‘Help me.’
Guillermo gestured to the cloud around the summit.
‘Dr Óskarson, please.’
Hrafn kept scraping until Guillermo joined him. Soon, aided by Guillermo’s trowel, they had cleared a pit thirty centimetres deep. There was no room for Ragnar to help. He pottered through the scree, turning to them occasionally. Hrafn was about to abandon the hole when his fingernail snagged a metal surface. With Guillermo’s help, he revealed the object. It was a grit-filled metal cylinder with the letter ‘P’ visible on one side. Hrafn knew that ‘YRENE’ would follow. He imagined Cory holding this fire extinguisher as it burned in his hand. But, of course, this could be one of the many extinguishers on board. And even if it could be proved that this extinguisher had been housed in the cockpit, it did not directly corroborate Cory’s story.
‘So,’ said Guillermo, ‘does this help you?’
‘We need to find the hose. He told me he cut it.’
‘Told you?’ asked Guillermo. ‘Who told you?’
Ragnar tapped Hrafn’s shoulder. Ragnar was holding something behind his back, as though playing the childhood game of guess-which-hand.
‘It’s a few months early,’ he said, ‘but happy birthday, Hrafn.’
He gave him a piece of black piping. It was hard and cracked. There was a V-shaped cut in the end.
‘So,’ continued Ragnar, ‘is this the thing your friend Saskia wanted?’
‘No,’ said Hrafn. He found himself close to tears. ‘I mean, I think she wanted me to find it for myself.’
‘Now we go,’ said Guillermo. ‘Tupungato is no place to linger at night.’
They stood. Hrafn waited, dazed, while Ragnar wrapped the hose in a handkerchief and stowed it in his rucksack. Their two-hour walk did not represent a significant descent, but only at the camp, with its white river and steaming hot chocolate, could Hrafn truly breathe.
Ragnar joined him at the edge of the river.
‘You’re going back to the investigation, aren’t you?’
‘If they’ll have me.’
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Berlin
On Alexanderplatz, at three in the morning, raining, there was nobody around but Saskia Brandt. She looked up the concrete steps of the TV tower and let her gaze travel to the red-winking pinnacle. Her hair, which had almost regained its former length, streamed out in the wind and drizzle. She shifted her weight from her left leg to her right. She needed constant reminding of her body’s capacities. It was reduced in some ways, extended in others. She felt the concrete beneath her trainers; caught her hair and drew it behind her ears. All the while, she stared at the pinnacle of the tower, thinking.
What are we doing here?
Ego’s voice entered her thoughts.
Fourteen seconds to go, it said. Confirm, please.
The break-in was about to begin. Black leather jacket: zipped shut. Black hiking trousers: new, four inches narrower at the waist. Black trainers.
Go, she thought.
Saskia started up the steps. Slowly. Carefully. She found the entrance door ajar, slipped inside, and waited with her back against the glass.
Five seconds remaining, said Ego.
Count me down.
Three, two, one. Go.
She ran across the dark foyer, entering both the tower and the abstract clockwork of her plan, which would unwind according to the roaming stares of the security cameras and the singular architecture of the building. This burst of running struck her wasted muscles with a sickly, sizzling weakness. She moved into a space formed by two staircases rising at right angles and dropped to one knee.
‘Fuck,’ she gasped, willing away the scintillations from her eyes. ‘Fuck. Fuck.’
Your heart rate is too high, said Ego. Breathe.
I’m breathing, don’t worry.
Five seconds.
As her vision tuned to the darkness, she noticed a bundle not two metres away. She narrowed her eyes. The thing resolved itself to a prone security guard. Like her, he occupied a surveillance blindspot. His attacker had placed him carefully. Saskia crawled towards the man and put her cheek to his mouth. He was alive.
Three, two, one, said Ego. Go.
She ran to the inner staircase and took the steps two at a time. Above her, a CCTV camera made a slow turn. This was the most exposed portion of her entry. She reached the halfway landing and swung on the banister to maintain her pace for the next flight. The muscles of her legs burned. Her fingers slipped on the metal, squeaking once, loudly, then she was bounding upwards once more. She knew that her progress was too slow—that the eastern surveillance camera would now have her feet coming into frame—but the final stairs were shadowed. If she could keep up the pace, and her luck held, she would make it.
You should run faster, said Ego.
Shut up.
Saskia reached the high landing just as the eye of the camera passed. She skipped to the lift doors. As she cuffed the panel, she took great breaths whose half-vocalised gasps sounded pathetic to the part of her mind already calculating the next stage of her break-in. She looked up. The camera was beginning to turn back. She waited. She was transfixed by its slow arc.
Ego, where is the lift?
It is sixty metres away and falling. Now thirty. Now twenty. Be ready on my mark.
Saskia looked again at the camera. Its gaze approached, came closer–
Hurry it up, Ego.
Mark.
– and moved across the front of the lift. Saskia was not there. She was inside, rising through the tower.
Saskia was both grateful for this rest and dismayed at the weakness of her body. But the frantic stage was over. Now she could turn her attention from security, and therefore capture, to her own safety. She considered the many turns that the next few minutes could take. What if her intuitions about Cory were wrong? He could do little to Saskia that had not been done already, but he knew the points of Saskia’s weakness by name: Jem. Danny. Karel. Hrafn.
At the thought of Danny, Saskia dropped her eyes.
There was a shape in the darkness.
Ego, I need night vision. Can you push my wetware device to the limit?
The scene did not brighten, but its contours and shapes became more easily parsed. There were false positives—odd, fleeting geometric primitives and angles. Amid this noise, however, one true object stood out.
Ego, Cory’s cane is leaning against the side of the lift, she thought. The wave of panic accompanying the realisation triggered a counteracting irritation at her jumpiness. When her fear was controlled, she thought, Ego?
It may be aware of you, it said. I can’t tell.
The cane toppled to the carpeted floor.
She pressed herself into the corner and looked at the red altimeter. She was less than halfway.
The cane shortened, grew darker, and melted into a black puddle. She tilted her head with a mixture of disgust and curiosity.
Ego? It’s doing something.
Describe it, please.
From the thick puddle—blood-like in the red light—a hand rose.
It’s… transforming.
I recommend you abort, Saskia. You should take the lift to the ground floor.
No, I’m not running up here again. I’m almost at the top.