Jack Be Nimble: Gargoyle

by English, Ben

  *

  “Is this your first time shopping at Harrods?” asked the uniformed woman several hundred feet below.

  The kindly--if garishly dressed–African man before her glanced up from the display of ties. “Why, yes, as a matter of fact, it is.” He held up a green silk Gino Resillio. “You wouldn’t happen to carry shoes that match this?”

  The saleswoman turned, gesturing past a service entrance and an exit to the stairs. “At Harrods, sir, we carry everything.” she said confidently. “If you’d like, we can have those fitted for you while you wait.” But he was already gone.

  *

  The Asian with an accent out of the American South pushed the wide brim of his hat back and eyed the antique silver coins shimmering in the velvet case. “Pirate’s treasure, huh? From Sir Francis Drake? You say they’re how much?” He drawled heavily–almost exaggeratedly--over each syllable.

  The floor manager straightened his monocle. “One hundred and twelve thousand pounds, if you must know.” He was becoming entirely fed up with this inane Asian-American and his endless questions. It was nearly time to re-wax his mustache, at any rate. “Now see here, my good fellow, it’s a quarter to closing and I really must insist on locking up this section of the store.”

  The other man didn’t move. “I wouldn’t know about all that, Jimmy-boy. I made my money in oil and natural gas. You know anything about gas?” His attention never left the doubloons. “Must have a humdinger of a security system in this dump to protect all this shiny stuff.”

  “Harrods is protected by a Fortress security arrangement, yes. Now I really must insist we—”

  “I’m-a goin’, I’m-a goin. Which way to them Beluga fish eggs I heard about?”

  *

  The young concierge manning the desk near the private elevators gaped openly at the man who stepped in out of the fog. “What are you looking at, sonny?” said the clown, chomping vigorously on a huge plastic cigar. One flaring, rainbow eyebrow arched dangerously. “I’m here for the bachelorette party on the 29th floor, so buzz me in, chop chop.” He honked his bicycle horn twice for emphasis.

  The concierge remembered himself and pressed the button, opening the elevator. The clown paused as he flopped his enormous shoes past the desk. “Here you go, kid,” he said, handing the young man a balloon poodle. The clown pulled absently at the red and blue cloth “buttons” fronting his outfit. “Ever want to kill your boss?” he asked.

  *

  Steve had to labor to keep up with Jack and the major, forcing himself to breathe as quietly as possible as they rushed through a labyrinth of half-formed walls and dusty two-by-four frames. The night jump had been enough of an ordeal; he’d be lucky to make it through the next few hours without a major cardiac infarction. Worse, he knew his stentorian breathing would give them away in an instant, should any sentries or daytime laborers be lingering about. At least the air conditioning’s already been activated, he thought. “Wait up,” he wheezed. They didn’t have to carry all of his equipment.

  *

  “Just here to examine your building for any possible threat to the water table, fellows,” said the blond, bespectacled geologist. “Whitaker’s the name. Mr. Raines’ office called me down just this morning from Edinburgh.” He eyed the building’s foundations, oblivious to the scrutiny of the three janitors whose pinocle game he’d disturbed. “Don’t mind me, I can find my own way about. Dreadfully high water table you chaps have here in London, what with the Thames and all.” He peered closely at the concrete wall, apparently following a minute crack with his finger as well as his eyes, and shuffled off down the tunnel.

  *

  The three figures in black skidded to a stop before a doorway to a huge, vaulted room full of workmen’s equipment. According to the construction timetable (available to anyone over the net) and the registered blueprints (available to anyone capable of decrypting seven layers of net security at the architectural firm), this space was destined to serve as an auxiliary circuitry room. “Chokepoint.” said Jack. Half-laid walls and exposed ductwork obscured all but a portion of the cavernous area. “Power’s on, Steve.”

  He gestured at an electrician’s box between a stack of drywall slabs and a support beam. The finished part of the room looked like a giant walk-in closet, with a switchboard full of switches, plugs, fuses, lights, wires, and shunts. Translucent plastic sheets hung from beams crisscrossing the ceiling, dividing the room up into mismatched sections. Fine dust and bits of wood covered the floor. Jack began stripping out of his black Nomex flight suit.

  The major rested her pack on an overturned pail. “This isn’t the most defensible position, but I agree.” Underneath her insulated coveralls she wore a form-fitting black bodysuit similar to those worn by the two men. Hers was also short sleeved, and Jack caught himself watching the play of muscles along the back of her arm as she hunted in her pack for one of the armored jackets. He sped up his own preparation, tightly packing certain items into a smaller knapsack. The required attention to detail, he found gratefully, forced him back to the task at hand.

  The three of them stashed their extra equipment and spare parachutes under a pink snowdrift of insulation and began arranging a small level area on which to set the computer. As she hefted a 10 pound bag of drywall powder, Major Griffin said, “I must certainly admit, I for one never thought your people would get nearly this far.”

  “Like I said before, Major, we’re here to help,” said Jack as he laid a wooden board atop the stack of drywall bags.

  “Afraid that should be my line, Mr. Fl–Jack.” She found her armored jacket and slipped into it. “I never anticipated my assignment from His Majesty would involve more than my acting as tour guide.”

  Jack looked pointedly at her handgun. “You just show me you can use that .45, Major, and this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

  The other man finished connecting the cables from his laptop to the various boxes on the walls marked Danger! High voltage, and booted up his hard drive. “We’re in luck, folks. I can get us direct video free feed from the surveillance cameras. As soon as Brad finds out which brand security system this place uses, I can access our database and override theirs. No one will ever know we’re here.”

  “That takes care of that,” said Griffin. “What about Raines’ offices?”Steve shook his head. “No good. Looks like he may have his own setup in there. It’s a complete stand-alone; I can’t get in.” He fished a minuscule headset out from a pocket and plugged it into his computer.

  Jack and the major activated their tiny wireless earbuds and married them electronically to the phones they carried clipped to their belts. He grabbed up his knapsack. “Give me about fifteen minutes to get into place, then we’ll run a check on everybody.”

  The major checked the numbers she’d programmed into her phone. “And as soon as you have ascertained that Her Highness is actually here, I’ll make the call to D-11.”

  Jack nodded. “It’s good to know that at least some of the police in London are allowed to carry firearms.”

  The major returned his gaze dubiously. Before she could speak, he closed his mouth into a grin and walked off into the darkness, swinging the small duffel bag.

  Steve set a Snickers bar next to the laptop, and opened a long, narrow case strapped to his thigh. Stealing into Raines’ sound would be a trick.

  *

  The Vienna Boys Choir and the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra were praising light and truth from several recessed speakers in the main office as Raines scanned the security report, then handed it back to the tall Chinese called Michael. “Very good. Call Raphael and Gabriel in here, would you please? Now, my friend,” he said to the man who stood pulling himself into a gray trenchcoat. “The van and other cars are in the basement garage.”

  “Yes, yes, we’ve been over this,” snapped Miklos. “You and I rendezvous in two hours. My men and I drive around London until the broadcast, then deposit the child at the gates of Buckingham P
alace.”

  “–the press will be there,” Raines gestured as if urging Miklos to speed up.

  “The press will be there. As soon as she’s picked up or on camera, we—”

  Raines finished for him. “You make our real political statement.”

  Miklos smiled. It never reached his eyes. “And the whole world will shake.”

  Raines waited until Miklos had left, then walked to his desk, switching his computer on before settling into his brass-studded, leather club chair. Pity. The chair was just beginning to feel right. He should have had it removed before tonight’s activities made such an activity impossible.

  Raines had prepared and tested the Hradek program months before, and now only needed a simple systems diagnostic to make sure everything was proceeding properly. As the diagnostic began, he activated another program, a custom-built teleconferencing suite that made use of the cluster of special instruments on the roof of the Illuminatus Tower.

  Within moments his system was shaking hands with a similar communications setup at a villa outside Cartagena. Lopez’s secretary answered, her English unmarred by any trace of accent. “Good evening, Mr. Raines. How can I serve you?”

  Mmm. The three million he’d spent perfecting the video feed was money well spent. Raines had always enjoyed blond Latina women. Further proof that European blood, even a few generations old, carried well through the tangled ancestries of South America. “Please tell Armand the project is well underway, and to proceed with matters at his discretion. I shall join him tomorrow or very likely early the next day. Also, my dear, this will be the final transmission from London.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Raines terminated the call and then activated a final program from his workstation. He then transferred certain data and control protocols from his desk-mounted system into a smaller, hand-held computer, just finishing as two of his suited and impeccably-coiffed men paused outside the door.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, pocketing the miniature system. “After you complete your assignment this evening, you’ll have twenty minutes to join us above.” They nodded, the smaller one with the beard grinning viciously. Raines rounded his desk, tapping the lacquered finish. Gabriel and Raphael, as he enjoyed calling the two brothers, were two of his most bloodthirsty recruits. “Tempus fugit, my sons.”

  *

  Elbow-deep in wires and cabling, Steve swam through the electronic physicality of the Illuminatus Tower. Everything forgotten beyond the tangle of colored lines. Smiling faintly—music?—he spliced into another cable, tying the new line off and pulling another from his vest pocket. Got to talk to Jack about going totally wireless. His favorite wireless gadget still had a patent pending: the spider.

  Steve hooked the tiny mechanism—it was black, antennaeless, and about half the,size of a match head—into a conduit and checked a receiver clipped to his arm. Grunted to himself in satisfaction when he saw the strength of spider’s signal. Where was that Snickers?

  Solomon lay nearly prone on the roof between the two windows, screwing the special attachment onto the barrel of his rifle. He didn’t exactly harbor a love of heights, but the bright light streaming upward from the theater lobby gave the illusion of definition to the wide, yawning space above and behind him. He definitely didn’t want to turn around to enjoy the scenery. The entire roof was canted slightly in that direction, anyway. He shuddered, and adjusted his headset. At least this wing of the building kept him out of the wind.

  Leaning a foot to either side gave him a perfect view of the theater lobby and the wide, mall-like hall the moviegoers would walk down to reach the public elevators. That was fine. He could shoot equally well from either shoulder. All the shops were closed now, of course, but a few restaurants remained open, and some young, wild-haired punks still hung around the lobby and surrounding area.

  Solomon knew the feel and temperament of his McMillan M-88 sniper rifle like he knew his left arm, and he’d been a lefty since Pony League on the Big Island. The .50 caliber repeater was accurate up to 2500 yards, and in addition to his routine ammunition he carried additional magazines of incendiary and armor-piercing shells in various pockets of his black ninja suit.

  All told, it looked to be an easy mission. Solomon lay under a hundred meters from the targets, which made accounting for windage and height simplicity itself. After they blew the windows and provided suitable distraction, he would switch to his infrared sight and clear the area using specially prepared Magsafe ammo Ian had loaded for him. The crowd below would be panicky around the cell of killers and Solomon had no wish to accidentally deliver a deathblow to an innocent bystander. Hence the Magsafe: lethal, frangible ammunition that would not penetrate the human body. Solomon’s sidearm held the same type, though in smaller, more conventional shells. Magsafe was best for close quarters battle, but Jack had suggested they come up with a form that could be delivered via sniper rifle for situations like this.

  Jack placed great faith in preparation.

  Laying supine on the cold concrete, a slight breeze tugging at his black cap as he continued to survey the kill zone, Solomon allowed a few of his thoughts to return to a particular student left behind in Germany. The Hopkins poem had been the right move, though the school board would have collectively scowled had they known Solomon told Carl he was a Baptist.

  Solomon sighed. In his professional career as an educator--he refused to think of his job as just a “cover”–he’d always shrugged off discussions about separation of religion and scholarship, though he held tightly to his personal religiosity. Most of his life he’d been a sniper, trained in the twin arts of killing at range and psychologically manipulating enemy troops into sheer terror. Yet if he could make room in his worldview for belief in hope and a higher power, why was it that the teaching profession recoiled from the concept as if it were a form of leprosy?

  He never would have seen the movement off to his left if he hadn’t been watching for it. Several meters and three gaping skylights away, Brad gave him the thumbs-up. Like Solomon, he too was making the final adjustments to his weapon, a canister rifle, and like the other man, Brad wore a ninja suit and one of Ian’s jackets. Far above and behind him, the edge of a curtain billowed from one of two open windows, either of which had given him access to the roof.

  Solomon settled down to wait out the movie, thinking fleetingly of the green tie as he adjusted his sights. Six more minutes.

  Ian’s gaze swept from his wristwatch to the multiple concrete corridors. Where the hell am I? he thought. According to the blueprints, I should be coming up on the service elevator. Nobody said anything about all these branching tunnels. And I’ve definitely never seen this before.

  He eyed the bundle of thick, dark wires snaking along the ceiling of the tunnel. They weren’t threaded through in any piping, nothing to protect them as they wound along next to the naked fluorescent bulbs. He could be mistaken, but weren’t those microchips embedded every couple of inches in the wire? This could be the special fiber optics. Now, what would they be connected to? he wondered.

  Ian began to jog through the narrow, sloping corridor.

  Steve was inordinately proud of his communications equipment. He’d designed the bone microphones himself, tiny flesh-colored microdots that nestled quite nicely in the ear. Voice was picked up by vibrations in the bones of the user’s face, so the bone mic was practically invisible. Each mic piggybacked off the user’s cellphone, so as long as nothing interfered with the phone signal, the hardware was solid.

  Software was another matter. Steve knew he was good—hell, great, but he also knew there wasn’t a single encryption scheme that couldn’t be broken. As an added security measure, the team used codes and codenames to communicate in the field.

  For some damn reason, Jack was partial to classic comedy star and famous fat man, Oliver Hardy.

  “Ready for check, Ollie,” said Steve into his headset. The screen before him was taken up primarily by a patched-in view of the building’s
security system. Even as his computer sent doctored images to the building’s security force, he was permitted an untampered perspective of the theater lobby, while six smaller windows on his screen rotated through views of various hallways throughout the building. Beside him sat Major Griffin, eyes riveted on the small computer, the huge .45 Combat Magnum in her hand.

  Jack cleared his throat over the line. “Groucho?”

  “Check,” said Steve.

  “Gummo?”

  “Lock and load,” said Brad.

  “Zeppo?”

  “Ready.” intoned Solomon.

  “Chico?”

  Ian’s voice crackled and warbled strangely over the connection. “Yeah, I’m a little behind, but I’ll be there.”

  “Harpo?”

  Honk, honk.

  “That’s nice. Okay people, two minutes till our show starts. Safeties off, everybody. This is what we train for.”

  Steve looked over his equipment, set his pistol next to his keyboard, then sat back. The editing software was running smoothly with the surveillance camera interface, he saw. He’d routed all video feed from the building through the computer before him. The current program would selectively cut all signs of the team out of any scene before relaying it on to the building’s security net. Steve sighed, pleased with his work. He pulled a small serviceman’s Bible from his breast pocket, and began to flip through the worn pages.

  Funny, according to the blueprints this was a parking garage. The tunnel down which Ian had been running had gradually taken on the look of the type of mortar he’d seen in blast vaults and bomb shelters, and three steel doors and two broken lockpicks later, he found himself in an enormous circular room heavy with the stink of ozone. Alcoves sat in the yellowed walls, and Ian had the initial impression he’d walked into a mausoleum, though the niches were filled with electronics–