Ephialtes (Ephialtes Trilogy Book 1) (17 page)

Her heart was
thudding in her chest when she said, as brightly as she could, “Hello! 
I’m here to see Jack Karjalainen.”

The
receptionist’s response was automatic.  “All of Mr Karjalainen’s visits
are by appointment only.  Do you have an appointment?”  The
receptionist scanned his terminal.

“I don’t have
an appointment,” said Elspeth, “but I’m family, though, sort of.”

“Sort of
family?” the receptionist said, with a hint of disdain in his voice.

“Well,
I’m
not,” Elspeth said in her
ditziest
voice, “but my
boyfriend Bobby is.”

“Hold your
comdev over there,” the receptionist said, nodding to a pad on the desk. 
He continued looking at his terminal.  Elspeth held her comdev out. 
With her arm outstretched it was all she could do to stop her hand
shaking.  She looked nervously at the receptionist and hoped he hadn’t
noticed.  His concentration was focused on the terminal and as soon as the
pad beeped Elspeth quickly withdrew the comdev.

“Elspeth J
Ross,” the receptionist said.  “You’re not on the list.”

Elspeth
frowned.  “But I came the other day,” she said, “with Bobby.”

The
receptionist was staring at the screen still.  “We don’t have any record
of that,” he said.

“It must be
there,” said Elspeth, leaning over the desk and trying to get a look at the
terminal screen.  The receptionist shot her the darkest of looks and
tilted the screen away.

“Could you
please remain behind the desk, Ms?” he said.

“I’m sorry,”
said Elspeth, “I thought I might be able to help if I could just see.”

The
receptionist stared at her with a concrete-hard look of
officialdom.  “I don’t need your help, Ms,” he said, “and this is
confidential information.  Please remain behind the desk.”

“Of course,”
said Elspeth.  “I’m so sorry.”  She tried to look as sweet as she
possibly could.  “I’m really, really sorry,” she said again.

Elspeth
thought as hard and as fast as she could.  “It was just the other day,”
she said, “I think it was that day when my comdev was playing up.  I’m
almost certain of it.  My comdev was playing up, and Bobby got us both in
on his comdev.”

The
receptionist shook his head.  Elspeth thought he might be becoming
suspicious.  She was feeling like everything she did or said was
suspicious, but she knew that was just the pressure getting to her.  She
tried desperately to believe her own story.

“We wouldn’t
let two people in on one comdev.  Just wouldn’t happen,” said the
receptionist.

Elspeth
shrugged.  “It happened the other day,” she said.  “You know Bobby
and his family practically own this place.  I think it was that day when
my comdev was playing up, and Bobby got us in.  Which day was it?” 
She tried to say the last as casually and as off-hand as she could. 
She knew that was the steel-capped bullet she was here to deliver. 
She wanted it to come from nowhere while the receptionist was focused on the
immediate issue of whether to let her in here and now.  In her mind it
sounded obvious and desperate.  She hoped that to the receptionist it was
an innocent enquiry from a dizzy young girl who didn’t even have the sense to
maintain her comdev properly.

The
receptionist remained silent, his eyes flicking across the screen. 
Elspeth’s heart was racing now.

“That was
Tuesday,” he said.  “And I don’t know who would have let you in without
the proper clearance, Bobby Karjalainen or no Bobby Karjalainen, but I can’t do
that today.”

Elspeth
wanted to punch the air but she also wanted to keep selling the illusion, so
she frowned and looked disappointed.  “Really?” she said.  “Not just
for five minutes?”

“Not for five
minutes, Ms.  I have your details here on file now.  I’ll ask Mr
Karjalainen if he’s happy for you to go on the list, if you like, but I can’t
let you in now.”

Elspeth
slumped in theatrical disappointment, though inside she was doing a little
dance.  “Okay,” she said, “how long will that take?”

“I’m putting
the request through at this very moment,” said the receptionist.  “You
could always just contact Bobby yourself and get him to give the okay? 
How about that?”

Elspeth felt
cold ice run down her spine.  She looked at her comdev, then back up at
the receptionist.

“He’s busy at
the moment,” she said, pleased with her quick thinking.

“Well,” said
the receptionist, “I’ve put the request in but until I get the okay I can’t let
you through.  You could go and get a cup of coffee maybe and try back in
half an hour?”

“Yes,” said
Elspeth, “I’ll do that.  Thank you.”  She turned from the desk and headed
back towards the refectory.

“Have a good
day,” the receptionist called after her.

From the
refectory she headed straight for the exit.  This was the first time she
had done any real on-the-ground, semi-illicit investigative
journalism and it felt amazing.  She felt like a rock star as she entered
the cab and left the hospital.  All she’d really found out was that Bobby
had visited his father, which was not much really, but she’d found that
information out herself, using her wit and ingenuity, and now she had a lead
for tracking down the subject of the interview that was going to break her into
the mainstream.

The minute
Elspeth got home she fired up her terminal and looked for some retailers. 
She’d figured out the plan in the cab on the way home and had had a cursory
look on her comdev.  What she had so far was this: Bobby had returned to
Mars and was reconciled or reconciling with his father.  This meant that
he spent some time, at least, at St Joseph’s Hospital and that’s where Elspeth
was going to find him.  She thought about setting up semi-permanent
camp in the refectory, but that was just impractical as well as
suspicious.  How could she scope out the hospital without actually being
there?  She thought about hacking into the hospital’s security systems but
realised that having been successful dipping her toe into the world of digital
espionage she had let it get to her head.  She wouldn’t have the first
clue about hacking a security system and she didn’t have any exciting,
mysterious, tattooed hacker friends who would be able to do it for her,
either.  What she might be able to do, though, would be to set up a camera
of her own and monitor that.

It was a
risky plan.  If the hospital’s security did a sweep a commercially
available wireless camera would easily get picked up.  Elspeth thought
she’d gamble on the hospital not sweeping the exterior regularly for covert
surveillance devices.  ‘Why would they do that?’ she reasoned to herself.

She had
settled on a device that was reasonably good resolution and not too
expensive.  The camera was very small and could run for up to a week
without needing to be recharged.  It wirelessly connected to the nearest
access point and fed its video back to anyone who knew how to connect securely
to it.  Elspeth’s plan was to connect the feed to a facial recognition AI
that in turn was set to contact her should the face of Bobby Karjalainen appear
on-screen.  She was pleased with the plan.

Later that
day the camera arrived by shuttle post.  After an hour or two fiddling
with it in her apartment Elspeth was satisfied that she knew exactly how it
worked, and she thought she knew of a good place to put it.  She stuffed
it in her pocket and for a second time that day called a cab for the
hospital.  Just as she left her apartment she grabbed a pair of dark
glasses.  She felt ridiculous and excited at the same time.

She got the
cab to stop a short distance from the hospital, walking the last few hundred
metres along the walkway.  She put the glasses on, but wasn’t sure if they
made her more or less conspicuous.  Arriving at the hospital she stopped
and pretended to be absorbed in her comdev.  Furtively, she looked over
the top of her glasses and scanned the front of the hospital, looking for a
place to mount the camera.  She decided on a spot to the left of the main
door.  As a decorative feature on the wall there was a mosaic
stripe.  She thought the broken lines would help disguise the
camera.  It was less than two centimetres across and only a few millimetres
deep.  It would be very hard to see in the mosaic for anyone who was not
actively looking for it.  She put the comdev in her pocket and casually
pulled out the camera.  She peeled the paper from the self-adhesive
backing and pushed the front of the camera into the palm of her right
hand.  She wanted to look about to see if anyone was watching her because
she felt that everything she was doing was
crashingly
obvious.  Anyone looking at her right now would know instantly she was
about to covertly mount a surveillance camera on the hospital, she
thought.  She reminded herself of her brilliant performance earlier in the
day, when she had assumed the role of a superspy with consummate ease. 
That’s the person she was, she told herself, a brilliant undercover operator,
below the radar and above suspicion.  She was an unassuming teenage girl
who could move through the world like a ghost.  She was Elspeth J Ross,
undercover journalist, and she was on a mission.

With that
thought she strode purposefully toward the hospital.  To the left of the
main entrance there were two people, a man in a short sleeved shirt and tie and
an older woman in a floral patterned dress.  They were talking casually
and the man was smoking.  They seemed absorbed in their conversation and,
so as far as Elspeth the superspy was concerned, they were no threat.  As
she neared the entrance she could see two men in green hospital uniforms who
were walking toward the door.  As she arrived they would be coming
out.  An insistent paranoia told her that they would grab her and wrestle
her to the ground, but the more rational side of her mind reassured her that it
was okay.  They probably wouldn’t even notice her.

She arrived
at the door and the green-uniformed people came out and walked right by
her.  She stopped and decided to play the role of a person waiting to meet
someone.  She felt pretty sure that no one was watching her, but acting
the part would make her feel better.  Also, if anyone should review
footage from the hospital’s security cameras she would look less
suspicious.  She stood with her back to the hospital and pulled out her
comdev.  She acted like she was contacting someone, theatrically (but not,
she thought, too theatrically) looking about to see if the person she was about
to meet was on their way.  She stood for a minute, then it was time for
her big moment.  She stretched her arm out and lent on the mosaic, like it
was the most comfortable, natural thing in the world to do.  She stayed
like that for about thirty seconds, partly to make sure the camera had good
contact with the wall and partly so it looked like she was just a normal girl
leaning against the wall of a hospital.  Presently, she pulled her comdev
out of her pocket again and looked at it as if she was receiving a
message.  She put it back in her pocket and shook her head, instantly
realising that was way over the top.  ‘What the hell,’ she thought, ‘I
doubt anyone is looking anyway.’  She wandered casually back to the
walkway and called another cab.  She was back home within twenty minutes.

Once inside
she raced to her terminal and brought up the image from the camera.  It
looked great.  It covered the whole entrance, enabling her to see everyone
coming in through the main door to the hospital.  She had already
connected the feed to the facial recognition AI.  All she had to do now
was wait.

She pushed
her chair back from her desk and thought about what a resourceful and clever
journalist she was.  Her comdev buzzed in her pocket.  She grabbed it
out.

“Hello?” she
said.

“Hello, is
that my girlfriend?” said the voice on the other end of the line.

“I don’t
think so,” said Elspeth.  “I think you must have a wrong number.”

“No, this is
the number,” said the voice, “and I’m told it belongs to my girlfriend, so that
must be you, Elspeth J Ross.”

Elspeth felt
her face reddening.  “Mr Karjalainen?” she said.

“Hi,
girlfriend,” Bobby replied.

“Mr
Karjalainen .
 . .”

“Please, just
call me Bobby.”

“Mr
Karjalainen, Bobby, I’m so sorry, this must look
so
bad.”

“Pretty bad,”
said Bobby, “but do go on.”

“Mr Karjalainen,
I’m a journalist and I really want to speak to you.  I couldn’t get hold
of you but I thought I might find you at the hospital.  I’m so sorry if
you think I’ve invaded your privacy.”

“Well you
have, a little, I guess,” said Bobby, “but I don’t mind.  What do you need
to speak to me about?”

Elspeth had
gathered her thoughts by now and sensed that Bobby was not angry with
her.  She sensed he was a nice guy and if she played this right she might
be able to get the interview.  “I’m just starting out in journalism,” she
said, “and I thought an interview with you could really help me establish
myself.  I’d really appreciate just a few minutes, if you can spare them.”

“I see,” said
Bobby.  “Anything in it for me?”  Elspeth racked her brains quickly
and, not finding an answer, thought she would have to go with disarming
honesty.