Déjà Vu: A Technothriller (3 page)

David thought about Ego. “No,” he lied.

McWhirter nodded. He handed him a walkie-talkie. Then the old colonel paid out a length of climber’s rope and tied himself to David.

“We going potholing too?”

McWhirter tested his torch. “It’s a possibility. We’ve already lost a guard.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No,” said McWhirter. “He was checking out one of the higher levels and the floor gave way.”

There was a long pause as David gave the colonel time to admit that, aye, he was kidding.

“Bloody hell,” David said.

“OK, we’re ready. Step only where I step. Let’s go.”

They crept away. McWhirter went first, sweeping to and fro with his torch and sliding his feet, testing the floor’s integrity with each step.

Saskia Brandt watched her secretary. Her secretary did not watch back because she was dead. Saskia was pensive. Somebody wanted to frame her. She walked back to her desk – retrieving her blouse on the way – and asked the computer for a list of her most recent cases. The computer did nothing.

“Computer?”

“Who are you?” it asked. “Your voice print is not identified.”

Saskia was intrigued. “I am Saskia Brandt. This is my office.”

“Update records?”

Saskia blinked. “Yes. Also run an internal systems check.”

“Check complete. No problems found.”

“Can you explain why my voice print was unavailable?”

“Yes, it may have been deleted accidentally, which is unlikely, or by a malicious user, which is likely.”

Was the malicious user the person trying to frame her? Why had the computer been able to recognise her voice before she opened the fridge? “Saskia,” it continued, “your refrigerator reports that it is broken.”

“Yes, I know that. My secretary is inside.”

“I do not understand. Why would your secretary be inside the refrigerator?”

“Do you know why?”

“I do not understand. Why would your secretary be inside the refrigerator?”

“Oh, switch off.”

“Yes, Saskia.”

The call came five minutes later. It was Jobanique. Saskia donned her blouse, though it was too hot to do so. Outside, the air was brown with dust and heat. The window became opaque with the image of her boss, Jobanique, sitting at his desk. He gave the impression of a middle-aged German businessman, but the whole scene was a computer-generated façade. His identity was secret. His name was certainly not Jobanique. Only one thing about the man was true: his voice. He spoke German well but crisply, without the fluency of a native speaker.

“Saskia, my dear. So nice to see you.”

“Thank you. Actually, I’m glad you called. I have a domestic problem. I won’t be able to take the case.”

Jobanique laughed. “My dear Saskia, you are already on the case.”

“This is the case?”

“Yes. I’m turning on high-strength encryption.” His image shimmered. In a more serious tone, he continued: “In the early hours of this morning your computer sent a report to a refrigeration subcontractor concerning your fridge.”

Saskia leaned against her desk. “Go on.”

“I intercepted the email and sent a man around to investigate.”

She began to pace. She looked at the picture of Simon, the blotter, the plant in the corner and the secretary’s little desk. There were no signs that someone had been in the room. “Why did you do that?”

“Instinct.” Jobanique shifted in his chair. “You had a new fridge fitted last year. A simple statistical test indicates that the probability of it failing within five years is less than one in twenty. I don’t like unusual occurrences. I sent the man around as a precaution. Stone.”

Saskia slumped in her chair and threw her feet onto the table, though she really wanted to put her head in her hands. “Stone?”

“He doesn’t talk. I don’t want Internal Affairs on this case before I have all the facts.”

“What are the facts?”

Jobanique played with his pen. “Your secretary was killed two days ago, Friday evening, by a single stab wound just below the ear. It led to a fatal brain haemorrhage.”

“How do you know that?”

“Stone brought a scanner with him. He’s into gadgets. The haemorrhage was effected by an extremely sharp blade more than six centimetres in length. She died almost instantly. What was her name?”

“Mary,” Saskia said.

“Poor Mary.”

Saskia stared at him. “Back to the killer’s movements. Why put her in the fridge?”

“Simple. She’s in the fridge. She’s a big hot object. The fridge’s gas compressor can’t cope -”

“Even less so with broken air conditioning,” Saskia interrupted.

“Agreed. So the fridge breaks. The computer makes an automatic report to have the fridge repaired. They send around a guy first thing on Monday morning, he discovers the body, presto, you’re framed.”

Saskia nodded. “Yes. I wasn’t due back until Tuesday. But why put the body in the fridge? Why not just call the police?”

Jobanique was silent for a while. “I don’t know.”

“Hang on. I’ve got it. I left the office at about six o’clock on the Friday evening. If the murder demonstrably happened a little later than that – which it probably did, considering that Mary was still in the office when I left – then I would have a cast-iron alibi. Witness statements from the taxi-driver, airline tickets – watertight. But by storing the body in the fridge and having the fridge break, the time of death is unpredictable. It would leave open the possibility I murdered Mary before leaving for Marseilles.”

“Fine so far,” said Jobanique, scratching his chin, “but why would you, as a murderer, put the body in the fridge?”

“Perhaps I wanted to store it temporarily and dispose of it later.”

“And just sneak out of the FIB building with her under your arm?”

Saskia smiled. “The mind of the murderer is not always clear. Take the motive, for example. What could that be?”

“Well, Frank did find something,” said Jobanique. “In Mary’s pockets are a number of...interesting photographs. Lesbian. You and her. Oh, forgeries I’m sure.”

Saskia did not respond to his embarrassment. “I see. Blackmail gone wrong. A lover’s tiff.”

Jobanique looked at his watch. “OK, it’s 1:15 p.m. You have twenty hours.”

Her feet dropped from the desk. “What?”

“Think about it. We can’t cancel the repair man. The murderer is certain to check that we’re on his tail, and that would be a give away. Your only advantage is his belief that he’s got away with it. He might make mistakes. At the very least, he won’t be on guard.”

Saskia stood. “Fine.”

“One more thing. The repair man will arrive at nine o’clock on Monday morning. Tomorrow. If you haven’t solved the case by then, IA will move in. If you have, you’ll hand over your notes to Stone and we’ll nail the guy.”

Saskia left her office. In the corridor, thank God, the air conditioning worked. Everything worked, from the freshly-picked friezes to the brass finishings. But the FIB did not suffer from cash flow. As a private organisation, it loaned itself to certain governments and wealthy individuals. The crime game could be good for both sides of the law.

She entered the lift and said, “Lobby.” Beneath the manual panel someone had written: “Another fine product of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.”

At the bottom of the building the doors opened onto the mezzanine floor, which held a bar, restaurant and café. The entire area was brightly illuminated with natural light from huge windows. The air was filled with a thousand busy footsteps. Saskia took an escalator to the ground floor proper and entered a second elevator. She pressed her thumb against a panel and said “Down”.

The basement was a stack of grey corridors and grey people. They walked on silent errands. They ignored her and each other. To her surprise, one of them stopped and said: “Have I seen you somewhere before?”

She tapped the ID on her lapel. “Detective Saskia Brandt. Is there a problem?”

The man gave her an appraising look and continued on his errand. “Never mind,” he said.

Saskia located the domestic surveillance office and went inside. She found the operator in charge of camera security and told him the boss wanted to see him. He left irritably. When he returned, Saskia had gone.

The nightmares had lasted years. In them, David had run through the research centre as though it were a submarine stuck in a crash-dive. Post-traumatic stress, the psychologist had said. But those nightmarish corridors had been faded memories from a younger man’s mind. They were ghosts of something already dead. Here and now they were more hostile and grotesque.

“Bomb damage,” muttered McWhirter, and David, by this time, was too tired to reply. They had been walking for fifteen minutes, but in the cold darkness, his energy and motivation were at low ebb. A colder silence had descended between the two men.

“We must be nearly there.”

“Aye.”

They began to make their way north, along the third corridor of the H-shaped floor. McWhirter called a halt and checked his map. Wearily, David dug him in the ribs. “What the hell do you need a map for? This place is laid out like a hotel.”

David stood and panted. He was out of shape. His eyes caught the sparkling orbs of the old colonel. As dust trickled down between them, David saw those orbs narrow.

“I suppose you know this place pretty well.”

A groan came from above their heads.

“I suppose I do. I worked here. So did you.”

McWhirter stepped forward. He was much taller. “The bombers knew this place well.”

“Agreed,” said David. “It was an inside job.”

The colonel ignored him. “They knew where to set the charges. They knew when the scientists would be in the hall, away from danger. And they knew precisely which project to bomb.”

David held his gaze. Behind his own, blood was rushing. “Aren’t you a bit old to be playing games, Colonel?”

The colonel pointed his torch at David’s face. The world went white. “Now tell me, laddie. Just between us. Did you do it?”

There was another noise from the ceiling. Neither man dared to check it. David said, “My wife died in the explosion. My Helen. I’ve been haunted by her death for twenty years. If I ever saw the man who did it, I would kill him. Now forget about it. It’s not my fault you were caught napping.”

The torch light did not move. David kept his stare fixed, though he could see nothing. McWhirter moved the torch. The whiteness vanished, replaced by an enormous afterimage that was equally blinding.

“Let’s go.”

As David was about to step forward, to follow McWhirter, he heard a splintering sound. He looked up and saw the ceiling bulge. The walls quivered and dust rained. David spat and coughed. He scrambled forward, tripped, and knocked his head against a rocklike protuberance of reinforced concrete. His hardhat saved his life, but the world rolled from side to side and he couldn’t stand. Dizzily, he guessed that he was about to die, and at that moment hands grabbed the hood of his coat and hauled him across the floor. There was a booming rumble as masonry fell into the corridor behind him. It missed his toes by inches.

In the silence, the air was thick with dust and a pungent odour. David coughed and groped about. He couldn’t open his eyes.

“Colonel?” he called out. “Colonel!”

He stood and the blood drained from his head. He nearly fainted. For support, he leaned forward on something dark. It felt like a shoulder. He whipped away his hand and, carefully, opened his eyes. It was McWhirter. The colonel had fallen backwards in the shape of a star. He had tripped after pulling David clear. Emerging from his abdomen and chest were three fingers of rusty steel. That explained the smell. The steel protuded from a large block of reinforced concrete.

“Oh God.”

There was no reply. Blood dribbled from the colonel’s mouth. His eyes were dry. David stared at him. There was no sense of panic. Just utter unreality. Eventually, his stupor was broken by the pop of McWhirter’s torch as it fell from his relaxing fingers and broke on the floor. The corridor became black. David pulled out his walkie-talkie.

“Hello?” he whispered. There was no reply. He tried to remain calm. Touching the walkie-talkie revealed that the antenna had snapped. He needed to replace it. He pulled open the case and touched the antenna wire. It was bare. With the wire held against the bare metal protruding from McWhirter, he tried again. “Hello? Any person please reply. I need help. McWhirter’s dead. Hello?”

Very faintly, a voice answered.

David sighed with relief. “Say again, over.”

The voice belonged to a young man. He said: “Repeat, identify yourself. Over.”

“My name is David Proctor. Professor David Proctor. I was with Colonel McWhirter. I need some help. Over.”

“Say again? Where’s the colonel?”

“He’s dead.”

There was a pause. “What happened?”

“There was a cave-in. The corridor is blocked. I don’t have a torch. I’m at the junction of D-corridor, on the lowest level.”

“OK, David, keep calm. Is the roof stable now?”

David scowled. “I’m perfectly calm. The roof has stopped making noises, which is a good sign.”

“Sit tight.” The voice added, “And don’t speak too loudly. Out.”

David stared in disgust at his fingers. They were wet with visceral material. He sat on the floor, contemplating the swiftness of the disaster, and what would be happening if he had rejected McWhirter’s summons that morning, or if McWhirter had managed to stay alive, or a thousand things. After a long, lonely moment he heard a bleep in his ear.

“Not now, Ego,” he whispered.

“But I have an idea.”

On the same level as David, only thirty metres away, a young woman put down her walkie-talkie. In front of her was a large object that resembled an aquarium. Through its transparent panels she could see something akin to the coloured gases of Jupiter. During her briefing, McWhirter had told her that it was a prototype liquid memory storage device, capable of holding more than the sum of mankind’s knowledge a billion times over. Light from its exotic interior cast patterns on the walls.

She noticed a glow, like moonlight, in the corridor outside.