by Mark Lingane
“All right,” said the worker. “He’s over there.” He signaled toward two men at the rear of the pile of rubble who were hovering over a large sheet of paper.
“Some people got no sense of humor,” Joshua heard the worker mutter sulkily as he walked away.
Joshua hiked around the rubble, occasionally stumbling on the uneven wreckage. He was sure he saw a flash of an antelope underneath some of the more blocky bricks. He slowed as he approached the two men and picked up snatches of the conversation.
“… then we can start digging there,” one man said, pointing to some disclosed area on the paper.
“It’s all rather drastic, isn’t it?” said the second man, who was dressed in a blue checked shirt.
“The orders were quite specific. Nothing’s to remain.”
“It was such a beautiful place, and they want to destroy those cellars, too.”
“That’s another thing. No one else, other than us, is allowed to see what’s in the cellars …” The man stopped, suddenly aware that Joshua was within earshot. He tilted his head and looked directly at Joshua. “How did you get in here?”
“I, er, I walked.”
“Walked?”
“Yes. Up the drive and around the edge of the building there.” Joshua pointed at the remains of the mansion.
The first man turned toward the blue-checked man. “Haven’t you put up the barriers yet?”
“No, not yet.”
The first man grabbed the paper and started to roll it up. “Well, do it now.”
“OK. I’ll just—”
“No,” the first interrupted. “Do it now.”
“Yes, boss.” The blue-checked man slunk away with head held low.
“You’d better have a good reason to be in here,” the man who was obviously in charge said to Joshua.
“Are you the foreman?”
“Who wants to know?”
“My name is Alan Raphael, and I’m from the Department of Information.” Joshua took out his bus pass and waved it furiously at the man.
The man’s eyes widened. He broke out into a cold sweat. “Yes?” he said.
“I couldn’t help but notice there’s an embarrassingly low level of security on the premises.”
The man’s eyes widened even more and were in danger of joining in the middle. His forehead was a waterfall. All the guilt that had been sitting at the back of his mind sprang forward. All the things he should have got around to, but hadn’t, because he knew no one would come to check. It was a one-in-a-thousand chance that anyone would drop in. That meant he must have done nine hundred and ninety-nine of these jobs.
“What would you like to know?” he asked, his voice quavering.
“Your name, when you started working on this project, and—”
“My name is Prosser and we started knocking the place down a week ago. The day after we were commissioned,” he added, hoping to impress.
“The day after?” shrieked Joshua.
“Well, there’s a lot to do. People to organize. Machines to rent. That kind of thing.” He looked away, ashamed. “I thought—”
“You’re not paid to think. You’re here to do a job and that’s it. I’m here to check the cellars.”
“But we haven’t propped and shored them. It’s very dangerous in there. I don’t think you should go down.”
“You don’t think? Why do we pay you?”
Prosser floundered in a fundamental dichotomy. “I … but you … that is, we …” He gave in.
“And this is how you run things around here, is it?”
“Well, I … that is, when I say I—”
“Do you expect to have a long career?”
“I … that is, I—”
“You know the cellars are high-level security. Who knows how many of your men, or complete strangers, I may add, have had a little peek in there.”
“Well, I’m sure … that is, I—”
“I don’t want to hear it. I’ll fix it, shall I?”
“You? That’s … I think … that is, I—”
“I’m glad you’re coming round to the right way of thinking, finally. I’ll deal with this.” Joshua turned and stalked off toward the house ruins.
The cellars were covered in dust and ruins from the destruction overhead. The study owed very little, he imagined, to the original style of the building. There were no fireplaces or warm shag pile carpet. There was a very metallic look to the room. The floor was cold steel and the walls were concrete. It did, in fact, look like an old fallout shelter, a sign of another paranoid era. The roof was sagging dangerously and distressing creaking noises were filling the room.
He looked for clues. A large chunk of concrete had landed on a terminal hidden away in the corner. It was destroyed and thus terminated—no help there. Most of the shelves were empty and the few books that remained were technical manuals, some, coincidentally, were photography manuals. He grabbed one at random. It was hard to read in the half-light but he could just make out the words. He flicked through the book and something small fell from between the pages. He leaned over to pick it up. It was a small rectangle of cardboard. Suddenly it seemed too dark to read.
Abruptly the creaking took on a much more urgent tone. Dust flakes and small rocks started to fall in on him. He turned around and, in horror, saw that the roof was halfway to collapsing. The exit was close to being completely blocked. He made a dash for the stairs as the roof decided to finish the job. He leaped forward and dived through the rapidly diminishing circle of light. He scrambled up the stairs into the open air underneath a pile of rubble.
He stood up and shook the bits of plaster off his coat and emptied some errant pebbles out of his pockets, to the amazement of the onlookers.
“Well, that’s fixed that,” he said to the crowd of workers. They were obviously very impressed. One or two applauded. “If you want something done, you’ve got to do it yourself.” He glared at Prosser. “Don’t get slack again, or things shall get unpleasant for you.”
Joshua watched Prosser with some satisfaction as the man’s mouth became an O of amazed fear. Around the cooler he had heard stories about the Department of Information guys being tough, but this was frightening.
Joshua’s hand found its way to his pocket and hid the recovered piece of cardboard. He waited until he was out of sight around the corner before he removed it from his pocket. He looked at it. He looked at it again. Either something big was afoot or there was an amazing coincidence sitting in the palm of his hand. The card read:
Jude Kilby
DOMINION
Head of Operations
He turned it over and realized it wasn’t an amazing coincidence. On the back of the Jude Kilby business card was the phone number of Joshua Richards.
23
A THOUGHT OCCURRED TO Joshua riding on the bus back to the city center. Assuming this was Reaper’s home, why had they taken so long to demolish it? But if they had taken so long with the house maybe, just maybe, some of the other bits and pieces of Reaper’s life were still around. Things like his records. Joshua could hardly contain himself.
The bus came to a stop and Joshua clambered out the door. He was running as he hit the footpath. He accelerated down the street toward his office. Vital seconds ticked away as he leaped around people barring his way. An agonizing minute passed as he waited at a red pedestrian light that was being closely watched by a policeman. If the cop had been watching the mugging behind him instead, Joshua thought, he might have chanced a manic dash across the homicidal traffic.
He skidded around the corner on two feet, sparks flying off his heels, and burst through the front door of his building. He dashed up the stairs to the second floor and belted along the corridor. At the end he saw Mrs. Agatha standing with her legs spread, raising a book toward his charging form. She brandished it like a crucifix against the undead.
“I’ll get you this time,” she cackled. “Who was—”
Joshua was past her, bursti
ng through his office door and closing it behind him. Mrs. Agatha looked over her shoulder in disbelief at his bolted door.
Three seconds later Joshua’s door opened and his head popped out. “The butler did it, Christine,” he said. “Also, it’s a sled, she’s a guy and he’s dead.”
The door closed and once again Mrs. Agatha was standing in the silence of the corridor. “How does he do it?” she muttered to herself. She stomped off down the hallway.
Inside the office Joshua was frantically calling directory inquires and the cursed Phone Company while trying to flick through his ancient telephone books. “Hello, hello,” he stammered down the telephone line.
“Yes?” said the voice at the other end, sounding very close to being asleep.
“I want the phone number of either David Lester or David Reaper.”
He heard keys clicking in the background.
“Yes?” said the voice.
“Yes what?”
“Which one do you want?”
“You mean they’re both listed?”
“Yes.”
Joshua dropped his phone book in shocked surprise. “Could I have David Reaper’s phone number please?”
“Yes.” There was a pause. “Er …”
“What is it?”
“It’s gone.”
“What do you mean it’s gone?”
“It’s just been deleted.”
“What?”
“All right. Which one of you jokers around here is being a contemptible and disreputable person? You all know it’s illegal to delete records.” The speaker had turned away and was talking to the other members of the directory inquires guild.
“Don’t worry about that,” shrieked Joshua.
“What do you mean don’t worry about it? It’s against procedures. Where would we be without procedures? Up shit creek, that’s where. Anyway, if—”
“I’m sorry,” interrupted Joshua, “but could you sort this out a bit later. It’s vitally important I get David Lester’s number.”
“Well, look, I don’t know about you but procedures are—”
“Please!” Joshua wailed.
“Oh, all right then. The phone number is 0151——”
“Pen, pen, pen. Where’s a goddamn pen when you need one?”
“Are you ready or what? You’re meant to have a pen before you call us, you know,” the voice said.
“OK. I’ve got one.” He grabbed a pen and prepared for war.
“All right.” The voice breathed in. “0151—”
“015 … damn, the goddamn pen doesn’t work.” Joshua threw it out the window. “Hang on a minute.”
The voice at the other end sighed.
“OK. I’ve got another one.”
“Does it work?” said the voice in a tone aimed at a very young child.
“Yes. Give it to me.”
“Are you sure you’re ready.”
“Yes. Give me the goddamn number.”
“All right, there’s no need to get uptight about it. The number is, that is, David Lester’s phone number is … 0151…”
“0151,” repeated Joshua. He scribbled furiously on the back of his bus pass.
“9161…”
“9161.”
“0 … oh dear.”
“0 dear?” Joshua looked at the bus pass and realized there were not enough numbers written on it. And dear wasn’t a number. “What do you mean 0 dear?”
“It’s, um, gone.”
“Gone!” shrieked Joshua. “Gone! Not after all that. It can’t be gone. Look again. I don’t believe it. It can’t be gone.”
“No. It’s gone.”
“ARRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!”
“No, don’t panic. I can remember it.”
“You can?” said Joshua, more amazed than anything else. The smallest spark of hope flickered in his heart. He held his pen poised.
“Easy. I’m dead brilliant with numbers. Anyway, there were only three other digits. Let’s see, it was 0155—”
“Shouldn’t that be 0151?”
“Sorry. Yes. That’s what I meant, 0155—sorry, 0151-9161.”
The voice paused and Joshua went red with mental pressure and anguish.
“Oh.”
There was another pause and Joshua went redder.
“Four.”
Joshua scribbled the number down.
“No wait. I tell a lie. It was an eight.”
Joshua crossed out four and wrote eight.
“No, no, I was right the first time. It was three. No, sorry, four. What’s that strange banging?”
Joshua stopped hitting his head on the desk and crossed out three and put four next to it. He was about to run out of space on the paper.
“Then there was an eight. Yes, I’m pretty sure it was an eight.”
Joshua’s knuckles were white and the pen was beginning to bend under the pressure.
“And the final number was … seven.”
Joshua sagged in relief as he scribbled the last number down on the other side of the bus pass. “Let me just read that back to you,” he said. “0151-9161-0487. Is that right?”
“Ah. I don’t think so.”
Joshua had passed out the other side of torment and was now dangerously calm and polite. “What do you think could be wrong?”
“I think the last two numbers are the wrong way around.”
“0151-9161-0478. Would that be the number you were trying to remember?”
“I reckon you’ve got it. I’m nearly certain that was the number.”
“Nearly certain?”
“Yup, one hundred percent. Give or take a bit. Give it a go. You never know your luck.”
Joshua’s nerves had had enough. He politely thanked the operator for the help and went to the bathroom to wash his face and rinse his hands.
He came out and dialed the number. “Well, here goes nothing.”
It rang for some time before being answered. “Hello?” said a feminine voice. The tone of voice suggested this phone was not meant to ring and that it did was amazing. Death defying, in fact.
“I was after David Lester,” he said.
“Sorry. No David Lesters here.”
“I’m mistaken,” said Joshua, thinking fast. “I meant David Reaper.”
There was a long pause. “I’m sorry, but David Reaper can no longer be reached on this number. Look, who is this?” The woman’s voice became muffled but Joshua heard her say, “Get an A1 trace on this.” Her voice returned to normal. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name. Are you a friend of David’s?”
The woman was answered by a beeping in her earpiece. “Blast!” She turned to the person next to her and said, “Tell Jude there’s been top-level security breach. How did we go on that trace?”
The security guard next to her looked at his rows of monitors. “I’d say he was using an antique phone.”
“You mean analogue? But can’t you still trace the frequency?”
“It’s not a digital so it won’t be precise.”
“God. It is old. Have we got anything?”
“A rough area. About five square miles. This block here,” he said, pointing to a red block flashing on the screen.
“Do we know anyone in that area?”
“No,” lied the security guard.
She shrugged. “I’ll go and tell Jude. He’ll know what to do.” She turned to leave but stopped and turned back to the guard. “Have you been smoking in here again?”
“No,” lied the guard.
“Hmm.” She turned and squelched out the doorway.
The sedate hold music purred into Joshua’s right ear. Inside his head there was another story being told. Traffic was banked up for miles. It was hot and thoughts were randomly blowing their horns. One particular thought that had had a particularly trying period of late began to sweat and its glasses fogged up. A nagging doubt started to buzz in the corner of the car like a dying fly. The temperature gauge was on H and the fuel was on E. The th
ought shifted the gear lever from L to P and took its foot of the brake. Its left cheek started to twitch.
“Good day, Alan Raphael speaking.”
The engine cooled and traffic started moving.
“Look, Raphael, it’s Joshua Richards here. I think I’ve tied up everything. It’s big. Really big.”
“Man, I knew it would be. They said you’d be the only one able to pull this off.”
“Well, thank you. But I’ve got to tell you what I’ve found out.”
“OK, but not now. Not like this on the phone. You know that they’re monitored.”
“Where, then?”
“We’ve got an old abandoned office downtown. I’ll meet you there tonight.”
“Right. Where is it?”
“Do you know the markets?”
“Yeah, I live near them.”
“Convenient. Got buses, too?”
“Yes, why?”
“Just wondering. I’ve been thinking of buying some property down there for a few years.”
“Look, I don’t think this is the time to be discussing real estate ventures. If what I’m thinking is true we’re all in terrible danger.”
“OK, man. I’ll meet you at the Telco House, second floor tonight, ten-thirtyish. Make sure you come prepared. It could be dangerous.”
“You bet I will.”
Raphael put down the receiver and swiveled in his chair. He turned to look at the figure standing beside him dressed in a checked shirt. He turned back to his desk and gazed absentmindedly at the top of it.
“So far so good. I gotta go and do a special job now,” he said, patting his gun, which lay on the desktop. He picked it up and turned it around in his hands, thinking about something.
The assistant sat down on the edge of the desk and slapped his knee. “It’s a pity, boss. He’s a sharp guy. I was down at the site with Prosser and he had him running in circles. We all had a laugh about that.”
“The way I understand it, Dominion doesn’t like people of his caliber running around. That’s why they want him out of the way, or retired, as they wish to call it.”
“It’s a bit of a nasty payout, though.”
“Man, life is like that. As the street poets say”—his eyes glazed over with the effort of dramatic recall—“life’s a bitch … and then you think of something original to say,” he finished lamely.