The British had warned him not to return to the Large Hadron Collider. They told him to run away, to avoid crossing borders at all cost. Go to Naples maybe, go to Sicily, hide up in the Apennines for a while. Yet Dr Nesta had no choice. He was on the cusp of measuring the network’s presence; his work would rewrite science and religion. Nobel Prize be damned: Nesta’s name would be spoken of alongside those of Darwin, Newton, Galileo and Archimedes. Alongside that of Jesus.
But for the scientific community to accept such a paradigm shift the evidence had to be irreproachable – and he wasn’t there yet. To prove it beyond argument he needed more time with the particle accelerator. But six other projects were sharing it and his funding ran out in a fortnight. With his current reputation he would never get his hands on the damn thing again. He had four remaining sessions in the tunnel, a little less than sixteen hours to prove the existence of a higher sphere of intelligence. Ergo, he had to return.
If Dr Nesta made it back to the complex he knew he would be safe. The collider was ultra-secure and there were sleeping quarters he could stay in until his experiments were complete. After that Cern would take care of him for evermore.
The train ride to Switzerland was intense. At Florence a white-haired British gentleman got on and asked him how long it might take to get to Geneva. Dr Nesta answered the foreigner and made a show of leaving for the dining car before getting off at the next stop. Rather than continue by rail he caught a taxi to Genoa Airport; change routes constantly, Jenny had said. He caught an Iberian Airways flight to Barcelona, waited in the Islamic prayer room for six hours, then returned to Switzerland via Hamburg. At such short notice the plane tickets cost hundreds of euros. A Chinese woman sat next to Dr Nesta on the final flight. And in the taxi rank at Geneva Airport there she was again, waiting in the queue four people behind him. The scientist felt his heart go into palpitations. But he was certain nobody followed him in the taxi, and he was quite alone as he passed the security checks at the LHC complex. He booked into his new quarters, briefly wept and then fell asleep.
*
But it was naïve of Dr Nesta to think he would be safe there. The British government had hundreds of millions of euros invested in the collider. The scientists were looking for dark matter, the secrets of the universe; there were fears a black hole might be created. Of course there were national security implications, of course MI6 took an interest. So it stood to reason they would have an agent inside. And Charlie Waits was at the third-highest grade of the organization, with access to almost its entire network.
It was a challenge for Travel Service to knock up the documentation, given the quick turnaround. But their handiwork had passed sterner security checks in the past. The documents went by Dip Post to Geneva, where they were picked up that evening. Back in London Edwin de Clerk pinpointed Dr Nesta’s room from the comfort of his desk. He didn’t know what the information would be used for, but at Vauxhall Cross that was normal.
By 1 a.m. Dr Nesta was asleep in an armchair, still wearing his suit, his unopened suitcase in the centre of the room.
The door slid open with a beep.
The scientist awoke, gasping with fright. “Who are you?”
Then Dr Nesta’s eyes focused. He relaxed a little. It was a security guard, Cern ID pass dangling around his neck.
“Bonsoir, mon ami,” said the guard. “Ça va?”
Instantly Dr Nesta was terrified. The stranger’s accent was appalling. And he wore gloves.
“Ça va?” the guard repeated.
“Oui, ça va bien,” managed Dr Nesta.
“Très bien,” said the stranger. “Très bien. Pardon, monsieur, parlez-vous Anglais?”
Without warning Dr Nesta dived for the fire alarm. Davis was too quick for him. He grabbed the scientist by the collar of his jacket and unceremoniously dumped him back onto the sofa. Then he locked the door and sat on the bed facing Dr Nesta.
“I said, parlez-vous fucking Anglais?” Davis repeated.
“Oui,” said Dr Nesta. “I mean yes, yes. I speak English well.”
“Good. Then you and I are going to have a little drinky.” From his bag Davis retrieved a bottle of Teacher’s whisky and a cheap cognac. “What’s your poison, fella?”
“I don’t really drink.”
Dr Nesta began trembling.
“Oh, don’t be a party-pooper. I’ve come a long way to see you.”
“But I insist.”
Davis laid a gun on the bedside table.
“In that case, I’ll take the whisky.” Now his lip was wobbling.
“Good choice. Horrible French muck, cognac.”
The room came with equipped a mug and kettle and there was a water glass by the sink. Davis poured a dram into the latter and sipped it.
“Best of the budget whiskies, in my humble,” he said. “Nice and smoky. Better than Bell’s anyway – that stuff’ll give you a blinding headache if you drink too much of it.” He filled the mug to the brim and handed it to Dr Nesta. “Now, down the hatch.”
“Please,” said Dr Nesta.
Davis growled, revealing the fillings in his teeth. “I said, drink it.”
Dr Nesta tasted the whisky.
“You’re annoying me now,” said Davis, screwing the silencer into his pistol and glancing at his watch. “I’m going to give you ninety seconds. If you haven’t polished off that mug of whisky by then I will take it as an affront to my generosity. And I will not be a happy boy.”
The corner of Davis’s mouth twitched upward as Nesta gulped down the spirits, gagging, whisky dribbling down both cheeks.
Davis refilled the mug. “And another.”
Dr Nesta seemed calmer after the second helping.
“Now then,” said Davis, pressing record on his smart phone. “You’re going to tell me all about your work, all about Roger Britton, and all about that little Italian rendezvous with Jake Wolsey and Jenny Frobisher.”
They talked for hours. Davis had two singles; Dr Nesta consumed the rest of the bottle. When the whisky was finished the assassin opened the cognac, refilled the mug and sniffed at it suspiciously.
“See, what did I tell you? Disgusting French muck. Here, you try some.”
Dr Nesta knew he had to try and please this man if he wanted to live. He raised the mug with both hands – like a chalice – and forced down a third of the liquid. At once he was violently sick and slumped to the floor, gasping; trails of vomit led from his mouth. The whole room was spinning, and when he looked right the speed of rotation increased. He was about to beg for mercy when he became aware that his tormentor had left the room.
The fire alarm was almost within reach.
Dr Nesta tried to stand up. He fell flat on his face. He attempted again. This time he made it to his feet, taking three steps towards the alarm. Suddenly Davis towered over him.
“Oh, no, you, don’t,” he hissed, slamming the scientist onto the floor in an impact that beat the air from his lungs.
Dr Nesta could hear water running in the bathroom.
“Don’t kill me,” he whispered, acknowledging for the first time that this was what must surely be coming. “Please, don’t kill me, please don’t do it.”
Davis stripped Dr Nesta’s lower half first, the scientist’s corduroys turning inside out as they were pulled downward, catching on his ankles. A pathetic sight.
“It’s time for you to have a good wash,” Davis snarled. “Because you’re a dirty, little, boy.”
*
It was so unlike Dr Nesta, his colleagues agreed afterwards. He was a temperate man who nobody could recall drinking more than two small glasses of wine at supper. But he had been under a lot of stress lately – for a start that ludicrous project of his was headed for the buffers. It was the only explanation for him drinking a bottle and a half of spirits by himself. But what a tragic way to go, what a waste of a mind that once seemed to offer so much to physics. Drowning alone in the bath like that.