It was four o’clock. They had two hours to work before things started to get dicey.
This was the sort of job Jonah would desperately have liked to farm out to someone else, as a Paladin being caught breaking and entering into government buildings could cause an unfathomably long line of complications. Horn, though, already had his hands full, and Wilson Turk, most likely fast asleep, wasn’t responding to any calls. Time was too short to travel to Turk and wake him personally, or to find anyone else. He and his new partner in crime, who had been his prime suspect until a few hours ago, would have to do it themselves.
The one advantage they had, their rank, would help a little. It would get them past any automated checkpoints, but not past any humans. The way the political situation stood, flashing identification at the guards might not be the best idea. If their suspicions were correct, any guard who connected a name to their face would likely make several phone calls, and there was a good chance that the sort of people often employed by Henrik Morten would show up to interrupt Jonah’s work. He had to get in unseen.
Jonah wasn’t entirely comfortable with cloak-and-dagger actions, but it was better than meetings. At least it got his adrenaline flowing.
The night was purple, the endless streetlights bouncing their glow off the high clouds hanging over the city. Under the clouds, the air was clear, and visibility was good. Spotting an intruder in these conditions would be scarcely more difficult than seeing them in daylight.
In the end, it looked like one of Jonah’s favorite battlefield tactics—diversion—would suit him well.
The guards heard a rumble first, like distant thunder. They paid it little mind, as the entire day and night had been cloudy.
But the rumble continued, slowly growing closer. It was going on for too long, and it was too muted. It wasn’t thunder.
One of the guards checked with their counterparts posted at the main door.
“You hear that?”
“What?”
“The rumble?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. I was going to ask you.”
“Probably protestors. They’ve been out all night, probably working on some damn fool stunt.”
“Have we been issued a shoot-to-kill order yet?”
“No.”
“Damn.”
The rumble got louder as a man turned the corner. He wore a cloth over his face and seemed to be shouting something, but the words came out too muffled for the guards to hear. He pushed a metal garbage can in front of him, the source of the rumble.
“Tell me he’s not coming toward us.”
“He’s coming toward us.”
The guards emerged from their kiosk, watching the protestor’s approach. They kept their weapons holstered, but their hands hovered, ready to grab.
As he approached, the man’s shouts grew clearer. “Garbage! Garbage! Garbage!”
The guards exchanged glances.
The man approached until he was within three meters of the guards. “Garbage!”
“All right, sir, that’s far enough.”
“Garbage! Garbage! That’s all this government is! Garbage!”
“I think your protest is probably over, sir.”
The man’s eyes blazed above the cloth covering the lower half of his face. “Over? It’s just beginning! You’re garbage! You’re all garbage!”
“Yes, sir. Fine. Now move along.”
“Ha! You’d like that, wouldn’t you! No, I’m going to tell you what you are! You’re garbage!”
“Sir, there are curfew laws…”
“Curfew? I’ll show you what I think of your curfew! Garbage!” He gave his can a shove. It rolled down the slight hill toward the guards, gaining speed. They easily dodged it, watching it as it picked up speed, heading toward a crowd of identical cans scattered among giant Dumpsters.
“Garbage! Ha!”
The guards turned back to the protestor. “Sir, you just assaulted government security officers. We could place you under arrest.”
“You’re garbage!” the man shouted, and the trash can ran into the others like a bowling ball, sending up a tremendous clatter. The protestor launched into a drunken dance.
The noise faded, and the guards approached the protestor. “All right, sir, that’s it. We’ll find a good place for you to dry out.” They reached for the protestor’s arms.
With surprisingly good reflexes, he yanked them away. “Don’t touch me! You filth!” He jumped backward and made a gesture frequently seen in Geneva highway traffic jams.
The guards exchanged glances and then lunged forward. But the protestor was too quick, turning nimbly and running ahead of them down the street.
He kept glancing at his pursuers, checking to see if they were gaining. They weren’t.
After a block of pursuit, the guards slowed. They couldn’t wander any farther out.
“Go home!” one of them shouted at the fleeing figure.
They trudged back to their position in their small kiosk. They arrived too late to see an extremely dizzy man emerge from the rolled garbage can, press his hand against a biometric lock, and enter the Hall of Government.
Jonah had to resist the urge to walk like a sneak thief, hunched over with wide strides. Nothing would draw the attention of the machines and guards monitoring the cameras faster than suspicious behavior. He had to walk like he was supposed to be there, which was difficult, considering his recent tumble in a metal can. Walking in a straight line was hard enough.
The hallways buzzed with power, some of it used for the all-too-dim lighting that would make it easy for Jonah to accidentally stumble into a guard on patrol. Most of the electricity supplied the wide array of alarms set throughout the building, guarding offices, computers and whatever other valuables Senators felt like keeping here. The low-level noise was a constant reminder to walk carefully.
Jonah felt a tug of longing as he walked by an elevator bank. He had to get to the twenty-third floor, and the elevators would be the best mode of transportation. But standing still for fifteen full seconds in the range of security cameras would not be a wise move. The stairwells had cameras, too, but he could move by them quickly. The only trick there was avoiding the question of why someone was walking up twenty-two flights of stairs at four in the morning.
He found a stairwell, walked up two flights, and exited. Strolling to the other side of the building, he found more stairs and went up another two flights.
Altogether, the building had ten stairwells. Jonah spent ten minutes wandering from one to another, moving up in small chunks of flights. Hopefully, if anyone noticed him on one set of stairs, they didn’t see him on the other. Hopefully there were entirely different sets of guards watching each stairwell, or each floor. Hopefully.
Finally, he reached floor twenty-three. The carpeting here was steel gray, the walls brown squares on a tan background, just like every other floor. There was a single guard stationed at the north end, another at the south. Jonah shouldn’t get close enough for either to see him.
He found the door he was looking for—Suite 2312, the offices of Senator Lina Derius. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small metal cylinder. Just below the sign announcing the Senator’s name was an almost invisible pinhole, and behind that hole was a microphone. Jonah held the cylinder in front of the hole and pressed a button on top. The cylinder played a recording that had been transmitted by Horn, a single word spoken by Henrik Morten.