The Loneliness of the Once-Distant Agent
Part 6
+++++
Eventually, Bernardo came back in and, in slightly accented English, announced, "Everything is ready."
"Good, yeah," Caballero replied absently, not glancing up from where he was working. It was about ten minutes later when he finally straightened up, glanced around, and said, "Got it! We can go. Bernardo, untie him."
Bernardo went around and undid the handcuffs. Lucas took the chance to stagger two steps and then collapse onto the floor, landing directly next to the envelope. As he crumpled it into his fist with one hand, he pushed himself up with the other. "Don't shoot –" he panted. "The taser – my legs – bit twitchy. Sorry."
Caballero reached down to help him up. Lucas pulled his fist into the sleeve of his coat and hid the envelope there, all the while supporting himself on Caballero. After a moment, he sighed as well, then took his weight onto his own feet. "Okay. I'm all right now. Sorry."
It was important to seem weaker than he was, make them think he wasn't a threat. Seemingly convinced, Caballero let go and stepped back, watching to make sure he wasn't going to collapse again, then asked Bernardo, "Is it still snowing?"
The other man nodded. "Very hard."
"Then we'll need camoflage," Caballero said. "Watch him."
Bernardo already had his gun out, pointed at Lucas, and Caballero went over to the table where he'd been working. Searching two or three boxes, he eventually found some bundles of white material in one of them, and thrust one at Lucas.
"Put this on," he said, "Over your coat and everything."
It turned out to be the kind of white suit that forensics people wore while gathering evidence from crime scenes. Camoflage, Caballero had said, and the white material would certainly make them difficult to see in the snow. No doubt the man had something else ready for every kind of weather. Lucas pulled the suit on, surprised that it was long enough in the arms and legs. When Caballero was dressed, he picked up several things and packed them carefully in a white hold-all, including the familiar looking cannister and … a crossbow? Was that how he was going to kill Lucas? But why use a crossbow when he had a pistol?
"Right," Caballero announced. "Cuff him, get your own suit on, and let's go."
Bernardo cuffed Lucas' hands in front of him and slipped into his own white suit while Caballero held the gun, then led the way out. There were already two inches of snow on the ground, and more was coming down with such force that Lucas was reminded of being in Russia.
As the car crept along, Lucas made a show of rubbing his hands together, then stuffed them into the opposite sleeves of his coat, as far as they would go with the handcuffs. They were cold after the long time of standing in the warehouse, but getting them warm wasn't his first priority. As he tried to manipulate the envelope and scratch it open with one hand, however, the sound of rustling paper was so devastatingly loud that Caballero looked over at him.
"What's that crackling noise?" he asked suspiciously, lifting his gun.
"Just rubbing my fingers, trying to get warm," Lucas said.
"Put your hands out where I can see them. You won't have to worry about cold fingers for very long."
Knowing exactly what the man meant, Lucas pulled his hands out of his sleeves and laid them demonstrably flat on his thighs. Maybe the snow would cause them to have an accident before they arrived at wherever they were going. But the car continued to make its way down the various streets without hindrance. Eventually, Lucas recognized that they were probably headed to the Cuitlatepanian Embassy. But instead of turning into the correct street, they stopped in another one nearby. A massive truck-mounted crane, the biggest one Lucas had ever seen, was parked on one side, about halfway down, and Bernardo pulled up next to it.
A crane, thought Lucas. It might be possible for the boom to lift them up to the top of the embassy, but surely they were too far away, and if Caballero was planning on scrambling over the roofs of the adjoining buildings, the snow would make it much too slick and treacherous.
"Get out of the car," Caballero said, "then turn around and put your hands on the roof."
Lucas did so, watching as Caballero and Bernardo both got out. While Bernardo opened the boot, Caballero came around, led Lucas to the door of the truck that faced away from the street, then cuffed him to the side mirror so that both of his hands were higher than his head. Bernardo heaved a huge coil of steel cable out of the boot, and began to push one end through the closed hook hanging from the end of the boom. Caballero took his crossbow and one bolt out of the hold-all and laid them ready on the roof of the car. Then he took a spool of fishing line from his pocket, threaded one end of it through a hole in one of the bolts, and tied a knot. After finding the other end of the line, he threaded it through two holes in the steel cable that Lucas assumed they had drilled especially for the operation, and tied another knot.
"I'm ready to shoot," Caballero said, picking up the holdall, the crossbow, and the prepared bolt, and coming around to where Bernardo was securing the four corners of a metal platform to the hook as well. "What about you?"
"Almost there," Bernardo replied.
Glancing over to Lucas, Caballero boasted, "I've won prizes for crossbow shooting, you know."
Lucas shrugged, trying to appear unimpressed, and Caballero turned away, a little disgruntled.
Once he was no longer under scrutiny, Lucas focused on getting one hand into the sleeve where the envelope was. With his arms up, the envelope was in danger of sliding down towards his elbow, and he had to be careful not to dislodge it. His fumblings were interrupted, however, when Bernardo pushed him roughly to one side so that he could open the door and get to the controls. As soon as Bernardo had pulled the door shut against the wind, Lucas went back to work. Sliding his fingers down his sleeve again, he was also aware of the boom rising up away from the truck, taking the platform with it. Caballero had knelt down in the middle with his hold-all next to him, and was gripping the crossbow to his chest with one arm while he kept his balance with the other.
Now was his chance! Lucas finally caught the corner of the envelope between two fingers and shifted it carefully back and forth to work it towards his wrist. At last, he was able to pull the envelope partly out of his sleeve and grip it with one hand while he scratched at the edge with a fingernail. He was tempted to take it out completely and bite it open, but didn't dare risk dropping it, not when the wind would whirl it away to be buried in the snow somewhere far beyond his reach.
Scraping diligently away, Lucas glanced up to see what Caballero was doing. The boom had been fully extended by then and the metal platform was as high as the rooftops. In his white suit and at that distance, Caballero was almost invisible in the driving snow, and Lucas could just barely make out that he had lifted the crossbow from his kneeling position. Of course! He was going to shoot the bolt with the fishing line over the buildings, and the steel cable would follow to make a zip line!
From inside the cab of the truck, Bernardo shouted something and banged on the roof. Caballero must have heard him, because he aimed and eventually took the shot. After a few long moments, the steel cable began to uncoil itself. Lucas spared it a quick glance, but then the envelope ripped under his finger. He lengthened the hole, then pulled the paper out – just as Bernardo pushed the door of the truck open again. Lucas stumbled along with it, instinctively crumpling the paper in his fist. He'd done it! He'd activated the nanoparticles, and now it would only be a matter of time before CO19 swept in.
The cable must have been caught by someone on the other side, helping Caballero pull it tight. Bernardo took the end and laid it across the ground, then drove the car carefully onto it and stopped so that the cable was held tightly under the tyres. Pulling the envelope and the paper back into his sleeves, Lucas then glanced up to see Caballero attaching something to the cable that looked like a trolley holding a kind of sling. A second one followed, and once he'd slung the hold-all over his back, he placed a foot onto each of the slings, straddling them awkwardly. They both had separate controls, and although he tried to press them simultaneously, his right leg came down slightly faster than his left.
"Bring him here," Caballero said, stepping away from the slings and pulling a gun from his pocket. Even now, Lucas thought, or perhaps especially now, they weren't taking any chances of letting him escape. Bernardo came around to uncuff him from the mirror, then cuffed his hands together again, behind his back this time, before leading him over to where Caballero stood.
Caballero arranged the sling so that Lucas could sit on it, then tied him more securely in place by running a strap around his chest and each side of the sling. If he slipped off, he'd end up dangling from the sling, but he wouldn't fall all the way to the ground. It was scant comfort, Lucas thought, watching as Caballero sat down on his own sling and held on tightly with both hands.
Caballero hit the controls, and after a moment, both slings began to rise into the snowstorm and the wind. As soon as they'd gone up as far as they could go, Caballero hit another button, and the two motorized trolleys began to move along the cable, jerking Lucas and Caballero along underneath. Once he'd realized he was in no immediate danger of slipping, Lucas glanced in all directions. It seemed they were heading diagonally for the Cuitlatepanian Embassy, but there was no sign yet of CO19, or police, or much of anything in this quiet area. The roofs below him were steep and white, and he didn't relish the thought of trying to manoeuver around on them, even if he'd had the use of his arms.
But then they passed over the first houses and the gardens far below, and approached the next strip of houses. Squinting into the snow, Lucas saw a relatively flat section of roof coming up, and figured that it must be the embassy. Beyond it, he could just make out the dark beam of another truck-mounted crane; there was indeed one over there somewhere, just as he'd thought. He couldn't see the street outside the embassy, but from what he could hear, it was quiet, too quiet. Although his ears caught the sound of a siren in the distance, it soon faded away. How bloody long was it going to take before CO19 got there?
Caballero stopped the trolleys directly over the flat part of the roof, and pressed the controls to take them down. He stepped off the sling, tested his footing, and then, sounding rather proud of himself, he said, "Well, here we are – a bit like Peter Pan, don't you, think?"
Lucas quashed a comparison between himself and Captain Hook, always trying and failing to achieve his objective. He was also very aware of the time ticking away.
Laughing a little at his own joke, Caballero pulled the hold-all from his back and found a torch in one of its outer pockets. Shining it around, he found the large ventilation unit and carefully made his way over, then knelt down and unzipped the bag. Firstly, he took out the cannister, secondly, a folded piece of paper, and lastly, a piece of equipment that Lucas could not immediately identify.
"Don't you think it would be easier just to get a sniper and assassinate the ambassador?" Lucas asked, his heart sinking as he recognized the plan. If Caballero released the gas into the air intake system, it would kill everyone inside the building, not just the ambassador himself. "Why go through all this trouble to get up here on the roof?"
"We have to show the authorities that we won't allow them to interfere in our activities," Caballero said. "And that's why I brought you along as well, when I could have just shot you back at the warehouse. We make an example of everybody who gets in our way, and when they hit us, we hit back – harder."
"So you don't want an eye for an eye? You want twenty eyes for an eye?" Lucas went on. "Or thirty, or fifty, or however many innocent people work in this embassy?"
"There are innocent casualties in every war," Caballero said shortly. "And don't think for a moment that they've never killed innocents, either." He tucked the torch under his arm, unfolded the paper, and studied it intently for a moment. Then he found a coil of wire in the hold-all and used some of it to fasten the cannister to the metal grille that protected the air intake system from birds and small animals. After that, he lifted up the last piece of equipment so that Lucas was finally able to catch a good glimpse of it in the light – it was a tiny bomb! .
Desperately, Lucas pulled his hand up into his sleeve and wriggled his hand around the letter again, wondering why CO19 hadn't shown up yet. Did the nanoparticles work in this cold? Or had their van gone off the road because of the treacherous driving conditions? It would just be his luck if it had!
Caballero attached the explosive device directly to the cannister with two wires, then used the instructions on his paper to set the timer for ten minutes. Only then did he come over to Lucas, pulling out his gun as he approached, and used his other hand to undo the strap that held Lucas to the sling. Once Lucas was free, Caballero guided him by the upper arm across the roof, and kicked the back of his leg to make him kneel down in front of the ventilator. He pushed Lucas' head against the grille, secured him there with a piece of wire across the back of his neck, then stepped back.
"What will kill you first?" he asked. "The bomb should just be big enough to tear a hole in the cannister and free the gas – but will the explosion take your face off, too? You can think about it for … seven minutes. More or less. Did I tell you happy birthday already, by the way?"
+++++
Part 7
Eventually, Bernardo came back in and, in slightly accented English, announced, "Everything is ready."
"Good, yeah," Caballero replied absently, not glancing up from where he was working. It was about ten minutes later when he finally straightened up, glanced around, and said, "Got it! We can go. Bernardo, untie him."
Bernardo went around and undid the handcuffs. Lucas took the chance to stagger two steps and then collapse onto the floor, landing directly next to the envelope. As he crumpled it into his fist with one hand, he pushed himself up with the other. "Don't shoot –" he panted. "The taser – my legs – bit twitchy. Sorry."
Caballero reached down to help him up. Lucas pulled his fist into the sleeve of his coat and hid the envelope there, all the while supporting himself on Caballero. After a moment, he sighed as well, then took his weight onto his own feet. "Okay. I'm all right now. Sorry."
It was important to seem weaker than he was, make them think he wasn't a threat. Seemingly convinced, Caballero let go and stepped back, watching to make sure he wasn't going to collapse again, then asked Bernardo, "Is it still snowing?"
The other man nodded. "Very hard."
"Then we'll need camoflage," Caballero said. "Watch him."
Bernardo already had his gun out, pointed at Lucas, and Caballero went over to the table where he'd been working. Searching two or three boxes, he eventually found some bundles of white material in one of them, and thrust one at Lucas.
"Put this on," he said, "Over your coat and everything."
It turned out to be the kind of white suit that forensics people wore while gathering evidence from crime scenes. Camoflage, Caballero had said, and the white material would certainly make them difficult to see in the snow. No doubt the man had something else ready for every kind of weather. Lucas pulled the suit on, surprised that it was long enough in the arms and legs. When Caballero was dressed, he picked up several things and packed them carefully in a white hold-all, including the familiar looking cannister and … a crossbow? Was that how he was going to kill Lucas? But why use a crossbow when he had a pistol?
"Right," Caballero announced. "Cuff him, get your own suit on, and let's go."
Bernardo cuffed Lucas' hands in front of him and slipped into his own white suit while Caballero held the gun, then led the way out. There were already two inches of snow on the ground, and more was coming down with such force that Lucas was reminded of being in Russia.
As the car crept along, Lucas made a show of rubbing his hands together, then stuffed them into the opposite sleeves of his coat, as far as they would go with the handcuffs. They were cold after the long time of standing in the warehouse, but getting them warm wasn't his first priority. As he tried to manipulate the envelope and scratch it open with one hand, however, the sound of rustling paper was so devastatingly loud that Caballero looked over at him.
"What's that crackling noise?" he asked suspiciously, lifting his gun.
"Just rubbing my fingers, trying to get warm," Lucas said.
"Put your hands out where I can see them. You won't have to worry about cold fingers for very long."
Knowing exactly what the man meant, Lucas pulled his hands out of his sleeves and laid them demonstrably flat on his thighs. Maybe the snow would cause them to have an accident before they arrived at wherever they were going. But the car continued to make its way down the various streets without hindrance. Eventually, Lucas recognized that they were probably headed to the Cuitlatepanian Embassy. But instead of turning into the correct street, they stopped in another one nearby. A massive truck-mounted crane, the biggest one Lucas had ever seen, was parked on one side, about halfway down, and Bernardo pulled up next to it.
A crane, thought Lucas. It might be possible for the boom to lift them up to the top of the embassy, but surely they were too far away, and if Caballero was planning on scrambling over the roofs of the adjoining buildings, the snow would make it much too slick and treacherous.
"Get out of the car," Caballero said, "then turn around and put your hands on the roof."
Lucas did so, watching as Caballero and Bernardo both got out. While Bernardo opened the boot, Caballero came around, led Lucas to the door of the truck that faced away from the street, then cuffed him to the side mirror so that both of his hands were higher than his head. Bernardo heaved a huge coil of steel cable out of the boot, and began to push one end through the closed hook hanging from the end of the boom. Caballero took his crossbow and one bolt out of the hold-all and laid them ready on the roof of the car. Then he took a spool of fishing line from his pocket, threaded one end of it through a hole in one of the bolts, and tied a knot. After finding the other end of the line, he threaded it through two holes in the steel cable that Lucas assumed they had drilled especially for the operation, and tied another knot.
"I'm ready to shoot," Caballero said, picking up the holdall, the crossbow, and the prepared bolt, and coming around to where Bernardo was securing the four corners of a metal platform to the hook as well. "What about you?"
"Almost there," Bernardo replied.
Glancing over to Lucas, Caballero boasted, "I've won prizes for crossbow shooting, you know."
Lucas shrugged, trying to appear unimpressed, and Caballero turned away, a little disgruntled.
Once he was no longer under scrutiny, Lucas focused on getting one hand into the sleeve where the envelope was. With his arms up, the envelope was in danger of sliding down towards his elbow, and he had to be careful not to dislodge it. His fumblings were interrupted, however, when Bernardo pushed him roughly to one side so that he could open the door and get to the controls. As soon as Bernardo had pulled the door shut against the wind, Lucas went back to work. Sliding his fingers down his sleeve again, he was also aware of the boom rising up away from the truck, taking the platform with it. Caballero had knelt down in the middle with his hold-all next to him, and was gripping the crossbow to his chest with one arm while he kept his balance with the other.
Now was his chance! Lucas finally caught the corner of the envelope between two fingers and shifted it carefully back and forth to work it towards his wrist. At last, he was able to pull the envelope partly out of his sleeve and grip it with one hand while he scratched at the edge with a fingernail. He was tempted to take it out completely and bite it open, but didn't dare risk dropping it, not when the wind would whirl it away to be buried in the snow somewhere far beyond his reach.
Scraping diligently away, Lucas glanced up to see what Caballero was doing. The boom had been fully extended by then and the metal platform was as high as the rooftops. In his white suit and at that distance, Caballero was almost invisible in the driving snow, and Lucas could just barely make out that he had lifted the crossbow from his kneeling position. Of course! He was going to shoot the bolt with the fishing line over the buildings, and the steel cable would follow to make a zip line!
From inside the cab of the truck, Bernardo shouted something and banged on the roof. Caballero must have heard him, because he aimed and eventually took the shot. After a few long moments, the steel cable began to uncoil itself. Lucas spared it a quick glance, but then the envelope ripped under his finger. He lengthened the hole, then pulled the paper out – just as Bernardo pushed the door of the truck open again. Lucas stumbled along with it, instinctively crumpling the paper in his fist. He'd done it! He'd activated the nanoparticles, and now it would only be a matter of time before CO19 swept in.
The cable must have been caught by someone on the other side, helping Caballero pull it tight. Bernardo took the end and laid it across the ground, then drove the car carefully onto it and stopped so that the cable was held tightly under the tyres. Pulling the envelope and the paper back into his sleeves, Lucas then glanced up to see Caballero attaching something to the cable that looked like a trolley holding a kind of sling. A second one followed, and once he'd slung the hold-all over his back, he placed a foot onto each of the slings, straddling them awkwardly. They both had separate controls, and although he tried to press them simultaneously, his right leg came down slightly faster than his left.
"Bring him here," Caballero said, stepping away from the slings and pulling a gun from his pocket. Even now, Lucas thought, or perhaps especially now, they weren't taking any chances of letting him escape. Bernardo came around to uncuff him from the mirror, then cuffed his hands together again, behind his back this time, before leading him over to where Caballero stood.
Caballero arranged the sling so that Lucas could sit on it, then tied him more securely in place by running a strap around his chest and each side of the sling. If he slipped off, he'd end up dangling from the sling, but he wouldn't fall all the way to the ground. It was scant comfort, Lucas thought, watching as Caballero sat down on his own sling and held on tightly with both hands.
Caballero hit the controls, and after a moment, both slings began to rise into the snowstorm and the wind. As soon as they'd gone up as far as they could go, Caballero hit another button, and the two motorized trolleys began to move along the cable, jerking Lucas and Caballero along underneath. Once he'd realized he was in no immediate danger of slipping, Lucas glanced in all directions. It seemed they were heading diagonally for the Cuitlatepanian Embassy, but there was no sign yet of CO19, or police, or much of anything in this quiet area. The roofs below him were steep and white, and he didn't relish the thought of trying to manoeuver around on them, even if he'd had the use of his arms.
But then they passed over the first houses and the gardens far below, and approached the next strip of houses. Squinting into the snow, Lucas saw a relatively flat section of roof coming up, and figured that it must be the embassy. Beyond it, he could just make out the dark beam of another truck-mounted crane; there was indeed one over there somewhere, just as he'd thought. He couldn't see the street outside the embassy, but from what he could hear, it was quiet, too quiet. Although his ears caught the sound of a siren in the distance, it soon faded away. How bloody long was it going to take before CO19 got there?
Caballero stopped the trolleys directly over the flat part of the roof, and pressed the controls to take them down. He stepped off the sling, tested his footing, and then, sounding rather proud of himself, he said, "Well, here we are – a bit like Peter Pan, don't you, think?"
Lucas quashed a comparison between himself and Captain Hook, always trying and failing to achieve his objective. He was also very aware of the time ticking away.
Laughing a little at his own joke, Caballero pulled the hold-all from his back and found a torch in one of its outer pockets. Shining it around, he found the large ventilation unit and carefully made his way over, then knelt down and unzipped the bag. Firstly, he took out the cannister, secondly, a folded piece of paper, and lastly, a piece of equipment that Lucas could not immediately identify.
"Don't you think it would be easier just to get a sniper and assassinate the ambassador?" Lucas asked, his heart sinking as he recognized the plan. If Caballero released the gas into the air intake system, it would kill everyone inside the building, not just the ambassador himself. "Why go through all this trouble to get up here on the roof?"
"We have to show the authorities that we won't allow them to interfere in our activities," Caballero said. "And that's why I brought you along as well, when I could have just shot you back at the warehouse. We make an example of everybody who gets in our way, and when they hit us, we hit back – harder."
"So you don't want an eye for an eye? You want twenty eyes for an eye?" Lucas went on. "Or thirty, or fifty, or however many innocent people work in this embassy?"
"There are innocent casualties in every war," Caballero said shortly. "And don't think for a moment that they've never killed innocents, either." He tucked the torch under his arm, unfolded the paper, and studied it intently for a moment. Then he found a coil of wire in the hold-all and used some of it to fasten the cannister to the metal grille that protected the air intake system from birds and small animals. After that, he lifted up the last piece of equipment so that Lucas was finally able to catch a good glimpse of it in the light – it was a tiny bomb! .
Desperately, Lucas pulled his hand up into his sleeve and wriggled his hand around the letter again, wondering why CO19 hadn't shown up yet. Did the nanoparticles work in this cold? Or had their van gone off the road because of the treacherous driving conditions? It would just be his luck if it had!
Caballero attached the explosive device directly to the cannister with two wires, then used the instructions on his paper to set the timer for ten minutes. Only then did he come over to Lucas, pulling out his gun as he approached, and used his other hand to undo the strap that held Lucas to the sling. Once Lucas was free, Caballero guided him by the upper arm across the roof, and kicked the back of his leg to make him kneel down in front of the ventilator. He pushed Lucas' head against the grille, secured him there with a piece of wire across the back of his neck, then stepped back.
"What will kill you first?" he asked. "The bomb should just be big enough to tear a hole in the cannister and free the gas – but will the explosion take your face off, too? You can think about it for … seven minutes. More or less. Did I tell you happy birthday already, by the way?"
+++++
Part 7