Counterpoint (44 page)

Seeing the remainder of a roll of large
plastic bin liners and idea sprang to mind. Unrolling them, he
found twelve left.

“Can we make protective suits out of
this Carla?”

“Well, dressmaking was never my strong
point, but now our lives depend on it, I could be persuaded!”

Using some wide parcel tape, Max sealed
around the door to keep the mist out and buy more time. The door
had been fitted well anyway to keep out noise and was probably the
only reason they were still alive. Carla slipped off her shoes,
slid a bin-liner over each leg and slipped the shoes on again. This
should prevent the thin plastic tearing on the rough floor as she
walked.

Deftly she cut two slits along the
bottom seam of the third bag and pulled it on like knickers. Max
helped her carefully seal the bag with tape at the top of her legs,
she was nearly done.

Max did the same with other bags, but
added two for his arms.

With a paper knife, he prized off the
clear plastic face of the postage scales and used it as a
faceplate, on his bag, covering the top of his body.

He could easily and quickly fit and
seal Carla’s top bag so she could move blind as he guided her with
his covered arms.

“Start taking deep breaths Carla, flood
your lungs with oxygen. When I pull the top bag over you, bulk it
out with your arms to trap as much air inside as you can and I will
seal you in.”

The big snag now was how to perfectly
seal the top bag, to the bag at his waist. His hands had to remain
inside the top bag.

John’s chair had thin vertical slats at
the back. He fed the end of the tape between them and stuck the end
to the bottom edge of the top bag.

“Let’s seal you in first, Carla.”

With her safely sealed in, Max had to
quickly seal himself within his own bags.

Carefully slipping the bag over his
head and adjusting its position so he could see out of the
faceplate he proceeded to turn on the spot, pulling the tape off
the reel between the slats. The tape was pulled tight against him
like a wide, tight belt.

Using his arms to expand the top bag he
trapped a large air pocket within. Hopefully this would hold enough
oxygen for him to breathe until he was safely outside the
warehouse. Within seconds of sealing the bag he felt the wet
condensation from inside and the air becoming stuffy.

Finally, he managed to break free of
the tape and went to the door. It was difficult to turn the
doorknob through the slippery bag, also to pull the door open with
the tape sealed around it, but he managed it eventually.

“Come on Carla, and I will guide you
out”

As she walked forward across the
warehouse, she stumbled against two bodies on the floor and for a
frightening moment, nearly fell. A tear in the bag now would be
fatal. By probing with one foot, she found her way past them.

“We have to get out of here she shouted
at him, I’m running low on oxygen.”

“Even outside you can’t come out of the
plastic” she heard him say. “The white dust is all over you, we
need some way of washing it off. Follow me, ” he said and helped
her towards the main warehouse door.

He grasped the hanging gantry
controller, lowering the hook as it travelled to the steel lifting
rings in the floor slab that covered the flooded chamber.

“What are you doing, she cried
out.”

“We are going to get you out safely and
away from here, by going through the flooded tunnel. Trust me.”

Max didn’t need to explain, she had
already caught up with his plan.

As he hooked the steel eyes and
carefully lifted the huge slab from one end, he bent down and
grabbed a metre-long piece of stout timber. Max guided Carla to the
edge of the chamber and told her to jump in.” It was a desperate
act of blind faith to leap into a water filled hole, encapsulated
in a flimsy polythene sheath, then wait in the water, suffocating,
until he came for her, but she did.

Max lowered the concrete floor slab
onto the timber prop and released the steel hooks so he could move
the crane gantry away and down the end of the warehouse.

Max then opened up the valves on two of
the spare forklift fuel bottles releasing gas in a freezing spray
of liquid. A third bottle was carried 10 metres away to a nearby
forklift. By arcing wires across the battery terminals with a
crowbar, he set the gas stream alight on this bottle. The bottle
could either explode on its own or set off the gas from the others
when it reached the flame. Max could sense the invisible gas
rolling towards him. What if the timber post failed before he could
get to the tunnel? What if it snapped as he was climbing on to the
ladder, half in half out of the hole? He would either be burned
alive or sliced in half.

Max picked up the steel crowbar and
carefully climbed a short way down the steel steps. He could hear
the cracking sound of the wood fibres in the prop as it started to
break under the massive weight of the concrete slab.

With a swipe of the crowbar, the prop
snapped and shot away down the warehouse as the massive slab shut
over the hole.

Max had jumped clear at the same time,
so he avoided being struck by the falling slab.

The air trapped under the falling slab
acted as a slight cushion, allowing the slab to seat reasonably
gently over the hole. The momentary rise in pressure made their
ears pop.

The sudden explosion of the gas,
seconds later could be felt even through the 400 mm thick concrete
slab, Max was so relieved to be safe in the chamber, neither fried
or sliced.

Take a deep breath,” Max said, “I’m
going to pull you along the tunnel and out into the harbour.”

She closed her eyes and went tense as
the water pressed the thin bag tight against her body. At some
stage near the end of the tunnel something snagged the plastic and
all her air bubbled out. Then water seeped in. Because she was
being pulled along on her back, the water ran up her nose, and she
began to fight for breath. The plastic sealed tight to her face,
intensely more suffocating than just water. He felt her struggle to
control herself when the buoyancy of the bag vanished. Kicking his
legs even harder he swam on, to the circle of light ahead. Carla
tried everything she could think of to help him pull her along and
resist the fight for air.

Just as her senses were failing, she
knew they were going up. She could feel the daylight, not see it,
through the black plastic. Max ripped the plastic away from her
face as they surfaced holding her head well clear of the water
until her coughing and spluttering abated. As her priority to
breathe was satisfied she explored the sensations of her body for
symptoms of approaching death from the white mist. To her great
relief there were none.

They had surfaced between the ship’s
hull and the stone wharf, out of sight. Until the Hazardous
Material Team arrived, no one was coming close.

Max eased her cocooned body to nearby
stone steps leading from the water to the top of the wharf, and
then they proceeded to strip the plastic and tape off
themselves.

“Stay here for a moment while I take a
look around up top” he said.

The warehouse was an inferno by the
time he peeped over the wharf.

“I think closing the concrete slab will
slow down the FBI if they don’t know straight away how we got
out.”

”Good thinking, ” she said, “and see if
you can find my shoes, they floated off when you dragged me down
the tunnel.”

Max looked at her dumbfounded, fancy
thinking of shoes at the time like this. Then he reflected, if they
were to get away from here, she would need them. If they remained
in the tunnel, it would show how they had escaped. Without another
word he slipped beneath the water and swam back up the tunnel. In
the dim light from the tunnel into the chamber, Max found her shoes
bobbing about at the bottom of the hole under the floor slab. He
put them in his waistband and swam back.

“We had better get away from here,” she
said, “while we have the chance. It will be hours before they find
our bodies are missing inside. “

They swam off together to a nearby
wharf using the usual harbour driftwood and flotsam as cover.

A small luxury launch pulled into the
jetty near them and moored. Keeping out of sight in the water, they
waited until the only occupant a man in his mid-Thirties completed
locking up and lashing down the canvas cover to the deck.

A good sign, they thought, he was,
obviously, not likely to be back for a day or so. When he left the
jetty the two cold and wet souls slid aboard under the canvas, and
rested for several minutes, trying to decide what to do next.

Although Max knew little about boats,
he was certain that this class of craft would have a burglar alarm
system linked to a tracker. A forced entry would set it off. The
tracker could be anywhere on the boat, a bit like a mobile phone
actually. He reasoned that to achieve the best range on the open
sea, the device would be up the short mast. His guess turned out to
be right, and he casually climbed up and wrenched it off. It was
the transmitting part that concerned him not the power feed
wire.

A single kick broke open the cabin
door. Max went inside to look around for anything useful.

Using tinned food, they prepared a cold
meal and drank the juice of the tinned fruit. Fresh water had been
drained away.

They took their clothes off, put them
to dry and got cleaned up, then went to bed to rest until
nightfall.

Max thought it would be a good time to
get both of them some clothes from their car and perhaps some more
food.

When Max returned an hour later, they
chatted about all that had happened.

“You know Teal is going to be well
pissed with you Max,” Carla said sniggering, “he may think it was
you who switched the account numbers in the Cayman Islands,” he
retorted, “we made about $100 million there I reckon.” Giggling,
they curled up together falling into a deep refreshing sleep. The
next morning, very early, they awoke and made plans to fly to Italy
to see Amy and then England, to see James.

The stillness all around them, at 4am
in the morning, when Max, Carla and Amy arrived at James’s house,
made Max forlorn. Jet lag and the realisation they could be here
under different and heart-breaking circumstances made him sad.

They knocked; James was expecting them
and within a few moments, opened the door. The house was warm and
the delicious smell of recent cooking hung faintly in the air.

Both Max and Carla had tears in their
eyes when James released them from his welcome hug.

“This is Amy, Carla’s twin sister,”
said Max as he gently moved Amy towards him. Amy blushed when she
saw James; she was instantly taken, by his warm and easy
manner.

“So you have recovered from the
experience with the gunman?”

“
Oh! That business”
said James, “yes! That was a bit scary. The man was shot by the
armed response team just in the nick of time. The man wanted
Project Oracle, so I assumed it was all about industrial espionage
or something like that.”

They all chatted for a while, and James
and Amy clearly wanted to get to know one another much better.

Carla could see how things were
progressing and was glad Amy had a new focus since her distressing
experience in Egypt because of the death of Geoff Collins.

“James, Amy, would you both mind if Max
and I popped up to London tomorrow for a few days, I have some
personal business to attend to.”

James and Amy looked at each other and
beamed, they thought it was a good idea, so they all made their
plans.

“Are you ready Carla?” said Max
impatiently.

“Yes! Yes! Just checking I have
everything” she snapped back and swept past him, on the way to
their hotel room door.

“Well, come on then!” She added
standing in the open doorway. Max grinned at her mock anger, he
loved it when she got feisty. They often bickered when life had
become routine, just to inject excitement back in and lift their
spirits. It was always light-hearted and with humour.

Carla had a meeting with a solicitor
that morning to discuss the claim of title to her late father's
property and assets. It was at the preliminary stage where the
details were being considered, and a strategy was being planned,
before contacting Philippe’s own solicitor. It was clear already
that without a body, death was hard to establish.

When in London, they preferred the
top-floor suite of the Ritz. The sumptuous surroundings were
extremely expensive, but as they could easily afford it, what the
hell!

The hotel lift had arrived, and the
doors slid open. Still absorbed in cheerful banter, they entered
it. It was quite empty. Max jabbed the G Button.

“Always going for the G Spot aren't
you,” she chuckled in the quiet privacy of the descending the lift.
Max grabbed at her playfully, and she dodged him. The descent
stopped, after composing themselves, the doors slid open, and a
good-looking man of about 35 stepped in. His manner was quiet and
confident as he moved easily towards the Control Panel. Although he
had a warm and relaxed expression on his face, and his movements
were smooth and athletic, Carla casually observed his rapid eye
movement as he scanned the interior of the lift and assessed its
occupants. Without appearing to look at the control panel the man
selected the first floor. His eyes watched them in the mirrors,
lining the lift, as the doors closed. Apart from being tense, the
man kept his right hand in the pocket of his beige raincoat. The
left pocket was pulled out of shape by something heavy in it. Apart
from the somewhat shabby and badly fitting raincoat, the man was
impeccable and expensively dressed. Why wear a raincoat anyway, he
was indoors, and although a cool day outside, there was no prospect
of rain? Very odd!