James Church - The Man with the Baltic Stare

“Get in.” It was the thin man, and he was breathing heavily. “We thought you were at the river doing laundry.”

“I was, but I had to go back for some bleach. You don’t mind giving me a lift? Where’d you get this car?”

“We had a deal. You broke it. I’m going to bust your legs so you can’t do that again.”

“No, you’re not. You’re going to take me to SSD Compound Three. They just phoned about some photographs. Step on it.”

The guard at the front gate held up his hand and frowned.

“I told you we’d never get in. My plates are the wrong ones for this compound. Now I’ll have to argue with this moron.” The thin man started to open his door.

“Wait; don’t get out. Stay in the car. He’s not used to looking in a right-hand window at a driver. If you get out, you give the guard the advantage.”

“I do?”

“Make him come over here. Growl at him.” I gave it some thought. “Give him one of your stares.”

The guard frowned again and looked more closely at the license plate.

“Don’t worry,” I muttered between clenched teeth. “He’s getting nervous. He’ll come over to your side any minute and ask for ID. Tell him to get lost.”

“What? He’ll call in his commander, and they’ll take me away in chains.”

“They don’t have chains. All they have is those nose rings. Just say we need to see H4. See if that does any good.”

The thin man put his hand to his nose as the guard walked over.

“ID.” Every guard since time began sounded angry when he said that. It wasn’t anything personal.

I wasn’t too worried, but the thin man looked rattled. “I’m here with a headquarters visitor. He has official business with H4.”

The guard took a step back and saluted. “Next time, get a fucking blue pass for the windshield.”

I smiled as we drove in. “See, that wasn’t so difficult. Park over on the side. That’s where I used to put my car. Someone will come out of the building to complain, but if you lock the doors, there isn’t anything they can do. Move as if you’ve been here a hundred times before.”

“Say, you know your way around. I’m impressed.”

“Do whatever I tell you. Once we get into the photography section, you sit in the waiting room. They have collections of real good pictures, if you know what I mean.”

The offices of H4-“Silver Mountain Tractor Parts” as it was known to outsiders-were on the second floor. That was where SSD doctored photographs for use in operations. It was also where photographs were checked to make sure someone else hadn’t monkeyed with them. The people in H4 were very good at what they did. If they said they needed a new, state-of-the-art machine to keep up with the opposition, they got a new machine.

The door to the second floor from the stairway was locked. “This one is compliments of me,” the thin man said. He took out a leather pouch with several small tools in it, selected one, and opened the door. “We’re even.”

“Even,” I said. “There’s the waiting room. Go in there and look important. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

The third door down the hall was open. The desks hadn’t changed; nothing had changed, not even the rounded shoulders of the man sitting with his back to the door, peering through a microscope.

I knocked softly. “Can anyone come in?”

The man swiveled around in his chair. “Long time, Inspector.” He stood up. “Who let you through the front gate?”

“Nice way to greet an old friend. Have a minute?”

“Sure. That’s probably how long we’ll have before the guards come up and drag you away.”

“Not to worry. I’m here with someone from SSD headquarters.”

“That so? I suppose they’re in the toilet powdering their nose.”

“Actually, they’re in the waiting room.”

“You don’t mind if I look? The last time you and I did business, they lifted my file for investigation and my rations were suspended for two months because you weren’t properly escorted.” He walked down the hall. In a minute, he was back. “OK, your escort is swooning over the photographs. We can talk. What can I do for you?”

“A little background.”

“As in information? That I can’t do. Pictures we can discuss. Information is something else. You know that.”

“All right, pictures. If I wanted to modify pictures from a hotel security camera, what would I have to do?”

“Depends on the camera. If it’s an old one that takes photos every few seconds, it doesn’t much matter. The photos are crap and the time between the frames makes it nearly impossible to get a believable continuity. We don’t touch them anymore. There are only a few hotels in the city that haven’t changed over to the new technology yet.”

“What about hotels overseas?”

“We don’t have access.”

“Nowhere?”

He scratched his head. “Mostly nowhere.”

“How about Macau?”

“MSS doesn’t like us fooling with their stuff.”

“But you do.”

“I don’t pay attention to what’s on the film or where it’s from. The job description comes in on the orders, I push a few buttons on the machine, zip, zap, a new reality is born.”

“If I was in a new five-star hotel in Macau and I wanted to evade the hallway security cameras, could I do it?”

“Sure. All you’d have to do is call the control room and tell them to turn off such and such a station.”

“But that would leave a gap, a blank spot. Everyone would know.”

“An empty inside corridor is an empty inside corridor. It looks the same all the time. No problem with changes in shadows. Once in a while a maid walks by. If you don’t really care, you just put in a stock scene. No one can tell with the new digital stuff. They say they can, but they can’t. If you are going up against someone who is more careful, double-checks the schedule of the help and that sort of thing, then you have to be more careful, too. That takes some coordination with the locals. But it can be done.”

“Zip. Zap. Coordination?”

“You know, a local service. Friends in the right places.”

“Gangsters?”

“You’re asking for information, O. No information about gangsters asking for film to be altered from Macau. I can’t share that sort of thing with someone like you, no matter how many times you ask. Nothing about suitcases, either. Now, get out of here, and take your friend with you. You’d better wipe his chin; I think he’s drooling all over his shirt.”

A small word of appreciation was on my lips when a huge explosion rattled the building and knocked us both off our feet.

“What the fuck?” My friend picked himself from the floor. “It will take weeks to recalibrate everything after that. This is delicate equipment.” An alarm began to sound in the hall. “That’s it; you’d better get out of here before they start shooting first and then forget what the questions were.”

By the time the thin man and I got downstairs to the car, there was full-blown panic in the compound. The guard who had admitted us was lying on the ground, his face bleeding from flying glass. Another guard had his pistol out and was pointing it at pedestrians who were running past, shouting and crying.

No one looked twice when the thin man’s car made a tight turn and flew out the front gate.

“Some photographs!” The thin man shook his head in admiration. “I’m going to get myself transferred.”

“Did you hear the explosion, or were you too busy turning pages?”

“I heard it.” He pointed at a cloud of smoke billowing over the city. “Must have been an awful jolt over there.”

“Isn’t that where my hotel is?”