Authors: Jason Dean
At 00.00 it changed to green.
And nothing happened.
Bishop looked around the room. It was still the same. Other than his breathing, the only sound in the room was the faint whistle
of air making its way through the vents. Had he made it in time or not? For all he knew, the whole place could be locked down
and the first he’d know about it would be when they found him in this steel tomb.
Bishop kept staring at the display as he put his gloves back on, waiting for a clue or prompt, a
game over
, at least, but there was nothing.
He walked back to the panel on the wall, but the screen was blank. No
entry code successful
. Nothing. Then he felt a current of
air against the back of his head. He looked up and saw the steam room far above him.
So something
had
changed. He had an exit route again. Which meant he should also have a signal. He brought out his cell and saw three bars
in the top corner. Luke answered on the second ring. ‘Yeah, I know,’ he said. ‘Still looking.’
‘I’m already in,’ Bishop said.
‘But look before you walk through the door.’ Pocketing the cell, he sat down on the bench while
he waited. He wasn’t about to congratulate himself just yet. He’d beaten two combinations already, but he still wasn’t in
the vault. He breathed deeply for a few moments and calmed his mind. Conserving his energy for whatever came next. The clock
was still ticking in his
head.
It took fifteen seconds for Luke’s face to appear in the doorway above. He looked down at Bishop and said, ‘So do I jump or
what?’
Bishop stood and said, ‘I’ll send this thing up. To come back down, close the steam room door and turn the click wheel on
the panel clockwise.’
‘Right.’
Bishop
pressed the button on the panel and the mechanism began to hum again before rising off the floor for its return journey.
Luke joined him sixty seconds later and looked around the steel room with wide eyes. ‘Whoa,’ he said. ‘Intimidating. So what’s
the deal?’
‘Colour code,’ Bishop said and led him over to the LCD display. ‘Five minutes to find ten specific
colour values. Each time
you get one right you get a little green box.’
Luke nodded. Then he turned to Bishop with a frown. ‘But they’re already green.’
But Bishop’s attention was already on the vault door. He ran his hand over his hair and said, ‘I know.’
‘You’re
in
? But I thought . . . You mean you cracked the combination?’
Bishop shrugged. ‘It’s hard to tell.’
Luke turned to the vault. ‘Huh. I see what you mean,’ he said, and started walking towards it. ‘Maybe you didn’t—’ He stopped.
The seam running down the centre was turning into a gap. And it kept getting wider.
Bishop watched the steel doors slowly slide apart and finally allowed himself a mental pat on the back. He’d done it. One
more obstacle out of the way. That was how you got through everything in life. One step at a time. But there were still plenty
more steps to go yet.
When the gap was five foot wide, the doors stopped.
‘More motion sensors,’ Bishop said. ‘We just needed to get closer for it to activate.’
‘I guess so,’ Luke said.
Bishop checked his watch. 22.21. Less than a hundred minutes to go. ‘Come on, we need to move,’ he said and entered the vault.
Luke followed.
The interior was circular and fifteen feet in diameter. It was lit by a
single, large oval light mounted in the ceiling ten
feet above. Melded to the centre of the floor was a three-foot-square steel cabinet with ten file drawers, each one six inches
deep. Built into the north, east and south points of the inner wall were three airtight steel frames, each containing a piece
of art. Bishop ignored them. Only the cabinet interested him. Behind
it, a steel plate grew out of the wall at waist height
to form a work desk, with a mesh office chair underneath.
Luke was inspecting the framed pieces, one by one. ‘Hey, this guy actually owns that Leonardo da Vinci sketch they auctioned
a few years back. I remember seeing it on the news. Almost twenty million, it went for. Will you look at this?’
‘I’ve seen enough art today,’ Bishop said and pulled out the top drawer. It contained eight neat piles of bearer bonds. The
top ones were all for a hundred thousand dollars. Each pile looked to be about fifty sheets deep.
Luke had come round and whistled softly behind him. ‘And that’s gotta be thirty mill, at least.’
More like forty
. Bishop
closed the drawer. ‘Start at the bottom and we’ll meet in the middle.’
As Luke knelt on the floor and slid the bottom drawer out, Bishop moved to the side and opened the next one down. Inside was
a locked glass case containing an ancient hardback book with nothing written on the cover. Next to it, a Sotheby’s catalogue
was folded back to a page describing
the 1623 first edition of the collected works of Shakespeare. Bishop hadn’t realized
any of those even existed any more. He couldn’t see any cotton gloves lying around, though, which told its own story.
The third drawer contained numerous stacks of high denomination bills in different currencies, but the fourth held the kind
of paper he was looking for: stacks
of unlabelled cardboard folders.
Bishop picked them all up and carried them over to the desk while Luke rummaged through the lower levels. He opened each one
and quickly flicked through the paperwork inside. He saw federal contracts containing signatures from the President’s office.
Reams of overseas contracts, bearing signatures from foreign royalty or senior
government officials. Three large folders contained
the personnel files of highly placed military staff. Two more folders held nothing but photos of unidentified elderly men
and much younger women in various states of coitus. Some elderly women, too. Bishop shook his head. Nobody ever said billionaires
got where they were by playing by the rules.
It took him less than five minutes to scan through everything. There was no end of sensitive material in there, but nothing
about the Zodiac killer. Nothing at all. Bishop sighed and turned to see that Luke had already reached the fifth drawer from
the top. He saw him pull out a small hardback book and slowly flick through the pages.
‘Anything?’ Bishop asked.
‘Everything,’ he said. ‘Except the file.’ He came over to the desk and placed the book on top of some of the folders. ‘More
cash. More shares. A couple more old books in glass cases. One of them’s called
Cosmography
by some foreign guy.’
‘Ptolemy,’ Bishop said. Another perennial on most World’s Rarest Books lists.
‘Whatever. So how about
you?’
Bishop just looked down at the mess on the desk and shook his head. He nodded towards the leather spiral-bound book Luke had
brought over. ‘What’s that?’
Luke shrugged. ‘Guess the guy’s a stamp collector.’
Bishop frowned and picked it up. The book was nine inches by six with no lettering on the cover or spine. He opened it
up.
Inside were forty or fifty thick card pages, each one covered in plastic to protect the wealth of stamps on every sheet.
‘So what do we do now?’ Luke said as Bishop began to go through it. ‘Something tells me Thorpe ain’t the kind who’ll believe
us when we tell him his file ain’t here. I’m thinking we should take as much cash as we can carry and renegotiate
with the
bastard. Money always talks with people like that. Bishop. Hey, Bishop, you listening, man? I’m saying Jenna’s only got ninety
minutes before—’
‘I heard you,’ Bishop said, still paging through the book. ‘And we’re not thieves.’ He looked up at Luke and asked, ‘Does
Royse strike you as the collector type?’
‘Are you kidding?
Look around you.’
‘Did you see any cotton gloves in the book drawers? Or in any of the others?’
‘Gloves?’ Luke frowned. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘It means Royse doesn’t care what’s inside those books. You want to look through a priceless manuscript hundreds of years
old without the grease in your fingers destroying the pages, you
wear cotton gloves. And if he were really interested in the
pictures, he’d have them on the walls of his office or apartment. Not locked in here where he can’t see them. It’s not like
they’re stolen or anything. Everything in here, it’s all just various forms of currency.’
Luke pointed at the paperwork on the desk. ‘What about those files?’
‘They count as currency too. Maybe even more so.’
Luke thought about that for a second. ‘So?’
‘So, it takes a certain mentality to become a serious collector in anything and Royse doesn’t seem the type.’
‘And?’ Luke nodded at the book in Bishop’s hand. ‘Chances are, they’re rare, and rare equals money. Why can’t that be an investment
too?’
‘Because it doesn’t hold a candle to the rest of the stuff in this room. I don’t see a British Guiana One Cent Magenta in
here. Or a Cottonreel. Or a US Franklin Z-Grill. None of the really exceptional stamps that would make this book worth keeping
in a vault.’ He turned to a page near the back. ‘It’s got a pristine Penny Black, though.’
Luke
gaped at him. ‘Which is worth what?’
Bishop shrugged. ‘Five grand, maybe.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘Brennan gave me a crash course in it one evening when he was in his cups and I was the only other person in the house. Rare
stamps were a hobby of his, although he wasn’t obsessive about it. He had money, but nothing compared to Royse,
which makes
me think this collection belonged to him.’
‘So why would he want Royse to look after it when he had his own vault at home? Especially when it ain’t worth that much.’
‘Maybe it was to him. There must have been a good reason for Thorpe to zero in on this vault. This could be it.’
Bishop upturned the book so the pages flopped down,
but nothing fell out. That would have been too obvious anyway. He sat
down on the chair and went through it again, methodically moving his fingers over each page until he reached the end. Nothing.
He did the same with the thin leather on both inside covers. There was nothing at the front, but when he felt the inside back
cover, he said, ‘There’s something in there.’
He pulled the knife from his ankle holster and made a slit in the leather. Then he gently pulled it away to expose the thick
cardboard underneath. Right in the centre, a small section of the card had been cut away and an intricate Yale-type key had
been inserted in the space.
‘Well, how about that,’ Luke said.
Bishop pulled
the key out. A small sticker had been pasted on the face with E2110 written in blue pen. He turned it over and
saw a second sticker. 3975642 was scrawled on it in the same colour pen.
‘So what’s it supposed to open?’ Luke asked.
Bishop looked up at him and said, ‘I have no idea.’
Nobody spoke on the return trip. Bishop spent the journey looking at the city passing beneath them, consumed with his own
thoughts. He guessed Aleron and Luke were doing pretty much the same.
They reached the Metroblade helipad by 22.43. Mandrake stayed with the chopper while Bishop led the others into the reception
area and took a seat in one of the chairs.
‘So that’s it?’ Aleron said. ‘I just kiss my little sister goodbye?’
Luke wouldn’t look him in the eye. Bishop looked at his watch and said, ‘Not for another hour and a quarter.’
Luke took a step forward. ‘Goddamn you—’
‘Get a grip,’ Bishop said. ‘I’m saying she’s still alive right now.’
He took the key from his pocket and rotated it between his fingers. ‘I been thinking, there aren’t many places left with long-term
lockers. Gyms. Schools. Anywhere else?’
Aleron sat down opposite and said, ‘Some libraries and colleges, I guess. You got somewhere in mind?’
‘Not yet,’ Bishop said. ‘But Jenna might.’ He reached into his ruck-sack
and pulled out her notebook.
Last time he’d looked, he’d only focused on the notes she’d made from their warehouse visit, but now he scanned the entries
before that. And saw the names, numbers and addresses Jenna had jotted down during her search for Cortiss. An address in Nassau
County.
Joseph Armitage/ Siren Associates. Ashford Properties. Alexander Stillson –
Kennington, Hartford & Taylor. Box. No. 46533,
NY
. After all that came the newspaper quote concerning Brennan and the obituary tidbit mentioning Helen Gandy. Then the warehouse
address in Brooklyn, followed by a web address from Wald College’s site. Then the dates Ebert went missing from the hospital.
And, finally, Metroblade’s number and address.
He looked up to see Aleron and Luke staring at him. ‘Well?’ Luke asked.
‘Haven’t seen this before,’ he said and handed the notebook over, his index finger underlining the web address.
Luke took it and pulled his laptop out of his bag. He sat down and got to work. In less than a minute, he said, ‘Okay, it’s
a page all about some library annex at
Wald College in Tribeca. The Brennan Wing.’
Aleron looked at Bishop. ‘Go on,’ Bishop said.
Luke inched his face closer to the screen and said, ‘It’s off campus a few blocks away from the college and got opened in
2000. Says Randall Brennan was the main sponsor and put in twenty mill towards its construction. Lots of crap about extra
shelf space,
a couple more lecture halls, extra reading rooms, computer terminals, things like that.’ He read silently for
a few moments and then smiled and turned the laptop round to face them. ‘Check the photo at the bottom.’
Bishop leaned forward while Aleron came over and crouched next to him. The screen showed a close-up colour shot of the ribbon-cutting
ceremony
in front of the new library. In the foreground, slightly to the right, a smiling Brennan stood with an oversized
pair of scissors in his hand, the blades already halfway through the mauve ribbon stretching across the open entrance doors.
Bishop thought the smile couldn’t have looked any more unnatural if he’d tried. On the left, a bearded man, possibly the Dean,
was in
the process of clapping whilst laughing at something. Probably his own joke. Through the open doors, Bishop could make
out a wide hallway leading to a slightly blurred reception desk in the background. Lining each side of the hallway were stacks
of steel lockers.
Bishop looked up. Mandrake had come back in and was standing behind Aleron, looking at each of
them in turn. Luke said, ‘Colleges
and libraries, Ali. Looks like the Brennan Wing ticks
both
boxes.’
Aleron nodded. ‘Yeah, yeah. It’s something, all right.’ Both men turned to Bishop.
‘I can’t see it,’ he said.
Luke snorted and rolled his eyes. ‘Why don’t that surprise me? How about you enlighten us then?’
‘Look,’ Bishop
said, ‘if that wing was opened in 2000, then that photo was taken before 9/11. Lots of changes after that date.
Like no more lockers in public buildings. You won’t find any in Grand Central any more. Same goes for JFK and most other places
you can think of.’ He nodded at the laptop screen. ‘I figure those ones there lasted another year, eighteen months tops, before
they
got taken away too.’
Luke said, ‘And you know that for sure, right?’
‘I didn’t say I did. But let’s assume the lockers
are
still there. We know Brennan arranged it so the key was hidden in a steel tomb nobody knows even exists. So where does he
decide to hide the priceless file itself? In a public building, of course. Where thousands of people
walk past it every day,
and its only protection is a lock my twelve-year-old niece could open with one of her hairpins. That sound logical to you?’
Luke snorted again. ‘What, you never heard of hiding something in plain sight?’
Bishop sighed and turned to Aleron.
‘You been on the up so far, Bishop,’ Aleron said. ‘I’ll give you that. And
if you got a better lead than this, I’m listening.
Otherwise . . .’ He shrugged.
‘I’m still thinking,’ Bishop said.
Luke’s laugh sounded like a dog’s bark. ‘You’ll be sure to let us know what you’ve come up with an hour or two from now, though,
right? Keep us updated?’
‘Step off, Luke,’ Aleron said. He grabbed a Metroblade
business card off the table and reached into his pocket for a pen.
‘What were the numbers on that key again?’
Bishop said, ‘E2110 and 3975642.’ Aleron wrote both numbers down on the back of the card.
‘Okay,’ Luke said. ‘To me, that means locker 2110 on the east side of the building. And I think you’re right about one thing:
those locks will
be next to useless. So the second number is for the extra combination lock he put on there. You got any more
great advice before Ali and me get going?’
Bishop looked at them. ‘You thought about how you’re gonna get in? There’ll be cameras. Guards, too.’
‘Don’t worry about it, Bishop,’ Luke said. ‘You just sit back and keep that brain of yours whirring
while the seconds tick
away to nothing.’
Aleron rubbed a thumb over his brow and looked at the key in Bishop’s fingers. ‘You better keep hold of that in case you think
of something. I’ve learned a few tricks with locks myself, so we should be okay.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ Bishop said. ‘If you are and you get the file, text me so I’ve
got something concrete when Thorpe calls
at midnight to set up the exchange. Text me either way, but don’t call; I want to keep the line clear for him.’
‘Okay,’ Aleron said.
Luke looped his bag over a shoulder and was already halfway to the entrance doors when he stopped and came back. He pulled
a folded piece of paper from his pocket
and dropped it on the table in front of Bishop. ‘What you asked for,’ he said and
walked back to the doors. He unlatched one and stood there, waiting.
Aleron got up and put out his hand. As Mandrake shook it, he said, ‘Thanks for your help. And I hope your old man’s okay.’
Mandrake gave a thin smile. ‘Thanks. And let me know when you get Jenna back.
I feel like I know her already.’
‘You’d like her,’ Aleron said, and gave a nod to Bishop. ‘Everybody does.’
Then he joined Luke at the door and they both walked out into the night.