The Consultant [antikvár]

PROLOGUE "When this is over I shall sleep for a week," Mike Harvey said, pausing to light a cigarette. "No kidding." He rubbed an unshaven chin. Christopher Webb smiled and followed him down the bare, ill-ht corridor. Their footsteps echoed. It was an old building, marble-floored and with Gothic niches that had once presumably held statues. The lights, at intervals along the stone walls, were in the form of bronze hands grasping torches. Webb thought how perfectly the place suited the London Alliance Assurance Group. "Damn!" Harvey said, as they turned a corner and encountered a No Smoking sign. He hesitated for a moment before giving in and tossing his cigarette away. It twisted a thread of smoke across the passage, then fell among the others that lay crumpled in a tub of sand. They pushed through big double doors sheathed in white melamine. Webb felt the air suddenly sharp on his face, like an early morning breeze. It was chilled and cleaned, completely without taste. Static pricked at his fingers as he reached for the next set of doors. Then he pushed and they came into the computer room. A rough mat snatched the final traces of city dust. A short ramp led up and they were on a raised deck, a foot above the concrete floor and the hidden coils of thick cable that tangled across it. Before them stretched long, regular rows of metal cabinets severe in red and black. A bank of disc drives whined with the effort of sustained high speed. Behind, tape units added their quieter tones of motors and rushing air. The lights gave a hard, even brilliance that cast no shadows. "It must have been a hell of a job getting the system down here," Harvey remarked. He pointed up at the ceiling. "One of the operators told me they had to cut great holes in the pavement. Lombard Street was closed for a whole weekend."