“They can aim a sniper’s rifle as well as anyone. And there are always the Clan’s special weapons.” A ripple of muttering spiraled the room, rapidly ascending in volume. “Whose principle military value lies in not using them, but the conservatives have never been good at subtle thinking.”
“The Clan’s—” Miriam bit her tongue. “You’ve got to be joking. They wouldn’t dare use them. Would they?”
“You need to talk to Baron Riordan,” said Carl. “I can say no more than that. But I’d speak to him soon, your majesty. For all I know, the orders might already have been signed.”
It was early evening; the store had closed to the public two hours ago, and most of the employees had long since checked out and gone to do battle with the rush hour traffic or the crowds on the subway. The contract cleaners and stock fillers had moved in for the duration, wheeling their handcarts through the aisles and racks of clothing, polishing the display cases, vacuuming the back offices and storerooms. They had a long, patient night’s work ahead of them, as did the twoman security team who walked the shop floor as infrequently as they could. “It creeps me out, man,” Ricardo had explained once when Frank asked him. “You know about the broad who killed herself in the third floor john ten years ago? This is one creepy store.”
“You been drinking too much, man,” Frank told him, with a snort. “You been listenin’ to too many ghost stories, they ain’t none of your business. Burglars, that’s your business.”
“Not slipping and breaking my fool neck on all that marble, that’s my business,” Ricardo grumbled. But he tried to follow Frank’s advice all the same. Which was why he wasn’t looking at the walls as he slouched, face downturned, past the rest rooms on the third floor, just as the door to the men’s room gaped silently open.
D.C. played host to a whole raft of police forces, from embassy guards to the Metro Police to the secret service, and all of them liked to play dress-up from time to time. If Ricardo had noticed the ghost who glided from the rest room doorway on the balls of his feet, his first reaction might have been alarm—followed by a flood of adrenaline-driven weak-kneed shock as he registered the look: the black balaclava helmet concealing the face, the black fatigues, and the silenced pistol in a military holster.
But Ricardo did not notice the mall ninja stepping out into the gallery behind him. Nor did he notice the second man in SWAT-team black slide out of the toilet door, scanning the other way down the aisle between knitware and ladies’ formals with his pistol. Ricardo remained oblivious—for the rest of his life.
The first intruder had frozen momentarily in Ricardo’s shadow. But now he took two steps forward, drawing a compact cylinder from his belt. One more step, and Ricardo might have noticed something for he tensed and began to turn; but the intruder was already behind him, thrusting hard.
The security guard dropped like a sack of potatoes, twitching as the illegally overcharged stunner pumped electricity through him. At the thud, the second intruder twitched round hastily; but Ricardo’s assailant was quick with a hand signal, and then a compact Syrette. He bent over the fallen guard and picked up his left hand, then slid the needle into a vein on the inside of the man’s wrist and squeezed the tube. Finally he looked round.
“Clear,” said his companion.
“Help me get this into the stalls and position him.”
Together they towed Ricardo—eyes closed, breathing slowly, seemingly completely relaxed—back into the men’s room. A quick crisis conference ensued.
“You sure about this?”
“Yes. Can’t risk him coming round.”
“Shit. Okay, let’s get him on the seat and make this look good. On my word—”
“God-on-a-stick, he’s heavy.”
“Roll his sleeve up, above the elbow, while I find the kit.”
“You’re really going to do this.”
“You want to explain to the earl why we didn’t?”
“Good point. . . .”
There was a janitor’s trolley in front of the row of washbasins, with a large trash bin and storage for cleaning sundries. Drawing on a pair of disposable gloves, the second intruder retrieved some items from one of the compartments: a tarnished Zippo lighter, a heat-blackened steel spoon, a syringe (already loaded with clear liquid), and a rubber hose.
“Right, let’s do this.”
Ricardo twitched slightly and sniffed in his sleep as the men in black set up the scene. Then the syringe bit cold into his inner arm. “Wuh,” he said, dozily.
“Hold him!”
The first intruder clamped his hands around Ricardo’s shoulders; but the guard wasn’t awake enough to put up any kind of struggle. And after drawing blood, his executioner was finished. The intruders stepped back to examine their handiwork: the ligature around the upper arm, the empty syringe, the addict’s works on the floor by his feet.
“Shit. Never had to do that before.”
“Neither have I. Easier than a hanging, isn’t it?”
“Uglier, maybe. Let’s get this shit over with.”
Leaving the cubicle and its mute witness behind, the two men removed their masks and gloves and unhooked their holsters, stowing them in the janitor’s cart. “Okay, we’ve got six minutes before his number two notices that he hasn’t finished his round—if we’re unlucky. Let’s go find the freight elevator and get out of here.”
Intruder number one wheeled the heavy janitor’s cart out of the toilet block while his partner stood watch. This was the riskiest part of the procedure: The security guard was a known quantity, and one they’d been prepared for, but if they ran into a real cleaner they’d have to play things by ear. Too many disappearances in one night and someone, in the morning, might think to ask urgent questions. But they didn’t run into anyone as they wheeled the cart over to the unmarked door leading to the service passages behind the shop floor, and the battered and scraped freight elevator arrived without undue fuss.
The sales floors—the sections of the store open to the public—occupied the first through fifth floors, but it was an eight-story building. The upper levels housed a restaurant, then administrative offices and storage rooms for stock and old documents. When the elevator stopped on the eighth floor, intruder number one was the first to exit. He glanced both ways along the empty corridor. “Clear.”
“Alright, let’s shift this.”
Together they wheeled the cart along the corridor towards the building’s northeast edge. Most of the rooms on this level were offices, prized by the store managers for their view of Penn Avenue; none of these would do. But where there are offices there are also facilities—mail rooms, sluices for the janitors, storerooms. And presently the intruders found what they were looking for: a locked door which, once they opened it using the guard’s master key, proved to conceal a small, cluttered closet stacked with anonymous brown cardboard boxes. The odor of neglect hung over them like a mildewed blanket. “This one’s perfect—hasn’t been cleaned in weeks.”
“Good, let’s get this thing in here. . . .”
Together they manhandled the cart into the room, then busied themselves moving and restacking the boxes, which proved to be full of yellowing paper files. By the time they finished, the cart was nearly invisible from the doorway, concealed behind a stack of archives. “Okay, setup time. Let’s see. Epoxy glue first . . .”
Intruder number one busied himself applying fat sticks of epoxy putty to the wheels of the cart. By the time he finished, anyone attempting to remove it would find the wheels more than reluctant to budge, another mild deterrent to anyone wondering what an abandoned janitor’s cart was doing in the back of a storeroom. Then intruder number two went to work on the contents of the trash can, with a pen-sized flashlight and a checklist with an olive drab cover bearing the words TOP SECRET.