ZLATA Goddess of flexibility

It was dark, drafty and confined at 5.30 on the 73rd floor of Taipeh 101, because Valerie Carpentier, Zlata `s current alias, was not in one of the many suites of offices this unique building had to offer, but in air supply pipe A7464-F, which from the 73rd floor twisted its way into a conference room on the 70th floor. On behalf of a large European airline, she was on her way to the make a meeting, of their main business rivals with the bosses of the largest Asian airline, a transparent and above all audible experience. Concrete was not a barrier, as she would be placing five highly sophisticated bugs inconspicuously in the conference rooms. Almost silently she pushed herself forwards centimetre by centimetre in her black, skin-tight, custom made outfit. If you could have seen it in the light, it looked like a diver `s wetsuit but without the facemask and fins. A diver with a perfect body weight, endless, long well-trained legs, a tiny waist and an elfin face. She loved her special outfit; it felt just like a second skin. Jerry Y.S.Yeh, Junior Manager of Taipeh 101, was getting near the end of the night shift. His thoughts were occupied only by the meeting tomorrow morning. How would the meeting between the Americans and the Asians go? A successful outcome of the meeting would certainly not harm his career prospects. She did not skimp on the quality of her food and boasted a lean 110Kg body 1.84m tall, thanks in no small part to the culinary skills of the women in the three star kitchens. About 1.5m behind her she pulled a spherical bag containing items of equipment padded with air cushions. After many minutes and many dozens of metres crawling, separated only by the galvanised metal plates and the ceiling tiles from the sleeping inhabitants and workers on the night shift, Valerie reached a critical point. The main ventilation shaft, with a diameter of three side-by-side A4 sheets, branched here to the conference room on floor 70. A normal human being would only have managed to get an arm into this hairpin bend, but Valerie, who had trained since childhood, slipped like an anaconda backwards into the ventilation pipe with her back bent almost 180 degrees. This flexibility made her unique world-wide and she was heavily in demand for these kind of jobs. An arms length away from the ventilation grille of the large conference room, she dimmed the light on her head and listened. No noise apart from the gentle humming of the air conditioning system to draw her attention. With a cordless screwdriver she removes the four internal fixing bolts of the grille and puts a night vision device on from her equipment bag. The grill is removed and tied to her equipment bag. She slowly lets these down on a rope to the floor. She lets them drop into the room and silently drops down herself. After Jerry has finished a few routine tasks such as answering email enquiries, confirming reservations and recording the particular requests of special guests, he had a little time to spare before shift handover at 7 o `clock. He decides to run through the arrangements for the meeting for the 10th time. He is soon disturbed by the security radio. An anxious guest was woken by a bump coming from above him and had inquired of reception what the cause was. The guest was in a room in wing F on floor 69. Since Jerry `s office is only a few floors away, he confirms that he will take care of it. Valerie felt a little stiff from her time in the narrow tube which was a little longer than planned. So she decides to loosen up a little in the dark atmosphere. The mahogany conference table seems to be just the right platform. It is 8 metres long and in the centre of a room with candelabra and real wood panelling. There was plenty of space for two complete teams to comfortably hold long negotiations. In her fantasy, she introduced herself to the delegates who were sitting all around the table about to watch her performance. And now she begins her Olympic performance poised as if in a trance. Slowly she slides down into a slide split, bends forwards onto her tummy and then bends backwards until she touches her back. She changes into a front split with her heel resting on one of the high arms rests of the conference table and easily manages a 270 degree oversplit. To loosen her back, she stands upright and then standing on tiptoe she bends backwards and catches hold of her ankles from behind. Then she pulls her head through between her legs past her knees and stops with the back of her head resting against her genital area. She imagines the delegates spontaneously applauding the perfect choreography and charming performance. It is like the ritual after a difficult exam. A ritual which if a normal person were forced to do would inevitably lead to the rupture of tendons or more critically the breaking of the spine. After about twenty seconds, she moved slowly back to her starting position, bowed to the imaginary public, tripped unfortunately over a mobile drinks cabinet, lost her balance and slipped off the table onto the floor. Seconds passed in silence. A small mistake, a little slip-up which would have cost her the gold medal at the Olympics. Was the mission now in jeopardy? She lay tensely on the floor like a beetle, no stabbing pains. In a few moments she came to her senses and realised that that she hadn `t seriously hurt herself in the fall. Nevertheless, time was slipping away. Could this unintentional noise have attracted attention to her? She had to complete her mission, quickly and professionally, exactly as she had trained for in the last two weeks. Three of the microphones were disguised as sleeves for water pipes behind the wood panelling, looking exactly like those already there. The other two were hidden in the chandelier hanging above the conference table. The microphones could be activated and configured by remote control at a distance of up to 50 metres by a normal mobile phone. Once the activation password had been received, they would record every noise to their on-board flash memory. The recording had to be retrieved either by gaining access to the premises again, or by transferring it later by radio signal. Real-time transfer of the signal during the meeting was considered too risky since foreign radio transmissions would easily be picked up during the pre-meeting security checks. It was 6.20 and something occurred to Jerry as he was running through the meeting preparations. Had anyone changed the high-power bulbs for the wireless video projectors that would be used for the presentations, and which were vital for the meeting? There were no ticks against this on the checklist. A few years ago, both lamps had packed up at the same time during a meeting. It was an unmitigated disaster for him as a perfectionist! As he still had half an hour, he would be able to investigate the guest `s complaint and run a technical check on the equipment. He set of for floor 69 Wing F, taking the radio handset with him so that he could stay in touch with reception about the complaint. With a certain inward satisfaction, Valerie admired her work through the night-vision glasses. Despite her fall, everything was in place. In the background the early morning skyline of Taipeh was beginning to dawn through the panoramic window. One last chance to try out a little test on this smooth platform. She wanted to try out a “Biellmann-Pirouette" without ice on this slippery surface. She spun herself around several times with her leg and whilst spinning raised pulled one leg up behind her head with both arms. At this moment, the door of the conference room opened. Jerry opened the door of the conference room and searched for the light switch. He groped and was a little bemused to feel something soft and padded. His eyes had not yet properly adjusted to the darkness, but he thought he could make out two green eyes directly in front of him. Valerie was taken by surprise by the unexpected visitor. Very fast she sprang silently next to the door. Now she was faced with a large and heavy man, and the rules of engagement for her assignment no trace, not witnesses, and no dead bodies seemed to be at risk. She had no choice but to act quickly. She seized the moment and brought the man to the ground with a special technique: she kicked up into a kind of handstand, caught the man `s neck between her fitness trained thighs and squeezed. After half a minute the man was showing no signs of life. She checked his pulse and made sure that he was only unconscious. That was her intention because when he woke up he would not be able to remember the minutes just before he went unconscious, and fortunately nothing of her. Quickly she took the radio handset and pretended that she as an anxious English tourist who had found an unconscious man half in the hotel corridor. Reception promised that a doctor and paramedic would be on their way. She sprinted to the emergency staircase. In the stairway she took off her work clothes and then went down five floors. In front of room 635 she undid a thick looking, air-permeable suitcase and stowed all the items of equipment inside. She looked twice in both directions down the hotel corridor but couldn `t see anyone. Then she stepped into the suitcase, closed it from the inside and folded herself into the embryo position so she could stay there for hours. Shortly after 7.00 the suitcase was fetched by a hotel porter and placed in the hotel lobby for collection by a taxi company. The taxi driver took the suitcase to a designated flight at Taipeh international airport. Epilogue Jerry recovered fine and organised the meeting successfully. The bugs were not discovered.