“It will work,” Adrianna said, turning to give the skinny man her very best cold hard stare.
Beaumont returned it with equal ferocity, “Well, for all our sakes let’s hope it does.”
Once again, Jim found himself caught in the middle of a potential conflict, and once again he found himself defusing the obvious dislike that was perilously close to escalating into full-blown conflict between the stick—thin Beaumont and the diminutive Adrianna Drake.
“Mr. Gallagher has been a while,” Jim said finally, hoping to distract them both. “Mr. Beaumont. Maybe we should go and make sure he’s not lost.” Beaumont didn’t argue and with a final smirk at the red-faced Adrianna, he left the room through the door held open by a waiting Jim Baston.
“Kids today,” said Beaumont sarcastically as the two men made their way along the corridor leading back to the transmission room.
“You check in there,” said Jim, as they reached the door to the transmission room, “and I’ll go see if he’s still in the men’s room.”
Beaumont nodded and pushed through the door into the bustling transmission room. Jim caught a glimpse of Lorentz still busily checking the equipment and heard a snatch of his voice reading off some figures before the heavy door closed, sealing the room. He continued down the corridor until he arrived at two doors marked with the universal symbols for male and female bathrooms. Pushing open the door to the men’s room, Jim stepped inside.
Immediately, the astringent smell of disinfectant and stale urine filled his nostrils, reminding him of long ago hospital visits. The automatic overhead lights were already on, which only added to the antiseptic feel of the bathroom as they illuminated the white tiled floors and walls. The lights were motion activated and set on a timer of a few minutes before they switched off, so either the Gallagher had recently left or he was still here in one of the cubicles.
“Mr. Gallagher, are you in here?” Jim called out, his voice echoing off the tile floor. There was no answer for a few seconds and then he heard a quiet cough and Gallagher’s voice issued from one of the nearby cubicles.
“Yeah, I’m in here” said Gallagher, “Won’t be too long.”
“Well you’re cutting it pretty close,” replied Jim glancing at his watch. “You think you will be okay?”
“Sure thing, I’m about done. You go on ahead and I’ll meet you in the transmission room.” The sound of the toilet flushing emphasized the sentiment behind the statement.
He was a strange one that Gallagher, thought Jim. He still wasn’t sure what it was about the man that made him uneasy whenever he was around. Maybe it was the shit-eating grin he always seemed to have plastered on his face? Kind of like he knew something you didn’t. Or, maybe it was the way he watched the women? Whenever they were near his eyes would always be following them, even though his mouth was still talking to you. Whatever it was, this time tomorrow Gallagher and the rest of the Church appointed team would be out of his hair, and no longer his problem.
Thank God for small mercies, Jim thought as he exited the bathroom and walked slowly back toward the transmission room.
Forty-Two
Tony Gallagher listened until he was sure Baston had left. He ducked outside the toilet stall and doublechecked the bathroom. When he was sure he was alone, he slipped back into the stall and closed the swing door, locking it behind him; just in case. Dropping the seat-cover on the toilet, he sat down, crossed his legs, and leaned back against the water cistern. He would have to give that guy Baston a minute to get back to the transmission room before he made his move.
From the breast pocket of his shirt, Gallagher pulled a small nondescript calculator, caressing it with his big hands like it was some priceless jewel. And in a way, it was. This tiny solar-powered calculator was the key to everything. It worked just like a regular calculator, but if he typed in a specific string of numbers and then hit the % button, it would send a radio signal to the passive receiver—unit hidden in the video camera he had left sitting on a table in the transmission room. The signal would detonate the explosives lining the inner walls of the camera unit and it would be game over.
He, and the church, of course, would win.
The wonderful thing about General-Munitions Haywire Gel was that it was so malleable, which meant it could be easily disguised or hidden just about anywhere. Easily molded into virtually any shape or size desired, it made the perfect explosive for smuggling into a complex such as this. It was also impossible to detonate the explosive by dropping it, stomping on it or throwing it. Its shock resistance made it the ideal tool for this kind of covert job.
The only way to detonate the explosive was to trigger it with a smaller blast from another explosive; in this case, it was a tiny amount of black-powder hooked up to the receiver of the low frequency detonator. He had wired the detonator directly into the battery of the camera, so it needed no telltale secondary power source for the security scanners to pick up—as long as the camera’s battery remained charged, the bomb was ready to rock-and-roll.
Gallagher deftly tapped in the sequence of code numbers that would prime the detonator: 1-9-53. The bomb was now activated and armed, all it would take now was for him to hit the % key and it would be done. His index finger hovered above the key as he sat on the closed lid of the commode and waited for Baston to get back to the transmission room. A thrilling sense of expectation pounded through his veins as he thought about the lives he now held in his hand.
They were all going to die, it was just such a shame it would be over so quickly.
Lorentz glanced up as the door to the transmission room opened and the skinny soundman stepped inside. Through the crack of the door, he caught a glimpse of Jim saying something to Beaumont before the door swung shut again. The soundman scanned the room as if he was looking for something before noticing Lorentz watching him. Their eyes linked for a brief second and then Beaumont broke the connection, his face flushing with embarrassment at the contempt so obvious in the doctor’s eyes.
“Mina,” Lorentz said, “Would you look after our guest; make sure he doesn’t touch anything would you please?” Mina nodded and walked over to where the soundman stood shuffling his feet.
Henry Mabry sidled—as much as anybody of his enormous size could ever hope to sidle—over to join Lorentz at his computer station.
“All ready at my end, Doc,” he said.
“Good. Good. We can start running the diagnostics as soon as James returns.”
The soundman was still looking about as comfortable as a nun at a whore’s convention. He was attempting to hide his obvious nervousness by pretending to adjust his sound equipment.
Good, thought Lorentz, keep the bastard off balance. They had no right to be here anyway. Things were tense enough without their intrusive presence.
Over the radio link the sound of Adrianna’s voice crackled, “Doctor Lorentz, we are all set here in the receiver room.”
Lorentz picked up the small handheld radio from the desk next to him and pressed the send button, “Very good Doctor Drake. Please stand by to begin running the final diagnostics.”
“Will do,” then a long pause and, “Good luck.”
Lorentz smiled before replying, “We don’t need luck, Doctor Drake… we have science.”
The swing door of the men’s room had closed behind Jim as he made his way back to the transmission room. With less than twenty minutes left until go-time, he was running late and he needed to get to the lab for the final diagnostics check to make sure his end of the experiment went smoothly. If he had not been playing nursemaid to the Church crew, he would be there already.