.’

  Actually, the intention only formed as he spoke; the assignment had gone completely out of his mind. Three nights ago, he had wakened up in the early hours of the morning with the solution – or just possibly the solution – to a long-standing paradox in quantum theory dancing in his head. Even the title of the paper had floated in front of him: Quantum Entanglement and the Measure of Time. As the dream-image began to fade he had jumped out of bed to write it down before it vanished for ever. In the gun-metal light of the winter morning, on a kitchen table cluttered with last night’s takeaway and boxes of cereal, he had read through his pencilled scrawl and it still looked good. The outcome was feverish work, day and night, to write up a paper before the competition got there.

  Kavanagh was talking; Petrie was hauled back to the present. ‘… expecting to see it on my desk by this afternoon.’

  ‘It’s not needed for a week.’

  ‘Thank you for reminding me, although I was aware of the fact. Shall we say four o’clock?’ The bald head went down to a paper.

  ‘What’s the time?’

  Kavanagh glanced at his watch automatically and then looked up, lips puckered. He adopted a curt voice to demonstrate his irritation. ‘The time, Petrie? It’s perhaps time you took your responsibilities to the Department seriously. Unless the PRTLI exercise delivers a top grade, our funding could suffer a serious cut.’

  The Professor’s telephone rang.

  ‘I’ve written four papers in the last year, any one of which could bump us up to the top.’ And you haven’t written one in twenty years, you old hypocrite.

  Kavanagh lifted the telephone. His eyes strayed to the young man, lines of disapproval giving way to a surprised frown. He handed the receiver over.

  Priscilla. Her voice muffled, a mixture of heavy cold and awe. ‘Dr Petrie, the Provost wishes to speak to you. Hold the line.’

  Kavanagh tried to be subtle, leaning forward to catch both ends of the conversation, but Petrie – by accident or design the Professor knew not – leaned back in his chair, putting the Provost’s words just out of hearing.

  ‘Sir John? Petrie here … Yes, sir … No, nothing that can’t wait. I have no lecturing commitments … Yes, I have, Provost, it’s my field … The Royal Society … I’ll come straight over.’ He handed the receiver back, paused briefly. ‘I have to see the Provost.’

  Kavanagh put the receiver down, pursing his lips once more. ‘Well, well, the Provost. You do move in exalted circles, Petrie.’

  It was a sweet moment. Petrie stood up. ‘I’d better get going.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you’d better. We can’t keep Sir John waiting. Are you able to tell me what this is about?’

  ‘Afraid not, Professor.’ Petrie closed the door harder than was necessary.

  Petrie had rarely been in the Admin. building and never in the vicinity of the Provost’s office. He trotted briskly across the quadrangle, entered the vast marble atrium and ran up broad stairs into a maze of corridors. A thin, elderly man was emerging from a toilet.

  ‘Where’s the Provost’s office?’

  ‘Straight ahead and first left.’

  At the door marked Office of the Provost Petrie paused, brushed his wet hair back and then gave a tentative knock. He found himself in an outer office facing a surprisingly young woman with short wavy hair and a cheerful smile. She tapped on an inner door and waved Petrie into a room about twice the size of his Dublin flat.

  The Provost looked somehow smaller and less imposing than when Tom had last seen him, swathed in academic gown and hoods, at a degree-awarding ceremony. At the side of the Provost’s desk, on a high-backed chair, sat a man Petrie had never seen before. He was thin, urbane, fortyish and had Civil Service, UK style, written all over him, from the Balliol College tie, with its discreet lion rampant crest, to the well-cut grey suit. A careful man rather than a brilliant one, Petrie judged; someone whose career comprised a predictable, steady progression up the promotion ladder.

  The Provost motioned Petrie to an easy chair and looked at him curiously over metal-rimmed spectacles. ‘Dr Petrie, thank you for popping over. I dare say you’re wondering what this is all about.’

  ‘The PRTLI?’

  ‘What?’ The Provost looked surprised. ‘No, no, this isn’t a university matter at all.’

  Petrie waited, mystified and nervous. The Provost’s companion, he noted, was going unintroduced. Behind the man’s brief smile, Petrie felt that he was being, somehow, assessed.

  The man said, ‘I can’t tell you what this is about, Dr Petrie, because I don’t know myself.’

  ‘Right.’ So do we just sit here?

  ‘I’m just a message boy, you see.’

  Petrie nodded. A message boy with a white silk shirt and Gucci cufflinks. The man continued: ‘It’s a request, really. Can you spare a few days to give some advice to Her Majesty’s Government?’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  In spite of the intimidating surroundings, Petrie laughed. ‘Okay. Where do we go from here?’

  The Balliol man said, ‘It involves some foreign travel. To Vienna, I do know that.’

  Vienna!

  The Provost was leaning back in his chair, looking at Petrie thoughtfully. ‘Is there a problem, Dr Petrie?’

  ‘No, sir, I’m just thinking. My field is a bit off the beaten track.’

  The Provost opened a buff folder in front of him. ‘Yes, it does seem rather abstruse.’ He peered at a sheet of paper. ‘What does it say here? Non-periodic tiling algorithms and unbreakable codes.’ The tone wasn’t altogether approving and Petrie wondered what Kavanagh had written in the annual confidential report.

  Petrie looked across at the Provost’s mysterious companion. ‘Does Her Majesty’s Government want some decryption done? And if so, why don’t they just get GCHQ on the job?’

  The question caught the Balliol College man by surprise. ‘It does seem odd.’

  Sir John was strumming his fingers on Petrie’s file. ‘The request is that you be released from your university duties for the next two weeks. I have agreed to this.’

  ‘But Professor Kavanagh needs the research assessment report by this afternoon.’

  The Provost frowned. ‘What? You’re writing it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The Provost scribbled on a memo. ‘I’ll drop Professor Kavanagh a note. He should perhaps be doing that himself.’

  ‘In that case, I guess I’m out of excuses.’

  Mr Balliol handed over a sealed envelope. ‘Present yourself at the BA desk in two hours’ time and give them this reference number. Have your passport and travel things with you. Give your name as Mr Craig. Treat the matter in the strictest confidence. My telephone numbers, office and home, are therein but they mustn’t get into any other hands but yours.’

  Petrie tore the envelope open, glanced at the numbers and returned the paper. ‘Why should I want to contact you?’

  The man raised his hands and adopted a mystified look.

  Nervously: ‘Are you asking me to get involved in espionage?’

  ‘Espionage? Oh my goodness no, how
absurd!’ The civil servant quickly improvised a smile to emphasise this absurdity. ‘You’ll probably be back by the weekend, at which time I’ll contact you. However, you should keep yourself to yourself. If anyone speaks to you en route, be noncommittal. Beware of inappropriate behaviour abroad. Always act as if there is a hidden camera. Be especially wary of any, aah…’ – he squirmed slightly in the chair – ‘approaches from strange women.’

  Petrie’s eyes widened.

  The Provost cleared his throat. ‘Of course this is only a request, Petrie. You’re free to turn it down.’

  ‘I can’t wait.’ Petrie stood up. He turned at the door, hand on the handle and a worried expression on his face. ‘Forgive me, but this is pretty bizarre. Sir John, could this be some sort of elaborate hoax?’

  A pink blush began to spread over the Balliol man’s face. The Provost seemed amused. ‘My colleague here is the genuine article. I was telephoned about him from London this morning.’

  ‘But was the call genuine?’

  ‘Oh, I should think so, Petrie. I know the caller well. The Prime Minister and I go back a long way.’

  Petrie returned dizzily to his office.

  * * *

  Priscilla was sniffling in the corridor.

  She looked at the young man with wonder. Dr Petrie was unimportant, lower even than her in the departmental food chain. In her own hearing he had heard the Professor call his research arcane and esoteric. She wasn’t sure what these things meant but the tone had been disparaging. And yet here he was, the humblest creature in the hierarchy, summoned by God, or at least His earthly equivalent, the Provost. She could contain herself no longer. She blew her nose with a used tissue and asked, ‘Dr Petrie, what on earth is going on here?’

  Kavanagh walked into the office, trying to make it look like a casual encounter. ‘Ah, Petrie. How did it go with the Provost?’

  Petrie helped himself to a biscuit from a red tin on the filing cabinet. ‘Very well, thank you, Professor.’

  There was a pause. ‘And?’

  ‘I’m taking a couple of weeks off.’

  Kavanagh stiffened. ‘I don’t think so, young man. You seem to be forgetting the PRTLI bid.’