Sean nearly blacked out with the force and suddenness of the attack. Blood drained from his head and in a split second he went from feeling light-headed to the edge of unconsciousness. A primitive instinct caused him to roll sideways away from the attack.
Before he could regain his breath, or even attempt to get to his feet, Schaeffer was on him again. A series of hard thuds reminded him that the man was still very much in control. Then a particularly hard kick connected and Sean felt a sharp pain in his side. He continued to roll away from the onslaught. At this point he glimpsed Natasha rising from her chair. She picked up a vase of plastic flowers still standing miraculously on a side table and brought it crashing down on Schaeffer’s skull.
The man broke off the attack and turned to confront his new adversary.
Sean ignored the pain, swung his legs around in a fast arc, connecting just below and behind Schaeffer’s lower leg. The man sank to his knees and Sean used a closed fist to the man’s already battered face. He saw Schaeffer’s jaw wobble with the force. Amazingly this did not stop the man from getting to his feet, staggering to the door and lurching into the darkness.
Sean struggled to his feet, grabbed his rucksack and ran after him.
Chapter 23
DD switched on the lights and blinked in the harsh white glare. The strip lights showed the room to be thirty feet long and twenty feet wide. Along the back wall stretched a row of communications cabinets, stuffed with networking gear. Cables snaked into the cabinets from the ceiling and LED lights glowed green and orange through the glass doors.
He took out a small laptop computer, no larger than an A5 notepad. Plugging a cable into it, he connected the other end to a spare port on one of the network switches. While he waited for the computer to boot up he hurried over to the next row of cabinets. These contained the servers which ran the network. DD noticed that all of these cabinets had lockable glass doors. Feeling around the top of the cabinet, he found the key and opened the door.
He pulled out a narrow shelf which glided soundlessly out on rollers. A thin screen and keyboard lay flat on the shelf. DD lifted the screen into an upright position, extracted a second small laptop from his bag and set it up alongside the server screen.
Using a combination of keys DD was able to view the console for each server in turn. He examined the A5 laptop that was plugged in to the network in the first cabinet and soon deduced the key server which would authenticate him, giving him access to the network.
Once on the system DD marvelled at the intricate defences the company had constructed. Each of their schemes was laid out before him on the screen, like a map in front of a geologist. Avoiding them, he began the most boring stage of the evening’s work — searching for the information he required. In a way it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. He knew what the needle looked like, but compared to the sheer volume of other digital information on the network there was no easy way to find it quickly.
DD fired up a program from the laptop onto the network. It was small, very fast and acted like a search engine. Designed to search every document, database, spreadsheet and email, it could build a sophisticated index of every word and its position within the document. Once the index was complete DD could search the entire network for specific words or phrases. To signal how far the program had reached, a progress bar showed on the screen. Currently it stood at 34 % and was slowly moving towards the halfway mark. DD figured that he would need another twenty minutes for the program to complete, but at this stage he felt secure in the knowledge that no-one knew they were here.
He turned to the sound of a muted explosion from outside the room. The feeling of security evaporated in an instant.
While DD was busy on the servers, Lomax made a tour of the computer room, noticing a safe sunk into the back wall. It was locked, but Lomax thought he could crack it in less than ten minutes. He checked the corridor again — it was clear. He wanted to be sure he had plenty of warning should there be a guard on the prowl and he pulled a flat round object out of his rucksack, the size of a portable CD player. Walking to the end of the corridor, he stopped just before it turned the corner and undid the tabs on the back of the device. He pressed it against the wall about a foot off the ground and the device stuck to the wall like a limpet. Lomax then pulled out a tab from the side, unreeling a hair-thin wire and fixed it to the opposite wall with a sucker. Anyone unfortunate enough to trip over the wire would get a nasty shock.
Working his way forward Lomax placed another two trip mines along the corridor, spacing them ten metres apart.
Back in the computer room, Lomax examined the safe. For all the sophistication of the equipment around him, it was the most basic device in the room, using a pure mechanical locking mechanism to protect its contents. Lomax dipped into his rucksack again and brought out a slim box, about the size and shape of digital camera. He smeared some gel around the dial on the safe and set to work with his miniature X-ray camera. As he opened the safe door, he heard a muffled boom. Lomax went quickly to the door and looked out carefully. He could hear faint cries. Very soon they would call up reinforcements and the game would be up.
‘How much time do you need?’ he shouted over to DD.
‘At least fifteen minutes’, came the reply.
‘Jesus’ muttered Lomax under his breath. The other traps might slow them down, but not for that long. He reached into his coat and pulled out his pistol. Sean might have reasons not to use firearms, but Lomax felt no compunction. Then the thought of word reaching London about this fiasco made him hesitate. London wanted no dead bodies left for the law or the media to investigate. London was sometimes a bit like a starched Auntie he had once known. She was very clear on what she wanted you to do and what she didn’t want you to do. And like Auntie, the Agency’s wrath would be felt for a long time if you were a bad boy.
Well, you haven’t seen how bad I can be, thought Lomax.
Just then he felt the air pressure blast from a second explosion. They only had seconds left.
‘Come on’, he shouted to DD. ‘Let’s go!’
Lomax glanced back into the room. He watched impatiently as DD grabbed his two small pocket computers and stuffed them into his rucksack. The leads were left dangling from the network sockets and it looked like DD was going to take those as well. Before Lomax could run back into the room to get him, DD dashed over to the opened safe and grabbed the contents. Lomax dragged DD to the door.
‘Listen shit-head’, Lomax ground out through his teeth. He forced DD into a crouch. ‘Stay low, follow me, and when I say run — run like the clappers!’
At that moment, a head peeked around the final corner to their corridor. Lomax could just make out a blue cap, before the head and cap disappeared. Lomax shoved DD in the back. ‘Let’s go!’
Sean saw Schaeffer fifty yards away, heading uphill for the ridge. Sean dived into the woods taking the trail he discovered earlier in the day. Even though there was a half moon it was difficult to see the path through the overhanging foliage.
He was exhausted and breathing heavily from the punishment he had taken. His side hurt like hell. He thought he might have a broken rib, but now was not the time to stop and take stock.
He held his hands out in front of him to stop himself colliding with the trees. After a minute his night sight improved and he moved more confidently over the ground. About halfway up the slope he hunted around for a side path that would allow him to approach the ridge from an angle. He found the path after a minute and carefully crept along it until he judged he was about fifteen metres from the top. He stopped, lay down on the path and used his elbows to pull himself along. He wasn’t sure if Schaeffer had a gun and Sean didn’t want to be silhouetted in the moonlight as he came over the ridge.