Adam Christopher - The Age Atomic

“You’re a little premature there, Mr Holzer,” said the woman. She lowered the magazine just a little and peered over it at the agent. Holzer gulped, his hand moving further into his jacket, his fingertips caressing his concealed automatic. Time to drop the act.

“This is a restricted area, ma’am. I’m going to have to call security. They’ll want to ask you a few questions.”

The woman slapped the magazine down on the table and sighed, rolling her eyes as she reached for the handbag on the floor. Jan watched her and took a step forward, the gun that was once inside his jacket now out. He took another step and pointed the weapon at her.

The woman glanced up as she rifled through her bag, and shook her head with a smile. “Relax, agent. I’m standing in for Ellroy today.”

Jan raised the gun.

“Here we go,” said the woman. She pulled a folded card from her bag and offered it to Jan. Jan took it, keeping the gun aimed at her forehead, and flipped it open. He read the ID aloud. “Special Agent Irena Dubrovna?”

“Got it in one, agent.” It took Jan a second to realize she was holding her hand out, waiting for him to return the card. He did so, and he lowered his gun, but he didn’t replace it inside his jacket.

“I don’t know you,” said Jan.

Irena shrugged. “I don’t know Ellroy either, but I’ve heard he’s a real jerk. Anyway, get. I’m here.”

Jan frowned. Irena looked right, he had to admit, dressed well enough to pass as a potential client for the real estate company Nimrod’s Department pretended to be. Her manner was casual, but their very public exchange had blown any kind of cover. Not that anyone was watching. Jan rolled his shoulders and glanced around. The door to the Department was closed, and the corridors were silent.

Jan sniffed and nodded, slipping his gun out of sight. Irena ignored him, her attention back on the magazine.

Feeling uncomfortable, but looking forward to coffee and sleep, Agent Jan Holzer left.

Irena waited a moment, and then rested the magazine on her lap. After watching the Department door for a minute more, she stood and walked to the windows. She looked out across the city, towards the Chrysler Building, on the beautiful morning.

She reached up, sliding a gloved hand beneath her veil, and touched the earpiece buried deep in her right ear. It was new technology, advanced, but one of the advantages of her cover was that her hat was big enough to carry both the radio’s battery and transmitter.

“Alpha One, in position.”

She listened, nodded, and then helped herself to a cup of water.

TWENTY-SIX

Security agent Jan Holzter had been on the money. Behind the closed doors of Tisiphone Realty it was organized chaos.

Every desk on the floor was occupied, half by men, mostly in rolled-up shirt sleeves, cigarettes burning bright, filling the air with a thick fog of tobacco smoke. Some shuffled paper, a lot held telephones between shoulder and ear as they jotted down notes. The other half of the staff were women, most looking considerably less flustered than their male counterparts as they focused on typing and filing, filling the air with a machine gun clatter of keys striking paper. The cacophony that filled the office wasn’t loud, but it was constant and unending.

Nimrod watched the hubbub through the open door of his office. Behind him, the ticker tape machine sprang into life, slowly feeding paper onto the floor. Mr Grieves quickly picked up the tape and began to read.

Nimrod folded his arms and turned around. “Well?”

The agent pulled the tape through his fingers. “All departments acknowledge the alert and are awaiting further information. The Vice President has been taken to a secure location and the President is currently at the State Department in DC.”

“Very good.”

“Also the Secretary of Defense wants to speak with you, urgently.”

Nimrod sighed. He should have expected this, but it was exactly the kind of distraction with which he didn’t want to deal. Nimrod was keenly aware that it was Atoms for Peace, not his Department, in favor with the Secretary. “He can wait.”

Mr Grieves smirked as the phone on Nimrod’s desk rang. Nimrod nodded and Grieves picked it up. He listened a moment, and as Nimrod watched his smirk quickly faded.

Grieves held out the phone to his superior. “It’s the Secretary.”

Nimrod gritted his teeth and closed the door of his private office. Then he took the receiver.

“Mr Secretary, we were just talking about you.”

The Captain smiled at Mr Grieves and walked around his desk, phone pressed tight against his ear.

“Yes, Mr Secretary. I believe so.”

Nimrod sat heavily at his desk and listened a moment longer, then barked a laugh.

“Bad? My dear chap, ‘bad’ does not begin to describe it. What I am talking about is nothing less than the end of the world.”

The door to the Department opened, and Captain Nimrod stormed out. Irena lowered her newspaper, trying to keep the surprise from her face. But it wasn’t an issue, as the target wasn’t watching. Nimrod muttered under his breath and waved one hand in the air like he was arguing with someone who wasn’t there as he strode the short distance across the lobby and vanished into the corridor leading to the main elevators.

Irena listened until she heard the elevator ping and the doors open. A moment later the doors rattled shut and silence returned.

Irena leapt from the sofa and crossed to the window to get the best reception. She looked down, trying to get an angle on the street below, but the stepped shape of the Empire State Building hid the main entrance.

The radio clicked in her ear.

“Cloud Club, this is Alpha One,” she said. “We have a problem.”

The lobby of the Chrysler Building was deserted. Nimrod noted the fact, but didn’t pause as he strode across the marble floor and into the walnut and silver interior of the elevator.

She would know he was coming, of course. She saw everything in the city, some said, though Nimrod knew that if this was so, she ignored most things. Maybe she had heard the conversation between him and the Secretary of Defense, the conversation Nimrod cursed himself for not expecting. But that would have been like trying to pick a single conversation out of a stadium full of people; even the Ghost of Gotham had her limits. Besides which, he doubted she found it very interesting. For someone — some thing — with such power, she was remarkably single-minded. Perhaps that was not surprising. Nimrod had often tried to imagine what it was like, to die and be brought back, granted with all the power of the universe. If your mind didn’t break, then, with the universe at your fingertips, surely your perspective changed somewhat.

The Secretary’s decision was a disaster waiting to happen, Nimrod knew that now. The order to hand over all responsibility and duties to the Director of Atoms for Peace and allow her department to proceed with their operation was not just ridiculous, it was foolhardy, perhaps even suicidal.

There was no alternative. He had to see her, talk to her, convince her to change her mind, make her understand that they should be working together, not fighting. Nimrod just hoped there was enough left of a human being inside the Ghost of Gotham that he could make her see reason.

The elevator pinged, and the doors opened. Nimrod felt his mustache bristle as he stepped out into the lobby of the Cloud Club and found himself alone. Ahead of him, the giant doors of the Director’s personal domain, with their silver sunray decoration and frosted glass, were closed.

Beyond, the former nightclub was quiet. The room was truly cavernous, and Nimrod had the odd sensation of walking through a cemetery, or into a mausoleum. The Cloud Club was a relic of another era, when New York City had been an entirely different world. Nimrod pondered this as he walked to the single desk, the one the director of Atoms for Peace had no need for. He noticed, for the first time, that the desk was dusty. His eyes moved over the murals on the wall. For some reason they looked dull, faded.