The Tower by Simon Toyne Read Free Book Online Page A

there since Kinderman went missing?’
    ‘Just myself and the technician who found it.’
    ‘OK, let’s start there.’
    Pierce swiped them through another security door and pointed to an office door halfway down the corridor.
    Shepherd had been in Kinderman’s office a few times before, once when he had started working here and again on the day he left. It was something of a tradition at Goddard, being paraded in front of the chief on your way in and out for a chat and a pep talk. He remembered being struck on both occasions by Kinderman’s extraordinary neatness and precision, a memory that jarred heavily with the chaotic mess of files and paperwork now covering most of the floor.
    Franklin surveyed it all from the door while he pulled on a pair of blue Nitrile gloves he’d produced from his jacket pocket. Shepherd felt hot blood rising up his neck as he realized he’d left his own back in the car.
    Franklin stepped into the office and made his way through snowdrifts of paperwork towards the centre of the room. He stood for a moment, turning slowly, taking it all in: the neat, uncluttered desk; the crooked photos on the wall of various presidents standing next to the same neatly-pressed man; the same man shaking hands with the King of Sweden as he received the Nobel Prize for his work in measuring the rate of universal expansion. In the world of astrophysics Dr Kinderman was the closest thing you could get to a rock star and Shepherd was finding it very hard to think of him as a suspect.
    He felt something soft and cold press against the back of his hand and looked down to discover a pair of fresh gloves held low so Franklin wouldn’t see them. He smiled his thanks at the PST who had come to his rescue and quickly pulled them on just as Franklin finished his silent appraisal of the room and looked up. ‘OK boys,’ he said, ‘get to work.’
    The two techs swooped into the room, one shaking open various-sized evidence bags, the other scoping every surface with a high-end camera that took both stills and video. Franklin joined Shepherd and Pierce back in the corridor. ‘Looks like someone left in a hell of a hurry.’
    Pierce nodded. ‘When I first saw it I thought it was a break-in.’
    ‘You still think so?’
    He shook his head. ‘Not when I saw that.’ He pointed to a small book lying open next to the terminal keyboard. It was photographed and handed out to Franklin. It was a standard appointments diary, a double page to a week, every blank space crammed with small, precise handwriting. ‘I was trying to find out where Dr Kinderman might be, but as you can see it wasn’t much help.’
    Franklin flicked through the pages until he arrived at the current week where the writing just stopped. The last entry was in today’s date:
    T
    end of days
    The rest of the diary was blank, as if nothing was going to happen ever again.
    Franklin looked up. ‘You said no one has been in this room apart from you and the person who found it like this.’
    ‘That’s right, just me and Merriweather.’
    Franklin handed the diary over to one of the techs for processing. ‘Why don’t we go and say hello to Merriweather.’

11
    The Space Telescope Operations Control Centre was roughly half the size of a tennis court and smelt of warm circuitry and ozone. There were no windows in the room and therefore no daylight. The only illumination came from the occasional desk lamp and the combined glow of a few dozen flat-screen monitors facing a larger central screen. All of them were displaying the same message:
    MANKIND MUST LOOK NO FURTHER
    A man stood as they entered, his clothes and horn-rimmed glasses making him look like he had beamed in from the fifties.
    ‘Merriweather, these are Special Agents Franklin and Shepherd from the FBI.’
    They shook hands. Franklin nodded at the big screen. ‘That the same message you found on Kinderman’s computer?’
    ‘Yes, sir –’ He cleared his throat and stared up at the screen