Shadow Zone

by Johansen, Iris; Johansen, Iris

  He smiled. “I look forward to it. But now I think you have a decision to make.”

  Yes, she did. She thought about it for another moment. Then she sat up straight in her chair. “If we’re going to do this, we need to do it right.”

  His lip curled in the faintest smile. “We?”

  “We. And we can’t just hit Gadaire’s office.” Hannah picked up her mug and took a long drink before setting it down with a firm click on the tabletop. She was thinking hard, weighing options. “We need to break into the Trinity College lab at the same time.”

  CHAPTER

  8

  Gadaire strolled across the grassy main square of Trinity College and made his way toward the vine-covered herbarium, a building that housed hundreds of thousands of botanical samples.

  Lights were illuminating the building. Good, Lampman was burning the midnight oil on the project. That was what he liked to see.

  As he entered, Dr. Simon Lampman lowered his clipboard, obviously surprised. And, perhaps, even a bit frightened.

  Excellent.

  “Mr. Gadaire . . . I didn’t realize we had a meeting scheduled.”

  “We don’t. I’m just here for a bit of reassurance.”

  “About what?”

  “Convince me that I’m not wasting my time with you.”

  Lampman scratched his face in the place once occupied by a bushy white beard he’d had when Gadaire had first met him. The facial hair was gone, Gadaire noted, but the nervous habits remained. “I told you there were no guarantees. You may think this is a colossal waste of time, but in science most of our time and effort is spent eliminating possibilities.”

  “And how many possibilities have you eliminated?”

  “Thousands. But you have to realize that this is a most unusual assignment you’ve given me. You want me to tell you what can cause these TK44 alga samples to acquire very dramatic properties, which is all well and good. I’ve tackled projects like this before, but it helps to have a sample that reflects the final state.”

  “As much as I’d like to provide you with the ‘after’ sample, it probably hasn’t existed for thousands of years. You knew this going in, Dr. Lampman. If this is too much for you, perhaps Taylor McDaniel or Chad Foushee at Oxford would like my money. I understand they’re doing some impressive things in the botany program there.”

  He stiffened. “They’re good. Not as good as I am, but good enough. But if you’re still concerned about confidentiality, you’d be making a mistake. Your secret might be safe with them until the first scientific conference, when they’d be in the hotel bar bragging to all of us about the money they were making off you. A drink or two after that, they’d be telling us exactly what the project is about.” Lampman shrugged. “But if you don’t care about that . . .”

  Gadaire hadn’t expected such a well-thought-out defense. Lampman might be intimidated, but he wasn’t going to cave. “Don’t play me. We need to move this along. What more do you need?”

  “It’s not a matter of resources. We’re dealing with living cultures that need time to grow. We must be patient.”

  “I don’t have time to be patient. Is there anything else I can supply you with?”

  Lampman thought for a moment. “Information. A clue, a hint, anything you can give me from the historical record.”

  “We’re working on that.” Gadaire felt his sinuses closing as they always did when he came into the herbarium. Damned plants. He was probably allergic to a dozen of them. He should have waited and had Lampman come to him, but he’d wanted him to know that he might drop in on him at any time. A little pressure never hurt. Lampman worked here in his ivory tower and forgot who was in control. He was sensing that the professor might have ambitions, and that could be dangerous. Lampman didn’t seem to realize his only task was to produce and produce fast. Gadaire might have to reinforce that part of their agreement. But right now he had to get out of here. He backed away from Lampman and turned toward the door. “As soon as I know anything, you’ll know. But in the meantime, I expect results from you. Instead of relying on historical data, creative thinking seems to be in order.” He headed for the door. “I want something on my desk by next week.”

  Hannah walked with Kirov down a back alley in Dublin’s Liberties district. The cobblestone paths were wet, and the night air was thick with the spicy odor of hops from the nearby Guinness brewery. She smiled. “I see that you’ve wasted no time making yourself comfortable in another city’s seedy underbelly.”

  “I’m comfortable wherever I am. It’s only a mind-set. This is just temporary. As a matter of fact, my partners and I are relocating tonight.”

  “Relocating where?”

  “I’ve rented a place closer to the target. I already have a surveillance camera there trained on the arena’s private entrance to chart the comings and goings of Gadaire and his team. I figure it’s time we move our base of operations there.”

  They rounded a corner, and Hannah spotted a white-paneled van with three people standing next to it. As Kirov led her toward it, she turned to him. “Friends of yours?”

  He nodded. “And of yours.”

  As they came closer Hannah tried to make out the figures gathered beneath a building-mounted streetlight. A man in his sixties, a less-polished man in his midtwenties, and . . .

  “It’s really not nice to keep people waiting,” Eugenia said as she started toward them.

  Hannah sighed and shook her head. “I thought you were going to wait at the hotel.”

  “I thought so, too. Not my style. Too boring. I decided to shadow you to the bridge and make sure nothing went wrong. Good thing I did, because Charlie here was going to put a bullet into our friend Walsh.”

  Kirov said curtly, “I told you to stay here, Charlie.”

  “Sorry, Kirov,” Charlie said. “I thought you needed backup.”

  “I would have asked for help if I’d needed it,” Kirov said. “What’s wrong with your hand?” Charlie’s right hand was tucked between his left biceps and torso. “What did you do to it?”

  “Actually, I did it,” Eugenia said. “On our way back here, he tried to overpower me. He thought he could pin me down.”

  Charlie showed Kirov his swollen hand. “She tried to break my hand.”

  “If she had really tried to do that, she could have done it and much worse,” Kirov said. “You’re lucky you’re not in a hospital emergency room trying to get your hand reattached to your wrist.”

  Eugenia smiled as she hugged Kirov. “You always know just the right thing to say to flatter me.” She turned back to Charlie. “Put it on ice, and it will be fine in the morning.”

  Kirov stepped back from Eugenia and shook his head at her. “I suppose it’s nice to see you again, my indiscreet little busybody.”

  She clicked her tongue in response. “I didn’t like the way you had treated my friend Hannah. The aloof-asshole routine worked for you when you were younger, Kirov, but now it’s just rude. Don’t do it again.”

  “I’ll try, but the aloof-asshole persona fits me too well, Eugenia.” Kirov turned back toward the group. “Hannah Bryson, meet Martin Driscoll. He’s the man I told you about.”

  Driscoll took her hand with an elegant panache. For an amused moment she thought he was going to kiss it, but he only gave a quick squeeze. “My privilege, dear lady. I’ve gotten into many tougher places before, so don’t you worry. Nothing’s going to stand between me and a few paltry dishes of your alga.”

  Hannah smiled. “Nicely put. It’s not exactly diamonds on the French Riviera, is it?”

  “No, ma’am. But a job is a job. And I already have some ideas about how we’re going to pull it off.”

  “Good,” Kirov said. “Because I’ve just been informed that we’re also going to be raiding the labs of Trinity College.”

  Driscoll looked as if he had just heard a joke he didn’t understand. “Right. So will this be before or after we break into the headquarters of an international arms
merchant?”

  “We’ll figure that one out later,” Kirov said. “But Hannah made a believer out of me. We should do it.”

  “And I suppose you do everything that a pretty woman tells you to do. Not that I blame you. Hormones can do crazy things to a man’s judgment.” He nodded to Eugenia. “And here’s another lovely lady. My boy goes out for a pack of smokes, comes back with this pretty little woman, a mangled hand, and a story about how you were duped into meeting another woman from your past. And now you tell me that this woman wants us to break into Trinity College?”

  “It’s not like we’re after the Book of Kells,” Kirov said. “But I have a feeling you’ll charge me as if we were.”

  “A fair day’s wage for a job well-done.” Driscoll winked at Hannah. “I’m sure the lady agrees.”

  “The lady agrees,” Hannah said.

  Kirov rolled his eyes. “Before the lady drives me to the poorhouse, I propose we discuss this later. Right now, we’re packed up and ready to move to our new base of operations. I propose we pile into the van and continue our conversation there.”

  Half an hour later, they entered the sparsely decorated eighth-story apartment that Kirov had rented. The ancient building elevator had groaned and whined all the way up, but the apartment itself was in new condition, featuring a window that offered a spectacular view of Aviva Stadium.

  “It looks like a spaceship,” Hannah said, gazing at the illuminated structure in front of her. “I like it.”

  “I knew you would,” Kirov said. “It was my first thought when I saw it. Those modernistic curves are your aesthetic all the way.”

  Eugenia stepped around a tripod-mounted video camera set up in front of the window. “Your camera, Kirov? I thought your Peeping Tom days were behind you.”

  Kirov peered at the camera’s LCD viewfinder. “You know what they say . . . Once a voyeur, always a voyeur.” Satisfied with what he saw in the viewfinder, Kirov moved back. “I actually set this up to keep tabs on one of the arena’s private entrances, the one that Gadaire, his driver, and his private security team use. The video is stored on a hard drive down there on the floor. Charlie, it will be your job to scan through the recordings and write down the make and license-plate number of every vehicle going in, plus the day and time.”

  Charlie made a face. “Aw, you’re giving me the shit work.”

  “There’s no such thing,” Driscoll said. “Each piece of the mechanism is a necessary one, and that’s a fact.”

  “It’s a fact that some pieces are less necessary than others,” Charlie said.

  “Well, if that piece is you right now, it’s only because you’re still paying your dues. And it has to beat digging trenches for fiber-optic cable, which is what you were doing when I found you.”

  “I found you,” Charlie corrected.

  “Whatever. As long as Mr. Kirov is true to his word, I’ll be in a position to hire you for a good job in that fancy security company.”

  Kirov handed Charlie a clipboard. “I am true to my word. Consider this your internship.”

  Hannah turned toward Driscoll. “So what’s your plan? Are you breaking in during the dead of night?”

  “Afraid not. I might have tried that thirty years ago, but modern technology has made that kind of caper very difficult. We’ll need a bit more daylight finesse.” Driscoll flipped open the lid of Kirov’s laptop and placed it on a small folding card table. “While you were gone, I studied the video we stitched together.”

  Hannah looked at the screen and was surprised to see the representation of Gadaire’s suite. “You’ve actually been inside there?”

  Driscoll nodded. “Today. And I noticed that there’s an extra video feed in the folder.” He clicked on it and revealed a multicolored video that bore only the slightest resemblance to the feeds from their other cameras. “Am I correct in assuming that these are infrared pictures?”

  Kirov nodded. “Yes, I was going to tell you about that. It came from my tie clip. I thought it might prove useful.”

  Driscoll leaned toward the screen. “It has. We know that our items must be kept refrigerated, so it would follow that there’s a thermal footprint somewhere in here.”

  “Something cold?” Charlie asked.

  “Probably not. More than likely, we’ll be looking for a heat source.”

  “A cooling unit and compressor,” Hannah said.

  “Exactly.” Driscoll fast-forwarded the infrared feed to the point that offered a glimpse of Gadaire’s office. “Here we see a strong heat source at the bar, which we can assume to be from a minifridge. I sincerely doubt he’s keeping it there, though it would make our jobs much easier.”

  Hannah pointed to a patch of orange-red high on the ceiling. “What’s this?”

  “Heating vent. But look at this panel.” Driscoll wiped his finger across the bottom of a wooden shelving unit next to Gadaire’s desk. “There’s a heat source here.”

  “A printer?” Kirov said.

  Driscoll shook his head. “Too hot for a printer. I’m willing to bet that this is from a refrigeration unit. But if these samples are as important to Gadaire as you think, this wouldn’t be a standard-issue refrigerator. It’s probably something much more secure with backup capabilities. I have the dimensions, so now I just need to do a bit of research.”

  “See, what did I tell you?” Kirov said to Hannah. “He’s the best.”

  Hannah nodded. “He’s remarkable. But if he was really the best, you wouldn’t need all those guns you requested from Walsh.”

  “Guns?” Driscoll said.

  Kirov shrugged. “A precaution. Before I enlisted your services, Driscoll, I thought that I might have to resort to a more direct approach.”

  Driscoll smiled. “An old-fashioned commando raid? Is that what you had in mind?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Charlie said. “Much better than all this planning and homework. I could have stayed in school if I’d wanted this rubbish.”

  “You should have stayed in school anyway,” Driscoll said.

  Charlie snorted. “You should talk. Mum told me you didn’t see a day of school after age eleven.”

  “Your mum told you almost nothing about me your entire life, yet she told you that. Lovely woman.” Driscoll turned back to Kirov. “No gunplay required, my friend. It’s a point of pride with me.”

  “That’s why I wanted you to be a part of this.” Kirov glanced at Hannah and Eugenia. “If you’re interested, we can use your help.”

  Hannah smiled. As worried as Eugenia had been about Kirov, she could see that he had never been more in his element. This is what he needed to be doing, totally in command, leading others as he had when he was captain of his nuclear sub. Although this endeavor was clearly outside the law, he reminded Hannah of a medieval warrior attacking a castle, battling against huge odds. Bold, clever, and yet somehow noble.

  Noble? Where the hell had that come from? Kirov would laugh in her face if he heard her say it, but that adjective wouldn’t leave her. Even as he was plotting a heist.

  Eugenia nodded. “Why not? It might be interesting. You obviously need my help since you’re teaming up with boys like Charlie, who shoot before they think. What can I do for you, Kirov?”

  “It might be necessary for us to leave the country rather quickly once we have the samples. That also means no entanglements with Customs.”

  “That’s it? You insult me, Kirov. I thought you’d have me doing back flips over laser sensors, and all you need is for me to push some papers around?”

  “You have a way of negotiating the impossible, Eugenia. I need that skill right now.”

  Hannah shrugged. “Does that leave me for backflip laser-sensor duty? Guess I’d better start limbering up.”

  “Not quite. But since you were insistent that we retrieve the specimens from Trinity College, you’re going there with me tomorrow. I doubt that a college research laboratory will have quite the same level
of security as that athletic stadium, so I thought we might take a look around and see what’s involved with securing the samples there.”

  “Good idea.” She frowned. “Before we leave Ireland, I’d like to remove every bit of them from Gadaire’s control.”

  Kirov nodded. “It’s the only thing to do.” He paused. “But you realize that Gadaire won’t hesitate to kill anyone who stands between him and a lucrative payday.”

  Hannah tilted her head. “My, my, how ominous. Are you trying to scare me?”

  “No. To warn you.” He glanced at the others. “To warn you all. I pulled you into this, but you have to know what you’re facing. If we take Gadaire’s prize away from him, he’ll take it personally. Gadaire is a vicious egotist on the highest level, and he’s not going to like having egg on his face. He won’t quit until he gets his revenge on each and every one of us.”

  Silence.

  Driscoll spoke. “Then we’ll just have to make sure he doesn’t know what hit him, won’t we?”

  “Enough of this,” Eugenia said. “We’re all adults. Stop trying to take responsibility for everyone around you, Kirov. It was always a fault of yours. Being a commander on that submarine twisted your thinking.”

  “My apologies.” His lips quirked. “Though only you would find a responsible attitude toward a nuclear sub unacceptable.”

  “I’m only saying it was bad training for real life.” She turned to Charlie. “I need a ride to the Temple Bar. I called a few friends while I was waiting for Kirov to come to Hannah’s rescue, and I’m meeting them for drinks. Will you drive me?” She added slyly, “You may get your chance to get your own back for that sprained thumb. I’m always ready to play tutor.”

  “I don’t need any lessons from you,” Charlie said. “You caught me off guard.”

  “Did I?”

  He grimaced. “No. You were good.”

  “Yes.” She smiled. “And you weren’t terrible. Will you drive me?”

  He hesitated. “If we can drop off my dad first.”

  “Ah, such devotion,” Driscoll said. “It touches me that you’re not willing to leave me in the lurch, son.”