The Loneliness of the Once-Distant Agent
Part 5
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They brought Robinson out of the interrogation cell and took him onto the Grid, where Mercy had connected his mobile phone to their computers so that they could track Caballero's phone. Lucas explained what they wanted him to do, but almost before he'd finished, Robinson interrupted him. "Is my money there?"
"Why do you want to know?" Lucas asked.
"Because," Robinson said with a show of false bravado, "I can't just call Joaquin up and say, "Okay, I'm giving you the formula now." I told him I wouldn't do that until I'd got the next installment – and what if he realizes something is wrong? What if he hasn't transferred it at all, and knows I'm working with the spooks to try and trap him?"
"How would he know that?" Mercy asked. "You been holding out on us, keeping something back?"
"Some kind of emergency signal?" Lucas asked, leaning forward with an air of menace as he remembered how he'd been bashed over the head by whoever had picked up the cannister. Was Robinson about to reveal that Caballero was already suspicious and therefore all their plans were in danger?
Robinson glanced away and said slowly, "No … Just, you know. You'd better check, that's all."
"We'll check it now," Lucas told him, then leaned over the desk and picked up the wallet they'd taken off Robinson. Opening it, he found a bank card. "Is this the right account?"
Robinson took a deep breath and let it out, then nodded, not taking his eyes off the card as Lucas put the number into the system. As Lucas asked him for the password, he tried to peer around Lucas' shoulder to see, and one of the guards had to push him back into his seat. He looked disgruntled, almost angry that he wouldn't have the chance to swan off to Spain and enjoy his early retirement. Once, Lucas would have understood, and might even have felt a twinge of yearning at the thought of two million pounds. But he'd long since learned that certain other things were more important than money, and one of them, for him at least, was being allowed to work instead of being forced to be idle and useless all day long.
"How much were you expecting?" Lucas asked.
"Half a million," Robinson said.
"Yes," Lucas said. "It's just arrived." He couldn't resist adding, "We'll be transferring it to Her Majesty's government later, of course."
"Right," said Robinson flatly, slumping back in his chair.
"Maybe we should transfer it to the department's budget," Mercy suggested lightheartedly. "Buy ourselves some more comfortable chairs, better lighting, a bar …"
Nobody smiled. Lucas reached for the mobile and handed it to Robinson. "You know what to say."
Robinson nodded listlessly.
"Then make the call."
Robinson had the number on speed dial. After three rings, when the mobile announced its mail box, Robinson said, "Hi, it's me. Thanks for the money, and I'll leave the last piece of the puzzle in the drop on my way home from work to-day. Bye."
He hung up, then asked, "Did you get what you wanted?"
"I guess it was too much to expect he'd answer it himself and tell us all his plans," Mercy said with a sigh. She clicked a few buttons and studied the results, then said, "Well, at least we know he's close to Pratt Street in Camden Town – or at least his phone is. That's his home address."
"See what else you can get from the phone," Lucas told her. "Check all outgoing calls. And incoming. Maybe we can glean something from them."
"Already on it," Mercy said, sounding hopeful, but Lucas remembered that they were dealing with a man who'd relied on paper notes left in a letter drop separate from the drop underneath Spencer-Clarke. He didn't think they'd come up with much.
"Do you want me to write out the formula now?" Robinson asked.
"Off the top of your head?" Mercy asked, sound a bit skeptical.
"Just watch me!" Robinson declared, sounding a bit cheeky. In the same tone of voice, he added, "On the other hand, you don't really want me to hand it over to him intact, do you?"
"You said Caballero studied chemistry, would he recognize it if you changed the formula to something less deadly?" Lucas asked.
The slight twinkle in Robinson's eye faded and the tone of his voice shifted to something more wary as he glanced from Mercy to Lucas. "Yes. He was very good – a chemistry genius. I'd have to include all the components I've already given him, and even if I did shift the proportions, I couldn’t guarantee that it would be that much less deadly."
"Do what you can," Lucas told him.
"I'll need paper," Robinson said. "And something to write with."
Lucas found a notebook and a pen, and handed them over. Trying to sound casual, he asked, "Is there an antidote to this gas?"
"You mean if you breathe it?" Robinson asked. "No, we haven't found any yet. Fazackerley is so new and we still need to do lots of research …" His voice trailed off, perhaps because he realized he would no longer be part of the research process.
"But you're sure it kills," Lucas prompted him, and Robinson said, "Oh, yes. That's why I –"
He stopped suddenly, and started to write. Intrigued, Lucas asked, "That's why you what?"
"Nothing," Robinson said, avoiding his eye, but his fingers tightened around the pen.
Following his gut instinct, Lucas asked, "Did you offer it to Caballero? Did you approach him because you were willing to sell it?"
"No!" Robinson cried, but he didn't meet Lucas' eyes. Lucas didn't hesitate. Coming around the side of the desk, he spun Robinson around in the chair, grabbed the pen with one hand and the man's chin with the other, then shoved Robinson's head backwards as far as it would go.
"Normally I'm just a pen-pusher in this office," he said in a very quiet, low voice, holding the pen up so that Robinson had a clear view, and then aiming it for the man's eyes. Robinson focused instantly on it, watching for any sign of movement. Lucas went on, "But now, either you tell me where I can push this pen, or you can answer my question. Did you approach Caballero with the intent of offering to sell the Fazackerley gas to him?"
"No!" Robinson squealed. "He came to me, I swear! He'd heard about another gas we'd been working on, but I – I told him that Fazackerley was more potent. More deadly!"
"And more expensive?" Lucas pressed, moving the pen just a little bit in Robinson's direction. Beyond Robinson's head, he could see Harry watching him from his office, and felt relief flood over him. Harry would step in if things started to go beyond the threat; he wouldn't force Lucas to apply any more torture. Just as Harry made a motion towards the door, however, Robinson broke.
"Yes!" he cried. "All right, yes! More expensive!"
Letting go of the man's chin, Lucas stepped back, turned the pen in his fingers, and offered it to Robinson blunt end first. Robinson glanced wildly around the Grid, no doubt wondering why nobody had stepped in to stop the rabid pen-pusher, but Mercy was striding in the direction of the toilets, and the replacement personal from GCHQ were looking almost as shocked as Robinson himself. Harry had turned away and busied himself again, pretending not to have noticed anything. Eventually recognizing his complete lack of support, Robinson took the pen, but he needed a couple of deep breaths before he could resume writing the formula, and Lucas saw him irritably scratch out a mistake.
When he'd finished, and Lucas had quizzed him again about the exact location of the letter drop, Lucas told the guards to take Robinson back down to the cells. As they went out, Lucas motioned to the technical person from GCHQ. The man came over and sprayed the paper, then turned it over with a pair of tweezers and sprayed the other side.
"Nanoparticles," he said. "The undetectable tracking device. Once they've been absorbed by the oil of the skin, they become activated, and we can pick up their location by a burst of microwave radiation from a satellite. You've been using the first generation nanos for a while now, but these are the new and improved version. The signal is stronger, lasts longer, and basically does everything except make you a cup of tea when you're finished."
"I'm sure that'll be in the next upgrade," Lucas said, and the man smiled back. He pulled on a pair of plastic gloves and folded the letter, then slid it into an envelope and handed it to Lucas. "Here you are."
"Thanks." Although Lucas planned to watch the drop with at least one other agent, there was no guarantee that Caballero himself would collect the envelope. He'd almost certainly open the letter, though, and then they'd pick him up.
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According to Robinson, he had made the letter drop by gluing a stoppered test tube to the inside of the picket fence that ran around Highgate Wood, near the Gypsy Gate on Muswell Hill Road. When he got to the support post where Robinson said it would be, next to a broken picket that allowed access, Lucas knelt down and felt around to make sure it was actually there. The snow had been cleared away from the pavement, but not inside the fence, and the test tube was almost completely covered. At last, however, his groping fingers found the stopper and he pulled it free. He got up, then leaned casually back against the fence as a mother and a child walked by, openly rolling the envelope while discreetly scanning the area.
When the little family had passed, Lucas knelt down again and stuffed the envelope into the tube, then jammed the stopper on top. Hearing someone exiting a car just down the road, Lucas re-tied his shoe before straightening up, trying to make it seem as though that was the only reason he'd knelt down in the first place. The man was coming in his direction, so close that Lucas automatically made room by turning slightly. Instead of making way, however, the man brushed against Lucas' arm. A jolt of tamed lightning shot through Lucas' body, fogging his brain and scrambling his nervous system. Through the buzz, he was dimly aware of collapsing, of being dragged down the street and wrestled into a car, of someone forcing a seatbelt around him. Someone was running a scanner over him, pawing at his clothes. Then they were driving, and by the time he had recovered enough to realize that he'd been tasered, he could no longer tell where they were or how long it had been.
Able at last to lift his head, Lucas looked around, feeling odd twitches of electrical energy run through his muscles at the movement. He was in the back seat of a car, on the passenger side, and there was a man sitting next to him. After a moment, he recognized Caballero.
"Don't do anything stupid," Caballero said in a perfect Oxford accent. He moved his right hand, and Lucas saw that he was holding a gun.
"What's going on?" Lucas asked. There wasn't supposed to be anybody at the drop – Robinson had said he'd put the letter in on his way home from work, and it was nowhere near that time, yet Caballero had already been waiting. Had Robinson really managed to get a signal to them that Lucas had missed? "Who are you?"
The man turned the question back at him. "Who are you?"
"My name's Rory Miller, I work at Spencer-Clark," Lucas bluffed. "Look, if this is what I think it is, I'm just the messenger, I'm getting paid, but I don't know anything, so please don't shoot me."
"Don't do anything stupid," Caballero repeated, "and we'll see."
It sounded ominously vague, and Lucas lapsed into silence, choosing instead to glance around and see what he could find out visually. His coat gaped open, he pulled it shut despite the warmth from the car heater, and used the movement to discreetly check for his phone. It was gone. He'd meant to use the tiny radio for his ear as soon as he'd put the formula in the drop – if only he had put it in earlier. How long it would be before Section D noticed he was missing? And had Caballero picked up the envelope at all? Lucas didn't know – the last several minutes had been like some kind of dream, the memory of which was rapidly fading.
Eventually, they pulled into an industrial area that Lucas mentally noted, and stopped outside a large warehouse. The clouds had become thicker and darker even since Lucas had been checking the letter drop, and now the first flakes of snow began to fall. The driver got out first and went around to open Lucas' door, then held him at gunpoint while Caballero got out as well. They kept Lucas between them as they went into the warehouse, and when the driver stepped aside, Lucas was not surprised to see that part of the building had been converted into a chemistry lab.
"Up against the wall," Caballero said, gesturing with his gun.
Lucas did so. Caballero jabbed at the bandage on his left wrist. "What did you do to yourself?"
"Slipped on the ice and fell on a wine bottle," Lucas told him. There was no need to lie about that.
"And hit your face as well? Bad luck," Caballero said, and removed Lucas' wallet from his hip pocket. After a moment, of flicking through the contents, he said, "For someone whose name is Rory Miller, you certainly have a lot of cards with the name of Lucas North."
Lucas remained silent. Caballero didn't seem to expect him to talk; instead, he reached up and touched the side of Lucas' head, feeling around until he hit the scalp wound. "Ah, so you're the one. My man told me that someone almost stopped him from getting the cannister to-day. Now, who would know about our little operation besides me, my men, and Patrick Robinson? You claimed to be Rory Miller, but you're not, and I don't remember any Lucas North on the list of employees at Spencer-Clark. And we found a tracker in your pocket – we threw that away with your phone, of course."
Tracker? Lucas hadn't equipped himself with any tracker – oh! The one he'd tested with Mercy at the safe house, when he'd been talking to Rory about Robinson's disappearance. Damn!
"Spook," Caballero went on, tossing the wallet away. "Secret service. And birthday boy, too, apparently. Turn around."
Lucas did so, looking at the gun and fully expecting the flash out of the barrel to be the last thing he saw. Instead, Caballero crossed sideways to one of the tables, reached into an open box, and pulled out a pair of handcuffs, which he tossed to his driver.
"Cuff him over there, where I can keep an eye on him," he said, indicating one of many support beams in a row down the middle of the great space. "Hands behind his back."
The driver pushed Lucas against the metal beam, pulled his arms behind his back, then fastened the cuffs tightly around his wrists.
"Let's get this assembled, then," Caballero said, starting to undo his coat. "Robinson wanted to save the formula for last, to make sure he got at least some of the money. He didn't trust me. I barely trusted him. We were both right, as it turned out. I was going to pick him up – now you've got him, and I've got you."
He smiled briefly, cruelly. "But Robinson forgot that he's not the only one who can research deadly gases. I've been running computer simulations and other tests with what he's given me already, and I don't need this –" he pulled the crinkled envelope from his coat pocket and tossed it demonstrably aside –"at all now. Good for me, hmm, considering that you probably just wrote down any kind of gibberish before you put it into the drop?"
Refusing to answer, Lucas adopted a look that was void of all emotion except a hint of boredom mixed with a touch of superciliousness. The envelope had landed on the floor, just beyond his reach, and it took much more of his strength to avoid acknowledging the despair that was creeping up on him.
"Bernardo," Caballero said, turning to the driver. "Go make sure everything's set up like we've planned."
The man nodded and went out again without answering. Caballero went to his equipment and began to work, deftly manipulating the equipment and glancing up every so often as though to make sure that Lucas was still there. Flexing his wrists at intervals, Lucas tried to formulate an escape plan, but everything that he came up with included the first step of being unchained from the support pillar, and until then, he simply had to wait. And wait. And wait.
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Part 6
They brought Robinson out of the interrogation cell and took him onto the Grid, where Mercy had connected his mobile phone to their computers so that they could track Caballero's phone. Lucas explained what they wanted him to do, but almost before he'd finished, Robinson interrupted him. "Is my money there?"
"Why do you want to know?" Lucas asked.
"Because," Robinson said with a show of false bravado, "I can't just call Joaquin up and say, "Okay, I'm giving you the formula now." I told him I wouldn't do that until I'd got the next installment – and what if he realizes something is wrong? What if he hasn't transferred it at all, and knows I'm working with the spooks to try and trap him?"
"How would he know that?" Mercy asked. "You been holding out on us, keeping something back?"
"Some kind of emergency signal?" Lucas asked, leaning forward with an air of menace as he remembered how he'd been bashed over the head by whoever had picked up the cannister. Was Robinson about to reveal that Caballero was already suspicious and therefore all their plans were in danger?
Robinson glanced away and said slowly, "No … Just, you know. You'd better check, that's all."
"We'll check it now," Lucas told him, then leaned over the desk and picked up the wallet they'd taken off Robinson. Opening it, he found a bank card. "Is this the right account?"
Robinson took a deep breath and let it out, then nodded, not taking his eyes off the card as Lucas put the number into the system. As Lucas asked him for the password, he tried to peer around Lucas' shoulder to see, and one of the guards had to push him back into his seat. He looked disgruntled, almost angry that he wouldn't have the chance to swan off to Spain and enjoy his early retirement. Once, Lucas would have understood, and might even have felt a twinge of yearning at the thought of two million pounds. But he'd long since learned that certain other things were more important than money, and one of them, for him at least, was being allowed to work instead of being forced to be idle and useless all day long.
"How much were you expecting?" Lucas asked.
"Half a million," Robinson said.
"Yes," Lucas said. "It's just arrived." He couldn't resist adding, "We'll be transferring it to Her Majesty's government later, of course."
"Right," said Robinson flatly, slumping back in his chair.
"Maybe we should transfer it to the department's budget," Mercy suggested lightheartedly. "Buy ourselves some more comfortable chairs, better lighting, a bar …"
Nobody smiled. Lucas reached for the mobile and handed it to Robinson. "You know what to say."
Robinson nodded listlessly.
"Then make the call."
Robinson had the number on speed dial. After three rings, when the mobile announced its mail box, Robinson said, "Hi, it's me. Thanks for the money, and I'll leave the last piece of the puzzle in the drop on my way home from work to-day. Bye."
He hung up, then asked, "Did you get what you wanted?"
"I guess it was too much to expect he'd answer it himself and tell us all his plans," Mercy said with a sigh. She clicked a few buttons and studied the results, then said, "Well, at least we know he's close to Pratt Street in Camden Town – or at least his phone is. That's his home address."
"See what else you can get from the phone," Lucas told her. "Check all outgoing calls. And incoming. Maybe we can glean something from them."
"Already on it," Mercy said, sounding hopeful, but Lucas remembered that they were dealing with a man who'd relied on paper notes left in a letter drop separate from the drop underneath Spencer-Clarke. He didn't think they'd come up with much.
"Do you want me to write out the formula now?" Robinson asked.
"Off the top of your head?" Mercy asked, sound a bit skeptical.
"Just watch me!" Robinson declared, sounding a bit cheeky. In the same tone of voice, he added, "On the other hand, you don't really want me to hand it over to him intact, do you?"
"You said Caballero studied chemistry, would he recognize it if you changed the formula to something less deadly?" Lucas asked.
The slight twinkle in Robinson's eye faded and the tone of his voice shifted to something more wary as he glanced from Mercy to Lucas. "Yes. He was very good – a chemistry genius. I'd have to include all the components I've already given him, and even if I did shift the proportions, I couldn’t guarantee that it would be that much less deadly."
"Do what you can," Lucas told him.
"I'll need paper," Robinson said. "And something to write with."
Lucas found a notebook and a pen, and handed them over. Trying to sound casual, he asked, "Is there an antidote to this gas?"
"You mean if you breathe it?" Robinson asked. "No, we haven't found any yet. Fazackerley is so new and we still need to do lots of research …" His voice trailed off, perhaps because he realized he would no longer be part of the research process.
"But you're sure it kills," Lucas prompted him, and Robinson said, "Oh, yes. That's why I –"
He stopped suddenly, and started to write. Intrigued, Lucas asked, "That's why you what?"
"Nothing," Robinson said, avoiding his eye, but his fingers tightened around the pen.
Following his gut instinct, Lucas asked, "Did you offer it to Caballero? Did you approach him because you were willing to sell it?"
"No!" Robinson cried, but he didn't meet Lucas' eyes. Lucas didn't hesitate. Coming around the side of the desk, he spun Robinson around in the chair, grabbed the pen with one hand and the man's chin with the other, then shoved Robinson's head backwards as far as it would go.
"Normally I'm just a pen-pusher in this office," he said in a very quiet, low voice, holding the pen up so that Robinson had a clear view, and then aiming it for the man's eyes. Robinson focused instantly on it, watching for any sign of movement. Lucas went on, "But now, either you tell me where I can push this pen, or you can answer my question. Did you approach Caballero with the intent of offering to sell the Fazackerley gas to him?"
"No!" Robinson squealed. "He came to me, I swear! He'd heard about another gas we'd been working on, but I – I told him that Fazackerley was more potent. More deadly!"
"And more expensive?" Lucas pressed, moving the pen just a little bit in Robinson's direction. Beyond Robinson's head, he could see Harry watching him from his office, and felt relief flood over him. Harry would step in if things started to go beyond the threat; he wouldn't force Lucas to apply any more torture. Just as Harry made a motion towards the door, however, Robinson broke.
"Yes!" he cried. "All right, yes! More expensive!"
Letting go of the man's chin, Lucas stepped back, turned the pen in his fingers, and offered it to Robinson blunt end first. Robinson glanced wildly around the Grid, no doubt wondering why nobody had stepped in to stop the rabid pen-pusher, but Mercy was striding in the direction of the toilets, and the replacement personal from GCHQ were looking almost as shocked as Robinson himself. Harry had turned away and busied himself again, pretending not to have noticed anything. Eventually recognizing his complete lack of support, Robinson took the pen, but he needed a couple of deep breaths before he could resume writing the formula, and Lucas saw him irritably scratch out a mistake.
When he'd finished, and Lucas had quizzed him again about the exact location of the letter drop, Lucas told the guards to take Robinson back down to the cells. As they went out, Lucas motioned to the technical person from GCHQ. The man came over and sprayed the paper, then turned it over with a pair of tweezers and sprayed the other side.
"Nanoparticles," he said. "The undetectable tracking device. Once they've been absorbed by the oil of the skin, they become activated, and we can pick up their location by a burst of microwave radiation from a satellite. You've been using the first generation nanos for a while now, but these are the new and improved version. The signal is stronger, lasts longer, and basically does everything except make you a cup of tea when you're finished."
"I'm sure that'll be in the next upgrade," Lucas said, and the man smiled back. He pulled on a pair of plastic gloves and folded the letter, then slid it into an envelope and handed it to Lucas. "Here you are."
"Thanks." Although Lucas planned to watch the drop with at least one other agent, there was no guarantee that Caballero himself would collect the envelope. He'd almost certainly open the letter, though, and then they'd pick him up.
+++++
According to Robinson, he had made the letter drop by gluing a stoppered test tube to the inside of the picket fence that ran around Highgate Wood, near the Gypsy Gate on Muswell Hill Road. When he got to the support post where Robinson said it would be, next to a broken picket that allowed access, Lucas knelt down and felt around to make sure it was actually there. The snow had been cleared away from the pavement, but not inside the fence, and the test tube was almost completely covered. At last, however, his groping fingers found the stopper and he pulled it free. He got up, then leaned casually back against the fence as a mother and a child walked by, openly rolling the envelope while discreetly scanning the area.
When the little family had passed, Lucas knelt down again and stuffed the envelope into the tube, then jammed the stopper on top. Hearing someone exiting a car just down the road, Lucas re-tied his shoe before straightening up, trying to make it seem as though that was the only reason he'd knelt down in the first place. The man was coming in his direction, so close that Lucas automatically made room by turning slightly. Instead of making way, however, the man brushed against Lucas' arm. A jolt of tamed lightning shot through Lucas' body, fogging his brain and scrambling his nervous system. Through the buzz, he was dimly aware of collapsing, of being dragged down the street and wrestled into a car, of someone forcing a seatbelt around him. Someone was running a scanner over him, pawing at his clothes. Then they were driving, and by the time he had recovered enough to realize that he'd been tasered, he could no longer tell where they were or how long it had been.
Able at last to lift his head, Lucas looked around, feeling odd twitches of electrical energy run through his muscles at the movement. He was in the back seat of a car, on the passenger side, and there was a man sitting next to him. After a moment, he recognized Caballero.
"Don't do anything stupid," Caballero said in a perfect Oxford accent. He moved his right hand, and Lucas saw that he was holding a gun.
"What's going on?" Lucas asked. There wasn't supposed to be anybody at the drop – Robinson had said he'd put the letter in on his way home from work, and it was nowhere near that time, yet Caballero had already been waiting. Had Robinson really managed to get a signal to them that Lucas had missed? "Who are you?"
The man turned the question back at him. "Who are you?"
"My name's Rory Miller, I work at Spencer-Clark," Lucas bluffed. "Look, if this is what I think it is, I'm just the messenger, I'm getting paid, but I don't know anything, so please don't shoot me."
"Don't do anything stupid," Caballero repeated, "and we'll see."
It sounded ominously vague, and Lucas lapsed into silence, choosing instead to glance around and see what he could find out visually. His coat gaped open, he pulled it shut despite the warmth from the car heater, and used the movement to discreetly check for his phone. It was gone. He'd meant to use the tiny radio for his ear as soon as he'd put the formula in the drop – if only he had put it in earlier. How long it would be before Section D noticed he was missing? And had Caballero picked up the envelope at all? Lucas didn't know – the last several minutes had been like some kind of dream, the memory of which was rapidly fading.
Eventually, they pulled into an industrial area that Lucas mentally noted, and stopped outside a large warehouse. The clouds had become thicker and darker even since Lucas had been checking the letter drop, and now the first flakes of snow began to fall. The driver got out first and went around to open Lucas' door, then held him at gunpoint while Caballero got out as well. They kept Lucas between them as they went into the warehouse, and when the driver stepped aside, Lucas was not surprised to see that part of the building had been converted into a chemistry lab.
"Up against the wall," Caballero said, gesturing with his gun.
Lucas did so. Caballero jabbed at the bandage on his left wrist. "What did you do to yourself?"
"Slipped on the ice and fell on a wine bottle," Lucas told him. There was no need to lie about that.
"And hit your face as well? Bad luck," Caballero said, and removed Lucas' wallet from his hip pocket. After a moment, of flicking through the contents, he said, "For someone whose name is Rory Miller, you certainly have a lot of cards with the name of Lucas North."
Lucas remained silent. Caballero didn't seem to expect him to talk; instead, he reached up and touched the side of Lucas' head, feeling around until he hit the scalp wound. "Ah, so you're the one. My man told me that someone almost stopped him from getting the cannister to-day. Now, who would know about our little operation besides me, my men, and Patrick Robinson? You claimed to be Rory Miller, but you're not, and I don't remember any Lucas North on the list of employees at Spencer-Clark. And we found a tracker in your pocket – we threw that away with your phone, of course."
Tracker? Lucas hadn't equipped himself with any tracker – oh! The one he'd tested with Mercy at the safe house, when he'd been talking to Rory about Robinson's disappearance. Damn!
"Spook," Caballero went on, tossing the wallet away. "Secret service. And birthday boy, too, apparently. Turn around."
Lucas did so, looking at the gun and fully expecting the flash out of the barrel to be the last thing he saw. Instead, Caballero crossed sideways to one of the tables, reached into an open box, and pulled out a pair of handcuffs, which he tossed to his driver.
"Cuff him over there, where I can keep an eye on him," he said, indicating one of many support beams in a row down the middle of the great space. "Hands behind his back."
The driver pushed Lucas against the metal beam, pulled his arms behind his back, then fastened the cuffs tightly around his wrists.
"Let's get this assembled, then," Caballero said, starting to undo his coat. "Robinson wanted to save the formula for last, to make sure he got at least some of the money. He didn't trust me. I barely trusted him. We were both right, as it turned out. I was going to pick him up – now you've got him, and I've got you."
He smiled briefly, cruelly. "But Robinson forgot that he's not the only one who can research deadly gases. I've been running computer simulations and other tests with what he's given me already, and I don't need this –" he pulled the crinkled envelope from his coat pocket and tossed it demonstrably aside –"at all now. Good for me, hmm, considering that you probably just wrote down any kind of gibberish before you put it into the drop?"
Refusing to answer, Lucas adopted a look that was void of all emotion except a hint of boredom mixed with a touch of superciliousness. The envelope had landed on the floor, just beyond his reach, and it took much more of his strength to avoid acknowledging the despair that was creeping up on him.
"Bernardo," Caballero said, turning to the driver. "Go make sure everything's set up like we've planned."
The man nodded and went out again without answering. Caballero went to his equipment and began to work, deftly manipulating the equipment and glancing up every so often as though to make sure that Lucas was still there. Flexing his wrists at intervals, Lucas tried to formulate an escape plan, but everything that he came up with included the first step of being unchained from the support pillar, and until then, he simply had to wait. And wait. And wait.
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Part 6