Kill - Two

by Blake Banner

  He shook his head. It wasn’t the only part of him that was shaken. “I do not believe you.”

  “That’s irrelevant,” I snarled. “What is relevant now is that you have the information and you need to act on it. If Van Zuydam gets taken out because you failed to act, you’re finished, pal.”

  He reached for his phone.

  I laughed. It was a dry, ugly laugh. “You think Van Zuydam will talk to you? Don’t be an ass! He’ll deny any knowledge of what you’re talking about. This is confidential at the highest level and has total deniability.” I shook my head. “I don’t even know what the hell you’re doing here.”

  He was suddenly aware that he was out of his depth, and gripped by paralysis. His soldier’s instinct was to turn for guidance to a superior officer, but that option was not open to him. I provided him with the guidance. I leaned forward.

  “Listen to me, Captain. We extracted information from Timmerman that is of enormous value to Brit…” I stopped myself, then went on. “Our demands are based on the information we extracted. Timmerman had access to that kind of intelligence. Why do you think they were prepared to have you kill him? The clock is ticking, Captain Berger. You need to make the right decision. Let me talk to General Bisset.”

  He hesitated. “I call him. You talk to him.”

  I snapped: “It has to be on my phone and there can be nobody in the room.”

  “Very well, the guards go outside, I call him on your telephone.”

  “No! Think, man! I can’t let you use my telephone! There is intelligence on there, ours and yours, that you are not cleared for. For God’s sake, Captain, we are running out of time. You saw I was unarmed. I am not here to hurt anybody! I am here to negotiate.” We stared at each other for a long moment. Finally, I said, “OK! You stay! They go. Just untie me and let me make the call before it’s too late!”

  His face said he felt sick with anxiety, but he made the only decision he could make. He rattled at the guards in French. They left the room and closed the door. He pulled a pen knife from his pocket and cut the bonds around my ankles, and then the ones around my wrists. I spoke calmly, like my mind was fully focused on saving Van Zuydam.

  “Thank you, Captain. Now, please, give me my cell phone.”

  He put his knife away and at the same time handed me my phone. I smiled as I took it with my left hand, like we were both old school, gallant captains, comrades even, engaged in a crazy conflict in a crazy world. “What time is it?”

  He looked at his watch and opened his mouth to answer. As he did it, I reached out and took hold of the back of his neck. For a fraction of a second, he looked startled. Then I smashed the heel of my right hand into the tip of his jaw. His eyes rolled back in his head and I lowered him gently to the floor. As I did it, I broke his neck. I regretted that. He seemed to be a nice guy.

  EIGHTEEN

  Now I had a problem. Captain Berger’s men totaled six. There were three standing outside. I had no idea where the other three were, or how many people there were in this chateau. I stepped to the window and looked out. I could see two of his team leaning against one of the SUVs in the drive. My options were limited at best.

  I pulled Berger’s Uzi from his jacket pocket, along with a spare magazine, took up a position seven feet from the door, held it with both hands and let rip for one and a half seconds. Thirty rounds shredded the door in an expanding cone and tore into whoever was standing outside, ripping through flesh and bone, and alerting the whole house that I was here.

  I yanked open the mangled door and saw two equally mangled men leaking blood onto the carpet. The ox wasn’t one of them. The ox came around the door. His neck and head had gone crimson with rage. He charged me and hurled me against the desk. The corner slammed painfully into my back. I had no time to react. He was bearing down on me again like an enraged bull. I staggered to my feet, gasping for air, but his left hand clenched around my throat and he drove his right fist hard into my stomach. If he’d done it a second time, I would have been finished. Instead, he grabbed my belt, lifted me over his head and threw me across the room. I landed in a heap under the window, with a thousand shards of glass piercing my lungs. I knew that if I didn’t do something in the next thirty seconds, I was going to die. But my body wasn’t doing any of the things I was telling it to do.

  The ox was moving on me again. I struggled to stand, but my legs were wobbling and twitching like neurotic spaghetti. My hands wanted to grab my Sig or my Fairbairn & Sykes, but I had neither. He reached down and grabbed me by the throat again. This time he put his thumb on my windpipe and began to squeeze, leering into my face as he did it. My lungs screamed for air. I could feel the pressure building in my head. I struggled to focus my mind. I knew I only had seconds before I passed out. I reached for his collar with my right hand, blocking his left as I did so. Then I pulled hard, bringing my face closer to his. His leer became an ugly laugh, until I gripped his right ear with my left hand and plunged my thumb into his eye socket.

  His whole body went into spasm. He released my throat, gripping at my wrist. He made horrible, gibbering noises, but I didn’t let go. I reached inside his jacket, pulled out his Glock and pumped three rounds through his heart, with the muzzle pressed up against his chest.

  Then he stopped gibbering.

  He fell back with a huge thud on the floor. I slid down with the weapon trained on the door, waiting for the inevitable assault. It didn’t come. Whatever kind of official facility this was, they had vacated it for my interrogation. After a moment, I made my way, more or less steadily, to Captain Berger’s body. I searched in his pockets and found a wallet and an ID card. I put the ID my boot and moved to the door.

  There, I put the second magazine into the Uzi, leaned against the wall and breathed deeply for thirty seconds. When my legs had stopped shaking, I walked down to the entrance hall. I had the two guys outside positioned in my mind, but that left one and I had no idea where he was. And I had no time to find out.

  I stepped through the door onto the shallow steps that led down to the gravel drive. They were still leaning against the SUV, talking. They never knew what happened. Half a second of mayhem had them both riddled with fifteen 9mm slugs that tore right through them and mangled their bodies. As they dropped to the ground, I peered in through the windshield of the second SUV. It was empty. I needed the last guy. I could not leave him as a loose end.

  But I didn’t need to. I heard his feet pounding before he burst through the door. He stood, gaping at the carnage, then at me. I smiled at him. He swung his right fist in a wide arc. I had just gone twenty rounds with the ox. I didn’t feel like a fist fight. So I emptied the remaining fifteen rounds into his belly and tore him almost clean in half.

  I found a set of keys to an Audi in his pants pocket. I pressed the button and the second SUV flashed and bleeped. As I climbed in, I looked up at the office window and figured it must be soundproofed. I pulled out of the drive, back toward town, wondering what the cops would think when they found Timmerman’s bloody thumbprint all over the mangled office.

  On the way back, I stopped at a club on JF Kennedy Avenue, had a wash in the gents’ and a stiff whiskey up at the bar. Then I went on my way again and arrived at Rue du Fort Thüengen at three forty-five. I was running out of time, fast.

  I pushed through the main doors of the building and found myself in a hexagonal lobby with a mosaic floor and six potted palms placed hexagonally around the hall. There was a blue reception desk on the right with a couple of Euro-people sitting behind it in blue and gold uniforms. As Timmerman had predicted, they ignored me. Across the lobby, there was a bank of three elevators. I made my way to the one on the far left and pressed the button. After a moment, the doors slid open and, using my latex thumb, I pressed the button for the third basement. There was a clunk and the elevator began to descend. So far, he had not lied. I turned on my cell phone. In the basement, there would be no signal.

  I felt a hot knot of excitement in my belly
. I wondered how long it would be before they found Berger. The building had seemed to be empty but for him and his team. How long before anybody went looking for him? I wondered if there was any way the cops, or whoever investigated, would link him to me. Had he told anyone he was going after Captain Walker, of the SAS? Chances were high that he had. But I would have to worry about that afterwards.

  I watched the numbers on the digital display blink from minus one to minus two, then minus three and the elevators hissed to a stop. For a moment, nothing happened, then the doors slid back and I stepped into a blue-carpeted corridor that ran straight ahead from the elevator for maybe a hundred yards, and at a right angle to the left. I stepped out. It was as Timmerman had described it. The two corridors were practically indistinguishable. There were doors set at intervals in each wall, with perhaps twenty five feet between them. There were no people. The basement seemed to be deserted. According to Timmerman, the door I needed was the second door on the right, down the left hand passage, placing it at the center of the building.

  I walked the fifty feet to the door. There was a panel on the left. I opened it and saw a number pad with a digital display, a laser and a touch screen for my thumbprint. I pressed the latex print on the pad and waited with a sick feeling in my belly. After three long seconds, it turned green and a voice that was almost human said, “Please look at the dot in the center of the screen.”

  I lifted my phone and presented the iris Jim had sent me to the laser. Five seconds passed. I could feel my heart pounding and I was aware my breathing had accelerated. A voice said, “Thank you, Mr. Timmerman, please enter your personal access code.”

  I punched in the letters: capital ‘K’, lower case ‘a’, capital ‘O’, lower case ‘m’, then the numerals one, six, one, eight.

  The digital display immediately flashed red. A hot jolt twisted my gut. The voice said, “I am sorry, Mr. Timmerman, the code you have entered is not correct. You have two further tries, then security will be alerted.”

  Had they changed it when he was abducted? That would be logical. But he hadn’t said anything about that, and it was also possible I had entered it wrong. I punched it in again: capital ‘K’, lower case ‘a’, capital ‘O’, lower case ‘m’, then, once more, the numerals one, six, one, eight.

  Again, the screen flashed red. The voice said, “You have entered an incorrect code twice. You have one more attempt. Please enter a correct code.”

  The son of a bitch had given me the wrong password. I could feel the blood pounding in my head. I forced myself to stay cool and think. He had been in a lot of pain and fear. I didn’t believe he had lied. Had they changed the password? I ran over the letters and the numbers: Katrina, Omega and the golden mean.

  The golden mean was not one six one eight. It was one point six one eight. I hesitated for a fraction of a second, but it was the only shot I had. I punched in the number with the decimal point.

  Nothing happened. Five long seconds passed. Then, the screen turned green and the voice said, “Welcome, Mr. Timmerman. The door is open.”

  I turned the handle and pushed open the door. I noticed as I did so that though it was painted on the outside to look like wood, it was actually three inches of solid steel. Getting locked in would be worse than being locked out.

  I closed the door. The room was not large. It was a space about twenty five feet square, carpeted, like the rest of the building, in euro-blue. The walls ahead and to my left were off-white, and from half way down they were occupied by banks of computers with terminals dotted at six-foot intervals, each with a chair. On the far right of the facing wall there was an arch that seemed to lead to another room. I took a couple of steps and looked behind me. The entire wall was taken up by what seemed to be a vast network of connected hard drives.

  On my left, another arch seemed to lead to a passage into another room. I stepped into that passage, moved to the end, and found I was in an identical room to the first. Two more passages, one on the right and one on the left, led into other rooms. It was like a warren, or a maze. I returned to the first room and stopped dead.

  By the far arch, one of the chairs was occupied by a woman. She had dark, straight hair and was wearing a blue suit. She was tapping at a keyboard. I crossed the room toward her. The thick carpet silenced my steps, but when I was seven or eight feet from her, she must have sensed me, because she turned in her chair and stared at me. There was no alarm in her expression, not even curiosity. She said, “Who are you?”

  Without thinking, I said, “Zeta sent me.”

  A small frown. “Zeta has been compromised.”

  “Haven’t you heard? He has returned. This morning.”

  “No.” The answer was blunt, yet ambiguous.

  I smiled. “No you haven’t heard, or no he hasn’t returned?”

  Her frown deepened. “Who are you?”

  “Why don’t we start by you telling me who you are and why you are here. I was told the lab would be empty.”

  She stood. Now her frown was deep and troubled. She came and stared hard into my face. “I am Athena Noctua, and I work here every day. This is my job. Who told you the lab would be empty? Who are you? How did you get in?”

  The son of a bitch had set me up. Down here, in this basement, where my phone had no signal, and I could dial one as much as I liked, the call would never reach the detonator. I tried to think, but I was running out of options. I laughed. “How did I get in? Well, obviously with a thumb print, iris recognition and a password, just like everybody else! Now how about we stop wasting each other’s time and you let me get down to work?”

  Her frown became scandalized. “Work? What work? You can’t work on these computers! Who the hell are you? I don’t think you should be in here at all! I am going to call security!”

  “No, wait!” I reached out and took her arm. “OK, I admit it, you caught me. I came here…” I sighed, smiled again. “I came here to see you.”

  “What?”

  I was digging myself deeper with every ploy I tried and I knew it. “I couldn’t help noticing you and I just wanted to talk to you…”

  “Noticing me? Where? When? How?”

  “You know, in the, um…canteen…”

  She yanked her arm free, stepped over to the terminal where she had been working and pressed a button on the table. She did the whole thing in less than a second. “I’ve called security and you had better stay away from me!”

  I swore violently, stepped over to her and gave her a firm jab to the point of her chin. Her legs did a little dance and her eyes rolled back in her head. As she went down, I pulled out the nearest chair, sat and pressed the power button on the terminal.

  A blue screen lit up with a white window in the center asking me for a password. There was a deep rage building in my belly against Timmerman for setting me up, and at myself for being so damned stupid. I rattled in KaOm1.618 and was told that was not it.

  Security was on its way. I wondered where it was coming from and how long I had. To enter this lab, it would have to be Omega’s own security. I wondered if they would they have that kind of heavy, armed personnel at a secret installation within a public building. There was no way of knowing.

  I looked at the girl’s prone form on the floor. I would have to get a password from her, but I knew that would take too long. I glanced at where she’d been sitting and remembered that the screen had been on. I moved to her chair and shook the mouse. The screen blinked. It was active. I smiled. My heart was pounding hard, high up in my chest. I pulled the pen drive Phil had given me from my pocket and searched for a USB port.

  There wasn’t one.

  I didn’t waste time getting mad. I stood and moved along the bank, searching every inch for a USB port.

  There wasn’t one.

  I looked at the prone girl again. I knew if I woke her, she’d be more trouble. Then I saw it, on the wall behind me, a panel with at least a dozen USB ports. I made it in three strides and shoved the pen drive into t
he nearest port. Then I returned to the terminal and sat, watching the screen. The dialogue box came up as Timmerman had said. I selected ‘run’ and pressed ‘enter’. Another window opened up with two options: Silent Running or Crash and Burn. As Phil had instructed, I selected Silent Running. Another dialogue box asked me if I was sure. I didn’t shout. I clicked yes and a new window appeared on the screen with a bar that started turning slowly green. It told me there were four minutes and fifty seconds remaining.

  Then the door opened. I stood and turned. There were a dozen men in black combat gear. They had ski masks covering their faces and HK G36 assault rifles in their hands, all pointing at me. I blocked the screen with my body and started to count in my mind. Four minutes and thirty seconds. I was going to die, but I had to hold out for four more minutes and thirty seconds, and counting.

  NINETEEN

  They stood staring at me. I wondered why they weren’t shooting me. It was probably only a second, but it felt like a long time. Then it dawned on me, they could not open fire because I was standing in front of the Omega mainframe.

  At my feet, Athena Noctua stirred. I reached down, grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and dragged her to her feet, simultaneously pulling the Glock I’d taken from the ox from my belt. I had no idea if they gave a damn about her, but if she was entrusted with the Omega mainframe and had a name like Athena Noctua, I figured the chances were she had to be somebody. It was worth the play, anyway. I put the gun to the back of her head and said, “OK, guys, here’s the situation. There is a virus uploading into the mainframe. I am the only person who can stop it.” As I was saying it, I was realizing that I was signing my death warrant for four minutes time, and added, “Or reverse it once it is installed.”