Ken Follett - Whiteout

"None," said Don.

Along the bottom edge of each screen was a line of text giving the time and date. The time was the same on the screens that showed yesterday's footage-Kit had made sure of that. But yesterday's footage showed yesterday's date.

Kit was betting that no one ever looked at that date. The guards scanned the screens for activity; they did not read text that told them what they already knew.

He hoped he was right.

Don was wondering why the telephone repairman was so interested in the television monitors. "Something we can do for you?" he said in a challenging tone.

Daisy grunted and stirred in her chair, like a dog sensing tension among the humans.

Kit's mobile phone rang.

He stepped back into the equipment room. The message on the screen of his laptop said: "Kremlin calling Toni." He guessed that Steve wanted to let Toni know that the repair team had arrived. He decided to put the call through: it might reassure Toni and discourage her from coming here. He touched a key, then listened in on his mobile.

"This is Toni Gallo." She was in her car; Kit could hear the engine.

"Steve here, at the Kremlin. The maintenance team from Hibernian Telecom have arrived."

"Have they fixed the problem?"

"They've just started work. I hope I didn't wake you."

"No, I'm not in bed, I'm on my way to you."

Kit cursed. It was what he had been afraid of.

"There's really no need," Steve told Toni.

Kit thought: That's right!

"Probably not," she replied. "But I'll feel more comfbrtable."

Kit thought: When will you get here?

Steve had the same thought. "Where are you now?"

"I'm only a few miles away, but the roads are terrible, and I can't go faster than fifteen or twenty miles an hour."

"Are you in your Porsche?" Yes.

"This is Scotland, you should have bought a Land Rover."

"I should have bought a bloody tank."

Come on, Kit thought, how long?

Toni answered his question. "It's going to take me at least half an hour, maybe an hour."

They hung up, and Kit cursed under his breath.

He told himself that a visit by Toni would not be fatal. There would be nothing to warn her that a robbery was going on. Nothing should seem amiss for several days. It would appear only that there had been a problem with the phone system, and a repair team had fixed it. Not until the scientists returned to work would anyone realize that BSL4 had been burgled.

The main danger was that Toni might see through Kit's disguise. He looked completely different, he had removed his distinctive jewelry, and he could easily alter his voice, making it more Scots; but she was a sharp-nosed bitch and he could not afford to take any chances. If she showed up, he would keep out of her way as much as possible, and let Nigel do the talking. All the same, the risk of something going wrong would increase tenfold.

But there was nothing he could do about it, except hurry.

His next task was to get Nigel into the lab without any of the guards seeing. The main problem here was the patrols. Once an hour, a guard from reception made a tour of the building. The patrol followed a prescribed route, and took twenty minutes. Having passed the entrance to BSL4, the guard would not come back for an hour.

Kit had seen Susan patrolling a few minutes ago, when he connected his laptop to the surveillance program. Now he checked the feed from reception and saw her sitting with Steve at the desk, her circuit done. Kit checked his watch. He had a comfortable thirty minutes before she went on patrol again.

Kit had dealt with the cameras in the high-security lab, but there was still one outside the door, showing the entrance to BSL4. He called up yesterday's feed and ran the footage at double fast-forward. He needed a clear half hour, with no one passing across the screen. He stopped at the point where the patrolling guard appeared. Beginning when the guard left the picture, he fed yesterday's images into the monitor in the next room. Don and Stu should see nothing but an empty corridor for the next hour, or until Kit returned the system to normal. The screen would show the wrong time as well as the wrong date, but once again Kit was gambling that the guards would not notice.

He looked at Nigel. "Let's go."

Elton stayed in the equipment room to make sure no one interfered with the laptop.

Passing through the control room, Kit said to Daisy, "We're going to get the nanometer from the van. You stay here." There was no such thing as a nanometer, but Don and Stu would not know that.

Daisy grunted and looked away. She was not much good at acting the part. Kit hoped the guards would simply assume she was bad-tempered.

Kit and Nigel walked quickly to BSL4. Kit waved his father's smart card in front of the scanner then pressed the forefinger of his left hånd to the screen. He waited while the central computer compared the information from the screen with that on the card. He noticed that Nigel was carrying Elton's smart burgundy leather briefcase.

The light over the door remained stubbornly red. Nigel looked at Kit anxiously. Kit told himself this had to work. The chip contained the encoded details of his own fingerprint-he had checked. What could go wrong?

Then a woman's voice behind them said, "I'm afraid you can't go in there."

Kit and Nigel turned. Susan was standing behind them. She appeared friendly but anxious. She should have been at reception, Kit thought in a panic. She was not due to patrol for another thirty minutes…

Unless Toni Gallo had doubled the patrols as well as doubling the guard.

There was a chime like a doorbell. All three of them looked at the light over the door. It turned green, and the heavy door swung slowly open on motorized hinges.

Susan said, "How did you open the door?" Her voice betrayed fear now.

Involuntarily, Kit looked down at the stolen card in his hånd.

Susan followed his gaze. "You're not supposed to have a pass!" she said incredulously.

Nigel moved toward her.

She turned on her heel and ran.

Nigel went after her, but he was twice her age. He'll never catch her, Kit thought. He let out a shout of rage: how could everything go so wrong, so quickly?

Then Daisy emerged from the passage leading to the control room.

Kit would not have thought he would ever be glad to see her ugly face.

She seemed unsurprised at the scene that confronted her: the guard running toward her, Nigel following, Kit frozen to the spot. Kit realized that she must have been watching the monitors in the control room. She would have seen Susan leave the reception desk and walk toward BSL4. She had realized the danger and moved to deal with it.

Susan saw Daisy and hesitated, then ran on, apparently determined to push past.

The hint of a smile touched Daisy's lips. She drew back her arm and smashed her gloved fist into Susan's face. The blow made a sickening sound, like a melon dropped on a tiled floor. Susan collapsed as if she had run into a wall. Daisy rubbed her knuckles, looking pleased.

Susan got to her knees. Sobs bubbled through the blood covering her nose and mouth. Daisy took from the pocket of her jacket a flexible blackjack about nine inches long and made, Kit guessed, of steel ball bearings in a leather case. She raised her arm.

Kit shouted: "No!"

Daisy hit Susan over the head with the blackjack. The guard collapsed soundlessly.

Kit yelled: "Leave her!"

Daisy raised her arm to hit Susan again, but Nigel stepped forward and grabbed Daisy's wrist. "No need to kill her," he said.

Daisy stepped back reluctantly.

"You mad cow!" Kit cried. "We'll all be guilty of murder!"

Daisy looked at the light brown glove on her right hand. There was blood on the knuckles. She licked it off thoughtfully.