Free The Tower by Simon Toyne Page A

more lurid tabloids had even suggested they were drilling for oil where Eden used to be.
    ‘All from eight months ago,’ Shepherd mused, dropping it in the basket with the rest, ‘the same time the postcards started arriving.’
    Franklin stood up and stretched the kinks out of his back as he paced the Spartan living room. ‘So how does any of this link up? Does any of it link up? We’ve got an attack on government property that may or may not be connected to the attacks outlined in these newspapers. We got a missing person who’s our number one suspect. We got a potential religious angle, which could shake out either as Kinderman seeing the light and going rogue, or somebody else putting the frighteners on him to do God’s work for them – maybe even the same guys who were involved in these attacks eight months ago. What else …?’
    Shepherd dug his notebook from his pocket. ‘There’s the Tower of Babel references and the death threat written in biblical tones and signed
Novus Sancti
. We also have the missing data, which also dates back eight months, though that could just be a coincidence.’
    Franklin shook his head and wandered into the kitchen. ‘I’m not a great believer in coincidence.’ He stood by the sink with the lights off, staring out into the night. The ambient light from the street picked out a small strip of grass and the line of storm-shaken trees that marked the edge of the property and the beginning of the woods. ‘Maybe we’re massively overcomplicating things. Nine times out of ten it’s about money. Look at this place, it’s not exactly a palace.’
    ‘But you heard what Pierce said, he was always at work, this is just where he slept.’
    ‘Maybe, but he wouldn’t be the first smart person in history who dug himself into a deep hole and then got bought by someone offering him a ladder.’
    Shepherd thought about it and shook his head. ‘I don’t think it can be money. Dr Kinderman never struck me as the material kind and he won the Nobel Prize nine years ago.’
    ‘You get paid for that?’
    ‘You get a cut of how much money the Nobel Foundation made that year. It’s usually something like a million – million and a half. If there’s more than one winner they share it. Dr Kinderman won it on his own.’
    Franklin whistled through his teeth. ‘Man, I should have paid more attention in science class. Still I reckon I could easily burn through a million bucks in nine years. Maybe pick up some expensive tastes along the way and get myself in some situations that a blackmailer could get his hooks into.’ Franklin took a last long look at the meagre, anonymous home. ‘Come on, we’re wasting time here. Let’s head back to base, see what the techs have come up with. I might even buy you a burger on the way back – but that still don’t mean I trust you.’

14
    The cross-hairs followed Franklin until he left the kitchen and disappeared from sight. The finger in the nonslip glove relaxed on the trigger and an eye flicked up from the scope.
    Carrie Dupree was in the trees, back from the house a little and low enough on the trunk not to be shaken too much by the wind. She had been in position since way before the storm hit, waiting for Dr Kinderman to come home. She watched the lights in the house go out and listened through the surf sound of the wind-tossed branches until she heard the front door bang shut then a car start up and drive away.
    She probed the darkness, everything glowing a phosphorescent green in the night-sight. The house remained dark and silent.
    Nothing moved.
    She felt a slight vibration in the sleeve pocket of her camouflage jacket and swung the rifle round ninety degrees to a neighbouring tree. She could just make out the slim outline of Eli, the hand holding the phone that had sent the alert making a chopping sign across his throat.
    Time to pull out.
    Exfiltration was fast and practised. She capped the scope and powered it down, slung the rifle