The Carbon Trail by Catriona King Read Free Book Online Page B

secret. Mitchell watched as Devon turned away to start his search and visualised how easy it would be to snap his neck. He reached out his hands towards his deputy and then gasped, shocked by his own actions. What the hell was wrong with him? Was he prepared to kill for some secret that he couldn’t even recall?
    Devon heard Mitchell’s gasp and turned, seeing the pallor on his face. He stared at him anxiously.
    “Are you OK, Jeff? You’re as white as a ghost.”
    Mitchell’s heartbeat slowed ominously and a terrible dread overwhelmed him. There was something in this lab that he needed to hide, but he didn’t know what it was. He nodded Devon on, following slowly as they entered a small security room and Devon clicked on a screen. Images of them both appeared and Devon waved, watching as he waved back. The timer showed 15:10 on Friday September 5th. So far so accurate. Devon tapped a key and a wall of files appeared; archived tapes for each day of the month. He clicked on Wednesday’s tape and fast forwarded it to 18.26; the time that Mitchell had logged-on upstairs.
    Mitchell’s fists clenched and he got ready to strike. He didn’t know what the tape would show, but he knew that Devon might have to die as a result. He was shocked by the thought, but part of him felt that it was inevitable.
    The timer on the screen reached 19.00 and the basement lab’s doors slid open. Mitchell appeared, dressed in a suit like every day. He walked slowly towards a steel door at the far end of the lab and opened it using a code. Devon clicked again and the interior hallway behind the door appeared, leading to a refrigeration room and a small office on either side. Half of the office was laid out as a lab, with a desk, computer and work-bench; the other half lay behind ceiling-to-floor glass, creating a small, glass room secured with a door.
    Devon turned to Mitchell with a wry smile. “Your inner sanctum.”
    “You’ve never been in there.”
    It was half-statement, half-question and Devon frowned as he replied.
    “In your research suite? No way. I know where I’m not welcome. You were very clear on that.”
    Mitchell eased more information from Devon like an expert, enough to find out that he’d had the inner research suite built to specification fifteen months before, without ever telling Devon why. They watched the tape as Mitchell entered the suite’s office at 19:05, then as he moved to the desk and started typing. Ten minutes later he walked to the work-bench and read some papers. He looked just like a scientist carrying out research. Devon looked up from the screen and smiled.
    “You must have been doing your new carbon allotrope work. Maybe that’s why you didn’t log-off upstairs? You just forgot.”
    Mitchell nodded but his thoughts said no. If Scrabo’s computers were all on one system then his work in the suite should have shown-up on the intranet, and Devon would have seen a log-off time on his PC upstairs. It could only mean one thing; the computer in the research suite was a stand-alone, disconnected from the Net. But why would Scrabo allow that? Surely they would want a back-up of everyone’s work? Mitchell answered himself immediately. Scrabo hadn’t allowed it. Whatever research he was doing in the suite he was doing it alone.
    Devon fast-forwarded the tape to four-thirty a.m. on Thursday, just when Mitchell should have been leaving the lab. Static filled the screen. Devon rewound to find out when it started. At 22:30, Jeff Mitchell was seated at his desk in the research suite’s office, and then suddenly nothing; the screen turned to static. Devon pressed fast-forward and they watched six hours of a flickering screen. Finally, at 4:30 on Thursday Mitchell reappeared, sitting behind his desk in the same position he’d been in when the screen had gone down. Two minutes later they watched as Mitchell tidied the office and turned off the computer, then the lights dimmed and he locked-up the suite for the