While the men fanned out to their assigned positions, Carpenter and Roofer followed the sergeant toward the only light. It began to rain heavily, and the light seemed to blink on and off as they approached, finally becoming steady as the outline of a portable building became visible.
Carpenter hunched up her slicker and pulled its hood tight around her head, for shelter and better visibility. She and the sergeant ran to a window and looked inside. Through the rain-spotted glass they could see the dimensions of a large room, lit by a single lamp on a desk. A single figure, a young woman, sat at the desk. “Looks good,” Carpenter said.
“Not yet,” the sergeant replied. “Check the other windows.”
They ran around to the other side of the building and found another window lit. Inside, a large lump of a man was slumped over a desk, apparently asleep, illuminated by a single lamp and the glow from a computer screen.
“Double trouble,” the sergeant said. “I can only use the blowpipe on one at a time, and they’re in different rooms.”
“I’ve got my compressed air pipe,” Carpenter said. “I’ll take one.”
The sergeant thought for a moment. “I’ll take the guy, you take the woman. We’ll go in as quietly as we can and try to sneak up on them.”
Carpenter shook her head. “The woman is in profile to the door. As soon as we go in, she’s bound to see us. And as soon as we open the door, she’ll hear the weather outside. Let me go in first and close the door behind me. Give me five seconds, or until I’m well past the office door. I’ll take care of her, then you can do the man.”
The sergeant shrugged. “Why not?”
Roofer spoke up. “What do you want me to do?”
“Stay outside. Don’t come in until I call you,” the sergeant said.
Roofer nodded.
They walked back to the door. “Ready?” Carpenter asked rhetorically, then opened the door, walked in and closed the door behind her.
The woman at the desk looked up as Carpenter entered. “What?” she said.
“God, it’s filthy out there,” Carpenter said, shucking off her slicker and hanging it on a hook by the door. She pulled off her watch cap and shook her hair free, then she started toward the woman at the desk, a hand in her pocket.
“Who are you?” the woman asked. “You weren’t on the boat this afternoon.”
Carpenter approached the desk, smiling. “They made a special run for me. I’m doing the software updates.”
“What fucking software updates?” the woman asked. “We download the software updates.”
Carpenter heard the door open and close behind her.
“Who’s that?” the woman asked.
Carpenter’s hand closed on the cylinder in her pocket and she brought it out. “It’s a new kind of disk drive,” she said, walking around the desk behind the woman, as if to look over her shoulder at the computer monitor.
“I don’t get this,” the woman said, as Carpenter held the cylinder near her neck and fired it. There was a small hiss, the woman slapped at her neck, and then she seemed to dissolve into a heap.
Carpenter stretched her out on the floor and glanced toward the door in time to see a large mass hurtle out of the office and collide with the sergeant. The blowpipe flew from his hand and bounced off the wall, out of his reach.
The man was very big, bearded, and bellowing. “And who the fuck are you, my man?” he yelled, sitting on the sergeant, a hand at his throat.
Carpenter began running toward them, aware that she had fired her only dart, and as she did, the outside door opened and Roofer stepped inside. Quickly, before Carpenter could get there, he held out his cylinder before him and fired it in the general direction of the big man’s head.
“Ow!” the man yelled, clawing at his face. He ripped the dart out and tossed it away.
“Oh, shit,” Carpenter muttered to herself. “The blowpipe, Roofer!” she called out, as she picked up a heavy bookend from a table and threw it at the big man’s head. It caught him high on the skull and knocked him off the sergeant, but he immediately began to get to his feet.
Carpenter threw the other bookend at him, striking him in the chest. Roofer tackled the man from behind and, for his trouble, was shucked off like a shawl.
Carpenter, out of weapons, pointed a finger at the man. “Listen to me, you stupid son of a bitch!” she yelled.
“Huh?” the man said, turning toward her.
“Do you know who I am?”
“No, I don’t,” he said, not noticing the sergeant’s movement.
“Well, you’d bloody well better get on the phone and find out, hadn’t you?”
The man looked at her, baffled. “The phone? Who am I supposed to call?”
The sergeant blew his dart from three feet, and Carpenter and Roofer simultaneously threw themselves onto the man.
“Just hold him!” the sergeant yelled, grabbing an arm.
Roofer grabbed the other arm and the man shook him like a puppy.
“Listen to me!” Carpenter shouted, inches from his face. “Listen to me!”
The man looked at her, ready to say something, then his knees gave way, and he fell forward, like a long sack of potatoes.
Carpenter stepped out of his way. “Nighty-night,” she said. “Roofer, get on the computer.”
The sergeant was on his hands and knees, searching for something.
“What are you looking for?” Carpenter asked.
“The other dart,” the sergeant said. “Help me. We’re going to need it.”
Carpenter began looking, too, and a moment later, the sergeant found it. He went to the big man, who was not quite unconscious, and stuck it into his neck.
“I don’t know how long this is going to last on someone of his size,” the sergeant said, “so tell your man to hurry.”
Carpenter looked over her shoulder. Roofer was at the computer, typing rapidly.
36
Carpenter wrung the mop into the pail and turned to the sergeant. “Do you think you could do something around here? We’ve got to clean up.”
The sergeant reluctantly took a dry mop from the broom closet and began going over the area Carpenter had wet-mopped.
“Thank you,” she said. She turned to Roofer, who had been working at the computer for half an hour. “What about it?” she asked.
“It’s a tough one,” he said. “These people know what they’re doing. Do you think there might be some paper files with this information?”
“Perhaps you didn’t notice, but there are no filing cabinets in this building.”
“Oh.” He began typing again.
Carpenter checked the time. “It’s going to start getting light in less than an hour, and we don’t know what time the watch changes.”
“Pressure won’t help,” Roofer said. “Kindly shut up and let me work.”
Carpenter resisted the temptation to ream out the junior officer. He was right, after all.
The sergeant sat down at a table and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
“Don’t do that.” she said. “Have you noticed that there are no ashtrays in the building? If they’re all nonsmokers, they’ll smell the smoke.”
The sergeant sighed and put away the cigarettes.
“Go and check on the big one.” she said.
The sergeant got up and went into the office, then came out again. “Sleeping like a baby,” he said. “I put him in the same position he was in when we arrived. When he wakes up, he’ll think he had a bad dream.”
“He’d better not wake up,” Carpenter muttered. She was looking at the door to the outside when the knob started to turn.
She waved at the sergeant to get his attention, then pointed at the door. The sergeant tiptoed toward it and took up a position to one side.
The door opened, to reveal one of their own men. “When are you going to be done?” he asked. “It’s going to start getting light soon.”