Philip Kerr - Gridiron

'How long?' said Curtis.

'I really couldn't say. 'I've never trashed a $40 million computer before. It took thirty-six minutes to kick Isaac's ass into touch, and that program was only a couple of hours old. You remember, Mitch? The SRS?' Beech started to type some transactions.

'Yeah, I remember.'

'Well, this mother has been running for months. Even before we installed it in this building. God only knows how much data it's acquired in all that time. We could be talking several hours here.'

'Several hours?' Curtis looked at his watch.

'Minimum.'

'You're kidding.'

'What's to kid? Hey, you want to take over, Sergeant, be my guest.'

'Just get on with it, Bob,' insisted Mitch. 'Please?'

'OK, here we go,' sighed Beech as his hands clattered over the keyboard. 'A dirty job, but someone has to do it.

'This is the end.' Beech was singing the line of a Doors song. 'The end.'

'I never liked that song,' said Arnon. 'It's depressing. And the book. Nobody gets out of here alive. Appropriate, huh?'

'Abraham?' said Beech. 'We are rolling out the black carpet and aiming you at oblivion, my silicon friend. Speaking for myself, I'd like to have gotten to know you a little better. But ours is not to reason why. Ours is but to make you die. There's a cop here who says you're out of here, pal, or I'm Rodney King II. So it's bedtime for Bonzo. Capisce? The Big Sleep for the Big Beep. EOD. EOL. EQJ.'

Nathan Coleman leaned over the glass barrier that gave on to the atrium and stared down at the ground floor. It was like being on a ship's mast looking down at the human insects that crawled on the bleached white quarterdeck. Three of them. The walkie-talkie snapped like the sound of a loose sail and one of the insects waved.

'Hey,' said Richardson, 'what the hell is happening up there? We're feeling like we've been forgotten: marooned, or something.'

'It's a long story and I'm not sure I understand most of it,' said Coleman. 'There's been a lot of heavy philosophy talked about artificial life and stuff. But the sports report is that your computer has been acting on its own initiative. It's gone haywire or some shit like that. Anyway, the play is this: Mr Beech is about to terminate it,' said Coleman, well aware of the possibility that this might well upset the Gridiron's architect. 'With extreme prejudice.'

'Well, Jesus, what the hell for? We've got to sit tight, that's all.'

'I don't think so, Mr Richardson. You see, Abraham cancelled your flight tickets to London. And he got the LAPD computer at City Hall to suspend me and Sergeant Curtis. And a whole lot of other things too. The bottom line is that no one is expecting us home tonight. It looks as if the computer might be making plans to become Silicon Valley's first serial killer.'

Coleman heard Richardson relay the news to Joan and Dukes. Then Richardson said, 'Whose dumb idea is that, for Chrissakes? No, don't tell me. That bagel-headed Sergeant of yours. Put me on to Mitchell Bryan will you? I need to speak to someone who appreciates what is being suggested here. No offence intended, son, but this is a $40 million piece of hardware we're talking about here, not some Casio personal fucking organizer.'

Nat put two fingers in his mouth and made as if to vomit over the side of the balcony and on to Richardson's head.

'I'll get him to call you, OK?'

Coleman switched off the walkie-talkie and started back towards the boardroom. Now that it looked like they were getting out he was thinking about the girl he was planning to see the next day. Her name was Nan Tucker and she worked for a real estate company. He'd been introduced to her at the wedding of an old girlfriend who was convinced that two people called Nat and Nan were a match made in heaven. Coleman wasn't sure about a match, but he had arranged to take Nan for brunch at the most romantic restaurant he knew, the Beaurivage in Malibu, even though it was way too expensive, even though he suspected they would have little in common besides the very obvious physical attraction each seemed to hold for the other. At the same time, brunch was all he had planned. Nathan Coleman left the sexual initiatives to women these days. Often, in these politically correct times, it was safer that way. And the old perfect gentleman routine? It hardly ever failed.

Coleman slowed for a moment as he heard a muffled noise from behind the washroom door. He was about to go and investigate when he saw Mitch coming up the corridor towards him. Coleman walked on a little and handed Mitch the walkie-talkie.

'Your boss wants to talk to you. I told him Mr Beech was pulling the plug on the computer.' Coleman shrugged laconically. 'He sounded kind of pissed about it. Guy sure does like busting the balls of the people who work for him, doesn't he?'

Mitch nodded wearily.

Coleman had been about to say something else about Ray Richardson, but instead he turned around and was looking back up the corridor at the washroom.

'Did you hear something?'

Mitch listened and shook his head. 'Not a thing.'

Coleman walked back to the washroom, paused outside the door for a moment and then pushed it. The door didn't move.

Certain he could hear something now — a muffled cry for help?

Coleman pushed again. This time the door opened easily and as he entered the men's room the cry, now a scream, was immediately curtailed by a short report, more of a loud pop than an explosion, like a tyre blowing out on a wet road surface, or the eructation of a hot lava pool. Coleman felt something collide with the exterior side of the door and a warm wet spray hit his face and neck. He heard Mitch call out to him but did not hear what was said as slowly he began to realize that he was covered in blood.

Like most policeman in LA, Coleman had often been involved in a shooting and for a second or two he thought that he had been hit, most probably with some kind of high-velocity round. He staggered forward, wiping the blood from his eyes and braced for the pain. It never came. A moment later he understood that the sound of hammering he could hear was not gunfire, it was not even his own heartbeat, but Mitch banging on the other side of the door.

'Are you OK? Nat? Can you hear me?'

Coleman pulled at the door handle and found that the door was locked again.

'Yeah, I think so, but I'm locked in.'

'What happened?' And then, 'Sergeant? Come here. Coleman's trapped in the washroom.'

Coleman wiped some more blood off his face and, looking about the washroom, felt his jaw start to drop. There was blood everywhere, whole gouts of clotted gore: dripping from the ceiling, smeared on the cracked mirror, collected in a shallow pool on the shelf of a wash-hand basin and running in a stream towards his feet. Like a red tide had risen and fallen in the washroom in the space of a few seconds. Coleman stiffened his jaw and looked to the source of the flow.

A pile of blood-soaked rags stood like a range of small mountains in the corner of the room. Nearby was a human leg, to which a penis and testicles were still attached. A neatly severed hand was frozen in the action of turning on the faucet. Hanging on one of the cubicle doors was a pink silk tie, except that when Coleman reached out and touched it he realized that it was not a tie at all, but a length of human intestine. Turning away he slipped in the blood and fell to the floor to find himself face to face with the owner of the still steaming body parts that now littered the Gridiron washroom like a shark attack. It was Tony Levine. Or, rather, his decapitated head, complete with pony-tail.

'Holy shit,' exclaimed Coleman pushing the head away with revulsion. It rolled across the floor like a broken coconut, and came to rest on the ragged edge of what has once been his neck.

The eyelids in the head lifted, and penetrating, undeniably living eyes fixed themselves on Coleman, with a mixture of indignation and regret. Then the nostrils flared and, instinctively, Nathan Coleman addressed the severed head.

'Jesus, what the fuck happened to you?' he said, shuddering.

Levine's head made no reply, but for another ten or fifteen seconds his eyes stayed on Coleman's own, before the lids drooped and life finally departed from the dead man's brain.

Between the pounding blows on the other side he could just hear Frank Curtis shouting. Once again Coleman pulled at the handle, but the door was still locked.

'Frank?' he shouted.

'Nat? Is that you?'

'I'm OK, Frank. But Levine is dead. It looks like he got hit by a fuckin'

Patriot missile. There's blood and pieces of this guy all over the washroom. It's like Sam Peckinpah's dinner in here, man.'

'What happened?'

'Hey, you tell me,' Coleman shouted. 'I just opened the door and it was like the guy blew apart in front of me.' He shook his head. 'I'm kind of deaf, too. My ears are ringing. Like I've been in a plane or something. Frank? Are you still there?'

'OK, Nat, we're going to get you out of there.'

But inside the washroom, a loud buzzer sounded.

'Wait a minute, Frank. Something's happening. Can you hear it?'

The voice came from somewhere up above Nathan Coleman's head, an Englishman's voice, and for a millisecond he thought it was God. Then he remembered Abraham.

'Please vacate the washroom,' said the voice. 'Please vacate the washroom. Automatic cleansing of this facility will commence in five minutes. Repeat. Please vacate this washroom. You have five minutes.'

'Frank? The man wants to clean up the mess in here. What do I do now?'

'Stand clear of the door, Nat. We're going to break it in.'

Coleman retreated into the only cubicle that remained clear of Levine's anatomical diaspora, tipped the seat on the toilet bowl and sat down. There followed a short silence and then, on the other side of the door, the dull, unmistakable impact of a man's shoulder. To Nathaniel Coleman, it was an informative sort of sound. Before being transferred to the Homicide Bureau he had been a patrolman. After three years cruising LA in a black-and-white you got to know the kind of doors you could break down and those you could not. Curtis went at it like some comic-book hero, but Coleman could tell that his effort was wasted and that the door would stand fast.

The buzzer sounded again.

'Please vacate the washroom. Please vacate the washroom. Automatic cleansing of this facility will commence in four minutes. Repeat. Please vacate this washroom. You now have four minutes.'

Coleman dropped his head back on to his shoulders and stared up at the blood-spattered ceiling and the small loudspeaker that was installed there.

'Well, if you could just open this fucking door I'd be glad to get out of your way.'

Then he stood up and returned to the door. 'Frank?'

'Sorry, Nat. Damn thing doesn't budge. We're going to have to try something else. Sit tight.'

Coleman glanced uncomfortably at Levine's head lying on the floor and hammered on the door.

'Frank? I don't want to end up like Levine here, so you'd better think of something quick. I just got the four-minute warning.'

A minute passed and the buzzer sounded a third time. 'Please vacate the washroom…'

Coleman lifted his eyes towards the ceiling and grimaced. He drew the Glock 9 millimetre from the clip holster he wore inside the waist of his pants and with a finger in one ear silenced the loudspeaker with a couple of shots.

'Nat? Nat, what the hell's going on in there?'

'It's OK, Frank, I just got tired listening to the fuckin' computer telling me to get my ass out of the can, that's all. So I bust some shots off.'

'Nice work, Nat. For a moment there I thought you had a 211 in progress.'

'No. Just the 207, same as before. Only I don't think old Abraham wants any ransom money. I think he wants my butt.'

Frank Curtis slapped the washroom door hard with frustration.

'What happens during automatic cleansing?' he asked Mitch, who shrugged and with a look turned the question towards Willis Ellery.

'The washroom is sprayed with a hot ammonia solution,' said Ellery.

'How hot?'

'Not boiling, but still pretty hot. After that it's dried with hot air before the air itself is changed under pressure and aromatized.'

'Is the cleansing program what killed Levine?'

Ellery shook his head. 'I doubt it. Being trapped in a washroom during a cleansing program wouldn't be a pleasant experience, but it's not necessarily a fatal one. The thing is — well, I should have thought of it before. You see, I was in there immediately before Tony and I nearly mentioned it to him. Only he said something to me that put it right out of my head.'

'Mentioned what?' Curtis asked impatiently. 'Come on, we haven't got much time here.'

'If Abraham is using the HVAC to make things uncomfortable for us, it stands to reason it might use the washroom for a hostile purpose. From what Coleman has said it sounds to me as if Abraham killed Tony using air pressure. It must have increased the psi in there to way above normal, like on an aircraft. But possibly that wasn't fatal until Coleman opened the door. Then there would have been a sudden and immediate depressurization. Enough to blow Levine apart.'

'Is there any way of stopping the cleansing program?'

'You mean that doesn't include Abraham?" Ellery laid his hand on a panel on the corridor wall beside the door.

'I've got a feeling that there's something behind here that might do the job,' he said, 'but I need to check it out on the laptop first.'

'Do it,' Curtis said urgently.

Ellery ran back towards the boardroom. Halfway there he stopped, turned on his heel and called back, 'If the program starts, tell Coleman to make sure he covers his eyes.'

'OK.'

Mitch was inspecting the way the panel cover was attached to the wall.

'Self-tapping screws. I'll speak to Helen and see if she found a screwdriver.'

Curtis hammered on the washroom door.

'Nat? We're working on an idea to get you out of there, but it's going to take a couple of minutes. If the program starts make sure you cover your eyes. The liquid contains ammonia. And it might be hot.'

'Fucking great, Frank,' said the voice behind the door. 'I'll look for a brush and see if I can't get some of this dirt out from under my fingernails, shall I?'

Curtis sprinted back to the boardroom, where he found Willis Ellery and Mitch studying a 3-D drawing.

'What have you got?' he said urgently, trying to make sense of the luminescent green drawing.

Not to be hurried, Mitch moved the trackball to turn the Intergraph drawing first one way and then the other.

'Each washroom is self-contained,' explained Ellery. 'Behind that panel are pipe, duct and cable tails, connected to building services. Water enters the washroom via the wet riser and the computer takes over, heating it, mixing it with ammonia for cleaning, whatever. If we can cut off the mains water supply we can effectively stop the whole cleansing program.'

'Right. How do we do that?'