“Why not?” I stepped to the first of the small twin doors and tried each of my four keys, without success.
“I, ah, don’t think that’s the cleaning closet, Lieutenant. I think that’s, ah, probably for the electrical panel. There’s one for every floor. For the lights, and the elevator relays, and like that.” As he always did whenever he corrected me, Canelli spoke softly, apologetically. Beneath his scruffy car coat, he was probably sweating.
As I was opening the matching door on a jumble of mops and pushbrooms, Canelli walked quickly down the hallway, rattling office doors. The time was ten minutes after eleven. As we searched the empty offices I repeatedly called Diebenkorn, checking on Castro’s progress. The motorcade was now approximately two miles north of the airport, Diebenkorn reported, proceeding toward the city.
We’d worked our way down to the seventh floor when my walkie-talkie crackled to life. I could hear Friedman’s voice, but the transmission was hopelessly garbled. A moment later Diebenkorn cut in.
“Are you getting that, sir?”
“No,” I answered shortly, “I’m not.”
“It’s Lieutenant Friedman. He’s trying to contact you directly. There must be interference.”
“Get the message, then, Diebenkorn,” I said sharply. “Get it and relay it to me.”
“Yessir.”
I was fitting key into a door marked “Vista Vacations” when Diebenkorn came back on the air. “Well, what’s he say?” I asked irritably. I’d decided Diebenkorn was an officer who couldn’t accept responsibility.
“He says that he’s routing Castro around this building. But he can’t do anything about the ceremony on the steps of City Hall, he says. Because of the media. They’re going to televise the speeches, he says. So Castro won’t buy a change of schedule. Neither will the mayor. Or the FBI, either, because they don’t have a backup plan, I guess.”
Swearing under my breath, I answered, “All right. Give him a roger. Tell him that we haven’t found anything — that the building is about half searched.”
“Yessir.”
I slipped my walkie-talkie in my pocket and pushed open the “Vista Vacations” door. It was a small office, furnished with an oversized metal desk, a persimmon-colored plastic-covered couch and a matching armchair. Framed travel posters decorated the walls. A woven straw rug covered the floor, wall to wall.
As we’d done before, Canelli checked the office itself while I opened the clothes closet and the door to a tiny alcove containing a mirror and washbasin.
I’d just opened the lavatory door when I heard a sharp intake of breath. Whirling, I saw Canelli in a crouch, gun drawn, facing the metal desk.
“Hey,” he said. “Hey. Come out of there. Slow and easy.”
As I drew my own gun I saw a head of close-cut auburn hair rising form behind the desk. A face followed — a woman’s face.
Shelly Jackson.
24
“Drop it,” Canelli grated. “Drop the goddamn gun.”
As she slowly straightened I heard a heavy metallic thud as a pistol struck the carpeted floor behind the desk. Now she stood at her full height. Ignoring Canelli, she’d turned to face me. She wore a two-piece tweed dress. Her shoes were alligator, matching her purse. The silk scarf knotted at her throat was green, highlighting her eyes. She could have been dressed for lunch at the Fairmont. A small, ironic smile teased the corners of her provocatively shaped mouth. Her gray-green eyes mocked me with cool, controlled contempt.
“Drop that, too,” Canelli barked, stepping toward her. “Empty your hands. Put them on top of your head. Now.”
Instead, she moved a single step toward the big window behind the desk. She raised her right hand, fingers spread — showing us an empty palm. She rotated the hand, for both of us to see. She was pantomiming a magician’s now-you-see-it-turn.
Then she raised her closed hand to waist height. She took another slow, measured step toward the window. In the closed left hand she held something small and square, the shape and size of a cigarette package.
“If he shoots,” she said to me, “he’ll blow up a lot of innocent people.” She spoke in a cold, flat voice. Her eyes had never left mine. Now she rotated her left hand, allowing me to see what she held. It was an ordinary electronic garage door opener. When she was sure I’d seen it, she half turned away, aiming the opener at the window.
“There are bombs,” she said softly. “There are two bombs. And if you don’t do exactly as you’re told, I’ll explode them. Right now. With this.” She lifted the small plastic garage door opener.
Cautiously moving between Shelly and the desk, with his revolver trained on the girl, Canelli stooped down behind the desk, reappearing with a blued-steel automatic in his hand. At a nod from me, Canelli retreated, holstered his gun and disarmed the automatic. The gun was a 9mm Browning, the best of its type. There’d been a cartridge in the chamber. The small knurled hammer had been cocked. She’d been ready to kill us.
“You may as well put your gun away, too, Lieutenant. You aren’t going to shoot me.” Her eyes moved away from mine as she stared out the window. As she leaned on the window frame, her face was profiled against the glass. Dressed in her expensive brown tweed dress, with the silk scarf at ther throat, her pose was aloof, detached. She lowered the electronic opener until it angled down toward McAllister Street, then rotated it until it lined up on the City Hall steps.
Her purpose was plain. She’d hidden explosive devices somewhere on Castro’s route, either on the street or at the City Hall steps. When Castro appeared, she’d explode the bombs. It was a common terrorist tactic.
There was no rifleman. There’d never been a rifleman.
I realized that I still stood in a muscle-locked, self-defensive crouch. I straightened and holstered my revolver. With my eyes, I gestured for Canelli to step back, giving her room. In the silence, I could hear the sounds of a crowd in the streets below. Shrill voices were shouting in unison: “Castro nunca, Castro nunca.”
“It won’t work, Shelly,” I said. “We know the whole plan. We got it from Leo, an hour ago. We’ve had Castro’s car diverted. He taking another route. There won’t be a speech, either,” I lied.
Still with her face averted, staring down into the street, she smiled. It was a detached smile, eerily serene. Seen in perfect profile, the smile softened her face. She was a beautiful woman.
“Leo didn’t talk,” she said quietly. “Neither did Rosten.”
I looked at my watch. The time was eleven-forty. In twenty minutes, bypassing the building, Castro would have arrived at the City Hall steps.
During those twenty minutes words were my only weapon.
“Why do you think we’re here, if Leo didn’t talk?”
“You probably tricked him,” she answered. She spoke in a calm, reflective voice. “He might have let something slip, but he didn’t talk. Leo’s not really very smart. But he’s dedicated.”
“The perfect tool. Is that it?”
The small, curiously pensive smile returned. She nodded. “That’s it.” There was a short silence. Then, still looking down into the street, she said, “Has the motorcade really been diverted?”
Suddenly I knew why she asked — and suddenly realized that I’d made a terrible mistake, telling her that the route was changed. The electronic opener probably couldn’t operate much beyond a hundred feet. Its signal probably couldn’t carry across the Plaza, to the City Hall steps. The bombs, then, were close by, probably in the street below. So when Castro bypassed the building and reached the City Hall steps, three hundred yards away, it would all be over. She’d be defeated, vulnerable. The advantage would be mine.