“We should probably go down,” I said. “Big day tomorrow.”
Robyn’s face clouded over. “That’s you right there, Ben,” she said. A sudden spark of anger flared behind her eyes. “You open the doors but then slam them closed before anyone can get in.”
“It’s not that, Robyn. It’s late.”
“Bullshit. There I was thinking for a moment that we have a connection, but you slap me in the face. Like you always have. Your problem, Ben, is that you’re a cold fish, a man without a heart. There’s just nothing in there.”
It occurred to me that recently many people had been gifted with the ability to identify my flaws. I said nothing, but Robyn had seen the shadow of the thought behind my eyes.
“Don’t say it,” she said, and stood up with her back to the wind so that it caught her words and threw them at me. “Always a flippant comment, always the sarcastic arsehole. You wouldn’t know a friend if you tripped over one. You’re a bastard, Ben, you know that?”
“Luckily I have friends to remind me when I forget it,” I said. It was one of my less impressive moments.
Robyn shook her head, then gathered the duvet up into a big ball. She grabbed my untouched bottle of wine like she wanted to punish me, and took it with her to the door that opened onto the stairs. She paused there a moment.
“Colonel thinks this whole thing has nothing to do with the new president, or your old intelligence outfit. You know that? He thinks you’ve just dreamed up the presidential secrets stuff because you’re lonely and sad and consumed with guilt. He thinks this is all about you finding a way to get over that girl who probably made the best choice of her life when she walked out your front door.”
She slammed the door behind her. The camp chairs started skittering across the roof in the wind, so I ran after them and folded them up. The storm was still several hours away. It was going to be a big one.
Eighteen
The storm delivered fully upon its promise of the night before, which made things a little easier for us. We gathered everything we needed under cover of the morning’s rain and high velocity winds, which turned out to be no more than a warmup. By the time we were eating a light lunch, the main act had started. Telephone poles were ripped out of the ground and streets in the city were flooded in a remarkable demonstration of violence. In the late afternoon the storm reluctantly subsided, the winds were all blown out, and only the rain continued as a last effort to keep the party going.
Chandler gave us a final briefing at sixteen thirty hours. We went through the process that Scarface and Sidekick had established the day before. Sidekick, stationed at the lower level, had supervised a guard as he loaded bars into crates in the vault. A second guard pushed the loader down the corridor to the lift. He emerged three floors up to be watched by Scarface as he heaved the box into the back of the armoured carrier. We had a small window of opportunity, but Chandler was optimistic that we could load a full crate in the fifteen minutes we would have available to us after Robyn triggered the alarm and detonated the smoke bomb. He warned us again that it was one load only.
“It has to be fast. No going back for second helpings.”
Fat-Boy was disappointed that it would only be one load, but then he did the numbers in his head and whistled. Chandler said he shouldn’t count our chickens before they hatched.
Fat-Boy climbed into his delivery truck at seventeen fifteen hours. He was wearing baggy overalls but complained that the bulletproof vest was preventing him from breathing normally. Chandler told him it was just his nerves and that he would be fine. Fat-Boy said he wasn’t nervous and made a sound that was intended to prove that, but which failed. He then gave me a series of complex handshakes and squeezed Robyn so hard I thought she might pop. Then he told me not to fuck it up, reminded Robyn not to shoot him under any circumstances, and he drove off.
Robyn and I rode with Chandler in the ambulance, in the back with the drips and life support machines. Robyn’s eyes were a little red, and she’d had a slightly glazed expression all day. I hadn’t mentioned the bottle of wine to Chandler, and it worried me now. She had her cleaner’s outfit on because her first role was playing at being a cleaner. It was only later that she would change into the security guard outfit that she carried in a plastic shopping bag. She was still angry with me and avoided looking at me as we rattled through the heavy afternoon traffic.
I walked the last few blocks and at eighteen oh one hours stood on the edge of the pavement across the road from the Gold Archives. That extra minute bothered me. A minute is all it takes to pump a little extra adrenalin into the system.
Cars rushed through the early evening, their lights slipping ahead on the wet road. It was still coming down pretty heavily, and the rain was drawing a veil over the end of the day. I could barely see across the street to where the Gold Archives were looking all streaky and dark, and not in a forgiving sort of mood. Deep windows punched into the stone wall, a feeble orange light trickling from them into the miserable evening. Low cloud came down to swallow the top floor.
I found a gap in the traffic and splashed across the road, took the revolving doors by surprise and passed the point at which I could turn back.
The eyebrows of the guard at the front desk climbed with surprise as I dripped all over his lovely floor. He said I was not the first one to have a problem with the fingerprints. A cleaner ahead of me had also had the fingerprint problem. But she had been less wet. I said that she had taken my umbrella, but he didn’t believe that and gave a big laugh. I could see Robyn stepping into a lift on her way to the fifth floor, and wondered fleetingly what her secret power was, that a momentary glimpse of her in drab cleaner’s garb could take my breath away. I also wondered whether she would do what was required when it counted. I should have told Chandler about the bottle of wine.
The fingerprint scanner liked my fingers even though I was wet, and it occurred to me as I waited for the lift that this was really a building that had always wanted to be a church, what with its vaulted ceiling, the muted tones, the hard marble floor. A church to the religion of secrecy perhaps, the high priest Lategan conducting the services, and I was a sinner about to blaspheme at the altar.
At the second basement level an old man watched me with resentment as I applied my finger to the scanner. The machine flashed green and the glass door emitted an inviting beep. The old man tutted as I approached him, his lips twitching with annoyance.
“Know the time?” he asked me and shook his head as if I’d ruined his evening, although it looked like it was already going badly. He was standing beside a steel trolley of the kind they use to dispense medicine in hospitals. It was piled high with haphazardly discarded file boxes and he had been scratching his head wondering how to rearrange them so he could fit them through the small door that provided access to the storage room to which these files should be returned.
“Look at them,” he said with dismay. “Do they ever read the notice?” Above the tottering pile was a faded sheet with the printed words “Stack returned files neetly”, with the first ‘e’ of ‘neetly’ crossed out with ballpoint pen and an ‘a’ scratched above it.
“Perhaps the spelling distracts from the message,” I said.
“You’re too late,” he said. “We don’t issue files after six.”
I was a little late. I knew that every day it took him or one of his colleagues about ten minutes to rearrange the returned files and wheel them into the back, but I had arrived before he’d managed to do that, so I was on time.
“I’m the guy they sent down to check the number on that file,” I said. “There was a problem with it? A security breach. Someone requested a tagged file?”
The man nodded without enthusiasm and walked down a short corridor to a side door into the back room where the secrets were kept. He appeared ten seconds later behind the thick bulletproof glass and peered out at me as if to check that I was still there. The file in question was in his hands.
“They can�
�t take it,” he said with grim satisfaction through the bulletproof glass. “It’s tagged. See?” He held the box up to demonstrate. I leaned up to the glass and squinted as if I was trying to read the fine print. He brought the box closer to the glass, but it didn’t help. I shook my head.
“Let me check that number,” I said, and he opened his mouth to deny me that opportunity when the alarms sounded. He froze with the file box held tantalisingly in the air just a couple of feet from me. My timing was out, I should have had that file in my hands by now.
“What the hell is that?” he asked as if it was yet another problem I was throwing at him.
“It’s a fire alarm,” I said. “Shall I come back later?”
“There is no later ... I’m going home, sonny.”
“Let me check the number,” I said again, holding out my hand for the file.
He handed it to me through the narrow slot below the bulletproof glass.
I ran my finger along the line of numbers and squinted as if my glasses were not providing the focus I needed. It was then that the phone in the back room rang. The old man looked at me as if expecting that I might answer the call myself. For a moment we were suspended in time as he realised that I was standing with a forbidden file in my hands, and he searched his mind for what the rulebook had to say about the recommended action. His watery eyes stared at me and flickered down to the file in my hands. It was then I realised that my uniform was still wet, and I was dripping onto the floor. He looked up, and our eyes met. I could see him sizing up the risk, but he stepped back and ducked into the safety of the back room.
I had only twenty seconds before his suspicious eyes appeared behind the bulletproof glass again. But that was enough. He seemed almost surprised to see me still standing there, the file in my hands.
“No can do,” he said to me as a summary of the discussion on the phone, and he held out his hand for the file. I gave it to him and shrugged.
“You told them I checked the number?” I asked because to have said nothing would only have raised suspicion.
The old man nodded and verified the number on the box to be sure I hadn’t switched it. Then he opened it and made sure there were still papers inside.
“Have a good evening,” I said in a cheerful way, but he wasn’t in the mood for returning the gesture. I felt his steady gaze on my back all the way out of the room.
The emergency stairs clattered under my feet as I ran down to the fourth level. I tucked the file under the straps of my bulletproof vest and arrived out of breath at the fire escape door to the lowest level. The old man might discover the empty file box on his pile of returns, but I intended to be well clear of the building before then. The alarm started up again, a wailing, melancholy sound. I was on time.
Sidekick was less menacing in real life than he had appeared on camera. His cheeks were hollow, and his face was like a skull with a thin coating of skin. But his eyes were visible, which revealed some life, although a primitive and not very friendly form of life. Both of the guards that had been posted to the lower level had moved away when the alarm sounded. Sidekick was standing motionless beside the loader as if he’d experienced a mechanical breakdown and was waiting for roadside assistance. His wary eyes swung onto me as I came through the fire escape and his hand moved toward his holster. But the sight of my uniform put him at ease.
“Fire alarm,” I said. “They sent me down to help out.”
“Who sent you down?” asked Sidekick in a whining, high-pitched voice.
I shrugged. “The boss on level four,” I said.
Sidekick stood motionless as he processed this. Finally, he gave a nod. I stepped up to the loader and gave it a shove. It didn’t budge. I put my head down between my arms and applied all my strength. The loader started to creep forward. Sidekick watched me, his mouth twisting up into a sneer. I resisted the temptation to point out that I’d seen him fail at moving the three hundred kilogram load the day before. He reached for the radio strapped to his shoulder and said something into it. There was a pause as I heaved at the loader and gradually gained speed. His radio crackled a confirmation and Sidekick leaned back against the wall to enjoy the sight of my struggle.
It took me almost three minutes to travel the length of the corridor to the lifts. Fat-Boy was dead on time, but the lift announced its arrival before I’d had a chance to pretend to press the call button. I felt a shiver run up my spine in the echoing silence following the triumphant ping, because I felt sure that would have betrayed us and imagined that Sidekick would be pointing his Beretta at me. But a glance back as I brought the loader to a halt and started to turn it towards the lift doors revealed that Sidekick was still leaning back against the wall watching me with the remnants of the sneer. The early arrival of the lift had not bothered him.
The doors opened to reveal Fat-Boy, his eyes as wide as saucers. I recognised the signs of panic. His breathing was too fast, his shoulders rising and falling with each breath.
“Take it easy,” I whispered as the doors closed behind us. I should have taken a moment to calm him, but we had work to do. I pressed the button for the eleventh floor and applied my finger to the scanner.
Fat-Boy had the refrigerated box on his loader open, and we worked fast to transfer the bars, moving one at a time. They were heavy and slippery in my hands. Fat-Boy dropped one and cursed, but as the lift doors opened onto the eleventh floor, we sealed the empty crate. I helped Fat-Boy push his loader out and pressed the button for the parking level. Fat-Boy watched me with his wide, panicked eyes as the doors slid closed. I knew that I should have taken a few seconds to calm him. But it was too late, the lift was already dropping, and we had only a few minutes left.
If Sidekick had been a disappointment, Scarface more than made up for it. His physical presence was so menacing it struck me like a blow to the gut. He was not albino, but there was so little colour in his face that he appeared to be. It was the contrast provided by the bright red scar that made the rest of his face seem particularly pale. It was a raised keloid scar which ran the length of his cheekbone and down to his jaw. It gave the impression that he was gritting his teeth and causing his jaw muscles to pop. His eyes were a cool blue and fiercely intelligent. They watched me coldly as I struggled to push the loader out of the lift, and up to the back of the armoured carrier.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Fire alarm,” I said. “They sent me down to help.”
I pumped the hydraulic handle to raise the crate so I could push it into the carrier. Scarface kept watching me, and his eyes narrowed. The fire escape door beside the lifts opened and footsteps approached.
“You know this joker?” Scarface asked the newcomer.
“No, sir,” said Robyn. “Don’t know him. But I’m new here.”
Scarface watched me as I kept pumping. The crate reached the level of the back of the armoured carrier and I started to heave at it to push it in.
“Hold it,” said Scarface, his voice taut with suspicion.
It was sheer bad luck that the lift bearing Fat-Boy chose that moment to arrive. The arrival ping burst into the tense silence. The doors slid open to reveal a wide-eyed, sweaty Fat-Boy.
Scarface and Robyn turned to face Fat-Boy, who stood frozen to the spot. I willed him to push forward and behave normally. He was a delivery man with an empty refrigerated box returning to his vehicle.
But Fat-Boy didn’t move. He stared at us, and guilt seemed to wash over him. The lift announced with a female voice that the doors were closing, and still Fat-Boy stood rooted to the spot. He swallowed.
Scarface moved swiftly. He pulled his 9mm Beretta from its holster and stepped up to the lift in one smooth action. He levelled the gun at Fat-Boy and jammed his foot between the closing doors. The doors opened again and Fat-Boy raised his hands.
Robyn didn’t hesitate. She raised her own Beretta, pointed it at my chest, her eyes on mine. For a fleeting moment I wondered whether she had been sober when she loaded her
magazine. Was the first bullet a blank? She squeezed the trigger. The sound of the shot deafened me. I dropped to the floor and pulled the cord on the blood bag. Scarface spun back around, and Robyn turned and fired at Fat-Boy. He slumped down behind the refrigerated box and I was hoping he had remembered to pull the cord on his blood bag when a searing pain ripped through my body and I heard the delayed bang of Scarface’s gun.
Robyn swung back to see me as the wave of pain threw a black veil over the world. I could see her eyes fasten on Scarface as she assessed whether to use one of her real bullets on him. But he lowered his gun and gave her a nod of approval.
“Good job,” he said.
I tried to identify the source of the pain. It was in my lower abdomen, just below the bulletproof vest as far as I could tell. The fact I could feel it was encouraging. I could still feel my legs and so my spinal cord was probably intact, although the nerves can take some time to fade. What other damage had been done I couldn’t tell. I didn’t move lest Scarface decided to finish the job.
Another wave of pain and then Robyn’s knees were beside my cheek. Her hands were pulling on my shirt, ripping at it without moving my body. The sharp intake of breath when she saw the wound, and her eyes held mine as the only comfort she could give. The file had been ripped free when she lifted my shirt, and it lay flapping in the pool of blood, taunting me with my failure.
“We’ll need an ambulance,” she called out, and I wanted to say that they should send for a genuine one, not the fake one driven by my crazy ex-captain. But Scarface was already on his radio, and I saw Robyn press the call button on her phone. She took an extra three seconds to rest a hand on my cheek. I was grateful for that. Then another wave of pain came to push me into unconsciousness.
Treasonous Page 18
