"The photos aren't dated." He held up one eight-by-ten. "Labels with numbers. The numbers refer to reports. But I haven't matched up the reports yet with the photos. Can't until I have some help with this."
"Then they could have been talking to Davis for a week, two weeks?"
"Could be they had pressure on him before the Vietnamese came to New York. We could go straight to Davis. With these photos, he can't deny meeting with the crazies."
"He could have told me this morning, and he didn't. Maybe they have his children or grandchildren, and he thinks he can tough it out on his own. Maybe they've been threatening his company all along. Maybe taking the Tower was only the final turn of the screw. I want Davis watched. Because whatever they want from him, now's the time to take it. And when they try, we'll take their contact man."
Federal agents in electrical company uniforms watched the squad car and taxi roar past, then replaced the street barricades. In seconds, the cab screeched to a smoking-tire stop.
"Just take the photos with Davis in it," Lyons told Blancanales. "We'll have these agents carry the boxes in. They're just hanging around anyway. Heard what I said, Taximan?"
"I'll put them to work, sir. Right away."
They ran from the cab, weaving through the agents in uniforms and street clothes standing at the commandeered office building's back entrance. An agent at the glass doors stopped them.
"Who are you guys? Show me some official identification."
"We don't have identification," Lyons told him, tried to shove past. The agent shoved back, and found himself on his back on the concrete, looking up at Lyons and Blancanales.
Blancanales laughed, put his hand on Lyons' shoulder. "Ease up, man. These guys are on our side!"
An agent in gray janitor coveralls stepped from the building and held the door open for them.
"I'm Hardman Three's liaison man," he said. "He's waiting for you upstairs. Many interesting developments."
Another man slight-figured, in a conservative suit and brown shoes, carrying a zippered folder rushed to the door of the elevator. But Lyons straight-armed him, said, "Wait for the next one up."
"Please," Blancanales added.
"But he's..." the liaison agent protested. The elevator doors closed. The car shot up. "He was waiting to talk to you. He has some background material on WorldFiCor."
Lyons turned to the agent, emphasized his words with a finger to the man's chest. "I want you to understand this, Mr. Agent. We have been in the shit all day long. We have done the work you feds can't. And the reason we can do it is that we don't exist. We don't have identification, we don't have names. You have never seen us. We will never be news, we will never be on tv. No one will ever include us in their expose, or in their memoirs. If we get killed, we're just meat in a body-bag, no name and no face. So we show up here, and what do we have? Some clerk with a notebook trying to brief us. That is a violation of our working rules! When Brognola tells me to talk to the man, then I talk to him, not before. Nobody comes up and introduces himself to us! Do you understand?"
"Right. Yes, sir. Mr. Brognola has to give you the okay. I'll call him back, right now. Security is important."
"You talked to Brognola?" Blancanales asked.
The elevator stopped, and Lyons stepped out as the doors slid open. He glanced in both directions down the corridor, but all the doors were closed.
"Yes, sir. He called me." The agent pointed to the left. "This way. I think we've made contact with someone trapped in the Tower. They're flashing a light in Morse code. We're trying to get some information from them, but there are problems."
"What problems?" Blancanales asked.
"Their Morse code is bad. Very slow, and they get some of the alphabet wrong. But they're getting across to us."
"Where are they?" Lyons asked.
"The fifty-third floor."
The agent in overalls opened an office suite's door. Lyons strode in. "Hey, Hardman Three! You missed the action!"
Gadgets said, "What action?"
Schwarz was in a stock broker's plush private office. Shipping blankets now covered the desk, the chairs, the bookshelves and the carpet. Consoles and recorder decks crowded the walls. At the window that overlooked the WorldFiCor Tower, tripods supported devices still in their vinyl cases. Gadgets stood at the window, looking out at the Tower through a pair of binoculars.
Twilight shadows and sunset glare broke the Tower's mirror walls into alternating patterns of black and fire. Here and there, lights showed in the other buildings on Wall Street. But very few lights broke the depthless black of the Tower's shadow patterns. One light blinked on and off, in dot-dash sequences.
"We interrupting anything?" Blancanales asked.
"Not really. Just a second." Gadgets kept the binoculars on the blinking light for another second, then went to an intercom phone. "You taking down the message? Great. I'm in conference."
Gadgets turned to them. "Hope their lives don't depend on their Morse. Because if they do, they're dead."
"What's happening in there?" asked Lyons, moving to the window.
"There's a man named Charlie Green on the fifty-third floor. There's a woman named Forde, I think, and some others. I sent their names downstairs. I don't know how they'll be able to help us. But..." Gadgets grinned "...I have got the most fas-ci-nating development. Remember what happened... wow, was it only last night? The big bang? It just about..."
"Wait!" Lyons interrupted. He looked at the liaison agent.
"I'll go," the agent offered.
"How about bringing up that fellow who wanted to talk to us?" Blancanales asked. "We can talk in the corridor out there. So that we don't compromise the mission. That okay with you?"
Lyons nodded. He waited until the liaison agent exited. "We can't say anything about Miami or North Carolina here. And the less any of these fellows know about what we do here, the better. Those are the instructions. What were you saying?"
"Like last night. The big bang? Listen." Gadgets went to a tape deck, rewound a few feet of tape, snapped the machine into forward. There was background hiss, then a blast of electronic noise.
"You mean a radio detonator?" Lyons asked. He looked to the Tower, stared.
"Yeah. I think it might even be the same one. Sounds the same."
"They tried to blow their people away? Again?"
"That is one organization I do not want to join," Gadgets joked.
"When was this?" Lyons demanded.
"When we were chasing around, trying to follow the Politician. I got back and I had it on tape. Either something went wrong inside the Tower, or the creeps in there weren't set up."
"Are there any negotiations?" Blancanales asked.
Gadgets laughed. "They want a ticker-tape parade."
"It's a set-up," Lyons spat out. "Those crazies in there were set up, the Tower was set up, and any negotiations are pointless. Whoever's running the action plans to blow the Tower away. And they've got their claws into WorldFiCor in ways we can't even imagine. Show our partner what we found."
"Take a look at this." Blancanales showed Schwarz the eight-by-ten. "We don't know who this one is. But guess who the other one is the distinguished-looking guy? World Financial Corporation President E.M. Davis."
"Wow."
"We took these from a Vietnamese," Blancanales continued. "Maybe in a few hours we'll have the answers to about five hundred different questions, but until then we only have these photos."