Atom Bomb Angel

by Peter James

  She drew me like a magnet, out of the elevator, across the floor and up to the reception desk. I wanted someone to give her to me for Christmas. I stared into her eyes, then down at her body, most of which I could see clearly through the dress she wore, which appeared to have been made from a trawling net, then back into her eyes again. I concentrated hard on remembering that I had come up here on a recce, to take a brief look, not to carry away prizes.

  ‘Is this Hazier, Cohen and Lipitman?’ I said.

  Her dark eyes stared right into the centre of mine, and her mouth opened a fraction. Whatever she was going to be doing for Christmas, she knew, wouldn’t be half so much fun as spending it with me. ‘They’re the fifty-fourth floor – you’ve come to the sixty-fourth.’

  ‘Stay here tomorrow,’ I wanted to tell her, ‘stay here tomorrow, and wait for me, and we’ll spend Christmas here together on Deke.’ But I hadn’t come here to do that. ‘Oh I’m sorry – I didn’t read the sign right.’ She was still staring at me, staring and smiling. I half-turned to go, swivelled my foot, turned my head, and then stopped. ‘Are you doing anything tonight?’

  ‘Not a lot.’ She stared into my eyes and smiled a very evil smile.

  ‘Would you like to come out and have some dinner?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’d just like to come back to your place and screw all night long.’

  I gave her a grin that was as evil as hers. ‘I’m at the Warwick, room 2302.’

  ‘What time will you be there?’

  ‘Eight o’clock?’

  ‘I’ll try and wait that long, Max.’

  A few minutes later the beam in the revolving door picked me up, registered me as having left the building, notified the computer, and awaited the next person. I walked on air up Thirty-Eighth Street. Life is a cunning creature; it keeps you down in the dumps for days on end, then, just when you’ve had enough of the whole thing, suddenly, for no reason at all, it pats you on the head, like a guilty owner who thinks he’s scolded his dog too much, and gives you a biscuit. Right now, the girl on the sixty-fourth floor wasn’t merely a biscuit: she was Oysters Rockefeller, a haunch of venison, a huge great chunk of raspberry cream pudding, a mountain of ripe camembert, a ’69 Montrachet, a ’62 Latour, a ’67 Sauternes, a Remy Martin and a Romeo and Juliet corona. Two years ago, she had looked pretty damn good; now she was a stunner.

  Unluckily for me, luckily for Gelignite, I came out of my thoughts at the very moment I happened to be walking past Tiffany’s, the world’s most famous jewellery corner store – and best avoided for breakfast … unless you happen to be into eating cut glass. Assailed by a potent mixture of guilt and seasonal cheer, I stepped off the New York sidewalk, through the doorway and onto the soft carpet. The shop was busy, but there was a general hush that needed only the clacking of a ball on a slowly spinning roulette wheel to set it off perfectly.

  Walking among the glass cabinets, under a high ceiling, I had the feeling that it would make no difference whether I had one hundred pounds, one thousand pounds, one hundred thousand pounds, or even one million pounds. I, or anyone, could spend a whole day in here, writing out cheques non-stop for any sums, however large, and still not make even a tiny dent in the stock of just one department.

  There were more rare animal skins on the backs of the women shoppers than you could ever see at a hundred museums, and there were so many cashmere and vicuña coats with velvet collars wrapped around the men, one might have thought someone was issuing them at the doorway as a standard uniform. The battery of lights everywhere wasn’t necessary; there was more than enough light already provided by the reflections of the shining white, capped teeth of the clientele bouncing off the glittering gems and precious metals.

  I bought Gelignite a silver bracelet. My American Express card did nicely, but could have done better, the expression on the courteous assistant’s face told me. I left Tiffany’s and took a cab to the City Hall, where I asked to take a look at the architectural plans of 101 Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza.

  Five minutes later, I was seated at a desk, trying to pretend I was an architect and struggling to make sure I got the ruddy things the right way up. The floor plans of seventy-four floors take a while to wade through, but it was long before I got to the end of them that I realized that if I was going to get into that building undetected, and have any chance of remaining in it undetected, then I was going to have to find some other means than via the ground floor.

  From the City Hall, I took another cab, to 355 Park Avenue, the head office of a company called the Intercontinental Plastics Corporation. Intercontinental Plastics Corporation was owned, through a carefully maintained front, by MI5. The company made cabinets for computers, and had offices and factories around the world. Its annual profits paid for nearly half of MI5’s running costs. I asked for, and was taken straight in to see, Ron Hagget, chief of US Operations for MI5.

  Hagget granted my request without asking any questions, and I was grateful to him for that; I never liked lying to my superiors.

  ‘5.00 p.m. tomorrow,’ he said, ‘it’ll be up there.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘How does it feel to be back?’

  ‘Seems like it’s getting to be a habit.’

  ‘You’re right, New York is a habit. It’s as addictive as nicotine and ten times as bad for your health. Still – as they say over here – have a nice day, or what’s left of it.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. And a happy Christmas.’

  ‘Thank you, Flynn. You too.’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘And Flynn—’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘I don’t know why you’re over here, and I don’t intend to ask – as you know, I only run this outfit, I don’t ask questions – but just do me one favour? Don’t stir up any flack until after the New Year – I’ve promised my wife a holiday.’

  I grinned at him, but then realized he wasn’t smiling. ‘It’s not that kind of a trip,’ I said.

  ‘That’s what I was told last time. I’m still clearing up the mess, and that was two years ago.’

  He was referring to the wrecked car, demolished building and seven dead bodies I’d left behind last time, which he’d had to try and explain away to the authorities. The Americans don’t like the British trampling all over their country, any more than we like them trampling over ours. It’s all right to trample over Russia, or indeed any enemy country, but friendly countries are more sensitive, and none more so than the US of A.

  Hagget was a frustrated man in his late fifties, with the ambition to get to the top, but not the brain or the political cunning. He was out of the limelight here, and had no real way of getting back into the limelight; he was nothing more than a Transatlantic courier for Fifeshire, maintaining the front, giving operatives assistance, and clearing up the messes they frequently left behind. And no one had left a bigger mess than I had. I wondered if anyone had ever bothered to explain to him what it had all been about. From the tone of his voice, and from the lack of an offer of a Christmas drink, I had a feeling they hadn’t. It wasn’t my place to tell, even if I had had the inclination, and anyhow, I didn’t want to be late back to the hotel.

  There was a knock on the door at a quarter past eight, and I went over to open it. Her Mystère de Rochas perfume plunged into the room ahead of her, through the keyhole and under the door. I turned the handle and pulled, and the perfume completely engulfed me. She stood there in a calf-length silver-fox coat, her neck loosely wrapped in a cashmere scarf, her hands in sensuous Cornelia James gloves and her legs in tall black boots. Her large brown eyes were opened wide, and her soft-red painted lips parted, and she leaned forward and kissed me on my lips for a long, long time; then she stood back and looked at me and grinned.

  ‘Want to come in, or shall we stay out here?’

  She strode into the room and sat down in an armchair, put her arms around her chest and hugged herself. ‘Oooh, it’s good to be in the warm. It’s starting to
snow.’ She looked up at me and flashed her eyelids. ‘Well, well, Max Flynn! Life is full of surprises.’

  I poured her a glass of champagne and handed it to her.

  ‘I see,’ she smiled, ‘you’ve really laid on the works!’

  ‘Want to take your coat off and stay a while?’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere – I just want to get warm. Cheers!’ She took a sip of the Krug and took a pack of Marlboro out of her handbag. ‘Smoke?’

  ‘Thanks.’ I took one and held out a light.

  She inhaled deeply and grinned. ‘Now, you’re one guy I really didn’t reckon I’d see again.’

  ‘You figured I’d be dead by now?’

  ‘No, I didn’t figure that at all. I just didn’t think I’d see you. I mean – there wasn’t any reason to, was there? We didn’t have anything going – you had a girl you were goggle-eyed over, and I was just your humble secretary.’

  ‘I fancied you like crazy.’

  ‘I knew you did – but you never asked me out.’

  ‘Things were very difficult then.’

  ‘Are they any easier now?’

  ‘No – but I’m maybe a little wiser!’

  ‘Cheers,’ she said.

  We chinked glasses. It was strange to be having this conversation. Her name was Martha. Two years ago, when I’d been in New York on my previous assignment, she had been allotted to me as my secretary. My cover then was Production Control Analyst for Intercontinental Plastics Corporation, and I had no way of telling then whether Martha was a genuine, innocent secretary, or whether she knew the true nature of both my business and Intercontinental’s. On a number of occasions I had wanted to ask her out, but a steady bird and a busy schedule had prevented it from happening.

  ‘I just saw Hagget,’ I said, ‘this evening.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Sour as usual. Tell me, Martha – what the hell are you doing at AtomSled? How long have you been there?’

  ‘Good agents don’t talk,’ she said.

  ‘You want to bet?’

  ‘Try me,’ she grinned.

  I did. She put up a spirited resistance, but at five o’clock in the morning she talked. Then I tried her again once more, for luck.

  21

  Hagget might have been sour, but he didn’t let me down; at five thirty the small Bell helicopter was waiting at La Guardia airport, and I clambered in, clutching a soft hold-all. It was pitch dark, sleeting again, and a fierce wind was blowing across the concrete. The engine was already running, and the pilot nodded as I pulled the door shut and strapped myself in. The noise in the small cockpit was deafening.

  ‘Y’okay?’ he shouted.

  I stuck my thumb up. He pointed to a set of headphones, and I put them on. It was like going into a different world as most of the roar and clatter was suddenly shut out. There was a burst of sharp, dipped speech from the pilot, a crackling hiss, then a reply from the tower. ‘Any time you want, Charlie Zero Tango. Watch the wind.’

  ‘I’ll watch it. Y’awl have a good Christmas,’ he said. He spoke with a heavy deep-South accent.

  ‘We’ll try.’

  He reached forward with his right hand and pushed the throttle forward. The chopper shook violently, the body-work flapping so hard it sounded as though the whole machine was going to fall apart, then suddenly we lifted off the ground and hovered a few feet above it for some moments while the pilot fought against the buffeting wind to keep us stable. He opened the throttle full, dipped the nose slightly into the wind, and we started to climb upwards.

  As the lights became smaller beneath us, we bounced uncomfortably about in the sky, and the pilot was fully occupied keeping the yawing, pitching machine in some semblance of level flight.

  After about a minute and a half, he turned to me and pointed to my headphones. I lifted them off.

  ‘Going to have a bumpy ride!’

  I nodded in agreement.

  ‘This is one hell of a night to go fooling around in helicopters.’

  ‘I can think of things I’d prefer to be doing,’ I shouted.

  We were still climbing, and the wind was screaming outside. It was dark and eerie up here, and we were about level now with the tops of the tallest of the skyscrapers, heading in towards Manhattan at a faster rate than I, at this moment, relished. This was one hell of a way to spend Christmas Eve.

  ‘You sure about what you want to do?’ shouted the pilot.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, feeling very unsure.

  ‘I don’t know that I’m going to be able to set you down – this wind’s worsening, and I don’t know that roof at all.’

  ‘Didn’t you fly over it today?’

  ‘Sure I did, half a dozen times; each time it looked worse than the time before. It’s not fit to make a perch for a jackal. There’s stuff all over the place – the roof of the elevators, ventilators, the air-conditioning motors are all up there. There’s just one gap that’s good enough, and if we get blown wide of it, you can bend over and kiss your ass goodbye.’

  He was right. Landing on the roof of a building isn’t easy. It’s tough enough in broad daylight with a calm breeze. In the pitch dark, in a gale, on a roof that’s not designed for helicopters landing, it wasn’t going to be too clever. But then, Sleder hadn’t exactly sent me an embossed invite to drop by on him; if he had, with his style for doing things, he would have had the roof levelled and landing lights installed.

  ‘What the hell do you want to go fooling around up here for? Why don’t you go in the front door?’

  ‘I lost my key.’

  ‘Oh, I just got it. Don’t tell me. You’re Santa Claus, right?’

  ‘Right. That’s what’s in my sack—’ I stopped talking suddenly, quite suddenly; anyone would have done. I gulped deeply. Only feet down below and to my right were the top windows of 101 Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza, looking more sinister and uninviting than I could ever have imagined.

  ‘I ain’t gonna be able to hang around for too long. I’m gonna set you down and then get my ass out of it. If I get caught by a gust, I’ll be over the edge.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Going in now.’

  The chopper thumped down onto the black roof. I opened the door. ‘Happy Christmas!’

  ‘You too, Santa!’

  I jumped down and the wind nearly blew me over backwards as I landed. The chopper lifted off without a moment’s hesitation. In the pitch dark, and without its lights on, it had vanished into the sky within moments. The clattering of its engine and rotors faded, and suddenly Father Christmas was alone, very, very alone. The wind howled, tore at my clothes, trying to push me over to the edge.

  I put down my hold-all, removed a powerful torch from it, and switched it on.

  If this was the sort of thing Father Christmas had to do for a living, I decided he could keep it. The wind ripped through my clothing and through my flesh and through my bones, howling and whining against every object that protruded on the roof. I could dimly see the lights of the Empire State Building through the thickening sleet, and I could see lights of other buildings over to my right. I was utterly alone; I had never felt so alone. I was on top of the world, in the heart of a city where most people had switched out the lights and gone off to have a good time. During the next few hours, millions of excited children would be climbing into bed and waiting for a bearded man in a red robe to come clambering down their chimneys – at any rate, those that knew what a chimney was. I didn’t have a beard or a red robe, and I didn’t have any presents to bring down Deke Sleder’s chimney.

  The beam of the torch found a small steel door, and I prayed that no one had tumbled Martha and prevented her from unlocking it. If I couldn’t get in through that door, I would be a dead man by morning; no one could survive the chill factor created by the wind up here for a whole night – and since I’d dismissed my sleigh, there wasn’t a wide selection of alternative routes back to the ground short of a mountaineering feat which would have qualified me to climb t
he north face of the Eiger with my hands tied behind my back.

  I switched off my torch, pulled out my Beretta, and turned the handle. The door opened with no effort, and I relaxed, just a fraction, for the first time since I had kissed Martha goodbye that morning. I waited some moments before peering cautiously in and snapping the torch back on. I didn’t expect a welcoming party, but I didn’t want to take any chances. I shone the torch around. It was a concrete staircase, the fire escape to the roof, exactly as shown on the architect’s plans. I pulled the door shut behind me, then, holding my torch in one hand and my gun in the other, I started descending. It was bloody creepy.

  I came down onto a floor, went through a door and found myself in a sumptuous apartment. It had evidently been furnished by an interior decorator to be all that the hospitality apartment of a successful corporation should be, with acres of thick broadloom, Italian porcelain lamps, bronze sculptures in the style of Giacometti, and a master bedroom that any exiled king would have been proud to have died in. It lacked a lived-in feeling, but fortunately it also lacked an occupant.

  The larder had been stocked by someone who knew about good food. It was piled with tins of expensive delicacies, as was the freezer, and the booze cabinet had been stocked by someone who knew about good booze. At least I now had the consolation that my Christmas dinner might consist of something a little more exotic than the packets of sandwiches, chocolate bars and apples that lay at the bottom of my hold-all.