Mercer looked up from the file. It was a question he did not want to address. Was there a chance he was wrong about OF amp;C’s involvement?
“No, we didn’t, and I’ll tell you why. Look around this office. There’s nothing personal anywhere, no photos, no diplomas, nothing. This may be a legitimate shipping line to some, but to the man who occupies this office, shipping is not his career.” Mercer walked to the desk and scanned the address file. “There isn’t one ship broker’s number in here, not one chandler. Christ, he doesn’t even have the private numbers of his captains.”
“He could be just a figurehead.”
“He is, don’t you get it? Most shipping lines are built by individuals and based on personal contacts. I’m willing to bet this Greg Russo wouldn’t know a hawsepipe from a hole in the wall. Whoever occupies this office has a job to do, but it has nothing to do with shipping.”
“Hold it right there,” a male voice commanded.
Mercer froze, his pulse pounding. Hat’s son had said only two men had entered the building, and they had already been eliminated. Whose was the voice behind them?
“Step away from the desk and turn around slowly.” The command was punctuated with the cocking of a revolver.
An overweight security guard stood in the doorway. He was a frightened rent-a-cop with a pale, jowled face and a trembling grip on his weapon.
“You got a lot to answer for. Keep your hands where I can see them. Move toward the fish tank.”
Mercer backed away from the desk, Tish right beside him. She hadn’t screamed when the guard entered and seemed in control. Mercer wished that he felt as calm as she appeared. The guard had scared the hell out of him.
Greg Russo must have called in additional security after Cap had left his post across the street. Mercer had no way of knowing if more men were scouring the building. The guard crossed to the desk, his eyes and gun never straying from Mercer. With his free hand he fumbled for the telephone. Mercer’s chance was coming.
The instant the guard glanced down at the phone, Mercer launched himself.
Time slowed to a crawl. Mercer’s senses were heightened so that he could see the individual hairs on the guard’s face, smell the nervous sweat of the man, and hear his labored breathing. Mercer flew across the room, focusing on the hand holding the revolver, the rings of fat around the man’s wrist, the knuckles tightening around the trigger. The hammer began to drop and Mercer’s fingers were still inches away from their mark.
The gun discharged just as Mercer grabbed the guard’s wrist. The sound was like a burst of thunder in the small office. Cordite smoke burned Mercer’s eyes, blinding him. Next to Tish, the large fish tank exploded, water, gravel, and the fish cascading to the carpet in a frothing wave.
The recoil lifted the gun high over the guard’s head so that Mercer’s shoulder barreled into the guard’s unprotected flank. Mercer could feel the man’s ribs snap as he smashed into them. The guard was thrown across the desk, the gun spinning from his hand. He fell against a wall, moaning.
Mercer recovered the revolver, aiming it at the fallen guard, but did not pull the trigger. “You’re not with those others, you don’t have to die.” Mercer lowered the revolver and turned to Tish. “Are you all right?”
“Shaken, but not stirred.”
“We’ve got to get out of here — someone must have heard this gun go off.”
Mercer held out his hand and Tish came toward him and took it in hers. He stared at the dying fish for a moment as it flopped on the soaked carpet and the sight triggered a vague memory. “Benoit Charleteaux,” he mumbled.
“What?” Tish asked as they started cautiously back to the fourth floor and the ladder outside.
“Another clue.” Mercer’s muted voice sounded triumphant.
Potomac, Maryland
Richard Henna was just getting back into bed after a late-night foray into the kitchen when the bedside phone rang. He grabbed the handset before the second ring. His wife, a twenty-five-year veteran of middle-of-the-night calls, didn’t even stir.
“Henna.”
“Dick, it’s Marge.” Margaret Doyle was a deputy director of the bureau and Dick Henna’s oldest and best friend. She didn’t bother apologizing for waking him. “Philip Mercer has left the Washington area.”
“How?” Henna snapped.
“By train. The agents we had watching Union Station never saw him because he boarded the Metroliner at New Carolton. We just found out through his credit card. He purchased two one-way tickets for New York from the conductor on the train.”
“Christ.”
“What is it, dear?” Fay mumbled in her sleep.
He covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “Nothing, hon,” then spoke softly but clearly into the phone. “All right, Marge, call the New York office, have them put a few men at Penn Station in case he tries to return by train. Fax them the picture of Mercer we got from the U.S. Geological Survey.”
“I’ve already made the calls.”
“If they pick him up, I want to be notified right away. Then I want him and Tish Talbot flown immediately to Andrews Air Force Base.”
“Should we cancel the surveillance on his house?”
“No, I’m willing to bet he’ll get by us again. Call me back if there are any new developments.”
“Sorry about this, Dick.”
“Not your fault. I think we’ve all underestimated Mercer.”
Henna hung up the phone and slipped into a bathrobe. He knew he would get no more sleep this night. He went downstairs, made a cup of coffee, and sipped it in the darkened kitchen for a few minutes before crossing through the large federal-style house to his study. He turned on his desk lamp, groaning as the light flashed into his eyes.
He dialed the combination of the Chubb safe behind his desk and removed a single file. The file, headed “Antebellum,” recorded Henna’s personal observations about events since the letter from Ohnishi came to his attention.
He read his own handwriting slowly, mostly because it was too sloppy to scan. The first page was a bare chronology. Henna now added Mercer and Talbot’s trip to New York at the bottom of the list.
On a clean sheet of paper, he began drawing flow charts, tying events into each other. In minutes, he had created an indecipherable series of lines, circles, and swirls. The only thing he knew for certain was that Mercer had gone to New York in response to the information he had received from the law offices of David Saulman.
He reread the information that Mercer had requested from Saulman, obtained by the FBI through a Dade County judge’s court order. Saulman’s office had grudgingly turned over a few lists of ships’ names and some basic information on Ocean Freight and Cargo.
This time he saw it — the ship that rescued Tish Talbot was owned by OF amp;C, whose offices were in Manhattan. Henna spilled his coffee as he grabbed for the phone. Ignoring the mess, he dialed the New York FBI office.
“Federal Bureau of Investigations,” a tired voice answered the phone.
Without preamble, Henna gave his personal recognition code to the night duty officer, establishing his identity without question. In situations like this, the code numbers saved valuable minutes needed when a person high up in the organization wanted to speak with someone out in the field. Henna had heard a similar system was used by many of the crime syndicates the FBI fought. Henna asked to speak with Special Agent Frank Little.
“I’m sorry, Agent Little is on the day shift, may I be of assistance? This is Agent Scofield.”
“Who else is there now?” Henna needed to speak with someone he knew personally, someone who wouldn’t want to use this phone call for some favor in the future.
“I’m sure, sir, that I can be of some…”
Henna cut the man off. “Just tell me who else is there.”
“Agent Morton is here and so is-” Pete Morton had been a rookie agent when Henna was station chief in New York six years earlier.