I tipped my head back and counted the floors. There turned out to be three. No attic story. «Mamon has set himself up nicely, but he could have done better,» I thought, and turned to the lineman assigned to help me:
– Is it all clear to you?
– Yes sir, Comrade Captain.
– Sergei, what’s the matter with you? – I nudged him in the side. – I am your colleague, my name is Juozas Juozasovich. Do we have to go through it all again from the start?
– Got it all, Yozas Yozasych.
– That’s better.
We went up to the armored doors of a cozy little yellow mansion standing quietly, without plaques or signs, in the depths of the Arbat. «Mamon has set himself up nicely,» I thought once more, and pressed the doorbell button.
– Who are you here for? – burbled the electronic device that worked in tandem with the bell. There was a video camera there too, its lens glinting dully in the rays of the setting sun.
– We are the phone men, – I introduced us into the microphone.
– One moment.
A minute later the door was opened and we were let inside.
Inside, everything turned out to be quick and simple.
– Seryoga! – I was shouting a couple of minutes later. – Ring out the blue end for me.
– Right, Yozasych! – my partner answered from the depths of the basement.
– Not a damn thing! A breakdown, looks like!
I squatted on my heels, poked at the wires with a test probe and turned my head this way and that, carefully memorizing what I saw. There were five guards. Two were stationed at the entrance door and dealt with visitors. Interrogated them about what business they had come on, and who for, and whether their surname was in the visitors’ register. The third guard, the top one by the look of it, walked past me regularly and now and then gave instructions to the two at the entrance. Two more sleepy lads in blue uniform appeared in the corridor from time to time. Their rest room was somewhere nearby, apparently. I did not get clear on the guards’ weaponry. It looked as though, besides the obligatory batons, the ones sitting at the entrance had pump-action shotguns. That would have to be checked later… There were not many company employees on the first floor. Pinned to their clothes, in the spot where Komsomol badges used to be fastened, were blue-and-white cards with photographs. Hm…
Somebody touched my shoulder. I started with surprise and saw a well-fed little fellow standing over me. His name card read «Sergei Ilyich Okunsky, Head of Facilities».
– Any problems? – he asked, looking tenderly into my eyes.
«Looks like the problems are going to be yours shortly,» I nearly blurted, but caught myself in time. I shrugged vaguely and mumbled:
– Mm-mm… Er-rr… How shall I put it…
– I understand completely. Five hundred?
– Er-rr…
– A thousand?
I finally cleared my throat and asked a naive question:
– By what date do you need the faults eliminated?
– What do you mean, by what date? – Sergei Ilyich nearly jumped in astonishment.
– Well, by New Year’s we’ll manage it, I think.
– By what New Year’s? Are you serious? We need it faster…
– I don’t know. There’s a lot of work. Your wiring here is an absolute disaster.
– Lads, you must make an effort. Will a hundred dollars a head suit you?
– Now that’s a serious conversation. – I straightened up, wiped my hands on a rag and gave my assurance: – Ilyich, we’ll plow all night, but by morning it’ll be done. Shake on it!
The facilities manager let the air out of his capacious chest in relief and placed two banknotes in my outstretched hand. While I was transferring the money to my pocket, Mister Okunsky made his way over to the head of security and, pointing a little finger in my direction, said something. The man nodded and went on about his business. The facilities manager followed him.
The staff gradually scattered off home and the little mansion emptied out. What remained were the guards and Seryoga and me. A joyful detail for me was that after the shift change the guard was in truncated form – three men.
I gave Seryoga all the dough handed to me by the facilities manager and ordered:
– Now you go home until eleven at night. At eleven you’ll be here. Have a coil of cable on you, so it looks plausible. As though you’d gone for cable. Understood?
– Understood.
– Then wait a moment.
I went up to the guard loafing at the entrance and inquired naively:
– My good man, do you have any cable, ten meters or so?
– Where would we get it?
– I see. We’ll have to send a runner.
– Send him.
– Seryoga, off you go. One foot here, the other there, – I waved my partner off.
And Seryoga was gone. Vanished as though he had never been. A very nimble assistant I had got hold of. It would be nice to have Seryoga as a partner going forward. He’d be very useful. Only I had a fine rule about working without assistants. Simpler and more reliable to operate alone. Nobody throws you over, nobody sets you up.
I went back to my starting position, to the office mini-PBX in a room at the end of the corridor. A very inconvenient spot. I had to go back again to the bored guard at the entrance, who was already dozing with his head on the desk.
– Hey, chief, – I woke him. – We need to inspect the whole shack of yours. The wiring is a complete shambles. While there’s time, let me walk around the establishment.
– Go ahead.
– Are the doors open up there?
– Nope, – the guard tore his head off the desk and shouted: – Lyokha, crawl over here. There’s a job.
While Lyokha grumbled inarticulately in the rest room, I was studying an object propped against the desk and covered by the guard’s leg. Arching over like the swan-princess in a ballet I saw as a child, I did indeed catch sight of it: definitely a pump-action shotgun. And then Lyosha came up, jangling a bunch of keys.
In his jangling company I went up to the second floor and set about tugging at the wires laid along the baseboards in the corridor. In the process of tugging I did not forget to acquaint myself with the surroundings. The surroundings were unimpressive. An uneven floor covered in linoleum, painted walls, dim lighting, wooden doors. There were no surveillance cameras anywhere. Mamon had decided to economize on security, as on everything else. In vain. Had he placed a dozen cameras around the office and put a monitor in the guards’ room, problems might well have surfaced in front of me. For now there were none. I set about examining the plaques on the doors. Nothing special there either.
Following the wires, I moved up to the third floor. There, judging by the plaques, was nothing but accounting and a few of the facilities services. A massive gilded plaque with five cast letters “MAMON” was not to be found. It looked as though the client operated under a pseudonym. I made an attempt to recall Mamon’s surname, which I had never known, and gave it up. It was easier to reason soundly that big bosses do not like climbing on foot. In every respectable establishment known to me the director’s office was located on the second floor.
I went down a floor and walked the corridor again. My gaze, fixed on the wires I was thoroughly sick of, shifted from time to time onto the plaques. “Wholesale Sales Department”. Not it. “Trade Department”. Also not it. “Transport Department”. Not it at all. And what is this door with no name on it? I turned to Alexei: “Open it up, we’ll check the wiring inside. Looks like there’s a break in there. Or a phase shift.” Alexei was a lad far removed from technology; he understood nothing of what I said and phlegmatically opened the door. The room turned out to be an unwired closet. Hm. I pulled the door to and continued my march after the wires.
At the end of the corridor one more unplaqued door was discovered. Remembering the mistake I had made a minute earlier, I traced the wires with my eyes. They ran under the door. I bent down to the baseboard, poked a screwdriver into a barely visible gap and said to Lyokha:
– Looks like it’s here. Open up.
– Won’t work. There’s no key for that one here. – Alexei yawned distantly, gave a meaningful look at his watch and yawned again.
It seemed I had stumbled on what I was after:
– Then let’s go down.
– Let’s.
Seryoga arrived at exactly twenty-three hundred hours. In accordance with my instructions there was a hefty coil of cable in his hand. Accompanied by a limp Alexei, we replaced, in waltz time – one-two-three – a perfectly serviceable cable with an even more serviceable one. Then Seryoga called the exchange on the one working telephone, whispered with Galina over there and… oh, a miracle! The telephones started working. We said goodbye to the guards and went our separate ways home.
The preparation was successfully completed. Only a small thing remained. The assault.