Roadworks

by Gerard Readett

  "OK, Hugh. Don't bite my head off. All I'm saying is that with the current situation, we have to check everything. If they did blow up that building, it will make the heads of state decisions all the more important.

  "Having said that, official policy is to, and I quote, 'Never give in to terrorist demands.' To do so would be a green light for every amateur bomb maker and budding terrorist to have a go at us. Now, I believe this situation is exceptional enough for us to bend a few rules, but I need exact information. If that building blew up because of a gas leak, and I tell the minister the OPA did it, he will believe me now, but lynch me later. I need someone to check out the Castell building before I pass on the news. Do you see my point?"

  "Perfectly, Mrs. Bourgmestre."

  "Fine. Put Mr. Lyens back on, if you would."

  Lyens took my place, which I ceded to him with unashamed glee. The Bourgmestre immediately switched back to French.

  I rejoined Martin at the back, while Ron and Maria stared at me in disbelief. The Bourgmestre was their ultimate boss, too, and it was probably the first time they had seen someone stand up to her. In routine circumstances, I would never have dared answer back in the way I did. However, it was a safe assumption that my insubordination was going to be forgotten in the events to come. If the OPA decided to blow up another building, which got more and more likely with every passing minute, especially since the Bourgmestre had no intention of giving in, then I would be remembered as the only one who had tried to warn her.

  Martin's sardonic smile was catching because, although I tried to keep a straight face, as I approached him, I succumbed. He whistled softly before congratulating me.

  "Well done, Hugh. Now the Bourgmestre knows where she stands. Ever thought about running for office? If you can shut your opponents up like that, you'd be unbeatable in televised debates."

  I flopped into my chair, pushed hard, and let myself spin round and round. It was fun, seeing everything blurry, and I could feel the tension ebb away with each turn. When dizziness settled in, I slowed down and let out a quiet laugh.

  "Maybe I did go a bit far, but she really got up my nose. At least the OPA didn't hear her. They'd get really pissed off if they did."

  "Anyone ever tell you, you've got a problem with authority?"

  It was true, and I have known it for quite a while, but everything depended on how you handle it. You can say nothing, keep it to yourself until it rotted your guts, and then, one day, you end up bringing a gun to the office. Or you can swear indiscriminately at your boss, and get fired on the spot.

  I think I have found the perfect solution, though. When you are sure that you have your facts straight, there is nothing anyone can do if you get aggressive. That would look good to an employee's 'fairness at work' commission. Fired for pointing out too many times that the boss is wrong.

  Suddenly, Maria caught my eye, and frantically motioned me over. Seeing I was about to speak, she put a finger to her lips, and silently pointed at the screen. Slightly irritated by her attitude, I glared at the message.

  "Hello, your friendly OPA here again. The Bourgmestre needs confirmation we're serious? Well, here goes. Umm, which building this time? Any preferences? It's the Central Library, then."

  A tremor like the one we had experienced earlier took hold of the TMC. The floor shook more violently this time; whereas the Castell building is four blocks away, the Central Library is only down the road. It is on the Avenue des Arts, which makes up part of the inner ring road.

  Stumbling over to the videophones, I tried to grab the table, but the floor moved under me. It lifted me up and threw me sideways, across Nys's desk. I tried to slow myself down, by placing my palms on the surface, but I only succeeded in making contact with a sheet of paper. My shoulder landed on Lyens lap, making him grunt loudly. The momentum I had accumulated easily overcame the combined inertia of Lyens and the chair. Together, we toppled over backwards. Pulling myself up clumsily, I stuck my head in full view of the Bourgmestre's video camera and yelled.

  "I hope you're happy now. This time it's no gas explosion. You just killed everybody in that building and the motorists it fell on. Keep this doubting Thomas act up, and all that's going to be left of your city is a gigantic pile of rubble. Stop farting about, and get your backside into gear, or you're going to be Bourgmestre of the largest cemetery in the world."

  ***

  Frederic stared at the ringing phone, and sighed. For the last hour, he had been busy transferring out of town clients to his colleagues, who were still stuck in the traffic jam. As yet, no one else had turned up for work. Despite the gridlock, that bothered him.

  "I need a break," he muttered to himself. He went to the office kitchen, a small, cubby-hole with wall cupboards where the cup and saucers were stored. There was also a fridge in the corner, a sink for rinsing, and a coffee machine. He put a clean cup and saucer next to the sink, and set about making some coffee.

  While he was doing that, he started wondering what could have happened today. The train he had taken had stopped working, then, when he had reached the outskirts of town, a burning tanker had caused a traffic jam. What he couldn't seem to get to grips with was that one tanker could cause the gridlock he had seen on his way to the office.

  He knew that there was a radio somewhere. Having found it, he rapidly plugged it in. He stopped fiddling with the dial when he tuned in to what sounded like a news flash.

  "---P&Rs out of order. We also received reports of several accidents at the accesses to the city. So, if you are outside the city, you will be facing heavy delays. If you are inside the city, your troubles are only beginning. Several irate listeners phoned in to tell us that some car-parks are blocked. Many of the main roads in the city are blocked, as well. There are heavy delays on the metro system, owing to a generalised malfunction. And, in the last few minutes, we've learned that the Ring metro line is down."

  The coffee machine spluttered as the last drops of water filled the beaker. Frederic helped himself quickly and added a lump of sugar. He unplugged the radio, and picked up his cup in the other hand.

  Walking over to his desk, he wondered again what was happening today. He had only seen a small portion of the events of the day, and from the sound of it, he was one of the only people actually at work.

  His desk was by the far wall, not quite in the corner. As he approached it, he heard the phone ringing again. He sighed.

  Suddenly, he heard a deafening thump. Instantly stopping in his tracks, he looked in the direction of the noise. It seemed to come from just behind his desk. A wrenching sound replaced the thump. The building started to tremble, then wobble. He was thrown clear across a desk, hit a chair, and collapsed onto the shaking floor. He stared at the wall behind his desk, where he had pinned some pictures; two of his wife and one of his house and his four dogs. A crack appeared at the top of the wall, and ran downwards at incredible speed. It split the wall between the pictures, separating his wife from his house. The crack extended downwards, then the wall flipped backwards and fell. Part of the floor disappeared as well, then his desk started moving. What remained, the place where he usually sat, sagged dramatically. His chair toppled over backwards, hit the floor, and flipped up into the air. It seemed to hang there, then gravity reasserted itself, and the chair vanished. The desk had already fallen over, but had slipped until it had reached the lip of the hole. The extra weight must have been too much. The floor gave way, and the desk sailed out into the void. What remained of the wall took this as a cue to fall. It landed sideways on the floor, and fell right through.

  Frederic, although sprawled fifteen metres away, felt the shock as the floor rippled. The knuckles of his left hand were white where they gripped the leg of another desk tightly. All movement had stopped, but outside he could still hear some noise. Slowly, he turned to look at his right hand. It still held the saucer with the coffee cup intact, although only half full. There was some coffee in the saucer, but the rest was on the ground.

&nb
sp; He looked back to where his desk had been. Where he would have been, had he not gone to get some coffee. The wall he liked to lean against had completely disappeared. Through the hole, he could see across a wide-open space to a building about thirty metres away.

  "That can't be right," he thought immediately. "The building next door is the Central Library. And its wall touches ours." It was then that the realisation of what had happened hit him. The Central Library had completely collapsed.

  Amazing! he thought. I'm still alive. He shifted into a sitting position, lifted the cup to his lips, and sipped his coffee gratefully.

  Return to Contents

  * * *

  Chapter Thirteen

  10.57 a.m. (1 hour 33 minutes to OPA deadline)

  Once the shaking had stopped and we had cleaned up the TMC as best we could, the Bourgmestre took my advice. She added, by way of a conference video call, two people to the discussion with Lyens.

  One of the new faces was that of a bald man in his late fifties with puffed-up cheeks. His third chin spilled out of his shirt collar onto the knot in his tie. With the air of a bulldog, his eyes gleamed with cunning. The impression I got from him was one of hidden deviousness. He was particularly aware of the image he presented, and used it to his advantage. The Bourgmestre introduced him as her special advisor from the U.S. without giving his name, even when Lyens expressly asked for it. Anonymity appeared to be another of his unusual prerequisites.

  The other man was much younger although more impressive. Back straight, and eyes fixed on the video camera before him, he answered every question concisely, and always added a dignified 'Sir' or "Ma'am'. He was the archetypal military character that responded well to orders from a higher authority.

  Although I could not quite place him, he reminded me of someone. I was fairly certain that I knew his face. It would probably come back to me in time. I had wondered just when the military was going to get involved in this, and said as much to Maria. She, however, put me straight immediately. He was none other than the famous field director of the bomb disposal unit and anti-terrorist squads. The one who held press conferences after each bomb scare.

  Maria liaised between the regular cops, like her, and the anti-terrorist squads. Every major city in the western world now had several crack anti-terrorist squads. Disasters like the World Trade centre bombing, the Oklahoma Federal Building bombing, and the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo underground had seen to that. So did the bombs used on the tourist areas of Paris in 1995, and the Olympic games of 1996.

  Maria, in her role as liaison officer with the squads, had met the field director on several occasions. Regularly faced with difficult decisions, he had become a hard, and sometimes, uncompromising man. Not that his single-mindedness was a disadvantage; rather the opposite. People were tired of living under the Damocles sword of terrorist action, and the stronger the retaliation against it, the better. Fred Michaux, if not quite a folk hero in Brussels, had managed the feat of being a newsworthy public servant, as well as a respected one. Lyens, at the Bourgmestre's request, briefed them thoroughly on the situation.

  Maria took the opportunity to take Martin and myself to one side. Her anxious frown kept us both from speaking as she led us outside. Ron, trying to be inconspicuous, crept out behind.

  Once the three of us were in the smoking room, Martin demanded an explanation. "What's so hush hush?"

  "The TMC is bugged," Ron muttered calmly.

  Martin inhaled harshly "How---"

  "They knew exactly how the trace was going," Maria started to explain. "They said themselves that the first message was a recording on another site. Then how come they knew about the trace?"

  Martin interrupted her with a thought, "What if they bugged the computer site they left the recording on? They would know instantly when we reached it."

  "Yes, but Ron never actually got to the site of the recording. The OPA called us from their second site before the trace was complete. They messed up. Their timing is off. The only possible way to know what we were up to was to bug the site where the trace originated, the TMC." She had had me convinced since the beginning, but Martin still wore a doubtful frown.

  Maria continued for his benefit. Obviously she had something in mind that involved us, and she needed Martin to understand. "What about the Bourgmestre? Minutes after we phoned, they knew about it. Now, at this end, the phones in the TMC are not secure lines, I presume. The Bourgmestre's line is, though, so there is no way they could have eavesdropped anywhere along the line or at her end. The OPA know our every move. Do I need to go on?"

  "If the TMC is bugged, what makes you think the smoking room is free of bugs?"

  "Ron swept it. This room is clean."

  Martin bowed his head in mock submission, and acquiesced his understanding. "OK. So what now?"

  "You and Hugh get back to work as before, as if nothing is wrong. We may be able to use this information to our advantage, but you must be careful what you say inside there. Ron and I will search for bugs and--"

  I tried to imagine doing that without Nys or Lyens interfering, but could not. "Wait a second. Why not inform the Bourgmestre and our bosses?"

  Maria looked surprised at my question, as if I had just uttered the worst joke ever invented.

  "Once you have taken your places again, we're going to drag Lyens out on some paltry excuse to give us time to inform him. We'll call the Bourgmestre and her advisor on another line. Whatever else we do, though, Nys is not going back in there once he knows. By the looks of him, he'll give the game away in ten seconds flat. As for us, we're going to have to find some harmless conversation topics that don't sound like we're wasting time until we find the bugs.

  "Which brings me to a point that Hugh raised earlier. The OPA are too well informed." She paused for a moment, then glanced over at me.

  "Now, Hugh, I think you'll agree with me that it's not simply a matter of a leak anymore. The bugs in the TMC had to be put there by someone; who better than a traffic controller?"

  ***

  Martin and I took over from Patrick, who had been keeping the fort. Checking the situation thoroughly, I couldn't see any let-up. None of the car parks were clear yet, and none of the trains or metros were on line again.

  Ron and Maria escorted Lyens out to the smoking room, and I was steamrolled into setting up a videophone out there. The four-way videoconference got back into full swing. Each screen was split three-ways, so each participant could see the faces of the others. The Bourgmestre then asked Michaux if his squads were ready.

  "We have six groups in all. Three bomb disposal units, and three anti-terrorist squads. Comprising one of each, the rapid reaction force is on alert at any time; they are waiting in a building on the Rue Royale for instructions from me. Two other squads are on call, and can be brought to operational readiness inside of twenty minutes. The other two groups are in their period of recuperation, but I can have them operational within the hour, Ma'am".

  The Bourgmestre dismissively waved her hand at Michaux, who betrayed no emotion whatsoever. "Call them all in, Michaux."

  "Ma'am, there is no point in moving any of the squads until we know where they are headed. Wouldn't it be better to bring them to operational status only?"

  "Yes, but how quickly can you get them here?"

  "Each squad has two helicopters at its disposal, Ma'am."

  "Right. Get them to operational status, then."

  "Yes, Ma'am." Michaux's face disappeared from the video screen as he went to rally his troops.

  For the first time, the special advisor to the Bourgmestre spoke. He had a booming bass voice that echoed slightly as it was transmitted to us through the phone.

  "Mrs. Bourgmestre, I suggest we start by isolating the TMC from the network. That way ---"

  Lyens did not let that one slip. He finished the sentence "---you cut us off from any monitor or control functions of the city transport network, and we won't get out of this mess until sometime next week."
>
  "Gentlemen, please," interjected the Bourgmestre, before tempers flared.

  The advisor continued regardless, "Does the TMC have an independent power supply?"

  Caught off-guard momentarily, Lyens muttered his response, "Yeah."

  "What about the traffic signal boxes?"

  Although he nodded, Lyens appeared a trifle confused by the line of questioning. I must admit that I was, too. I didn't see where the advisor was leading.

  "The OPA obviously have some kind of computer system. They are connected to Internet, in one of three cities. We can make sure they can't see what's happening in this city by cutting power to the whole city. That will cut all links to the other two cities, and if they're in our city, they will have no power."

  "Are you crazy?" The Bourgmestre was outraged. "We're not following standard FBI procedure in this city. This is Belgium, not the United States. No power anywhere in the city at ten in the morning---"

  The advisor, presumably a battle-hardened veteran of verbal abuse from the Bourgmestre, answered rather peevishly, "It's not as if anyone is at work, stuck out there in the traffic jam."

  To no one in particular, I added in French, "And, of course, the OPA haven't thought about that move. They didn't bring along a laptop with its own integrated power supply. I think they've shown us they're always a step ahead of us." In disgust at the reactions of the city's finest decision-makers, I shuffled back into the TMC.

  For several minutes Martin and I sat staring at Ron, trying to inspect every nook and cranny in the TMC without making any noise. In my head, I ran over everything that the OPA had done, for a clue as to where they were.

  They had planned this meticulously. They were, apparently, extremely well informed about the transport network. Even though there must be something we had missed. With such a complicated scheme, it was inevitable. No matter how good they were, they could not have prepared for every eventuality.