Then Joe is quietly closing the window behind them. He stuffs the knotted rope back in his rucksack.
They are on a wooden spiral staircase, devoid of carpets, pictures or any sort of decoration.
Voices.
They go down the wooden stairs on tiptoe. Joe is carrying his rucksack, as if to drop it and run at a moment's notice. There is a heavy, partially open wooden door. Joe waves Findhorn and Romella back, takes a look. Then he is rummaging in his rucksack. They drop their heavy jackets on the steps and wriggle into long, black theatrical robes which add to the miasma of unreality already enveloping Findhorn. Romella is struggling with a camera, looping its cord round her neck while trying not to make it bulge under the robe. Joe stuffs things into pockets and inside his shirt.
Out into the warm, carpeted corridor. Findhorn catches a whiff of hot food. At the end of the corridor is a broad flight of stairs. Along and to the right, an open double door from which comes a buzz of conversation and the clatter of dishes and cutlery. To reach the stairs they will have to pass this door. They follow Joe, stepping warily along the corridor.
A man and a woman appear at the top of the stairs. Joe, Romella and Findhorn huddle together, as if talking. Findhorn realizes that their costume pieces are all wrong, they are too black, the collar isn't right. The man and woman, heads bowed and hands in their sleeves, are down the stairs and walking towards them. They pay the trio no attention and turn into the refectory.
Joe passes by the open door. Findhorn dares a glance as they pass. He glimpses four long dark tables, with about a hundred faithful in all. There is a raised dais and a lectern with a backdrop of heavy curtains. They pass unnoticed, climb the stairs, find themselves on a landing with two corridors leading off.
One corridor leads to a chapel, ablaze with candles. Silver flying saucers hang from its ceiling, suspended on chains. A mother-ship the size of a large chandelier, lined with portholes, dominates them all. The chapel walls are covered with paintings: Jesus with open arms, saints with halos. These are interspersed with blow-ups of the Roswell alien, the face on Mars, the Belt of Orion, a star map showing the track of Sirius as it snakes across the sky. A feeling of uneasiness overwhelms Findhorn, as if he is in the presence of evil. He can't analyze it, tries to shrug it off, but the feeling persists.
They retreat. Joe points to a double door. 'This has the look of a private apartment,' he whispers.
Findhorn nods his agreement. Light is shining under the door. Joe drops to his knees, starts to use some tool on the lock. Romella stands guard at the top of the landing. A gust of laughter comes up from the refectory.
Then the door clicks open and they are in a hallway, which, for sumptuous excess, rivals Dougie's flat. Its walls are lined with tapestries. They step onto soft carpet, their path illuminated by reproduction oil lamps on the walls.
Voices, coming from an open door ten metres to their right. Joe creeps along, peers into the living room, pulls his head back. Findhorn admires his nerve. Then Joe looks again, and turns to them with an expression which somehow combines fear, horror and anger all at once. He waves them past the room.
It is empty. Marlon Brando, looking noble in a toga, is addressing a Roman lynch mob in a Nebraska accent, his words sub-titled in German. A walnut-topped desk is heaped with a disorganized clutter of revolvers, automatic pistols and cardboard ammunition boxes. About a dozen small orange cylinders are lined up against a wall. The words SARIN GAS are stencilled on them. Findhorn guesses there is probably enough of it to wipe out a small city. Joe's complexion is waxy. He hisses, 'What have you people got me into?'
Half a dozen doors lead off from the hallway. A faint blue light is shining under one of them. Joe goes down on his knees at the door and from a pocket pulls out what looks like a thin strip of coiled wire. He is visibly trembling. He uncoils the wire and slips it under the door. At the other end is an eyepiece and he holds this to his eye while wiggling the wire. Then he sighs with relief, and they are into a large empty study. The blue light comes from three small television monitors on a desk at the window. The monitors are showing the outside grounds. The front of the swimming pool is clearly visible: they had crossed in full view of a camera. Joe raises his hands to his cheeks, mutters something about Never Again.
Joe rewinds a video tape and presses the play button. Then he crosses to the shuttered window and pulls the heavy velvet curtains closed. 'Right, do your business and be quick about it. If we're caught…'
Quickly, Findhorn switches on the computer. It requests a password. Someone with Tati's secrets is unlikely to leave a password scribbled on some notepad and he wastes no time guessing. Romella is skimming through papers on another desk. There is something about the eight worldly dharmas: fame and infamy, praise and insult, gain and loss, pleasure and pain. She goes through the drawers, holding a flashlight in her mouth. One contains only maps. The other has pens, pencils, scrap paper. The third drawer is locked. She takes the torch from her mouth and hisses softly at Joe.
The burglar goes down on his knees, looks closely at the lock in the torchlight and produces the Swiss army knife again. 'Simple tumbril,' he whispers in a shaky voice; Findhorn wonders why everyone is whispering in this big, empty apartment. Joe closes his eyes in concentration. He hardly seems to be moving the thin blade. But then, as if by a miracle, the drawer slides smoothly open.
Romella lifts the contents out, puts them on the desk and switches on a desk lamp.
Findhorn becomes aware that his gloved hands are shaking. They begin to go through the papers.
'Footsteps?' Romella asks.
They freeze.
Another dog. The bark is deep, of the type associated with a pit bull or a big hound. It is directly below the study window. Then there is the scrunch of boots over snow and a rough male voice.
'They've found the Doberman.' Joe's eyes are wild.
A door slams in the wind. Brilliant lights come on outside, finding chinks in the window shutters.
Joe runs out of the room. For a moment they think he has abandoned them. But then he is back. 'The gymnasium roof's lit up. Come on, we're out of here.'
'No.'
'What?
Romella takes the camera from around her neck. Findhorn holds the papers in place while Romella clicks, a page at a time. He notices that her hands, too, are unsteady.
The distant chop-chop of an approaching helicopter.
Joe is wringing his hands, pacing up and down. 'Right, people. Let's go.' He is thinking of the guns and the sarin gas, senses that capture will be a terminal event.
The helicopter is getting noisy. Findhorn says, 'Now the address book.'
Joe cuts loose a stream of obscenity. Now the helicopter is roaring mightily. The shutters rattle, and a moving light flickers through a gap. Romella and Findhorn are still photographing. Then they hear the engine dying and the whoosh-whoosh of the freewheeling rotor.
And then the sound of voices. Maybe four or five people. Joe is performing a sort of war dance, silent and frenzied.
Footsteps, heading for the front of the house. They can't help but see our tracks in the snow, Findhorn thinks in desperation.
Romella says, 'Okay.' Hastily, she returns the papers to the drawer.
'Lock it,' says Findhorn.
'There's nae time, ye eejit.'
'Lock it if you want to collect your money.'
Joe is on the edge of violence. He kneels down with his knife, fiddles with the lock. The pit bull is going crazy, its deep bay freezing Findhorn's blood. Somebody is speaking interrogatively in German.