Under Pressure: A Lucas Page Novel

by Robert Pobi

  “Not as smart as his father?”

  “Not as smart as this dog here.” He softly tapped the puppy on the head.

  “You’ve been with Horizon for five years now?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know the Hockneys all that well, but you and they don’t seem all that compatible. They have spent their life destroying nature; you’ve spent yours trying to heal it. I can’t square the conflict.”

  Saarinen shrugged as if the answer was self-evident. “There’s an old Finnish saying: Sometimes you must take the devil’s money to do God’s work.”

  “Will Horizon recover?”

  Saarinen shrugged and swallowed more vodka. “Horizon wasn’t a company in the usual sense—it owned no real estate or machinery—its strength was its people. It was a brain trust, a think tank. And the brains were all destroyed in the Guggenheim bombing. They are all gone. My employees and friends.”

  “What was the IPO valuation figured at?”

  Saarinen shrugged. “Half a billion dollars—without the prospect of the Paraguayan contract. With the contract, it could have reached a billion dollars. More, possibly.”

  “Are the Hockneys the kind of people who can lose a billion dollars without it affecting their sleep?”

  Saarinen smiled at that. “Dr. Page, the one thing I can say about William and Seth Hockney is that they don’t know how to forgive.” He put his hand back on the puppy. “And the people responsible for these bombings better hope that you find them before the Hockney brothers do.”

  43

  The Upper East Side

  He was somewhere in a deep slumber when his phone started to dance across the nightstand, bringing him back to the living. He reached for the glow in the dark before all of his systems were up and running.

  He was certain he had instructed his mouth to say Dr. Page here, but all that came out was “What the fuck!”

  “Were you sleeping?” It was Whitaker.

  He squinted to see the glowing hands of his Sub. “That’s what us old busted people do at three in the morning.”

  “Yeah, well, tough noogies. Look, Chawla just called. Frosst wasn’t alone in the Mercedes when he went to Makepeace’s; we found footage from a ground-floor security camera at another building on Fifth that put someone else in the back seat of the Benz with him. The other person didn’t go up to Makepeace’s, but he was definitely in the car. Which makes him a witness to Frosst’s activities just before and just following his visit.”

  Lucas was awake now. He sat up on the edge of the bed, which wasn’t easy with one hand holding the phone and his leg and arm in storage for the night. “Without any proof that Frosst planted the bomb, it just makes them a passenger.”

  “We can still question him.”

  Lucas reached over and flipped on the light with his hand holding the phone; for a second, Whitaker’s voice was reduced to a tinny squawk. His side of the room lit up.

  “—age? Page?”

  “I’m here. Why couldn’t this wait until morning?”

  “Because the man in the back seat with Frosst was Seth Hockney.”

  Lucas saw the opportunity in the information. “And we’re entitled to question him, and since we were instructed that all further questions go through his lawyer, we can bring him in.”

  “Yep.”

  “When?”

  “He’s flying in tomorrow, nine A.M.”

  “That’s in six hours.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “I’m going back to sleep.” He hung up, put the phone back on his nightstand, and snapped the light off. He lay back down and Erin said, “I love getting woken up at four in the morning.”

  “It’s only three.” He reached over and put his hand on her hip.

  She yawned. “Oh, okay. My bad.”

  44

  26 Federal Plaza

  Lucas stared into the sun, and the city to the east looked like a green screen image against the chemical sky. He wanted another coffee, but it would be in poor form to greet Seth Hockney with a mug in his hand.

  Chawla, in his role of the Big Cheese, stood near the landing pad, today sporting a bright orange dastar and matching tie. One thing Lucas could say for the guy, he knew how to dress.

  Lucas and Whitaker wouldn’t take part in the interview; Kehoe didn’t want it to look like an interrogation. But that was not to say that Lucas would not be involved—he still had value as an agent provocateur.

  Whitaker nodded into the sun. “His chariot arrives.”

  The bird came in from the east, cutting over from the standard civilian path down the East River from points north—probably Seth Hockney’s home on Long Island. Lucas doubted that even a man as rich as Hockney would bother to take a helicopter in from his pied-à-terre on the Upper West Side.

  It was a sleek, expensive craft and probably made the rest of the Manhattan billionaires jealous. From head on, it barely looked wide enough for one person, but the illusion was broken as it banked, exposing a very sexy profile.

  The helicopter hovered for a moment before the landing gear extended, and it touched down in a perfect three-point drop.

  The door opened mechanically and a set of steps rolled out of the body of the machine with the precision of a Swiss watch. Chawla ducked below the rotors as he ran up, his hand on his turban.

  Frosst stepped out, buttoning his suit jacket as his feet hit the membrane of the roof. He ignored Chawla and turned to help Seth Hockney out of the bird as the turbofan shut down and the rotors began to slow.

  The impression Seth gave yesterday still held, and even Frosst with his warfare school stride looked more polished. Frosst helped the old man down the steps and led him to the edge of the landing pad, a bright yellow circle in a field of beige.

  Another man exited the aircraft behind him, this one a lawyer type, wearing a very good suit and carrying the requisite barrister’s briefcase. He was maybe sixty, with silver hair, and a face that you wouldn’t remember if your life depended on it. One look at the guy told you he had a sailboat somewhere with a woman’s name slapped on the transom. Or the name of his favorite cocktail.

  Everyone on the roof passed through the access door manned by two junior agents in suits that looked poor in the current company. They filed down the single flight of stairs to the main elevator and rode in silence to the floor where they’d hold the interview.

  Lucas and Whitaker broke off from the group and headed to a conference room where Kehoe was waiting for them. A junior agent sat at the desk, a laptop in front of her.

  Whitaker delivered the news. “They’re he-ere,” she said, drawing out the word as if she were pointing at a static-filled television screen.

  Kehoe turned to the wall of monitors—six different camera angles in the interview room. Chawla, Seth Hockney, Hockney’s lawyer, and the bureau’s lawyer entered. They sat down, Hockney and his counsel on one side, Chawla and the lawyer on the other. Frosst was in another room—Kehoe wanted Seth questioned without him in the background, just in case he was involved in the mix.

  “All right,” Kehoe said to Lucas. “Let’s see if you’re as smart as I tell everyone you are.” He pointed at the four men in the room. “So go make yourself a nuisance.”

  45

  The interview room was on the small side, but it was clean and the furniture was law-firm quality. Special Agent in Charge Samir Chawla, the bureau lawyer—a man by the name of Martin Brotsky—Seth Hockney, and his lawyer—one Alexander Stogner—were the only ones present. Kehoe would send Page in—he wanted the old guy to dance a little to see if anything fell out of his pockets.

  Seth Hockney looked like he was both present and absent at the same time. He was watching Chawla, but he might as well have been looking through him; his expression was dialed into bored and irritated, which was a hard mix to pull off.

  Hockney’s lawyer was one of the partners at Stogner, Pruitt, and Gibson, a law firm that had the sole directive of handling the legal
dealings of the Hockney brothers. Chawla didn’t know what these guys charged, but when you represented billionaires who came to work in a helicopter that cost more than a nice beach house in the Hamptons, it had to be a shit ton of cash. Which was probably why the guy looked so smug.

  Page came in and circled the table with the slow deliberate movements of a creature scenting blood in the water—all he was missing was a dorsal fin. He didn’t bother saying hello, he just made a circle around them, before stopping at the one empty chair.

  Chawla sat back to watch things unfold.

  The lawyer was trying to establish dominance through eye contact and Page allowed him the attempt. He smiled, took off his sunglasses, and stared down so his eyes were off at different angles. The lawyer shifted in his seat: score one for Page.

  After another fifteen seconds of the stare-down, Page introduced himself. “Mr. Hockney, thank you for coming in. Mr. Stogner, I’m Dr. Lucas Page.” He didn’t extend a hand.

  Page acted like he was considering sitting down, but then his expression changed as if he had remembered he left the stove on at home, and he said, “Just so we’re clear, no one is being accused of any wrongdoing. We have simply asked you here to help clarify a few things that we’re having difficulty lining up. As you know, Mr. Makepeace—your stockbroker—”

  Stogner held up a hand. “For the record, Dr. Page, Jonathan Makepeace was not Mr. Hockney’s stockbroker. Mr. Makepeace had previously handled some investments for the Hockney brothers, as did many other financial advisors; there was no exclusivity in their relationship.”

  “Of course.” Page nodded.

  Chawla knew that this was where Page would pretend to have forgotten something, and politely excuse himself. When he came back, he’d come at Hockney with the video of him in the back of the Benz a few moments before William Makepeace was converted to nonmoving parts.

  On cue, Page said, “Would you please excuse me—I forgot something. I’ll be back.” He walked over to the door.

  Chawla opened his hands. “As I am sure you can understand, we are very busy this week and your cooperation is very much appreciated—the whole world has its eyes on us.”

  That seemed to appease the lawyer, who nodded as if he had just earned his pay. “Before we go any further, I would like to present you with a prepared statement.” Stogner picked his briefcase up off the floor.

  Page opened the door.

  The lawyer popped the catches.

  Page stepped out into the hallway and closed the door behind him.

  The lawyer smiled at Chawla and began to open the case.

  Which was when the device within detonated.

  And the room was deleted from the world.

  46

  All he heard, all he felt, was the siren chewing through his eardrums. It was raining, and the air was filled with smoke and he wondered if he was dead.

  He rolled over.

  Water filled his mouth and smoke billowed over the ceiling above, rolling in a poisonous cloud.

  “Page!” It was Whitaker’s voice.

  He felt her hands on his shoulders.

  She pulled at his jacket.

  Screamed his name again.

  He tried to get up.

  Slipped.

  Fell.

  Got his good leg under his mass. Tried again. Pushed up. Whitaker helped.

  And he was standing.

  “You okay?” she screamed from somewhere behind him.

  He nodded and maybe answered, maybe didn’t.

  The explosion had punched the door to the interview room off its hinges. It was embedded in the Sheetrock across the hall like a magic trick gone awry. It was on fire.

  Lucas took one wobbly step forward.

  The water running out of the interview room was black with blood and Chawla’s turban snaked out in the wash, torn and covered in bits of dark hair.

  Lucas’s system recalibrated, and he went from dazed to operational. He pulled the fire extinguisher off the wall.

  Frosst materialized out of the smoke like a Polaroid in a suit. Two agents screamed at him to get back. One grabbed his arm and Frosst leveled him with a solid punch that put him into the wet carpet.

  Frosst stepped into the interview room and Lucas blasted the portal with fire-retardant foam.

  Inside, Frosst tore the room apart.

  Lucas kept his hand clamped around the trigger of the extinguisher, aiming at the bright spots in the smoke.

  He stepped into the room, sending foam off into the water and steam and smoke and fire. He saw Frosst at the edge of his visibility; the sleeve of Frosst’s jacket was on fire. Lucas hit him with a jet from the extinguisher.

  Lucas kept the trigger down, blasting indiscriminately in a panic that he couldn’t control. The room hissed under the water from the sprinklers and the foam from the extinguisher.

  And then the emergency lights came on, and the flames were gone, and all that was left was the familiar stink of cooked flesh.

  Smoke wafted off Frosst in slow motion and he held what was left of Seth Hockney in his arms.

  47

  His suit smelled like it had been stored in a barbecue for ten years. Even if they could purge the stench, the best tailor in the world didn’t stand a chance against the charred holes or the stains left by the chemical foam. No one was bringing this back from the dead any more than they could reassemble Special Agent Samir Chawla, the bureau lawyer, the dead billionaire, or his very expensive lawyer.

  The explosion had stripped the room down to the studs—obliterating the Sheetrock and taking the suspended ceiling out in one raging gulp. Curtis took a cursory glance at the space and said there had been a pound of C-4 in the IED. They had examined the taggants in the putty, and it was of the same manufacture and batch as the other devices—made by ENF. The only reason they hadn’t lost half the floor was because the walls up here were solid-core cinder block, two layers thick.

  No one who had been in that room would have an open casket. That there had been enough left of Seth Hockney for Frosst to pick up had been dumb luck.

  Lucas was on the roof, watching the bomb squad go over the helicopter; it was a reasonable assumption that whoever had rigged Stogner’s briefcase had taken the extra measure of hiding a backup device on the chopper.

  Lucas didn’t know a thing about aircraft, but in the past hour he had learned that the Eurocopter AS365 Dauphin clocked in at about ten million bucks—before you added things like cup holders and colored stitching.

  Lucas leaned against one of the railings that zigzagged across the roof, separating traffic areas from utility zones. He was in an alcove near the HVAC units, and the membrane under his feet was splotched with the telltale scars of dead cigarettes—a hangout for nicotine junkies back when smoking had been an acceptable vice.

  He was facing west, into the warm wind still massaging the city. No matter how many ways he tried to spin Seth Hockney being mulched into meat confetti downstairs into a positive development, he failed.

  Footsteps crunched on the grainy deck behind him and Whitaker eased up, putting her foot on a lower rung of the railing and hanging her forearms over the top. “You okay?” she asked.

  He didn’t say anything.

  She converted a deep breath into movement and turned around, leaning back on the rail in an Old West saloon stance. “What’s going through your head?”

  “Has it made the news?”

  “Our information desk put out a statement saying that there was an incident and we will release further details shortly … blah … blah … blah.”

  It was the perfect response; vague and noncommittal. “And Kehoe?”

  Whitaker said, “Ask him yourself.”

  Lucas didn’t bother turning to meet Kehoe’s slow, measured pace. Even after what had happened downstairs, the man wasn’t stepping out of character. He moseyed up to the rail, and the impression that the three of them were preparing for a gunfight was hard to miss. “Any thoughts?”
/>   Lucas had been running this through his head on loop for the better part of three days and all he had were questions. “Whoever is doing this is creative; every device so far has been unique. If Frosst killed Makepeace, it would have been under orders from either one or both of the Hockneys. But now Seth is dead, and we know that Frosst didn’t kill him—he didn’t know that the lawyer’s briefcase was wired because he was pissed that we wouldn’t let him into the interview room with his boss. And he doesn’t strike me as the suicidal type. So there’s every reason to believe that Seth Hockney and Frosst visiting Makepeace just before he was killed is a coincidence.

  “If Frosst planted both bombs—the one at Makepeace’s and the one in Stogner’s briefcase—who ordered it? Who wanted Seth Hockney dead? Was it William? Or was Frosst acting alone?”

  Whitaker held up her hand. “Don’t forget the lawyer.”

  Lucas waved it away. “I can swallow the lawyer as collateral—he’s just a lawyer and they’re like house cats, replaceable. Unless, of course, he was the prime target, which is not an unreasonable assumption. Maybe he fell into the same victim category, whatever that is.” If he wrote down all the questions Seth’s murder had generated, he could fill a hard drive.

  “Is William Hockney behind all this? Was he sealing up the information chain between Makepeace’s death and himself? Or had Seth done something in the chain without William’s blessing, and William found out? Saarinen said he is not the forgiving type. But blow up his brother? William could have hired outside personnel to sneak into Seth’s house and help him slip in the shower—which wouldn’t look suspicious. I don’t buy it; like the Guggenheim, Seth’s death was a PR move.”

  It was question after question, which amounted to a handful of maybes.

  “And how does Seth’s murder connect to the Guggenheim bombing? If William Hockney was responsible for that, why bomb the gala of a company that was going to bring him a billion dollars? I can think of better ways to piss money away.” Lucas ran a hand through his hair, and it felt dry. “It’s the unknowns between the other unknowns that are troubling.” Lucas still had the stench of burnt plastic and fried human being in the back of his throat.