Century Rain Part 60

now."

"I did."

Floyd started descending, Auger close behind him. He played the torchlight ahead of him, the beam

glancing off cracking walls. The stairs twisted through ninety degrees, then another ninety.

"There's another door here," Floyd said, trying the handle. "It feels as if it's locked."

"That's it, then." She sighed, disappointed and relieved in equal measure. "We have to turn around."

"Let me see if I can force it first. Hold the torch for a moment."

She took it from him, wondering-for a fleeting instant-if she ought to use the gun to persuade Floyd

to return to ground level.

"Make it quick," Auger said. "I'm really getting worried about those machines."

The door budged with an iron sc.r.a.pe that made her wince. Floyd could not get it open fully, but soon

there was a gap wide enough for them to squeeze through. The torchlight fell on his face. "You want to stay here while I check it out? I'll be as quick as I can."

"No," she said. "I'm sure I'll regret saying this, but I want to see whatever's in there for myself."

Fans and spears of blue-grey light rammed through gaps in the ceiling above them. It was still difficult to see anything outside the torch beam, but the room seemed to be empty.

"See anything?" Auger asked. "No? Good. Let's go."

"There's a railing here," Floyd said. "It looks as if it runs right around the room." He directed the torch beam towards the floor beyond the railing, revealing it to be much lower than Auger had been expecting.

They had emerged on to a balcony that ran around the upper level of a two-storey chamber. Picked out

in random splashes of light entering through the ceiling, something huge and black and roughly spherical squatted in the middle of the floor.

"Voila," Floyd said. "One metal sphere, for the use of."

"Let me see."

She took the torch and shone it on to the sphere. Behind her, she was vaguely aware of Floyd shoving

the door closed again, but ignored the distraction. The sphere was surrounded by many other pieces of

metal and machinery, including a kind of frame or harness from which it appeared to be suspended.

"Is that what your dear departed sister was interested in?" Floyd asked, with heavy sarcasm, stepping up behind her again.

"Yes," Auger said, ignoring his tone. "What I don't understand is what it's doing here. The three spheres were supposed to be shipped out to three different addresses."

"I thought one of them was in Berlin."

"It was," Auger said. "But it still had to be moved from the factory to somewhere else in the city."

Gently, Floyd took the torch back. "Now at least you know the things exist."

"Hey-where are you going?"

"There's a ladder down to the floor. I want to take a closer look at that thing."

"We should be getting back to the taxi." But even as she spoke, she found herself drawn to follow him down to the floor of the underground room.

Close up, the sphere-which was indeed nearly three metres wide, she judged-conveyed a sense of ma.s.sive solidity even though it could just as easily have been hollow. The surface was smooth in places, irregular in others, and there was a visible crack running from one pole to the other. It hung from the cradle on a single cable, attached to a metal eye welded at the top of the sphere. Coating the upper surface of the sphere was a talc.u.m of grey dust, like icing sugar on a pudding. In another corner of the room-hidden until they descended from the balcony-was a large upright cylinder of the kind used to hold pressurised gases, while in another was a high-sided drum-shaped enclosure about three metres across, like an armoured paddling pool. Like the sphere, both items were covered with ash and dust.

Auger touched the metal sphere. It was cold and rough beneath her fingers and, despite its apparent ma.s.s, the sphere moved slightly under the pressure from her hand.

"So what do you suppose this was?" Floyd asked.

"The letter said it was for an artistic installation," Auger said. "Obviously, that was a cover story-the specification was too exact for that. My guess is that the company was being asked to manufacture very precise components for a bigger machine."

"A secret weapon?"

"Something like that."

"But what kind of secret weapon can you make out of a gigantic metal ball?"

"Three gigantic metal b.a.l.l.s, remember," Auger said, "separated by hundreds of kilometres. There has to be a reason for that, as well."

"Three secret weapons, then." He walked away from the sphere and started rummaging through the debris-covered heaps of equipment on the nearest set of workbenches, throwing things to the floor with the casual ease of a burglar. Metal crashed and gla.s.s shattered. After a moment, Auger swore under her breath and joined in the reckless process, looking for anything, no matter how insubstantial, that might offer a lead.

"Or just one secret weapon," she said, "but so huge that it spreads across half of Europe."

"It doesn't make any sense."

"No," she said, shaking her head. "It doesn't. But this is it, Floyd. This is what it was worth killing people to protect. Not just the ones we know about, but all the other people who've probably had to die while all this has been planned, financed and put together."

"Why did they leave it here, then?"

She pushed a battered old toolkit to the floor. It clattered thrillingly, spilling shiny spanners and wrenches from its innards. "I don't think this sphere is the real thing."

"It looks real enough to me."

"I mean, I don't think this was ever intended to be delivered to the client. It's too crudely finished, and something obviously went wrong during the casting process. I'm not even sure this is aluminium or that aluminium-copper alloy Altfeld mentioned. It could just as easily be cast iron."

"You're thinking this was a dry run?"

"Yes. A try-out for the final set, so they could practise the casting and machining, and work out how to move it around afterwards." She shrugged. "Or maybe it's one that went wrong and had to be abandoned during the finishing process. It doesn't really matter. What does is that it got left behind."

"So whoever torched this factory, or arranged for its demolition..."

Even as he said the word, Auger heard the machines take apart another wall or floor, the roar of their engines sounding even closer and even more b.e.s.t.i.a.l.

"I don't think they had any idea this bas.e.m.e.nt existed. They knew that the three main castings had been finished and delivered. My guess is that they burnt down the factory afterwards to hide any evidence of what had been made. But they never thought there might be a fourth sphere, still here."

"Then we need to search the place really thoroughly," Floyd said. "If they missed this, there's no telling what else they left behind."

"You're right," Auger said. She felt her heart beating faster. She knew that she was much closer to an answer now than she had ever been. She could almost feel it, lurking at the back of her mind like a giftwrapped present. "You're right, and it would make sense to search this room with a fine-tooth comb. But we're not going to. We're leaving now, while we still can."

"Just five minutes more," Floyd said. "Somewhere in here there might be a record of the shipping addresses for the finished spheres."

"Long shot, Wendell."

"They were careless, or in a hurry, or they'd never have left this down here in the first place."

"Because they thought someone was on to them?"

"Who are we dealing with, Verity? Are you ready to tell me yet?"

"We're dealing with very bad people," she said. "Isn't that enough for you?"

"That depends on who's defining 'bad.'" Floyd tapped the barrel of the automatic against the metal sphere. It made a dull clank. "Well, I guess Ba.s.so was right after all. It definitely wasn't meant to be a bell."

"Ba.s.so?"

"A metalworker contact of mine. I showed him the sketch of the blueprint from Susan's things. He said it might be a plan for a bell. He meant diving bell. I thought he meant the kind you ring."

Auger heard the roar of the demolition machines again, the crunch of stone and brick beneath their

caterpillar treads.

"I don't think either kind of bell would be something people had to die to protect," she said. "Besides- it's broken."

Floyd tapped the gun against the sphere again, narrowing his eyes as he listened for reverberations. He

moved around the object and struck it again.

"You mean if it wasn't broken, it might sound prettier?" he said.

"Do it again."

"Do what again?"

"Knock the metal, the way you just did."

"I was only trying to see if it was really solid. I still like my idea that it might be an atomic bomb."

"It's not an atomic bomb. Knock it again."

Floyd tapped the automatic against the sphere, moving from spot to spot. "It rings," he said, "but the

sound is all off, like a cracked bell."

"That's because it is cracked. But if it wasn't, it'd ring with a much purer note, don't you think?"

Floyd lowered the gun. "I guess so. If it matters."

"I think it matters a lot. I think ringing is exactly what these spheres are meant to do. I think you were right and Ba.s.so was wrong."