Jensen hid a sigh of relief. And yet…
What if this Farrell-Amurri-Robertson had somehow got hold of Roselli's card? And what if he'd found a way to twenty-two?
Jensen cursed Brady for not allowing surveillance on twenty-two. He understood it—after all, Brady lived there—but it left a major gap in security.
"Call Roselli's home. See if he's there. And if he is, ask him if he's still got his swipe card."
"But—" Cruz began, then the light dawned. "Oh, I get it."
He placed the call, waited a long time with the receiver against his ear, then hung up.
"No answer, not even voice mail."
Okay. Then it was probably Roselli up there. He could have stepped out of the elevator, sat himself down right in front of the doors, and killed himself: knife, poison, whatever.
But then again, it was possible, just possible, that it was someone else.
"I'm going up for a look."
"I'll go, sir."
"No. You man the fort."
Either way, a dead Roselli or a live mystery guy, Jensen wanted to handle it alone.
But he hoped—no, he prayed—it was the mystery guy. He needed to slip his hands around the bastard's scrawny neck and watch his eyes bulge out of his head.
5
Jack pressed the button under the lip of Brady's desktop. As the doors on the opposite wall began to slide open, he pulled the Beretta from the desk drawer. He ejected the magazine from the grip and inspected it. Full. He thumbed out three rounds—not too easy wearing latex gloves—then slipped it back into its well. Next he removed the slide assembly, which included the barrel and the firing pin. He put the frame back into the drawer and placed the slide assembly on the desktop.
Then he pulled his new-bought Beretta from the small of his back and removed its slide assembly as well. This he fitted onto the frame of Brady's. That done he closed the drawer and fitted Brady's slide onto his own Beretta.
As he holstered his hybrid pistol he walked over to the now exposed globe. The little lights where pillars had been buried winked on automatically as it started its slow rotation. Was someone buried, like Jamie, in each of those spots?
Jack wanted to smash it—knock it over, pull it apart, and shatter every single one of those glowing bulbs. But he held back. He couldn't leave a hint that he'd been here.
He returned to the desk, pressed the button to close the doors, then headed for the elevator bank. After levering the doors open with the screwdriver, he swung back onto the rungs, closed the doors, then began his descent.
He'd gone two rungs when he heard the pulleys above begin to spin. He looked down and saw an elevator car with "1" on its roof moving his way.
Jack chewed his lip as he watched it rise, urging it to stop on one of the lower floors. But it kept coming. And coming.
Brady? Was the bossman home from his night of pedophilic debauchery?
Okay. No problem. Jack had done what he'd intended. He could return to the Communing Level and hang out for twenty minutes or so, then take an elevator down and stroll back through the lobby to the real world.
Expecting the car to pass him, Jack leaned away from its path. To his horror it began to slow as it approached the twenty-first.
Shit.
He hurried down the rungs and reached the door level just as the car stopped. He peered through the gap between the car doors and the floor doors to see who was trying to rain on his parade.
When he saw the black uniform and glistening chocolate scalp, he stifled a groan and pressed his forehead against the cold steel of one of the rungs.
Jensen… what the hell was the Grand Paladin doing here at this hour?
But the question vanished as he felt a scarlet rush flash through him, saw Jamie's mutilated finger protruding from the concrete. Here was the guy who'd helped bury her alive.
After coming down off the black fugue that had propelled him through his night with Cordova, Jack had been cool, almost detached in dealing with Brady. Maybe that was because he was miles away.
But Jensen… Jack had been planning to catch up with him eventually to settle Jamie's score. Now Jensen was here, within reach.
But Jack had to hold himself in check. This wasn't the time or place. This was Jensen's home field. As much as he hated to, Jack would have to wait. And improvise.
Jack hated to improvise.
6
Jensen held his pistol against his right thigh as he walked through the Communing Level.
"Mr. Roselli?" he called, keeping his tone gentle. "John Roselli?"
Come out, come out wherever you are…
… if you're here at all.
Not many places to hide on this level. He obviously wasn't in the big open area; that left the private Communing Booths along the south wall. Jensen would have to check them one by one…
And if he found no one… what then?
Jensen had no idea.
Jack watched Jensen's elevator car descend on its own to maybe the tenth or eleventh floor and stop. It had started down a minute or so after Jensen stepped off. Apparently the cars were programmed so that one waited at lobby level and the other stayed midshaft when not in use.
If nothing else it gave him some room.
To do what?
One thing he knew: He couldn't hang on these rungs till dawn.
The omnipresent surveillance cameras on the floor limited his options. Brady's lair and this elevator shaft were the only places he could move about unobserved. He could climb down to the base of the shaft and hide there until he could figure an escape route. Or…
Or what?
Jack noticed a metal inspection plate in the wall between the elevator doors. Desperate for some direction, for any sort of plan, he pulled out his screwdriver and went to work on the rusty screws. When he pulled off the plate he found half a dozen or so wires running to and from a pair of switches embedded in the opposite side. It took him a moment to realize he was looking at the rear innards of the elevator call buttons.
Fat lot of good that did him.
And then… an idea…
Jack had planned to catch up with Jensen later. But maybe he could do that now and then simply walk out of here.
He went to work on the wires.
"Where the fuck is he?" Jensen muttered.
He pulled his two-way from a pocket and called the lobby.
"Cruz? Any sign of Roselli?"
"No, sir. He's not up there?"
"Haven't you been watching me?"
"Yessir."
"Well then you know the answer to your question."
He was about to add "you moron" but bit it back. Wrong thing to show frustration with an underling. Always stay in control.
"But, sir, that's impossible," Cruz yammered. "He hasn't used the elevators or the stairs and—"
"Speaking of the stairs, did the doors register when I opened them?"
"Yessir."
Damn. He'd been hoping that was it: a faulty sensor on one of the doors. But then the guy should have shown up on the Communing Floor and stairway cameras.
One fucked-up situation here.
"I'm going to do a little more looking around," he told Cruz, then thumbed the two-way off.
He strode to the elevators and hit the DOWN button. As he waited for the car he turned and surveyed the wide-open space of the Communing Level and the city towers beyond its floor-to-ceiling windows, many lit up even at this hour. But he was not in a mood to enjoy the view.
This temple was his turf. He was responsible for its integrity. Last week a man using three false identities had infiltrated his turf and burned him. He was still stinging with embarrassment. And now another—or perhaps the same man—had invaded his space and disappeared.
Jensen had to find him.
That meant searching the temple from top to bottom—literally. He'd start with Brady's floor. He couldn't imagine how anyone could have reached twenty-two. Only he and Brady knew the access code. Without i
t you could press 22 all you wanted, but the car would stop at twenty-one and go no farther unless someone already on twenty-two—Brady or Vida, his receptionist—overrode the autostop.
Someone on twenty-two? No chance.
But the seemingly impossible had already happened, so…
He'd have to search twenty-two alone. Couldn't allow a squad of TPs to poke through Brady's quarters. But when he'd determined that the floor was deserted, he'd call the next shift in early and start an organized gang-bang search from twenty-one down. He'd bring in a pack of fucking bloodhounds if he had to. Nobody disappeared on his watch. Nobody.
The elevator dinged behind him and he heard the doors slide open. He turned absently and stepped toward it. Too late he realized that no car awaited him, only cables and empty space.
He let out a terrified bleat as he tilted over the chasm. His heart pounded as he flailed his arms trying to catch the doorway. The fingers of his right hand caught the lip of the molding. Not much to hang on to but enough to stop his forward motion. He teetered there, looking down at the top of the elevator car ten floors below, then began to pull himself back. He was just starting to congratulate himself on his quick reflexes when an arm shot out from the left, grabbed his tunic, and yanked him into the void.
He screamed, turning and windmilling his arms as he began to fall. He twisted far enough around to grab the floor of the doorway, first with one hand, then the other. He hung by his fingertips, kicking his feet back and forth in search of a ledge, a girder, even a loose brick, anything to help support his weight.
But he found nothing.
And then movement to his right as a man swung out of the elevator shaft and crouched before him on the edge. Jensen looked at his face and knew him. Even with his crummy fake beard and his low knit cap and his dirty clothes, Jensen knew him.
Farrell-Amurri-Robertson-Whoever.
The guy.
"Help me!" Jensen said, trying to keep from screaming. He hated pleading with this son of a bitch, but… "Please!"
Then he looked up and saw his eyes, brown and cold as dirt from the bottom of a grave, and knew he was as good as dead.
"'Please'?" the guy said in a low voice, barely above a whisper. "Is that what Jamie Grant said when you were about to cut off her finger?"
Jensen's intestines clenched, sending a wave of terror through his belly.
How could he know? How could he possibly know?
And now the guy had a knife in his latex-gloved hand. He opened it.
"Oh, please! Oh, please don't!"
"I bet Jamie said that too. But what if I were to do some of the same to you? What if I start cutting off your fingers, one at a time?"
He drew the blade lightly across the knuckle of the right little finger, then the left. The steely caress sent a tremor through Jensen's tortured arms.
"Please!"
"Let's make this a game. How many fingers do you think you can spare before you can't hold on any longer? I'm thinking three—a pinkie on each side, and then when you lose a ring finger on, say, the left side, you'll fall. You're a strong man, Jensen, but you're heavy." He nodded and smiled—not a nice smile. "Yeah. I think three will do it."
"No! No, please!"
The eyebrows lifted. "No? Okay. If you say so, then no it is."
And then, miraculously he was folding the knife and leaning away.
He means it?
'"Hey," the guy said. "Just kidding about that amputation thing. Had no intention of doing something like that." He drew back his right leg. "Haven't got timeV
The leg shot out and Jensen caught a flash of a rubber sole just before his nose and left cheek exploded in pain. The blow jerked his head back and that was just enough to loosen his grip on the threshold.
His fingers slipped and grabbed empty air. He screamed as he tumbled backward.
Jack watched Jensen's twisting, kicking fall come to an abrupt end atop car one. He'd twisted around in midair to land face first, denting and cracking the roof but not breaking all the way through.
Jack stared down at the scene for a while. He didn't see how anyone could survive that kind of fall, but he'd heard of people who'd lived through worse, and with a guy that size—
Jensen's chest moved.
Jack stared, thinking his eyes were playing tricks. Then he saw him draw another breath.
Christ, what did it take to be rid of this guy?
Right now the fall looked like an accident—Jack needed it to look like an accident. But if Jensen lived…
Couldn't allow that.
Steeling himself for what he was about to do, Jack climbed down the rungs toward the car. Jensen's hands were beginning to move, his arms too. But not a twitch from his legs. Back was probably broken… spinal cord injury.
Well, his spinal cord was about to get worse.
Jack stopped his descent about six feet above Jensen and car one. He turned and clung precariously with his back to the rungs. He hesitated, something holding him back. Then he thought of Jamie Grant having her finger amputated, being buried alive, how it must have felt to be engulfed in concrete…
He jumped, aiming his boots for the back of Jensen's neck. He heard the vertebrae crunch as he hit with enough force to ram the bald head through the roof of the car.
For an instant Jack teetered backward, but he managed to grab one of the cables to steady himself. The palm of the glove was black with grease. He knelt next to Jensen and removed it, inverting it as he pulled it off, pocketing it, and replacing it with a fresh one.
Then he wormed a couple of fingers through the opening around Jensen's head and felt his throat for a pulse. Nada.
Jack straightened and took a deep breath. Two of three scores settled. Only Brady remained.
He climbed back up to the twenty-first, reattached the call-button wires, and replaced the inspection plate. Then he stepped through the doorway and hit the down button. He removed his gloves as the pulleys whirled into motion. Seconds later he was looking at the inside of cab one, with Jensen's glazed eyes staring back at him from a hole in the ceiling. Slow drops of blood dripped from his nose.
Keeping his head down, Jack stepped in and knuckled the lobby button. Jensen's head lay above the angle of the surveillance camera, so as far as any observer could tell, the bearded, knit-capped guy was alone in the car.
When the car stopped, Jack pressed a knuckle against 10 as the doors opened, then stepped out into the lobby.
"Roselli?" the TP at the kiosk called. "Is that John Roselli?"
"No, I'm LFA Roselli," Jack said, making for the front door. He added some attitude. "You got a problem with that?"
This was the last hurdle. If he could get past this guy without too much fuss, he'd be home free.
"Just hold on there. Where have you been?"
Jack didn't break stride. "On the Communing Level."
"No, you weren't. You didn't show up on the cameras so the GP went looking for you and—"
Keep moving… keep moving…
"I just left Jensen. And he didn't mention cameras."
The guard had a two-way up to his lips. "GP Jensen? GP Jensen?" He lowered the two-way and looked at Jack. "He's not answering. Where did you see him?"
"I left him upstairs. He's going to hang around awhile."
As Jack reached the doors the TP came out from behind his kiosk and hurried toward him.
"Wait! You can't go yet!"
"No? Watch me."
Jack pushed through the doors, hit the sidewalk, and began walking uptown. The guard stepped out behind him.
"Hey! Come back! The GP will want to talk to you."
Jack ignored him and kept walking. He was heading home. He needed sleep something awful. He found his car two blocks away where he'd left it, parked on a side street. After cheeking to make sure the TP hadn't followed him, he slid behind the wheel and hit the ignition.
He drove a dozen blocks then pulled over and threw the Buick into park. He put his head back as f
ar as the headrest would allow and took a few deep breaths. A tremor shuddered through his body. That cold black rush was fading, leaving him shaky and exhausted.
He scared himself when he got like this. Not while he was in the dark thrall—he feared nothing then—but in the low aftermath it unsettled him to know what he was capable of. Sometimes he'd swear never to let it loose again, to push it back next time it lunged for freedom. Yet inevitably, when the moment came, he'd embrace and ride it.
But he never wanted another episode like tonight. It would take him a while to forget this one.
7
As per usual, Luther Brady had awakened early and driven in from the hills. He'd started the day with a slight headache—not unexpected after a night of carousing—but that was gone now. And as always after a bout with the boys, he felt rejuvenated. Give him the right playmates and he'd never need Viagra.
He liked to arrive before seven, when the temple was relatively deserted, and slip up to his quarters.
But this morning he found chaos—flashing police cars and ambulances outside, bustling cops and EMTs within.
One of the TPs recognized him and came rushing up.
"Mr. Brady! Mr. Brady! Oh, thank Noomri you're here! It's terrible! Just terrible!"
"What's happened?"
"It's GP Jensen—he's dead!"
Shock passed through him like a cold front. Jensen? Dead? He'd been Luther's most valuable asset—loyal to the Opus, fearless and relentless in pursuing its completion. What would he do without him?
"How?"
"An accident. He fell down the elevator shaft. It was awful! TP Cruz found him. His head… his head had smashed through the top of one of the elevator cars!"
An accident…
Already Luther could feel a small sense of relief tempering the shock, a slight loosening of his tightened muscles. For a moment there, and he couldn't say exactly why, he'd feared that Jensen had been murdered. Bad enough that he'd lost his right-hand man, but a murder… that would cause a storm in the media. An accident, however… well, that was a nonstory. Accidents can happen anywhere, to anyone, at any time. No reason the Dor-mentalist temple should be expected to be any different.
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