The Anvil (25 page)

MacFarlane agreed after only a moment’s thought.

‘Fine by me,’ added MacLean.

Leavey’s flat in Aberdeen turned out be on the third floor of an unprepossessing tenement block not far from Union Street. The greyness and the rain made it appear more unwelcoming than it might have done in sunlight but MacFarlane admired the quality of the locks on the door as Leavey undid them. Leavey said by way of explanation, ‘I’m away a lot,’ and they all smiled.

When they got inside MacLean could see immediately why Leavey was so security conscious. The apartment was beautifully furnished with the most expensive of materials. Leavey apologised for the coldness adding that there was no point in having the heating on while he wasn’t there.

‘Have you won the pools or something?’ asked MacFarlane in admiration. He was examining the stereo system.

‘I don’t have anything else to spend my money on,’ said Leavey. ‘Besides, when you spend most of your working life up to your arse in shit, it’s good to have somewhere nice to come back to.’

MacLean nodded in agreement.

‘Maybe I’ll get myself a place like this too,’ said Willie. ‘Now that I’m single again.’

‘
Why not,’ said Leavey.

Leavey and MacLean sat on facing armchairs, sipping Laphroaig whisky while MacFarlane did the same from one end of a matching settee. Miles Davies was playing quietly on the stereo. ‘So what brings you back to Aberdeen, Doc?’ he asked. ‘You’re not thinking of coming back to the rigs?’

‘I’ve got a problem Willie; I need help,’ confessed MacLean.

‘If it’s something I can do, you just have to say the word,’ said MacFarlane.

‘It’s dangerous.’

‘So’s crossing the road.’

‘I mean it. You could end up in a foreign jail or even dead.’

‘That dangerous,’ exclaimed MacFarlane in a muted voice.

‘Yes.’

‘I owe you, Doc. You can count on me.’

MacLean held up his hand and said, ‘You owe me nothing but I’m not a big enough person not to ask you.

MacFarlane looked at Leavey and asked, ‘Are you in on this?’

Leavey nodded.

‘Why?’ asked MacFarlane.

‘It’s a good cause,’ said Leavey matter of factly.

MacFarlane turned back to MacLean and said, ‘Tell me about it.’

MacLean told him the story and when he had finished MacFarlane said distantly, ‘Poor wee mite. You know, I always wanted a wee lassie myself.’

After a few moments silence Leavey said, ‘Well, in or out?’

‘I’m in,’ said MacFarlane. ‘Most definitely in.’

‘When do we start?’ Leavey asked MacLean.

‘As soon as possible.’

‘I’m ready,’ said Leavey. ‘How about you Willie. Is anyone going to miss you in Glasgow?’

‘Only the bookie.’

MacLean suggested that they travel south to Edinburgh in the morning. They could stay at Tansy’s place until they had arranged their travel to Geneva and then set off from there. Leavey asked him how the operation was being funded and MacLean told him about the insurance money from the bungalow.

‘That’s rough,’ said Leavey.

MacFarlane agreed and offered to carry out a ‘wee funding operation’. MacLean declined with a smile but thanked him anyway. They decided on a late morning train to allow MacFarlane time to go shopping for some ‘bits and bobs’ he thought he might need. MacLean said that he would accompany him and pay for the tools and equipment but MacFarlane wouldn’t hear of it. ‘Just a few wee odds and ends,’ he insisted.

Despite the lateness of the hour, MacLean phoned Tansy to say that he had finished in Aberdeen and that he would be home with two friends by mid-afternoon on the following day. Tansy assumed by ‘two friends’ that he meant Doyle and Leavey and was shocked to hear of Mick Doyle’s death. ‘Death suddenly seems so close to us,’ she said sadly. MacLean, anxious to divert her attention to something more positive, asked her to go up to the airline offices in the morning and pick up some information on scheduled flights to Geneva.

‘
Consider it done.’

MacLean knew that he had drunk a great deal of whisky over the course of the evening but still felt stone cold sober. It told him something about the state of his nerves if he could burn off alcohol that quickly. He opened the door of the bedroom Leavey had told him was his and stopped on the threshold. It was like stepping into a different world. The room was decorated in traditional Japanese style and had a Futon in place of a bed in the middle of the floor. He was surrounded on all sides by Japanese screen-walling, depicting scenes from long ago while Japanese lanterns provided subdued lighting.

MacLean removed his shoes and proceeded to examine his surroundings. He found the control panel for the lighting in the room and with it some extra knobs with a musical symbol beside them. He pressed one and the room was filled with the soft tinkle of oriental music and a background sound of running water. The room was an escape from reality, which MacLean acknowledged with admiration for its creator. He undressed and sat cross-legged on the futon to look at the charcoal drawings on the screen walling.

Weeping cherry trees reminded of him of his promise to Tansy in the hospital garden, not that he needed reminding. It had become his
raison d’etre
. In front of him a Samurai warrior reminded him of Leavey himself, not physically, but in spirit. Leavey had that enigmatic inner strength which defied definition and went beyond bravery. He knew that he could trust Nick with his life but he also knew that he could never get close to him. No one could.

MacFarlane was very different, being as open as the day was long. He was a generous man with a big heart and a stubborn streak; in many ways he personified Glasgow. He took Leavey’s word for it that Willie was as skilled as he said he was and, if that was so, MacLean decided that he could not wish for two better companions for what lay ahead.

The next panel of screen-wall showed a vase with three flowers arranged in classical Ikebana style;
Ten, Chi, Jin
. Jutte had once explained to him the significance of the configuration. The longer he examined the flowers the more he imagined that Chi and Jin were intermingling as if life was returning to the earth. It unnerved him. He’d experienced the same feeling in Geneva when he’d sabotaged the car and watched three men die. He had taken an irrevocable step and nothing could ever be the same again. He’d crossed his own personal
Rubicon
and there could be no going back, just a relentless ongoing test of strength and courage ahead of him until an end was achieved. He looked back to the Samurai and could have sworn that he saw a smile on his face … or maybe the whisky was having an effect after all. He fell asleep.

‘It’s years since I was last in Edinburgh,’ said MacFarlane as they walked up the steep hill out of Waverley Station and into the sunlight on Princes Street. ‘I must have been fourteen at the time. I remember I was with a girl called Karen, my first real love. We came to Edinburgh for the day, which is about as much as any true Glaswegian can stand of the place. We climbed that.’ MacLean pointed to the Gothic spire of the Scott Monument, towering up out of Princes Street Gardens.

Leavey said, ‘I didn’t realise you had an interest in Scottish architecture Willie?’

‘I haven’t,’ said MacFarlane. ‘I thought I might get a flash of her knickers if she went up the steps first.’

‘And did you?’ asked Leavey with a smile.

‘It was too dark, damn it.’

Tansy served roast beef for dinner. MacLean knew that she had been nervous about meeting Leavey and MacFarlane but watched her warm to them as the evening progressed. MacFarlane in particular was an asset to the party with his easy-going nature and lack of self-consciousness. His determination to be on his best behaviour and be mindful of his language in Tansy’s presence made his stories sound even funnier.

When Tansy went to the kitchen to make coffee MacLean joined her leaving Leavey and MacFarlane to pursue some obscure argument. He put his arms around her waist from behind and kissed her hair. ‘All right?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ said Tansy. ‘They’re nice people.’

‘Then what’s troubling you?’ asked MacLean, keeping his arms around her and nuzzling her hair.

‘I … Oh it’s nothing,’ said Tansy.

‘Tell me,’ insisted MacLean.

‘I keep wanting to thank them,’ said Tansy, ‘But I can’t find the words and it makes me feel so awful. I should be able to say what I feel, especially now, but I can’t. I just can’t.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said MacLean. ‘They understand.’

‘No,’ insisted Tansy. ‘There’s more to it than that. I keep making comparisons between these men out there and the people I used to consider were my friends, the Nigels and Marjories of this world.
My kind of people
. How could I have been so wrong?’ Tansy turned to face MacLean. Her eyes showed bewilderment. ‘Nigel and Marjorie made me feel so beholden to them over a few nights bed and breakfast while these two men are going off to risk their lives for my daughter with no more fuss than if I had asked them to change a tap washer! Help me; I just don’t understand.’

MacLean smiled. ‘There’s no great mystery. You’ve just made the same discovery I did after I went to work on the rigs. There’s a basic goodness in ordinary people which most of us in our own sheltered, prejudiced little worlds never even suspect, let alone see. Some might suggest it only comes into its own when evil is around. Don’t worry about it. You’ve just become one of the privileged few. You’ve seen the light.’

Tansy said softly, ‘Thank you Sean MacLean. I’m so glad I met you.’

MacLean kissed her gently on the lips and said, ‘And I you, my lady.’

Tansy used a piece of kitchen roll to dab at her eyes and said, ‘I got the flight information you asked for.’

‘Good,’ said MacLean.

‘Looks like Monday or Tuesday.’

MacLean had the advantage of knowing the Lehman Steiner building from the inside. He drew a map from memory and pleased MacFarlane when he added the underground car park. ‘That’s our best bet for entry,’ he said. ‘I can go to work on the staff elevator.’

‘I think we have to face the fact that most of the Personnel files will be on computer discs not lying about in filing cabinets,’ said Nick Leavey.

‘That’s no problem unless they are protected,’ said MacFarlane.

‘Protected?’ asked Leavey.

‘
Password access,’ said MacFarlane.

‘I think we can safely assume that any file connected with X14 will be protected,’ said MacLean.

‘Then we’ll need the passwords.’

‘Won’t they be kept in people’s heads?’ asked Leavey.

MacFarlane said not. ‘Big companies insist on all passwords being written down and stored somewhere safe. It gives employees too much power if individuals have sole access to company files. If they fall out with the management they might refuse access to their superiors.’

‘Blackmail,’ said Leavey.

‘Or even if a code holder falls under a bus it could mean lots of valuable data lost for ever,’ said MacFarlane.

‘So where would a company keep these code words?’ asked MacLean.

‘In a company safe,’ said MacFarlane.

MacLean could not help with the location of a safe in Personnel.

‘We’ll find it,’ said Leavey.

Leavey quizzed MacLean about his last trip to Geneva, asking whether or not he could be sure that his ‘Keith Nielsen’ alias was still safe. MacLean had to admit that there was no way he could be absolutely certain but the fact that he had successfully left Switzerland using that name suggested that it was still okay.

Leavey nodded thoughtfully and said, ‘I’m just trying to look into the minds of the opposition. They think that Sean MacLean is dead so we have no worries on that score and, from what you say, it seems a pretty safe bet that they don’t know about Keith Nielsen. They have however, been alerted to the fact that someone is interested in the X14 project so they’ll be on the look out for nosy parkers. Three of their people were taken out in Geneva but, as far as we know, none was left to tell the tale. That means that they don’t have much to go on but on the other hand they’re certainly not going to be asleep.’

‘Lehman Steiner is a very big organisation,’ said MacLean.

Leavey gave him a look that said, ‘So?’

‘I was thinking it wouldn’t be possible for them to tighten up security everywhere. As they don’t really know where the threat is coming from maybe the wisest thing for them to do would be to tighten up security around the X14 project itself and leave it at that.’

‘Good thinking,’ said Leavey.

‘You mean they won’t be expecting a raid on Personnel?’ said MacFarlane.