Under Pressure: A Lucas Page Novel

by Robert Pobi

  And why.

  “Are you all right, Dr. Page?”

  Lucas turned toward Saarinen and took a step. His foot landed on the small silk prayer rug where the coffee table had been, and he felt the mechanical click of the mine as it armed.

  97

  26 Federal Plaza

  “Where is Page?” Kehoe asked Otto Hoffner for the third time in as many minutes.

  Hoffner stared at the phone in his hand. “He’s not answering.”

  The analyst pit vibrated as the occupants reached out into the digital world via the computerized central nervous system. Each bit of data they collected chipped away the big question mark hanging in the air, and for the first time in days, progress eclipsed motion.

  Kehoe stood at the back, watching his people with a pride he hadn’t felt in several days. The communal brain of the room was focused on the murder of Saarinen’s son in Nicaragua. Most of the visual real estate on the monitors displayed reports from the various departments that had investigated the attack.

  The focal point was a photograph of the bus Jukka Saarinen had died on. It occupied a full wall, the grainy image close to a 1:1 scale. The vehicle was on its side, like a beer can that had been left in a fire for too long before being chopped open with a shovel. It was a crime-scene photo, not an image chosen for the evening news crowd—charred bodies were strewn about, arms and legs contorted from being cooked, skulls black, sockets empty, mouths frozen in white-toothed screams. It was impossible not to compare the bodies to those pulled out of the Guggenheim.

  A passport image of Jukka Saarinen stared down from one monitor. He had been a handsome kid, barely seventeen, and had spent the last few seconds of his life being burned alive.

  Boris Goldman had been an average-looking man with an average haircut and an average life that had ended in tragedy. Through his passport movements, they had put him in twenty-one different countries at the same time—to the hour—as Benjamin Frosst. It was Bobby Nadeel who found the link. “Got it!” he yelled and punched his laptop, which spun around before falling onto the floor, taking a pile of papers and two empty Coke cans with it.

  Kehoe allowed himself to roll his eyes as the kid scrambled around on all fours, scraping up his mess. When he had the laptop back on the desk and open, he raised his hand to the central monitor like Babe Ruth pointing at the lights and typed with his free hand. “Check it.”

  The screen was split. The left-side half displayed a contemporary report filed by the State Department, listing the different groups that could have carried out the attack based on the specific weapon used—a light antitank weapon system. The LAWS rocket had been manufactured by Horsuch LLC, an arms manufacturer based in Ukraine. The right side of the monitor displayed an SEC form detailing a stock purchase.

  Kehoe. Looked at the State Department memo, then at the SEC filing, then back.

  But Nadeel just screamed out, “The Hockneys own the company that manufactured the rocket that killed Dr. Timo Saarinen’s son and Benjamin Frosst’s boyfriend.”

  98

  Lucas stared down at his left foot.

  Which held down a spring plunger.

  That had forced a striker into a percussion cap.

  And if he stepped off—

  —it would launch half a kilo of high-yield shrapnel-wrapped explosives into the air.

  Which would detonate.

  Killing everything in the casualty radius.

  Meaning him.

  So he didn’t move. He didn’t panic. He didn’t swear. What he did do was take a few deep breaths to oxygenate his blood and try to figure a way out of this.

  Saarinen stared at him. “Nothing personal, Dr. Page. You just appeared at the wrong place at the wrong time.” He waved a hand at Lucas as if he were highlighting a new refrigerator on a game show.

  “Yeah, well everyone has to have a gift.”

  Saarinen drained his glass in two big swallows and stood up. “I have to get my bag from the bedroom, and then I will be leaving. I doubt we will see each other again.” Saarinen went into the bedroom with the slow unpanicked gait of a psychopath.

  Lucas pushed everything out of his mind except the spec sheet on the mine that Kehoe had shown him—the propelling charge; the delay; the fuse well; the fuse; the detonator well; the detonator; the ball bearings.

  And the big kaboom.

  He reduced the device to its basic components—basic physics and chemistry.

  The floor beneath his feet was poured concrete slab, which meant that it had been drilled out to accommodate the metal sleeve of the mine housing.

  So there probably wasn’t a lot of extra room around the sides of the device—no one dug out extra concrete if they didn’t have to.

  Which meant that if he could get the mine to detonate while still in the floor instead of launching it into the air, the blast would be directed straight up. Or, more precisely, in a fan-shaped pattern. Still deadly, but much less than the eighty-five-foot casualty radius.

  But how the fuck could he get it to detonate in the floor? Could he get far enough away to make it matter?

  And everything depended on it being the same kind of device. There were endless variants on devices designed to kill human beings, and even the smallest divergence changed the whole equation.

  Think, you dumb fuck. There is a way out of this. There has to be.

  And then his phone rang.

  99

  In an uncharacteristic display of indecision, Brett Kehoe stood staring at Otto Hoffner as the big man ran through the report that the Air National Guard had forwarded to the DOJ through NORAD.

  William Hockney Jr.’s Gulfstream V had been on approach to March Air Reserve Base in California when it dropped out of the sky. One of the pilots escorting the jet reported that it had exploded, breaking up midair. The debris had plummeted into a residential area—Perris—most of it striking a Walmart parking lot. At least sixty people were reported dead. Fires were still burning. News teams were on site.

  More of the same.

  As if on cue, one of the monitors in the war room came to life with a smiling reporter standing in front of a burning Toyota. The chyron across the bottom said that her name was Marcy Middelbough, and she was reporting from Perris, California, on an apparent plane crash.

  Only there was nothing apparent about it—the tail of the Gulfstream V was behind her, rising out of a row of burning cars like a prop in an Ozzy Osbourne music video.

  Kehoe thanked Hoffner and was about to head to his office for a handful of acetaminophen when one of the junior agents—a woman named Vasquez—came running over. “We found him, sir.”

  “Him, who?”

  “Dr. Page. He’s not answering, but the trace you put on his phone places him here,” she said, holding up a piece of paper. “On West Eighty-First Street.”

  “West Eighty-First?” The address meant something, but Kehoe couldn’t remember what it was. “Otto?” he said, turning to Hoffman, “what’s on West Eighty-First Street?”

  The big man’s eyes dialed up to two o’clock as he engaged his recall. “That’s where Timo Saarinen was staying. It’s a Hockney property, sir.”

  Kehoe pointed at Hoffner. “We leave. Now.”

  100

  “Your cell phone, Dr. Page.”

  Saarinen held out his right hand, palm up.

  Lucas looked down at it. There was a bandage around the first knuckle on his index and myriad scabs on his forearm from the explosion—the one where he had blown up his wife, housekeeper, and dog.

  Lucas remembered the husk of the home.

  The bonsai blasted all over the street.

  Their talk in the ambulance.

  Saarinen’s voice jarred him back from the scene in Pelham Gardens. “If you do not give me your phone, Dr. Page, I am going to slip an extension cord around your neck, then pull you off the device from around the corner. If you give me your phone, there is a chance you survive. It is your decision. You have five seconds.”r />
  Lucas looked down at the man and shrugged. “I guess you got me.”

  That seemed to please Saarinen. “Your phone.”

  Lucas reached into his pocket.

  He began to pull his hand out of his pocket but paused, as if he was reconsidering.

  That caused Saarinen to look up, irritated.

  Which was when Lucas came out with the handcuffs.

  He slapped the ring down onto Saarinen’s wrist.

  Then he slapped the second cuff onto his own.

  As long as you both shall live.

  Amen.

  Saarinen began a step back before logic overrode instinct and he froze. His eyes clicked up at Lucas, and his face now belonged to someone else. The calm, the control, was gone. “Are you crazy? How—?”

  Lucas didn’t smile when he said, “This is where you get to pick a number between one and fuck you.”

  101

  Hoffner cranked the wheel and hit the gas, Tokyo Drift-ing the big Navigator around the corner from Chambers Street onto the West Side Highway in a screaming blue cloud.

  Kehoe put his hand out on the front seat headrest and tried not to drop the phone pressed to his ear.

  There were three bureau vehicles on their six—two cars containing another four agents each, and a midsize sedan carrying Calvin-Wade Curtis and a driver. Kehoe was calling in NYPD and SWAT cavalry. Firemen were on the way. Ambulances.

  The column of FBI vehicles moved as one organism, a polished multi-chassis centipede swerving through traffic with, lights flashing, sirens screeching, and determination dialed to toxic levels.

  Kehoe finished with the SWAT commander and tried Page’s number again.

  Voice mail.

  So he tried again.

  Voice mail again.

  Which meant that the phone was off, he was avoiding calls, or he was in trouble.

  Why the hell had he gone to Saarinen’s?

  But Kehoe knew the answer to that—it was just how the guy was built. As much a mystery as his mind was, the way he operated in the world was almost no mystery at all. Which was why it had been so easy to get him back last year. Lucas didn’t see the man behind the curtain pulling the levers because he wasn’t looking for him; he was looking at the challenge the man was putting in front of him.

  As Lucas had stated on the beach in Montauk before signing up for the safari, there is no I in team. And he meant it—he was not a team player. Half the time he didn’t even remember that he was supposed to be on a team. The other half he bitched about having to wait around while the slower kids got up to speed. It was tiring. But put a problem in front of him and he was like some deranged OCD mathematical bloodhound—all you had to do was unclip his collar and watch the fun.

  Only now Page was probably in the same room with the man who had orchestrated the killing of more than seven hundred innocent people.

  Kehoe wondered if Page even knew it.

  102

  Saarinen’s face had clenched to within a micron of its tolerances, and it looked like his skin might tear, exposing the angry skull beneath.

  His right wrist was cuffed to Lucas’s left and he had instinctively stepped in close; once you were connected to a mine, there was no ignoring it.

  Lucas didn’t say anything—he used the time to calculate brisance. Burn rate. Detonation lag. Blast velocity. And a million other little factors he had no means to control, no ability to test, and no way to survive.

  Because once again it all came down to what wasn’t there—and what wasn’t there was enough time. He could never react fast enough to make any of the possible choices meaningful.

  Except one.

  And it was so weak that it was almost guaranteed suicide.

  Lucas ran through the calculations again. The time it would take the fuse to drop. The volume of C4. The explosive yield. The detonation velocity. The number of ball bearings. The speed they would travel. The pattern in which they would disperse. And the time it would all take.

  He gave his chances of success somewhere around three and a half million to one.

  Which was theoretically better than zero. Or at least sounded like it was.

  Saarinen’s facial muscles relaxed and he took a few deep breaths. When he spoke, his delivery was once again borderline morose. “It appears as if we are putting Schrödinger’s cat to the test, Dr. Page.”

  “How do you figure?” But he knew what the man was thinking. He also knew he was wrong.

  Saarinen sounded like he was irritated at being forced to state the obvious. “Two men handcuffed together, standing on a land mine. Are they alive or are they dead?” There was no emotion in his eyes when he said, “Or are they both?”

  “Is that the kind of thinking you pass off as intellect?”

  Saarinen stared up at him, puzzled.

  Lucas finished the last calculation and Kehoe’s words lit up the teleprompter in his head: basic physics and chemistry. He said, “In Schrödinger’s model, there is only one cat.”

  Lucas thought about the kids.

  About the night he had held Erin in his lap out on the deck by the ocean.

  How she had smelled.

  What she meant to him.

  Then he pulled Saarinen in with his left hand as he threw his prosthetic arm and leg around the man.

  Saarinen’s eyes went wide. “Nonononononoooo—”

  Lucas just closed his eyes.

  He said, “Three and a half million to one.”

  And let himself fall back.

  103

  West 81st Street

  Hoffner blew around the last corner in one final snarl of rubber, ripped up the street, and slammed to a stop across from the building. Two fire engines were on site. Along with a bunch of police cruisers, the Special Weapons and Tactics van, two ambulances, and an unmarked police car.

  Kehoe stepped out and waved his badge at the cop heading over to tell them that they couldn’t park there. “We’re taking over,” he said, and left him to deal with Hoffner.

  Glass and debris peppered the road. One of the parked cars had a coffee table embedded in the windshield. Kehoe stopped in the middle of the road and looked up.

  Three large plate glass windows were blown out, one aluminum mullion reaching out into the air. Tattered curtains flapped in the wind that had come up, and there were no lights on in the apartment. And even from down here it looked like a tomb.

  His people passed him in a blur of windbreakers and gear cases—escorting Calvin-Wade Curtis to where he would be most useful.

  Kehoe was still looking up when Hoffner rolled up on his flank. “The explosion happened just as the first cruiser from the NYPD arrived. SWAT is in the stairwell, but they’re taking their time—they’re worried about booby traps.”

  Kehoe stared up at the building for another few seconds before taking his phone out and again dialing Page’s number.

  And he heard it. Not far away. A personalized ringtone—“Clowns to the left of me … jokers to the right…”—“You hear that?” Kehoe asked.

  Hoffner looked around. “Yeah.” He froze for a second as a bus going by on Columbus drowned out the sound. When it was past, he reacquired the song, then headed to the cars parked at the curb. He walked slowly back one spot, then turned and came forward, passing the car with the coffee table planted in the windshield. He walked one car past, then stopped, held up his hand, then took two steps back. He stopped and got down on his knee. Then he got down on his stomach. He reached under the car and pulled something out. He held it up. “Here it is.”

  Hoffner came over without brushing the glass and stone off his stomach or pants, and held the iPhone out. It was still ringing—“… here I am, stuck in the middle with you…”—but the screen was smashed and it was covered in blood.

  Kehoe ended his call and the bloody phone stopped playing the song. He looked up at Hoffner. “You tell SWAT they go in there now.” He looked up at the blown-out windows. “And they take paramedics with them.”r />
  104

  Columbia University Medical Center

  Let there be sound.

  There was sound.

  Sort of.

  Let there be light.

  There was light.

  Almost.

  Let there be pain.

  There was pain.

  More than enough.

  Then smell kicked in, and he detected cologne almost hidden under the scent of antiseptic.

  He tried to open his eyes.

  Someone said his name, but it was posed as a question, as if they weren’t sure anyone was home at the ranch.

  “Page?” the voice asked again.

  He forced his eyes open.

  A Daliesque silhouette fluttered somewhere in the distance, a shimmering gray flannel mirage.

  Lucas blinked, and the form ratcheted one f-stop closer to focus—it had a head now, topped with gray hair that pulsed as if it were electrified. He shut his eyes, allocated all his bandwidth to vision, took a breath, then tried again.

  Kehoe was no longer shimmering. And more or less human.

  Which was as good as it ever got with him.

  Lucas slowly peeled his lips open and his mouth felt like the lining had been replaced with pool table felt.

  He reached for the pitcher on the tray, but it was too far away. And he was missing an arm to do it with.

  Without being asked, Kehoe stepped forward and filled an institutional adult sippy cup for him. He raised it to Lucas’s mouth and his movements were all very perfunctory and precise. But he did have a reasonable facsimile of concern on his face, which meant he was making an effort.

  Lucas took a sip from the plastic spout and was surprised that he was able to swallow. He let the fluid drip into his reservoir, then made another go before trying to speak. “Thank you,” he said in a voice belonging to Ardath Bey.

  He moved his leg. And it worked.

  But his right prosthetic was gone.

  He tried his left arm. It also seemed to be functioning.