The Babel Apocalypse by Vyvyan Evans

Author:Vyvyan Evans
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781739996239
Publisher: Nephilim Publishing

Chapter 21

Around thirty seconds later, the door opened again. This time it was Dwayne Kline, now even twitchier than before.

He glanced at me apologetically. “Sorry for the smoke and mirrors. We only have a few minutes before they suspect something. We can’t both be absent too long.” I wondered where this was going. “Dhruv had an insurance policy. At least that’s what he called it. Should anything happen to him. I thought it was a joke …” Kline muttered the last phrase quietly, almost to himself.

“Mr. Gasper?” I asked. Kline nodded. A tear welled up in his eye and slowly trickled down his face. I suddenly felt sorry for him.

“It’s been hell, the last few days,” he confided, glancing up at me. “Marc Barron is bankrolling us. So we’ve had Appleton security crawling all over us since the accident. I’m being monitored twenty-four seven …” His words trailed off.

“I’m very sorry for your loss, Mr. Kline.”

“Can I trust you, Emyr Morgan?” Kline asked.

I looked him square in the eyes. “You can trust me with the truth.”

“I was told I could trust you and that I should only talk to you.”

“Oh?” I asked, slightly startled.

“A woman—I’ll explain. But first Dhruv. I received a notification three days ago to my E-box account, right after the outage. It was an access code for a numbered virtual locker in SwissSecure. There were two files: a video memoclip for me, and a facecall recording. Between Dhruv and Barron. He told me … Dhruv told me in the memoclip … that if I received this, he was already dead. That he loved me.” Tears were now rolling down Kline’s face in a stream. I looked away, slightly embarrassed, while he took out a handkerchief. I glanced back after a moment, once I’d sensed he had managed to pull himself together. “He told me he had messed up. That he was sorry.”

“Messed up?” I asked.

“Barron had leverage on Dhruv. They go back some. But you have to understand, Dhruv is … was a good man. He never intended to hurt anyone.”

“What happened?” I asked quietly.

“He was only twenty-five. He knew he shouldn’t have. Dhruv just made a mistake, which he’s been paying for ever since.”

“What did he do?” I pressed.

“Took out a car in manual mode. With a friend. They were both high. They hit the VTOL beacon marker—a million-to-one freak accident. Dhruv didn’t have a scratch on him, but his friend suffered a bad head injury. The doctors induced a coma. Irreversible brainstem damage. It would’ve been a shitshow. But Barron made it all go away—bought off the cops and compensated the guy’s family. He still needs twenty-four seven intensive care, and for the rest of his life. Dhruv never forgave himself.”

“And Marc Barron used his leverage?” I asked.

Kline nodded. “Always. This time Dhruv had to deploy one of our high-spec military drones in foreign airspace on November 5th. He was provided with a software package which included place coordinates. Using weird codenames—typical Marc Barron. Operation False Flag, Operation Dark Court.

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