‘You think this Kassim is really here?’ The Dutchman looked concerned, not fearful. He was experienced and had been in similar circumstances before.
‘It’s what he’s been working towards. He wouldn’t miss it.’
‘I’ve seen the reports.’ The captain stood away from the car as his second-in-command, a French lieutenant, signalled the all-clear. ‘OK. We are going inside. You wish to join us?’
They walked up the mound and stepped past the clutch of security men through the entrance. The air smelled damp and musty, overlaid with a hint of coffee and spicy cooking. They could see through some swing doors into a large hall, where chairs were being laid out in rows against tables. At the far end was a small dais where technicians were setting up a batch of microphones.
Ahead of them two sniffer dogs darted in and out of every corner and crevice, urged on by their handlers. Behind each handler stood an armed man. They were taking no chances.
‘They have brought in lunch,’ Rekker told them, nodding towards two women carrying plates. ‘Everything has been checked and sealed. The dogs will make a sweep, then my men will go through one more time.’
They walked through the building, the captain pointing out obvious concealment areas such as wall cavities, cupboards, false ceilings and storerooms. Piles of books stood on vast tables, some damaged and torn, most covered in dust.
‘It got left when all the power went out,’ Rekker explained. ‘They’re trying to get it catalogued all over again but they can’t get the staff.’
As they walked along a corridor between administration offices, Harry looked up at the ceiling. It was a latticework of struts supporting polystyrene tiles interspersed with neon lights.
‘Anything up there?’ he asked.
The captain shook his head. ‘First place we checked. The struts won’t support a man’s weight. The whole thing is held by thin wires, so if anyone gets up there, the structure begins to move.’ He smiled grimly. ‘But we’ll check it again anyway.’
They continued their inspection, more evidence plainly visible in the surrounding rooms of the previous searches made by the protection team. Cupboards had been left open, doors left at angles to prevent their use as blinds, inspection panels in the floor taped over with vivid yellow-and-black zebra markings, ceiling tiles removed and stacked on the floor. The skin of the building was too thin to provide concealment, and the windows were sealed shut and staked out by armed troops.
Along the corridor from the main hall, a tiled washroom echoed with their footsteps, the air sharp with the tang of cleaning fluid and the softer scent of detergent. The cubicle doors hung open, and an inspection panel for the master cistern lay against the wall, revealing the crawl-space behind.
Towards the rear of the building they arrived at an open door.
‘This leads to the basement,’ the captain explained. ‘Boiler room, storerooms — fuel storage area. There’s a single delivery chute from the outside which we’ve sealed shut.’ He led them down a flight of stairs to a series of chambers lit by single bulbs. The air smelled strongly of fuel oil and damp, and was gritty with the taste of disturbed dust.
They passed a desk spread with yellowed papers and old, curled binders, and on the wall a line of hooks hung with grey uniform coats. Everywhere lay typical institutional evidence of a place used as a dumping ground: packing crates, scarred tables and damaged chairs, broken neon strip-lights, two ancient typewriters, old bookshelves, the detritus of used items set aside and forgotten.
Harry walked through the rooms, passing first a huge boiler and in another a smaller one. Oil-fired, he assumed. This was confirmed by a fuel line running along the wall and disappearing through the brickwork towards the outside. The tank, he guessed — if it was still intact — was somewhere out there. He walked back to the first boiler, which was coal-fired. Sacks of solid fuel were stacked against one wall at the far end. Some had fallen over, scattering their contents across the concrete floor. Harry kicked one of the lumps, sending it skittering away into a puddle where weeks, maybe months of damp had gathered together in a scummy pool. A thin wisp of black dust rose around his ankles before settling down again in the still air. Two empty coal sacks lay crumpled nearby.
Nothing big enough to hide a man, though.
Back upstairs the security sweep was coming to an end and the building emptying ready for the event to begin.
‘How is he leaving afterwards?’ Harry asked the captain as they reached the front entrance. Something was tugging at his brain, demanding to be heard.
The Dutchman pointed to an open stretch of ground next to the library, where a large ‘H’ had been marked off in thick white tape. ‘By air. From here he goes to the airport, gets on a flight to Frankfurt, then New York.’ He grinned. ‘I wish it was as easy for me.’ He excused himself and went to gather his team to return to the Grand Hotel to collect Kleeman, leaving Harry and Rik standing at the front entrance.
‘You feel anything?’ Harry asked. He was talking about that inner sense common to most security teams. He’d felt it in houses, offices — even out in the country. Sometimes he’d been proven right, others not. But he never ignored the feelings.
And right now they were screaming out loud.
Rik shook his head. ‘I thought I did — back there. Just for a moment. You?’
Harry nodded. ‘He’s here. I can feel him. Something’s off but I can’t put my finger on it.’
‘What — inside? There’s no room for a cat to hide in there. Anyway, if he’s got a rifle. .’
Harry felt a shiver run down his spine. Something was definitely wrong.
They walked around the outside of the building, fetching up at the rear where maintenance men and builders had turned it into a minor wasteland of aluminium ducting, assorted wood and building materials. None of it looked as if it had been disturbed recently, and it had about it the desolate air of things man-made rendered useless. Like an old quarry long fallen into disuse.
An UNMIK dog handler conducting a final sweep among the refuse with a sniffer dog cursed and stepped back with an expression of distaste. A piece of soiled paper was attached to his boot and he scraped it off on the ground. The dog seemed uninterested and tugged at its lead.
The dog handler’s radio crackled into life. He looked at Harry and Rik.
‘Kleeman’s on his way. ETA five minutes.’
FIFTY-TWO
Beneath the boiler-room floor, Kassim suppressed a cough as coal dust tickled his nose. He’d listened with nerves jangling as the security sweeps had come and gone. At one point a dog had whined just inches from his head, the thickness of the inspection hatch and some coal between them. He’d pulled back in alarm before telling himself the animal wouldn’t be able to sense his presence through the dust and oil from the boiler.
Minutes later came footsteps and the sound of something skittering across the floor. Someone had kicked a loose piece of coal. He’d closed his eyes, imagination threatening to take over as he pictured the man above kicking the layer of coal aside and spotting the outline of the inspection hatch Kassim had covered during the night. He’d balanced bags of coal against the hatch, then let it drop after descending, and listened as the rumble of coal had covered it over. But the footsteps moved away and there was the thump of a door closing.
Kassim flicked on his torch and checked the time. Thirty minutes to go. He doubted there would be another security sweep now. It would soon be time to move.
Before doing so, he took a last look at some maintenance drawings he’d discovered in the boiler room. They showed a tracery of access ways and utility spaces in the building, and he memorized them carefully. His life might depend on it. Then he folded them away and braced his shoulders, pushing upwards. For a second there was solid resistance, and Kassim felt a momentary panic at the thought that he’d miscalculated. Then he heard a rumbling sound across the metal hatch and saw light through a shower of coal dust pouring around him.