The Wrong Man (27 page)

Sitting in Ali’s basement, Luke smiled as he placed his cell back on the work desk, and returned to the algorithms on his
laptop while he waited for the program to do its work.

Ali’s call meant one of the gurads had just taken the bait and plugged the memory stick into their system. From their end,
all they’d see
was an empty flash drive. But the malware Luke had put on it last night would already be in their security
surveillance server. Right now, it was creating an undetectable hole in their firewall and sending all their previously secure
CCTV footage to an internet site accessible only to Luke.

For the next twenty-four hours, anyway. After that, the program would
patch up the firewall, close off the connection to the
URL and erase itself from their system before they even knew it existed. It was an ingenious little program that impressed
with its simplicity. Luke only wished he could lay claim to it, but then Jenna had always been the gifted one.

The thought of Jenna gave him a sick feeling in his stomach. Bad enough
that he was still in love with her. Worse still was
the fact that he couldn’t confide his feelings to anybody. Least of all Ali. Especially not with Bishop around. Thank God
he’d taken down the photos of her from his living room a few weeks before. Nothing sadder than a man obsessed with his ex.

Ping
.

At the sound of the alert, Luke moved his
finger along the touch pad and went to the special URL address he’d bookmarked.
After he’d typed in the username and password he’d set last night, it took a couple of seconds for the page to start loading.

In front of him were two columns of silent video screens showing real-time black and white footage of the RoyseCorp building’s
lobby. Each miniature screen
had basic navigation controls surrounding it to
enable the user to pan the camera left and right, up and down, or zoom in and out. He began scrolling down the page while
it continued loading.

He turned at the sound of the basement door opening and watched Bishop descend the stairs for a moment before turning back
to the screen.

Bishop
came over and saw the feeds. ‘Aleron got us in, then.’

‘Looks that way, don’t it?’ Luke continued scrolling through the screens in silence until curiosity got the better of him.
‘How’d it go with Wilson?’

‘He gave me enough to make it worth the trip. How useful it’ll be it’s too early to tell.’ He looked at Luke. ‘He also said
you’d play an
important role in getting us in. You and your sequencer program.’

Luke smiled. ‘That piss you off much?’ The front view of a helicopter on top of a roof came onscreen. ‘Ker-ching. There’s
our baby.’ He noted the camera number on a pad and then continued on down the page until he reached the bottom. ‘No other
rooftop cameras,’ he said, scrolling back up to
the chopper, ‘so just this one to worry about.’

‘Can you do anything now?’

Luke shook his head. ‘Once I get within range, I can upload to their server. But until then it’s all look, but no touch. All
we can do is wait for your ex-boss to finish another long day at the office.’

‘Not quite all,’ Bishop said. ‘How good are you at digging
up information on people?’

Jenna had no idea of the time. The room had no natural light and although her mute captor was probably wearing a watch, she
decided she wasn’t
that
curious. Thorpe was bad enough, but Danny scared the hell out of her. Jenna remembered the facial bruise she’d seen earlier
and smiled. At least she’d gotten in a good kick before she went
down.

She’d woken up half an hour ago and decided it was in her best interest not to make a sound. Hazy though much of it was, she
recollected some of the events of last night after she was doped up. She also remembered the extra hypodermic Thorpe had left
behind. Aware that keeping a clear head was the only chance she had of getting out of this, she hoped
that staying quiet might
influence whether she got a second dose or not. But who was she kidding? The hypodermic had been left behind for a reason.
It would be used.

Her free hand felt along the wall until it reached the plastic bottle of water that had been left within reach. She unscrewed
the cap and swallowed a few mouthfuls before putting it
back. No food around, but she wasn’t hungry anyway.

She leaned her head back against the cold concrete wall, unable to believe how quickly her life had turned inside out. Or
how long she might have left if Bishop couldn’t get what Thorpe wanted by midnight.

Jenna stared straight ahead and frowned. And wondered why she was assuming Bishop was doing
anything
to help her. Everything had been one-way so far.
She’d
been the one doing all the helping, not the other way around.
And
he’d just got out of prison and you don’t inherit many virtues from those kinds of places. So why did she think he’d help?
Just because she was good in bed?

She shook her head and forced herself to stop. This wasn’t like her at all. Which
meant it must be the drugs talking. Whatever
it was they’d given her. She’d only ever smoked the occasional joint in her teens, but each time the grass had made her feel
paranoid. Just like
now. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply for a few minutes, like she did before every class. Clearing her mind and focusing
on nothing but the sensation of air entering and escaping
her nostrils. In. Out. In. Out.

Bishop had told her he was coming for her, so she had to believe in him. No doubt he’d bring Ali in to help, too. Maybe Luke
as well, if he could raise himself from his pool of self-pity.

The sudden pressure of a hand gripping her right arm forced her eyes open. Danny was kneeling before her, syringe in the other
hand. Before Jenna could react with coherent thought, Danny inserted the needle into the same vein as before and depressed
the plunger. There was a brief stinging sensation and Jenna brought her free hand up to pull the needle out, but she didn’t
reach it in time. Her reflexes were far too slow. Within seconds, the drug was coursing through her system and she dropped
her hand back onto her lap like a dead weight.

She leaned back and looked at her tormentor’s face as it swam in and out of focus. And before surrendering herself to the
narcotic entirely, she offered up a silent plea that if her time was really coming, she would at least be allowed the opportunity
to take Danny with her.

On the thirty-fifth floor of RoyseCorp Tower, Martin Thorpe sat at his rosewood desk in his spacious office and finished his
last duty of the day. He saved his most recent report on the situation in Kabul – where three RoyseCorp contractors currently
languished in jail after killing a local taxi driver and his two passengers – as
a PDF file and then emailed it to the man
upstairs.

Not
the
man, of course – nobody at his level reported directly to Royse – just his immediate superior, Woodfield, who’d use it to
brief
his
boss, Geller, head of Foreign Operations. Royse might get to hear about it, but only if Geller deemed it worthy of his attention.
Knowing Geller, probably not.

Thorpe found it hard to care one way or the other. Especially when he was now so close to achieving his aims. When you were
a kiss away from being richer than Solomon it made all other day-to-day problems fade into insignificance. He had absolutely
no doubts Bishop would succeed in penetrating the vault five floors above him. The man was nothing if not inventive.
That’s
what made him so dangerous and the whole situation so exhilarating.

He walked over to the window and looked down at East 66th Street. Watching the New York minions scurrying about on their little
errands. Thinking of ways to deal with Bishop once he had the file. And Jenna, of course.

The vibration of his cell phone lying on his
desk interrupted his thoughts. He walked over to pick it up and smiled when he
saw the caller’s number. ‘I expected you to call back sooner,’ he said, sitting down again.

‘I am here now,’ the familiar voice said simply.

‘With positive feedback, I hope.’

‘You guess correctly, although I was not sure they would agree to such an amount. One
hundred million is a vast sum, even
for us.’

Thorpe forced himself to stay cool, but it was difficult. He’d just doubled his money in the space of a few hours.
Doubled
it. Straining to keep the delight out of his voice, he said, ‘That’s excellent news. I knew you wouldn’t let me down. And
the money . . .’

‘Be assured the money
is, at this moment, waiting to be wired over to an account of your choosing at the appropriate time.
Now it is your turn, my friend. It will cause much consternation if you do not follow through with your promise. Hopes have
been raised in certain people whose emotions it is unwise to meddle with.’

‘I’m sure they have. And with good reason. Once I have it
in my hands, sometime in the early hours of the morning, I’ll contact
you with the meeting point. Satisfactory?’

‘Satisfactory,’ the man said.

Thorpe put the phone down and leaned back in his chair. Happy with the world and his place in it.

He looked up at the ceiling and wondered if kids felt like this on Christmas Eve.

Bishop and the others arrived at the darkened Metroblade building at 20.14, where Mandrake was waiting for them outside the
front entrance. All three were wearing black. Shirts and sweaters under nondescript windbreakers, dark combats, and rubber-soled
boots. As Bishop emerged from Aleron’s Jaguar, he glanced over at the Honda in
the parking lot without comment. He knew without
looking that the others were doing the same. He hefted his knapsack and went inside.

Luke went straight for Art’s office upstairs, while Bishop stayed downstairs and forced Mandrake and Aleron to go over their
part of the plan with him again. And again. And again. Strictly speaking, Aleron didn’t need to be
here at all, but Bishop
wasn’t entirely convinced of Mandrake’s commitment. He felt the presence of Jenna’s brother would dissuade Mandrake from getting
the jitters at a critical moment.

Once Bishop finished rechecking his and Luke’s equipment for the sixth time, they all made their way upstairs. On Art’s monitor
they watched the static image of
a helicopter. Now and then the radio scanner transmitted brief exchanges between the air
traffic control tower at La Guardia and nearby aircraft.

At 20.52, Bishop saw a man come into view on the screen. He was carrying a slim briefcase as he walked towards the copter
under the glare of the floodlights surrounding the helipad. He moved with a military bearing
and his profile showed an aquiline
nose and a full head of close-cropped hair.

Aleron leaned in closer. ‘That’s definitely him, right?’

Bishop nodded. ‘It’s him.’

He watched Royse get in and place his briefcase on the passenger seat before fastening his seatbelt and slipping on his headset.
Then Royse leaned forward and adjusted
various controls before sitting back again.

‘Air Traffic Control, this is Helicopter November Romeo Charlie One. Do you read? Over.’

Bishop closed his eyes as he listened to the voice coming from the speaker. It sounded the same as he remembered. The tone
was clipped and precise. There were traces of New Jersey in there, too. The pitch was a little
deeper than Bishop’s and contained
a grating quality you’d find in a heavy smoker. Or maybe one who’d just given up.

The tower came back quickly. ‘November Romeo Charlie One, this is Tower. We read. Over.’

‘Tower, this is November Romeo Charlie One holding at rooftop helipad. Ready for departure. Over.’ The sound of rotor blades
starting up
could be heard in the background and Bishop opened his eyes to let sound and vision merge together.

‘November Romeo Charlie One, that’s a roger. You are clear for takeoff. Have a safe flight, Mr R. Over.’

‘Tower, this is November Romeo Charlie One. Roger that. Departing. Same, same, tomorrow, Gary. Out.’

‘Maybe sooner even than that, Gary,’ Bishop
said in a fairly decent imitation, although it lacked the grating quality. Aleron
glanced at him and raised an eyebrow.

He watched as the chopper rose, hovering a couple of feet off the ground before making a precise, hundred and eighty degree
axial turn in readiness for departure.

Mandrake reached over and switched off the radio. ‘Single-engine,’
he said. ‘Looks like a Colibri. Nice machine.’

Luke swivelled round in his seat. ‘And yours is what?’

‘A Colibri.’ Mandrake gave him a thin smile. ‘The professional’s choice.’

‘Same, same,’ Bishop said, watching as the chopper shrank to nothing onscreen. Then he turned to Mandrake and said, ‘Hey,
you wouldn’t have any smokes lying around, would
you?’

At 21.13, Mandrake held them stationary at just under a thousand feet above the East River. The lights of New York City were
laid out before them like a picture postcard. Bishop took a final drag of his fourth cigarette, opened the door a crack and
flicked the butt out. He kept it open for a few moments until the last dregs of smoke were gone, and then
latched it shut
again.

He coughed deeply a couple of times and tested his voice. He certainly sounded like a smoker now. He nodded once to Mandrake,
who switched on the radio with his free hand. Bishop said into the mike on his
headset, ‘Air Traffic Control, this is Helicopter November Romeo Charlie One. Do you read? Over.’

The response
was almost immediate. ‘This is Tower. We read, November Romeo Charlie One. Over.’ It was still Gary, although
Bishop could hear a question mark in his tone.

He turned and saw Aleron shift in his seat and glance at Luke. Bishop continued, ‘Tower, this is November Romeo Charlie One.
Am holding at the northern end of the East River. Request permission to return
to RoyseCorp helipad. Over.’

‘November Romeo Charlie One. Something wrong, Mr R? Over.’

‘Tower, this is November Romeo Charlie One. More than you could know, Gary. Over.’ Bishop arched his eyebrows at Mandrake
and waited.

‘November Romeo Charlie One, continue holding, please. Over.’

Bishop checked the time. 21.17. He
breathed out slowly and looked at the Manhattan skyline. If this didn’t work, they’d need
to consider the fallback option. Mandrake wouldn’t be happy about it, but Bishop wasn’t about to go back empty-handed now.
Not with Jenna’s life in the balance.

Mandrake clasped his free hand over the mike and said, ‘The police turning up at Metroblade so fast.’

‘What about it?’ Bishop said.

‘That Marshal. She told me Art sent an email alert to the police, saying you were on your way to see him. Forgot to mention
it before.’

Bishop smiled. He’d guessed as much. ‘And no reference to Jenna?’

Mandrake shook his head. ‘They showed me the email. No mention of her.’

‘Good.’ He
went back to studying the skyline for a while before checking his watch again. 21.19.

‘November Romeo Charlie one, this is Tower.’

Bishop said, ‘Go ahead, Tower. Over.’

‘November Romeo Charlie One, you are clear to proceed. Over.’

Mandrake grinned as Bishop said, ‘Tower, this is November Romeo Charlie One. Roger that. I owe you, Gary. Over.’

‘No problem, Mr R. Be safe. Out.’

Bishop took off the headset and leaned back in the seat. He felt a large hand pat him on the shoulder. ‘Go,’ he said.

Mandrake went.