by the shots. There was a louder bang and his head was thrown back, then flopped forward.
Rad had hit the other eye. The robot was now blind.
The machine screeched, the sound inhuman and terrifying, enough to snap Rad back to reality. The robot lunged forward again but Rad pulled himself up the stairs and out of the way with ease. As the King fumbled on the bottom stairs, Rad braced himself against the railing and kicked out, sending the robot cartwheeling backwards. It hit the furnace door and shrieked again, like it had been burnt, and as it tried to pull itself back upright Rad saw its head was at a slight angle, like the neck was damaged. It moved forward, arms outstretched, but it was slow and awkward.
Rad saw the opportunity. He ducked back down the stairs and, pushing the King’s shoulder, spun the robot around, easily avoiding the outstretched hands. With the King’s back to him, Rad reached around and plucked the keys out of the robot’s jacket pocket. Then he gave the King a shove. The robot screeched and overbalanced, falling to the floor.
Keys in one hand, gun in the other, Rad took the stairs two at a time. He slammed the reinforced door of the furnace room shut and locked it. Then he took off back down the corridor.
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.