Laurence O’Bryan - The Manhattan Puzzle

‘Human DNA can survive thousands of years. That’s been proven, again and again. DNA cells from long-dried blood have been extracted many times.’

‘And you’re near to getting into the site?’

‘Very near. I’ve managed to persuade someone to give us some useful security codes. We have access.’

‘You’re sure it’s the right site?’

‘It couldn’t be anything else.’

The pastor shook his head. ‘Like I told you, it’s divine intervention.’

He leaned forward, put his hands out as if he was appealing to the heavens.

‘We have been chosen to open the Seventh Seal.’ He closed his eyes, went forward until he was kneeling on the thick white carpet.

Lord Bidoner had his hands together too.

Pastor Stevson whispered, ‘And the vials of his wrath will be poured upon the earth.’

Lord Bidoner stared out at the twinkling lights of the city. The skyscrapers looked like shards of sparkling crystal as the snow flurries gathered in intensity.

‘Have you made the transfer into the fund?’ he asked, after a minute had passed.

Pastor Stevson opened his eyes, then rose to his feet. His legs were unsteady under him. ‘That was a lot of dough you needed, but it’s done. A hundred million went into your fund this afternoon.’

‘The price of heaven is not cheap,’ said Lord Bidoner. ‘If there was another way I would have chosen it. Every penny I have is tied up in this. I can assure you of that.’

Xena came into the room. She placed a phone on the oak coffee table. It was vibrating. She was wearing only a gossamer-thin black shift, which came down to her thighs. Her thin body was visible through it.

The pastor stared at her.

‘I must take this,’ said Lord Bidoner. ‘I want you and my friend to pray together.’ He put the phone to his ear and walked to the other end of the long room near the double-height window. The glass shone as if it were a mirror. Outside the twinkling lights of other skyscrapers filled the air.

He listened for a few minutes. Then he spoke, forcefully.

‘You will make him cooperate. Do whatever it takes,’ he said.

He closed the line and put his hand on the window glass.

‘The last one is near,’ he whispered.

Then he turned and went after Xena and the pastor. She had left the door of the panic room open just a half an inch. Through the crack he could see her helping the pastor take his shirt off. He stood in the darkness of the hall and watched until they were both naked.

She ran her hands all over the pastor’s pudgy white body.

Few could resist the way Xena prayed. And this pastor certainly wouldn’t have needed much persuasion about the earthy spirituality of her ancient beliefs.

He had no idea what he was letting himself in for.

Isabel heard heels tapping across a floor. Then another voice came on the line. A woman’s voice. A voice she didn’t recognise.

‘Sorry, Mrs Ryan, Sean isn’t here. George asked me to tell you.’

Her balloon popped.

Anger threatened like a sudden storm.

‘But George said he was there two seconds ago. He went to get him.’

There was a long pause.

‘Sorry, Mrs Ryan, George was mistaken.’ She sounded like a doorman telling some loser she couldn’t get in to their club.

‘Please, can you check again? Sean is supposed to be in a meeting there now.’

There was a pause. This one was longer than the last. Isabel wanted to shout at the woman.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Ryan, I have to go. Your husband is not here.’

‘Can I speak to George?’ She wasn’t going to get any sense out of this woman.

She replied instantly. ‘Sorry, Mrs Ryan, George is out for lunch. Was there anything else?’

‘But I just spoke to him!’

‘He’s gone out now.’

The conversation was coming to a quick halt. But there was one other thing she had to find out.

‘Was Sean in at all today?’

‘I don’t know, Mrs Ryan.’ She sounded irritated.

‘Okay.’ Isabel cut the call.

The activity light on Sean’s laptop was going mad. The Wi-Fi light was blinking. They had night-time only updates set on their machines. There shouldn’t be any Wi-Fi access going on that wasn’t user initiated.

She checked what processes were active. There was one taking up 90 per cent of CPU time. She killed the process. What the hell was going on? They had the best antivirus software in the world.

She checked to see what data streams had been active. It took her a while. The result caused a chill to pass through her. Someone had, in the last few minutes, taken a copy of a document from a folder called TAKEOVER.

She opened the document. It was a three-page executive summary of technical and data protection issues relevant to the Institute’s facial recognition project, to be resolved in the event of a takeover of BXH by a non-EU or -US entity.

She felt like a spy, thought about closing the document, but there was the possibility that it had something to do with Sean’s disappearance.

The second page was a list of EU and US data protection regulations that would need to be complied with in the event of a takeover. The third page contained a list of the bank’s officers who were to be tasked with ensuring compliance with these laws.

The final paragraph made an icy chill move up her spine. ‘ There are significant data protection risks to the proposed merger. The identification and tracking of criminals, suspects, politicians, law enforcement and government officials will be greatly enhanced with widespread identity-validated facial recognition. Laws created to prevent privacy breeches can be circumvented, as previously described (BHZC124566/8.odm). There are significant state security implications to the project in its current form.’

She looked at the date of the document. It had last been saved the previous morning before Sean had gone to work. She checked his email sent box. He’d emailed it to a long list of BXH staff, minutes after it had been saved. The next thing he’d done was to come down and have breakfast with her.

She tried to remember what he’d been like. He’d seemed distracted, that was for sure. She looked at her watch. It was twelve fifteen. The second hand was moving fast, as if it was trying to tell her something.

Had George really seen Sean at BXH? Why hadn’t he told her Sean wasn’t there himself? Was Sean dealing with whatever had made him make that warning? She balled her fist, pushed it against her lips. It was a nervous habit she used to do in uni. She moved her hand away. She wasn’t going back to those days.

She should go to the bank, ask to see him. She closed her eyes. There was something depressingly familiar about all this. Rose had told her about one of the BXH wives who had arrived at the bank’s offices one day the previous summer and had demanded to know if her husband was in the building, after being told by an assistant that he wasn’t there.

Apparently he’d stood her up.

The security manager at BXH’s reception had relented under the woman’s you’ll-have-to-arrest-me-if-you-want-me-to-leave glare and had told her that her husband was in the building and that he would personally find him. Isabel had been shocked at the story at the time, and glad that Sean wasn’t the type of person who just disappeared.

And now she was going to the bank on a similar mission.

She opened her eyes. Okay, let’s get it over with. At least she could get there quickly. Sean always bragged about how it only took twenty minutes on the underground from Sloane Square to get into work.

She ran down the stairs. She could be there and back by two thirty, maybe earlier, if she went straight away.