by Andrew Grant
Harry Hamilton was the army Intel buddy I’d drafted to take a crack at the clone of Madatov’s computer.
“Harry, you’re a star. Fire away.”
“Listen, I don’t have a complete picture yet. This guy uses security protocols like you wouldn’t believe. But I’ve made a good start. It looks like there’s some stuff about drugs and guns that could buy our boy some righteous jail time. I did what you said, though, and tried to focus on the trafficking. Here’s what I found. First, the bad news. I couldn’t dig anything up about those women whose stuff you saw. There’s no clue as to where they might have gone. I’ll keep trying, but right now it’s like they never existed. So now the good news. If you can call it that? I don’t know. Anyway. Look, sorry, I was up all night and now I’m stupidly jazzed on caffeine. But here’s the thing. I think I’ve figured out when the next batch of women is being brought in.”
“Great work. When?”
“In six days’ time. On a ship named the Caucasus Queen, out of Sevastopol. It’s due at dock 7B.”
“Harry, that’s wonderful. You could have saved lives, here, not to mention sparing people a world of misery.”
“I’m happy to help, Paul. I’ll keep digging. And I’ll be back in touch if I find anything else useful.”
Harry hung up, and I practically jumped off the bench. The adrenaline was starting to flow, and I could feel the pendulum of fate swinging back my way after the morning’s shit storm.
It was time to step things up a gear, so I called Frank Carrodus and told him I needed some personal time. Then I collected Davies’s van from the open-air lot on Warren Street where I’d been keeping it and set off to pick up some supplies. I needed some clothes. Some tools. And two pieces of specialized equipment. I had to try four stores to find those. That was frustrating, but on the other hand it’s debatable whether they should be sold to civilians at all.
I parked in the service bay at Walcott’s office building and changed clothes in the back of the van. I got my tools together and made my way in through the rear entrance. Signed in at the Receiving Room. Then headed down to the basement. The walls, floor, and ceiling in the service corridor were all painted gray. There was no carpet, so the area was chilly and echoey. I passed an exercise room, which no one was using. A maintenance store, which was locked. And then I found what I was looking for—the telecom room. I picked the lock and crossed to the Main Distribution Frame, which connects the internal cables to the ones coming in from the public network. The thing was like a tall, twelve-foot-wide metal-framed wardrobe with no doors or sides, crammed full of multicolored spaghetti. Fortunately it had been installed at the far end of the room so it would provide good cover if anyone came in, and its engineers’ log was kept up-to-date, so I could easily identify the cables that served Walcott’s office suite. I quickly disconnected them. Then I locked the room behind me and took the elevator up to Walcott’s floor.
A small, highly polished brass plaque on the door to the office suite read simply, Rigel Walcott & Associates. There was no business description or supporting information. I paused outside to activate the cell signal jammer I’d just purchased—I didn’t want any overzealous employees calling the phone company to check my credentials—then knocked and went in.
The carpet in the reception area was royal blue and densely woven, with gold shields and griffins inlaid at regular intervals. The walls were paneled with mahogany. The smell of polished leather was coming from somewhere. On the right, two wingback chairs stood at either side of a low table. A Lewis chess set was laid out on a marble board. One pawn of each color had been moved as if a match had just begun, and a biography of Garry Kasparov was lying open on the white side of the board. Black-and-white photographs were lined up in narrow frames on the wall. Most showed Walcott in a hard hat and coveralls at various construction sites around the world, smiling and shaking hands with mayors and businessmen and assorted dignitaries. The largest one, in the center, showed Walcott in a dark suit, deep in thought, playing chess with Kasparov himself.
The reception desk was on the other side of the room. It held a computer, a diary, a stand for a fountain pen, and a china cup and saucer. There was no receptionist. Ahead, there were two doors. The one on the right had a plaque that read Conference Room. The other door was blank. It opened and a curly-haired woman emerged. She was maybe in her fifties and was wearing a gray pantsuit and flat black shoes.
“Can I help you?” She let her glasses slide a little way down her nose and peered at me over them.
I wiped my palm on my coveralls and held out my hand. “Paul. From the phone company. What’s the problem? Was it you who called it in?”
“We don’t have a problem.” The woman ignored my hand. She crossed to the desk, lifted her handset, and listened for a moment. “Oh dear. Apparently we do.”
“If it wasn’t you who called, I must be in the wrong suite. Sorry to disturb you. I’ll get out of your way.”
“Wait.” She was still holding the handset. “You’re already here, and we have phones that don’t work. Couldn’t you just fix them?”
“I shouldn’t. I’m supposed to find who originally reported the fault and help them first. Why don’t you call it in right away, get a ticket number, and maybe Dispatch will allocate it to me, if no other jobs come in before I’m done.”
“Call it in how? Our phones don’t work!”
I shrugged.
“Look, wouldn’t it be more efficient just to fix our phones first? That would save you coming back, or someone else coming out when you’re already here.”
“I guess.” I shrugged again, but with less conviction. “Well, OK. I’ll take a look. But you’ve got to promise not to tell anybody, or you’ll get me in trouble.”
“That sounds about right. Getting in trouble for helping your customers.”
“Hey. I don’t make the rules.”
“I’m sorry—I’m sorry. I won’t tell anyone.”
“Thanks. By the way, any chance of a coffee while I’m here?”
“I would, only it’s just me in the office and I’m not supposed to leave…”
“No problem. I get it. And anyway, my wife’s always telling me, Paul—cut out that caffeine. So she’d be happy, at least. OK, let’s get started. Can you point me to your phone system’s CPU?”
“Sure. It’s through here.”
I picked up my tools and followed the woman into the conference room. It had the same carpet and wood paneling as reception. Similar photos. A shiny oval table. Six Eames office chairs, in apple green. And a wide window, with its blinds pulled all the way down. The woman continued to the rear of the room and pressed the edge of one of the wall panels. A section about a yard square swung open, giving access to the suite’s breaker box and phone system.
“Here you go.” The woman pointed to the equipment, then turned and started back to the door. “I’ll be at my desk. Call me if you need anything.”
I unscrewed the phone system’s plastic shell and set it down on the table in case the woman came back in to check on me. I waited six minutes. Then replaced the cover. Closed the panel. And went back out to reception.
“That all looks fine.” I scratched my chin. “I ran a diagnostic on the CPU which came up green, but I reset it anyway to be on the safe side. I need to check the terminals now. Is there one in here?” I nodded to the other door and went in without waiting for her to respond. This room had a plain carpet. It was still blue, but a darker shade, which clashed with the desk’s burgundy leather top. The thing was gigantic. I wanted to take it to pieces. It reminded me of one I came across in Budapest once, which turned out to have fourteen separate secret compartments. I resisted the temptation to dismantle it and continued to search in all the usual places. There was nothing of interest, though. And worse, no computer. I’d hoped to get a cloned copy and drop it off with Harry on the wa
y to my hotel. There was only a charging cable protruding from beneath a bust of Nero. That suggested Walcott used a laptop, and had probably taken it home with him, or to wherever he was hiding.
There were a couple of dozen books inside a glass-fronted bookcase. Most of them were about chess. A couple were about antiques. One was about classic English sports cars. I checked inside all of them. None had any documents concealed between their pages, or hollowed-out hiding places. A pair of photographs in heavy silver frames were perched on the top shelf. They’d been taken abroad, judging by the style of the buildings. One showed Walcott with the president of Azerbaijan. I recognized him from the briefing I’d had before my aborted posting. In the other picture Walcott was shaking hands with another guy I’d been briefed about: Ramil Balayev. He’d been the Azerbaijani justice minister. In theory. In practice his main job was repressing the opposition. There were rumors of beatings. Electrocution. Amputations. No wonder Walcott kept that picture away from the public area of the office. It was strange that he kept it at all.
I went back to the desk and checked the phone in case there were any interesting entries in the memory or the call log. Nothing jumped out, so I picked up my toolbox from its position in front of the door and stepped out into reception.
The handle on the outer door began to turn.
“OK. I’m just about done.” I slipped back into the conference room. “Just one last thing to check in here…”
I peeked out and saw Walcott in a navy blue suit standing by the reception desk, flanked by two goons. They were big, bulky guys with pseudo-military haircuts and large fancy weapons. In other words, amateurs. They were all show. Reassuring to have around, if you didn’t know the business. But they’d be useless in a fight. Unless one of them sat on you. Or both did.
“What’s going on?” Walcott glared down at the receptionist. “I couldn’t get your cell. Or the office landline. The Feds—I thought we must have been raided again.”
“No.” The woman’s voice was calm, bordering on patronizing. “The phones are just down. The guy’s here fixing them now.”
“The cellphones, too?”
The woman looked momentarily puzzled, then took her phone from her purse and checked its screen. “Oh. I guess so. That’s weird, both kinds being down.”
“Are you sure there’s an actual fault?” Walcott’s eyes narrowed.
“All I know is that the phones went down. A guy turned up to fix them with a bunch of tools and he seems to know what he’s doing.”
Walcott scowled. “We’ll wait in my office. Let me know when the phone guy’s gone.”
I didn’t move until I heard Walcott’s office door slam shut.
“Nailed it!” I smiled at the woman and headed for the outer door. “There’s one last thing to do in the comms room downstairs, and then your service’ll be back right away. I guarantee.”
“Wait.” The woman stood up. “All our cellphones are down, too!”
“Sorry.” I shrugged. “Different provider. Nothing I can do about that.”
“But both kinds of phone service going down at once?” She put her hands on her hips. “Isn’t that a bit suspicious?”
“Not at all.” I shook my head. “It’s not even surprising. The cell circuits will be overloaded because of all the extra people using them while the landlines are down. I bet you they come back as soon as the landlines are fixed. Give it ten minutes. Maybe less. It’ll be fine.”
* * *
—
I hit the Down button, then reached into my toolbox and deactivated the cell blocker. The elevator took forever to come. I could feel the hairs bristling on the back of my neck, waiting for the outer door to open and Walcott to emerge. Not that it would have been the end of the world if he’d seen me. He’d probably only focus on the coveralls, anyway. Big shots like him don’t generally notice the little guy. People they think are only there to serve them. But old habits. It could be a tactical advantage for Walcott to have no way of recognizing me. Who knew how things were going to pan out?
Walcott was still in his suite when the elevator arrived. I rode down to the basement alone. Made my way along the gray corridor to the telecom room. Picked the lock. Went inside. Crossed to the MDF cabinet. Located the cables that served Walcott’s office. Reconnected them. And took the wireless repeater I’d bought that afternoon out of my toolbox. I knew it was a long shot, hoping that Walcott would be stupid enough to have a compromising conversation on an unsecured landline, but I figured it wasn’t impossible. There was nothing to lose by trying, so I readied the connectors. Offered them up to the terminals on the frame. Was about to press the first one into place, and stopped dead. I’d heard a sound, to my left. Something I’d recognize anywhere. A shell being racked into the chamber of a pistol.
I turned, very slowly. The pistol was a Glock 17. A very serviceable weapon. It was known around the world for its reliability. It had a misfire rate in the region of one in ten thousand, from what I could recall. Not good odds, from my end of the barrel. And the hands that were holding it, leveled on my center mass, were rock steady. The person they belonged to was definitely alive this time. He was standing up. All six feet eight of him. His eyes were open. And his breathing was slow and calm.
The guy was no amateur. I knew that for a fact. I wasn’t inferring it from his lack of nerves or his choice of weapon. I recognized him. I’d seen him before, years ago. At Fort Huachuca, Arizona. When we were both there to take a bunch of specialist courses at the US Army Intelligence School. His name was John Robson. He was the agent who was sent to Azerbaijan instead of me. The agent who was thrown out of the service after getting too close to Rigel Walcott.
I guessed Walcott’s security detail wasn’t as superficial as the two guys upstairs had made it seem, and silently cursed myself for not seeing something like this coming. Although the specific permutation brought an additional problem with it. Robson had disgraced the uniform. I wasn’t in the army any longer. I had no jurisdiction. No obligation. No authority. But old habits die hard. Finding him in the employ of a known criminal wasn’t something I could turn a blind eye to.
There was a solid wall a foot or so behind me. Another, two feet to my left. Neither had any windows. The MDF was a foot to my right. Leaving only one way out of the narrow space. Through Robson. He was facing me, six feet away, well out of reach. He was armed. He’d received the same training as me. And he’d no doubt supplemented that with a career’s worth of dirty tricks.
We were in the basement, so if Robson fired there was a chance the shot wouldn’t be heard. Although unless he missed, remaining undetected would be the least of my worries. And I knew he wouldn’t miss.
Another concern was the MDF. Its perforated steel framework was horribly flimsy and the bundles of spindly multicolored wires that sprouted from its thousands of connectors were brittle and delicate. If something impacted any part of it—like, say, Robson’s body—half the building’s phones and Internet connections could be cut and it wouldn’t be long before someone came running to investigate.
“John?” I raised my hands. “It’s me. Paul. Paul McGrath. From the 66th. You know me. So stay calm. I’m not going to do anything stupid. I’m just going to put this down…” I gestured to the repeater that was still in my hand, then slowly crouched, moving back slightly to jam my right foot against the wall. “Then we can talk. I’m sure we can—” I launched myself forward, staying low and aiming for his knees. I wrapped my arms around his legs and the momentum caused him to jackknife over me, flailing wildly but still landing a blow on my back before stretching out to cushion his landing. He caught me between my spine and my right shoulder blade. I guess he used the butt of his gun, but it felt like I’d been hit by a lightning bolt. Torrents of pain ran up to the base of my skull and down into my pelvis, loosening my arms and allowing Robson to wriggle free.
We bo
th rolled clear. No shots had been fired. The MDF was unscathed. Our positions were reversed, with Robson now penned in. Only he still had the gun. And it was still pointing straight at me.
“You need to walk away, Paul.” Robson sounded slightly winded. “Walk away now, before you screw things up altogether.”
“Why?” I got slowly to my feet. “So you can put a bullet in my back? No thanks.”
“I’m not going to shoot you.” Robson took a deep breath. “Not unless you make me. But you’ve got to understand something. Walcott? He’s mine. The army’s not having him. Not after all this time. Not after what they did to me. So do us both a favor and walk the fuck away.”
“What happened to you, John?” I cautiously rotated my shoulder to see how badly it was hurt. “Walcott’s scum. He’s a piece of trash. Why are you still helping him? Is it money? Because—”
Robson lunged at me, his elbow scything toward the side of my head in a vicious arc. I twisted to block the blow with my upper arm, then continued past him, jabbing for his kidney as I went. My fist connected and I heard him gasp, but I knew the punch was too weak to do serious damage. My shoulder still wasn’t working right and I’d likely done more harm to myself than him. Plus our positions were reversed again. I was penned back in. And Robson still had the gun.
“You think I’m helping Walcott?” Robson raised his Glock. “Why in hell would you think that?”
“Everyone thought that, John.” I eased toward my toolbox. There were plenty of possible weapons in there. If I could just get the chance to grab one. Something I could use left-handed. “The word was, you swapped sides. Which is why you took a Big Chicken Dinner. And after you were kicked out, you went to work for him full time.”
“I got discharged, all right.” Robson lowered the gun. “Nailed for bad conduct. That much is true. But not for swapping sides. Because my CO caught me on my way to shoot Walcott in the head.”
“You were going to eighty-six the guy? How come?”