Chapter 6

"I'm going in. Radio silence from now on," Benji announced standing in front of the Roman Tower's impressive main entrance. The floor-to-ceiling glass double-doors were not mirrored and from outside he could already see the great marble hall behind it. The doors were fitting just fine into the tower's design of huge windows fitted in a stainless steel frame. To others it would solely have been an ordinary office complex, but him it reminded a little too much of certain other high buildings.

"Roger that," Luther voice replied in his left ear and taking another deep breath, Benji pushed through the door.

The entrance hall was as he had seen it from outside: Unbelievably huge, the ceiling twice as high as that of a usual room and decked all in marble so that each of Benji's steps was reverberating from the walls. In the middle of the room stood a single information point, with three helpful staff members with bored looks sitting inside a square of plain black desks, next to a huge sign that told every visitor what to find on which floor.

Swiftly Benji strode through the hall, trying to look as self-confident as he could, although actually he had no idea where to go. Crossing the room, he headed straight for the back wall that seemed to consist solely of elevator doors, when somewhere behind him, a sweet, female voice called: "Good afternoon!"

Not sure if he was meant, although apart from the information desk staff and the occasional security guard he was the only person around, Benji slowed down and half turned, to see a small, stocky lady come straight at him. From the picture he had seen earlier, he recognized Lydia Ferret, the CEO of Clarkson Enterprises, now dressed in a dark blue business jumpsuit, her dark hair put up in a tight bun. With a wide, friendly smile that did not quite match her crocodile eyes, she caught up with him. She was smaller than Benji would have thought. Although she was wearing high-heeled shoes, she could hardly be taller than Skye.

"Your number, please," she said in a voice as if she was talking about the weather, but with a certain edge to it. "You know I can never tell you apart without."

For a moment the agent was taken aback, before he realized what she was talking about. "Oh, yes. Of course," he said, pulling out the blue card on the ribbon around his neck, which had up to now been hidden underneath his coat.

Ferret's face brightened when she saw the black number on blue ground, her smile broadening so much he almost feared her face would explode. "Oh, number twelve! How are things going? Have you found anything?"

"Not yet," Benji replied, not knowing what else to say. "But I'll keep looking."

Ferret smiled, stepping into the elevator that had just arrived. Without looking at it, she tapped on the button of the tenth floor. "I'm sure you will. I'm sorry I can't give you anyone to help, but I can't pull anyone off another project. Especially not now that things are starting to go wrong. However as Ian has taken care of the subject, I think you'll be fine on your own. You'll have all the time in the world."

"I understand," Benji answered, then he tried to take a bit of a risk. "What about the girl?"

Ferret face grew milder again. "Ah, her," she said with a soft voice. "She really is a nice catch. I'm just glad number four has captured her alive. Since Ian and his thugs did not only not manage to bring in the subject, but in the process scared him so much that he drowned himself in the Thames, from where we'll most likely never even get his body back in a decent state, we'll have to work with her. That might take some more time, but it's the only thing we have. We'll stick to the cover for now, nevertheless. And we will need some more information about her, I'm sure you will find something."

Benji managed to suppress a sigh of relief at knowing that Skye was definitely still alive, when the elevator stopped, revealing a door with a swipe-card lock. They had not found a card on the body of their guest, so this came somewhat unexpected, but then, improvising was what this job was all about. Putting his hands first in his outer, then his inner coat pockets, he did as if he was searching for his card, but couldn't find it. "Oh, this is embarrassing," he finally said with an apologizing smile. "I must have lost it back in the apartment."

"No problem," the woman replied, by now she had produced her own card out of her purse. With a practiced motion, she slid it through the sensor with her right hand, then placed her left on the pad that lid up next to the card-swipe. A second later the door slid open, revealing a surprisingly normal looking hallway with offices to either side and a dusty plant next to a water dispenser. "You can get it back later. It's not as if anyone could find it in the meantime. Now, I'm sorry, but I've got quite a tight schedule. Is there anything else?"

"Uh, yes. One thing," Benji put in. He knew he was stretching his luck, but the information he might get was most likely worth it. "Would it be possible for me to get access to the girl? I might have a few questions when I come back later on."

Ferret chuckled, a shrill, dissonant laugh that hurt his ears. "Of course, we're holding her in the usual quarters," she said, smiling. "But as I said, take your time. We're not in a hurry, and there's a few things I'll have to sort out first, now that we're changing the plan, before we can proceed to phase two. And now, excuse me, please."

With a last nod, she turned and proceeded down the corridor, vanishing into one of the offices. Finally Benji was alone again. "I'm inside the CE floor," he announced quietly, touching the button on his ear-piece, but there was no reply. "Base, do you copy?"

As there was no one around, he stopped for a moment at the water dispenser to listen more intently, but there was nothing. Literally nothing, not even a minute trace of background white-noise. "Does anybody copy?" he asked again, although he didn't really expect any reply anymore. Taking another look around to be sure that he really was alone, he pulled out his phone to check the transmission, but there was nothing he could do. Not even his phone had any kind of connection.

With a sigh, he put it back in the inside pocket of his coat, then he downed his cup of water like a vodka shot, before he went to have a look down the corridor. Now that he was already here, he could at least see if he could find something useful.

There were several offices on the floor, each of which presumably contained a computer connected to an internal network, but as the doors were made of milk glass, they also were all harboring the possibility of running into someone. Therefore he stored them in his mind as plan B, when suddenly he saw his plan A.

At the end of the corridor was a plain white metal door, the sign next to which said 'Server-room'. Much more interesting however was the piece of paper that was pasted on it with duct-tape, on which was written in handwritten block letters:

'Now entering IT-territory. Not IT? Keep out! Don't know it? Don't touch it! Especially not as long as it's running! (And even more so if it's not.) Thanks.

- The guy who's keeping everything together.'

Involuntarily Benji smiled as he entered the room. The interior was not as big as he had thought, and seemed even smaller through the racks with server arrays that were stacked up to the ceiling on either side. Who ever had installed them, had put them up with the front to the wall, so that the cable connections that seemed to run from every single computer to every other one, were visible. Some of the cables even reached across the corridor that remained in the middle and were taped against the ceiling to be out of the way.

On the other end of the room, opposite the door, stood a desk, on which someone had mounted five high-resolution screens, two on top of the other three, and still managed to leave enough space for a keyboard and a ten-key mouse. A headset was hanging over the lower far right screen. A small desktop lamp was the only source of light in the room.

Closing the door, the technician walked over to the desk. It didn't take him long to find the switch on the power strip that connected to all the monitors and obediently they flickered to life. Benji's smile broadened when he saw the familiar screen of Command and Conquer coming up, divided on all of them.

"But you're not here to play," he reminded himself, and clicked the program away on the main screen as he sat down. On the blank desktop that was behind it he opened up the command line and within seconds he was inside the server structure. Then he set up a secure internet connection to a server of his own, where he could dump everything important he found to retrieve it later on. After that, he started to systematically comb through the files, to see what was worth trying to get access to.

He was left undisturbed for a while, so he managed to put together a nice little compilation that mostly contained plans of the building, the electrical system, water and gas lines and other infrastructural systems. It wasn't exactly what he had been looking for, but he had soon noticed that there was no 'non-official' information about CE, at least not on this server array. Also there was nothing that told him anything about where Skye was. He was about to add some last details and then wrap it up, when the door opened behind him, and a distinctly Scottish voice asked: "Hey! What're ye doing?"

Turning around he saw that the voice belonged to a young man in his twenties, most likely slightly smaller than him, with fluffy black hair. He was wearing washed-out jeans, chucks of an undefinable color and a sweatshirt that might have been blue at some point, carrying a pack of sandwiches, a bottle of coke and a pack of McCoy's, and who obviously was the master of this dungeon. Trying to come up with an at least somewhat plausible explanation, Benji said the first thing that popped into his mind, although he knew that anyone who understood at least a little about computers would know that he was lying at the first glance at the monitor behind him: "Repairing the specs on the firewall of the second proxy?"

"My firewall is completely fine!" the young man replied defensively, but then started thinking. "Wait. Ye guys don't usually know anything about that kind of stuff. Ye wouldn't even know what a proxy is if I put one right in front of ya. And no one I've met here so far would be able to do, whatever it is ye did there."

He paused for a moment as he realized that this man had done something to his computers he couldn't identify, at least not in that short a time from so far away. But then he took a deep breath and continued. "But you're not one o' them, are ya? 'cause you're the actual guy!"

"And you're very perceptive," Benji replied. He already liked this one way better than the old hag named Lydia.

His comment had only been a statement, but the geek got it the wrong way. "I don't know anything and that's just the way I like it." He suddenly had his guard back up, and this time it was not a matter of pride, as it had been when the older technician had doubted the correctness of his server-protocols, but one of self preservation.

Benji sighed. "Relax. I'm not here after you."

The man still looked somewhat doubtful, but at least less frightened.

"You said it yourself, I'm not one of them," the agent continued. "I was looking for some information, and found your little network somewhat helpful. However computers only go so far and maybe you could help me out to fill in the blanks?"

"I've told ya already, I don't know nothing," the man replied, still somewhat skeptical, but he finally decided to enter the room and closed the door behind him. Storing his lunch in a corner behind his monitor array, he continued: "I sure as hell don't know that all the companies' tax returns are actually forged. Which means that I have no idea, that Clarkson Enterprises doesn't actually exist, at least not in the way they pretend to be. As far as I know, all they do is consulting on Online Marketing Management, although no one working here would be any good at that with the lousy computer skills they have, but I might just never have noticed that." He stopped for a moment, then smiled. "And the fact I'm still standing here most likely means that you believe me. Me name's Neil, by the way. Neil Sullivan."

"Benji. That is actually Benjamin, but, well..." He stopped for a moment, glancing at the screen to make sure that his upload was finished as Neil sat down and for a moment just stared. Carefully Benji asked: "If you know all of that, why are you still working here?"

The other technician didn't even look up as he replied. "Let's say that after the first time I asked weird questions, I realized just how much I'd like my head to stay where it is. Besides they really do pay well. Oh, this is so fascinating, I don't even understand half of what ya did there."

Still marveling at how someone could be fascinated at not understanding something, Benji decided to get back to his original problem. "Actually I'm looking for someone. A woman, about this tall, long blond hair, speaking with a slight Scandinavian accent. You don't happen to know where I might find her?"

For a moment Neil looked away from his screen and shrugged. "Sorry, mate. Can't help ya there. I hardly ever get out of here. I'm supposed to be tech support for the whole building, but half of the offices are empty and I don't even want to know what they are doing in the ones that aren't." Turning back to his display he continued: "But if I had to make a guess, I'd say ye should have a look in the basement. That's one of the few areas I don't have access to."

"Speaking of access: Are all the floors secured like this one?" The agent had been wondering about this for some time, especially as he had found nothing about that in Neil's server network, and the security system could present a problem the next time he was in that elevator. He hated to admit it, but he had been lucky the first time around and he couldn't expect that to happen again.

"The hand-print-scanner-thing? Yes, that's on all the levels, except the entrance hall," the younger man said sour faced. "And all of that is controlled over the security servers which themselves are in the basement. Before ya ask, there's no way to get into that server from here."

"You tried that?" Benji asked, curiously. Neil shrugged.

"I do get bored around here pretty easily and video games only go so far," he explained and finally closed Benji's command line window. "If ye want to, feel free to try, but I can tell ya, I've had a lot of free time."

The older man thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. "No, thanks. I think I should go now. Are you going to be alright? I mean after all you told me..."

The Scotsman grinned, on his five screens his game was already up again and his headset hanging around his neck. "I've been working the whole time. I've got no idea what ye are talking about."

"Have fun," Benji chuckled, as he closed the door behind him. The corridor outside was as he had left it, empty except for the plant and the water dispenser. If Neil was right, then there was a security lock on all doors, but the one to the entrance hall, which meant that at least he would get out without a problem. Still he was slightly nervous when he entered the elevator and pressed the ground floor button, but when the cabin reached it's destination, the doors slid open with a delightful chime. With long strides he crossed the marble hall and nearly flinched when a copy of himself passed him on his way out. However he managed to keep his face and curtly nodded to the other man, before he was through the door. Taking a sharp right, he headed straight down the street for a few meters, before he activated his radio. "Anyone, do you read?"

"We read you, loud and clear," Luther's voice came back, audibly relieved.

Benji had been worrying that they might get concerned about his silence and come up with bad ideas, which was promptly confirmed by Ethan. "What happened? We were about to come after you."

"I believe the building has a structure obstructing the usual radio frequencies. Not even mobiles work," Benji answered.

"No kidding," Luther's grumbled reply came back, which the Brit decided to ignore.

"All in all it's a bit of a long story, I'll tell you back at the flat. Meanwhile, Luther, I've dumped something for you on server B221," he continued his report.

"Got it," the other agent acknowledged.

Then finally Brandt chimed in: "Stay where you are, I'll pick you up."