The Stork’s mouth shifted and clamped. “Let me work on that.”
“Also work on getting into the security phone lines-tap in to however many phone junctions it takes. I’d like you to monitor all developments.” Tim had already asked Rayner to nose around his media contacts to get a read on the security politics, but the more information sources he had, the better.
“How many minutes to pickup?”
Tim glanced at his G-Shock. “Seven.”
The Stork dug an eyedropper out of his pocket, removed his immense glasses, and applied the drops. When he put his glasses back on, still blinking against the liquid, his eyes looked like those of an agitated turtle. Tim felt the pull of empathy, followed quickly by an urge for comradeship, for unity in their common cause.
“It hit you hard?” Tim asked. “When your mother was killed?”
The Stork shrugged. “I’ve learned not to expect much from life. If you never expect things to go right, you’re less upset when they go wrong.”
“Then why are you doing this? The Commission?”
“Honestly? For the money. A nice little salary on top of my FBI pension. That may sound awful to you, but I don’t have anything in this life but money. I’ve never had many friends. I’ve never played baseball. I’ve never had sex with a woman. I’m just an outsider, looking in at this other life I see in movies and advertisements. After a while I just checked out. I don’t watch TV anymore, any of that stuff. I read. Mostly older stuff. Now and then I’ll rent black-and-white movies when I can’t sleep. I have trouble sleeping. My breathing…” He gestured to the knot of scar tissue beneath his nose, then folded his hands peacefully in his lap. “The zeitgeist alarms me because it reminds me of all the things I’m missing.”
He removed his glasses again and rubbed his eyes. The lenses were concave, thick at the edges. “There’s a reasonable chance I may be blind someday. I don’t mind having extra money to buy books, to travel around and see things. Different oceans. Arctic snow. I took a helicopter ride around the Grand Canyon last May, and it was divine.” He tapped his chest gently with his fingertips. “It’s all more than I should do, given my heart condition, but it’s my one pleasure.” The glasses slid back on again, and his turtle eyes blinked at Tim. “I like money. It doesn’t make me a bad person.”
“No, I don’t think it does.”
They sat awkwardly for a moment.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Rackley. I don’t have much occasion to talk to people, so when I start…” He cleared his throat moistly. “Perhaps we should get moving.”
Tim reached into the backseat and removed two magnetic logos the size of garbage-can lids. He stepped out and stuck one on either side of the Chevy, where they proclaimed PERFECT TINT WINDOW WASHING.
The Stork pulled back down the narrow street, past the loading dock, and looped around the front of the building. Tim’s watch blinked from 12:59 to 1:00 precisely as Robert stepped out the maintenance door on the west side, rags hanging from the pockets of his overalls, baseball cap askew.
It took him fifteen steps to reach the van-already Tim had the side door rolling open-and he ducked in as the Stork pulled away. They rode in silence for several blocks. The Stork stopped the car on a deserted street, just behind Tim’s parked Beemer.
Robert coughed into a fist, then spit out the window. He tapped a cigarette out of a crumpled pack he pulled from his shirt pocket. He snapped open the lid of a Zippo with an American-flag decal. “Mind if I smoke?”
“Yes,” the Stork said.
Robert lit up and blew a gust of smoke up at the driver’s seat. It wreathed the head of the displeased Stork like a laurel. The Stork tried to hold in a cough, but it hiccupped out of him.
Tim looped his arm around the headrest so he was facing Robert. “The fourth and tenth floors are empty, right?”
“Yeah, they are. The dot-coms that used to rent them went the way of the dodo.”
“Are there still infrared-strobe motion detectors in place?”
“Both floors are rife with ’em-SafetyMan casings. They’re off during the day because of the occasional maintenance guy or mover, but I’d imagine they go hot after five, six o’clock.”
“Tomorrow, before we throw you back up there as a window washer, we’ll figure out a way to slide you past security-as a maintenance guy, maybe-to breach the interior. I’ll need those IR strobes made bad-operating. Stork?”
“I’ve dealt with SafetyMan before,” the Stork said. “I’ll size some mirror fragments to fit the casings. Robert can get ’em in tomorrow during working hours when the strobes are deactivated. When they reactivate at night, the mirrors’ll bounce the IR beam back on itself and you’ll be able to do the lindy hop down the hall.”
“The lindy hop?”
“It’s a lively swing dance, Mr. Rackley. Named after Charles Lindbergh.”
“Right. Thanks for your help.” Tim’s eyes flicked to the door, in case the Stork didn’t catch the hint.
The Stork tossed Robert a tiny, flat camera, which he slid into his T-shirt pocket, and then the Stork hopped out, climbed into a second rental van parked at the curb, and motored off.
In the back Robert was changing out of his overalls, throwing on a pair of jeans. “Weird dude,” he said, jerking his head in the direction of the departing van. “He’s a solid operator, but you don’t exactly want to drink beers with the guy.”
“He’s all right,” Tim said. “A little soft, but he’s had a tough time, I’d guess.”
Robert stuck a pencil behind his ear and slid a clipboard into a copy of Newsweek. He bent over to relace his sneakers, the Lee insignia popping out on its leather tag in the back of his fitted true-blue jeans. “So why’d you send him packing? Who cares if he overhears?”
“Give me the intel dump.”
Robert stared at him, irritated, then inhaled sharply so the cigarette’s cherry flared. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“I don’t have to answer your questions.”
“Look, I’ve done everything you asked, like a good little soldier. Now I’m not giving you shit until you tell me what the plan is.”
“Fine. Then I drive off right now and you can explain my absence to Dumone and Rayner and carry out the mission by yourself.”
Robert leaned back and tapped ash out the window with a flick of his thumb, a sharp, efficient gesture. His movements were uniformly tense, anger simmering, violence barely contained. Tim didn’t know or trust his steadiness or that of the other operators-no small part of why-on a high-risk mission that carried the potential for collateral damage and civilian injury; he preferred to keep them focused on specific, isolated tasks.
Finally Robert said, “Maybe you should show a little respect. I got the shit you asked for. And then some.”
“So give it to me.”
Robert shot a jet of smoke in Tim’s direction and began. “The skeleton is steel, walls are concrete with plaster overlay, the floors are twenty feet high and supported by metal ceiling joists and metal posts, twelve to a floor. Each floor is a rebar-reinforced poured-concrete slab base, nine inches thick, with a polished finish. The roof is plywood and tar, and it houses twenty-one air diffusers with fans and fifteen three-by-seven skylights with metal bars securing entry. Gas-fed AC and heat-pump units with shutoff valves located in the ground-floor maintenance area. Electrical power enters the building from the southwest corner, heads into an electrical closet through a main disconnect, and gets routed from there. The closet wiring’s a mess-more fucked up than a nigger’s checkbook.”
“Lovely,” Tim said, but Robert had already moved on.
“Each floor has roughly five electrical-distribution panels around the interior perimeters, rated from two-to three-hundred-amp service. Emergency power is provided by battery, but there are two high-capacity backup generators. Fire enunciator is located at the northeast point on each floor-zoned single-partition system, monitored locally via phone line, FireKing-manufactured panel. Extensive smoke-and flame-detection devices, fire extinguishers, fire hoses in the stairwell. The elevator does go down to the underground garage-my guess is they bring Lane in there in an armored car. The building core is very well protected-no outside windows into the inner rooms, so we have dick on a sniper angle if that’s what you’re thinking…?” Cocked eyebrow, pause. “Windows don’t open. Garbage chutes located to the right of the service elevator on each floor. The doors on the way to the stairwells are metal, push-handle, and they all have mag strikes. Flip-style light switches are to the left of each door, interior side. Stairwell’s vacuum-sealed, no floor-to-floor access-you get locked out there, you’re going all the way down to the first floor. The stairwell door locks are single-cylinder handle-turns that autolock, and they open into a rear kitchen on odd floors, a conference room on evens. Interview recording usually takes place on the third floor, but-clever fuckers-they’re building a replica of Yueh’s set on the eleventh floor. The switched locale is a secret security precaution-I spotted construction workers with bulges at their hips moving set backdrops across the floor.”