Memoria

by Alex Bobl

  "What the hell is he doing?" Dickens whispered. "Make the picture bigger. I want to have a better look at the computer panel. I said, I wanted the sound!"

  "There's no sound, sir. Doesn't seem to work, for some reason."

  The camera focused on the desk. A hard disk protruded out of the computer panel.

  "The President's chopper lands in two minutes, sir," said the controller on the right.

  "Put your men on alert," Dickens said without taking his eyes off Binelli. Then he rose, reaching for the radio on his belt, and placed his hand on the other controller's shoulder. "What's this device Binelli's busy with?"

  The controller's fingers fleeted over the keyboard.

  "What is it?" Dickens' fingers squeezed the controller's shoulder.

  "Sir!" the man jerked in his seat.

  "Speak!"

  "It's Kathleen Baker's disk, sir."

  "Code red! Code red!" Dickens yelled into the microphone and rushed out of the Central Station.

  He shoved his hand into his pocket as he ran and dragged out a small transmitter. Connecting it to his radio, he repeated,

  "Code red!"

  The glass doors flung open before him. Dickens escaped onto the staircase.

  Behind him, dozens of combat boots clattered down the steps.

  * * *

  Barney entered Binelli's reception first and headed straight for his office. Frank followed, the hefty attaché case in hand. Maggie blocked the doors and took her usual place.

  "Put it down here," Barney pointed as he walked around a wide desk.

  Frank put the attaché case down next to the monitor and walked to the wall-to-wall window. The sidewalks below swarmed with people. From the height of the seventieth floor they did look like bugs. Police lined the street. Mounted patrols hovered in side lanes.

  A black helicopter with an orange flower on its side whirred low over the neighboring roofs. For a moment, the drone of its engines penetrated the office, then diminished as the chopper banked to one side, changing direction, and headed to the west in a wide semi-circle.

  Frank thought he'd made out the figures of armed men, clad in black, sitting in the open cargo bay. But for the distance and speed, he couldn't see their heads therefore couldn’t tell if they were the same as those who'd attacked the police station and the post office.

  Frank described the scene to Barney. He didn't answer, busy mounting the portable camera on a tripod next to the monitor. He then pulled out a few leads, attaching them to an accumulator in the open attaché case. Turning the monitor to the camera, he reached inside the attaché case again.

  He produced a plastic box very much like those ancient bulky calculators. Barney then took out a shiny spike and screwed it into a socket on the front side of the device. He clamped to it a small antenna-like wire frame and pressed a key on the side of the device. An LCD display lit up, a strip of greenish light.

  Slowly, the veteran moved the antenna over the desk, watching the device's readings. When his hand passed over the intercom, Barney froze, then removed the phone's receiver and brought the antenna close to it. Apparently unhappy with the result, he moved the wire scanner over the intercom and sat on the chair. The black blade of an army knife glinted in his hand. Barney used it to break the intercom's case and bashed the handle hard against the circuit board smashing microchips. Then he raised the scanner and slowly went along the walls, inspecting the office.

  "There must be a camera here somewhere," he said quietly.

  "Can I help you?" Frank looked around the room.

  "You can. Just keep an eye on the street, will you?" Barney finished the check and came back to the desk. "Maggie, we start!"

  Frank turned to the window. He watched Barney's reflection pull out the keyboard drawer and tap away with his strong chubby fingers like a certified typist clerk. Frank didn't realize the man was capable of such things. Then Barney leaned back in his chair and looked down, feeling the underside of the desktop.

  Something snapped. Part of the desk next to the monitor clicked open. Frank couldn't help it. He turned for a look.

  Barney reached into a side pocket for the hard disk, then placed it vertically into a slot showing under the opened desk panel. He stretched his fingers, blew at his palms and placed them back onto the keyboard. Tapping the keys, he entered a long sequence of letters and digits.

  "Maggie? The password request submitted!" he turned the camera on and peered into the monitor.

  Frank caught his breath. He loosened his tie and was about to undo the collar when he heard,

  "There!" Barney breathed out.

  In the reception, the phone rang.

  Frank jumped, concealing his shock behind a nervous smile. The phone rang too loud, almost like the wail of a fire tender.

  "Cool down," Barney glanced at the doorway. "Face the window and don't turn around."

  Frank obeyed. He stood still staring into the window when Maggie said in a practiced voice,

  "Mr. Binelli's reception, how can I help you?"

  Outside, nothing had changed. Onlookers crowded the sidewalk lined with police.

  "I'm afraid, Mr. Binelli's busy at the moment," Maggie said in the reception, and, a moment later, "But you can't-" She fell silent.

  "Don't move," Barney told him. "Maggie? How much time do we have?"

  "One to three minutes. I've disconnected the intercom and cut the wires."

  "Shame," Barney sighed. "We won't make it to the front door. Frank — plan B!"

  He rose from his seat and strode into the reception putting on a pair of leather gloves. Maggie ran out toward him. Frank leapt toward the desk. On the monitor, the decrypted text had been replaced by charts and diagrams. Frank turned away from a scheme that appeared on the screen. He grabbed the attaché case, opened it and took out a few spools of cord thin as a fishing line. He picked up two rubberized tubes with rollers on each end and went back to the window. He knelt, as did Maggie next to him. She held a nail gun.

  They turned to a dragging sound behind their backs. Barney in reception was moving furniture barricading the entrance. Frank took a spool and snapped open steel plates on each side. Each plate had four holes in it. Frank pressed the roll to the floor, and Maggie nailed first the right plate to the floor with the nail gun, then the left one. The spool was now firmly attached to the floor.

  They moved aside and did the same with the other spool, then placed the rubberized tubes on the low window sill. Frank released the springs on the spools and fed the line through the rollers.

  "We're done!" Maggie called out to her father.

  Barney reappeared in the office. He threw the coat aside and raised an assault rifle with a silencer that had been hanging under his arm.

  "Step back!" he snapped.

  Frank grabbed Maggie's hand and pulled her to the wall. The bolt chattered. The rifle thudded out a long burst. Shattered glass mixed with spent shells cascaded to their feet. A gust of cold wind burst into the room tearing the curtains.

  "Clip on to the line," Barney stepped to the desk and leaned across it looking into the monitor.

  Under their jackets, Frank and Maggie had parachute-type harnesses, the straps coming together just under the solar plexus. One after the other, they clipped themselves onto the line. They stepped to the open window and used Barney's clever method to remove their electronic bracelets. The girl pressed the nail gun to her chest and glanced down. The nail gun's leash wrapped around her wrist. Frank watched Barney who'd turned off the camera and forced the hard disk free. He disconnected the camera and the tripod and threw the parts into the attaché case, snapping its lid shut. Then Barney jumped off the desk and headed for the window holding the rifle barrel aloft.

  The second spool was meant for him. Barney alone weighed more than Frank and Maggie together, so they had decided to use two rappelling devices instead of the one originally suggested by Max.

  Barney hadn't made it to his spool. A blast shattered the reception room.
The door flew off its hinges. The heavy filing cabinet barricading it leaned and exploded producing a fountain of paperwork. Clouds of smoke belched into the office. Maggie screamed and ducked in, covering her head. Barney slid the attaché case along the floor toward Frank, turned around and fell onto one knee. At that moment, the massive filing cabinet toppled onto the floor under powerful kicks from outside.

  The first of the attackers fell full length onto the floor under Barney's bullets. Another one followed him into the reception. In the smoke, return shots flashed over his shoulder. Barney snarled, lowered the barrel a little and peppered his attacker with bullet holes. The attacker stumbled, dropped his weapon and collapsed head first onto the capsized filing cabinet.

  "Go!" Barney shouted.

  "Dad!"

  "Go!"

  Frank held Maggie tight and climbed onto the window sill, kicking the remaining shards of glass out of the window frame. She was so light he didn't need a cord to support her. But she was frightened now; she didn't understand they had to escape while Barney could keep their attackers at bay. In his other hand, Frank held the attaché case. If the scared girl jerked or turned awkwardly during the descent, he risked dropping it. Then all their work and planning would be for nothing. Without the data from the disk, Frank wouldn’t prove anything to anyone.

  "Go now!" Barney repeated. He reloaded and stepped forward, closer to the broken door.

  "You ready?" Frank looked into Maggie's face. Then he kicked the latch on the rubberized tube free, releasing the rollers' braking ring.

  "Close your eyes. Don't look down," he instructed her. He noticed the nail gun still hanging off her wrist but had no time to get rid of it.

  Frank hugged the girl tight and stepped out into the void.

  Chapter Thirteen. Rappelling into Hell

  The open space around him took his breath away. All of Manhattan lay below. On the horizon, the ocean glistened under the clear blue skies. The sun blazed away, reflected by the upper stories' windows.

  The line was unwinding at five feet per second. Not too fast, but enough to reach the first floor in under three minutes without getting hurt when it finally stopped. After that, there were two scenarios available. They could either run across the flat roof of an adjacent T-shaped annex, then use the fire escape to get down to the street. Alternatively, they could go back into the building and use one of the elevators to reach the underground parking where Max was waiting in the limo. They didn't have contact with him: portable radios didn't reach the parking lot without a signal amplifier, but installing one in the building would have taken too much time and jeopardized the whole mission. Besides, Memoria's security scanned all frequencies which allowed their workers to detect and blanket out all talks. That's why Max was supposed to neutralize the guards and keep the parking exits and the cameras under control for an agreed length of time. In case of the others' failure, he had to leave the building alone.

  The rasping of metal against metal made Frank writhe around in order to look up. He didn't see the end of the rubberized tube overhead. The line had slid off the roller and was now grating against a window ledge above. Frank's shoulder grazed a buttress, turning him away from the building. He hit the back of his head against a window ledge. His jacket slid up and snapped apart. Between clinching Maggie and gripping the attaché case, he couldn't kick himself away from the wall for fear of swinging back and smashing their own butts against the window ledges.

  Their descent stopped.

  They hung opposite a window, rotating on the end of the cord. Frank looked up wondering if the malfunction had triggered the emergency brake or the spool had simply jammed in the rollers.

  Three stories above, Barney looked out of the broken window. The wind tore off his hat and blew it away.

  "It's jammed!" Frank shouted.

  Barney disappeared. Shots followed.

  "Dad!" Maggie screamed.

  Frank looked down at her. Tears welled up in her eyes.

  "Let's swing," he held the attaché case with both hands, turned his face to the window and propped his feet against it. "Kick when I count to three. One — two — three!"

  They kicked together. Maggie broke a stiletto heel.

  They didn't have enough momentum.

  "Again! Bring your knees up!" Frank shouted. "Then use the nail gun!"

  He kicked as hard as he could hoping that the side wind would take them a bit further away this time. Maggie raised the nail gun and pressed the trigger under the handle. With a clatter, nails hit the window covering it with a web of cracks.

  They swung into the window. Frank held out the attaché case and shielded the girl with his body as best he could. In a shower of shattered glass, they burst inside.

  His fingers bleeding, Frank undid the clasps and let go of the girl. He looked around.

  "Where are we?" he grabbed her elbow helping her to get up. "Maggie? Do you know this room?"

  A large desk with several intercoms on it stood in the middle, surrounded with chairs. Plasma screens covered the walls overhead.

  "It's the conference room."

  "You know how to get out of here?" Frank removed his battered jacket and the harness, listening for any sounds from above.

  He couldn't hear any shooting.

  "You think we can reach the elevators without being noticed?"

  "We're trapped," Maggie's voice shook. She stood up clenching the nail gun with both hands. "The elevators are along the hallway to our right. To our left, the conference hall. It's all packed out with security."

  "And if we leave through the conference hall?"

  "There's another staircase there."

  "Let's go, then," Frank pulled her hand.

  Maggie kicked off her shoes. With one heel broken, they would only hinder their escape.

  The door to the room began to open. Frank backed to the wall, covering Maggie. The door opened, concealing them in a narrow niche.

  "There's a broken window down here," said a voice in the hallway. "I'm going in."

  First, a swaying gun barrel appeared, followed by the hand that held it. A well-built man entered the conference room. He held his left hand up to his face, reporting over the microphone in his sleeve.

  A scream echoed from above. A body flashed past the window.

  "Damn!" the agent backed up. "He's fallen out! Someone's fallen out the building!"

  Maggie squeaked. Frank didn't wait for the agent to turn round. He smashed the attaché case over his shoulder and kicked him in the hip, pushing the man to the desk. He ran out into the hallway, about to turn left, when he realized he'd done so too soon. Another security agent stood to his right. The gun in his hand jerked and banged.

  Frank stuck out the attaché case to protect his ribs. One of the bullets tore through his shirt and stung his shoulder. The others clanged as they smashed into the attaché case's steel lid without piercing it. Luckily, Frank stood with his side to the agent. His elbow joint snapped and his fingers let go of the attaché case handle. Frank released it and turned to face the gun.

  His old street fighting skills saved him. He ducked under the gun and his left arm shot up, the fist hitting the opponent's elbow. Frank stood up and leaned forward, butting the man upwards, his forehead breaking the bridge of the man's nose.

  The agent jerked. His eyes rolled and he fell backwards. Frank exhaled, his fingers feeling his shoulder and collarbone under the red spot spreading on his shirt. His awkward fingers tore the shirt open. Just a deep scratch.

  He bent down to pick up the attaché case and received a kick to his stomach. His sight darkened. His breath was paralyzed by a new assailant attacking the unprepared Frank from the conference room.

  The next kick sent him sprawling to the floor. Frank pulled his knees up to his stomach and covered his chest with his elbows and knees from the pointing gun. The agent stepped out into the hallway and turned to face Frank, the weapon in his outstretched hand.

  Frank heard dry snapping comin
g from the room.

  The hand holding the gun jerked to the wall and stayed there, the agent wailing in agony. Nail heads showed through his forearm. Several more had pierced his open hand; one had entered between his fingers immobilizing the trigger.

  Maggie appeared in the doorway. Pale, she threw the spent nail gun on the floor and recoiled from it. Her scream flooded the hallway when she saw the man's arm — his blood splattering the wall, dripping from the many nail holes.

  It gave Frank enough time to roll aside, grab the attaché case and with a swing slam it into the agent's legs. The man cried out but stayed on his feet. Dazed, he stepped forward and tried to kick Frank in the shoulder but screamed with pain from his nailed arm. Frank got to his feet and wacked the attaché case against the small of his back.

  "Run," he croaked and, holding his stomach, staggered toward the conference hall.

  Maggie didn't move. She stood there staring at the man sliding down the wall. Frank came back and grabbed her.

  "Run! Now!" Suddenly he stopped and bent over the other shooter lying in the doorway. He pulled at the motionless man's shoulder turning him face down. "Help me," he started pulling off the man's jacket.

  The right arm slid out of the sleeve easily. The left one got stuck but Maggie promptly helped him release it.

  Behind their backs, voices mixed with the growing tramping of many feet.

  "Now run."

  The jacket was biggish. As he ran, Frank pulled the tie off his neck and slid one hand into the loop. Wincing with the pain in his stomach and cuts on his fingers, he wound the attaché case handle to his wrist with the tie. Now he wouldn't lose it.

  "There!" Maggie grabbed his hand, pushed a door and dragged him into a room.

  "Lock it, quick."

  The lock clicked. Maggie led Frank through a maze of desks to an adjacent office behind a glass partition. It looked as if it could lead them to the other side of the hallway they'd just left.

  Maggie stopped by the door and pulled the handle.

  "It's locked."

  "Step aside," he motioned her away from the door and stepped back to take a kick at it. Then he changed his mind. There could be more security there. "Where does this door lead to?"