by Steven James
A few minutes later Marianne found footage of Mollie in a wheelchair, being pushed into the hotel by an unidentified man wearing a baseball cap that completely hid his face from the camera, which told me he knew the camera’s angle and location before he even approached the building.
Follow up on that. If he knows where the cameras are, he’s likely to have been here before, scouting out the site.
Later, later, later.
Because, for now, we also had footage of them entering a service elevator inside the hotel. “Where do they exit the elevator?” I asked. “Which floor?”
“There’s no way to know. We only have surveillance cameras covering the guest elevators on each floor, not the service elevators.”
“Have they left the building?” Doehring said.
“Let me find out.” Marianne let her fingers loose on the keyboard.
She did another facial recognition search, then shook her head. “Unless they found a way to get past our cameras, they’re still inside.”
But that was enough for Doehring. He was on his radio calling for backup to set up a perimeter around the hotel; in less than five minutes, we would have the area secured.
“Have security seal off all the exit doors,” I said to her. “The suspect transported Mollie into the hotel in a wheelchair, so look for a handicapped-accessible vehicle outside. And go back to the footage of him entering the elevator. I’ve got an idea.”
31
The video revealed that after the man entered the elevator, he reached out to press one of the floor’s buttons before the doors closed and the two of them were gone.
“Back it up.”
She did.
“Pause it.”
The image froze.
I pointed. “There. Which button is he pressing? Which floor?”
“Hang on.” Marianne slid the cursor, zoomed in, then cursed. “I can’t tell. The angle is wrong.”
“Download that to my phone.”
She connected my cell to her system, tapped at her keyboard, then seconds later handed back the phone, the image frozen on the screen.
“He might have changed clothes, but circulate this image to security,” I said. “Let’s see if we can get an ID. And call every room, leave a recorded message that security’s looking for a missing wheelchair. Let’s see who tries to sneak away. And no one leaves this hotel.” I started for the door. “Where’s the service elevator he used?”
“Take a left out the door, at the end of the hall go through housekeeping. The elevator will be on your right.”
Doehring and I took off.
Everything had been arranged.
Mollie was not going to be a problem for them.
Astrid glanced at her watch.
“We need to move,” she said to Brad, who was taking care of the room.
“Almost done.”
We made it to the elevators.
I studied the video on my phone, the height of the man’s hand in relationship to the floor numbers . . . the angle of the camera in the hall . . . then I stood in the same place he had, raised my hand to the same level as his, and played the video again.
It was possible the suspect pressed a second button after the elevator doors closed, but we had to start somewhere.
Doehring and I scrutinized the video. “What do you think?” I said. “Floor eight or nine?”
He shook his head. “I can’t tell.”
“Send security to both floors, sweep the rooms. You take nine. I’ll get eight.” I sprinted for the stairwell at the end of the hall.
Astrid and Brad were just about to leave the room when the phone rang.
Both of them stared at it.
Another ring.
Then, ever so faintly, they heard simultaneously ringing phones in the adjoining rooms.
“They know,” Brad said. “Somehow they know.”
She shook her head. “That’s impossible. You took care of the cameras, right?”
“Yes.”
But as the phones continued to ring, Astrid felt, for the first time since they’d started their games, a small nervous twitch of anxiety. She hesitated for a moment, then, with a gloved hand, picked up the room phone, listened to the message. Hung it up. “We need to leave.”
Brad said nothing, went to the door, peered out the peephole, then eased the door open a crack. Checked the hallway. “It’s clear.”
She picked up the laptop.
“Careful,” he said. “You don’t want to—”
“Drop it. I know.” She nodded toward the door, where their things were sitting. “Get those.”
He did.
They slipped into the hall.
Eighth floor.
Legs screaming from the sprint up the stairs.
My .357 SIG P229 in hand, I threw open the door to the hallway.
Two maids, a few kids in swimming suits running down the hall to their room, a bellhop pulling a luggage cart, two security personnel knocking on doors.
They’d gotten here fast. Good.
Good.
No sign of the suspect.
I flashed my creds. “Anything?” I called to the guards.
“No,” one of them replied.
“No one leaves this floor. Understand?”
“Got it.”
I bolted down the hallway, then to an adjacent hall to the east.
And as I flared around the corner, I saw a man pause at the door to the stairwell at the far end of the hallway about thirty-five meters from me. He wore the same clothes as the man who’d been caught on the security video pushing the wheelchair.
“Stop,” I shouted, “FBI!”
He glanced over his shoulder, his face shadowed by the cap. He reached toward his belt.
A gun.
He’s going for a gun!
I leveled my SIG. “Hands to the side!”
He hesitated.
“Now!”
But a door opened between us, and an elderly couple left their room. “Get down!” I yelled.
They were terrified and hesitated. The man by the stairwell door ducked through and disappeared.
“Get back in your room!” I shouted to the couple, and I raced down the hallway even as I yanked out my cell, called Doehring. “Get someone to the southeast stairwell. First floor. Now!”
Past the terrified couple.
Seconds ticked.
Ticked.
To the stairwell door.
Readied myself.
Threw it open.
Footsteps below me.
Weapon ready, I swung around the corner, scanned the area, and saw someone rounding the stairwell far below me. “Stop!”
I tried to tell if there were two sets of footsteps or just one.
Two, I thought, but I couldn’t be sure.
One suspect or two?
Advice from my training: Always assume the greater threat.
Two.
Quickly I checked the landing above me for any accomplices.
No one.
Then I flew down the stairs, taking them three at a time.
Astrid and Brad had made it to the first floor.
Brad had his Walther P99 in one hand and cautiously pushed the door open with the other.
No cops.
Two doors before her. She pointed to the underground parking garage sign, just ahead on the left.
“Wait,” Brad said. His eyes were on the oversized freight elevator. “I have an idea.”
Ground level.
I burst through the door.
No one.
But the doors of a freight elevator at the end of the hall were closing. “Stop!”
I rushed forward, my heart hammering from my sprint up, then down eight flights of stairs.
And from adrenaline.
And from the hunt.
By the time I arrived, the doors had closed. I pressed the up button. Steadied myself. Leveled my gun.
They slid open.
Empty.
Scanned the stretch of concrete and cars.
And saw a latex glove on the ground about five meters away, directly to my right.
32
I saw no movement in the parking area. Heard no footsteps.
No, no, no!
The door behind me burst open, and I spun, aiming, saw Doehring rush in. I immediately lowered my weapon and turned my attention to the parking area again. “Mollie,” I said, “is she safe?”
He shook his head. “Haven’t found her yet.” He was out of breath. His eyes had found the latex glove. “Is the guy in here?”
“I don’t know. You go left. I’ll go—”
Wait a minute.
The freight elevator, Pat . . . they opened the elevator doors to slow you down . . . last night Aria waited at the scene . . . didn’t leave until after emergency personnel arrived . . .
After.
After.
Assume the greater threat.
Two not one.
Doehring noticed my hesitation. “What is it?”
“Stay here by the door. Make sure no one doubles back. Get this garage sealed off. And have security check every car. Trunks included.”
“What about you?”
“I’ve got an idea.”
I ran back inside and surveyed the hallway: the elevator, the hall I’d come down, and saw a door I hadn’t noticed before because my eyes were on the elevator.
A sign read: Restricted Access. Authorized Personnel Only.
Oh yeah.
That would be it.
Astrid and Brad were making their way through a sprawling room, dark and cluttered, their path lit only by an exit sign fifty feet ahead of them. “The glove,” she said. “It was a good idea.”
“I hope so.” Brad seemed unsure. Uneasy. “This one’s smart. This agent. Somehow he found us.”
I felt along the wall, found a light switch, flicked it on. A line of fluorescents blinked on one at a time, in a long, methodical row. “There’s no way out,” I called, hoped it was true.
I saw no one in the vast room.
Stall, stall, stall.
Slow them down.
“We have this hotel sealed off.” I moved forward cautiously. “Step out now with your hands in the air!”
The storage room was cavernous, stretching nearly the length of the hotel, and was filled with stacks of chairs, end tables, beds, TV cabinets, and mirrors—the leftover furniture from the hotel’s recent renovations.
Literally hundreds of places to hide. But a cleared path led straight through the middle.
I took another quiet step.
Heard a scraping sound ahead of me to the left and swung my gun toward it.
Then a gunshot.
Impact.
The bullet slammed into my left arm as the sound reverberated, echoed, thundered through the room. The force spun me around, nearly threw me to the ground, but I managed to pivot behind an old television cabinet with four mirrors leaning against it before dropping to the concrete floor.
Astrid was standing next to the exit door when Brad shot the FBI agent.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice low, accusatory.
“Sending him a message.”
He scurried across the aisle to join her.
“You’re not playing this smart anymore.” She grabbed his hand, pulled him outside; she heard sirens whining. “You’re going to ruin everything.”
“No, I—”
“Quiet.”
The alley stretched in both directions.
Left or right?
A choice. She made it.
They ran.
Blood all over.
It felt like someone had slammed a sledgehammer against my left biceps, and the pain made it almost impossible to think.
I squeezed my eyes shut, tried to concentrate on the scene.
The scene.
The scene.
A moment ago, I’d heard the exit door at the far end of the room bang shut.
Oh, man, that hurts.
Three possibilities: both suspects left the building, one was still here, or both were still inside and they’d just opened the door to trick me, lure me out.
Thick pain chugged through my shoulder, up my neck, then broke apart like an explosion of glass in my head.
Focus, Pat.
Focus!
I’d passed my gun to my left hand and was instinctively pressing my right hand against the wound to slow the bleeding, but now I removed it, and a quick check told me the bullet had both entered and exited my arm—a through and through.
It was bleeding heavily but not spurting, so I doubted there was arterial damage, and I didn’t see or feel any obvious fractures, so that was a good sign, but the blood and the pain made it impossible to tell.
I needed my gun in my right hand, and that meant I had to find another way to put pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding. I yanked off my belt and braced myself because the pain was about to get a lot worse.
Gritting my teeth, I wrapped the belt around the wound, slipped the end through the buckle. I didn’t need a tourniquet, but by tugging it tightly I could make a crude pressure bandage.
Do it, Pat.
Come on, come on!
I clenched my teeth and pulled the belt snug.
A shower of hot light broke apart inside my head. Breath escaped me.
Focus.
Focus!
I secured the belt. My arm flared again. Dizzying pain.
Eyes squinched shut, I leaned back against the cabinet.
Tried to catch my breath.
The exit door.
Don’t let them get away.
Before I could make a move, I needed to know where the suspects were, so I tilted one of the nearby mirrors to see down the corridor between the pieces of furniture.
No one.
Strategically they had the advantage. There were two of them, at least one was armed. They might be anywhere.
I pulled out my phone, called Doehring, whispered, hoarse, out of breath, “The perimeter. Is it up?”
“It should be.”
Should be.
The suspects could already be gone.
“The south side of the building,” I struggled to keep the pain out of my voice, “get officers there now. The suspects are armed. Proceed with extreme caution—there might be only one person; I’m not sure.”
End call.
You’re hit. They’re armed.
I ought to wait. I really ought—
Screw it.
I stood and leveled my gun, then spun around the cabinet, and trying to move my left arm as little as possible, headed toward the exit door watching for any movement as I raced through the room.
Saw nothing.
No one.
I arrived at the exit. Threw my body against the pressure bar, and the door flew open.
A quick visual sweep.
Just an alley, a dumpster.
No fleeing suspects.
No one.
I checked in and around the dumpster.
Clear.
Both streets lay about forty meters away, and I had no idea which direction the suspects might have fled.
Sirens, but no officers in sight.
Would the suspects split up? Go different directions?
Splitting up made sense, but obviously I could only check one street at a time. I chose the one to the right and ran toward it.
At the corner, here’s what I saw: a ponytailed jogger, typical DC traffic, a woman facing the crosswalk pushing a stroller, three young children straggling behind her. Across the intersection four businessmen were looking the other way waiting for a light to change.
No one who fit either Aria’s or the unidentified man’s build. No one who was acting suspicious or even looking in this direction.
No!
The other street. They went the other way through the alley.
With this
much time elapsed since they’d left the building, I doubted it would do any good to check the other street, but I needed to be thorough. I started toward it.
But only seconds later two burly officers burst through the basement door and swept into the alley. “I’m Agent Bowers, FBI.” I pointed to one of the men. “Check the other street”—then to the other—“Get back in there and guard the exit. They might still be inside.”
The officers obeyed.
More sirens.
The streets were being sealed off.
Too late. It’s all too late!
Every time my heart beat, my arm throbbed. My vision blurred. I leaned my weight against the wall.
Another officer emerged from the door, and I had him radio dispatch to stop traffic and have officers detain and question everyone on the streets on both ends of the alley.
“Are you all right, sir?” he asked.
“Go.”
When he left, I noticed that the woman with the young children was staring at me. She looked pale. I saw her swallow and then direct her children to follow her toward the pedestrian crosswalk.
The blood.
The blood on your arm.
Wait.
She hadn’t been facing the alley when I ran to the street, but there was a good chance one of her kids might have seen something.
I holstered my weapon and, pressing my right hand against the wound to hide the blood as much as possible, I approached the woman. “Excuse me, ma’am. I need to ask you a few questions.”
33
She didn’t give me her first name, just said that she was “Mrs. Rainey,” and then proceeded to tell me she hadn’t seen anyone leave the alley. “I’m sorry.” She was staring at my arm. “We were going the other way. Shouldn’t you be in a hospital?”
Probably.
I looked at her children. A sleeping baby in the stroller. Twin girls about three or four years old. A boy, maybe six. I knelt beside them. The twins eased back, grabbed the legs of their mother. One of them bit the corner of her lower lip and looked like she was about to cry. I couldn’t hide the blood completely, but I turned to the side to hide it as much as I could.
“I need to get them home,” Mrs. Rainey said.
“Just one moment. I won’t upset your children. I promise.” She looked at me uneasily, then at my arm, then at the alley where more officers had arrived, and then at the police cars screeching to a stop nearby. Though she was clearly reluctant, she must have realized the importance of my request, because at last she nodded. “Okay.”