by A P Bateman
“You can promise nothing,” Zukovsky replied. Nevertheless, he returned to his seat. “You are here as a prisoner. Why? What did you do?”
“I shot at a Congressman.”
“Good for you. I hope you hit him,” he paused. “Why? To get in here?”
“Yes.”
“You’re crazy,” he said incredulously.
“I think I must be.”
Zukovsky wavered, then said, “How are you getting out?”
King smiled. “That’s my business,” he said coldly. “But will you be with me, or are you dying in here? MI5 want you, there’s no denying that. But you’re an old man. You’ll get a comfortable safe house where you’ll stay and drip information under house arrest. You know the score. It’s tea and biscuits compared to this place and the NSA and CIA.”
“Thanks, but I’ll take my chances in here.”
“Good luck,” said King as he stood up. “You aren’t in charge of anything or anyone, you look like shit and you only have a bullet and a shallow grave to look forward to. Well, as they say in these parts – have a nice day.”
As King walked away, he looked up at the guards, who seemed to have relaxed. He walked out into the cavern and found a quiet corner, where he perched on a piece of rock jutting out from the wall and took some time to himself. He checked the guard’s window and could see the man wasn’t bothering to keep a look-out. King checked that the white supremacist bikers and the wiry Russians were nowhere near, and he dug one of the screws out of his shoe. He subtly placed the tip on the rock and worked it in long strokes. He then set about working the sides, his aim to flatten the edge into a flatheaded screwdriver, around the size of a household electrical type used for wiring plugs. He worked the metal, casually checked his progress. By the time the alarm sounded to return to the cells he estimated it was a quarter-way done. He slipped it back into his shoe and worked it under the sole. This time, he waited for Zukovsky to walk ahead of him, then fell in a few men behind.
Chapter Thirty
Caroline had paired off with Rashid and they posed as a couple in the line, which wound its way around the ground floor of the Willis Tower. She could see Marnie and Adams up ahead but did not look for the others. She knew Ramsay would arrive at the tower in another fifteen minutes. He would simply be on his own and take an interest in the Chicago tour guide he had purchased, as well as the information booklet he would buy at additional cost. People who attended such tourist spots alone tended to take great interest in where they were and learn as much as they could. Adams had his arm around Marnie’s shoulder and Rashid was quietly seething.
“Let it go,” Caroline whispered in his ear.
“He’s just being a dick.”
“He’s being a pro,” she said. “And they’re a couple, for appearances sake. Nobody remembers the loved-up couple, but they will remember the couple who looked like they argued their way around the tallest building in the Western hemisphere. So, put your bloody arm around my waist and relax.”
“Is it?”
“What?”
“The tallest building?”
“Yes, I think so. Sixteen-hundred and fifty-feet. And only relegated because the buildings in the Middle-East just slap on a bloody great antenna.”
“Wow, you learn something every day.”
“Once more with enthusiasm.”
“And I thought we were just here for the view,” Rashid chided.
“I think ninety-nine percent are here for the view,” she smiled and put on a tour guide’s impression. “You can see four states – Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana…”
Ahead of them, banks of monitors told different stories about how Sears built the building as their base and flagship store. There were narrations at certain points where the story of its construction would be told. Cardboard cut outs of celebrities and a chart of how many of them would make up the height gave photo opportunities for people.
They reached an escalator and travelled down forty-feet or so and re-joined a line, but this time they could see the ticket offices. Marnie and Adams had purchased their tickets and were joining a faster-moving line. Caroline caught sight of Big Dave who was reading a brochure and studying a timeline of the building’s construction on the wall.
After Rashid and Caroline had purchased their tickets the queue moved quickly to the elevator bank. Among the fastest in the world, they could get from the basement level to the Skydeck viewing platform in forty-seconds. The elevators were crammed full and the sensation was one of tremendous speed as the car shot upwards and started its slowdown way before the top. As it glided to a halt, the mass of people disembarked, and Caroline caught sight of the bottom of the elevator shaft in the gap as she stepped through the doors. She had never been inside such a tall building and as she followed Rashid past a bank of windows, the height gave her a queasy feeling in her stomach and a leaden sensation in her legs.
“Are you alright?” Rashid asked.
“I think I have vertigo,” she replied. “I feel really weird.”
“Acrophobia,” Rashid corrected her. “Vertigo is an imbalance in the ears, but Alfred Hitchcock’s film hasn’t helped to dispel the confusion.”
Caroline looked at him as she forced herself to walk. “That couple who have argued scenario is getting pretty damned close,” she replied scornfully. “Now, take my arm and help me.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes!”
Rashid hooked his arm in hers and they passed the bank of windows and walked up a slope where gifts and sweets were on sale. She loosened up and by the time they had cleared the concessions, she was walking normally. She pulled her arm away and said, “Bloody hell! I’ve never had that before.”
“Well, I wouldn’t suggest the Perspex viewing boxes, then,” Rashid said and patted her shoulder. “I’ve known skydivers who go to pieces on a cliff-edge,” he paused. “Planes aren’t a problem, but for some reason high places are different.”
She smiled. “I think I’m okay now,” she said. But she found she was breathing purposefully, calming herself down. “Or at least, I’ll be okay in a minute.”
Rashid nodded. “It’s okay, we have plenty of time.”
“I’ll be alright here,” she said. “You go and see what the viewing tower looks like.”
“You’re not coming?”
Caroline cocked her head and said somewhat sarcastically, “Er, no. I think I’ll sit this one out.” She watched Rashid go, then walked around the floor counter-clockwise keeping the wall on her left and forty-feet or so between herself and the windows, which had now become a constant wall of glass.
The lines had started for the viewing platforms. These were Perspex boxes allowing groups of up to ten people to walk out on and have the illusion of standing on thin air some fourteen-hundred feet above the ground. It was a selfie magnet, with many of the people concentrating on taking the perfect selfie for social media yet forgetting to take in the magnificence of the view or the sensation of walking on air. Many had turned the selfie into an artform, using large telescoping sticks to get the perfect angle and distance. Caroline wondered how many had stood before the world’s most scenic views and taken away nothing but an upload to a social media page that showed their moronic pouting, yet nothing of the wonderment they had failed to truly see. She figured most of them.
Rashid returned having checked out what he had come to see. It was just a matter of timing now.
“Feeling better?” he asked.
“Feeling foolish,” she replied.
He shrugged. “I’ll let you into a secret if you promise not to tell Alex.”
She smiled. “What’s that?”
Rashid looked past her, caught sight of Powell and Tattooed Mick, and looked away. “I hate spiders,” he said.
“Spiders?” she asked incredulously.
“Yes,” he said sharply. “It’s a pretty common fear!”
She laughed and walked further out from the wall. She was
getting used to the height and found it better when she watched the horizon out over Lake Michigan, rather than looking down onto the distant streets of Chicago below.
Rashid shook his head. “Out in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan they have camel spiders, they’re as big as your hand! Sometimes bigger, and they have a nasty bite!”
Caroline rubbed his shoulder and smiled. “Oh, I’m so telling Alex about that…”
“Hey! I was trying to make you feel better!”
“Thanks,” she said. “I do already.”
Rashid looked at his watch. “It’s close,” he said.
“Do the sweep,” Caroline said. “I have one in sight and I’ll stick to that. I don’t think I can get any closer to those windows. God! My legs feel drunk!”
“I’m on it,” he said. I’ll do a circuit, or at least as far as I can get, and check we’re on.” He checked his watch. “Five-minutes from my signal.”
Rashid checked the viewing windows and stopped and looked out over the South of the city. He could see Tattooed Mick in position. He didn’t signal, merely kept walking. Another twenty-five metres and he could see Big Dave studying a tourist map. He had bought something from the gift concession, a plastic bag with a souvenir. For a moment he thought it sloppy – something that tied him to the Willis Tower, but then he saw it was a chocolate model and realised it was probably just a snack he’d consume before the morning was out. He kept walking and Marnie and Adams were inside one of the viewing boxes. He wished he could have been in there with her. He felt a pang of jealousy, then saw the fire extinguisher to the left of the box. He realised they had timed it well. He saw Adams watching him but did not give the signal yet. Powell was near the elevators. He had purchased a Chicago Bears cap and was immersed in his phone, scrolling through. To all the world he would look like a man bored of queuing and waiting for his other half. He couldn’t walk a complete circle, because the elevators running to take people back down formed the end of the line. Twenty-five thousand visitors a day queued to view from the Skydeck, so entering and exiting had to be a seamless affair.
Rashid made his way back to Caroline, walked past and caught sight of Ramsay. The man was taking in the view a little too intently but had found his mark. Rashid walked up to him and took in the view over Lake Michigan. “We’re on,” he said quietly and returned to Caroline. Everybody was in place. He sidled up to Caroline and whispered, “Go.” Caroline checked the clock on her phone as he walked away. She felt a flutter of nerves and scrolled through and found the app Marnie had designed and installed to their phones back in England. She thumbed it and edged closer to the fire extinguisher.
Rashid subtly nodded to Tattooed Mick and Big Dave as he passed. Adams and Marnie were out of the viewing box and Adams was scrolling through his phone. He looked up, caught Rashid’s eye and thumbed open the app. Powell was last, but he already had his thumb hovering over the app. When he pressed the icon, a circle scrolled round and round. Rashid got to his post and opened the app. His was the final initiation of the circuit. The app finished swirling round and: Synced 7/7 appeared on the screen. The timer had started and once the final circuit completed the counter adjusted to fifteen minutes.
Chapter Thirty-One
King had watched Vladimir Zukovsky enter his cell. He had taken a risk and bypassed his own, and when he made to turn around, he had been quickly overpowered by guards who had appeared from nowhere. He did not fight back. It didn’t suit his plan and wouldn’t pay to disrupt what he had started. As the guards had bundled him back into the cell, he felt a rifle butt strike his kidney and he sagged to his knees. He did not retaliate, but as he fell to the floor, he rolled and faced his attackers.
“Get Johnson!” he shouted. “I have something he’ll want to know!” The nearest guard hesitated, his rifle butt raised ready to deliver another blow. “I mean it, that’s where I was heading!”
The guards had backed away, the steel door slamming closed with a loud clang. King had waited, but Johnson did not show. He had passed the time tensing and flexing his muscles. He figured boredom was a contention with everybody locked up here and decided to openly perform press-ups and sit-ups until he was simply too exhausted to continue. The workout hurt his wound, but he put more weight on his left shoulder to compensate. He had given up counting the reps - as the mind was weak and would focus on a terminal number to stop - and started building a house in his mind. Foundations and footings, each course of blocks, the rendering, wiring, painting, flooring and furnishings. It amused him how quickly he could perform the tasks but realised he did not know as much as he thought he did about construction. He finally lay back on the floor, perspiring and panting with a roof to slate and a chimney he’d forgotten to put in when he’d started on the walls. And he’d forgotten about insulation as well. It had passed the time and he was surprised when the alarm sounded, and the cell door opened. He had eaten pork and beans again, and only noticed this time how the Muslim men picked through their meals. He imagined serving the chunks of pork in the beans was a form of degradation. He recognised the kind of men in here, so couldn’t care less about their religious dietary requirements. He ate the pork and beans and had managed to take two chunks of bread. The first, he soaked into the beans and the other one he used to wipe the plate spotlessly clean. With a good workout behind him and a filling meal inside, he felt a little more human. He busked his tray and flimsy plastic spoon and helped himself to a plastic cup of water. He drank it down and refilled it three times. There was no access to water in his cell and he had felt in a permanent state of dehydration. He looked around the room and saw Zukovsky at a table flanked by two of the Russians. The white supremacist bikers were watching him intently, the gorilla still sporting two eye patches which looked pretty special. He wondered again how the man’s dynamic would change in here, but found he couldn’t care about him either, not a semblance of guilt in his mind. He scoured the canteen and saw the Russian he’d earlier had the run-in with perched on the edge of bench seat staring at him. He looked away when King caught his eye. King refilled the cup with water and made his way towards the exit.
He passed the Russian without a glance, but heard the sudden movement, sensed the rush behind him. He spun around, splashed the water at the man’s feet and dropped the cup. The man had been lunging towards him and slipped, his feet sliding forwards and his head and body leaning backwards as he fought to regain his balance. King stepped in close, exercising a Judo move, and caught hold of him by his throat and slammed him down to the ground, helped by the man’s own inertia, and hitting him with the biggest weapon of all. The earth. The back of the Russian’s head cracked on the concrete floor and King didn’t need to hang around to know he would not be getting up for a while, if at all. He looked up at the guard who had been looking the other way. King walked on and found his quiet spot on the rock, where he fished the screw out of his shoe and started to work it flat. He could hear the ruckus and see the prisoners gathering around the body of the Russian. He knew that no prisoner would willingly tell a guard what had happened, so would have to hope there was no CCTV that had picked it up. He hadn’t noticed any such setup, but then again, he knew there was a hidden camera in his cell that he couldn’t see, so it wasn’t out of the question.
King estimated the screw was almost to the right specification. He continued to work it with slow, smooth strokes until the alarm sounded and the door to population buzzed open. He looked at the screw, then slipped it back into his shoe. He would be able to lie on his front and fine tune it on the wall beside him as he pretended to sleep under the coarse, hairy blanket. He would be ready to use it tomorrow, and the thought chilled him to his core. He had never taken such a risk.
Chapter Thirty-Two
When the timer got to three seconds Caroline dropped her hand and held the phone next to the fire extinguisher, the phone almost touching as she pressed the app icon a second time. She watched Adams do the same, Marnie hanging on his arm and posing for a selfie tha
t caught the bay and Navy Pier behind them. She heard a single bleep come from the fire extinguisher beside her. She watched the crowds leaning into the windows, the perpetual poses and posturing in the two viewing boxes. The checking of images taken, the frowning, deleting and reposing. A young woman was pinching her own cheeks firmly to enhance the colour and glow. Caroline pitied her as she pocketed her phone and pulled the safety tag out of the fire extinguisher. She watched Adams subtly do the same, and as she made her way counter-clockwise around the Skydeck, she saw Big Dave and Tattooed Mick milling around at the back of the elevator queue. She stopped as Rashid joined her, wrapping his arm casually around her shoulder. She glanced behind her and saw Ramsay studying some fridge magnets at the gift concession. Ahead of her, Powell was getting into one of the elevators.
They did not ride the elevators down all at once, and after they had exited the gift shop on the ground floor Caroline and Rashid crossed over Franklyn and stood on the bridge, watching for Adams and Marnie to exit. They crossed over and took steps down to the river. They only had to wait a few minutes and as Ramsay exited and headed away to the car park, Marnie and Adams boarded a river boat that would take them down river to Navy Pier.
Powell came out next and after he disappeared for a moment behind some raised brick flower beds, Rashid saw him on the back of a pedal rickshaw, the cyclist pumping his legs to make the green light.
“Dave and Mick were ahead of us in the queue,” Caroline said. “Time to make the call.”