Whiteout(8)
"Yes. And I'm asking you not to leak this story to your friend Carl Osborne, or anyone else in the media."
Frank grinned. "Why, Toni," he said in a tone of mock indignation, "1 never do things like that."
7 AM
KIT OXENFORD woke early, feeling eager and anxious at the same time. It was a strange sensation.
Today he was going to rob Oxenford Medical.
The idea filled him with excitement. It would be the greatest prank ever. It would be written up in books with titles like The Perfect Crime. Even better, it would be revenge on his father. The company would be destroyed, and Stanley Oxenford would be ruined financially. The fact that the old man would never know who had done this to him somehow made it better. It would be a secret gratification that Kit could hug to himself for the rest of his life.
But he was anxious, too. This was unusual. By nature, he was not a worrier. Whatever trouble he was in, he could generally talk his way out. He rarely planned anything.
He had planned today. Perhaps that was his problem.
He lay in bed with his eyes closed, thinking of the obstacles he had to overcome.
First, there was the physical security around the Kremlin: the double row of fencing, the razor wire, the lights, the intruder alarms. Those alarms were protected by tamper switches, shock sensors, and end-of-line circuitry that would detect a short circuit. The alarms were directly connected to regional police headquarters at Inverburn via a phone line that was continuously checked by the system to verify that it was operational.
None of that would protect the place against Kit and his collaborators.
Then there were the guards, watching important areas on closed-circuit television cameras, patrolling the premises hourly. Their TV monitors were fitted with high-security biased switches that would detect equipment substitution, for example if the feed from a camera were replaced by a signal from a videotape player.
Kit had thought of a way around that.
Finally there was the elaborate scheme of access control: the plastic credit-card passes, each bearing a photo of the authorized user plus details of the user's fingerprint embedded in a chip.
Defeating this system would be complicated, but Kit knew how to do it.
His degree was in computer science, and he had been top of his class, but he had an even more important advantage. He had designed the software that controlled the entire security setup at the Kremlin. It was his baby. He had done a terrific job for his ungrateful father, and the system was virtually impenetrable to an outsider, but Kit knew its secrets.
At around midnight tonight, he would walk into the holy of holies, the BSL4 laboratory, the most secure location in Scotland. With him would be his client, a quietly menacing Londoner called Nigel Buchanan, and two collaborators. Once there, Kit would open the refrigerated vault with a simple four-digit code. Then Nigel would steal samples of Stanley Oxenford's precious new antiviral drug.
They would not keep the samples long. Nigel had a strict deadline. He had to hand over the samples by ten o'clock tomorrow morning, Christmas Day. Kit did not know the reason for the deadline. He did not know who the customer was, either, but he could guess. It had to be one of the pharmaceutical multinationals. Having a sample to analyze would save years of research. The company would be able to make its own version of the drug, instead of paying Oxenford millions in licensing fees.
It was dishonest, of course, but men found excuses for dishonesty when the stakes were high. Kit could picture the company's distinguished chairman, with his silver hair and pin-striped suit, saying hypocritically, "Can you assure me categorically that no employee of our organization broke any laws in obtaining this sample?"
The best part of Kit's plan, he felt, was that the intrusion would go unnoticed until long after he and Nigel had left the Kremlin. Today, Tuesday, was Christmas Eve. Tomorrow and the next day were holidays. At the earliest, the alarm might be sounded on Friday, when one or two eager-beaver scientists would show up for work; but there was a good chance the theft would not be spotted then or at the weekend, giving Kit and the gang until Monday of next week to cover their tracks. It was more than they needed.
So why was he frightened? The face of Toni Gallo, his father's security chief, came into his mind. She was a freckled redhead, very attractive in a muscular sort of way, though too formidable a personality for Kit's taste. Was she the reason for his fear? Once before he had underestimated her—with disastrous results.
But his plan was brilliant. "Brilliant," he said aloud, trying to convince himself.
"What is?" said a female voice beside him.
He grunted in surprise. He had forgotten that he was not alone. He opened his eyes. The apartment was pitch-dark.
"What's brilliant?" she repeated.
"The way you dance," he said, improvising. He had met her in a club last night.
"You're not bad yourself," she said in a strong Glasgow accent. "Nifty footwork."
He racked his brains for her name. "Maureen," he said. She must be Catholic, with a name like that. He rolled over and put his arm around her, trying to remember what she looked like. She felt nicely rounded. He liked girls not too thin. She moved toward him willingly. Blond or brunette? he wondered. It might be interestingly kinky to have sex with a girl not knowing what she looked like. He was reaching for her breasts when he remembered what he had to do today, and his amorousness evaporated. "What's the time?" he said.