Enigma Variations

by Bradley W Wright

  I opened my eyes again. This time I was able to begin to make out shapes through the glaring pain. Above me was a concrete ceiling with a complex array of pipes and conduit running across it. Some pipes were yellow, others red, still others plain steel. There were three bare bulbs in cages lighting the space. I held a hand to my eyes, partially blocking the glare. After a while I felt like I might be able to sit up. I tried it and nearly vomited but managed to keep my upper half vertical.

  The room was about twelve feet by twenty. Against one wall was a row of tall steel cabinets where many of the conduits terminated, running down through the top. It had to be an electrical panel. Maybe the main panel for the building. More tall cabinets were grouped against the opposite wall with dark, greasy fingerprints clustered around the handles, making me think they were probably storage for building maintenance workers. Directly in front of me were solid looking double doors with panic bars. The doors were the only entrance or exit from the room. It appeared that I had been stashed away to be dealt with later.

  I crawled over to the doors and pushed one of the bars. No movement—they were locked as I had suspected. The effort made my head throb and my vision go white. I sat still for another minute while the floor underneath me slowly stopped spinning. I opened my eyes again. My backpack was nowhere to be seen. I checked my pockets. No phone, they had even taken my belt. I had one hiding place they probably hadn’t noticed though. Sewn into the waistband of my pants was a secret pocket where I always kept a few small items for just this type of emergency. It was a habit of mine that I had carelessly let slide for a while but had taken back up recently after my ordeal in the cellar of Patrice Antonetti’s chateau. I was just reaching a finger into the pocket when I heard footsteps approaching. I slid back, away from the door and leaned against one of the storage cabinets. The cold metal felt weirdly soothing against my back. The steps grew louder then stopped. The panic bar on the other side of the door clanked as it was pushed in. Jutting’s security entered first—the big guy with the stone crushing sausage fingers who had been in the lobby when I visited followed by another guard, a woman who looked every bit as qualified for the job. They were both dressed in paramilitary uniforms. No weapons were visible but I was sure they had them. They took up positions on either side of the door, watching me impassively as Jutting and Victoria Butler followed them in. Jutting stopped between the guards, gazing down at me, and Victoria hovered behind him. Jutting seemed uncomfortable. His gaze kept darting around the room then back to me. He wore a black tunic and simple pants almost like a monk’s garb. It had to be his outfit for the ritual. Victoria, in a sleeveless blouse, shuddered in the damp cold, hugging her arms to her sides. I could see the goosebumps from ten feet away.

  “Mister Vincent,” Jutting said, clearing his throat. “I’m disappointed.”

  “So am I,” I replied.

  “What have you to be disappointed about? You’re the one who has invaded my property, seeking to steal from me.”

  “I wouldn’t call it stealing. I’d call it recovering stolen property. The notes you have that were used by Saint Martin to decode the enigma were stolen from a friend of mine. I simply want them back.”

  Jutting’s eyes flashed with anger. “Wolhardt is a fool! He had no idea how to use the information. The one useful thing Nigel Bathmore ever did for me was stealing those notes. Of course, he didn’t intend to be doing me a service. The idiot thought I would pay him.” Jutting laughed, a short bark that echoed around the room and rang in my ears.

  “Still, you can’t really call it stealing.”

  “I’ll call it what I like, Mister Vincent. You are in no position to argue semantics. I’m afraid I have important business to attend to this evening. Your presence is not wanted. You will remain our guest here in this room until morning. My people will turn you over to the chief constable tomorrow along with your possessions which are rather incriminating. I understand there are quite a few tools in your backpack specifically designed for breaking and entering. Chief Constable Doyle is a very loyal friend of mine. He will know just how to deal with you.”

  “Interesting. I assumed you would just get rid of me.”

  “This isn’t a James Bond novel, Mister Vincent. I’m not an evil super villain. After tonight, I will no longer be interested in you. You are a speck of dust. An annoying one that keeps coming back after being flicked away. I will leave it to the earthly powers to decide your fate.”

  “You actually believe your stupid ritual is going to work, don’t you? You think you’re going to call up an army of demons like Cellini supposedly did. You realize that guy made up most of what’s in that book right? He was like the Donald Trump of the sixteenth century. Every other sentence was a lie.”

  Jutting took a step back, confused. He started to speak, then stopped himself. Finally, he forced his face into a placid mask. “This audience is over, Mister Vincent. I hope you find your prison cell satisfactory. Breaking and entering is a serious offense. So is assault. The condition you left my security guard in is deplorable. She will be willing to testify to the brutality of your attack.”

  “I didn’t…” I began to protest but let my voice trail off, head throbbing. “You know I didn’t touch anyone.” I looked at Victoria. She stood behind Jutting, eyes unfocused. She seemed dazed. “A great man, Victoria? Do you still feel that way?”

  She started and glanced my way, opening her mouth but Jutting cut her off before she could speak.

  “Good night, Mister Vincent. I hope you don’t catch a cold down here.” He turned and left. Victoria gave me a pained expression and mouthed something I couldn’t understand, then followed him out. The two security guards followed. I closed my eyes, listening to the doors swing closed, footsteps receding.

  After they were gone I sat for a few minutes, emptying my mind, practicing deep, slow breathing, and gathering my energy. I was pretty sure I had a concussion. My headache was not normal and I felt on the edge of confusion. I would need all my faculties to escape. Once my mind was calm I reached into the pocket inside my waistband again and extracted a small zipper bag. In it were a very small pick and tension wrench, a length of fine, flexible steel cable, and a flat, credit card size multitool. The pick set wouldn’t work on any lock requiring much tension to turn the tumbler but would hopefully be enough to get me into the cabinets I was leaning against. The doors had panic or crash bars on both sides, probably so that maintenance workers pushing carts could ram through them without having to turn a knob or handle. They were locked on the inside where I was trapped but Jutting’s security had simply pushed the doors open when they entered, meaning the outside bars were not locked. I knew a good bypass method if I could find the right materials.

  Slowly, I rose to my knees and leaned my shoulder against the cabinet door. The cabinets were about seven feet tall with pull down handles at waist height. The locks in the handles were small. I inserted my tension wrench and started raking the pins with the pick. It only took a few seconds. The lock turned and I twisted the handle to open the door. Inside, I found cans of paint. There were four shelves, each with neat stacks of cans. Some unopened, some showing drips down the sides. I moved on to the next cabinet. It was full of plumbing supplies—pipes, gaskets, fittings—all glinting brass and steel. I was working on the lock of the next cabinet when I realized I had already found what I needed. I went back to the paint cans. Each can had a stiff wire handle in a U shape. I really was foggy and confused. The wire would suit my purpose perfectly. I took two of the cans out, sat back down on the frigid floor with them, and took another minute to breathe, allowing the pain behind my right eye to subside somewhat. Then, I slowly bent and worked the wire handles until I had them detached from the cans. They were long enough that I really only needed one of them. I bent it straight, then rose and stepped on it, bending a ninety degree angle about eight inches from one end, then another ninety four inches from the end. When I was done I had a J shaped piece of tough wire. I bent the
very top of the J to create a little serif that would give me something to hold on to, and then fastened one end of my steel cable around the improvised device. Walking unsteadily but as silently as possible to the doors, I leaned against the one on my left and pressed my ear to the small gap between them. I was listening for a guard. It seemed unlikely that they had left someone outside. They had seemed confident that I would be helpless without my tools. Still, I listened. After two minutes, I decided there was no one there, crouched down, and slid the bottom of my wire J under the door. There was a gap between the doors of perhaps half a centimeter with a bit of weather stripping—enough for my cable and the wire itself to squeeze between. I inched the wire up, using the cable to pull while simultaneously pushing from below. The effort made me light headed but I managed to get it up to just below the level of the latch. From there it was a simple twist to bring the point of my J in line with the push bar. I had bent the serif handle parallel to the bottom of the J so I would be able to align it without being able to see it on the other side of the doors. I twisted it to just the right rotation then took a deep breath and yanked. The point of the J met the bar on the outside and pushed it in. I kept pulling and the door creaked open. I stepped quickly into the gap and rested there for a minute, my toe holding the door open. I was free but now I needed a plan. More than anything, I needed to know what time it was.

  I opened my eyes and looked down a concrete corridor. At the end, maybe fifty feet away, I saw a stairwell. Fluorescent lights lit the corridor with a greenish glow. I walked slowly, running my hand along the wall, passing several closed doors. Near the stairs an old punch card time clock was bolted to the wall, probably for workers to clock in and out. A rack of cards was bolted to the wall above the clock, each little card holder labeled with a name. The clock read eleven seventeen. It was probably accurate. That meant I had been out for a while. The ritual would start in forty three minutes. Jutting was just the kind of guy to start his demon summoning ceremonies precisely on time. I had no choice but to climb the stairs and hope I didn’t run into any security on the way. Were they the stairs I had seen in the building plan? The ones I was originally planning to take down once I was on the roof? It seemed likely. If so, they must have carried me down them and then found the closest place to lock me up. There was only one way to find out. As I climbed the stairs—slowly, one by one, resting often—I felt a charged hum in the air, like ozone after a thunderstorm, or the nervous excitement of concert goers before a performance. It could have been psychosomatic or a result of my concussion but it seemed like the air itself was buzzing with trepidation at Jutting’s plans. It was stupid really. Even though I didn’t believe in the supernatural, some atavistic impulse had me worried about it. I supposed it was a self-preservation instinct telling me to get away from the potentially dangerous unknown. I battled it down and kept climbing the stairs. My headache was subsiding and I was feeling less shaky but I forced myself to move slowly. I needed to get my backpack if I was going to have any chance of completing my mission. It almost had to be in the lobby where the security detail was headquartered. I stopped at the first floor landing, listened at the door for ten seconds, and, hearing nothing, inched it open.

  The door creaked on its hinges, swinging open to reveal what seemed to be an employee break room. The lights were off but various LEDs illuminated the room enough for me to see that the floor was linoleum tile with a few tables scattered about. In the far, shadowy end of the space I could just make out a counter with a sink, a microwave, and a refrigerator humming away, no doubt full of frozen burritos, yoghurts, and, pushed to the back, half a forgotten Marmite sandwich. An exit sign glowed red above a door to my left. I hurried across and paused, listening again. I heard a distant blast of walkie static and a voice fading away. I waited another ten seconds, then eased the door open.

  Outside I recognized the hallway that led back to the chapel. I remembered it from my visit. It was lit up now with votive candles and moonlight. I paused. Guests attending the ritual would be coming this way to get to the chapel if, as I had guessed, the chapel was to be the location. I stood there for a moment longer, indecisive. Just then, a susurration of soft footsteps and rustling fabric reached my ear, just a whisper at first but growing louder. I eased back into the breakroom, leaving the door open a crack, and watched as a group of five men in black hooded cloaks of rough cotton processed down the hall. They looked straight ahead, faces in shadow, not speaking. As soon as they were gone I hurried down the hall and turned into another doorway I remembered from my previous visit. It led into the warren of offices and cubicles off the lobby. Another group of ritual goers came down the hall while I crouched in the shadows just inside the door. I waited for them to pass then stood and carefully moved down a row of cubicles until I reached the door behind the lobby desk. I stopped and pictured the lobby in my mind, remembering Angela James emerging from the swinging door behind which I now stood. The security guards would probably be set up at the desk itself with a monitor to watch the camera feeds. I didn’t think there would be more than one guard in the lobby. The rest would be patrolling. I put an ear to the door and jumped back at a blast of static that seemed to come from only a couple of feet away.

  “This is Presley. Sternwood, do you copy?” a voice said over the radio.

  I heard a walkie clip snap and the guard in the lobby replied, “Sternwood here, over.”

  “All clear on the east wing. It was just a fox.”

  “Copy that.”

  I hadn’t just heard Officer Presley’s end of the exchange from the guard at the desk’s walkie. The sound had been doubled, coming also from somewhere nearby. Curious, I prowled down a row of cubicles and found a desk with a laptop showing a four by four grid of security camera footage and four walkie talkies on charging stands. All were fully charged, their LEDs glowing green—probably extras for when the guards needed to swap theirs out. I separated two of them silently from their bases and eased back to the swinging door. I had a harebrained idea that just might work. The walkies were set to channel one. I changed both to channel two, then crouched down, leaning against the wall, and waited a minute, two minutes, five. I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for. I would need to make a move soon. The head wound was making me loopy. Carefully, with infinite patience, I eased the swinging door open and placed one of the walkies just inside, leaning it against the wall beside the door jamb. I could see the guard’s back. He was seated at the desk, watching soccer on his phone. I eased the door closed then crept into an empty cubicle. I steadied myself, took a deep breath, then raised the walkie and pressed the transmit button.

  “Sternwood, Mr. Jutting needs you at the chapel. Now.” I heard my own voice crackle out of the radio I had planted on the other side of the door, then Sternwood’s walkie clip snapping again as he lifted the device from his belt.

  “Copy that. On my way.”

  I heard him stand, and scrambled into the shadows of a cubicle. The door banged open and he hurried past. When he was well away, I rose and strode into the lobby. My pack was easy to find on the floor under the desk. It had obviously been dumped out and everything stuffed back in but nothing seemed to be missing. My phone and watch were in a side pocket and my belt was stuffed inside the pack. I didn’t want to alert the guards that I had escaped. If I took the pack they would know for sure. Instead, I took just the leather case that held my most essential tools and my phone, shoving both into my zippered cargo pockets. I could get a new backpack. On the desk were several items the guard had left when he hurried away—a wallet, a flashlight, and what looked like a stun gun. I picked up the stun gun and studied it. Were they legal in the UK? I couldn’t remember. There was a chance it could come in handy if I was confronted by any guards on my way out. I pocketed it and turned to leave but froze when I saw the safe where Angela James kept her master keys. Unbidden, a memory from my previous visit came back to me—I had seen that safe before. I couldn’t resist. According to the video I had watched
, the safe had a button inside that allowed the owner to reset the fingerprint scanner. The manufacturer had somehow not noticed that the housing around the door had a gap large enough to allow a thin piece of rigid metal or plastic to be inserted and used to hold down the button. It was worth a try. I found a plastic ruler on the desk and quickly jammed it into the safe, pushing to press it against the outer wall where the button should be located. I imagined I felt something—maybe the slightest backward pressure like I might feel if I was, indeed, depressing an unseen button? After an anxious five seconds the safe beeped five times in quick succession and an LED flashed red. Following the procedure I had seen in the video, I pressed my finger to the sensor for a couple of seconds. The LED blinked green and the safe emitted a single, low pitched beep. Success! The safe, now trained to my fingerprint, popped open when I put my finger back on the sensor. I grabbed the keys, closed the safe, then slunk back through the door and into a nearby cubicle.

  Crouched there, I checked my phone. It was eleven thirty-four. There were no notifications showing but just as I was about to put the phone away, a text from Ashna popped up on the screen.

  —they’re almost all at the chapel. Just guards patrolling now. Second floor east wing looks empty at the moment.—