scene might imagine they were dealing with the stock market on Wall Street or in London, working overtime. The apparent disorganization was deceptive. Everyone knew what they were doing inside that room. On the large screen that filled the wall, the map of the world had changed and now showed only the Old World. New circles of various colors blinked psychedelically over certain places. Each color identified a certain activity, whether a listening post, a long-term or short-term operation, or mere positioning of agents in a territory or wherever. They were indicators that meant something only to those who worked here, although many secret services or other less scrupulous individuals would love to get their hands on that information.
Although it seemed like no one gave the screen a second look, the instructions contained there were vital to the agency. The actions of the people running around inside there were identified and classified. With a simple click they could access anyone’s personal data, previous criminal records, bank accounts, weddings, children, if there were any, and every imaginable and possible fact. If it was necessary, they could block the same accounts or modify them, alter former records, innumerable possibilities that were done every day on people, though not on Barnes, of course. Up to now he’d been considered an active, competent agent in his yearly evaluation.
If he made the effort, from where he was in the office Barnes could see a red circle blinking over Amsterdam. Information was still scarce, but soon it would be coming in.
‘My fucking food still hasn’t come,’ he complained.
At that moment a shrill sound resonated without stopping. He shivered. He looked at the green telephone on top of the desk. A green light winked on and off. The alert was impossible to avoid. Langley wanted information on a secure line. This wasn’t standard. The beige phone also went off, making an amalgam of ringing sounds. An orange blinking light announced the sound. Barnes silenced the telephones to clear the atmosphere and his own head, leaving the pulsing lights as a signal the calls continued. What was the protocol to follow when two telephones on secure lines sounded at the same time? It didn’t exist. He chose his patrons at Langley. Ultimately they were the ones who paid him.
‘Barnes.’
The sound of the other phone could be heard in the office. Barnes sank into his chair without taking his eyes off the telephone. The endless sound might fool him, but the blinking red light of the emergency signal left no room for doubt. The president’s telephone was showing signs of life, too.
24
The gas explosion at an address not necessary to mention had left the place unrecognizable. Its owner could testify to that; she knew well how it was before and now entered the destruction. She’d like to forget the last few hours. Her eyes were swollen from tears, recent or about to start again, since a tear was running down her cheek. She couldn’t say whether for this unhappy sight or for the sorrow she felt over losing two friends. Natalie and Greg were dead. That was inconceivable, no matter how much she tried to convince herself. She knew death would happen to all of us at a certain hour on a certain day, maybe without warning. What most affected her was the way they left this world. Surely they didn’t even realize they were dying. In one second they were alive, making love, according to what the agent John Fox had described; in the next, dead, cadavers, lifeless, inanimate. It was cruel. And as if this weren’t enough, she now had to face this shredded house, without personality, in ruins. Surely both sorrows merged in the tear. This hadn’t been an easy day for Sarah Monteiro.
‘Are you sure Simon Lloyd’s in the hospital?’ she asked uncomfortably, remembering with a shiver what she’d come to see.
‘We’re sure. Relax,’ John Fox assured her. ‘This is someone else.’
‘I hope I don’t know him,’ she confessed selfishly, more for her own sake than the agents’.
They put on gowns and wrapped their shoes in protective covers that tied at the ankle to avoid contaminating the crime scene, although Sarah Monteiro’s DNA would surely be found all over the place.
‘Don’t touch anything,’ ever-friendly Simon Templar warned her. ‘I want it on record that I’m against your presence in this place.’
‘It’s on record,’ John Fox affirmed, making clear who gave the orders, if this was still not understood. ‘Let’s continue.’
The place was lit with spotlights. Metropolitan Police technicians were scattered through the rooms of a once tastefully furnished house. Some walls still stood untouched by the blast of fire, stroked by the hot lights of the projectors reflecting off their clean surface.
They almost needed a map to see where they could step, since work was going on. There were still inaccessible areas where forensic technicians bent over small objects with a fine hairbrush, like archaeologists patiently uncovering bones from the Cretaceous period. The work required patience, dedication, and attention.
‘Where’s the body?’ John Fox asked one of the technicians.
‘In the living room,’ he answered without even raising his eyes.
John Fox looked at Sarah as if asking her where the room was.
‘Ahead and to the left,’ she said. ‘I think.’
Slowly they went along the blackened hallway, full of debris on the floor, officially sealed off with the crime- scene tape police use to enclose those areas that require more hours, perhaps days, of intense work. Luckily the public relations department had concealed the true cause of the explosion from the public, at least for now. This relieved the pressure on the forensic technicians. If the criminal origin became public, there’d be many more agents assigned to the investigation, and the phone calls would be pouring in, demanding a guilty party or scapegoat. This way there was time for work to be done with certain results, if necessary.
John Fox entered the living room first. Shelves, sofas, forty-inch flat-screen television, DVD player, dining table and chairs. At first sight nothing seemed in one piece. Everything showed signs of flames and explosion.
‘I wasn’t expecting you today,’ the coroner grumbled, anxious to hand over the corpse to the legal process and free up the rest of his day. ‘Can’t you see it at the morgue?’
‘If we could or wanted to, we wouldn’t have told you to wait here,’ Simon Templar snapped back, ready for a fight.
‘Drop it, Simon,’ John Fox ordered. He turned to the doctor. ‘It’ll be quick.’
The body was laid on a stretcher in a closed body-bag.
‘Let’s get this over with.’ The doctor ran the zipper down to open the bag. The sooner the better.
John Fox looked at Sarah and didn’t need to say anything to prepare her. She came forward slowly toward the stretcher until the interior of the bag was in her field of vision. She didn’t have the courage to look at the face right away. She began with the chest because that was as far as the doctor had opened the zipper. She confronted her fear, turning her look closer to the side of the face. He was a large man, corpulent, who reminded her of Geoffrey Barnes, a bad memory. He was wearing a shirt and white jacket, both heavily damaged by the explosion, ripped and burned in some places, but intact enough to still be identified as a jacket and shirt. The body was in reasonable shape for someone who’d been the victim of an explosion.
‘What was the cause of death?’ Sarah asked.
‘Who’s the lady?’ the coroner asked rudely.
‘I’m the owner of the house,’ she answered. ‘I’m a journalist.’
‘That’s great,’ the coroner let slip. ‘Now is when everything gets fucked up.’
‘Watch your language,’ John Fox warned. ‘Miss Monteiro is here as a witness, and she’s not going to make public any of our conclusions unless it’s in our interests,’ he concluded.
Sarah looked at last at the face of the corpse. Pale but calm. He seemed like the victim of a peaceful death.
‘Homicide,’ the doctor pronounced. ‘A blow to the head, but only the autopsy can confirm that.’
‘Do you have any information on the identity?’ John Fox asked seriously.
‘We do. Judging by the documents in his wallet. Look for yourself,’ the doctor said as he handed over a paper.
‘What’s this?’
‘A printout of the facts related to the victim. The wallet has been sent to the lab. They couldn’t wait for you.’ He gave a laugh.
