Vortex by Chris Ryan

Author:Chris Ryan [Chris Ryan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781407050164
Publisher: RHCB

Chapter Twelve

Chin-Hwa slept. As he slept, he dreamed. And as he dreamed, he saw terrible things.

He saw the cities of the world, their streets full of panicked people. He saw the fear in their faces, and the chaos all around them. He saw lines of hospital beds, their occupants thin and gaunt – the unmistakable look of the dying. He saw burning fireballs in the air, and heard the screams of the aeroplane passengers as they fell to earth, and to their death. He saw nuclear missiles flying undetected towards the West, and he wondered whether their arrival might not be a blessed release to the people they were sent to destroy.

And he saw Vortex. Small. Silent. Lethal. It did not care whom it affected: men or women, adults or children – everyone's life would be destroyed.

He shouted out in his sleep and awoke sweating. It took him a moment to realize that his dream had not been real, but in a way that was small comfort. It could be only too real, and very soon. And Chin-Hwa would have to take his share of the blame.

The meeting he'd had with the government men kept playing around in his head. London, New York, Los Angeles, Madrid. He never expected things to get this far. Vortex was just a deterrent. It was meant to keep the peace and stop the West from invading his country. No one ever intended to actually use it – at least that was what he'd been told. He was just being ordered to copy it. If he didn't do it, someone else would.

But as he dressed and stomped around his sparse apartment, he imagined more of the devastation the weapon could inflict on those major cities. He imagined the chaos. He imagined the death, the destruction. He told himself that it was not his fault. This would have gone ahead without him. And if he hadn't complied – his eyes flicked over to the door of the bedroom in which his mother now slept, even though it was the middle of the day. She spent more and more time in bed now; but he knew the fact that she was frail would not stop the government stooges from carrying out their threat. He was doing the right thing, he told himself, in keeping his knowledge to himself.

But what would she say? What would she say if he told her about Vortex and the terrible things it could do? And that thought led his eyes to fall upon a picture of his father. Ki-Woon had been a good man. Honest. Principled. Willing to die for what he believed in. He had told Chin-Hwa to look after his mother, but hadn't he himself followed his conscience all those years ago?

As he sat there, Chin-Hwa felt the absence of his father more bitterly than he ever had before. He would have known what to do. And Ki-Woon seemed to stare out of the picture at his son. 'Look into your heart, Chin-Hwa,' he seemed to say.

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