The Operative

by Falconer, Duncan

  The men dropped onto their backs on the sloping floor and began punching and clawing at each other like wild beasts. Skender managed to raise the sword and bring it down close to Stratton’s skull but a savage blow from Stratton sent Skender reeling and he let go of the sword. But Skender was a powerful man and he showed no signs of his age as he spun round, gripped Stratton around the throat with both hands and began to strangle him with real ferocity.

  Stratton immediately started to gag. He tried to push Skender back but his arms were not strong enough. As his vision blurred he dropped his hands to grip Skender’s, felt for both the Albanian’s little fingers and grabbed them, bending them back. No one can resist such a countermove unless they are prepared to have their fingers broken in their sockets. Skender let out a yelp as one of his snapped at the joint. He released Stratton’s throat. Stratton slammed him back and to his surprise Skender rolled off the floor and out of sight.

  Stratton scrambled to the edge, praying that Josh was still there, to find the boy in the same position. But to Stratton’s horror Skender was only feet away, hanging on to a reinforcing bar. His baleful stare was fixed on Josh and it was quickly obvious that if he fell, which seemed unavoidable, he meant to take the child with him.

  At that moment the media helicopter thudded around the side of the building and hovered a stone’s throw away.

  Vicky slowly stood and moved closer to the television, her mouth agape as she watched the helicopter’s camera zoom in to show a man and a boy hanging outside the room at the top of the building. Then another man inside came into view as the news anchor excitedly described what they were seeing.

  Vicky turned on her heel and ran from the room. She raced along the corridor and out of the building.

  Hendrickson was watching the television monitors inside the open back of the media truck when he saw the feed from the helicopter. He quickly looked around for Hobart and saw him standing at the corner of the block, watching the building. Seaton was at his side.

  ‘Sir!’ Hendrickson shouted as he ran over to them. ‘You’d better come take a look in the media truck, the TV monitor. I think it’s Skender and Stratton.’

  Hobart looked around him, then over at the media truck. He hurried towards it, Seaton following. ‘I think the kid’s up there too,’ Hendrickson said, following.

  They arrived at the truck and crowded into the back, much to the consternation of the engineer who was shoved aside.

  ‘Excuse me—’ the engineer said, an overture to a complaint, but he was cut short.

  ‘Shut up,’ Hobart spat as he scrutinised the image.

  ‘I can see at least three people, one of them a boy!’ the correspondent in the helicopter shouted excitedly as the cameraman did his best to zoom in close without increasing the camera shake. ‘They’re hanging on for their lives. The building is crumbling away, much of it already disintegrated by the powerful explosions. It looks like the man inside is moving to try and save the others but time may not be on their side. I can see cracks appearing at the top of the pyramid. There is no telling how long it can hold together …’

  ‘Can you believe this guy?’ Hobart said, mainly to himself.

  ‘Josh!’ Stratton shouted above the wind and the noise of the helicopter’s rotors.

  Josh looked up at him. The little boy was terrified beyond the point of panic and was frozen to his perch. The side of the building had collapsed immediately below and it was clear that the long fall onto the jagged spars and rubble would be the end of him. His small body was painfully stretched, his feet resting on a ledge. But another violent shake – or if the foothold gave way – and he’d be lost.

  Skender was in an even more unstable position, outstretched like Josh but with his feet on a shaky horizontal bar that did not look as if it could hold his weight.

  ‘You hang on, Josh! Do you hear me?’ Stratton shouted as he dropped to his knees, trying to get into position to lift the boy to safety.

  Josh nodded quickly as he shuffled to improve his hold, his hands aching where the edge of the window frame cut into them.

  Skender looked at Stratton, then at the boy as the Albanian adjusted his grip, glaring viciously.

  Stratton stretched himself fully as he reached down for Josh. But at that moment another heavy jolt hit the building and the floor jerked down once more. And Josh lost the grip of one of his hands on the window frame.

  Media stations across the country had by now picked up the story and several million people gasped as they watched the small boy almost fall.

  Hobart, Seaton and Hendrickson watched the mediatruck monitor in cold silence.

  Stratton put his shoulder against the bottom of the frame and took hold of one of Josh’s arms. ‘When I say, you let go and I’ll pull you up!’ Stratton shouted.

  Josh looked up at Stratton, terrified.

  Skender then made a sudden effort and swung himself towards Josh, letting go of his own hold. He grabbed Josh around his waist with both hands as Stratton took Josh’s arm. Josh let out a scream as he let go and dropped, but only for a few inches. Both Josh and Skender were now held by Stratton.

  Stratton struggled to bend his other arm around the frame to get a better hold on Josh but could not. His own head was in the way and at an awkward angle. Josh was slipping from his grip and it was only a matter of seconds before he fell. Stratton felt helpless.

  Stratton glanced down at Skender and the two men stared into each other’s eyes.

  ‘Screw you, Stratton!’ Skender shouted.

  Stratton wanted to tear the Albanian’s heart out and as he struggled to find a purchase for his free hand it fell on something. Stratton knew instantly what it was. He grasped it and pulled it around so that he could see it. Both men knew the advantage had suddenly changed as Stratton lowered the tip of the sword towards Skender’s face and, taking a second to line it up, shoved it through the man’s eye.

  Skender remained holding on to Josh, his feelings a tortured mix of disbelief and stubbornness. He knew it was all over – not just the fight, but his life. He saw those days of his youth in the mountains of Albania, saw his brothers and sisters killed and the communist brute slit his throat, saw all this and much more one last time. The sword burned his eye and he took an even firmer hold of Josh, hanging on to life.

  Stratton gave a shout as he dug deep into his last resources of strength and thrust the sword even deeper, penetrating Skender’s brain. Then, as the life left Skender’s body, the crime lord dropped silently away, the sword sticking out of his head.

  Stratton gripped Josh firmly and raised him up over the frame and to the floor. He held the boy as he lay exhausted, looking at Josh who was staring back at him.

  ‘You having fun, Josh?’

  Josh shook his head. A second later another massive jolt rocked the building and the floor dropped even further. Skender’s desk slid past Josh and Stratton and off the edge. Stratton scrambled to his feet and pulled Josh out of the way as the model village on the conference table went past and sailed through the hole to crash into the debris below.

  A million people were watching the events unfold on television. Still in shock after seeing the man hanging onto the boy stabbed through the head, they gasped as they saw the entire floor collapse. The helicopter spun around, the pilot momentarily panicked. As the correspondent shouted at him to get the side of the chopper back in line the audience saw the pinnacle of the pyramid lean over and fall, bringing the penthouse down with it. No one inside could have survived.

  39

  Seaton exhaled audibly and slowly walked away from the media truck, leaving Hobart to stare at the screen. He walked to the corner from where he could see the building, already planning ahead, his thoughts on damage control for the Agency as well as for the Brits. Stratton’s body would more than likely be found and if it was left to the police they would investigate his identity and the part he had played in the incident. That had to be avoided at all costs which meant that Stratton’s and
Josh’s bodies would have to be separated from the others and removed. Seaton would clear it with Hobart since he would need his help but he did not expect any resistance from that quarter as it was also in the FBI’s interest.

  Seaton took his cellphone from his pocket, hit a number on the menu and put it to his ear. ‘Sir? This is Seaton in LA. Yeah, it’s over. That’s what I’m calling about. I need a clean-up crew here for when they find the body.’

  Several hours later roadblocks surrounded the square, keeping the public well back while the emergency services began their work. Engineers conducted safety surveys as well as initial demolition planning and the designation of areas where the fire department could safely search for bodies. The explosives and ordnance department had cleared much of the building although it would take a thorough examination lasting days before it was officially declared safe.

  Seaton sat in the open door of Hobart’s sedan, staring at the building and sipping a cup of coffee while contemplating his immediate future in LA. The way things were going, it might take days to get to the spot where the penthouse had landed and Stratton’s and Josh’s bodies could be found. Hobart had given him the okay to remove the corpses when they were unearthed from the rubble but the delicate part was going to be managing it without raising the interest of the police. Worse still, the media were hovering all over the place and were as keen to find the mysterious man and boy as Seaton was.

  Beside Seaton on the back seat were some of the items taken from the pick-up that Stratton had stolen. Seaton took a look at the pyramid blueprints, curious to see how Stratton had planned the placement of the explosives. The horizontal struts on the fourth, eighth and twelfth floors were marked: he was impressed at Stratton’s assessment of how to do maximum damage with the minimum amount of explosive since it was not obvious to Seaton. But the results were there for all to see. The guy was a surgeon, that was undeniable. Still, although Seaton had regained all the respect he had lost for Stratton when the Englishman had been arrested he could not help feeling disappointed in him for not having figured out an escape route.

  Seaton would have expected Stratton to have made some kind of plan to get out of the building once he had killed Skender, no matter how impossible it might have seemed. He refused to believe that Stratton was the suicidal type. Seaton appreciated that Stratton had not known that Josh was in the building, otherwise he would never have detonated his bombs. It would have been second nature for him to have considered a way out.

  Several pencil marks looked like places where Stratton had changed his mind about charge placement. But as Seaton studied the blueprint while sipping his coffee the design of the central pillar conjured up an image from his memory. He held the plans out at arm’s length to get a broader perspective and realised that the central pillar was the shape of a champagne bottle. It was wide at the base until the tenth floor where it gradually narrowed until the fifteenth and then became straight the rest of the way to the top. It reminded him of Stratton’s trick in Jack’s garden where the challenge had been to get the glass inside the champagne bottle.

  Seaton took a closer look at some of the pencil marks and discovered that one at the base of the pillar corres ponded to another at the top. The centre of the pillar was hollow, with conduits and piping of every description running to each floor. There was also a ladder that extended from the garage to the roof, with a hatch on each floor hidden behind the wall fabric. The hatches were not intended to be used once the building was complete except when major work was required.

  Seaton climbed out of the car to take a look at the building. A flush of excitement ran through him at the possibility that had just occurred to him. However, he could not remove from his mind the image of Stratton and Josh on the edge of the floor barely seconds before it had collapsed.

  As he closed the car door and headed for the square he was stopped by a voice calling out to him.

  ‘Sir!’

  It was a police officer who was walking towards him from the barrier where a crowd of rubbernecks were packed, watching and photographing the scene.

  ‘Are you with the FBI, sir?’ the young officer asked.

  Seaton was more interested in investigating his theory. ‘Yeah,’ he said, hoping he would not be delayed long.

  ‘I got a woman says she knows the man and the kid who were in the building.’

  Seaton looked past him at the woman standing alone and watching him. It was Vicky: although he did not know her, the need to block every source of potential information about Stratton and Josh was essential.

  Seaton walked over to her and said hello.

  ‘My name’s Vicky Whitaker,’ she said, wringing her hands nervously. ‘I just wanted to know if John Stratton and Josh Penton are okay – the young boy who was in the building?’

  Seaton saw bystanders starting to take an interest. He stepped to the side of the barrier. ‘Come with me,’ he said.

  The police officer moved a section of the barrier aside to let Vicky pass. She joined Seaton several yards away.

  ‘How do you know them?’ Seaton asked.

  ‘I work at the child-protection centre, where Josh was kidnapped. I’m his case officer.’

  Seaton remembered having heard Hobart talk about her. She looked pensive and concerned and holding on to her emotions by a thread.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘We don’t believe anyone survived inside the building.’

  Vicky looked down at her hands. ‘Have … have they found … ?’ she said. She could not continue.

  ‘No,’ Seaton answered, trying to be as considerate as he could.

  Vicky’s lips trembled as she nodded. Then she squeezed her eyes shut in a vain effort to hold back her tears.

  ‘Come with me,’ Seaton said, taking her elbow. She walked alongside him as if in a trance while he led her to the sedan and opened the back door. ‘Why don’t you sit inside?’ he said. ‘I’ll go and check if there is any news.’ He wanted to get away, not only to check on the possibility that Stratton might be alive but because there was no one more uncomfortable to be around than the bereaved.

  Vicky sat on the back seat and stared down at her hands on her lap.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ Seaton asked, feeling lame.

  She shook her head without looking at him, lost in her thoughts.

  Seaton walked away from the car across the square and around the side of the building to the garage entrance where an engineer was talking to a senior police officer and a fire department chief.

  As Seaton headed past them the engineer reached out an arm to stop him. ‘Excuse me, sir. Where are you going?’

  Seaton reached inside his jacket, pulled out a small leather wallet and opened it to reveal his badge.

  ‘CIA,’ the engineer said with surprise, looking at the other two men and then back at Seaton. ‘Can I ask you why you wanna go inside?’

  Seaton looked at him. The thin smile on his lips clearly said no. He put his badge away.

  The engineer was out of his league. His body language became that of someone stepping back without actually doing so. ‘Well, it’s not officially cleared but as long as you accept responsibility—’

  ‘I’ll take full responsibility,’ Seaton said. ‘And I’d also appreciate it if no one else came down here while I’m inside,’ he said to the police officer.

  The men looked at each other and shrugged. ‘Sure,’ the officer said.

  Seaton left them watching him as he walked down the concrete ramp and into the darkness.

  He headed into the centre of the garage where a handful of cars were parked, all of them covered in dust, and paused to check around. There was no sign of damage, no collapsed ceiling as far as he could tell in the poor light. He took a look at the pillar in the gloom as he drew near it. The drawings had the hatch on the west side opposite the elevators and he followed the curved wall until he found a large metal hinged bulkhead similar to that on a ship. It was held shut by six bolts evenly spaced around
it. He was going to need a tool. Without wasting another second he turned around and headed back to the garage entrance.

  After a brief exchange with the fire chief a fireman was sent off and a few minutes later returned with a huge wrench. Seaton thanked him and carried the tool back down into the garage, much to the interest of the men watching.

  Seaton returned to the pillar, adjusted the wrench to fit the first nut and pulled down on it. The nut moved easily, being new, and within a few minutes he had removed all six of them.

  But the hatch did not readily budge and he had to use the end of the wrench to prise an edge open enough to let him get his fingers inside. He placed the wrench on the ground and pulled hard on the hatch. Putting his weight behind the effort he managed to push it open.

  Seaton looked back towards the garage entrance to ensure that no one had followed him. Then he looked inside the pillar. It was too dark to make out anything and he did not have a flash-light. Too impatient to go and get one he climbed over the lip of the hatch, which was a couple of feet from ground level, and with his leg felt for the bottom inside. It should have been no more than a foot or so lower than the garage floor.

  Seaton found the bottom and dropped inside the hatch. It was barely a minute before he climbed out, closed the hatch without bolting it and walked back across the garage towards the entrance. He took his phone out of his pocket.

  He walked out into the sunlight, ignoring the engineer and fire and police chiefs, and raised the phone to his ear. ‘Where are you guys?’ he asked, and as the person at the other end of the line answered he heard the toot of a horn. He looked up to see a clean grey van with two men in the front. The passenger was holding a cellphone to his ear.

  Seaton put his phone away. He waved at them to follow him as he turned and headed back to the garage entrance.