The Directive

by Matthew Quirk

  I finally spotted Bloom near the bar. I needed to find out who Lynch was working for, and I needed to find a way to go over his head. I knew he had some cops sewn up, so going straight to the authorities was a minefield, but Bloom might be able to help me pick my way through it.

  “You haven’t run into our friends from the alley again, have you?” I asked her.

  “No. You?”

  She pulled two glasses of red wine from a waiter’s tray and handed me one.

  “I may have,” I said.

  She gestured for me to follow her. We crossed the sitting room, then headed upstairs. Bloom ducked through the master bedroom into an office lined with beautiful antique books in green and brown leather that had probably been purchased by the shelf-foot by some designer. With all the crimes and threats swirling in my mind, I’d felt like an impostor among these polite Washingtonians, my hands still dirty with blood. But I could relax a little around Bloom, glad to know that there was someone here who sometimes traveled down the same back alleys.

  “Have you learned anything else about them?” I asked.

  “Not my wheelhouse, but I may know someone you can talk to.”

  Our hostess opened the door and saw Bloom leaning against her husband’s desk. The woman apologized and excused herself. I imagined Bloom was always doing this sort of thing, strolling into rooms marked Private, commandeering people’s offices and then acting so damned natural, so entitled, that the people who caught her were the ones who felt out of place.

  “Is your someone law enforcement?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Can I trust him?”

  She didn’t respond. She was looking over my shoulder.

  Tuck Straus, our mutual friend, had stopped in the doorway.

  “Hey, guys,” he said as he walked in and sat down on the arm of a sofa.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “What are you-all talking about?”

  “Just catching up on some business contacts.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  “Don’t think so,” I said.

  Bloom’s pocket buzzed. She checked her phone. “Oh shit. I’ve got to run.”

  As she walked toward the door, she paused and whispered in my ear: “I can help you out. Meet me outside in five minutes.”

  After Bloom left, Tuck sat down and eased back on the couch. “I didn’t know you were friends with Emily.” He had the air of a prosecutor.

  There was nothing too odd in our circle about a man and a woman being friends or hanging out one on one, especially when it came to business. Tuck was, however, a little weird on the subject of Emily Bloom. Even though he was practically engaged, he’d always had a thing for her.

  “We’ve met a couple of times,” I said. “She’s great.”

  “I know,” Tuck said. “Everything okay with you and Annie?”

  “Sure. We’re a little stressed out between work and the wedding. Why? What have you heard?”

  “Annie’s an amazing girl, Mike.”

  “Did she say something?”

  “No. I’m just saying don’t take that for granted.”

  “I never would.”

  He gave me a searching look.

  “I have to get going,” I said, and started for the door. “Early morning on the Hill.”

  Bloom stood on the corner in the shadows of an old elm, talking into her cell phone. She wrapped the call as I drew closer.

  “I told you not to tangle with that crew, Mike. What happened?” She started walking downhill toward the river.

  “I was hoping you’d tell me. Are you looking into them?”

  “Like I said, I was pretty tangential on that case. But I have a name for you: Paul Lasseter.”

  “Metro?”

  “A street agent at the FBI. He’s heading up the investigation.”

  “Trustworthy?”

  “Yeah,” she said, as if I’d told a great joke. “Mormon bishop. Nine kids. Lives out in Loudoun County. Totally on the level.”

  “Can you connect me with him?”

  “Sure I can,” she said.

  “Any chance you can call him now?”

  She ignored the question. I guess I wasn’t getting it out of her that easily.

  “I heard a rumor recently,” she said. “About you.”

  “I’m not a very interesting subject for rumors.”

  “It’s that you’re some kind of break-in artist. Or were. A good one.”

  “Where would you have heard that?”

  She lowered her shoulders, deflated. “Where I get most of my gossip. Public records searches.”

  “Is that in Accurint? Or are you on the NCIC?” That’s the national criminal database.

  “Oh no,” she waved away the thought. “I have a collection that makes the cops’ stuff look like a card catalog. My great-grandfather started it before the FBI had one. Michael Walsh Ford. Statutory burglary. Class three felony.”

  “That was expunged.”

  “Yes, it was,” she said, and smiled. We turned onto M Street, the main commercial drag in Georgetown.

  “So can you connect me with Lasseter?” I asked.

  Bloom checked her phone. “I’ll call him. He’ll take care of you, don’t worry.”

  I waited, looking from her to her phone.

  “But help me out with something first,” she said. “I’d like to get you into a hotel room.”

  “What did you say?” I asked, but she was already darting across M Street.

  Chapter 28

  I WAITED FOR a break in traffic, then caught up with her as she strode into the lobby of the Four Seasons.

  “Just one favor,” she said. “Then I’ll set you up with Lasseter.”

  She had me on the hook and she knew it. “Fine,” I said.

  She watched the elevators for a moment, frowned, then hurried back outside, nearly crashing into a guy in a suit as she exited the revolving door. I followed her down to the C&O Canal. It’s a quiet place at night. Only a stone’s throw from the madness of M Street, you can almost pretend you’re in the country. We passed another couple out strolling.

  As we crossed a footbridge, I noticed someone walking away: a solidly built South Asian guy with an earpiece snaking inside the jacket of his suit. He looked a lot like the man Bloom had bumped into outside the lobby.

  Bloom waited for him to round the corner, then approached the back of the hotel overlooking the canal. She gave me a look that I didn’t like at all.

  “I got a note about my friend, who’s staying here. I had hoped to surprise him, so maybe you can help me get in.”

  “I’ll talk to the front desk.”

  “They’re really pains in the ass about this kind of thing here.”

  “Let’s go back to the lobby. Maybe we can ride up in the elevator.”

  “He’s in the terrace suite. It’s all key-controlled. Special access.”

  “Can you call him? Surprise him downstairs?”

  She was already examining the back of the building.

  “So you can pick locks?” she asked.

  “No no no.”

  “But you can.”

  “Well, I could. Some of them, sometimes. But that requires picks and willingness, and I don’t have either.”

  She looked toward a side door on the rear corner of the building, next to a set of exhaust fans concealed by bushes.

  “He’s right upstairs. It’ll be great.”

  “We’ll get arrested.”

  “I know the head of security for the whole chain. It’s fine.”

  “Then call him up.”

  “No time.”

  “There’s a camera right there,” I said.

  She took her keys out and shined a little laser pointer on the wall next to the camera, then aimed it square into its eye.

  I guess she knew that trick. I stepped over and peered at the lock.

  “Sorry, Emily. I’m in enough trouble already.”

  She clicke
d her tongue. “That’s a shame. It’s getting a little late to call my man at the FBI,” she said, shaking her head. “What about a credit card?”

  “No. There’s this thing called a deadlatch—just trust me. Shimming decent locks hasn’t worked in a hundred years.”

  “How about this?” she reached into her purse. Her light wavered away from the camera.

  I steadied her hand. “Keep your eye on that, huh?”

  She came up with a bobby pin.

  “In theory I would need two pins, and it still wouldn’t work.”

  “I only have one.”

  “Then surprise your friend with some flowers or send up some champagne.”

  “I don’t think your heart’s in this, Mike. I thought we could help each other.”

  We’d now left quid pro quo territory and arrived at straight coercion. I sighed and looked down at the bobby pin.

  “You don’t have any foil, do you?”

  “No.”

  I looked around. “Even better.” There was some on the exhaust unit. I leaned over and pulled off a piece. She wasn’t going to quit until I gave her a show, so I would appease her for a minute and then we could move on.

  The aluminum tape was slightly thicker than the sort of foil you’d find in a kitchen. I flicked open my knife and cut a section about an inch wide and two inches long, then folded it over lengthwise. I cut six slits in the foil, close together, which left five little fingers sticking out of the top. Each was about the width of a notch on a key.

  Using the bobby pin, I slid the aluminum strip into the lock so the fingers lined up with the pins, then pressed them all the way up. I put the tip of my knife in the cylinder, twisted it, and then starting shaking the whole thing like a guy holding a live wire.

  This wasn’t a finesse job. Bloom watched with growing skepticism.

  A lot of locksmiths don’t bother picking. That gets you in only once. Instead, they do something called impressioning. When you pick a lock, you lift each pin to the correct height. Impressioning works the other way. You lift them all the way up and slowly let them push down to the right height.

  When I twisted the knife, the cylinder turned and bound the pins. As I shook it, the stuck pins would push the little fingers cut in the foil down to the correct height, hit the shear line, then push no more. Unlike picking or raking or bumping locks, when done well it leaves no trace for any forensics. It not only gets you in, when it’s done with the proper tools—a soft key blank and a file—it leaves you with a working copy of the key.

  I didn’t expect it to work at all, but as I explained the basics of it, I hoped it would sound good enough to get Bloom to leave me alone.

  I jerked this jury-rigged mess around for a minute. There was no magic release, no turning of the cylinder.

  “Well, so much—” I started to say, then stopped. I heard keys jingling: a guard. “We need to go,” I whispered. I relaxed my hand on the pin. The knife twisted. The cylinder turned. The lock was open. I’d never been so unhappy to succeed.

  “Nice,” Bloom said.

  As the rattle of the guard’s keys moved closer, there was no place to go but in. She stepped through, grabbed my arm, and dragged me behind her. I pulled the foil out and shut the door. We were in a stairwell. Bloom climbed to the fourth floor, then listened at the door. She raised her finger for me to wait.

  Thirty seconds later she eased the door open, and I caught a rear view of another Asian guy in a sack suit as he passed us in the hallway. He appeared to be carrying in a shoulder holster on his left side and something on his belt.

  I wanted to ask why armed men were guarding this surprise party, but Bloom was already moving. We followed him at a distance, passed a housekeeping cart, then waited at the corner until he disappeared from sight. Bloom strolled up to a hotel room door with a card lock on it. She laid her hand on the handle.

  “Is your friend inside?” I asked. “Just knock.”

  “Have you ever been to a surprise party?”

  “Not like this,” I said. I just wanted to get the hell out of the hallway and away from any hidden cameras and private security.

  “You need a coat hanger or a strip of metal or something,” I said, and started looking around. Standard procedure for hotel doors was to reach under the bottom with a long wire, grab the handle from the inside, and let yourself in.

  “We should get out of here,” I said. I turned back to see Bloom dip a card into the reader, then turn the handle.

  She waved me through. We were in a suite that seemed to go on forever, with a wall of French doors opening onto a terrace. The lights were hidden like stars in the ceiling. Dark wood paneling covered every surface. It was the nicest room I’d ever been in. I paused. It even smelled expensive, the faintest trace of green tea and ginger.

  I didn’t know what most alarmed me: that this was no surprise, that Bloom had her own break-in chops, or that this crafty woman had just cornered me in a hotel room after a couple of drinks.

  “Who are those guards?”

  “Nepalis. Supposedly ex–British Gurkhas,” she said and rolled her eyes. She advanced through the suite, methodically checking rooms. “Don’t worry about them, though. Sheikh and oligarch types like to use them as security teams. It’s all window dressing. Though they do have these knives that are like a foot long.” She grimaced. “Theater. It’s the kind of thing Naiman goes for.”

  “Can we call your contact now?” I said. I was done. It wouldn’t take much to play a lost hotel guest and just walk down to the lobby and get away from here as quickly as possible. “Because I’m going to get—”

  Going. But I didn’t have a chance to finish. Bloom put her hand over my mouth, then pulled me toward the bedroom.

  I could hear the elevator doors chime down the hall. Bloom killed the lights, and we waited in silence as the footfalls of at least three people approached. The door to the suite opened.

  When the rightful occupant of the room hit the lights, he found Bloom sitting in a wingback chair, facing him, looking totally relaxed.

  “You’re dead,” Bloom said, beaming.

  And here was his security detail: four of them, not particularly large, but steely looking and frightening enough even without the pistols drawn and the jackets pulled back to uncover the knives on their belts: long and gleaming, like heavy machetes with a mean-looking forward bend in the blade.

  To my eyes, the oligarch looked like a union plumber who had won the lottery. His hair was thinning and styled into a mullet with short bangs. He had on some sort of shimmery shirt under a four-button black suit. Russian or maybe Central Asian, he had a brutal look about him, and two days’ growth on his chin. He was the last person on earth I would have wanted to tangle with, even without the killers behind him.

  He walked up to Bloom, and his bodyguards surrounded her chair.

  The man in the suit, who I gathered was Naiman, stood for a moment, deep in thought, while his guards grew increasingly jumpy.

  “Very good, Bloom,” he said finally, with a light accent. “You win. Send the papers over.”

  Bloom stood and shook his hand. He spent a moment talking to the Gurkhas, calming them down from the looks of it, as a few other members of his entourage entered the suite. A woman in perilously high heels appeared and offered us drinks.

  “We have to stay for a bit, accept the hospitality,” Bloom whispered. “Let him save face. Can you hang for a minute? I’ll go call Lasseter. Promise.”

  I relented. Naiman was actually a pretty charming guy, and he started up with some stories about the Soviet army and the invasion of Afghanistan.

  Bloom excused herself, and I found her a moment later on the terrace, on the phone. “Terrific. No. Thank you,” she said. “Give my best to Bev and the kids.” She hung up.

  “The Gurkhas don’t seem too happy with you,” I said.

  “Well, he can hang on to them for show, but he’ll go with Bloom Security for his private detail from now on.”

>   “You had a bet going with him?”

  She nodded.

  “Maybe you can let me in on the secret next time we co-conspire.”

  “That’s no fun,” she said. “I talked to Lasseter.” She wrote a number on a business card and handed it to me. “Three p.m. Washington Field Office. You know where that is?”

  “I do. That’s all there is to it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “And you’re sure—”

  “Just as sure as I was when you asked the first time. You can trust him, Mike.”

  “Thanks. I have a feeling my lockpicking 101 talk was unnecessary.”

  “I did need to get past the exterior door. They were watching the elevators, and my lock guy was an hour away,” she said. “First time I’ve seen the foil trick.”

  “You lifted the card when you bumped into the guard outside?”

  “I figured I’d take a stab at Naiman while he was here. And part of me just wanted to kick your tires.”

  “Don’t look at me that way,” I said.

  “What way is that?”

  “Whenever someone looks at me that way, it doesn’t take too long until they offer me a job.”

  She clinked her glass against mine. “The night is young.”

  We took our leave, and I walked her back to her office. As I said goodbye, the atmosphere was charged with that first-date feeling of readying yourself for the kill that—and this is probably just in my case—is ten times more thrilling than any break-in. We head-faked each other twice as I came in with a handshake and she started for the hug, and then again with roles reversed.

  Nothing had happened, unless you count a few felonies. And as far as Annie was concerned, I had done nothing wrong, just dinner with a business associate and an exchange of favors. But as I drove home and touched my lips, dry from red wine, why did I come away feeling as guilty as if I had just killed somebody?

  Chapter 29

  I ARRIVED HOME late. Annie was asleep upstairs. I knew that going to the law was a dangerous move and that Lynch was watching my house. I went upstairs to my office, logged on to my bank, and double-checked that I was paid up on my life insurance. I pulled a lockbox down from the closet and took out my pistol, a Heckler & Koch I’d picked up from Cartwright during the mess with my old employer. I hadn’t touched it since then.