Memoria (21 page)

"
Mr. Binelli's office," a female voice answered.

"
Dickens
here. Give me
your boss
."

"Mr. Binelli is busy at the moment, sir. Can I help you?"

"The President's chopper
is approaching," the other controller
reported. "ETA
in seven minutes."

"What the hell!
I don't mean
you,
"
Dickens
turned from
the controller
to the microphone
, "
I
need to speak to
Binelli
—
now."

"But-" the girl
halted
.

"
Shut up and do it!"

He hadn't yet finished when the speaker
beeped with the hung-up signal.
Puzzled,
Dickens
turned to the screens.

"
Give me
Binelli
stream
."

He had a bad feeling. Once again he reached for the intercom, reconsidered and turned to a screen showing the
chief executive
's spacious office.

The miniature camera was hidden in a wooden panel
right under the ceiling and looked like a knot in the wood.
The pictu
re's inferior quality didn't matter much considering the audacity
of installing a camera
in one of Memoria's main offices.

Binelli, in a hat and coat, sat at his desk with his back to the camera.
Dickens
frowned. The
man
looked
...
fitter? Stronger and slimmer, even. Why was he wearing a hat? And the glasses, what
did
he need them for?

Another man stood in the far corner of the room looking
out of the window
. He
was lean and tall
—
apparently, young.

"You think you can point the camera at him,"
without taking his eyes off the screen,
Dickens
said to
the controller, "
and make the picture better?"

"I'm afraid I can't, sir. This is the best angle and resolution we have."

"They seem to be talking. Can you stream the sound through his intercom?"

Binelli moved his lips. His hands lay on the keyboard.
The monitor was turned sideways. In front of it stood
a portable camera on a tripod, w
ires stretch
ing
f
rom it to an open attaché
case on the desk.

"What the hell is he doing?"
Dickens
whispered.
"Make the picture bigger.
I want to have a better look at
the computer panel.
I said, I wanted the sound!
"

"There's no sound, sir. Doesn't seem to work, for some reason."

The camera focused on the desk.
A hard disk protruded out of the computer panel.

"The President's chopper lands in two minutes, sir," said the controller on the right.

"
Put your men on alert
,"
Dickens
said without taking his eyes off Binelli.
Then he rose, reaching for the radio on his belt, and placed his hand on the
other controller's shoulder. "What's this device Binelli's busy with?"

The controller's fingers fleeted over the keyboard.

"What is it?"
Dickens'
fingers squeezed the controller's shoulder.

"Sir!" the man jerked in his seat.

"
Speak!"

"It's Kathleen Baker's disk, sir."

"Code red! Code red!"
Dickens
yelled into the microphone
and rushed out of the Central Station.

He shoved his hand into his pocket as he ran and dragged out a
small transmitter
. Connec
t
ing it to
his radio, he repeated,

"Code red!"

The glass doors flung open before him.
Dickens
escaped onto the staircase.

Behind him,
dozens of combat boots clattered down the steps.

* * *

Barney
entered Binelli's reception first and headed straight for his office.
Frank followed, the hefty
attaché
case
in hand. Maggie blocked the doors and took her usual place.

"Put it down here,"
Barney
pointed as he walked around a wide desk.

Frank put the
attaché
case
down next to the monitor and walked to the wall-to-wall window.
The sidewalks below
swarmed with
people. From the height of the
seventieth floor they did look like bugs.
Po
lice lined the street. Mounted patrols hovered in side lanes.

A black
heli
copter with an orange flower on its side
whirr
ed low over the neighbori
ng roofs. For a moment, the drone
of its engines penetrated the office, then diminished as the chopper
bank
ed to one side, changing direction, and
headed to the west in a wide semi-circle.

Frank thought he'd made out the figures of armed men
, clad in black, sitting in the open cargo bay. But
for the distance and speed,
he
couldn't see their heads therefore couldn’t tell if
they
were the same as those who'd at
tacked the police station and the post
office.

Frank described the scene to
Barney
. He didn
't answer, busy mounting the p
o
r
table camera on a tripod next to the monitor. He then
pulled out a few leads,
attach
ing
them
to an accumulator in the open
attaché
case
. T
urn
ing
the monitor to the camera
, he reached inside the
attaché
case
again.

He produce
d a plastic box very much like those ancient bulky
calculator
s.
Barney
then took out a shiny spike and
screwed it into a
socket on the front side of the device.
He clamped to it a small
antenna-like
wire
frame and pressed a key on the side of the device. An LCD display lit up, a strip of greenish light.

Slowly, the veteran moved the
antenna
over the desk, watching the device
's
readings.
When his hand passed over the intercom,
Barney
froze, then removed the
phone's
receiver and
brought the antenna
close to it. Apparently unhappy with the result,
he moved the
wire scanner over the intercom
and sat o
n
the chair. The
black blade
of an army knife
glinted
in his hand.
Barney
used it to break the intercom's
case and bashed the handle hard against the
circuit board
smashing microchips. Then he raised the scanner and slowly went along the walls, inspecting the office.

"There must be a camera he
re somewhere," he said quietly.

"Can I help you?" Frank looked around the room.

"You can. Just keep an eye on the street, will you?"
Barney
finished the check and came back to the desk. "Maggie, we
start!"

Frank turned to the window. He watched
Barney
's reflec
tion pull out the keyboard drawer
and tap away with his strong chubby fingers like a certified typist clerk.
Frank didn't realize
the man
was capable of such things.
Then
Barney
leaned back in his chair and looked
down
, feeling the
underside of the desktop.

Something snapped. Part of the desk next to the monitor clicked open.
Frank couldn't help it. He turned for a look.

Barney
reached into a side pocket for the
hard disk, then placed it vertically into a slot showing under the opened desk panel.
He stretched his
fingers, blew at his palms
and placed them back onto the keyboard. Tapping the keys, he entered a long sequence of letters and digits.

"Maggie? The password request submitted!" he turned the camera on and peered into the monitor.

Frank caught his breath. He loosened his tie and was about to undo the
collar when he heard,

"There!"
Barney
breathed out.

In the reception, the phone rang.

Frank jumped, concealing his
shock behind
a nervous smile. The phone rang too loud, almost like
the wail
of a fire
tender
.

"Cool down,"
Barney
glanced at the doorway. "Face the window and don't turn around."

Frank obeyed. He stood still staring into the window when Maggie said in a practiced voice,

"
Mr. Binelli's reception, how can I help you?"

Outside
, nothing had changed.
Onlookers crowded the sidewalk lined with police.

"I'm afraid, Mr. Binelli's busy at the moment," Maggie said in the reception, and, a moment later
, "But you can't-" She fell silent.

"Don't move,"
Barney
told him. "Maggie? How much time do we have?"

"One to three minutes. I've disconnected the intercom and cut the wires."

"Shame,"
Barney
sighed. "We won't make it to the front door.
Frank
—
plan B!"

He rose from his seat and strode into the reception putting on a pair of leather gloves.
Maggie ran out to
ward
him. Frank
leapt
to
ward
the desk.
On the monitor, the decrypted text had been replaced by charts and diagrams. Frank turned away from a scheme that appeared on the screen. He grabbed the
attaché
case
, opened it
and
took out
a few
spools
of
cord
thin as a fishing line.
He p
icked up two rubberized tubes w
ith
rollers
on each end and went back
to the window. He knelt, as
did Maggie next to him. She held a
nail gun
.

They turned to
a
dragging
sound be
hind their backs.
Barney
in
reception was moving furniture barricading the entrance. Frank took
a
spool
and snapped open steel plates on each
side
. Each plate had four holes
in it
. Frank
pressed the roll to the floor, and M
aggie
nailed first the right plate to the floor with the
nail gun
, then the left one. The spool was
now
firmly
attache
d to the floor.

They moved aside and did the same
with the other spool
,
then placed the
rubberized tubes
on the low window sill. Frank released the springs on the
spools and fed the
line
through the rollers.

"We're done!" Maggie called out to her father.

Barney
reappeared in the office. He threw the coat aside and raised a
n assault rifle with a silencer
that had been hanging under his arm.