They were both cuffed by the Feds and led out of the library. As they took him out, Gideon had a good look at how serious they were. As they passed out of the reading room, they entered a hallway that was filled with NYPD guys in ballistic helmets and flak jackets.
When they stepped out on to Fifth Avenue, the street had turned into a parking lot for cop cars, sedans, and two SWAT team vans. Gideon saw press crews, but they were so far away that he doubted that they could see anything.
Davis handed him off to a dark guy in a suit, and he hustled him into one of the sedans. The last Gideon saw of Ruth, she was shoved into the back of a different sedan. Gideon asked the driver, "So, what federal agency are you with?"
The guy didn't answer him. He stared straight ahead, and Gideon could only get a good view of his crew cut and a strip of his face in the rearview mirror. Gideon looked over the man's shoulder, at his hands. He saw an academy ring.
"Marine, huh?"
"I'm not permitted to speak with you, sir."
Gideon kept trying to get the guy to talk, but true to his word, the Marine didn't say a single word more. Eventually, he drove off, following two other sedans down Fifth. They were the first cars to leave the scene.
Gideon expected the reporters to converge, but the cops held the press, and everyone else, away from the small motorcade. As they left, Gideon looked back and saw what had to be a staged disturbance at the front of the library. Several men were being escorted by the NYPD cops, kicking and struggling, despite being chained and carried between four cops in riot gear. Designed to draw attention away from the anonymous sedans.
3.00 Mon. Mar. 22
COLONEL Mecham was glad to get out of Washington. The wrath of Emmit D'Arcy was not something that he wanted to face. He was fortunate in that D'Arcy, at the moment, was embroiled in a feud with the other members of the National Security Council, the ones who'd made the decision to pull the plug on Detective Gideon Malcolm, D'Arcy's loose cannon.
Mecham agreed that the plug needed to be pulled. It was pretty obvious that, due to the IUF's involvement, they'd already lost three people that could have been some source of intelligence. Mecham was certain that they could get more information from Detective Gideon Malcolm by bringing him in than by allowing him to stir things up.
Mecham landed at JFK at six in the morning. He walked off the plane, through the airport, and straight to the lobby where the car was waiting for him. The man waiting for him came to attention. Mecham nodded acknowledgement to the young Marine and said, "At ease, soldier."
"Yes, sir."
The kid looked as if he'd be more comfortable in a uniform. He took Mecham's overnight bag and led him out to a waiting car.
They hadn't taken him to a police station or a federal building. Gideon wasn't exactly sure where this building was. He knew it had to be an office building east of Central Park, but he couldn't be sure which one. The car had turned off the street and had entered an underground garage, and they had taken an elevator up ten stories and led him through a suite of offices that was nearly empty of furniture. Even the windows were covered, making the only light the stark white of the fluorescents.
He tried a few times, in vain, to get them to allow him to call a lawyer. Apparently he had fallen into the same black hole that the original Daedalus thieves had fallen into—a place where the Bill of Rights was conveniently overlooked.
They kept him in a small room that had a cot, a small television, and an adjoining bathroom. Because of the cabinets, Gideon supposed that, at one point, this was supposed to be some sort" of lounge. They locked the door and left him there, occasionally bringing in food from Taco Bell or McDonald's. He only found a change of clothes—two pairs ofjeans and a couple of T-shirts—by accident when he was rummaging around bored. They hadn't even bothered to take the tags off.
Despite lack of a shower, it still felt good to change out of clothes that still smelled faintly of smoke.
For two days, they'd left him in there. The Marines wouldn't talk to him, and—more annoying—they refused to listen to him. He was beginning to wonder if this was it, all there was to everything, just an
anonymous dull captivity. . .
Then, on the morning of day three, he walked out of the bathroom and saw a trio of the plainclothes Marines in his room, waiting for him. The lead one said, "Would you please come with us, sir?"
"As if I have a choice." Gideon rubbed his chin, where four days of stubble itched.
They took him—one on either side, one behind him— down an empty hallway and into an office. The Marines stopped with Gideon standing in front of a closed door. The lead Marine said, "The Colonel is waiting for you."
"I'm sure he is," Gideon said. He really had nowhere to go except through the door. He sighed and pushed his way through. He had barely taken five steps into the office when one of the Marines reached in and closed the door behind him.
The office was mostly empty, like the rest of this place. It was one of the smaller offices, without any windows. There was a battered green metal desk sitting in the center of the room. Sitting on the desk was a small tape recorder attached by a cord to a microphone sitting on the center of the desk. On Gideon's side of the desk was a folding metal chair, and opposite him sat a man in late middle age, with hair that wasn't quite as short as the Marines'.
"Have a seat, Mr. Malcolm." He gestured to the folding chair.
Gideon sat, and as he sat, he looked behind him and saw, in one corner of the room, a camcorder on a tripod, pointed at the desk.
"Where's Ruth?" Gideon asked. "I've been trying to ask, but none of these people will even talk to me. What happened to the Secret Service?" If there ever was any Secret Service.
"Those men have very explicit orders not to communicate with you. I can assure you that Ruth Zimmerman is safe, apparently much safer than she'd be on the streets with you."
"What do you want from me?"
"I want to hear about everything that's happened to you since the incident where your partner was shot."
Gideon shook his head. "I want to talk to a lawyer."
"You aren't in the criminal justice system, Mr. Malcolm. You're involved in a present military threat to the security of this nation. I suggest you cooperate with this debriefing. There's more at stake here than I think you realize."
"Are you sure about that?" Gideon asked.
"Let's start when you left the hospital—"
"I want something."
"You aren't in a position to make deals, Mr. Malcolm."
"You don't have a clue what Zimmerman's up to, do you?"
The room was silent for a long time. The Colonel was looking at him as if he was trying to discern some hidden meaning from his expression. He said, "What do you mean by that?"
"You can't figure out why Zimmerman left, what she's trying to do . . ."
"Do you, Mr. Malcolm?"
"I have an idea."
"What?"
"Like I said, I want something."
There was a long time before the Colonel said, "Let's hear it, then."
"I want you bastards to do right by my brother. We both know it wasn't the Secret Service there. I want the people responsible for that mess to help his widow and his children."
"I think we can manage—"
"That's not all."
"What else?"
"You have to bring Zimmerman in alive."
There was silence, as if it took a long time for the audacity of Gideon's request to sink in for the Colonel.
"That's not much of a promise, Colonel," Gideon said. "You need her alive. Otherwise, you'll never know how compromised you actually are, will you? If she dies, it's just as bad for you as if she never turns up again. You'll have to assume that everything she ever worked on for you is in enemy hands."