Jablonsky put his hands on his hips, looking round. None of the lockers was open. Maybe the noise had been a gust of wind through the ventilation system, or something heavy being moved on the floor above.
He was about to return to his post - then decided that since he was up, he might as well do a round of the archives.
He started towards the reading area.
‘All right, okay, I’m coming!’ came a voice from below deck. Matt clambered through the hatch, glaring at the cop. ‘What’s going on? You almost screwed everything up!’
The second cop came aboard behind his partner. ‘Screwed what up, sir? You mind telling us who you are?’
‘Matt Trulli,’ said Matt, fumbling in a pocket.
‘Hey!’ warned the first cop, his gun now out of its holster. ‘Slowly.’
Matt grimaced. ‘Whoa! Just getting my ID, okay? I work for the United Nations.’ He gestured towards the tower as he produced his UN identity card. ‘Oceanic Survey Organisation. These are my assistants.’
‘This ain’t the ocean,’ the gun-happy cop pointed out.
‘It’s a tidal waterway, so it counts for what we’re doing.’
The second cop appeared satisfied by his ID. ‘And what would that be?’ he asked, returning the card.
‘Pollution survey. We’re trying to track how far upriver ocean-borne pollutants are being carried by tidal currents. And you nearly lost a hundred grand’s worth of equipment when your boat snagged my control line!’
The cop peered over the side. ‘What equipment?’
‘I’ve got an ROV collecting samples from the riverbed. It’s using a fibre-optic line - I had to unwind it before you snapped it.’
‘Why are you working this late at night?’ the first cop asked, still suspicious.
‘Because we’re looking at the tides. And it’s, well, high tide.’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘There’s a high tide during the day, too.’
‘Yeah, and a lot more river traffic! Just having you guys go by almost finished us; imagine what it’d be like with everyone else chugging past.’
The second cop crouched to look into the cabin. Whatever he was expecting to see - stacks of explosives, bags of drugs - it didn’t match the reality of the computer equipment on the table. He straightened. ‘How much longer will you be out here?’
‘Depends how long it takes me to get all my samples. An hour, probably less.’
‘Huh.’ The cop stared at him for a long moment, then turned to return to his own vessel, ushering his partner with him. ‘We’ll be back in forty-five minutes. It’d be best if you’re done by then.’
‘We know who you are,’ the first cop added menacingly, sliding his gun back into its holster as he re-boarded the patrol boat. With a burble from its diesel engine, the police vessel swung away, heading downriver.
The trio quickly returned to the cabin, Karima retrieving the headset. ‘Eddie!’
Eddie heard the guard walk away in the direction of the booths - which he would find empty.
A buzz in one ear. ‘Eddie? Are you there?’
‘What happened?’ he whispered.
‘A police boat. They’ve gone, but they’ll be back.’
‘That doesn’t matter right now. Tell me what the guards are doing.’
Jablonsky reached the reading area - and stopped in surprise. Papers and files were spread out on the desk where he had left Eddie, but the man himself was not there.
‘Eddie?’ No reply. He paced up and down the aisles, seeing no sign of anyone. Frowning, he returned to the security desk. ‘Where is he?’ he asked.
Vernio looked up from his DS. ‘What?’
‘Eddie. Where’d he go?’
‘He’s in the reading area. Look.’ The Haitian pointed at the monitors.
Eddie was indeed back in his booth. ‘Huh,’ said Jablonsky. ‘I musta just missed him.’ He returned to his seat, deciding that the visitor must have got up to stretch his legs.
At that moment, Eddie would have given almost anything to be
‘He just got back to the desk,’ she said, interference still breaking up her words.
‘About fucking time.’ Slowly, extremely carefully, Eddie moved forward again. There was a faint thump as his weight shifted, but the sound was not loud enough to carry. He gripped the suction cup and resumed his advance, more deliberately than before.
The remaining distance crawled by, inch by sweat-dripping inch. Ten feet to go. He could see the baffles clearly now. Six feet. Three. Two. Just a little further . . .
The suction cup tapped against one of the metal plates. ‘Thank Christ,’ he gasped, mouth bone-dry. He unfastened the cutter from his wrist. ‘Okay, I’m about to start cutting. Ask Matt how long it’ll take.’
‘He wants to know how thick the metal is,’ Karima replied after a moment.
‘Not very. A millimetre, maybe. The plates are about, oh . . . eight inches long.’
‘Okay. Matt thinks about four or five minutes to remove each plate.’
‘How long before the river police come back?’
‘About thirty minutes.’
Eddie chewed his lower lip. Adding the time it would take him to traverse the last length of duct inside the vault itself would leave only fifteen minutes for him to do everything he needed - and Zec had told him the rapid prototyper would need about eight minutes to carry out its job. Tight timing. Maybe too tight.
But he had no choice. ‘Okay, I’m switching on the cutter.’ Its tip quickly became red hot.
The heat was concentrated in a small area, but he could already feel it. The tool was designed to be used underwater, the liquid medium acting as a natural radiator. Here, trapped in the duct’s confines, the hot air had nowhere to go.
He touched the cutter to the plate where it was welded to the duct’s ceiling. The metal started to soften. He had to be precise with his cutting. If he left any protruding metal, he could slice himself wide open as he crawled past it.
The work was painfully slow, progress measured in millimetres. But a gap gradually opened up along the top of the plate. A minute passed, and it extended about halfway along. Matt’s estimate seemed accurate. He kept working.
Jablonsky was, not for the first time, envying his companion’s electronic time-killer. He checked the monitors again. The archive’s aisles were empty, the images seeming almost like still photos; only the timecodes assured him that they were live. The only sign of life was in the reading area. Whatever Eddie was doing for Dr Wilde, it was obviously engrossing - he had barely moved since returning to his seat.
He considered making another patrol . . . but resisted. He still had three more hours on duty - might as well spread out the ‘excitement’. In twenty minutes, maybe.
After another minute, the plate had been entirely separated from the ceiling. Eddie switched to the bottom. More care was needed here; if he accidentally cut through the duct floor, molten metal could drop on to the suspended ceiling below and start a fire.
The need for greater accuracy slowed him down. Over three minutes passed before the plate finally came loose. He caught it with his thumb and forefinger before it fell. ‘Ow, ow, shit,’ he hissed, carefully laying the hot piece of steel flat before blowing on his fingers. A quick check of the duct; there were some sharp-looking edges,
