Robert Knightly - The cold room

I retrieved my flashlight and flicked it on. About the size of a cigar, the flashlight was set to cast a very narrow beam. I ran that beam over the wall to my left, discovering a light switch. Good news. Aslan would reach for the switch with his left hand, while closing the door behind him with his right. The sequence would be automatic, leaving both hands far from any weapon he might have on his person.

It was a nice fantasy. Aslan opening the door, the light coming on to reveal Harry Corbin sitting on the stairs. I could even picture myself, coat open, weapon in hand, smiling my brightest gunslinger smile when I pressed that first button: ‘Yo, Aslan, what’s happenin’? I thought you’d never come home.’

I flicked the light switch, but nothing happened, hall and stairs remained as dark as ever. I was about to throw the switch a second time, then checked myself as I remembered Zashka’s warning; Aslan would kill me if he got the chance. Then I recalled something else she’d said. Faced with a mini-revolt, Aslan had once threatened to blow up the Eagle Street Warehouse with everyone in it. At the time, he’d also claimed the expertise to bring it off.

Surely, replacing the bulb at the head of those stairs, if it blew out on its own, would be one of those household chores that gets taken care of right away. Otherwise, you’d have to climb the stairs and find the lock with your key in total darkness. I widened the beam on the flashlight, examined the area at my feet, finally began to move forward. When I got to the stairs, I dropped to my knees before I began to climb. I was looking for a trip wire, or an electronic sensor that would mark my passing, perhaps set off an alarm, or something far worse. I didn’t find anything like that, just a series of painted wooden steps that rose to a landing barely wider than the door it fronted. Nevertheless, I checked the door carefully before turning my attention to the light fixture on the ceiling above my head. I could see the outline of a bulb through the frosted glass, but that didn’t tell me what I needed to know.

Rising onto my toes, I was just able to reach the light, to unscrew the pins holding the globe in place, to finally expose a single bulb. Gingerly, I took the bulb between my fingers and gave it a slight twist. It was loose in the socket, but I didn’t test it by screwing it down. Instead, I removed the bulb, then examined the filament, positioning the flashlight behind the bulb to maximize the contrast. The filament was perfectly intact and there was no carbon build-up on either pole.

I dropped the bulb into my pocket, next to the snap gun and the tension bar, then closed up the overhead fixture before turning to the door. By then, my brain was rocking along. Aslan’s home country was the place where booby-traps were perfected, especially as they applied to urban guerrilla warfare. According to the Russians, explosive devices of one kind or another were found in every third building when they re-took Grozny, along with a host of lesser goodies, like ceilings and floors rigged to collapse, and light bulbs filled with gasoline.

I sat down on the landing, my legs on the stairs, facing the door at the bottom of the steps. A little voice in my head was insisting that I stay the hell out of Aslan’s apartment. Do it just the way you said, this voice insisted. Wait for him on the stairs. Take him down the minute he steps through the door.

But there was another voice, too, a nasty little voice that whispered, Aslan killed your son. Over and over and over again.

Of one thing I was certain. The loose bulb was not some sort of trigger mechanism. Not unless Aslan had imagined me clever enough to check the bulb out, then stupid enough to screw it back down. There had to be another reason.

I sat there, in total darkness, until I thought I knew that reason. Then I got to work.

I wasn’t surprised to find the door unlocked, though I admit to a flash of bladder-clenching fear when the hinges squealed as it swung away from me. I was at the back of a long room, facing a narrow table set against a wall fifteen feet away. Light streamed into the apartment through a pair of windows and the room seemed well lit compared to the hallway. There was enough light, for instance, for me to pick out a shadow beneath the table, a shadow mounted flush to the wall. I could even see little pinpricks of light, so faint I might have imagined them, within the shadow.

But I wasn’t imagining the wires running from a light switch to my left, down to the floor, then out along the wall in both directions. To Aslan, the sequence must have seemed obvious. You climb those stairs in the dark, the first thing you’ll do, when you finally get into his apartment, is grope for that switch. The light at this end of the room, furthest from the windows in front, was extremely dim. It had to be, otherwise the shadow between the legs of the table would be revealed for the pound or so of plastic explosive it actually was. And that would ruin all the fun.

I leaned through the doorway and looked around. The space was large, easily fifteen-by-thirty, and sparsely furnished. The Chechen flag caught my eye first, just to the right of the rain-spattered windows. I couldn’t see the wolf’s eyes — the walls to either side of the window were in deep shadow — but I knew his gaze was as mean spirited as ever.

A worn leather sofa, an end table supporting a painted ceramic lamp, a small TV set on a rolling stand, and a coffee table littered with newspapers and DVDs were clustered before the windows. Along the near wall midway between where I stood and the windows, an open notebook computer, along with a stack of floppy disks and a small printer, rested on a metal desk.

Facing the desk, an L-shaped serving bar partitioned off a small kitchen, its metal sink piled with unwashed dishes. A pair of doors to my right led to interior rooms. The room closest to me was the bedroom, the one I’d looked through when I climbed the drainpipe. The second room was undoubtedly the bathroom.

I registered each of these items carefully, in search of anything out of order. When I was satisfied, I squatted down to examine the open spaces between the furnishings. I was looking for trip wires and the light was very dim, especially along the walls. But I kept at it, until I was sure I could enter the apartment without blowing myself all the way back to Manhattan. Then I stepped inside and took another survey, this one limited to the explosives, mounted six feet apart and six inches off the ground, on all four walls.

From close up, those pinpricks of light I’d observed when I first opened the door were obviously the heads of common nails. The nails had been pressed into bars of what looked like molded clay, the intention to shred the flesh of anyone caught in their path. But the nails were pure overkill. There was enough explosive material in that room to take out the building. If it went off, I wouldn’t live long enough for the nails to reach my body.

Still, I appreciated the theatrical touch; as I also appreciated the way Aslan had rigged the trap after I found a second set of wires, in addition to the wires leading from the light switch. These wires began at a DVD player positioned on the floor where the eastern wall of the building met the kitchen’s service counter. They ran the full length of the room and were connected (as were the wires from the light switch) to detonators on each of the little bricks fastened to the wall.

I stood over the DVD player for a moment, staring down, until I finally hit upon its purpose. Then I began a search of the room that ended when I found the Sony’s remote control next to the computer. Needless to say, I was careful not to press any of its buttons. Instead, I carried it to the door through which I’d come, back to the rigged light switch.