Nine forty-four. Dima hit the grand marble stairs running, barely taking in the rich gold panelling. He slammed his hand against the first fire alarm he saw. Nothing: disabled. Solomon wanted everyone at their posts for maximum carnage. He turned round and headed for the basement, where he almost collided with a man in overalls.
‘Where do your deliveries come in?’
‘The cargo dock. But you can’t just—.’
He ran through some double doors, his eyes scanning everything. In the cargo dock, a fork-lift truck, several trolleys and boxes stacked on pallets. And in a glass booth, three men hunched over mugs of coffee.
‘Sorry to disturb you. I’m looking for an Imajquik photocopier, delivered by Cargotrak.’
None of them looked up.
‘We’re on our break,’ said one.
Dima was tempted to shoot all three, but he needed their help.
‘Cock-up our end. Sent you the wrong model. Need it back or my life’s not worth living.’
One of them stopped chewing and looked at the others.
‘Like he said. We’re on our break.’
Faces glazed as they chewed and gulped.
‘Just tell me where it is and I’ll find it.’
They looked at each other. One sniggered.
‘It?’
‘Yeah, what d’you mean, it?’
‘Guys – I’m in a hurry here.’
‘You got authorisation? This is a global financial trading institution, friend. Only authorised contractors.’
They exchanged the complacent looks of men with safe jobs and generous pensions. It would serve the French right if they were all blown up, thought Dima: their love of bureaucracy was downright pathological.
Dima grabbed the nearest one by his shirt collar. Hot coffee spewed out of his mug across the other two. He put the airport goon’s gun against his temple, grinding it left and right, twisting his overfed skin over the muzzle.
‘This is my authorisation.’
The other two leapt out of their chairs cowering.
‘There’s – they’ve been coming in all week.’
‘Four over the weekend.’
‘That’s better.’
Nothing like a gun to the head to inspire sudden helpfulness.
‘They went up to the second floor.’
‘And the third.’
95
Dima considered his options as he ran up the flight of stairs. No alarm. No way of evacuating – even if he got anyone to believe him. Start screaming ‘Terrorist bomb! Get out!’ and he risked arousing the attention of security, who would most likely shoot him on sight.
He had to just keep looking, knowing that every second brought detonation closer. He got Kroll on his mobile.
‘Second floor. Get here, now!’
He reached the second floor and ran straight into the first room he saw. Five women looked up at him from their screens.
‘Any photocopiers – newly delivered?’
They all looked blank. He ran to the next room: more people at screens.
‘Sure,’ said one, pointing. Dima wheeled round. In the corner, to the left of the door, a woman was lifting the lid on a grey machine and placing a piece of paper on the glass.
‘Don’t!’ screamed Dima. He leapt forward and pulled her arm away.
‘Excuse me,’ said the woman, wrenching herself free. ‘I was here first.’
She jabbed a button on the console. The machine whirred, produced its copy, and she pushed past him to the door.
‘Some people have no manners.’
The next two rooms each had a copier. Both had been used. Could it be in a functioning machine? No way.
In the fifth room he found a lone woman. He came in so fast she shrieked and leapt out of her seat.
‘New photocopiers – from Imajquik?’
A look of recognition.
‘Are you from maintenance?’
She smiled. ‘You want Adam’s office – upstairs.’
‘Where upstairs?’
‘You look – is everything all right?’
‘Just – tell me where.’
‘Adam Levalle, Deputy Director of Communications.’
Dima took the stairs three at a time, and burst through the door marked Director of Communications. Another woman, on the phone: young, dark, pretty and indignant. She frowned, putting her hand over the phone.
‘Have you an appointment?’
‘Photocopier!’ said Dima, struggling for breath.‘Where is it?’
Dima scanned the room. None in sight.
She sighed, pointed at a pair of closed double doors, and went back to her call.
‘You’ll have to come back though. Monsieur Levalle’s on a call.’
Dima marched towards the doors. She dropped the phone as if it were infected, got out of her chair and came forward to intercept him.
‘Did you hear what I said? And where’s your ID?’
He pushed her gently back into her seat with a look that suggested she should stay there, and pushed open the doors.
A smart office: wood panelling, a desk, a meeting table and chairs, nice leather ones. A young man was on the phone, his face half-hidden by the receiver. The woman was persistent. She grabbed Dima by the elbow.
‘Sir – you can’t.’
Adam Levalle, Deputy Director of Communications looked up: a clear, bright face, full of promise – instantly recognisable.
Dima froze.
96
New York City
Gordon, Whistler and Dumphrey exchanged glances.
Whistler spoke first.
‘Well, does he exist or not, this Solomon?’
Gordon was hanging on to the threads of his authority.
‘I have to make a call. Is there somewhere I—?’
Dumphrey exploded.
‘Well, make it here then, and make it fast. Either this is the biggest goddamn hoax since Adolf Hitler’s Diary – or we’re about to have World War Three.’
Gordon called Langley and waited while the call-holding music wafted out of his phone. Then he suddenly straightened himself. ‘Sir, Good Afternoon . . . Yes Sir, yes but . . . I need identification on Asset 240156 L.’
His cheeks reddened. ‘Yes I understand Sir, sorry to have troubled . . .’
Gordon looked deflated.
‘240156 L is on deep cover long term. His image is not available at this time.’
He looked thunderously at Whistler, who was enjoying Gordon’s humiliation.
‘My advice is that you continue your interrogation a little more forcefully until you have something useful and STOP JERKING US AROUND!’
Dumphrey slammed the table with the flat of his hand.
‘Okay, I’m calling time on this.’
97
Paris
Adam Levalle finished his call and looked at the strongly-built, dishevelled stranger who stood before him, breathing rapidly. He clearly didn’t belong in the building. He looked exhausted, yet on high alert.
‘I’m sorry, Sir: this – person – just burst in here, babbling about the photocopier. Shall I call security?’
Dima struggled to breathe. Paliov’s photographs: the young man on the bridge, in the park. Solomon saw them too. And sending the bomb to him, to Dima’s son, was all part of his plan.
‘Ah,’ said Adam Levalle and nodded at the copier. ‘Shouldn’t be in here anyway. We hardly use them these days.’ He smiled. ‘The paperless office. Supposedly.’
‘And he pushed me.’
‘Thanks, Colette: I’ll take it from here.’
Dima snapped back into the moment. Took his eyes off Adam. Went towards the copier.
‘Has anyone touched it?’
‘Colette said it doesn’t work. I looked for a plug but—.’
The clock on the wall said ten to ten. He turned back to Adam.
‘You need to leave. Get far away from here. As far as you possibly can.’
Adam Levalle was not
the sort of person who just did what he was told, especially in his own office. And the unannounced stranger’s intensity, his appearance, like someone who had come through a lot to reach this spot, at this particular moment, aroused his curiosity. Clearly there had to be a reason.
Dima examined the machine. No power connection. No wires. He turned back to Adam.
‘I can’t raise the alarm. It’s been sabotaged. And I can’t defuse it. If you do what I tell you, it could save your life. Does the Bourse have a bomb shelter?’
Adam Levalle nodded.
‘Go there now. Take as many as you can, quickly. Don’t wait if they protest. And do not let anyone try to stop you. Please – just go.’ Dima, arms spread, was trying to herd them towards the door.
Colette stood her ground. ‘Sir, this man has no ID. I think I should call security.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Adam asked him, unfazed, curious.
‘I have to get this away from here – as far away as possible. Please do as I say.’
Dima’s eyes were on fire now.
Adam considered this.
‘You’ll need some help. I think there’s a trolley – in the stationery store down the hall.’
Colette’s hand was on the phone.
‘I’m calling security.’
Dima strode across the room, prised the receiver from her hand.
‘Okay, now listen. Inside this copier is a bomb. We have minutes – if we’re lucky – to save the lives of everyone in this building and in Paris. If you get security they will detain me and I’ll resist and they’ll end up shooting me and everyone in the city will die.’
‘But – who are you?’
‘Yes,’ said Adam. ‘Who are you?’
Dima could hear rapid footsteps outside. He took a step towards Adam, and breathed in, daring himself to say the name.
‘Was your mother’s name Camille?’
Adam frowning, nodded. ‘My . . . my natural mother yes, but she’s – how do you know that?’
‘Then if nothing else, do this for her.’
98
Adam and Dima wheeled the copier along the corridor and into a lift. Adam kept glancing at the intense stranger who had just burst into his life, warning of imminent apocalypse. And who, mystifyingly, seemed to know a detail from his life that he had shared with very few people.
‘Can I ask you how you knew—?’
Dima interrupted. ‘Just let’s get through this.’ He couldn’t tempt fate by imagining anything beyond the next few minutes.
Kroll materialised in front of them, breathless from running up the stairs. As soon as Dima saw him he waved the young man away.
‘Go Adam – go to the shelter,’ Dima shouted, waving Kroll forward. ‘Go there and don’t come out until there’s some kind of all clear.’ He pushed him away as Kroll took his side of the trolley.
‘Strange location to plant it. I’d have thought a better place would be closer to the ground. Closer to the foundations, more likely to demolish everything in one go. On the other hand, it isn’t a conventional bomb . . .’
It was Kroll’s trademark way of handling tension – to talk incessantly, until Dima shut him up. But Dima had tuned him right out. He wasn’t hearing anything. He was thinking about where and how. He did notice that Kroll was wearing identical overalls to the unhelpful men in the cargo dock – though with a telltale small red-ringed hole in the chest.
It was cramped in the servicelift. The copier took up almost all of the space. Kroll squashed up against the doors and jabbed Basement. The best bet was back to the cargo dock and whatever van they could hijack. The lift struggled into action. It was old and slow. Agonisingly slow.
Dima was squashed against the rear, Kroll against the doors. He was still going on, apparently unbothered by the imminent apocalyptic danger inches from them.
‘You know, Dima, after this one, I’m really thinking of taking a break. After all, the kids are growing up. Absent fathers and all that. If I showed their mothers that I was really making an effort, showed real willing, I think things could be different. What do you think? Maybe do a little work for Bulganov. Nothing too arduous, you know . . .’
Dima wasn’t taking it in. His head was already hammering from an overdose of adrenalin.
The doors opened. For a millisecond the world stood still as Dima looked from Kroll to the open doors and back to Kroll: three guards, and three slugs that smashed straight into his friend before he could even raise his pistol. He’d shielded Dima, buying him an extra split second in which to aim and fire three double taps – one into each guard’s centre mass. In two seconds all three dropped like liquid, one after the other. Kroll’s body blocked the trolley. Dima could only climb over the copier to his friend, who still had a faraway look in his lifeless eyes, the memory of his kids embedded in his expression.
‘Goodbye, dear friend.’
Dima moved the body to one side and grabbed one of the guard’s weapons and spare mags as he pushed the trolley forward, scooting it as fast as he dared towards the cargo dock. No time for any niceties now. Everyone in his path was a target. He manoeuvred the trolley through a set of double doors and into the cargo dock. An electrician’s van was just pulling out. He raced round the trolley, grabbed the door and wrenched it open. The driver didn’t look old enough to own a licence, let alone be in charge of a Transit van.
‘Turn it off. Out. Now!’
The youth obliged.
‘Don’t move.’
Dima looked round for more available hands. The glass booth was empty except for one body – undressed: Kroll’s source of overalls. He saw a movement behind a stack of boxes.
‘Come out!’ He fired a warning shot to speed things up.
Another of the unhelpful men from the glass booth appeared. He looked like he had been sick.
‘Over here. Get this thing into the van.’
Two more guards appeared. Dima took them down in two short bursts. The youth was crying now.
‘Just put the copier in the fucking van or you’re next.’
Dima prodded the boy with his gun. They got the doors open but both of them had lost their strength.
‘You two – that end,’ he shouted, grabbing the other end himself. Together they hefted one corner on to the Transit’s load bed then Dima pushed the copier all the way in.
‘Do nothing to get in my way or you’re dead, okay?’ The youth nodded eagerly.
Dima leapt into the driving seat and was off, accelerating down the ramp and out of the rear of the building. Ten past ten. He headed southwest down Rue de Richelieu, passing the Louvre on his left. Lights on, hazards flashing, gun and steering wheel in his left hand, his right hand on the horn. At the Quai des Tuileries he went right, into the oncoming traffic. At least they could see him and see that he wasn’t getting out of their way. He had to get out, get as far out as he could. It had been so long. All his intimate memory of Paris was either faded or out of date. Think! Where could he find somewhere empty, in Paris, in the time he had left?
Two police vans were now heading towards him, straddling the lanes. Nowhere to go. A question of nerve. He’d have more than them. He headed for the gap between them. They parted at the last second, but he crossed a junction and clipped a bus as he swerved left trying to avoid it, sideswiping a Citroen and scraping off the nearside mirror. The Citroen span round like a toy, taking out three more cars and starting a full scale pile-up. He jammed on the brakes, threw the Transit into reverse, crossed the reservation and continued. On the Voie Georges-Pompidou now, hitting a hundred plus kph. Madness. At any point someone could smash into him and that would be the end. But every metre he travelled was moving the epicentre further away from the heart of Paris. And further away from Adam Levalle.
99
New York City
Blackburn was on his feet, a hood over his head, being marched down a corridor by two goons. For a brief moment, when he was allowed to look at the mugshots, he had dared to think
the tide had turned and they had taken him seriously. It didn’t last.
He could hear Whistler and Gordon behind. Their tone suggested that they were arguing, but from under the hood he couldn’t make out what they were saying.
‘Where am I going?’
‘To the special place where we get you to tell us the whole truth real fast, said one of the goons.
The other chipped in. ‘Ever thought you were drowning? No? Well you’re about to find out just what it’s like.’
They entered a lift that plunged them downwards. The next corridor was colder, the floor bare concrete, the sounds bounced and echoed against the hard unyielding surfaces. A door swung closed behind him. The room was dark. The sliver of light coming under the hood had disappeared. Blackburn could smell water, chlorinated like a swimming pool. Suddenly the hood was whipped off and there in front of him was a gurney, at one end a bucket. The goons had gone. Two men stood either side, their faces shrouded by ski masks. One held a large transparent bottle with a tube stuck in it.
‘Wanna change your mind before you lie down?’
Two cell phones went off simultaneously, one playing the Hawaii Five-O theme, the other the Stars and Stripes. Blackburn looked round to see both Gordon and Whistler listening, faces blank with dismay. The ski mask men were both behind the gurney. Laid on a narrow table to one side were several ratchet straps and a night stick.
‘Holy mother of fuck,’ said Gordon.
One of the ski mask men shifted his weight, impatient. ‘We good to go, right?’
Whistler was frozen, open-mouthed. Eventually he spoke. ‘It’s Paris. Full nuclear alert.’
Blackburn’s thoughts were a blur. Just when he had reached the point where he was seriously doubting his sanity, Paris was happening. New York was next. Blackburn looked at the men in the ski masks, the gurney waiting for him. The news had gone through him like a lightning bolt. His whole body jolted into life. No, he said to himself. This is not as far as it goes.
He lunged forward and with both arms outstretched shoved the gurney hard so it slammed against both the ski mask men, pushing them over. Then, twisting to the right, he snatched up the nightstick and swung it at Gordon, smashing it against his skull so hard that he dropped on to the floor in a heap. Whistler was in a corner, nowhere to go. He reached into his jacket but Blackburn landed the stick right on the back of his hand and his M9 dropped to the ground. He lifted his other to protect himself. Blackburn kicked the gun towards himself, grabbed it, and was about to land the stick hard on Whistler’s nose when he paused.
Battlefield 3: The Russian Page 30
