Pendergast removed his shield and flipped it open, and D’Agosta did the same. The man scrutinized each one without touching them.
“My driver will stay with the car,” said Pendergast.
“Very well. This way, gentlemen.”
D’Agosta mused that, if the man was surprised to see a cop and an FBI agent arrive in a Rolls, he gave no sign of it.
They followed him into a private elevator adjacent to the parking space, which their escort operated with a key. With a whoosh of cushioned air the elevator rose precipitously, and within a minute it had reached the top floor. The doors whispered open, and they stepped into what was obviously the executive suite. The decorating scheme, D’Agosta saw, was frosted glass, honed black granite, and brushed titanium. The space was Zen-like in its emptiness. The man walked briskly and they followed him across a large waiting area, curved like the bridge of a spaceship, that led to a central pair of birchwood doors that slipped open noiselessly as they approached. Beyond lay a set of outer offices, staffed by men and women dressed in what D’Agosta took to be Silicon Valley casual chic — the black T-shirts and linen jackets with skinny jeans and those Spanish shoes that were all the rage — what were they called? Pikolinos.
Finally they arrived at what D’Agosta guessed was the entrepreneur’s lair itself: another pair of soaring birchwood doors, these so large that a smaller door had been set into one of them for normal comings and goings.
“Gentlemen, please wait here a moment.” The man slipped through the smaller door and closed it behind him.
D’Agosta glanced at Pendergast. They could hear, beyond the door, a muffled voice raised in controlled anger. D’Agosta couldn’t catch the words but the meaning was pretty clear — some poor bastard was getting his ass reamed out. The voice rose and fell, as if cataloging a list of grievances. Then there was a sudden silence.
A moment later the door opened. A man emerged — silver-haired, tall, handsome, impeccably dressed — blubbering like a baby, his face wet with tears.
“Remember, I’m holding you responsible!” a voice called after him from the office beyond. “We’re bleeding proprietary code all over the Internet, thanks to this goddamned insider leak. You find the bastard responsible, or it’s your ass!”
The man stumbled blindly past and disappeared into the waiting area.
D’Agosta gave another glance at Pendergast to see his reaction, but there was none; his face was as blank as usual. He was glad to see the agent back in form, at least superficially, his finely chiseled face so pale that it might have been crafted from marble, his eyes especially bright in the cool wash of natural light that filled the space. He was, however, as thin as a damn scarecrow.
The sight of a man reduced to such misery made D’Agosta a little nervous, and he gave himself a quick mental once-over. Since his marriage, his wife, Laura Hayward, had made sure he bought double-breasted suits from only the better Italian clothiers — Brioni, Ravazzolo, Zegna — along with shirts of cotton lawn from Brooks Brothers. The only nod to a uniform was a single lieutenant’s bar pinned to his lapel. Laura, it had to be said, had really straightened up his act regarding clothing, throwing out all his brown polyester suits. He found that dressing like a million bucks made him feel secure, even if his colleagues joked with him that the double-breasted look gave him the air of a Mafioso. That sort of pleased him, actually. He just had to be careful not to show up his boss, Captain Glen Singleton, who was known throughout the NYPD as a natty dresser.
Their escort reappeared. “Mr. Ozmian will see you now.”
They followed him through the door into a large — yet not cavernous — corner office, looking south and west. The cool, elegant flanks of the Freedom Tower filled one of the windows, seemingly so close D’Agosta could almost touch it. A man came around from behind a black granite desk, which looked like slabs of stone stacked as if for a tomb. He was thin, tall, and ascetic, very handsome, with black hair graying at the temples, a close-cropped salt-and-pepper beard, and steel-rimmed glasses. He wore a white cable-knit turtleneck of thick cashmere, black jeans, and black shoes. The monochromatic effect was dramatic. He didn’t look like a man who had just handed someone his ass on a platter. But he didn’t look all that friendly, either.
“About time,” he said, pointing to a sitting area to one side of the desk, not as a gesture of offering but as an order. “My daughter has been gone for four days. And finally I’m graced with a visit from the authorities. Sit down and tell me what’s going on.”
D’Agosta glanced at Pendergast and saw he was not going to sit down.
“Mr. Ozmian,” Pendergast said. “When did you last see your daughter?”
“I’m not going over all this yet again. I’ve told the story over the phone half a dozen—”
“Just two questions, please. When did you last see your daughter?”
“At dinner. Four nights ago. She went out afterward with friends. Never came home.”
“And you called the police when, exactly?”
Ozmian sighed. “The following morning, around ten.”
“Weren’t you accustomed to her coming in late?”
“Not that late. What exactly…”
The man’s expression changed. He must, D’Agosta thought, have seen something in their faces. This guy was sharp as a tack. “What is it? You’ve found her?”
D’Agosta took a deep breath and was about to speak when Pendergast, to his great surprise, beat him to it.
“Mr. Ozmian,” said Pendergast, in his quietest, smoothest voice, “we have bad news: your daughter is dead.”
The man looked as if he’d just been shot. He actually staggered and had to grip the side of a chair in order to keep himself upright. His face instantly drained of all color; his lips moved, but only an unintelligible whisper came out. He was like a dead man standing.
He swayed again and D’Agosta took a step over to him, grasping his arm and shoulder. “Sir, let’s sit down.”
The man nodded mutely and allowed himself to be steered into a chair. He felt as light as a feather in D’Agosta’s grasp.
Ozmian’s lips formed the word how, but with only a rush of air coming out.
“She was murdered,” said Pendergast, his voice still very quiet. “Her body was found last night in an abandoned garage in Queens. We were able to make an identification this morning. We are here now because we wanted you to hear officially before the newspapers break the story — as they will at any moment.” Despite the baldness of his words, Pendergast’s voice managed to convey a depth of compassion and sorrow.
Again, the man’s lips moved. “Murdered?” came the single strangled word.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She was shot through the heart. Death was instantaneous.”
“Shot? Shot?” The color was starting to come back into his face.
“We will know more in a few days. I’m afraid you have the task of identifying the body. We will of course be glad to escort you there.”
The man’s face was full of confusion and horror. “But…murdered? Why?”
“The investigation is only a few hours old. It appears she was killed four days ago and her body left in the garage.”
Now Ozmian grasped the sides of his chair and rose again to his feet. His face had gone from white to pink and was now turning a fiery red. He stood there for a moment, looking from Pendergast to D’Agosta and back again. D’Agosta could see he was recovering his wits; he sensed the guy was about to explode.
“You,” he began. “You bastards.”
Silence.