Page 139 - Brokenclaw - John Gardner

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‘So? Yes. Yes, of course. The unfortunate girl in New York, Myra, was

daughter to the couple who nursed him so long ago. I had forgotten. But come.’
He led the way back down the stairs and past the door to the dining room. At
one point Bond gave Chi-Chi a little nod, meant to reassure her, but she
returned a c
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They were now in an even deeper level underground, though there was no
hint of dampness or even of being below what was in all probability rock
strata. The walls were hung with thick paper and this had been covered with
white emulsion. Lights set into the ceiling kept the corridor as bright as day.

Finally, Brokenclaw stopped at a door in which there was a thick glass
viewing panel. He peered through the glass and they saw him nod to someone
within.
‘Here we are.’ He turned to Bond and Chi-Chi. ‘Our Jericho laboratory.’ He
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held back the door to allow them to enter.
They were in a brilliantly lit operations room watched over by four white-
coated technicians – two women, one of them Chinese, one Caucasian, and two
men, one black and one white.

Facing them was a bank of electronics gear at which the black man was
sitting; the other members of the team sat at a leather-covered table which had
computer VDUs embedded and angled below the table line. Bond also caught a
glimpse of keyboards tucked away on sliding trays below the table level.

This monitoring position faced a wall of clear thick glass, and from it you
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could look down on a long, sterile room in which up to forty men and women
sat at computer terminals, each with its modem and telephone. Around the
periphery of the room ran a perpetual electronic tape printing out stocks and

shares prices. It was very like the interior of a major stockbroker firm’s main
office, the only difference being that these people sat calmly at their terminals.
There was none of the usual chaotic shouting, bustling and confusion. Only
occasionally one of the people in the monitoring room would flick a switch

and say a few words into a microphone.
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The large black man who sat at the electronics equipment appeared to be in
charge, for it was to him that Brokenclaw spoke. ‘Andrew, I’m sorry to bother
you. These are good friends of ours, Mr and Mrs Abelard. Peter, Jenny, this is

Andrew, in charge of operations at the moment. What’s on for today, Andrew?’
Andrew gave a big smile. ‘We’re giving a couple of hotel chains a small
fright. Just for the hell of it. Practice.’

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