They passed between the stone lions of the porch and entered the Great Hall. Low security lights intensified the churchlike look of the Victorian architecture: the mullioned windows, the pointed arches, and the serried timbers of the roof. The dimness made no difference to the security cameras, which-Kit knew-worked by infrared light.
At the modern reception desk in the middle of the hall were two more guards. One was an attractive young woman Kit did not recognize, and the other was Steve Tremlett. Kit hung back, not wanting Steve to look at him too closely. "You'll want to access the central processing unit," Steve said.
Nigel answered. "That's the place to start."
Steve raised his eyebrows at the London accent, but made no comment. "Susan will show you the way-I need to stay by the phone."
Susan had short hair and a pierced eyebrow. She wore a shirt with epaulettes, a tie, dark serge uniform trousers, and black lace-up shoes. She gave them a friendly smile and led them along a corridor paneled in dark wood.
A weird calm seemed to descend on Kit. He was inside, being escorted by a security guard, about to rob the place. He felt fatalistic. The cards had been dealt, he had placed his bet, there was nothing to do now but play out his hånd, win or lose.
They entered the control room.
The place was cleaner and tidier than Kit remembered, with all cables neatly stowed and logbooks in a row on a shelf. He presumed that was loni's influence. Here also there were two guards instead of one. They sat at the long desk, watching the monitors. Susan introduced them as Don and Stu. Don was a dark-skinned south Indian with a thick Glasgow accent, and Stu was a freckled redhead. Kit did not recognize either one. An extra guard was no big deal, Kit told himself: just another pair of eyes to shield things from, another brain to be distracted, another person to be lulled into apathy.
Susan opened the door to the equipment room. "The CPU is in there."
A moment later Kit was inside the inner sanctum. Just like that! he thought, although it had taken weeks of preparation. Here were the computers and other devices that ran not just the phone system but also the lighting, the security cameras, and the alarms. Even to get this far was a triumph.
He said to Susan, "Thanks very much-well take it from here."
"If there's anything you need, come to reception," she said, and she left.
Kit put his laptop on a shelf and connected it to the security computer. He pulled over a chair and turned his laptop so that the screen could not be seen by someone standing in the doorway. He felt Daisy's eyes on him, suspicious and malevolent. "Go into the next room," he said to her. "Keep an eye on the guards,"
She glared resentfully at him for a moment, then did as he said.
Kit took a deep breath. He knew exactly what he had to do. He needed to work fast, but carefully.
First, he accessed the program that controlled the video feed from thirty-seven closed-circuit television cameras. He looked at the entrance to BSL4, which appeared normal. He checked the reception desk and saw Steve there, but not Susan. Scanning the input from other cameras, he located Susan patrolling elsewhere in the building. He noted the time.
The computers massive memory stored the camera images for four weeks before overwriting them. Kit knew his way around the program, for he had installed it. He located the video from the cameras in BSL4 this time last night. He checked the feed, random sampling footage, to make sure no crazy scientist had been working in the lab in the middle of the night; but all the images showed empty rooms. Good.
Nigel and Elton watched him in tense silence.
He then fed last night's images into the monitors the guards were currently watching.
Now someone could walk around BSL4 doing anything he liked without their knowing.
The monitors were fitted with biased switches that would detect equipment substitution, for example if the feed came from a separate videotape deck. However, this footage was not coming from an outside source, but direct from the computer's memory-so it did not trigger the alarm.
Kit stepped into the main control room. Daisy was slumped in a chair, wearing her leather jacket over the Hibernian Telecom overalls. Kit studied the bank of screens. All appeared normal. The dark-skinned guard, Don, looked at him with an inquiring expression. As a cover, Kit said, "Are any of the phones in here working?"
"None," said Don.
Along the bottom edge of each screen was a line of text giving the time and date. The time was the same on the screens that showed yesterday's footage-Kit had made sure of that. But yesterday's footage showed yesterday's date.
Kit was betting that no one ever looked at that date. The guards scanned the screens for activity; they did not read text that told them what they already knew.
He hoped he was right.
Don was wondering why the telephone repairman was so interested in the television monitors. "Something we can do for you?" he said in a challenging tone.
Daisy grunted and stirred in her chair, like a dog sensing tension among the humans.
Kit's mobile phone rang.
He stepped back into the equipment room. The message on the screen of his laptop said: "Kremlin calling Toni." He guessed that Steve wanted to let Toni know that the repair team had arrived. He decided to put the call through: it might reassure Toni and discourage her from coming here. He touched a key, then listened in on his mobile.
"This is Toni Gallo." She was in her car; Kit could hear the engine.
"Steve here, at the Kremlin. The maintenance team from Hibernian Telecom have arrived."
"Have they fixed the problem?"
"They've just started work. I hope I didn't wake you."
"No, I'm not in bed, I'm on my way to you."
Kit cursed. It was what he had been afraid of.
"There's really no need," Steve told Toni.
Kit thought: That's right!
"Probably not," she replied. "But I'll feel more comfbrtable."
Kit thought: When will you get here?
Steve had the same thought. "Where are you now?"
"I'm only a few miles away, but the roads are terrible, and I can't go faster than fifteen or twenty miles an hour."
"Are you in your Porsche?" Yes.
"This is Scotland, you should have bought a Land Rover."
"I should have bought a bloody tank."
Come on, Kit thought, how long?
Toni answered his question. "It's going to take me at least half an hour, maybe an hour."
They hung up, and Kit cursed under his breath.
He told himself that a visit by Toni would not be fatal. There would be nothing to warn her that a robbery was going on. Nothing should seem amiss for several days. It would appear only that there had been a problem with the phone system, and a repair team had fixed it. Not until the scientists returned to work would anyone realize that BSL4 had been burgled.
The main danger was that Toni might see through Kit's disguise. He looked completely different, he had removed his distinctive jewelry, and he could easily alter his voice, making it more Scots; but she was a sharp-nosed bitch and he could not afford to take any chances. If she showed up, he would keep out of her way as much as possible, and let Nigel do the talking. All the same, the risk of something going wrong would increase tenfold.
But there was nothing he could do about it, except hurry.
His next task was to get Nigel into the lab without any of the guards seeing. The main problem here was the patrols. Once an hour, a guard from reception made a tour of the building. The patrol followed a prescribed route, and took twenty minutes. Having passed the entrance to BSL4, the guard would not come back for an hour.
Kit had seen Susan patrolling a few minutes ago, when he connected his laptop to the surveillance program. Now he checked the feed from reception and saw her sitting with Steve at the desk, her circuit done. Kit checked his watch. He had a comfortable thirty minutes before she went on patrol again.