The elevator doors slid open.
Hamad stepped out, SKS-12 ready. He thought he saw movement. He wasn’t sure. He moved forward and—
Brian felt his finger squeeze the trigger as he noticed the barrel of a weapon sticking out through the open elevator door and—
Hamad came forward, seeing nothing, moving and—
A blow to the head.
And it was done.
Brian caught his breath. Coming out of the elevator, a 9mm Uzi in her manicured hands and a protective vest over her lovely torso, was Stacy Ruiz. She was alone. Brian and Monty stood up and she said in a measured, even voice: ‘We’re in lockdown for a while.’
‘What’s up?’ Monty said.
Stacy kept her voice even, though Brian sensed there was trembling going on somewhere back there. ‘Just got word. Tiger Team Four got hit, outside of Hartford.’
‘How bad?’ Brian asked.
‘Bad enough. We’re at Threat Condition Delta for a while. We’ve shut down the upstairs.’
Monty nodded, put his weapon away. ‘The noise we heard down here — shutters?’
Stacy slung the Uzi over her left shoulder. ‘Yeah. Doors locked automatically, the metal shutters slid down over the ground-floor windows. And I switched us over to auxiliary power, just in case. You probably saw a power flicker down here. We’re now on recycled air. Pretty much nothing can get in here and hurt us except for a suitcase nuke, and I don’t think one will be wasted on us at the moment.’
Brian said, ‘Good move,’ as he returned his own 9mm to his shoulder holster.
Stacy’s eyes flashed at him. ‘just doing my job, that’s all.’
Monty said, ‘Thank the Christ somebody is. Come on, let’s spread the news.’
They went back to the conference room door, still locked, and their pounding and shouts didn’t produce any response. Monty said, ‘Guys back there are too good. Phone?’
‘Inside the elevator,’ Stacy said.
Back to the elevator and Monty handed the phone over to Brian, pulling the receiver free from a receptacle under the panel. ‘Hope you can remember your own extension.’
‘I believe I can.’
He dialed the four digits and it was picked up after the first ring. ‘Scott.’
‘Adrianna, it’s all right. Stacy’s with us. We’re in lock-down. Threat Condition Delta.’
He could hear her breathing on the other line. ‘Brian?’
‘Yes?’
‘If you’re under any duress, please say the phrase “not a chance”. If everything’s all right, please say the phrase “you bet your life”.’
He said, ‘You bet your life, and your fucking ass, that we’re fine. Okay?’
Adrianna hung up. Monty looked on. ‘That’s the second time you’ve dropped an f-bomb on the princess this morning. She’s a sensitive lady. I don’t think she’s gonna like it.’
‘Yeah, well, what’s she going to do? Send me back to New York? I’d love to go to New York City right now, honest to Christ I would.’
There came the sound of the conference room door being unlocked and opening up, and Brian shook his head as he led Monty and Stacy into the room. Only one of the two doors was open, and Victor was there, hands shaking, aiming a fire extinguisher at the three of them. Frozen carbon dioxide cloud versus automatic weapons. A hell of a last stand, if it had to be done. Then they all sat around the conference room table, Stacy now looking embarrassed, holding the Uzi in both her manicured hands, and Brian noted that after she put the weapon’s safety on she slid it under the table.
But she kept the vest on, which Brian found distracting. He’d rather looked forward to the view of her cleavage, he thought as the afternoon dragged on and the phone rang a few times and they received word that nine of their colleagues had been killed up in Connecticut. None wounded. There were six survivors from the lower level of the building.
Adrianna looked around at them and said, ‘We’re done for the day. We’ll take the Final Winter matter up again, tomorrow morning, seven a.m. Please be prompt.’
As he stood up, Brian was surprised that Adrianna hadn’t looked right at him with that comment about being here on time. Then he was surprised again when she came up to him and said, ‘Brian, do you have plans for dinner?’
‘Not a one.’
‘Good. Please join me at my place, will you?’
Brian thought back to how the day had started, with the news of the upcoming anthrax attacks. Then he pondered on the thought that they would have to come up with a plan to immunize hundreds of millions of people without their knowledge and consent and tried to absorb the implications of the news that a terrorist attack had knocked off some of their comrades.
And now there was a dinner offer from the princess. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘That’d be fine.’
All in all, Brian thought, walking with Adrianna to the elevator, it had been one hell of a day.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Adrianna Scott lived a fifteen-minute drive from the office park, in a collection of townhouse condos that called them-selves Fox Hollow Estates. Brian followed her Toyota Celica with his own rented Lexus — why the hell not, if you’re working on the road, why not rent something fancy? — and he took a space next to hers. Within a minute or so they were in her home, a narrow two-story building that was the end unit of a row of dwellings.
Adrianna turned on the lights in the kitchen as they went in. She said, ‘I get to pay extra each month for the privilege of living on an end unit, and most days I think it’s worth it. Means there’s at least three walls that don’t bring in sound from the neighbors. Hold on, will you? I want to go upstairs and change. I’ll be right back down. Grab something from the fridge, if you’d like. Oh. And one house rule, if you don’t mind.’
‘I’ve been here sixty seconds, and already you’re tossing rules at me?’
She ran a hand through her hair, the gesture making her look tired. ‘No shop talk, not for a while. About today or about what happened up in Hartford. We’ll have plenty of time to talk about it later.’
‘Usually I hate rules, but that’s a good one.’
Adrianna went upstairs to the left and Brian went to the kitchen, which was off to the right. The kitchen was small but tidy. Even the cookbooks seemed to be sorted by size. He went to the refrigerator, opened it up. Saw a collection of Heinekens on the bottom shelf, picked up one of the green bottles and popped it open. He debated whether to pour it in a glass or not and decided what the hell. He took a sip from the ice-cold bottle as he wandered through the rest of the condo. The floor was polished hardwood and next to the kitchen was a small dining area — round wooden table with four wooden chairs. Beyond the eating area was a living room — couch and two chairs, television set on a dark wooden stand, and a set of bookshelves.
He went up, examined the books. Medieval art history, it looked like. And the history of Rome as well. Some reference books. And a Second World War history book: The Army That Never Was. He picked .it up, gave it a quick glance, saw what it was about. The story of General George Patton and how he was assigned during the build-up to the Normandy invasion in 1944 to be in charge of a mythical army group that the Germans thought was going to invade France. He remembered seeing something about that in the George C. Scott movie. He put the book back on the shelf.
Near the bookshelves was a fireplace, closed off. On the mantelpiece were two old brass candlesticks, flanking a photograph in a thick frame. Brian went forward, examined the photo. A much younger Adrianna Scott, standing behind an older woman who was sitting in a formal chair. Both women were wearing black velvet-like dresses trimmed with lots of white and red ribbons. Adrianna’s hands were on the shoulders of the older woman. He took another sip of beer.