Proxy, page 22
“Send the address to me,” said Raphael, the muscles around his jaw tightening. “I need you to think carefully and tell me every detail of what he said and did. Don’t miss out anything.”
“He turned up at the Centre this morning and left a message saying he wanted to talk about Isaac.”
“This morning?” Raphael stared into the obsidian depths of his desk. “And you didn’t think to mention this before?”
“I…no.” Raphael listened to the harsh sound of Finch’s breathing for several seconds. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”
No, you didn’t, thought Raphael.
The problem with men like Zachary Finch was that they were brilliant in their primary fields of research, but in everything else they were like children, demanding of an adult’s guidance.
Isaac had been like that, too. Brilliant, but disconnected from the world at large.
“When I finally got to the Centre he was waiting for me,” Finch continued. “He knows we kept Isaac there. And that we invented proxy.”
That last one Raphael felt like a physical blow to his belly.
“If he really knew anything at all,” said Raphael, struggling to sound like he was in control, “he would have gone to the police or the press first. He’s trying to force a reaction out of you, Zachary, because he can’t prove a thing.”
“But what do I do?” Finch whined. “If he knows that much, what else does he know? What about our mind upload research, or what you did to your own—”
“Shut up,” Raphael hissed at his desk. “Did you even stop to think he might have bugged your car?”
“I—God, I’m sorry. I know I panicked.”
It struck Raphael that it wouldn’t take much pressure at all to make Finch sing like a songbird if the police got hold of him. A solution came to him then, and he relaxed slightly.
He’d deal with Finch, and then he’d meet with this detective or blackmailer, whoever or whatever he was. And then he’d deal with him too.
“I can take care of this,” said Raphael, doing his best to sound reassuring.
“Thank you, Mr Markov,” said Finch with almost childlike gratitude. “Just let me know how I can help.”
“Let’s meet somewhere private. We shouldn’t be discussing this over any kind of phone connection. I’ll need your help to fix this.”
“Yes,” said Finch, clearly desperately relieved. “Thank you, Ra—I mean, sir.”
“I’m sending you some directions,” said Raphael. “Make sure you speak to no one else until I see you there in a couple of hours.”
He swiped two fingers across the desk, sending the details to Finch’s bracelet.
“A wildlife park?” Finch asked a moment later.
“I’m a co-founder. It’s closed for the night, but you can use your Telop credentials to get in through the front gate. Meet me at the main car park. We won’t be disturbed or seen.”
Raphael disconnected and sank back in his chair. He counted to thirty, then touched another icon. Carlson entered a few seconds later.
“Prepare an air taxi,” said Raphael. “I’ll take it from the roof.” He stood and picked up his jacket. “I’ll be a few hours. When I get back, find one of our trusted engineers and have him delete its route information.”
“Sir,” said Carlson, seemingly unruffled by this request. “Is there anything else?”
As urgent as meeting with Finch might be, there were other matters Raphael first had to deal with—necessary, unavoidable matters. He should have enough time to stop over briefly at the family estate, then continue on to the wildlife park.
“Call Lovatt in security,” said Raphael, stepping towards the door of a private elevator. “I need him to retrieve something for me.”
Carlson nodded. “Of course, sir.” He turned to leave, then hesitated before turning back. “I believe Lovatt’s gone home for the night.”
“Then you wake him up,” Raphael barked, stepping towards the elevator that would take him to the roof. “Tell him I want all the security footage from the Abbey Rush Treatment Centre for the past forty-eight hours without delay. As soon as he has it, tell him to forward it directly to me.”
“Of course.”
The elevator doors slid shut and Raphael ascended to the roof of the Telop headquarters. When the doors opened a minute later, a brisk wind scythed across the flat expanse of the rooftop. It felt bracing after the summer heat. An air taxi descended towards him as he stepped towards the helipad.
Raphael’s bracelet vibrated as he boarded the taxi and he groaned inwardly. “Carlson?” he said into the bracelet. “Whatever it is, I very much hope it’s worth my time.”
“It’s Amy Cotter, sir. I’m afraid she got inside the building—as far as the twenty-third floor before we apprehended her. She’s being taken back down to the lobby as we speak.”
Raphael took a deep, steadying breath. “And how did she get in?”
“She used an old security clearance,” Carlson explained. “It should have been deactivated years ago, but clearly there’s been an oversight. I’ll ask Lovatt to conduct a full review of staff clearance first thing in the morning. Sir…should we allow her to wait in the lobby, or ask her to leave?
Raphael sighed, suddenly weary. “Just get rid of her. I don’t care if you have to throw her out on the steps. Just get her out of here.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
AMY
The first thing Amy Cotter had noticed earlier that evening, stepping into the front lobby of the Telop headquarters, was how little it had changed since she had last entered it many years before.
From the outside, it remained the same towering fortress of twisted steel and mirrored glass she remembered, like some mutant plant-machine hybrid clawing its way out of the ancient black soil of the London Docklands. Once inside the lobby, however, it felt more like being inside a space station. Everything gleamed, from the marble coffee tables to the cream floor tiles and the ten-meter long reception desk that merged seamlessly with the floor. Even the people who worked there, from the security guards on up, appeared to have been buffed to a polished shine before being allowed within sight of the public.
When she’d stepped up to the desk and asked to speak to Raphael, the elaborately coiffured man standing behind it had stared at her as if she had asked for a personal audience with God. A warmth had crept up her neck as his expression shifted from polite interest to bemusement. Informing him that she was Raphael’s ex-wife brought no discernible change in his attitude.
She waited while he went to look for someone else to whom he could pass on the responsibility of dealing with her, and before long another underling a few years older and fractionally higher up Telop’s food chain arrived to speak with her.
It made no difference. He had the same carefully worded responses to her request, and the same faint air of condescension, as if she were little more than some random lunatic who had wandered in from the street.
He asked her to wait, and he stepped towards a bank of antique telephone kiosks, speaking into a mouthpiece too quietly for her to make out his words.
Amy fought the urge to turn on her heel and exit the building before she could embarrass herself any further.
But that meant sitting alone in her cottage feeling powerless—and she was tired of feeling powerless.
Despite the detective’s request that she remain at home, following his departure Amy had continued to pack her things with every intention of fleeing to her friend’s place on the coast.
But she had hesitated on the threshold of her cottage, suitcase in hand, realizing for the first time that her decision to hire Thomas had merely been a way to delay the inevitable: the only way she would ever get the answers she needed was by confronting Raphael directly.
She had convinced herself that, with sufficient tenacity, she could persuade Raphael to grant her an audience. But now she was actually here, in his building, she could feel her conviction faltering beneath a barrage of politely worded, but firm, refusals.
“I’m afraid Mr Markov isn’t in the building at the moment,” the Telop employee told her after his return from the telephone kiosk. His skin gleamed as if manufactured.
“I know that isn’t true,” Amy insisted. “If he’s not out of the country, he’s here—and he never leaves the country these days. Everyone knows that.”
The employee pursed his lips. “I’ll see what I can do, Miss Cotter.” He nodded to some nearby couches, each of which, she recalled Raphael once informing her, cost more than the annual national average wage. “But it might be a little while.”
“I can wait,” said Amy, her mouth set in a determined line.
And so she did, while people came and went and the day slipped towards evening. She had known even in the early days of their marriage that it was necessary to pester Raphael constantly to get his attention at all.
She returned frequently to the reception desk, seeing the practised smiles grow more strained each time she asked the same questions and got the same answers.
Idly, Amy wondered whether a story about the former wife of a billionaire CEO being thrown out of her ex-husband’s place of work might be considered newsworthy. It would be worth it just for the embarrassment it might cause Raphael.
But she had other plans. For the hundredth time that day, Amy felt around inside her shoulder bag until her fingertips touched the rough edge of a plastic card she’d dug out of a shoebox that morning before leaving home.
If they would not let her go to Raphael, she’d just have to go around them.
She couldn’t just take an elevator up to Raphael’s office, because the reception staff and omnipresent security guards would see her doing so and take steps to prevent her. But neither could their attention be on her continuously, not with so many new arrivals and visitors constantly entering or leaving the building.
Biding her time, Amy waited until a group large enough for her purposes entered the lobby. Her moment came when a gaggle of a dozen or so men and women entered from the plaza outside, talking and laughing among themselves and moving in a loose knot towards a bank of elevators to the left of the reception desk.
If she was going to act, Amy knew, it had to be now.
She drew in a sharp breath and stepped in among the new arrivals as they walked past her, hoping that Raphael’s staff wouldn’t notice her amidst them, despite the fact that she wore a cardigan and comfortable jeans and they were all dressed in shiny business wear.
Matching pace with them, she followed them inside an elevator and kept to the back.
None of them paid her any attention. They all got off on the tenth floor, and Amy hit the button for the twenty-third. The higher the elevator rose, the more nervous tension tightened the muscles in her shoulders and neck, the plastic card still gripped tightly between her thumb and forefinger.
The elevator doors hissed open and Amy gazed down a long corridor with pale cream walls and soft carpeting. Memory drew her to the third door on the left which, she saw, still had the same retinal scanner and keycard combination she remembered from previous visits many years before.
With one trembling hand, Amy slid the card down a door-mounted slot, then peered into a lens set at about head-height.
Seconds passed, too many for her comfort. At last a light changed from red to green, and the door unlocked with a soft click.
Air rushed out of her lungs. Amy almost sagged with relief. She hadn’t thought the card would still work after so many years.
The door swung open on automated hinges, revealing a suite of offices reserved for Raphael’s personal staff.
Raphael himself, she knew, would be in here somewhere.
“Miss Cotter?”
The voice came from behind her. At first she froze, but then found the willpower to turn around.
It took her a moment to place the man who had spoken. He’d entered the lobby a number of times while she’d sat waiting through the afternoon, conversing with the reception staff and occasionally with one or other of the security guards. And now that she thought about it, she might also have seen him on television, standing discreetly behind Raphael as he gave a speech at some wildlife park.
The man gestured back towards the elevator. “I’d rather keep this civilized,” he said, “but if you don’t cooperate, I’m legally entitled to use force if necessary. I need to ask you to leave.”
“I just want to speak to Raphael,” she babbled. “I have every right to do that. He had my daughter locked up in a hospital against her will and—”
As she spoke, the man sighed and reached into a pocket of his suit, taking out a neatly folded sheet of paper and handing it to her. “Mr Markov is seeking an injunction to prevent you from approaching him or engaging in any further harassment now or in the future. This letter is from his law firm, ordering you to desist or face legal action.”
“I’m his ex-wife, for God’s sake!” she shouted, appalled. “Surely that counts for something? Why should I of all people have to beg to speak to him?”
Raphael’s guard-dog showed no trace of emotion, beyond a slight curl of contempt at the corners of his mouth. “I’m sure you’d prefer me not to call the police,” he informed her curtly.
Casting the man a single hateful glance, Amy marched past him and towards the elevator, slamming the button for the ground floor as hot, burning shame turned her cheeks red. The security man stepped in beside her before the doors closed and stood by her with his hands neatly clasped, his gaze fixed on some point in the middle distance.
The trip back down to the lobby lasted about a million years.
When the doors opened, a uniformed guard stood waiting for them. Stepping forward, he took Amy gently but firmly by the elbow and guided her towards the exit and the plaza outside.
If someone had at that moment handed Amy a button that could destroy the building and everyone in it, she would have gladly pressed it.
Amy only remembered to breathe again once she found herself standing on the concrete plaza outside. It was questionable whether she could take any more humiliation. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes and she willed them back, setting her mouth in a firm flat line of determination.
This wasn’t over yet.
At that moment she heard a loud drone from above. Glancing up, past the looming expanse of the monument Raphael’s father, David Markov, had long ago built to himself, she saw the blinking lights of an air taxi ascending from the roof. It banked south towards the river and quickly vanished amidst towering skyscrapers back-lit by the setting sun.
A bitter, hysterical laugh worked its way up to Amy’s throat. Raphael had fled the building rather than confront her.
Well then, she would just have to go to him. That was her plan of last resort—if he steadfastly refused to see her at his place of work, then she would track him down to his home instead.
Filled with a sense of grim determination, Amy Cotter hurried across the concrete plaza and away from the Telop building until she came to a road, issuing rapid commands to her bracelet.
It wasn’t long before a vacant hire pulled up next to her.
Exhausted from her experiences at the Telop building, Amy soon fell asleep as the boxy little car whisked her out of the city and into the countryside. Dashboard sensors noted her slowed heartbeat and breathing and the interior lights dimmed, the seat beneath her reclining gently. When she woke again, it was to see the moon flickering through trees, their branches overhanging a deserted countryside road.
A quick glance at the dashboard showed she had been asleep for most of an hour. A touch of a button brought her chair to its normal position. The road was familiar, and she realized she had already almost reached the outskirts of the Markov family estate.
Her fingers touched the dashboard and a manual wheel emerged from its groove. It would be easier to find what she was looking for if she had control of the car.
Before long, she came to a familiar turn in the road and pulled over before climbing out. A fine, mist-like rain descended from above the treetops, coating her skin where it was exposed in a veil of moisture. She hardly noticed.
With a touch of her bracelet, she sent the little car on its way. The last thing she wanted was anyone wondering why an empty hire might be sitting untended so close to the Markov estate.
Pines lined the road on either side, appearing as towering black shadows against the night sky. Amy thought of calling the car back, of abandoning this idiotic plan of hers. The Markov estate hardly lacked for security, and the thought of what might happen should she be caught trespassing was not a pleasant one. Not to mention that Raphael’s lawyers would have a field day with her in court.
Without quite realizing it, she had started walking into the trees and away from the road, the moon lighting her way. After a quarter of a mile her feet began to hurt enough that she had cause to regret not wearing something more practical than a pair of cheap slip-ons.
Cresting a low hill, Amy looked down and across an expanse of nearly unbroken forest. A few miles distant she saw the lights of the Markov mansion and the various outbuildings surrounding it. If she had stayed in the car and kept to the road, she would eventually have come to the main gates leading into the estate. Cameras would have picked her up long before she got that far, and one of Raphael’s security teams would surely have been sent out to prevent her from going any further.
Amy had never been back here once in all the years since Paul Green’s revelations.
She kept moving, soon sighting a tall fence that she knew ringed the entire estate. Years ago, while she had still been living here—when she had still been Amy Markov—she had explored the entire estate at her leisure, using it as an opportunity to identify places where the security coverage was less than complete.
Once she knew where those weak spots of coverage were, it had been a simple matter to sneak Isaac into the estate from time to time without Raphael or anyone else being any the wiser.
