Chapter 6

In the center of a multi-colored flowerbed surrounded by manicured green bushes there was a stone plate with inscription White Reef Condominium. Bypassing the flower bed, Barkov stopped the car under a portico with columns in the form of sea horses and had a look around. This place gave a clear view of the ocean. The water was quiet to the very horizon.

It seems we still have some time.

Andrew turned off the engine and looked at Emily.

“We’ve arrived. Listen to me carefully. We need a man whose name is Lippo Lorenzetti. He’s a hacker. He lives in the penthouse. His job is rendering services to various companies, namely hacking their computer systems.”

“Why do they need such services?” Emily expressed surprise.

“To search for vulnerabilities. He steals commercial secrets of a customer and then explains to the customer how he has done it. They then pay him to improve their security. The government hires him for that too. Washington needs to ensure the protection of the President’s secret data. In our case, Lippo’s task will be getting the data and delivering it to us. You’ll pretend to be a secret agent. And your name is… say, Rosalinda.”

Emily frowned. “No way!”

“Why? Are you scared of the consequences? Our lives are at stake here, you know.”

“I don’t like the name Rosalinda. Katherine is better.”

Andrew shook his head. We’re facing death from an asteroid, tsunamis, assassins and the government’s secret plans, and she objects to a name! “As you wish. Only I will talk. Your task is to accompany me. Keep silent and nod. No initiatives, no ideas, no disputes. Is it clear, Katherine?”

She pressed her lips and nodded in silence.

Barkov fastened the holster to his belt, thrust in the gun and left the car. A young parking valet was already standing near the door with an affected smile on his face. Giving him the Ford keys, Andrew made his way to the entrance. Emily followed him.

Looking back at the ocean once again and making sure that its surface was still quiet, Barkov entered the door.

The spacious hall of the condominium was stylized like the seabed. The floor was carpeted with a thick pile rug that resembled algae with decorative crabs, starfish and shellfish scattered on it in an artistic order. Tables in the form of closed shells surrounded with chairs resembling open shells were situated on the perimeter of the hall. Only one table was occupied by a young man and a woman who were conversing quietly. In the center of the hall there was the bridge of an ancient ship with a large wooden steering wheel in the middle. To all appearances, it was a concierge counter. However, there was no concierge at the moment.

“How beautiful!” Emily exclaimed as she gazed around. “And the air is cool here. It seems as if we dived into the ocean!”

“If the tsunami strikes, we’ll dive actually.” Andrew went to the doors with the inscription “Elevator Lobby’.

Andrew wanted to find the concierge and to warn him or her about the possible disaster and necessity to evacuate people. But what if the pending disaster would be caused not by a tsunami? The water might have receded from the shore for another reason. What if people should instead be concerned about another powerful earthquake, not a giant wave? In this case, they had to run away from buildings instead of climbing them.

Let seismologists and rescuers think of it. I’ve got another task to resolve.

The elevator lobby door opened and a concierge dressed in a black suit with a mindphone on his lapel came out.

“Can I help you?” he asked courteously looking at Barkov’s holster.

Andrew showed him the badge. “Lieutenant Andrew Barkov. We need to go up to Mr. Lorenzetti’s place.”

“Just a minute.” His mindphone clinked, which meant it had established a connection with a certain apartment that the concierge had chosen mentally. “Hello!” said the man distinctly. “Is this Mister Lippo Lorenzetti?”

Barkov knew little about Lippo Lorenzetti. According to stories from other policemen who investigated cyber-crimes, Lippo was a genius. In his youth, he spent a short time in prison for breaking a bank network. Since then, all his activity had been legal. Working for large commercial and state companies, he found vulnerabilities practically in any system. Sometimes the police used his services when it was necessary to find some prominent illegal hackers. At that, Lippo led a covert life. Andrew had never met him in person and hadn’t even seen his photo. He only knew where Lorenzetti resided – also from colleagues’ stories.

“Hello!” the concierge continued. “Glad to hear you, Rosalinda.” Hearing the name, Andrew and Emily exchanged glances. “Is Lippo home? Very well. I’m sorry to trouble you, there are visitors here, police lieutenant Andrew Barkov and a lady.” Covering the mindphone with his hand, he said to Andrew, “Mr. Lorenzetti’s assistant asks about the purpose of your visit.”

Andrew said, “We have a special order for him.”

The concierge transmitted his words and, listening to the answer, looked at his watch.

“I don’t think our business can wait for fifteen minutes,” Emily said suddenly.

The man stared at her, frowning. “How do you know what she told me?”

The girl smiled. “I have a sensitive ear.”

The concierge still frowned, then listened to his earpiece and said, “Rosalinda says you can go up now,” and pointed with his thumb over his shoulder. “Please proceed to Mr. Lorenzetti’s elevator. It’s the last one on the right. Unfortunately, you can’t go to the penthouse by the stairs as there is no way. Only by the elevator.”

Barkov was surprised. “Who would go to the seventieth floor on foot?”

The man hesitated. “Probably you don’t know yet… Half of our elevators crashed because of the asteroid. Nine people were killed. Many dwellers prefer to go on foot now. Don’t be scared, Mr. Lorenzetti’s elevator is the most reliable one. It is light, armored, safe. By the way, they will ask you to remove your gun before entering the apartment.”

“Sorry, buddy. I’m a cop!”

The man shrugged his shoulders. “You can refuse, of course. It’s up to you. Have a good trip!”

Andrew and Emily directed their steps to the elevator lobby across a wide blue-colored corridor with the succession of white elevator doors whose outlines resembled sails of ancient ships. Some of them were closed up with striped red and yellow sticky tape crosswise over the doors.

“It’s a real nightmare. Nine people!” Emily muttered.

“Yes, among millions of others. Billions are in jeopardy, I’m afraid. Why did you interfere in my conversation with the concierge? We had an agreement that you would keep silent!”

“Yes, at the hacker’s place. We had no agreement concerning the concierge, did we?”

“Okay. There’s one more thing. If you can hear electromagnetic waves, it is not necessary to boast about it to everybody.”

“I didn’t mean to. I got worried, since we don’t have time to wait around. Besides, the guy had no clue. He believed that I simply had a good ear.”

They approached the last elevator on the right. Entering it, Andrew saw a console with just two buttons, “Up’ and “Down’. He pressed the “Up’ button. The doors closed, but the elevator didn’t move. A female voice came from above, “Attention. An armed passenger. Weapon model: Colt. Type of ammunition: service cartridges. Please deposit your weapon for the period of your visit.”

The same text in capital black letters ran from left to right on the white wall of the elevator at eye level. A massive box without locks or handles slid out from under the push-button panel. It was so deep that it could accommodate a dozen pistols.

Probably an intellectual scanner was installed in the elevator, just like at some important government sites. Lorenzetti must have spent quite a lot of money to ensure his safety!

“I’m a policeman!” Barkov announced as he took out his badge and showed it to the camera in the ceiling. “You have no right to request my weapon!”

A few seconds later, the doors opened. The female voice announced, “The armed passenger, you have thirty seconds to leave the elevator or to deposit the weapon. Otherwise, the doors will be blocked until guards and an attorney arrive.”

The text version of the same statement appeared on the wall. Then bright red digits started to flash there. 30, 29, 28… Each digit was accompanied by a loud beep.

“Damn!” Barkov mumbled.

He had neither the authority nor the desire to give his gun away for storage to other people, let alone to put it into a box in an elevator. But meeting Lorenzetti was absolutely essential. He was the only one Andrew had heard of who could get hold of top-secret information.

Pulling the gun out of the holster, Barkov put it into the box. The countdown stopped at once and the box slid into the wall.

“Thank you for cooperation,” the female voice became kindly. “Welcome, dear guests!”

The doors closed and the elevator started. Its movement was so smooth that it was not clear if they were going up or down.

Emily neared Andrew and whispered in his ear, “I’ve heard the signal supplied to the box for it to open and the signal to start the elevator!”

Boasting again. What a strange mania!

“Congratulations,” Barkov replied in low voice. “But I know about your abilities. I don’t need you to remind of them constantly.”

“You don’t understand. I can send the same signal to open the box. I can transmit signals as well as read them. You can take the gun, and I’ll re-start the elevator!”

It was an interesting idea. Andrew didn’t know who would meet their “dear guests’ at the top or what the reception might be. It could happen that the weapon might prove useful. However, if Andrew took the gun again, Lorenzetti might panic and escape. It was possible that the hacker had provided for some other safeguards for himself besides the elevator blockade.

“No. Don’t do anything.”

“Are you sure?”

Barkov nodded. His senses would alert him if danger awaited them. Then again, what had the concierge said about the elevator? “It is light, armored, safe.” Safe for who? Maybe it could block out his sense of danger too.

About ten seconds passed. The elevator stopped and the doors opened. Andrew saw a multi-colored flowerbed lit with the sun’s rays and surrounded with precision cut green bushes. Have they sent us down instead of up?

Leaving the elevator, he saw that they were in the penthouse. Sunshine filtered through the windows occupying all the space from the floor to the ceiling and through the glass roof. Around the bed on the marble floor there were some sofas and chairs made of light bamboo. The opposite wall was decorated with flowers in bamboo pots. Tightly closed compartment doors also trimmed with bamboo were located in the wall opposite the elevator. On each side there were two trolleys with trays filled with fruit and berries – apples, pears, peaches, strawberry and grapes.

“Let’s go back downstairs!” Emily exclaimed, her voice tight, forced.

Barkov looked back. She huddled in a corner of the elevator.

“Why?”

“I don’t feel well. This room is stuffed with electronics!”

Andrew grinned. “Electronics? It looks like a garden to me? It’s nice!”

The girl didn’t answer. She turned her gaze past Andrew.

Turning around, he saw a middle-aged woman. She was a short stout blonde with blue eyes and pink round cheeks, dressed in a multilayered green dress reaching down to her ankles, and wearing white moccasins. She had just entered through sliding bamboo doors, behind which Andrew could see what appeared to be an empty room; she went to the visitors quickly. There was radiant smile on her face. The doors closed automatically behind her.

“Welcome! I’m Rosalinda. You must be lieutenant Andrew Barkov. What’s your lady’s name?”

“Emi…,” Andrew almost blurted out the real girl’s name. “Her name’s Katherine.”

“Katherine, dear, why are you standing in the elevator? Come in, please, we don’t have savage dogs here!”

Saying that, Rosalinda gave a ringing laugh.

Barkov looked at Emily. She stayed in the elevator looking at the blonde cautiously.

“I’ve got it!” Rosalinda exclaimed. “Are you allergic to primroses? Or narcissuses? Poor girl! My cousin has the same problem. It’s okay, we’ll fix it.”

The woman took a mini remote control out of the folds of her dress and directed it at the flowerbed. The ground with flowers and bushes lowered and disappeared.

“What to replace them with?” the plump and ever smiling assistant continued. “We don’t want to see this hole in the floor, do we? A fountain will fit best, right?”

She pushed a button. It was strange that she used buttons instead of mind commands.

Soon instead of the flower bed there was a structure in the form of several bowls of successively decreasing sizes, fastened to a thin rod. The bowls resembled water lilies. A stream of water spurted from the top, the smallest one. Falling back, it soon overflowed and started filling the next bowl. Then the next.

Andrew turned toward Emily, speaking quietly. “Yes, there are electronics. But I don’t sense any danger.”

She sighed and got out of the elevator.

Rosalinda sat down on the left part of the nearest sofa. “Take a seat.”

Unlike Emily, Barkov felt no danger. Besides, Rosalinda seemed to be a nice, kind and absolutely harmless woman.

Emily sat down on the other part of the sofa and Andrew in the middle of it.

“I enjoy watching flowing water. And you?” Rosalinda said, then got down to business without waiting for an answer. “So, you want to see my boss. May I ask you why?”

“I… We would like to talk to him about it in person,” Barkov answered.

Rosalinda giggled. “You can’t. He’s chewing food now. He doesn’t talk when he chews. Besides, I’m his personal secretary and decide myself whether to admit strangers to him. If they seem to be dangerous, I show them the door.”

Barkov smiled. “Aren’t you afraid of dangerous people yourself?”

“A little bit. But I will always have time to shout ‘Danger!’.”

She really shouted the last word. At the same moment Andrew felt burning all over his head as if it burst into flame. He jumped up, grabbed his hands to his head trying to extinguish the invisible flame.

Emily did the same, crying out.

“Cancel!” Rosalinda commanded loudly.

The burning stopped.

Andrew and Emily stood, gaping at each other.

“What’s wrong with my face?” the girl asked, her shaking hands running over her cheeks.

Her skin was as white and smooth as before.

“Nothing.”

“Don’t worry, it was just a warning!” Rosalinda declared joyfully as she dangled her legs. “I forgot to warn you: if someone does me any harm, the system will burn them automatically. Microwave radiation, you know. Just like in a microwave oven! There are sensors and emitters all over this place. But you have nothing to worry about – you are good people, I can see that in your eyes. Well, will you tell me the purpose of your visit now or go back to the elevator?”

Andrew was amazed. The protection system she had used was quite advanced as it could discern people, otherwise Rosalinda herself would have suffered as well. Obviously the emitters were focused. But the biggest wonder was that he had not felt danger before it happened. Why? I’ve always sensed if someone meant me harm before… And then it hit him. It meant that Rosalinda didn’t even give a thought to causing him pain.

She is more dangerous to me than any killer!

Barkov sat down back on his place. “All right. I’ll tell you. Katherine,” he pointed at Emily with his forefinger, “is a representative of the President’s Secret Service. She has a job offer for Mr. Lorenzetti. He is being asked to find vulnerabilities in the President’s private communications system. That is, we need to see if he can obtain secret documents about the building of an asylum for the World Government and give them to me as a proof. The payment will be one hundred and fifty thousand credits in cash.”

That was exactly the sum on Barkov’s bank account – everything he had collected during his years with the police, intended for the purchase of a new house.

“How interesting!” Rosalinda shouted joyfully, clapping her hands. “Katherine, do you have a document proving that you are the representative of the President’s Secret Service?”

“Of course not,” Barkov scoffed. “She fulfills a secret mission and can’t have any documents with her. But I have my police badge.” He showed it.

“I already saw this when you showed it in the elevator. I’d like to receive evidence that Katherine is not a trickster. We can’t risk our reputation!”

“Being a public officer, I can confirm her credentials. I was called in by the President himself to escort her personally on this mission. Do you think I would risk my career without taking precautions?”

After a pause Rosalinda shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. Why do you talk all the time? The only words she’s said were ‘what’s wrong with my face’!”

“She is afraid of eavesdropping. The presidential elections are next year. The opposition might use a recording to link the administration with hackers.” He raised an eyebrow. “Neither you nor the President want that, right?”

“Certainly not!” Rosalinda confirmed with enthusiasm as she rose and went to the bamboo doors. “Neither we nor the President. Please stay here, I’ll talk to Lippo. Maybe he has finished eating. By the way, help yourself if you are hungry, too.”

She directed the remote control at a trolley at an entrance, and it moved to the sofa where Andrew and Emily were sitting.