Even (18 page)

“But are you OK?”

“Absolutely fine. Are they there?”

There was a pause before she answered.

“Yes,” she said. “All three are here.”

“Good,” I said. “Because here’s some good news for them. They won’t be needing their copter after all. They can save some gas money. We’re going to meet in the city.”

“Oh. OK. Where exactly?”

“The same building they took me to yesterday. Room 3H3. It’s on the first floor, for some reason, not the third like you’d think. End of the corridor. Last room but one, left-hand side.”

“Got that. What time?”

“Eight-twenty. But listen. Tell them I’m set up in the neighborhood with a clear view of the room. If I don’t see Rosser, Varley, and Breuer enter before that time—I walk away. If I see anyone else come in with them, or positioned in the building, I walk away.”

“Got that. What about their guy?”

“He’s stashed somewhere safe. When I’m happy, I’ll lead them to him.”

“Got that. Stand by . . .”

The phone was silent for forty seconds.

“Confirmed,” Tanya said, coming back to me. “All three are en route. ETA ten minutes. Conditions understood. And David—good luck. I want you back in one piece at the end of this.”

“As always,” I said, hanging up the phone and shifting my position to get a better view of the garage entrance.

It took eight minutes for the first vehicles to arrive. There were five of them. Two black Fords, the Cadillac I’d seen yesterday, then two more black Fords. They swept around the corner, moving fast, only a couple of feet between each one. Then the lead car swung the other way and the others followed it into the garage, disappearing like a snake slithering into a hole.

Two minutes later a white van appeared from the opposite direction, traveling much more sedately. It trundled three-quarters of the length of the street, then drifted to the side and stopped in the same
space the backup van had used yesterday. From my position, almost directly above, I couldn’t see any markings on its sides but there was a picture of an engine component—a carburetor?—painted on the hood.

After another two minutes I heard activity in the hallway outside. Footsteps were approaching. It sounded like five sets, but I couldn’t be sure. There was a pause, then the door was flung open. I caught a glimpse of a hand and a gray sleeve, but nothing else.

The door started to close. It was almost back in its frame when someone rammed it with their shoulder and stepped into the room. It was Varley. He was holding a Glock out in front of him, two-handed. He checked both corners to his left and then moved forward. The gun was swinging across to his right when he saw me, standing to the side of the window. He stopped instantly and snapped the weapon back, lining up perfectly on the bridge of my nose.

“Stand still,” he said unnecessarily, as I showed no sign of moving. “Hands on your head.”

I kept my hands down by my sides. There was no chance of him shooting me. Not yet, anyway.

Louis Breuer was next into the room. He was much shorter than I’d realized from seeing him sitting down, and he walked stiffly with a stick in his left hand. He moved to Varley’s right, stopping a couple of feet from the closet where I’d found the shelves, yesterday. It was a perfect spot to triangulate on me, but he didn’t draw his gun. I didn’t know whether to be reassured or offended.

Bruce Rosser came in last. He saw me—I caught his eye for a moment—but pretended not to notice I was there. Then he moved between the others to the center of the room and slowly turned a full circle, like a prospective buyer assessing a new home.

“Coffee stain,” he said, poking a mark on the carpet with his toe.

“Carpet’s damaged,” he said, examining the depressions left in the pile where the desk would have been.

“Place needs cleaning,” he said, running his finger through the layer of dust on the windowsill.

“And you know what else?” he said, turning to look at me. “Something
doesn’t smell good. You. Three hours after you escape, wounding another of my men, you’re on the phone wanting a deal. Now you’re ambushing me. What kind of game are you playing?”

“What can I tell you?” I said. “If your people had done their jobs . . .”

“I want to see this guy, who you say is the real shooter.”

“No problem.”

“Something else you should know. We’re going to take a good look at him. A real good look. You better be on the level. So had he.”

“I am. I can give you the guy, where I found him, full background.”

“Good. Then let’s go.”

“Not with a gun on me.”

“Mitchell,” Rosser said, shaking his head.

Varley lowered the Glock, but didn’t holster it.

“Now let’s hurry it up,” Rosser said. “We can use my car.”

“Quicker to walk,” I said, moving across to the closet and opening the double doors.

Patrick stepped out. He was wearing the same coat as last night but had swapped his soccer clothes for a gray herringbone suit, white shirt, and black shoes. His arms were in front of him, fastened with a cable tie. He glanced at the three FBI men and then dropped his gaze to the floor. He looked genuinely ashamed of himself. Lesley hadn’t told me he was a bit of an actor.

“This is the guy?” Rosser said. “Who is he?”

“Ask him,” I said.

“Well?” Rosser said, looking at Patrick. “Talk to me.”

Patrick stood in silence for a moment, then shuffled around to face the wall. His head tipped farther forward and his arms started to quiver, as if he were straining to free his wrists. I checked the others. They didn’t seem too concerned. FBI agents had used cable ties themselves, all the time, before flexicuffs were invented. They work the same way. Once they’re on, the only way to remove them is to cut them off. Pull against them and the little plastic teeth just lock together and the sharp edges bite into your skin.

Only, the tie around Patrick’s wrists didn’t have any plastic teeth.
Not anymore. I’d sat in my hotel room and carefully removed them with the knife Lesley had given me. So when Patrick turned back around, his wrists were no longer secured. His left hand was gripping the flap that covered the buttonholes on his coat, rolling it back to expose the stitching. His right hand was hidden from view. It was reaching inside an opening concealed in the seam, and when he pulled it back out, a small gun was nestling in his palm. A Smith & Wesson 2213.

Twenty-two caliber, as promised.

Patrick stepped to his left and grabbed Louis Breuer by the hair, jerking his head back and locking his spine. Then he jammed the pistol under Louis’s jaw and flicked the safety down with his thumb.

“Your weapons, please, gentlemen,” he said. “Two fingers only. On the floor in front of you. Do it now.”

Varley let go of his Glock and it fell to the carpet with a muffled thud. Rosser drew his from a holster on his belt and carefully placed it on the ground, its barrel pointing straight at Patrick.

“And you,” Patrick said to Louis.

Louis fumbled and the gun slipped through his fingers, landing between Patrick’s feet.

“You, too, English,” Patrick said, turning to me. “I know you took one from the house.”

I took Cyril’s Springfield out of my jacket, held it at arm’s length and let it drop.

“Easy come, easy go,” I said.

“Now, kick them away,” he said.

Varley’s didn’t travel very far, but Patrick didn’t complain.

“Now, back up against the wall,” he said.

Rosser and Varley shuffled slowly backward, exchanging worried glances. I went across and stood between them.

“Good,” Patrick said. “Now, Mitchell Varley—two steps forward.”

Varley didn’t move.

“Do you want to get your friend killed?” Patrick said, savagely tugging Louis’s hair.

The cane slipped from Louis’s fingers and its metal handle fell down and rattled against the barrel of Rosser’s discarded gun.

Varley took two small, reluctant steps.

“Now, on your knees,” Patrick said.

Varley flopped down onto all fours, throwing his left hand out so it landed eighteen inches from his Glock.

“Hands off the floor,” Patrick said. “Don’t lean forward.”

Varley straightened himself up.

“Now, hands behind your head,” Patrick said. “Fingers laced together.”

Varley did as he was told, and Patrick suddenly dropped his left hand to Louis’s shoulder and started to propel him across the room. Louis half walked, half stumbled in front of Patrick until they were six feet away from us. Then Patrick launched Louis at the wall and stepped sideways, bringing the little .22 down and ramming the barrel into Varley’s temple.

“Your other guy, in the alley?” he said, looking at Rosser. “That was a mistake. We didn’t mean it. I apologize. But this, I’m going to enjoy.”

The sound of the shot was uncomfortably loud in such a small, enclosed space. I normally use a silencer for close-range indoor work, but needs must. Rosser and Breuer flinched. Varley flopped down to his left. And Patrick was knocked backward, off his feet. He landed awkwardly, half on his side, with his right arm trapped underneath him. Blood was draining steadily from the hole in the center of his chest. It was seeping out faster than the carpet could absorb it. I had to be careful not to step in it as I moved in closer. Then I lowered the .45 I’d inherited from Lesley’s guy and put two more rounds in Patrick’s head.

They probably weren’t necessary, but it pays to be thorough.

MEETINGS. A PRACTICAL ALTERNATIVE TO WORK
.

I’ve seen that slogan in offices from Mumbai to Montreal and Moscow to Melbourne. It’s a simple observation. And it’s absolutely true. People all over the world build whole careers out of sitting around, talking, secretly looking for ways to steal credit or avoid blame.

And of course, the worst offenders are always the bosses. . . .

Rosser, Varley, and Breuer had set themselves up in the boardroom, leaving me on the twenty-third floor with only Weston for company. They were busy raking over the fallout from the Patrick incident. Searching for connections. Assessing the consequences. Reviewing their procedures. Debating corrective actions. It must have been a complex operation because they’d had to summon more guys from their main New York office to lend a hand. Then they’d spread the net to include the NYPD. Even Tanya Wilson had been dragged in. That meant London would be involved. It would be after lunch in the U.K., but that wouldn’t be a problem. The desk jockeys would still be all fired up, eagerly chipping in over the spider phone and adding their slice of nonsense for the bureaucratic parasites to feast on.

I have to admit, I was starting to get annoyed. The bureau guys were
obsessing over pointless details. Their desperation to nail down Lesley’s exact role in their railroad case was paralyzing them. They wanted everything neatly defined, but whatever part she played it made no difference that I could see. Lesley needed to be taken off the street. She was a murderer, a kidnapper, a sadist, and a thief—minimum. They should snatch her now, and worry about which pigeonhole to file her in later. Maybe that would leave me with some explaining to do—about Cyril being the actual trigger man or the apparent deal I’d made to execute Varley—but I wasn’t worried. None of that would stick. Varley was alive and it didn’t matter who’d killed Raab, as long as it wasn’t me. The point was, we needed to act. Speed was essential. Rosser should have already scrambled a fast-response team and sent it to secure Lesley’s place before she got word from her sources and vanished. Instead, he was upstairs with his buddies, playing chairman of the board, and every second they wasted tipped the scales a little further in Lesley’s favor.

“How long do these talking-shops normally last?” I said to Weston, and pointed to the ceiling.

“No idea,” he said, turning back to his computer. “People don’t normally bring in suspects who try and execute our senior staff.”

“Really? That’s a shame. Keeps them on their toes.”

“Don’t joke about it. Staging a mock execution—that was sick.”

“There was nothing mock about it. Believe me.”

“Then why do it that way? Varley could have been killed.”

“No great loss, from what I’ve seen of him.”

“You should be locked up. You’re an attention-grabbing maniac.”

“Attention-grabbing? Hardly. The NYPD wouldn’t listen to me, remember. Nor would you. Nor would your bosses. You all had your chance. So stop complaining about how I put right what you failed to fix.”

“Look, finding the guy was good work. I’ll give you that. But why not call it in and let us grab him up? Or just hand him to the local PD?”

“ ’Cause he’d have denied it, Einstein. And I was working alone. I don’t have crime labs and technicians backing me up. I needed your bosses to hear the confession.”

“You had his gun.”

“Yeah. Circumstantial evidence. That’s always good. Till he goes with the ‘holding it for a friend’ defense.”

“Got an answer for everything, don’t you?”

“Pretty much.”

“Arrogant asshole.”

“There’s a difference between being arrogant, and being right. You should think about that.”

“Or what? Going to break my jaw, as well?”

“That’s a tempting offer. I always enjoy a bit of jaw-breaking. But ultimately, what’s the point? It’s not your mouth I’m listening to.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, if anyone’s talking out of his ass, it’s you. We’ve got one agent in hospital ’cause of you. Another nearly killed this morning. And now . . .”

“Weston, you want to rant?” I said, getting up from Lavine’s chair. “Go ahead. But do it on your own. I’ve got a call to make.”

I could still see Weston’s mouth moving, but at least with the door shut the glass booth insulated me from the sound of his whining voice. The three chairs were still inside, so I chose the one I’d used yesterday and sat down to dial the number for the hotel switchboard. A receptionist answered on the third ring. She didn’t give her name, but it sounded like the woman who’d checked us in last night. Maxine. She must have been on a late-early. A bit like me.