“So where are we, then?” I said to Weston when he finally opened the rear doors, twenty minutes later. “Saigon?”
He didn’t answer.
“Quantico, maybe?” I said.
He gestured for me to get out.
“Federal Plaza, at least?” I said, looking over his shoulder at the parallel rows of square pillars and grimy, oil-stained floor. “Because I’ve got to tell you, I’m not impressed with the decor.”
Weston reached into the van and leaned forward to grab my arm. His jacket gaped open and the rough black polymer grip of his service weapon stood out against his clean white shirt. I let him tug impatiently at my sleeve for a moment, then shuffled toward him until I could swing my legs around and get my feet on the ground.
I stepped away and saw we were in the corner of a large, rectangular basement garage. There were only four other vehicles. Identical Ford sedans, standing in line to the side of the van. They looked new and shiny. They were much larger than European cars, but even with all the empty spaces each one was parked neatly within the yellow lines.
There were no other people. Apart from the two agents and me, the place was deserted. No one to witness anything that could happen there. A notice on the wall said the owners-some bank-denied responsibility for any damage that may be caused. I couldn’t see which bank because someone had taped a piece of cardboard over the name with JUDAS handwritten in large red capitals. Next to the sign were the remains of a metal bracket. It was like the one above the door in the police interview room. A short length of wire was dangling from it, neatly cut at its end. I looked around the rest of the garage. Similar brackets had been mounted on the pillars at regular intervals.
Now, they were all empty.
Maybe the cameras had been recovered by the bank when it abandoned the building. Maybe they’d been stolen while it was lying derelict. Or maybe they’d been removed for another reason.
I backed up against the side of the van, just in case.
Lavine broke the silence.
“Hey,” he said, standing in front of a pair of turquoise wooden doors set into the wall. “Will you hurry it up?”
Weston turned to look at his partner, and that gave me a decision to make. My eyes were drawn to his neck. Cervical vertebrae are notoriously delicate. Even wearing handcuffs, I could sever his spinal cord with one sharp snap. Then I could reach down under his arm and take his gun. A Glock 23 holds thirteen rounds, but I wouldn’t need that many. One would be enough. Two, if I went by the book. Lavine would be finished before he could take his own weapon out of its holster.
I passed.
If all I was supposed to have done was kill a tramp, why was the bureau so interested in me? What made it worth trampling all over the NYPD and dragging me away to this building? There was too much I didn’t understand.
So you can call it curiosity. Or professional courtesy. But either way, I decided to play along.
SIX
There were always plenty of books in the house when I was a kid.
A lot were borrowed from the library. Others had been inherited from relatives. But a few had been bought for me. I remember the first one my parents ever gave me, after I’d learned to read for myself. It was a collection of proverbs and fables. Some of them seemed pretty old-fashioned, even in those days. Some didn’t make much sense. Some I’ve forgotten the detail of.
And others, I should have paid more attention to.
Ones like Curiosity killed the cat…
The turquoise doors were the only way I could see to get out of the garage, other than the vehicle ramp at the opposite side. They had obviously been heavily used. The paint was worn and peeling, and the corner of the right-hand door scraped on the ground when Lavine pushed it open. Weston and I followed him through into a small concrete-walled lobby. There was an elevator to our right, but Lavine ignored it. He kept going and disappeared up a set of stairs at the far side. They only went up one level. We trudged along behind him and caught up just before he reached a heavy gray door at the top. He held it open for us and we emerged into a large, bright, open space.
I paused to check my new surroundings, but Weston grabbed my arm and hauled me past a deserted reception counter that ran along the left-hand wall. It would have been wide enough for three people to work behind, but now I could only see one chair. All the usual receptionists’ paraphernalia was missing-sign-in books, visitors’ badges, telephone switchboards, computer screens-and there was no other furniture in the whole area. It must have been some time since the place was occupied. A layer of dust covered the floor, making the marble tiles feel a little greasy underfoot, and a few small spiderwebs clung to the angles of the tall window frames.
The bottom six feet of glass had been covered up with sheets of coarse blockboard. One section was boarded up on the inside, as well. It was next to the far end of the counter, in line with a semicircle of black textured rubber set into the floor. It looked like the remains of a revolving door. It would have led to the street, but now the thick wooden panel blocking the opening was braced with two stout planks. Each was held in place by six heavy steel bolts. You’d need some decent tools to get through there, now. Or a little C4.
Weston didn’t release my arm until we reached a line of shiny silver posts. There were five, dividing the reception area on one side from a twin bank of elevators on the other. I guess they would have originally held hinged panels-probably glass, judging by the brackets-to control access into the building. Now their fittings were broken and there was nothing to fill the spaces between them. We walked through, past a double door leading to some offices, and headed toward the elevators. A door in the far corner was labeled STAIRS. For a moment I thought Lavine was going to make us climb again, but he reached out and pressed the call button instead. The indicators above three of the elevators were blank, but the fourth one was already showing GROUND. Its doors parted, and the three of us filed inside.
The elevator had buttons for twenty-four floors. Lavine hit the one labeled “23.” The doors closed gently, and almost imperceptibly we began to ascend. The elevator’s walls were covered by some sort of rough sacklike material hanging from small metal hooks near the ceiling. I pulled back the edge of one of the sheets and found it was protecting a mirror. I presume it was the same on the other walls. If so, I was glad they were hidden. I didn’t need an endless sea of those agents’ miserable faces reflecting all around me.
The display gradually wound its way up to 23. We stopped moving and the doors silently slid apart. Weston pushed me out first. He guided me around to the right, away from the elevators, and then steered me along the corridor until we reached an enormous open-plan office. Two lines of storage cabinets were laid out along the center of the room, forming a kind of pathway to a glass supervisor’s booth that jutted out from the end wall. The cabinets were low-less than waist height-and a gap after each third one gave access to groups of desks on either side. They were pushed together in fours to form parallel rows of identical crosses. These were arranged alternately one against the cabinets, one against the windows all the way down the room. The nearer ones were completely bare, except for a tangle of wires spilling out from the exposed cable trays at the back. Farther away several computer keyboards were scattered around, all with their leads neatly coiled up, and I could see a handful of old telephone headsets mixed in among them.