The Signal

by John Sneeden

  “Excellent,” Brett said. “I have the satellite view up now. Are you still in front of the building?”

  Zane slowed the car down almost to a stop. “Yes, the front entrance is directly to our right.”

  “Please go through your steps one more time,” Brett said.

  “We’re going to proceed past both of these buildings and park a block or two from the subject. I will then travel on foot back to the subject.”

  “Copy that. It looks like you’ll have about a five- to ten-minute walk back. Please text when you exit the vehicle and then text again once you’ve taken the elevator to the second floor.”

  “Copy that. Over.”

  Zane then ended the call and accelerated. A minute later, they arrived at a church on the second block. He made a crisp U-turn and pulled into a spot along the side of the street, facing back in the direction they had just come.

  “Do you have everything?” Carmen asked.

  Zane removed the toboggan and put on a pair of nonprescription glasses. He also chambered one magazine into his suppressed Glock and placed two others inside his coat. “Yes.”

  “Remember to text Brett and me when you exit onto the second floor.”

  Zane nodded and exited the car. As he made his way back up the street toward the buildings, he couldn’t help but think back to the Oracle’s worry that the plan was too simple. And while Zane had agreed that things were rarely as easy as planned, he also knew that simple was preferable to complex. If you could walk cleanly through the front door using stealth, why risk blowing through the back door?

  After walking exactly one block, Zane stopped and pretended to make a phone call. He waved his arms around and laughed, while at the same time scanning the surrounding area for anything out of the ordinary. Seeing nothing that aroused suspicion, he pretended to end the call and continued toward the bank.

  As the building came into view, Zane’s thoughts turned to Amanda Higgs. He and Carmen had agreed that she might be needed if her father left another cryptic puzzle like the one in Vienna. Zane did have some concerns about bringing her along. Operations could turn south at a moment’s notice, and while certainly bright, she was still an untrained civilian who would be extremely vulnerable if things deteriorated. But despite their misgivings, Zane and Carmen were certain that they would be able to keep Amanda safe.

  Zane walked through the front entrance at precisely five minutes before noon. When he did, he was pleased to see people filing in and out, a sign that their due diligence from the day before had paid off—they had determined that activity peaked around lunchtime.

  After entering the lobby, Zane paused for a brief moment. The layout was exactly as anticipated. Just to his right and through another set of glass doors was the bank, which presumably took up most or all of that side of the building. Directly in front of him was a hallway that extended all the way to the back of the building. To his great satisfaction, Zane could see that the elevators and restrooms were exactly where he thought they’d be.

  He had hoped to move directly back to the elevators if no one was looking, but just inside the bank was a customer service representative helping an elderly couple at a kiosk. She was facing in his direction and had probably seen him come in.

  Unzipping his coat slightly, Zane transitioned to Michel Bergeron. He threw open the door dramatically and made eye contact with the woman at the kiosk. She smiled at him.

  The operative was just about to take a seat at a small waiting area when the couple in front of him finished their business and turned to leave. The kiosk worker, a striking woman with high cheekbones, looked up and spoke to him in Russian-accented French, “Yes, sir. May I help you?”

  Zane walked over and looked at her much like a glutton would look over items on a buffet line. “Absolutely,” he said, his accent now that of Michel Bergeron. “How could I refuse service from such a beautiful woman?”

  She blushed, “Thank you.”

  “You know, I’ve been here many times and yet never had the pleasure of speaking to you,” Zane remarked. “How unfortunate.”

  “Well, thank you again,” the woman said, extending her hand. “My name is Katarina Popova. How may I help you, Mister…?”

  “Oh, please forgive me,” he replied, taking her hand and kissing the top before releasing it. She pulled it back so quickly that it popped against her body. Zane smiled as if the reaction didn’t faze him in the least. “My name is Michel Bergeron,” he continued. “I’m here to follow up on a call I made earlier.”

  “And who did you speak to?”

  “It was one of the investment advisors, I forget his name. But first things first.” He glanced around the office and then leaned forward and said in a low voice, “I must ask to use your restroom.” He made a show of reaching down and rubbing his abdomen. “I had a little foie gras at lunch, and it isn’t sitting too well.”

  The woman motioned toward the door with a smile, clearly happy that he was leaving. “Go back out into the hall, and the bathrooms are down on your right,” she said.

  He bowed slightly and said, “Rest assured, I will be back.”

  The woman gave him a faux smile and turned quickly to her computer screen.

  As he exited the back into the lobby, Zane felt a sense of relief wash over him. So far, everything was falling perfectly into place. Not only was the woman glad to be rid of him, but he also noticed that another man had just entered and was talking to her. In a matter of minutes, she would likely forget about Monsieur Bergeron and his cramping intestines.

  Just to be on the safe side, Zane entered the restroom first. Despite his overall satisfaction with how things were playing out, something had just hit him moments before when he walked away from the kiosk. It was the strange sense that someone else had been watching the whole ordeal. He finally shrugged it off, having nothing concrete to base it on.

  Walking over to the sink, Zane removed the fake glasses and tucked them into a coat pocket. He then turned on the water, and after giving it time to warm up, he splashed it onto his face several times.

  After counting silently to thirty, the operative exited back into the hallway. He glanced toward the bank to make sure no one was looking and then strode over to the elevator and pushed the Up button. He waited for what seemed like an eternity before the car finally arrived with a ding.

  When the doors slid open, Zane stepped inside and quickly removed the card from his jacket pocket. It was the moment of truth. If the card worked, it meant Nigel and the Agency had done their job. If the card didn’t work, the whole operation would be turned upside down.

  As soon as the doors closed, Zane pushed the button for the second floor and then inserted the card into the slot just above. For a moment nothing happened, which caused the operative to curse under his breath, but three seconds later the light turned green, and he could feel the elevator begin to move.

  *

  It was by sheer coincidence that Lucien Lafevers, investment banker, happened to be staring out the window as the long-haired man crossed the parking lot. His mind had been preoccupied with thoughts of how to shelter the funds of a shady client, but he soon found himself paying more and more attention to the figure moving toward the entrance to the bank. There was something about him that bothered Lafevers, although he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.

  The man was wearing an expensive jacket with stylish chest pockets and olive dress pants, so Lafevers had to admit he certainly looked the part of the bank’s exclusive clientele. So what was it about him? Was it the way he walked? And then it hit him. It wasn’t the way he walked at all. It was what he did as he walked. Although subtle, there was no doubt that the man was taking a careful survey of his surroundings. His head would turn slightly at every movement.

  But what bothered Lafevers even more was what the man did when he finally entered the building. Instead of proceeding directly into the bank, the man paused and looked to the rear of the building before looking anywher
e else. What was he looking at?

  Fully alert, Lafevers sat up straight in his chair and watched as the man crossed the lobby and began to talk to Katarina at the service desk. A minute or so later, the man headed down the hall, the very place he’d been staring at before.

  Smelling trouble, Lafevers rose from his seat and approached the kiosk.

  “What did that man want?” he asked Katarina in broken Russian.

  “You mean besides me?” she asked. “What a creep.” She made a gagging motion with her fingers. “He said he talked to someone earlier on the phone, something about an issue he was having. Why?”

  Lafevers ignored her question. “Where did he go?”

  “He said he felt sick and was going to the bathroom.”

  Lafevers frowned at her answer. While that seemed to explain why the man had been looking toward the rear of the building, he still didn’t like it. He’d been acting strange in the parking lot, and the request to use the restroom just seemed like an excuse.

  The banker took a position near the door. If the man wasn’t back in five minutes, he’d make a trip to the restroom himself.

  About two minutes later, Lafevers thought he hear a distant ding. The elevator? No one should have been using it during the day.

  Realizing something was amiss, Lafevers opened the glass door and strode purposefully to the restroom. He entered in a casual manner and stepped directly up to one of the urinals. When he finished relieving himself, he mashed the chrome handle almost violently, as though the additional strength might make the flush more loud. When the water gushed down in a load roar, he used the opportunity to stoop down and look under the stall partitions.

  And what he saw was exactly what he expected: there was no sign of the long-haired man. There was no sign of anyone.

  His heart thumping with excitement, the banker quickly returned to his office and closed the door behind him. He could see Katarina giving him a quizzical look through the glass as he picked up the phone and pressed a single green button near the bottom.

  After two rings, the line was answered by a groggy voice. “Yes.”

  “This is Lafevers.”

  “This better be good.” The man yawned. “What do you want?”

  “I think we have trouble.”

  There was a creaking sound as the man rolled over in bed. “What do you mean we have trouble?”

  “We have a visitor here at the bank. He looked suspicious, and when he came in he asked Katarina if he could use the restroom.”

  “Let me get this straight. You called to tell me one of your clients is in the crapper?”

  “There is more to it than that.” Lafevers was frustrated but knew better than to cross him.

  “Well, spit it out. You’re wasting my precious sleep. What’s so suspicious about a man using the restroom?”

  Lafevers bit his tongue. “As I waited for him to return I heard a ding.”

  “He’s in the restroom and you heard a ding?” the man asked in a condescending tone.

  “It was the ding of the elevator.” Lafevers paused to let that sink in. “And after I heard that, I went down to the restroom myself.”

  “And was he there?” the man asked, suddenly more serious.

  “No, he wasn’t.”

  Lafevers could hear more creaking as the man sat up in bed. “Have you seen him before?”

  “Never.”

  There was a short pause, and then the man said, “We will be there in seven minutes.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  DURING THE RIDE up, Zane pulled out his phone and typed out a simple text: In. After hitting Send, he received an error message that his phone currently had no signal, so he made a mental note to resend after stepping out onto the second floor.

  Despite being of recent construction, the elevator crawled at a snail’s pace, something Zane figured might relate to security. There were undoubtedly cameras inside the car, and the slow ride up probably gave the security team time to scrutinize whoever was inside. But even though he planned on erasing all of the footage, the operative still kept his head down.

  After an agonizingly long wait, the elevator finally bumped to a halt, and the door slowly slid open. Zane stepped out and prepared to resend his text, only to stop dead in his tracks. A loud beeping noise permeated the second floor. Was it an alarm? Had something about the card triggered it?

  The elevator was at the corner of the floor, with one hallway running straight ahead and another running to the right. The noise seemed to be coming from somewhere straight ahead, but due to the echoing effect, it was hard to tell precisely.

  Sliding the phone back into his pocket, Zane pulled out his pistol, chambered the first round, and then decided to take the hallway directly ahead. After a few steps, he noticed the sound had grown louder, an indication he had made the right choice. In fact, the noise seemed to be coming from a room just ahead on the right.

  With his finger behind the trigger, Zane stepped inside the room and cleared it in both directions. It apparently served as the office kitchen, as there was a round table with chairs, a refrigerator, a microwave, and various bags of plastic plates and cups on top of a counter that ran the length of one wall.

  It didn’t take the operative long to discover that the refrigerator was the source of the noise. Someone had left it open, and the appliance was beeping its displeasure. Using the back of his hand so as not to leave prints, Zane pushed the door shut and returned to the hallway.

  What now? He knew he was going to search for the former office of Ian Higgs, but he wasn’t sure where to begin. Deciding to start with the rooms on the inner side of the hall, he walked down to the next door past the break room. After peering inside, he was gripped with a feeling of satisfaction. Directly in front of him was what appeared to be a small security station. There a number of monitors set up on a long table on the left. One large monitor the size of a flat-panel television screen displayed a number of live video feeds, both inside and outside the building. There was a view of the lobby, a view of the bank interior, and even a feed showing the inside of the elevator car that he had just rode up in.

  The discovery of the CCTV system meant that Zane would be able to use the thumb drive to erase any evidence he had been in.

  So far everything seemed to be going smooth as silk. Which meant that’s exactly when he could expect the problems to begin.

  *

  “Still nothing?” Amanda asked from the back seat.

  “Still nothing,” Carmen looked down at the phone that was perched on her leg.

  “It seems like it’s been a while. Shouldn’t you text him?”

  “Not yet. We stick with the agreed-upon protocol until we believe something has been compromised. I’m not ready to go there yet.”

  “What if someone was on the upper floor when he arrived?”

  “Then Zane will go right back down. I doubt anyone is there, although I guess anything is possible. Everything I’ve read about Mironov, from intelligence sources and public sources, indicates he is a meticulously organized man. If he has a rule that they don’t work during the day, my guess is they don’t work during the day.”

  “What about security?”

  “That’s the one thing that concerns me a bit. Our best guess is that daytime security is electronic only. If there are actual security personnel, they would be downstairs in the bank. And if they’re present then Zane will—”

  Carmen stopped in mid-sentence as the phone vibrated on her leg and rolled off onto the seat. She picked it up, looked at the screen, and then answered, “Petrosino.”

  “It’s me,” Brett said. “I assume you don’t have anything yet?”

  “We were just talking about that. No, nothing so far.”

  “I’m a little concerned because we picked up a signal in the building’s security system. I can’t quite tell what it is, but I’m assuming it’s somehow related to the use of the access card. And that was a couple of minutes ago.”

 
“Well, that’s not good.” Carmen frowned. “Have you been able to breach the security cams?”

  “Not yet. Those are locked up pretty well. Chris and I are working on it, though. The good news is that Zane has the thumb drive and should be able to erase everything on his way out, provided he can find the hard drive.”

  “I was thinking more of us being able to see him to make sure everything is all clear.”

  “If he hasn’t checked in a minute from now we need to reach—”

  “Brett…” Carmen looked through the front windshield.

  “Yeah, what’s up?”

  “We have a problem. Some arrivals. I need to go.”

  “Copy that. Keep me posted—”

  Carmen didn’t wait for him to finish his sentence. While continuing to stare through the windshield, she placed her phone back on her leg using one hand and simultaneously removed her Beretta from her pocket with the other.

  “What's going on?” Amanda asked from the back seat.

  “Shhhhh.” Carmen gestured up the street with her gun. A black Mercedes SUV had just pulled into a spot about a block away. Based on her count of silhouettes, Carmen figured that there were at least five people inside. “No talking from here on out. And don’t move unless I tell you to.”

  With one smooth motion, Carmen reached out and picked up her phone, tapping out a text using one hand. She hit Send and said a silent prayer that it would get to Zane in time.

  *

  Zane had just finished clearing all of the interior rooms when his phone vibrated. He cursed as he realized he had forgotten to check in when he arrived on the second floor. He opened the screen, expecting to see that Carmen was simply asking for verification, and then frowned at what came up: R security team arrived and parked in front of us. Assume it is backup and others are in building or on their way in. Get out. CP. Zane typed out a quick response and also sent a text to Brett before putting the phone back in his pocket. Where now? Realizing he might be able to pick something up on the video feed, he hurried back to the hall he had first walked down when he came out of the elevator. He slipped into the security room. A quick look at the CCTV feeds made his heart pound faster—three men were inside the elevator car and on their way up. Each carried a semi-automatic rifle, and all three were pulling something out of their coats. Unable to see what it was, Zane leaned closer to the screen and then froze. The men were putting on gas masks.