“And met a delightful young redhead who then led you astray into a night of ungodly depravity?” she finished for him.
Picking up the chaser in the smaller glass, he raised it to her and said, “Here’s hoping!”
Throwing back her drink in a movement identical to Cal’s, she smiled at him playfully.
“Always wanted to see the inside of a fancy hotel room.”
Thursday 10:28 p.m. – Wall Street
The dull gray van nosed sedately through the late evening traffic, pulling into a manned security gate. The uniformed guard put on his hat, picked up the clipboard with the day’s schedule on, and left his small booth to speak to the driver.
“Hey Gerry. Hey Siobhan,” the guard said, greeting the overnight cleaning crew who worked Wednesday through Friday.
“Hey Simon,” replied Gerry, the balding middle-aged driver, “busy night?”
“Ah, you know,” Simon answered casually, “another day…”
“Ain’t that the truth!” called Siobhan from the passenger side.
Simon checked them off the list on his clipboard, as he had done most weeks for a year, and didn’t bother searching the van as he was supposed to. There was no point, he told himself, eager to get back to his seat to carry on with the book he was reading. It was just cleaning products like always. He only searched them when someone else was around anyway, just for show, and the new supervisor never bothered reviewing the overnight camera footage like the last guy did.
Once inside the gates and through the metal roller shutter Simon had opened from inside his booth, Gerry nodded once to his wife. Silently, they got their equipment from the sliding door on the side of the van and both lifted the heavy trolley to the ground; heavy because wrapped in black plastic sacks and covered by the rest of their cleaning products was the last invention of one Quentin Aaronson. Taking it to the basement where it was tucked inside a large waste bin next to the banks of flickering lights in the air-conditioned section to keep the computers running at optimal temperature, Siobhan peeled back the heavy plastic and checked her watch. She set the timer on the device, replaced the cover and nodded again to her husband. These computer things, whatever they were and not that she cared, were checked and maintained every Monday night and the device would be safe from prying eyes until the timer expired.
Without another word, they went back upstairs and cleaned the offices as they always had.
Above ground outside, Simon leaned back and tipped his hat up a little as he licked his thumb and turned the page of his book in total ignorance as to what his apathy had just allowed.
Thursday 11.46 p.m. – Floyd Bennet Field, Brooklyn
The routine maintenance of the NYPD’s helicopters was a constant task, operating day and night. Gus Daly, a wizened old man who had been servicing helicopters for longer than he could recall, scanned the lines of the NYPD’s air support choppers. The four Bell 412 medium lifts and the smaller, more tactical, Bell 429s were his babies as he called them, and it tore his heart to do what he was about to.
Still the money was good—too good to say no—and he also strongly suspected that saying no wasn’t an option to the guys who had found him at his favorite bar.
Almost all of the aircraft were on the tarmac, with only two on a call and one inside the hangar for a repair. Nobody would think anything of Gus wandering between the helicopters parked up, running a hand along the fuselage almost tenderly, checking his babies over. He fitted each one with a small device, cell phones taped to their exteriors, tucking them away where they couldn’t be discovered by chance. Regretting his decision to conspire with the men, he still couldn’t bring himself to change his mind because he needed that money.
“You promise me they won’t be damaged? And no one will get hurt?” he had asked the frightening men with the bag of cash and the bag of devices.
“Nobody will be hurt,” lied the first man, the only one who spoke.
Gus accepted that, because the money had blinded him to the subtext of their conversation. It seemed to Gus that patriotism and loyalty, like everything in life, had a price.
PLANNING THE EXECUTION, EXECUTING THE PLAN
Friday 8:30 a.m. – Waldorf Astoria, NYC
Cal woke with the events of the previous night flooding back to him. With a nervous intensity, his eyes slowly moved to his right where the smooth skin of Louise’s bare back rose and fell gently with each breath. He held his gaze on her back for a while, studying the tattoo on her shoulder.
Creeping out of bed as quietly as he could, he tiptoed to the bathroom where he ran the shower to cover the noise of emptying his bladder after a night of drinking. He didn’t feel hungover, most likely because their night had only ended a matter of a few hours ago and he was probably still a little drunk. As he let the hot water flow down his body, he stiffened in sudden fright as a pair of hands snaked around him. Wordlessly, he turned to face her as she moved closer under the water.
Friday 9:45 a.m. – Waldorf Astoria, NYC
After their long shower together and the resulting activity leaving the hotel room looking like it had been wrecked, Cal led Louise down the elevator and the two sat eating breakfast, stealing shy smiles at one another.
“What do you want to do today?” Cal asked her expectantly.
“I promised a friend I’d catch up with her,” she replied smiling, bursting his bubble that the free-spirited woman would be his for another day.
“Oh, I…” Cal trailed away, not knowing how to ask her if she wanted to spend more time with him. She intercepted his failing good mood.
“Wanna meet up again later?” she asked, making his spirits soar back to their original height and keep climbing.
“Yes!” Cal replied, too loud and too quickly. “I mean, yes, please. If you don’t mind?”
Laughing at his eagerness and awkwardness, she smiled at him before speaking through half a mouthful of pancakes.
“Of course I don’t mind, silly,” she said. “Shall I come back here or do you want to come to my place?” The playful smile said it all. After her descriptions about how bad her hotel was, the answer was obvious.
“Let’s stay at my place, shall we?” Cal replied with an attempted American accent.
“Yes please,” she said, attempting her own approximation of Cal’s accent and managing to make the conversation sound like a low-budget production of Mary Poppins, “if you don’t mind?”
“Not at all,” he said, blushing with excitement and happiness.
They agreed a time to meet, and he got an additional key card from the reception desk which he insisted she take despite her saying that it was too much. He told her if she got back first to grab a shower and order a bottle of something from room service, thinking that the cost would be worth it for her company.
“What are y’all doing this morning then?” she asked him, stacking up more pancakes and impaling them on her fork.
“No idea,” he replied honestly, “where would you suggest?”
“Well that depends,” she answered seriously, pausing to chew as she pointed the fork at him, “do the tourist thing, or go and see the real power of the US and visit the stock exchange!”
“Okay!” said Cal, calling her bluff and taking the suggestion seriously.
Riding the subway and wearing a stupid smile of satisfaction and happiness, Cal headed south and rose above ground to the packed streets around Wall Street. He felt as though he were intruding in the busy seat of western capitalism, as though every man or woman wearing a suit and walking fast with their eyes glued to their cell phones were a millionaire investment banker he associated with movies he had seen.