by Andrew Grant
“How are you helping anyone, just spinning your wheels?” he said. “Maybe it is an old-timer’s hunch. Maybe we’re stretching logic a little, here. But if a building full of people get killed because of this, how are you going to feel? Knowing that’s all on you? Or if Tony escapes permanently this time?”
“I’ll have a look at the place,” I said. “But I’ll take my phone. And I’ll expect a call the second you get an address. Preferably Reith’s.”
“Perfect. You have my word. I’ll sit on it, all the way. You’ll hear the second I do.”
“I better.”
“You will. And there’s something else I can do to help. Could you find your way to the Quincy El stop?”
“If I needed to. Why?”
“It’s only a stone’s throw from the Sears Tower. Wait there, and I’ll get the plans of the building biked over to you. If someone’s planning to gas everyone inside, they’ll need access to the ventilation system. And this way, you’ll know where to look for them. If you think that’s a good idea.”
“It’s definitely a good idea. As long they’re up to date. If we’re going to take potshots at a place, it’s better not to do it completely in the dark.”
“OK, then. Why not head over there now? I’ll try not to keep you waiting for the messenger. It’s good you’re going, David. I’ll sleep a lot better, knowing we’ve left no stone unturned.”
NINETEEN
When I was in school, I had a teacher who liked to crack people’s heads together.
That certainly grabbed their attention, but I can’t honestly say it helped them to learn anything. In the navy, we had an instructor who used a different approach. He used to crash different quotations together to make his points. Or his own versions of quotations, anyway. For example, when it came to teamwork he liked to tell us—
Lads, remember this. No man is an island.
Followed by—
Be not afraid of helpfulness. Some men are born helpful. Some achieve helpfulness. And some have helpfulness thrust upon them.
I did remember what he said. I agreed with it. And I came across all three types of people, over the years.
I found the first group is always the easiest to work with.
But the last group is a whole lot more fun.
The Sears Tower completely dominates West Quincy Street between the El stop and its east facade. It’s unmissable, but its black frame, dark glass, and irregular profile make it seem moody rather than magnificent. It may be taller than the World Trade Center used to be, but to look at, I’d never have guessed. It just doesn’t have the same brutal, uncompromising presence of the Twin Towers. Or the elegance of the Empire State Building. The exuberance of the Chrysler. Or even the symmetry of the Hancock Center, a few blocks away. But as I stood and stared up at the tips of its antennas, a hundred-plus stories above me, I couldn’t help feeling a sense of awe. It was still the tallest building in the United States. It had been the tallest in the world for over twenty years. And that was without any shenanigans over the way it was measured, which in itself demands respect. It would be a shame for something bad to happen to it. I was pretty sure Fothergill was just seeing ghosts in the shadows, but making completely sure no longer felt like such a waste of time.
The plans that Fothergill had supplied gave me exactly the level of detail I needed. They showed three obvious places for gaining access to the ventilation system. The main plant room in the lower basement, and subsidiary control points on the thirty-fourth and sixty-eighth floors. Checking those would be quick and easy. The dilemma would come if I didn’t find anything at any of them. Because it looked like you could get into the risers at nine separate locations on each floor. Which was a thousand or so places. And there was only one of me. Those weren’t the greatest of odds.
The main pedestrian entrance to the Sears Tower is on Jackson Boulevard, but I ignored that and headed for the loading dock at the opposite side of the building, on Adams Street. The truck door was rolled all the way down, and the personnel door was closed. Both were locked. Access for vehicles was controlled by an intercom mounted on a tall, skinny pillar. I checked, and saw it included only a call button and a video camera. Ignoring the voice in my head that said I should have fetched more cappuccino, I examined the touch pad on the nearby door frame. It was for proximity cards only. There was no keypad, so no chance of using a fire number. Which left three choices. Try my luck with the receptionist, around at the front. Wait for a vehicle to arrive, and use it for cover. Or talk my way past anyone I could get to open this door.
The door was made of hollow metal, and it made a decent amount of sound when I banged it with the flat of my hand. I did that repeatedly, but no one came. I’d just about decided it was time for a new approach when I heard a voice behind me. I turned around slowly and calmly, like I was entitled to be there, and saw two men approaching. One was in his twenties, and was wearing a security guard’s uniform. He was walking backward, keeping an eye on the other guy who could have been anywhere from fifty to eighty. His filthy clothes and unkempt, straggly hair made it impossible to be sure. He was following the younger man, and grasping at his jacket as he struggled to keep up.
“Come on, Pops,” the guard said. “Nearly there. Come on. Keep moving.”
He was leading the tramp along the drive toward the vehicle entrance. Then, when he was only about halfway down, he veered off to the side. He seemed to be heading into a corner formed by two brick walls, next to where the three of the building’s Dumpsters were kept. I guessed he had something hidden there, but I couldn’t see what. Maybe food, I thought, saved from one of the restaurants. Or clothes, that careless visitors had left behind.
“Come on, you worthless piece of crap,” the guard said.
The old guy kept on moving, and the expression on his face didn’t change. He still looked like an excited kid in a toy shop, not quite daring to believe he was going to be given a long-dreamed-of treat.
“Move, you sack of shit,” the guard said. “Did I tell you to stop, you useless asshole?”
All of a sudden a completely different theory entered my head. I looked up the side of the building. I counted six security cameras. They were all pointing in different directions, covering the area outside the loading bay. But if you looked closely, you could see there was one blind spot. One place where nothing you did would be recorded. It was the spot near the Dumpsters. The spot that the guard had almost reached.
“I’m going to show you what happens to scumbag assholes who prefer not to work,” he said, grabbing the tramp by his lapels and spinning him around. “You hobos make me want to puke.”
“Excuse me,” I said, stepping out of the shadows. “Are you related to this gentleman in some way?”
“What?” he said. “Who are you?”
“I’m his assertiveness counselor. I keep an eye open, and anytime I see him in an adversarial situation, I help to explore alternative strategies for bringing about a more positive outcome. From his perspective, anyway. So unless you’re his long-lost nephew or some other family member, you’re going to need to take your hands off him.”
“Me? Related to him? Screw you, man.”
“Sometimes I offer advice. Sometimes I give practical demonstrations. Today I’m thinking that advice just isn’t going to be enough.”
“I’ll give you advice, man, if you don’t mind your business.”
“Speaking of business, I’m also his financial adviser. I help out whenever money needs to be transferred. Take this current situation as an example. The cash that’s in your pocket? It needs to move into his.”
“The hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you apologizing to this unfortunate gentleman, and giving him all your money.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Because if you don’t, I’m going to break your legs, then take it anyway.”
“Oh yeah? Go for it, man.”
“One other questi
on, first. Do you work here, in this building?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Do you have a card to open that door?”
The guy didn’t speak, but his face gave me the answer I wanted.
“OK, then,” I said. “The terms have changed. The Early Bird Discount is no longer valid. Now it’s a case of money and apology to him, ID card to me.”
He didn’t respond.
“Normally I’d give you three to comply, but as I don’t have time to teach you to count, I’m just going to have to—”
I punched him in the face. Hard. The back of his head hit the brick wall, his legs turned to jelly, and he went down in an undignified, uncoordinated heap. I reached down and took the proximity card from his shirt pocket, then rolled him over and fished out his wallet. His Social Security card was the only thing I needed, so I handed the rest to the tramp. He was standing in front of me, rooted to the spot, looking mildly bemused.
“Are you OK?” I said.
He nodded balefully.
“Take what you need,” I said. “It’s yours now. Just don’t get caught with his credit cards, OK? Or you’ll end up in jail.”
He nodded again. Then he turned and wandered away, shoving the wallet deep into his layers of underwear.
It would have made sense to snap the guard’s neck, but since he was a civilian I decided on a more lenient option. I could see three pens sticking out of the shirt pocket on the other side of his chest, so I helped myself to the center one and started to write on the back of his hand:
I have your SS number. 737-65-4344. I know where you live. Report your ID missing, and you’ll be hearing from me again.
TWENTY
During our training, not all the exercises turned out to be a success.
For some people, that was hard to take. But it wasn’t always their fault. It wasn’t necessarily down to not trying hard enough, or not having the necessary skills, or even not having the rub of the green on a given day. It was down to some of the tasks we were given being literally impossible. They were designed that way. Not out of cruelty. Not to torment anyone who had a perfectionist streak running through them. But because in the field, not everything you try will come out right. So you need to know how to deal with that. And learn how to boil things down afterward, to make sure you gain from the experience.
Sometimes, though, things went wrong because people did make mistakes. And in our line of work, the most common one has to do with calling for backup. Specifically, when to do it. Because there are two ways to get it wrong.
You can do it too early.
Or you can leave it too late.
Throughout my time in the navy I’ve observed a kind of law that governs the process of looking for things. It states that whatever you need to find, you never come across it in the first place you try. It seems like there’s a kind of invisible force at work, making sure you put in an arbitrarily determined amount of effort before being allowed to walk away with your prize. And though it might sound crazy, this principle certainly held true when I was sneaking around in the Sears Tower, searching for the Spektra gas.
In the absence of any rational way to choose between the most likely locations, I flipped a mental coin and decided to start at the bottom of the building and work my way up. And even though the lower basement was the closest of the three destinations to the entrance I’d used, it still took a good ten minutes to reach it. The floor plan helped me avoid any wrong turns—as well as the security stations—but it didn’t do justice to the size and scale of the corridors and stairwells. Close your eyes and you could easily believe you were on a treadmill, it took so long to get from one end of the building to the other.
The facilities in the lower basement were fantastically well organized. The plan referred to a plant room, but plant suite would have been a more accurate description. There was one room for the wet services, and another for the dry. Everything was clearly labeled. All the service and maintenance logs were present and complete. I checked everything thoroughly, and found no sign of anything untoward attached to the ventilation system. And no record of anyone having worked on it recently, either.
It was the same story in the second place I tried, on the thirty-fourth floor. The rooms were smaller and there was less documentation, but I saw nothing to make me suspicious. And while I’m no expert on heating or air-conditioning, I’ve seen plenty of sabotage attempts over the years. Consulate staffers all around the world are well trained. They’re told to raise the alarm whenever they’re unsure about any part of their infrastructure, and then we’re called in to investigate. I’ve been sent to look into strange additions to water systems. Electric cabling. Data networks. E-mail servers. Even kitchen appliances, in one strange case. And because the overall attitude is better safe than sorry, a lot of the things I’ve seen are perfectly innocent. Which has helped me develop a pretty good sense of when things have been tampered with, and when they haven’t. And how people disguise the things they’d rather you didn’t see.
By the time I reached the sixty-eighth floor, I was getting a real feeling for life in the building. It reminded me of several of the organizations I’d been sent to infiltrate over the last decade. The offices looked perfectly ordinary, with all the trappings of people’s daily lives left strewn around for anyone to see. There were birthday cards on six different desks on four separate floors. Cardigans hanging on the back of chairs. Chipped mugs left to drain in sinks. Small soft toys displayed in cubicles like mascots. All kinds of little details that brought home the reality of the corporate routine. It was starting to feel so familiar that when I reached the service position, despite what that would mean in terms of searching the risers, I was actively hoping I wouldn’t find anything.
And once again, I was disappointed.
Space was tight in the utility area, but right away I could see that something was wrong over on the left-hand side. Someone had managed to divert one of the core ventilation pipes so that it ran in a D-shape just in front of the wall. A line of connecting valves had been added along the lower horizontal section. There were four. Two were empty. Two weren’t, and when I saw what had been attached, my stomach knotted and my hand reached immediately for my phone. It was a pair of matte green cylinders. Spektra gas. There was no doubt. And on the floor, next to an old, scratched wrench, was another one waiting to be installed.
Fothergill had just correctly predicted the most audacious terrorist threat since 9/11. He’d convinced me to break into the Sears Tower to find proof of it. And I was happy to take my hat off to him. But when I called his number to tell him he was right, I got his voice mail. I hung up, and decided to give him another minute. If he still didn’t respond, I’d be left with no choice. This was too important to gamble with, or worry about saving face. We needed all hands to the pumps. So as much as he’d be upset, I’d have to call the police. And then London.
My next attempt at reaching Fothergill produced the same result, and I’d got as far as dialing the 9 of 911 when I heard movement. It was nearby. Someone was in the corridor. No. It sounded like two people. They were approaching fast. I dodged back against the wall to the side of the door and held my breath. The footsteps paused for a moment, right outside the little room. I heard voices. There were definitely two people. Both were men. They had heavy South African accents, and were discussing recent football matches in the Dutch league, of all things. One guy reached the punch line of his story, the other laughed, and the door swung open. Both guys came in, and when the door closed again they were less than four feet away from me. Close enough for me to smell their aftershave. I saw they were dressed identically. They had crisp blue coveralls, with W logos on their chests. Shiny black safety boots on their feet. And on chains strung around their necks, building security passes. Just like the one I was using.
Thoughts of calling anyone had to go on hold.
“Gentlemen,” I said, slipping the phone in my pocket and leveling my Beretta at the nearer guy’s ches
t. “I hope you have an eye for a bargain. Because you’re in luck. Today’s two-for-one day.”
Neither of the guys reacted.
“Let me be more specific,” I said. “You’re going to be disconnecting two gas canisters, instead of installing one.”
Neither guy moved.
“Or, we could try an alternative version,” I said. “Two of you get shot in the head by one of me. Two bullets each. Your choice.”
The guys glanced at each other, shrugged, and raised their hands to chest level. Then they looked at me straight in the face, calmly and sensibly, and evaluated the situation. I knew they were considering jumping me. They had the confident, controlled manner of people who were used to taking care of themselves. The confined conditions were in their favor, as well as their numerical advantage. And if they were professionals, they’d know the odds were that one of them would end up taking the gun.
But they’d also know the odds were that the other would end up taking a bullet.
Discretion won the day.
Until the third guy arrived. He was older. Most likely in his fifties. He was dressed in an expensive-looking black ribbed sweater and loose beige cord pants. And he had a gun. It was already in his hand when I saw him, standing in the doorway. But instead of pointing it at me, he aimed it at the loose cylinder on the ground.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m actually over here.”
The guy raised one eyebrow, but didn’t speak.
“I’m just telling you because if you want to shoot me, you’d be better off pointing your gun in my general direction,” I said.