The hidden man

30

Mark called Bob Randall from a phone booth in the ticket hall of Leicester Square underground station. He lost his first twenty-pence piece in the teeth of a broken callbox, but reached the contact number at his next attempt. A man answered, sneezing as he picked up.

‘Can I help you?’

‘This is Blindside.’

‘Hold the line.’

Taploe was put through in under ten seconds.

‘Randall,’ he said.

‘We may have a problem.’

‘Elaborate, please.’

‘I just got to the office. Macklin’s breakfast was cancelled. Lunch as well. It looks like he’s going to be there all day. I told him I was going out for a coffee so I could get to a phone and tell you.’

‘I see. So do you still want to go ahead?’

‘Do you?’

‘There’s no problem at our end. The network will go down at 11 a.m. as arranged. We have the team standing by waiting for your call. But you sound unsettled.’

Mark had not wanted to betray any of his anxiety. Think of Dad, he had said to himself. What would my father do? He braced his foot against the wall of the callbox and said, ‘I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. I just thought you should know.’

‘Well, I’m pleased to hear that. So let’s press ahead. This is information that we need. Now, where are you?’

‘Leicester Square tube.’

‘Well, it’s almost half-past. Get backto the office. We’ll expect to hear from you within the next forty minutes.’

‘Sure.’

‘And Mark?’ Taploe said.

‘Yes?’

‘Don’t forget the coffee.’

‘What?’

‘You told Macklin you were going out for a coffee. Make sure to bring one back to work.’

Half an hour later Mark was sitting in an armchair in his office when he heard the distinct rumble of a Macklin ‘Fuck’ coming through the walls. Another voice — Kathy’s — cried out, ‘What the hell happened?’ and then a door opened in the corridor.

‘Why’s the fucking email not working?’ Macklin shouted. ‘Where’s Sam?’

‘Maternity leave,’ somebody said.

‘Fucking great.’

He swerved into Mark’s office, a shirt button popped open on his belly. Mark lowered the magazine he was pretending to read and tried to look distracted.

‘Your computer working, mate?’ Macklin asked him.

‘Mine just crashed as well,’ Kathy said, coming in behind him.

Mark stood up with perhaps an exaggerated non-chalance and walked across to his desk. Hitting a key at random, his stomach a swell of nerves, he prayed for total system failure.

Granted.

The small, frowning face of an Apple icon appeared on screen and nothing Mark could do would remove it. Turning to face Macklin and Kathy he said simply, ‘Shit.’

At the reception desk, thirty feet away, Rebecca, a temp who had replaced Sam as office manager, answered a telephone call just as her own computer froze irreparably. She had been in the middle of writing a frank and erotic email to a one-night stand and was worried that it would now be discovered on the system.

‘Well, that’s fucking great, isn’t it?’ Macklin was saying. ‘I had twenty fucking messages downloading and now they’re all shot to fuck. Some cunt in the Philippines, probably, a prepubescent anorak who thinks it’s a fucking laugh infecting every computer in the civilized world with Macintosh Clap. Doesn’t he have something better to do? You know, watch football, play Virtual Cop or something?’

Mark caught Kathy’s eye and grinned. ‘It may not be that bad,’ he said. Momentarily forgetting the temp’s name, he called out to her, ‘Is yours down too?’

‘Yes,’ Rebecca replied from across the room, covering the telephone with her hand. The conspiratorial way she then soundlessly mouthed the word ‘Frozen’ made Mark wonder if she fancied him. ‘Well then, I’ll get someone to fix it,’ he said.

‘Who does Sam normally call?’ Macklin asked. ‘Of all the fucking days to be on holiday…’

‘The number’s in her magic book,’ Kathy told him. At this, Mark stepped in.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll call them,’ he announced, and then panicked that he might have sounded too enthusiastic. Why would he do it, after all, when Kathy was around and knew where to find the book? Rescue this. Say something. ‘Mack, you go next door. Kathy, make him a cup of tea. Virus or no virus, it’ll be fixed by lunch.’

‘What makes you so sure?’ Macklin asked.

‘Vibes, man,’ Mark said. ‘Just vibes.’

He was impressed by how precisely the men from A Branch looked exactly like computer technicians. For some reason he had been expecting lab engineers wearing white coats and protective helmets, but the three men who came to the Libra offices within half an hour of Mark’s call were spotty, unwashed, socially inept youths. None of them looked at Mark. They had already performed a complete dry-run of the operation the preceding weekend and knew exactly which rooms to target and where to locate the safe.

‘Is there a unit in there?’ one of them had asked Kathy, nodding towards Roth’s locked office.

‘Yeah,’ she had said.

‘Any chance of getting a look at it?’

‘Sure.’

And total access was thus provided. Over the course of the next four hours, every computer in the building was disassembled and a copy made of its hard drive. Mean while, having been shown to the basement by Mark, a security specialist plugged phoney wires into the mainframe — purely for the purposes of cover — and then calmly broke into the Libra safe, making a thorough photographic record of its contents. Mark, who had told an increasingly agitated Macklin that he would ‘keep an eye on things downstairs’, watched all this unfold from the basement doorway and felt the thrill of his participation in it. This’ll make our case, Randall had told him, and he was surely right.

Yet there was a single flaw, a problem that nobody could have foreseen. Just after two o’clock, as Macklin was leaving the office to buy himself a sandwich for lunch, he turned to Rebecca in reception and, laying the ground work for a future date, said, ‘Sorry about all the computer geeks, sweetheart. Can’t be helped, I’m afraid.’

‘That’s all right,’ she replied. ‘But it’s a bit weird, Mr Macklin. They got here so quickly.’

Macklin, who was wondering what chance he had of getting her into bed before the end of the week, only half-absorbed this observation and said simply: ‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yeah. Sam left me a note before she went away, basic stuff saying where everything was. I had the number for the computer technicians and called them after what happened. Only, thing is, they said they were busy, couldn’t get here till three or something. Then they go and show up twenty minutes later.’

‘Is that right?’ Macklin said. ‘Is that right?’ She now had his full attention. ‘After twenty minutes?’

‘Yeah.’

He frowned.

‘Maybe they had a cancellation. Did you ask?’

Rebecca shook her head.

Macklin eyeballed the only visible technician in the room, a twenty-four-year-old A-Branch recruit named Frankwho was pretending to rewire a circuit board outside Mark’s office.

‘Hey, mate,’ he called out.

‘Yeah?’

‘How come you got here so quickly?’

Trained never to open his mouth until he knew the score, Frank continued facing the wall and replied, ‘What’s that?’

‘I said, how come you got here so quickly?’

Half-turning now, Frank frowned at Macklin and muttered, ‘Not following you, mate.’

‘Well, it’s just that the lovely Rebecca here phoned your offices this morning and you said you was busy till three.’

‘Beats me. I just go where I’m told,’ Frank said. Thinking on his feet, he added, ‘I know there was talk of a big job last night. Maybe it got called off.’

‘Right.’

Macklin seemed satisfied and looked back at Rebecca, raising a fat eyebrow in a manner he intended as flirtatious.

‘Well, there you are, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘Mystery solved. So what are you doing for dinner tonight? Fancy some sushi or something?’

Afterwards they had Frankto thank for reacting as quickly as he did.

No sooner had Macklin left the building than he put his tools to one side, smiled at Rebecca, and walked calmly down to the basement. Mark, who was startled when the door opened at the top of the staircase, signalled frantically to the locksmith and leaped to his feet.

‘Problem,’ Frank said, matter-of-factly.

‘How so?’ the lock smith replied.

‘Girl upstairs, temp. She’s not as lazy as she looks. Turns out that as soon as the system went down she called the regular technical support team. As luck would have it, they were too busy to get here till three. But it’s already gone two. Unless someone gets on the phone smartish and cancels the appointment, this place is gonna be crawling with Mac technicians wondering who the fuck we are.’

‘Jesus,’ Mark said.

Frank’s voice was a low, logical statement of the facts.

‘You got the number?’ he asked.

‘I can find it.’

‘Then do it now. Our friend just popped out for a sandwich. He’s due backin less than five minutes.’

‘Rebecca. Give me Sam’s magic book, will you? I need to find something out.’

Mark prayed that she would retrieve it without asking any awkward questions. Without stopping to make conversation. Without wondering why he had a film of sweat on his forehead in the middle of winter.

‘Of course, Mr Keen, of course.’

‘Call me Mark,’ he said. ‘I think she keeps it in the drawer…’

‘Yeah, here it is. Everything all right?’

Frank passed them at the reception desk, sucking on a carton of Ribena.

‘Everything’s fine, yeah. It’s just so hot down there.’ Lowering his voice, Mark whispered, ‘These guys are taking for ever.’

And Rebecca smiled, enjoying the shared confidence. She handed him the book and followed Mark with her eyes as he walked away.

‘Mr Keen?’

‘Yes?’

Mark turned round. Rebecca was touching her neck, swinging this way and that in her revolving chair.

‘It’s just that I was wondering if you could show me how the fax machine works. I’m having trouble receiving.’

Wondering if this was a pass, Mark said, ‘Sure. Just let me do this one thing and I’ll be right backwith you.’

‘Great.’

He closed the door of his office, heat spread across his body. Flicking through the book — where? — Mark searched for the number. What’s the name of the company? What the fuck are the computer men called?

But Sam was efficient. Sam laid things out. In the section marked ‘Computers’ he found a list of companies, topped by a firm of Apple specialists whose name he instantly recognized. Dialling the number with dervish speed, Mark found himself in an automated queue.

For General Enquiries press 1.

For Information about our range of Software Products, press 2.

For Customers experiencing problems with the latest version of Windows, press 3.

For Corporate Accounts, press 4.

Mark hit ‘4’ hard with a rigid index finger and swore as music drifted through on the line. A boy band. Guitars and harmonies. He could feel his back becoming soaked in sweat. And then, through the window of his office, Mark saw Macklin coming back with a sandwich, his thin hair pushed to one side by the wind. Stop and talk to the girl, he prayed. Try and get your fat arse laid.

‘Hello, can I help you?’

A woman, young, with a voice not unlike Rebecca’s was on the line.

‘Yes. Hello. Listen, hi, I’m calling from Libra.’

‘Yes?’

‘We’ve solved our problem.’

Nothing.

‘Remember we called you?’

Silence.

‘About a virus.’

‘A virus?’

The woman sounded bored. Not taking things in. So many calls to field in a day and nothing interesting about this one.

‘Yes. A virus at the Libra offices.’ Macklin was eating his sandwich and seemed to be laughing at something Rebecca had said. Stay there, you prick. Keep talking. ‘One of our office managers called you. You said you had a team coming out here at three.’

‘At three?’

More silence, deep as a cave. Was she stupid? Did she even know how to spell ‘virus’?

‘I’m just going through the book now, sir.’

‘Is it there?’

Impatiently the woman said, ‘Just a minute, I’m still looking.’ Then, ‘Here it is. Yes, three o’clock.’

‘And?’

‘And what, sir?’

‘Well I’d like to cancel it. If it’s not too late.’

‘I see.’

Mark experienced a weakening sensation in his arms.

‘Are they already on their way?’

‘Just a minute, please.’

And he was forced to wait as the woman abandoned the line to ‘Careless Whisper’. One minute passed. Two. He looked out into the office and could not see Macklin. Then there was a knock on his door.

‘Just a minute.’

Macklin came in anyway.

‘Keeno, can I just…’

Mark looked up and signalled sternly with his hand. Eyes set like stone and the words ‘Gimme five minutes’ mouthed with absolute intent. Macklin said, ‘Sorry, mate, I’ll wait then,’ and closed the door.

‘Hello?’

‘Yes.’ Mark pressed the phone tighter to his ear.

‘That’s fine, sir.’

‘It’s cancelled?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘They’re not already on their way?’

‘What?’

‘I said the team, they’re not already on their way?’

‘No.’

‘Well, that’s great news.’

Anxiety fell from his body, like a storm cloud shedding rain. He actually grinned.

‘Was there anything else?’ the woman asked.

‘No, nothing else,’ Mark said, sitting backin his chair.

‘Well, that’s fine, then,’ she said, and abruptly hung up the phone.