The Conviction

by Robert Dugoni

  “Ed’s sick?”

  Uh-oh, Sloane thought; they hadn’t figured the two guards could be friends.

  “Said he caught a bug and was shutting off his phone to get some sleep. Didn’t want to be disturbed.” She was good. Quick.

  “Does this mean I’m working a double shift?” Montoya did not sound happy about the prospect, and Sloane couldn’t blame him, given that the guards did nothing more than watch the time pass for eight hours.

  “We’re sending a standby. He’s new. Go over the ground rules with him when he gets there.”

  “Will do,” Montoya said, sounding relieved. He hung up the phone and looked up to consider the clock on the wall, he hesitated, and looked back to the phone, but whatever thought crossed his mind passed and he leaned back and recommenced reading.

  “Show time,” Alex said.

  Sloane backed the truck into a parking space beside what he assumed to be Montoya’s Toyota Corolla, snowplow facing out in case he needed to quickly exit. He stepped from the cab and adjusted his shirt. It wasn’t an exact copy of the security guard’s uniforms, but Eileen Harper had a full day to replicate it with the aid of Molia’s video and had done a credible job. Sloane didn’t have the utility belt, but he wore a blue windbreaker to conceal that omission, adjusting it as he walked around the corner of the building, backpack slung over his shoulder, and approached the glass doors. Montoya remained in deep concentration. When Sloane tapped his keys on the glass the guard looked up, nodded, and slid a bookmark between the pages before shutting the book. Sloane glanced to the side as Montoya approached and unlocked the dead bolt with several twists of the key, pushing the door open. Sloane stepped in.

  “You must be my replacement.”

  Sloane shook the man’s hand. “Steve Venditti,” he said.

  “So you’re new, huh?”

  “Just a couple weeks.”

  “Where’ve they had you working?”

  “All over,” Sloane said. “Mostly as a replacement.”

  Montoya patted his shoulder. “Well you’re in for a treat tonight.”

  “How’s that?”

  Montoya laughed. Bushy eyebrows knitted together. “Let’s just say I hope you brought a good book with you.”

  “Yeah, I figured this time of night it would likely get pretty boring?”

  “Paint drying is more interesting. I’ve been asking off this detail for weeks. Another month and I may hang myself just to break the monotony.”

  “So nobody ever comes by?”

  Montoya walked to the desk and held up a clipboard. The blank document contained signature lines for anyone entering and exiting the building along with a space for the date and time. “All we do is sit.”

  “What about rounds? Do I need to keep a log?”

  “You want to walk around outside, be my guest, but this square patch of tile is pretty much it.”

  “What’s upstairs?”

  Montoya shook his head. “Don’t know.”

  “We don’t go up to do rounds?”

  “We don’t even have a key.”

  “The elevator?”

  “Turned off. Don’t have a key for that either.”

  Sloane tried to look surprised. “So, no idea what’s up there, huh?”

  “Nobody knows.” He showed Sloane where the bathroom was, behind the elevator, then picked up his backpack. “Have fun. I’m going home.” He started for the door, turned back. “Almost forgot.” He took the key off the ring and tossed it to Sloane. “You have to lock me out. When your relief comes, you give him the key. Nobody else gets in.”

  Sloane shut the door behind Montoya and locked it. Then he went behind the desk, waiting for the sound of a car engine. A minute later the blue Corolla drove past the front entrance, the sound of its engine fading as it sped off down the street. Sloane pulled out his cell phone and called Alex. “I’m in. Any traffic?”

  She continued to monitor the calls into and out of On-Guard’s security center. “We’re good.”

  Sloane unzipped his backpack and pulled out the cigarette lighter and the chunk of tar shingle that had been atop the roof of the outhouse. He held the flame to the tar until it began to smoke, knelt, and slid it halfway under the door that presumably opened to a staircase to the second floor. He left it to smolder and went back to the desk, calling the Winchester County Volunteer Fire Department. He gave the woman who answered the building address and said he smelled smoke in the stairwell. She asked Sloane to put his palm on the door and feel for heat. Sloane didn’t.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “It might be warm, but it’s hard to tell. I’d open it but I don’t have a key. The smell is pretty strong, though.”

  The woman said they’d send out a truck. Sloane hung up and spoke into his cell. “We still good?”

  “Still good,” Alex said.

  Sloane ditched the tar shingle along the back of the building. The fire department arrived in good time, thankfully different men than those who’d responded to the fire at Dave Bennett’s ranch the prior evening. He held the glass doors open as they pulled the truck to the curb and exited in full apparatus.

  “I can smell it in the stairwell,” Sloane said to the one who appeared in charge.

  The firefighter put his hand on the exterior of the door, feeling for heat.

  “Can you smell it?” Sloane asked.

  The man would have to have the mother of all colds not to be able to smell the burned tar. He sniffed at the door then dropped to a knee. “Yeah, definitely. Did you call the owner?”

  “My first night,” Sloane said. “Not really the way I want to get started, you know? I thought I’d call you guys first and see if it’s anything to be concerned about.”

  “You don’t have a key to this door?” The firefighter sounded incredulous.

  “Just the front door, but I think I saw a Knox-Box on the side of the building.”

  The firefighter directed another one of the responders to check the Knox-Box before turning back to Sloane. “Why don’t they give you a key?”

  Sloane shrugged. “Like I said, my first night.”

  When the second responder returned with a ring containing three keys, Sloane felt a great sense of relief. Molia’s intuition had been correct. The firefighter felt the door again before slowly opening it. When no flames leaped out he stepped into the stairwell. Sloane followed, feeling the weight of the metal reinforced door. They proceeded to a second door at the top of the stairs. The lead firefighter again placed his palm flat against it before he inserted the key. The lock did not turn. Sloane felt a twinge of anxiety, but the firefighter flipped the ring to the third key, inserted it, and the handle turned.

  Sloane wasn’t sure what he expected to find. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the second floor had been completely empty. But it wasn’t empty. Blue light glowed from a dozen computer screens aligned along folding tables. And that was it for furniture. Sloane saw no chairs, no telephones, no desk lamps, garbage cans, pens or pencils, staplers, no pieces of paper. In fact, there were no keyboards on the tables, just the computers and the monitors and black electrical cords snaking out the backs.

  The firefighter looked equally perplexed. “What kind of business is this?”

  Sloane shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

  The man pulled open a closet door, revealing the blinking and glowing lights of a computer server. “Well, at least there’s no fire,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Sloane said. “I guess that’s good.”

  “Ordinarily we’d check to make sure nothing was smoldering, but…”

  “I’ll lock up,” Sloane said. “I don’t want to waste anymore of your time. Sorry to have bothered you.”

  The firefighters departed, boots echoing as they descended the stairwell. Sloane stepped to the windows facing the street. They were treated with a film to prevent anyone from seeing in, but he could see out. He waited until the fire truck drove off before going back to the computer screens. Each displaye
d two columns of numbers, a series of nine-digit numbers rolled from the bottom to the top of the screen in one column, and ten-digit numbers did the same in a second column. The digits were all different.

  He pulled out his cell phone, about to call Alex, when it vibrated in his hand to indicate he’d received a text message.

  Fire department called Boykin. Boykin called On-Guard. Car dispatched. Move!

  Sloane had a camera in the backpack, but there’d be no time for that now. He called Alex as he went back to the first computer monitor.

  “How much time do I have?”

  “Minutes.”

  “I’m going to take a few pictures on my cell and send them to you.”

  “No time. Just leave.”

  “Have to. I’ll explain later. If I don’t get out, at least you’ll have them.”

  He hung up before she could respond and took a picture of the first screen, fumbled with the apps, attached the photo to an e-mail, and sent it.

  He called. “First photo is on its way. Let me know when you get it.”

  “Just get the hell of there, David.”

  “Just let me know.”

  He went to the windows, looking down at the deserted street. “Okay, it came through. I’m opening it now.” Seconds passed. “Got it,” she said.

  “Can you use it?”

  “What is it?”

  “Computer screen. I’ll explain more later. Can you read the numbers?”

  “Hold on, I’m playing with it. Yeah. Yeah I can use it. I can read them. Now get out. Go!”

  “I’m going to send more.”

  “Shit! No! Leave!”

  He hung up and took a picture of the second screen, attached and sent it, silently urging it to finish. When it did, he repeated the process at the third and fourth screens, realized he was pushing his luck and started for the door. He heard a car engine. Back at the windows he watched a black SUV stop out front of the building and a man and a woman step out, both in On-Guard uniforms, both armed. They talked on the sidewalk, gesticulating before the SUV drove around the side of the building and turned in to the parking lot. At least three, Sloane thought. Not good odds.

  He started toward the door at the top of the stairs, about to close it when he realized he couldn’t lock it from the inside. The dead bolt was on the outside. He considered the rest of the office but found little to work with. He circumvented the room, looking out the building windows and found what he was hoping for on the east side, a fire escape. He snapped free the lock atop the window frame, tried to slide it up, and momentarily panicked when the window stuck. With greater effort he was able to raise it enough to slide his hands beneath the frame and used brute force to pull it up. About to step out onto the landing, he saw the padlock secured to the release mechanism that would have otherwise dropped the ladder.

  Dead end.

  Footsteps in the stairwell. Sloane was out of time and options.

  Sloane watched the man enter the second floor and sweep his gun left. The woman followed behind him and swept the room in the opposite direction. These were not your ordinary security guards. They paused, eyes scanning the room, listening. The man gave a hand signal that he would move to the closet.

  Look to the window. Look to the window.

  The woman turned her head. Bingo. She’d seen the open window. She gave her partner some nonverbal signal and he changed course, stepping quietly away from the closet. Sloane let out a held breath. He lost sight of them from his hiding place inside the closet but kept listening. In his mind he imagined the woman leaning out the open window and noticing the lock preventing escape to the street. He hoped it would cause her to look up, as it had Sloane, and when she did she would see the piece of shirt he’d ripped and stuck in one of the rungs leading to the roof. He heard the fire escape rattle and emerged from behind the computer server in the closet. He watched through the gap between the closet door and the doorjamb. The woman stood on the fire escape landing looking up. The man climbed up the rungs ahead of her. Then she followed. Sloane hurried across the room, checked the stairwell, saw no one at the bottom, and closed the door to the room and applied the dead bolt. He heard footsteps walking on the roof. He had contemplated the roof but realized it presented the same problem as a means of escape as locking the door; it might have bought him some time, but he’d only have been cornering himself. That left the closet as his only place to hide, which also made it his pursuer’s first choice to search. Opening the window to the fire escape, he’d hoped, would give them a different choice, or at least one that would keep them from focusing too intently on the closet. He had left the closet door open for the same reason, hoping it would persuade them not to consider it too closely.

  At the bottom of the stairs he checked the lobby. Empty. The driver had likely stayed with the SUV. That would be a problem, but only if Sloane could get to Bennett’s truck. One problem at a time.

  He closed the door at the bottom of the landing, locked it, and moved quickly to the front door, pausing to ensure the street was empty before exiting in the opposite direction of the parking lot. He had devised his plan in the closet, but he was, to a large extent, just taking the path of least resistance.

  At the east corner of the building he stepped from the sidewalk into the shadows and pressed his back against the rock wall, looking up and watching the fire escape, waiting. The fire escape rattled, the woman stepping over the roof ledge and descending. The man followed her down. When both had slipped in the window Sloane continued along the side of the building to the back where he had ditched the burning piece of tar. He continued to the corner abutting the parking lot and heard the chatter of hushed voices. The guard in the parking lot was monitoring his colleagues’ progress through the building on a hand-held radio. The woman’s voice came through loud and clear.

  “Doors locked. Shit, he locked the damn door.”

  The man’s voice, “We’re locked on the second floor. Repeat. We’re locked on the second floor.”

  Sloane dropped to a knee and peered around the corner. The third guard rushed from the parking lot in the direction of the front entrance, unconcerned with leaving his post because he had parked the SUV perpendicular to the front of Bennett’s truck, thinking he had blocked it in place.

  Sloane stepped from his hiding place but did not immediately climb into the cab of Bennett’s truck. He walked to the driver’s side of the SUV, ducked under the dash, and pulled at any wire he could find, hoping at least one would prevent the car from starting.

  He slid into Bennett’s truck cab, started the engine, and pressed hard on both the brake and the accelerator. With the engine revved he dropped the truck into drive and slid his foot off the brake. The truck shot forward, the plow crashing into the side of the SUV with a horrific metallic crunch, pushing the front end across the asphalt, its tires protesting. He quickly reversed to give himself a running start, shifted into low, and again punched the accelerator. The plow hit the SUV with greater momentum and force, freeing more than enough room for the truck to get out and not with a moment to spare.

  As the truck’s tires bounced over the curb into the street the third guard returned, gun in hand, and took a shooter’s stance. Sloane swerved and drove directly at him, punching the accelerator.

  THE SUTTER BUILDING

  WINCHESTER, CALIFORNIA

  The front door to the building remained open, one of Dillon’s security guards waiting in the lobby, his shirt torn and dirty. He had abrasions on his forearms and forehead.

  “Where are the others?” Boykin asked.

  “He locked them upstairs.”

  Boykin felt a rush of panic. “What are you talking about? No one is to go upstairs.”

  “That’s where he was, apparently.”

  “Who?”

  “The guy driving the truck.”

  “What are you talking about? What truck?”

  “The one that nearly ran me over.”

  Boykin flushed. “You let him
get away?”

  “The truck was parked in the lot. I pinned it against the wall.”

  “Then how the hell did he get away?”

  “It had a snow blade on the front. He pushed his way out.”

  “I mean how did he get into the truck with you watching it?”

  The man began to stutter. “I waited with the car. They radioed and said he locked the door to the second floor. They couldn’t get out.”

  “He locked the door? How did he get a God damned key?” Boykin asked. None of the guards had keys. Then he remembered the call at home. The fire. “Was there any evidence of a fire?”

  “Not that I saw.”

  Boykin stepped back outside. The Knox-Box was unlocked, the keys inside missing. “Son of a bitch.”

  He pulled out his cell phone, shouting to the guard in the lobby as he made the call. “You. Come here.” He spoke into the phone. “One of them got into the second floor. He called in a God damned fire and used the key in the Knox-Box. I don’t know exactly how he did it. No, they let him get away.”

  The guard approached. Boykin questioned him. “What kind of truck was it?”

  “Chevy,” he said. “Older model. Beat up. It had a snow blade on the front. I wrote down the license number.”

  Wade had told Boykin that the truck parked in front of the Sutter Building had a snow blade. Boykin took the piece of paper and relayed the information into the phone as he handed the guard his set of keys. “Get the other two out and relock the door. Wait for me in the lobby.” Speaking back into the phone he said, “If it was Sloane or the detective they’re likely headed back to Gold Creek. Get something set up. I don’t know what, God damn it. Just do what you have to do.”

  HIGHWAY 89

  WINCHESTER COUNTY, CALIFORNIA

  Sloane felt his adrenaline rush subsiding, but he continued to check the rear and side mirrors for headlights. When satisfied he had not been followed he turned his cell back on. He’d shut it off when he stepped into the closet. As he waited for it to power up he could feel his body continuing to decompress, like a balloon leaking helium.

  He used the center dashes to anticipate the curves beyond the reach of the truck’s dull headlights, waiting until he came to a relatively straight stretch of road before he called Alex.