The Age Atomic

TWENTY-FIVE

The lobby outside the doors of Tisiphone Realty was empty except for a man sitting in one of the two couches, silent but for the rustle of the newspaper he was holding. There was a coffee table, on which was scattered a few copies of Life and Time, and by the window a water cooler — the kind that came with those ridiculous paper cone cups that you couldn’t put down anywhere. The window itself looked out over West 34th Street. Today the sun was shining. It was a beautiful morning in New York City.

The man on the sofa recrossed his legs and flicked the center of the New York Times he wasn’t reading. His shift was due to end in fifteen minutes, when he’d be replaced by another man in another suit. The first man would fold the newspaper nosily and deposit it on the table and check his watch, complain about being late for an appointment he’d forgotten downtown, and dart off towards the elevators while his replacement grabbed a cone of water and took in the view.

This scene would be repeated every four hours.

The agent scanned the article on page five of the newspaper for the tenth time. His name was Jan Holzer, and he was looking forward to getting back to his apartment in Queens and getting some coffee and some sleep. Jan drank coffee for the taste — ten years with the Secret Service had made him immune to the effects of caffeine — and a cup of joe (milky, a habit he’d picked up from his German-English parents, to the horror of his friends) was the perfect nightcap after a shift at the Empire State Building.

Jan flicked the paper again and collapsed it in half, then half again. He uncrossed his legs, crossed them again in the opposite direction, and checked his watch.

His replacement was late. This wasn’t unusual in itself, nor any particular reason for concern. The security details had some leeway programmed into them, so agents could come a little early or a little late; a few minutes here and there didn’t make much difference, and it added to the cover, if anyone happened to be watching.

Although this time Jan’s replacement, Eddie Ellroy, was ten minutes late. This was, strictly speaking, against the rules, but Eddie was Eddie.

Jan sighed. He didn’t like Eddie. Eddie always cracked a joke about Jan’s German heritage and found it hilarious to call Jan “Einstein” because, as a security agent for a government scientific department, Jan was clearly working beneath his station and really should have been behind the door they guarded, working on the affairs of state with the other brainiacs.

Eddie Ellroy was a real jerk. And right now, he was a real late jerk.

The door of the Department opened. Jan tensed, ready for action, years of Secret Service training kicking in, preparing him for anything. Expect the unexpected. In Nimrod’s world, the unexpected was very often the case.

A young man in a grey suit emerged from the Department, his hair slick, his shoes shined. He let the door swing closed behind him and, without a glance at Jan, took off down the corridor.

Jan clicked his tongue. Things were in a real state in there, he imagined, since the whole Department had suddenly gone on alert. But as a security agent it paid to keep out of such things, keep his mind clear, focus on the job at hand. Departmental alert or not, his job didn’t change.

The elevator pinged, out of sight, and the lobby was silent again. Jan got back to reading the front page of the newspaper for the one-hundredth time.

A moment later the elevator sounded again. Finally. Jan braced himself for the one-way delivery of jokes at his expense, and stood to get another cup of water. All part of the act.

“The traffic today is the pits!”

Jan turned at the voice, cone of water halfway to his mouth. Eddie Ellroy was still absent. Standing in the lobby was a woman, dressed in expensive furs and high heels, a hat that was really a little too large for her balanced on top of a haircut Jan hadn’t seen outside the pages of Life magazine. The woman smiled, the movement of her chin making the veil in front of her face move.

Jan drained his cup and crushed the paper cone in his fist. “Excuse me?” he said, outwardly polite, inwardly wondering who the hell she was and where the hell Ellroy had got to. Jerk.

The woman sat on the edge of the sofa and began shuffling through the magazines on the coffee table. Selecting an issue of Time, she sat back and studied the cover intently.

Jan reached for the inside pocket of his jacket, sliding the fingers of his right hand between the buttons of his suit. In a hair under two seconds he could have his gun out and trained on the intruder. There was no reason for anyone who wasn’t involved with Nimrod’s Department to be on this floor, and his replacement security detail had failed to show, all of which was totally wrong. There was a telephone on the wall; all Jan had to do was keep the gun on the woman and call for more security.

“You’re a little premature there, Mr Holzer,” said the woman. She lowered the magazine just a little and peered over it at the agent. Holzer gulped, his hand moving further into his jacket, his fingertips caressing his concealed automatic. Time to drop the act.

“This is a restricted area, ma’am. I’m going to have to call security. They’ll want to ask you a few questions.”

The woman slapped the magazine down on the table and sighed, rolling her eyes as she reached for the handbag on the floor. Jan watched her and took a step forward, the gun that was once inside his jacket now out. He took another step and pointed the weapon at her.

The woman glanced up as she rifled through her bag, and shook her head with a smile. “Relax, agent. I’m standing in for Ellroy today.”

Jan raised the gun.

“Here we go,” said the woman. She pulled a folded card from her bag and offered it to Jan. Jan took it, keeping the gun aimed at her forehead, and flipped it open. He read the ID aloud. “Special Agent Irena Dubrovna?”

“Got it in one, agent.” It took Jan a second to realize she was holding her hand out, waiting for him to return the card. He did so, and he lowered his gun, but he didn’t replace it inside his jacket.

“I don’t know you,” said Jan.

Irena shrugged. “I don’t know Ellroy either, but I’ve heard he’s a real jerk. Anyway, get. I’m here.”

Jan frowned. Irena looked right, he had to admit, dressed well enough to pass as a potential client for the real estate company Nimrod’s Department pretended to be. Her manner was casual, but their very public exchange had blown any kind of cover. Not that anyone was watching. Jan rolled his shoulders and glanced around. The door to the Department was closed, and the corridors were silent.

Jan sniffed and nodded, slipping his gun out of sight. Irena ignored him, her attention back on the magazine.

Feeling uncomfortable, but looking forward to coffee and sleep, Agent Jan Holzer left.

Irena waited a moment, and then rested the magazine on her lap. After watching the Department door for a minute more, she stood and walked to the windows. She looked out across the city, towards the Chrysler Building, on the beautiful morning.

She reached up, sliding a gloved hand beneath her veil, and touched the earpiece buried deep in her right ear. It was new technology, advanced, but one of the advantages of her cover was that her hat was big enough to carry both the radio’s battery and transmitter.

“Alpha One, in position.”

She listened, nodded, and then helped herself to a cup of water.

TWENTY-SIX

Security agent Jan Holzter had been on the money. Behind the closed doors of Tisiphone Realty it was organized chaos.

Every desk on the floor was occupied, half by men, mostly in rolled-up shirt sleeves, cigarettes burning bright, filling the air with a thick fog of tobacco smoke. Some shuffled paper, a lot held telephones between shoulder and ear as they jotted down notes. The other half of the staff were women, most looking considerably less flustered than their male counterparts as they focused on typing and filing, filling the air with a machine gun clatter of keys striking paper. The cacophony that filled the office wasn’t loud, but it was constant and unending.

Nimrod watched the hubbub through the open door of his office. Behind him, the ticker tape machine sprang into life, slowly feeding paper onto the floor. Mr Grieves quickly picked up the tape and began to read.

Nimrod folded his arms and turned around. “Well?”

The agent pulled the tape through his fingers. “All departments acknowledge the alert and are awaiting further information. The Vice President has been taken to a secure location and the President is currently at the State Department in DC.”

“Very good.”

“Also the Secretary of Defense wants to speak with you, urgently.”

Nimrod sighed. He should have expected this, but it was exactly the kind of distraction with which he didn’t want to deal. Nimrod was keenly aware that it was Atoms for Peace, not his Department, in favor with the Secretary. “He can wait.”

Mr Grieves smirked as the phone on Nimrod’s desk rang. Nimrod nodded and Grieves picked it up. He listened a moment, and as Nimrod watched his smirk quickly faded.

Grieves held out the phone to his superior. “It’s the Secretary.”

Nimrod gritted his teeth and closed the door of his private office. Then he took the receiver.

“Mr Secretary, we were just talking about you.”

The Captain smiled at Mr Grieves and walked around his desk, phone pressed tight against his ear.

“Yes, Mr Secretary. I believe so.”

Nimrod sat heavily at his desk and listened a moment longer, then barked a laugh.

“Bad? My dear chap, ‘bad’ does not begin to describe it. What I am talking about is nothing less than the end of the world.”

The door to the Department opened, and Captain Nimrod stormed out. Irena lowered her newspaper, trying to keep the surprise from her face. But it wasn’t an issue, as the target wasn’t watching. Nimrod muttered under his breath and waved one hand in the air like he was arguing with someone who wasn’t there as he strode the short distance across the lobby and vanished into the corridor leading to the main elevators.

Irena listened until she heard the elevator ping and the doors open. A moment later the doors rattled shut and silence returned.

Irena leapt from the sofa and crossed to the window to get the best reception. She looked down, trying to get an angle on the street below, but the stepped shape of the Empire State Building hid the main entrance.

The radio clicked in her ear.

“Cloud Club, this is Alpha One,” she said. “We have a problem.”