9

A metal gate clanged shut behind them.

‘Arrêtez.’ Stop.

He winced at the harshness of the light and immediately shut his eyes tight. Holst felt the same rough hands cut through the cable ties binding his wrists in front of his body and remove his blindfold, daring only to open his eyes slowly, by tiny degrees, as his pupils contracted.

They were in a room painted white in a single-storey building that carried the breeze-block-and-cement smell of recent construction. There were sturdy, gleaming steel bars at the window. Several figures came into focus: Susan Drecker and a tall, unnaturally thin man, both dressed in military fatigues, stood opposite; next to them stood a middle-aged man of Middle Eastern appearance dressed in a blue short-sleeved civilian shirt.

Holst glanced to his right and saw a young woman with dark matted hair, also blinking painfully into the light. To his left were two men dressed in matching khaki shorts and T-shirts, one aged thirty or so, the other closer to sixty. Both wore glasses and had the soft features and shapeless limbs of professional men. Holst knew instantly and by instinct that both they and the young woman were fellow scientists.

The older man spoke. ‘Sarah? Are you all right?’

‘She’s fine. Shut up.’ The rebuke, spoken in a pronounced Afrikaans accent, came from the skeletal figure alongside Drecker. He gestured to someone standing behind them. Two large Hispanic-looking men dressed in similar lightweight military clothing stepped away from the group of four scientists and took up position either side of the prison-style gate that acted as a secure inner door to the building. Beyond it was a further solid door to the outside. Holst noticed the absence of any insignia or markings on their uniforms.

‘Dr Holst, Dr Bellman, I’m Colonel Brennan. You both know Captain Drecker, but allow me to introduce our colleague and Director of Scientific Operations, Dr Ammal Razia.’

The man in the blue shirt gave a solemn nod of greeting. ‘We apologize for the manner of your transportation and for the basic nature of your accommodation. Unfortunately, all our quarters are similarly lacking in creature comforts at the present time. This facility is new and very much a work in progress. We hope to make our conditions considerably more comfortable over the coming months. Our priority has been equipping our laboratories.’ His voice was cultured, his tone apologetic and his accent suggested an English education.

‘What are you doing? Where are we?’ the young woman to Holst’s right demanded in a tone that bordered on the hysterical.

Brennan silenced her with a look and a sideways glance to the two uniformed guards at the gate.

The older man to Holst’s left held up his hands as if urging her to stay calm and listen.

‘You have been brought here to work together,’ Brennan said. ‘Regrettably, this was the only viable method to stay ahead of the competition. Each of you is a leader in your field and fighting to stay ahead of the pack, and each of you has agreed to sell your research to our mutual employer for substantial sums of money. So before you object too vociferously to your circumstances, I would urge you to consider the wider picture. The sooner this project is completed, the sooner you will get paid and go home. If you had been entirely trustworthy counterparts in our negotiations, none of this may have been necessary, but –’ he gave a thin, philosophical smile – ‘we’re all of us only human.’

Holst noticed an exchange of glances between Bellman and the older man, as if both were equally surprised and appalled by the other.

‘Yes,’ Drecker interjected, addressing her remarks to him, ‘I’m afraid your protégée turned out to be as mercenary as you, Professor Kennedy. Even more so, as a matter of fact.’ She smiled in a way that Holst remembered from several of their discussions concerning his remuneration. It was as if she were revelling in a feeling of moral superiority at having exposed their hypocritical greed.

Brennan gestured to Dr Razia to take the floor. He stepped forward and addressed the new arrivals as matter-of-factly as if they had come of their own free will.

‘Allow me to make some introductions. Dr Bellman and Professor Kennedy are close colleagues at Oxford, of course, but aside from that I suspect you may be strangers to each other. Let us start with Dr Angelos Sphyris.’ He nodded to the slight young man to Holst’s left. ‘Dr Sphyris is a computer scientist turned neuromorphologist based in Cambridge, who is well on the way to mapping the one hundred billion neurons in the human brain with the aid of artificial intelligence. This remarkable AI has proved almost infallibly accurate in predicting the function of each new neural circuit it identifies. Dr Alec Kennedy is one of the foremost pioneers of nano-engineering and has created minute particles capable of releasing heat in response to microwave frequencies. These particles stimulate activity in the cells to which they attach. His colleague, Dr Sarah Bellman, has developed an ingenious mechanism capable of delivering a payload of such particles to any cell in the body. Lastly, Dr Lars Holst. His work has focused on the reward and aversion centres of the brain and initially it is these you will be concentrating on.

‘Our considerable investment is being committed in the belief that together you will combine your knowledge to create a technology capable of numerous applications, which we will discuss in due course. But first things first. We must show the new arrivals to their accommodation, and later we will begin work on ordering the necessary equipment and supplies for your laboratories.’ Razia paused and gave an almost kindly smile. ‘It may please you to know that here you won’t find yourselves bound by the usual ethical constraints. You may experiment at will on primates and, if necessary, on human subjects. I suggest you start to factor that into your thinking.’ He spread his palms as if in a gesture of goodwill. ‘I very much look forward to working with you.’

‘Two hours’ rest,’ Drecker said. ‘Then we get to work.’

She turned to the gate with Brennan and Razia.

‘That’s it? We don’t get to ask any questions?’ The defiant challenge came from Dr Bellman.

‘What do you want to know?’ Drecker said with forced patience.

‘What if we choose not to cooperate?’

‘The time to ask that question was before you agreed to sell your soul for eight million dollars, Dr Bellman,’ Brennan said. ‘No one gets rich without paying the price. Ask anyone who’s done it – it’s paid in sweat or conscience. Every penny.’

He smiled, his taut skin creasing like a lizard’s.

From somewhere deeper in the building Holst heard a macaque screech and shake the bars of its cage.