“One moment, sir. I’ll see if Mr. Tanner is in the building.”
The security guard lifted the receiver of his desk phone, dialed a four-digit extension, and spoke for a minute. When the guard hung up, he was all smiles. “Mr. Tanner’s secretary told me to send you right up. Twenty-sixth floor, the elevator on the right.”
“Thanks,” said Jack, relieved the guard had not asked him for identification.
Jack and Caitlin were the only people on the elevator. When the doors closed she let out a breath. “Glad we freshened up at that restaurant. I want to look presentable. But what do I say?”
“You don’t have to say anything. Let me do the talking. When Tanner sees me he’s going to know I’m not Norm Bender.” Jack’s features darkened. “After that, it will be Tanner doing all the talking.”
When the elevator doors opened on the twenty-sixth floor, a woman greeted them. “Mr. and Mrs. Bender? I’m Fiona Brice, Mr. Tanner’s personal secretary.”
Fiona Brice was a tall, poised, and elegant African-American woman, about thirty. She wore a scarlet Ann Taylor suit, her long straightened ebony hair in a French twist. A string of pearls circled her throat.
“Mr. Tanner is very pleased to hear from both of you. If you will please follow me.”
She led them past a deserted reception desk and down a long, carpeted hallway. They passed by several offices, all furnished, yet strangely vacant. Jack saw no personal items of any kind on the desks, the walls, the shelves. The computers were idle, the chairs neatly tucked under the desks next to empty trash cans.
“As you can see, our staff is attending a special conference today. Only a skeleton crew is on hand.”
Fiona paused to allow them to catch up. “Mr. Tanner’s office is down this hall and around the bend. He occupies the corner office, with a view of Fifth Avenue.”
Jack displayed a flashy grin. “That’s Felix. He was always a corner office kind of guy.”
As they approached the bend, Jack reached into his jacket, clutched the.45’s handle. He was ready to subdue Felix Tanner the moment the man recognized he was a fraud.
At the corner, Fiona Brice paused again. She faced them, opened her mouth to speak — and Jack heard a muffled pop, followed by a supersonic crack.
“Get down!” Jack cried, pushing Caitlin to the carpeted floor.
Fiona Brice swayed on her high heels, startled. Then she dropped limply to the floor. Caitlin screamed when she saw the bloody hole in the back of the woman’s head.
Somewhere a door opened, then slammed.
“Move!” hissed Jack, pushing Caitlin into one of the deserted offices, under a desk. Then he was gone, into the hall or another office, she didn’t know.
Sick with fright, Caitlin cowered in the empty office. She heard voices speaking in a language she didn’t recognize. A shadow appeared in the doorway. Then came the pounding chatter of an automatic weapon, filling the room. Caitlin whimpered as bullets chewed up the desk and shattered the plaster above her head.
20. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 4 P.M. AND 5 P.M. EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME
Sweating and tired, Liam realized he was approaching Queens Center Mall. The place was a typical suburban-type enclosed mall in the heart of the city’s second largest borough. It catered to a young crowd, including many of Liam’s mates. It also had a food court and air conditioning, both of which sounded great to Liam. He could even visit his mate Ronnie—
That’s it! thought Liam. I’ll find Ronnie. Ronnie will help me out.
Though he was three years older than Liam — old enough to have a driver’s license and work at the Captain Coffee kiosk at the mall — Ronnie was in the same grade as Liam at St. Sebastian’s Catholic School. Ronnie had been held back twice because the nuns thought he had “disciplinary problems.”
Liam knew Ronnie rented a garage from an elderly couple on Sixty-first Street. Last summer, when Conner Sullivan got in trouble with his da for stealing, Ronnie had let Con hole up with his motorcycle until things settled down. Conner slept in that garage for a week or more.
That’s it, Liam decided. Ronnie’ll give me a place to crash until this all blows over and I can find Caitlin.
Liam shifted the silver case from one hand to the other, wiped his sweaty, callused palm on his Levi’s. He suddenly noticed a New York City police car rolling alongside him. Without glancing in the cop’s direction, Liam sped up a bit. He noted with mounting panic that the car sped up a bit, too. Could they be lookin’ for me now? he wondered.
The siren blared, sending a shudder through Liam. With watery knees he watched the car race ahead, to the next intersection, bubble lights flashing. Only then did Liam notice the word “TRAFFIC” emblazoned on the side of the squad car. The policeman had pulled over a driver for attempting an illegal turn onto Queens Boulevard.
It took a few minutes for Liam’s heartbeat to return to normal, and the false alarm also forced Liam to make a decision. He was going to ditch the case. But he also wanted to hide it in a place where he could find it again — in case Shamus and Griff caught up with him and demanded it be returned.
Liam looked around. He knew he couldn’t hide it in a public place, and the shrubbery surrounding the mall’s parking garage was too thin to conceal much.
Up ahead, Liam spied an entrance to the parking garage. He left the sidewalk, trotted down the incline and into the concrete structure. The interior of the parking garage was at least ten degrees cooler than the hot June afternoon outside, though it took a moment for his sun-blinded eyes to grow accustomed to the dimness.
Finally, Liam spotted a huge steel Dumpster parked near one of the exit ramps. Raised on thick metal wheels, it allowed just enough room for Liam to shove the case underneath the bin, and then camouflage it with some of the free community newspapers blowing around the inside of the garage. It took Liam only a minute to get down on his knees, hide the case. Then he rose, dusted himself off, and stepped out of the shadows, moving toward the ramp.
Liam heard the squeal of tires behind him and turned — Shamus had hardly used the tracer unit. When he’d first arrived at the mall a few minutes before, he’d spied the silver case among the crowd on the sidewalk, picked out Liam a moment later.
The lad still had the case, which would save Shamus time and trouble. He’d avoided using the detonator in his pocket, telling himself if he could retrieve the case unharmed, he would. The memory stick with its aircraft recognition system was still worth something on the underground arms market.
Shamus had steered the Mercedes off the Boulevard and onto the side street that led to the mall. Trapped behind traffic at the corner, he’d watched Liam walk down the ramp and enter the parking garage, case in hand.
You stupid git. You stupid, stupid git. Why couldn’t you have just delivered the bloody case?
The truth was…Shamus wasn’t at all keen on killing Liam. He was an okay lad and one of his own countrymen, but the bruises Shamus had gotten from that fuckin’ CTU agent were just fresh enough to make Griff’s view of things right, and his brother’s way of thinking had always been Shamus’s way. Like Griff said…
“After all we’ve done, all that bloody water under the bridge, there really is no going back, only forward…It’s business now, Shea, just business. ”
When the clog ahead finally cleared, Shamus cut across two lanes of traffic and drove down the same ramp the boy had used. At the bottom, he tossed his sunglasses onto the seat next to him, next to the tracer. With sharp eyes Shamus thoroughly scanned the dimly lit parking garage.