Philip Kerr - Gridiron

'It's not too bad. We'll be early, I think. It's a nice evening for flying, sir.'

The engine roared and the car sailed towards the garage door. Declan leaned out of the window and repeated his name for the TESPAR code. The door remained shut.

'This is Declan Bennett. Open the garage door, please.'

Nothing.

Richardson buttoned down his window and shouted at the wall microphone. 'This is Ray Richardson. Open the fucking door!'

'Isn't life great?' growled Richardson. 'This is just what I need with the PCI on Monday.'

'Shall we get someone to fix it?" asked Joan.

'Right now what I most want to do is get the hell out of here.'

Richardson gritted his teeth and shook his head slowly. 'We'll call a cab. And go out through the front door.'

Declan reversed the car towards the elevator. The three of them got out and took the elevator up to the atrium. They marched past the tree and across the white marble floor.

'What's that smell?' said Richardson.

'What's that awful music?' asked Joan.

Declan shrugged. 'It is kind of depressing, Mrs Richardson,' he admitted. 'Not my taste. Not my taste at all.'

'There must be something wrong with the aromatizer,' said

Richardson. 'Fuck it, there's no time. Let someone else sort it out.' He led the way through the enormous glass doors towards the front entrance.

Joan and Declan followed. At the hologram desk Joan stopped to call a cab and to complain about the music.

'You're listening to a piano suite by Arnold Schoenberg,' explained Kelly Pendry. 'Opus 25. This was the first twelve-tone, "atonal" piece of music ever created.' She was smiling brightly, like some brainless MTV presenter. 'Each compostition is formed from a series of twelve different tones. This series may be played in its original form, inverted, played backward, or played backward and inverted.'

'It's a noise,' barked Joan.

'Joan, just get that thing to call us a cab,' said Richardson as he waited for Declan to open the front door. And waited. 'Declan?'

'… Locked,' muttered Richardson's driver. He turned to the microphone by the entrance and said, This is Declan Bennett. Will you unlock the door, please?'

He returned to the door and pulled a second time, but the door did not budge.

'Here, let me try,' said Richardson, approaching the microphone.

'TESPAR voice check. Ray Richardson. Open the front door, please.'

As he pulled on the handle the photochromic glass in and around the door started to darken.

'What the hell's happening now?' He cleared his throat and repeated the request. 'Ray Richardson. Open the door, damn it.'

Declan shook his head. There must be something wrong with the

TESPAR. And it smells like an abattoir in here.'

Richardson dropped his briefcase and laptop carrier and looked at his watch. It was five thirty-three.

'You know, I really don't need this right now.'

The disgruntled-looking trio walked back to the hologram desk.

'We can't get out,' said Richardson. 'The front door appears to be locked.'

This building closes at five-thirty,' explained Kelly.

'I'm aware of that,' said Richardson. 'However, that does not apply to those who are still in the building. And who might want to get out. What is the point of the TESPAR if not…?'

'TESPAR? That stands for Time Encoded Signal Processing and

Recognition System, sir. A signal containing frequencies within any finite range can be described mathematically as a complex polynomial function, and so can be encoded in terms of its real and complex solutions or zeros.'

'Thank you, I know what TESPAR is already.' Richardson spoke through clenched teeth.

'The real zeros are points where the amplitude actually falls to zero; and the complex zeros, where there is an intermediate trough in the amplitude of a wave. TESPAR numerically describes where these points are.'

'Shut the fuck up, will you?'

'You asked me a question, sir. I was giving you an answer. There is no need to be abusive.'

'Well, now that you've given me the answer, you stupid bitch, I want you to call the boardroom. I want to speak to Aidan Kenny.'

'Please be patient. I'm trying to expedite your inquiry.'

'You do that. And while you're doing it change the music. This shit is driving me up the wall.'

'Certainly. Do you have a preference?'

'I don't know. Anything but this crap.'

'Very well,' said Kelly. 'This music is by Philip Glass,' and the piano started to play again.

'I don't think this is much better,' said Joan, after a few bars. Richardson grinned as he saw the funny side of his situation.

'Look, where's that call?'

'Please be patient. I'm trying to expedite your inquiry.'

'And what is that awful smell? It seems to go with the music.'

'That is ethyl mercaptan. It represents just 1/400,000,000th of a milligram per litre of air in this building, sir.'

'The building is supposed to smell nice, not like a butcher's shop.'

'My data records indicate that the aroma of roast beef is a pleasurable one.'

'That's not roast beef. That's rotten beef. Change it, airhead. Sea breeze, eucalyptus, cedar glade, anything like that.'

'Very well, sir.'

The telephone on the desk rang. Richardson leaned through the hologram and picked it up.

'Ray? Aidan Kenny here. What seems to be the problem?'

'The problem is that the front door is locked,' said Richardson. 'And the computer won't unlock it.'

'Must be something wrong with your TESPAR. Have you tried clearing your throat before you made the request?'

'We've tried everything short of praying to it and kneeing it in the balls. Besides, we just came up in the elevator. If there was something wrong with our TESPAR signals we could hardly have got this far.'

'Hmm. Let me take a look on the screen here. I'll put the phone down for just a second.'

'Bastard,' muttered Richardson and waited.

'Ray? I'm going down to the computer room to try and sort it out there. Maybe you should come back up to the boardroom until I've fixed the problem.'

'With Sergeant Friday there? No thanks, I'd rather stay here. Just hurry up, will you? I'm supposed to be at the airport.'

'Sure thing. Oh, Ray? You haven't seen Mitch or Kay, have you?'

'No,' he said impatiently. 'No, we haven't.'

The elevator chimed as another car arrived on the atrium floor.

'Wait a minute. Maybe this is them.'

Richardson looked around and saw the two painters and the security guard, Dukes, coming towards them.

'What's the problem, sir?' said Dukes.

'Aid, it's not them. It's those two painters and the security guard. The one who's still alive, y'know? You'd better ask Abraham where the hell they are. That's what it's for.'

Aidan Kenny crossed the bridge to the computer room and pushed open the heavy glass door, wondering why Richardson or Mitch or Grabel, or whoever it was who had designed the room had not thought to use an automatic door. Then he remembered that there was no automatic mechanism powerful enough to operate a bombproof glass door. At least it helped to keep the room cool. He had not realized how warm the rest of the building had become until he entered the fridge-like conditions of the computer room. Perhaps it was not just the front door lock that was faulty. Perhaps there was something wrong with the HVAC too.

It as just as well, he told himself, that the computer room HVAC was independent of the main building's air-conditioning system. No such thing as diurnal use in here. The Yu-5 required twenty-four-hour airconditioning. A shut-down of something as sophisticated as the Yu-5 owing to a loss of air-conditioning would have been disastrous. You could not afford to take chances with the environment in a $40 million computer room.

Kenny dropped into his Lamm Nero leather armchair and laying the flat of his right hand on to the screen accessed the work-station. The computer gave him the date and the time while admitting him to the system: it was past six o'clock.

'Hey, don't remind me. I knew this was going to be a long day,' he muttered. 'Anything that involves Ray Richardson. And now this. You can sure pick your moments to fuck up, Abraham, I'll say that for you.'

Jenny and Mitch went into the kitchen where Curtis and Coleman had just concluded their interviews.

'What happened to you?' Curtis asked.

Jenny sat Mitch down at a long wooden table in the centre of the room, between a big stove with a ceramic hob and a seat of fitted drawers and cupboards. Jenny tugged open one of the drawers and took out a first-aid box.

'I just caught up with a former colleague.'

'I never knew architecture had such lively personalities in it,' said Curtis.

Mitch told him about Grabel while Jenny dabbed at his lip with an antiseptic swab.

'If anyone can shed some light on the death of Sam Gleig it's him,' he explained. 'Only he didn't see it that way. When I tried to persuade him to come up here and talk to you guys he punched me out. He's in a bit of state. Looks like he's hit the bottle pretty hard since leaving the firm.'

'You really need a stitch in that,' observed Jenny. 'Try not to smile.'

Mitch shrugged. 'That's easy.' He frowned. 'Look can we get out of here? This light is giving me a headache.'

Above their heads a fluorescent light burned to assist the antibacterial effect of the wall tiles: these had a photocatalytic coating of enamelled titanium dioxide, topped with a layer of copper and silver compounds: when the photocatalyst absorbed light, it activated the metal ions that killed any bacteria coming into contact with the tile's ceramic surface.

'More likely the effect of being knocked out,' said Jenny. 'You may have a concussion. Maybe you should have an X-ray.'

Mitch stood up. 'I'll be all right,' he said.

'Do you know where Mr Grabel went?'

Mitch shrugged. 'No idea. But I can tell you if he's still in the building.'

They went into the boardroom.

'Hey champ,' said Beech. 'Nice lip. What happened?'

'It's a long story.'

Mitch sat down in front of the desktop computer and asked Abraham for a list of everyone still in the building.

ATRIUM FLOOR:

RAY RICHARDSON, RICHARDSON ASSOC.

JOAN RICHARDSON, RICHARDSON ASSOC.

DECLAN BENNETT, RICHARDSON ASSOC.

IRVING DUKES, YU CORP.

PETER DOBBS, COOPER CONSTRUCTION

JOSE MARTINEZ, COOPER CONSTRUCTION

SWIMMING POOL AND FITNESS AREA: KAY KILLEN, RICHARDSON ASSOC.

COMPUTER ROOM:

AIDAN KENNY, RICHARDSON ASSOC.

21ST LEVEL BOARDROOM:

DAVID ARNON, ELMO SERGO ENGINEERING LTD

WILLIS ELLERY, RICHARDSON ASSOC.

MARTY BIRNBAUM, RICHARDSON ASSOC.

TONY LEVINE, RICHARDSON ASSOC.

HELEN HUSSEY, COOPER CONSTRUCTION

BOB BEECH, YU CORP.

FRANK CURTIS, LAPD

NATHAN COLEMAN, LAPD

MITCHELL BRYAN, RICHARDSON ASSOC.

JENNY BAO, JENNY BAO FENG SHUI CONSULTANT

'What the hell is everyone doing down in the atrium?' said Mitch. Beech shrugged apologetically. 'The front doors aren't working. We're locked in. At least we are until Aidan finds out what's wrong with it.'

'What about the garage?'

'Not working either.'

'Nothing like being locked in a place to make you feel secure,' said Curtis.

'Well,' sighed Mitch, 'Grabel got out, anyway. He's not listed by Abraham.'

'It's probably something quite simple,' said Beech. 'It usually is. A systems configuration or command-lines problem. Aid thinks it might just be a third-party driver for the whole security system that's incompatible with the smart drive.'