Whiteout

  Susan opened the door to the equipment room. "The CPU is in there."

  A moment later Kit was inside the inner sanctum. Just like that! he thought, although it had taken weeks of preparation. Here were the computers and other devices that ran not just the phone system but also the lighting, the security cameras, and the alarms. Even to get this far was a triumph.

  He said to Susan, "Thanks very much--we'll take it from here."

  "If there's anything you need, come to reception," she said, and she left.

  Kit put his laptop on a shelf and connected it to the security computer. He pulled over a chair and turned his laptop so that the screen could not be seen by someone standing in the doorway. He felt Daisy's eyes on him, suspicious and malevolent. "Go into the next room," he said to her. "Keep an eye on the guards."

  She glared resentfully at him for a moment, then did as he said.

  Kit took a deep breath. He knew exactly what he had to do. He needed to work fast, but carefully.

  First, he accessed the program that controlled the video feed from thirty-seven closed-circuit television cameras. He looked at the entrance to BSL4, which appeared normal. He checked the reception desk and saw Steve there, but not Susan. Scanning the input from other cameras, he located Susan patrolling elsewhere in the building. He noted the time.

  The computer's massive memory stored the camera images for four weeks before overwriting them. Kit knew his way around the program, for he had installed it. He located the video from the cameras in BSL4 this time last night. He checked the feed, random sampling footage, to make sure no crazy scientist had been working in the lab in the middle of the night; but all the images showed empty rooms. Good.

  Nigel and Elton watched him in tense silence.

  He then fed last night's images into the monitors the guards were currently watching.

  Now someone could walk around BSL4 doing anything he liked without their knowing.

  The monitors were fitted with biased switches that would detect equipment substitution, for example if the feed came from a separate videotape deck. However, this footage was not coming from an outside source, but direct from the computer's memory--so it did not trigger the alarm.

  Kit stepped into the main control room. Daisy was slumped in a chair, wearing her leather jacket over the Hibernian Telecom overalls. Kit studied the bank of screens. All appeared normal. The dark-skinned guard, Don, looked at him with an inquiring expression. As a cover, Kit said, "Are any of the phones in here working?"

  "None," said Don.

  Along the bottom edge of each screen was a line of text giving the time and date. The time was the same on the screens that showed yesterday's footage--Kit had made sure of that. But yesterday's footage showed yesterday's date.

  Kit was betting that no one ever looked at that date. The guards scanned the screens for activity; they did not read text that told them what they already knew.

  He hoped he was right.

  Don was wondering why the telephone repairman was so interested in the television monitors. "Something we can do for you?" he said in a challenging tone.

  Daisy grunted and stirred in her chair, like a dog sensing tension among the humans.

  Kit's mobile phone rang.

  He stepped back into the equipment room. The message on the screen of his laptop said: "Kremlin calling Toni." He guessed that Steve wanted to let Toni know that the repair team had arrived. He decided to put the call through: it might reassure Toni and discourage her from coming here. He touched a key, then listened in on his mobile.

  "This is Toni Gallo." She was in her car; Kit could hear the engine.

  "Steve here, at the Kremlin. The maintenance team from Hibernian Telecom have arrived."

  "Have they fixed the problem?"

  "They've just started work. I hope I didn't wake you."

  "No, I'm not in bed, I'm on my way to you."

  Kit cursed. It was what he had been afraid of.

  "There's really no need," Steve told Toni.

  Kit thought: That's right!

  "Probably not," she replied. "But I'll feel more comfortable."

  Kit thought: When will you get here?

  Steve had the same thought. "Where are you now?"

  "I'm only a few miles away, but the roads are terrible, and I can't go faster than fifteen or twenty miles an hour."

  "Are you in your Porsche?"

  "Yes."

  "This is Scotland, you should have bought a Land Rover."

  "I should have bought a bloody tank."

  Come on, Kit thought, how long?

  Toni answered his question. "It's going to take me at least half an hour, maybe an hour."

  They hung up, and Kit cursed under his breath.

  He told himself that a visit by Toni would not be fatal. There would be nothing to warn her that a robbery was going on. Nothing should seem amiss for several days. It would appear only that there had been a problem with the phone system, and a repair team had fixed it. Not until the scientists returned to work would anyone realize that BSL4 had been burgled.

  The main danger was that Toni might see through Kit's disguise. He looked completely different, he had removed his distinctive jewelry, and he could easily alter his voice, making it more Scots; but she was a sharp-nosed bitch and he could not afford to take any chances. If she showed up, he would keep out of her way as much as possible, and let Nigel do the talking. All the same, the risk of something going wrong would increase tenfold.

  But there was nothing he could do about it, except hurry.

  His next task was to get Nigel into the lab without any of the guards seeing. The main problem here was the patrols. Once an hour, a guard from reception made a tour of the building. The patrol followed a prescribed route, and took twenty minutes. Having passed the entrance to BSL4, the guard would not come back for an hour.

  Kit had seen Susan patrolling a few minutes ago, when he connected his laptop to the surveillance program. Now he checked the feed from reception and saw her sitting with Steve at the desk, her circuit done. Kit checked his watch. He had a comfortable thirty minutes before she went on patrol again.

  Kit had dealt with the cameras in the high-security lab, but there was still one outside the door, showing the entrance to BSL4. He called up yesterday's feed and ran the footage at double fast-forward. He needed a clear half hour, with no one passing across the screen. He stopped at the point where the patrolling guard appeared. Beginning when the guard left the picture, he fed yesterday's images into the monitor in the next room. Don and Stu should see nothing but an empty corridor for the next hour, or until Kit returned the system to normal. The screen would show the wrong time as well as the wrong date, but once again Kit was gambling that the guards would not notice.

  He looked at Nigel. "Let's go."

  Elton stayed in the equipment room to make sure no one interfered with the laptop.

  Passing through the control room, Kit said to Daisy, "We're going to get the nanometer from the van. You stay here." There was no such thing as a nanometer, but Don and Stu would not know that.

  Daisy grunted and looked away. She was not much good at acting the part. Kit hoped the guards would simply assume she was bad-tempered.

  Kit and Nigel walked quickly to BSL4. Kit waved his father's smart card in front of the scanner then pressed the forefinger of his left hand to the screen. He waited while the central computer compared the information from the screen with that on the card. He noticed that Nigel was carrying Elton's smart burgundy leather briefcase.

  The light over the door remained stubbornly red. Nigel looked at Kit anxiously. Kit told himself this had to work. The chip contained the encoded details of his own fingerprint--he had checked. What could go wrong?

  Then a woman's voice behind them said, "I'm afraid you can't go in there."

  Kit and Nigel turned. Susan was standing behind them. She appeared friendly but anxious. She should have been at reception, Kit thought in a panic. She was no
t due to patrol for another thirty minutes . . .

  Unless Toni Gallo had doubled the patrols as well as doubling the guard.

  There was a chime like a doorbell. All three of them looked at the light over the door. It turned green, and the heavy door swung slowly open on motorized hinges.

  Susan said, "How did you open the door?" Her voice betrayed fear now.

  Involuntarily, Kit looked down at the stolen card in his hand.

  Susan followed his gaze. "You're not supposed to have a pass!" she said incredulously.

  Nigel moved toward her.

  She turned on her heel and ran.

  Nigel went after her, but he was twice her age. He'll never catch her, Kit thought. He let out a shout of rage: how could everything go so wrong, so quickly?

  Then Daisy emerged from the passage leading to the control room.

  Kit would not have thought he would ever be glad to see her ugly face.

  She seemed unsurprised at the scene that confronted her: the guard running toward her, Nigel following, Kit frozen to the spot. Kit realized that she must have been watching the monitors in the control room. She would have seen Susan leave the reception desk and walk toward BSL4. She had realized the danger and moved to deal with it.

  Susan saw Daisy and hesitated, then ran on, apparently determined to push past.

  The hint of a smile touched Daisy's lips. She drew back her arm and smashed her gloved fist into Susan's face. The blow made a sickening sound, like a melon dropped on a tiled floor. Susan collapsed as if she had run into a wall. Daisy rubbed her knuckles, looking pleased.

  Susan got to her knees. Sobs bubbled through the blood covering her nose and mouth. Daisy took from the pocket of her jacket a flexible blackjack about nine inches long and made, Kit guessed, of steel ball bearings in a leather case. She raised her arm.

  Kit shouted: "No!"

  Daisy hit Susan over the head with the blackjack. The guard collapsed soundlessly.

  Kit yelled: "Leave her!"

  Daisy raised her arm to hit Susan again, but Nigel stepped forward and grabbed Daisy's wrist. "No need to kill her," he said.

  Daisy stepped back reluctantly.

  "You mad cow!" Kit cried. "We'll all be guilty of murder!"

  Daisy looked at the light brown glove on her right hand. There was blood on the knuckles. She licked it off thoughtfully.

  Kit stared at the unconscious woman on the floor. The sight of her crumpled body was sickening. "This wasn't supposed to happen!" he said in alarm. "Now what are we going to do with her?"

  Daisy straightened her blond wig. "Tie her up and hide her somewhere."

  Kit's brain began to come back on line after the shock of sudden violence. "Right," he said. "We'll put her inside BSL4. The guards aren't allowed in there."

  Nigel said to Daisy, "Drag her inside. I'll find something to tie her up with." He stepped into a side office.

  Kit's mobile phone rang. He ignored it.

  Kit used his card to reopen the door, which had closed automatically. Daisy picked up a red fire extinguisher and used it to prop the door open. Kit said, "You can't do that, it will set off the alarm." He removed the extinguisher.

  Daisy looked skeptical. "The alarm goes off if you prop a door open?"

  "Yes!" Kit said impatiently. "There are air management systems here. I know, I put the alarms in myself. Now shut up and do as you're told!"

  Daisy got her arms around Susan's chest and pulled her along the carpet. Nigel emerged from the office with a long power lead. They all passed into BSL4. The door closed behind them.

  They were in a small lobby leading to the changing rooms. Daisy propped Susan against the wall underneath a pass-through autoclave that permitted sterilized items to be removed from the lab. Nigel tied her hands and feet with the electrical lead.

  Kit's phone stopped ringing.

  The three of them went outside. No pass was needed to exit: the door opened at the push of a green button set into the wall.

  Kit was trying desperately to think ahead. His entire plan was ruined. There was no possibility now that the theft would remain undiscovered. "Susan will be missed quite soon," he said, making himself keep calm. "Don and Stuart will notice that she's disappeared off the monitors. And even if they don't, Steve will be alerted when she fails to return from her patrol. Either way, we don't have time to get into the laboratory and out again before they raise the alarm. Shit, it's all gone wrong!"

  "Calm down," Nigel said. "We can handle this, so long as you don't panic. We just have to deal with the other guards, like we dealt with her."

  Kit's phone rang again. He could not tell who was calling without his computer. "It's probably Toni Gallo," he said. "What do we do if she shows up? We can't pretend nothing's wrong if all the guards are tied up!"

  "We'll just deal with her as and when she arrives."

  Kit's phone kept ringing.

  12:30 A.M.

  TONI was driving at ten miles an hour, leaning forward over the steering wheel to peer into the blinding snowfall, trying to see the road. Her headlights did nothing but illuminate a cloud of big, soft snowflakes that seemed to fill the universe. She had been staring so long that her eyelids hurt, as if she had got soap in her eyes.

  Her mobile became a hands-free car phone when slotted into a cradle on the dashboard of the Porsche. She had dialed the Kremlin, and now she listened as it rang out unanswered.

  "I don't think anyone's there," Mother said.

  The repairmen must have downed the entire system, Toni thought. Were the alarms working? What if something serious went wrong while the lines were down? Feeling troubled and frustrated, she touched a button to end the call.

  "Where are we?" Mother asked.

  "Good question." Toni was familiar with this road but she could hardly see it. She seemed to have been driving forever. She glanced to the side from time to time, looking for landmarks. She thought she recognized a stone cottage with a distinctive wrought-iron gate. It was only a couple of miles from the Kremlin, she recalled. That cheered her up. "We'll be there in fifteen minutes, Mother," she said.

  She looked in the rearview mirror and saw the headlights that had been with her since Inverburn: the pest Carl Osborne in his Jaguar, doggedly following her at the same sluggard pace. On another day she would have enjoyed losing him.

  Was she wasting her time? Nothing would please her more than to reach the Kremlin and find everything calm: the phones repaired, the alarms working, the guards bored and sleepy. Then she could go home and go to bed and think about seeing Stanley tomorrow.

  At least she would enjoy the look on Carl Osborne's face when he realized he had driven for hours in the snow, at Christmas, in the middle of the night, to cover the story of a telephone fault.

  She seemed to be on a straight stretch, and she chanced speeding up. But it was not straight for long, and almost immediately she came to a right-hand bend. She could not use the brakes, for fear of skidding, so she changed down a gear to slow the car, then held her foot steady on the throttle as she turned. The tail of the Porsche wanted to break free, she could feel it, but the wide rear tires held their grip.

  Headlights appeared coming toward her, and for a welcome change she could make out a hundred yards of road between the two cars. There was not much to see: snow eight or nine inches thick on the ground, a drystone wall on her left, a white hill on her right.

  The oncoming car was traveling quite fast, she noted nervously.

  She recalled this stretch of road. It was a long, wide bend that turned through ninety degrees around the foot of the hill. She held her line through the curve.

  But the other car did not.

  She saw it drift across the carriageway to the crown of the road, and she thought, Fool, you braked into the turn, and your back slipped away.

  In the next instant, she realized with horror that the car was heading straight for her.

  It crossed the middle of the road and came at her broadside. It was a hot
hatch with four men in it. They were laughing and, in the split second for which she could see them, she divined that they were young merrymakers too drunk to realize the danger they were in. "Look out!" she screamed uselessly.

  The front of the Porsche was about to smash into the side of the skidding hatchback. Toni acted reflexively. Without thinking about it, she jerked her steering wheel to the left. The nose of her car turned. Almost simultaneously, she pushed down the accelerator pedal. The car leaped forward and skidded. For an instant the hatchback was alongside her, inches away.

  The Porsche was angled left and sliding forward. Toni swung the wheel right to correct the skid, and applied a featherlight touch to the throttle. The car straightened up and the tires gripped.

  She thought the hatchback would hit her rear wing; then she thought it would miss by a hair; then there was a clang, loud but superficial-sounding, and she realized her bumper had been hit.

  It was not much of a blow, but it destabilized the Porsche, and the rear swung left, out of control again. Toni desperately tugged the steering wheel to the left, turning into the skid; but, before her corrective action could take effect, the car hit the drystone wall at the side of the road. There was a terrific bang and the sound of breaking glass; then the car came to a stop.

  Toni looked worriedly at her mother. She was staring ahead, mouth open, bewildered--but unharmed. Toni felt a moment of relief--then she thought of Osborne.

  She looked fearfully in the rearview mirror, thinking the hatchback must smash into Osborne's Jaguar. She could see the red rear lights of the hatch and the white headlights of the Jag. The hatchback fishtailed; the Jag swung hard over to the side of the road; the hatchback straightened up and went by.

  The Jaguar came to a stop, and the car full of drunk boys went on into the night. They were probably still laughing.

  Mother said in a shaky voice, "I heard a bang--did that car hit us?"

  "Yes," Toni said. "We had a lucky escape."

  "I think you should drive more carefully," said Mother.