“Stairwells?”
Carter nodded. “Locked the minute we give the word.”
Agent Carter turned toward her equipment table and proceeded to conduct a routine fifteen-minute interval radio check. Hildebrandt established that his ear piece and collar mike set was in working order, then sat down by the window opposite Brophy. Too wired to contemplate food, he refused the offer of an Italian hoagie and simply tried to relax.
Monday, July 13
ONE HUNDRED MILES SOUTH and seven hours later, Emily Chang was finally beginning to see the fruits of their effort. Digits on her computer screen informed her it was 1:27 A.M.; as best Thackeray could determine, they had nine hours within which to complete their programming. Technically speaking, the process of writing code was already complete, but without running the software through a successful simulation it was too early to celebrate. They were guardedly optimistic of their ability to thwart the next attack—notwithstanding the troublesome fact that neither Stuart, nor the parameters he had promised to deliver, were anywhere to be found.
Completing the task in front of them would otherwise be a matter of staying alert and for this she relied on an abundance of strong green tea. Text on the computer screen scrolled up and disappeared in a seemingly endless procession, while the message in the upper corner indicated that simulation number two-zero-seven had just passed EIGHTY-SEVEN PERCENT COMPLETE—so far, without a hitch. ‘In the bag this time,’ was Thackeray’s opinion, who then retreated outside to stand with his back to the sliding glass doors, gazing up at the night, watching cigarette smoke drift up past the back yard floods. That’s when the lights went out.
“Thack!” Emily shouted. Her panic subsided upon finding herself and the room bathed in the pixelized glow of computers. A few seconds passed before the muffled purr of a small internal combustion engine invaded the early morning peace.
Thackeray rushed inside and stared, frowning, into her computer screen.
“Forget to pay your bills?” she asked. “Actually...I think everything looks okay.”
“Should be, although I never really tested it.”
“So you’ve got a UPS.” Uninterruptible power supplies were a luxury most normal people wouldn’t bother with. “How long is it good for? We’re not nearly ready to shut down.”
“It’ll last as long as the fuel. Reminds me, I should go check the level.” He looked at her. “Did you happen to hear anything strange when the power failed? I mean, other than your shriek?”
“Like what?”
Thackeray shrugged and shook his head. She heard him mumble something about a flashlight before disappearing into the house.
Emily breathed a sigh of relief, when her heart again leaped into her throat. This time a rude message flashed in the middle of her screen: LINE FAULT COMMUNICATION FAILURE END ROUTINE.
“Oh, no...THACK!”
“What now?” Thackeray’s voice echoed.
“We just lost the mainframe!” She thought to pick up the telephone. Disaster; the line was dead. “Now the phone line’s down!” The slam of the front door ricocheted through the capacious but mostly empty house.
THACKERAY FINISHED topping off the tank supplying the generator, thankful for having foresight enough to keep a full five-gallon container of gasoline on hand. He replaced the can inside the tool cabinet in back of the garage, and returned to the Honda genset to retrieve his flashlight. What gives with the telephone line? he wondered.
Shining his light at the electric and cable services boxes on the side of the garage quickly revealed the problem.
EMILY CUPPED HER HANDS against the windowpane. No lights shone from other houses in the neighborhood. Given their seclusion and the early hour, that alone probably meant nothing. She heard scuffling feet and turned to find Thackeray, barely visible behind the beam of his flashlight while making his way along the hallway toward her. “What did you...Thack?” He was walking unsteadily.
Someone gave him a shove and Thackeray stumbled forward to a halt.
“Hello Emily,” the familiar voice said. A face topped by a thick dark cap emerged from the darkness. Paul Devinn smiled.
Emily saw that he was leveling a handgun from his waist.
“You’re supposed to be surprised to see me alive.”
She refused to reveal how terrified she was. “I’m not surprised, just disappointed.”
Thackeray said, “So you know this fuckin’ dope?”
Devinn snatched Thackeray’s flashlight and shoved him roughly by the collar toward a chair. “Sit down and shut up.”
Emily gasped at the smear of blood above Thackeray’s eyebrow. She asked Devinn, “What is it you want?”
Devinn directed the flashlight toward Thackeray. “I want you to stand next to him.” When Emily didn’t instantly move, he raised his gun and aimed it into her face. Emily took several steps before tripping over cables and stumbling against Thackeray’s shoulder.
Devinn played the beam over the floor, reached down and tugged an electrical cord from a wall socket. Attached to the other end was a printer, which he jerked to the floor. He flung the length of cord at Emily. “Use that to tie his hands behind his back.”
Thackeray stared at the pistol in his face while holding his arms behind the back of his chair. Emily began wrapping the cord around where his wrists came together. “Paul—”
“Tight,” he said, cutting her off. “Okay, now one loop around the seat back. Press your foot against the back and pull it...tighter, that’s it. Tie it off. Good.”
Devinn ordered Emily into the other swivel chair. He tied her up in a similar fashion. “Not cutting into your wrist, I hope.” He wheeled Emily’s chair beside Thackeray, and positioned himself in a chair facing them.
For several minutes they sat quietly, nobody saying a word as Devinn alternated the quivering beam of light between their squinting eyes.
“Here’s the deal,” Devinn finally said, aiming the beam on his wristwatch, “and I haven’t got all night. You tell me everything I need to know, I’m on my merry way, never to be heard from again. If you make it difficult for yourselves...let’s not go there. First question”—Devinn passed the light over the three computer monitors to his left. “You’ve been very busy here, doing precisely what? Something tells me you’re not catching up on your e-mail.”
Neither captive uttered a sound.
“Tell me what’s going on here.”
“Catching up on our e-mail,” Thackeray replied with a shrug.
Devinn rose calmly from his chair and approached Thackeray, who instinctively withdrew from the bright light inches from his face. It was impossible for him to see the wide, arcing swing of Devinn’s left hand. The butt end of Devinn’s pistol landed with a wet-sounding thud against the side of Thackeray’s mouth, snapping his head sideways and backwards.
“Thack—no!” Emily cried.
“I’ll fuckin’ kill you for that!” shouted Thackeray.
Devinn sat back down. “Don’t bet on it.”
Thackeray spit something small and hard onto the floor. “Som’ bitch busted my teeth!”
Devinn trained the light on Thackeray’s blood stained lips. Bloody drool in his beard mingled with a red trickle from a gash in his cheek.
“See how this works?” Devinn’s tone was casually supportive, as if cautioning awestruck children. “Oh. It’s only fair to inform you that I probably know enough to tell when you’re lying. For instance, I know that Stuart apparently believes somebody stole intellectual property from CLI. I know that you are both obviously working on something important here, as you have pretty much around the clock for the past few days. I know the government has shut down your regular offices.”
“We’d be using computers there if we could,” Thackeray growled. “We can’t, so we’re doing our job here. What’s the big deal?”
Devinn ignored the refrain. “Nobody seems to know where my good friend Stuart is. And this pace...you seem to be rushing to finish this,
whatever it is. What, before he shows up? To prevent him from stopping you?” He played the beam back and forth between two obstinate faces. Thack’s chest rose and fell, still catching his breath. “Mmm—no, I don’t think so. I see loyal employees—obedient pawns. Don’t try my patience. Fill me in on the plan. Make it easy on yourselves.”
Devinn held the light on Emily: you next.
“So that’s what Joanne Lewis told you?” Emily blurted.
Devinn held the light steady.
“You nearly killed her. You did kill Sean Thompson. Why should we expect you’ll treat us any differently?”
Devinn leaned back in his chair. “Lewis... Don’t think I know a Lewis.”
If her disclosure had prompted any visible surprise, Emily couldn’t see it behind the beam of the flashlight.
DEVINN ACTUALLY APPRECIATED that she had just confirmed his suspicion. He had been right, after all, to assume his cover was blown.
He said, “Care to tell me what break-through you’re working on these days, Emily? I’ve always had such great respect for your brains, all the intelligent Asian blood flowing through that lovely body of yours—let’s agree to keep all that where it belongs. But you’ve got to do your part to help me. What is it you do for CLI?”
“Emily doesn’t know what’s going down here,” Thackeray said in a raspy voice. “She works for me.”
“That true?” He held the light in her face, intrigued by Thackeray’s response to threats aimed at her. “I’d have guessed the other way around.”
“Don’t you dare answer him,” said Emily to Thackeray.
Devinn tucked the pistol into his waist band.
Thackeray shouted, “NO!”
The blow to Emily’s face knocked her senseless. She hung her head forward with her chin on her chest.
Thackeray leaped to his feet. Hobbled by the chair tied to his back, Devinn easily knocked him tumbling backwards onto the floor. Thackeray launched a second assault, repeating the cycle, this time arousing Devinn’s amused laughter as he stooped to retrieve his cellular phone.
Minutes later, Emily’s eyelids remained steadily open, appearing fully lucid again. He trained the light, back and forth, studying their faces.
* * *
BY 2:58 A.M., THE FBI TEAM knew they had passed into the zone too early to conclude a no-show, and too late to do much about it.
“Say, Nick,” Hildebrandt’s tone reflected the tedium typical of stake-outs, “what reasons can you give for our Carl Smith to suddenly start using his credit card again?”
Brophy pulled his face from the spotting scope, rubbing his eyes. “Well, he could be getting low on cash,” Brophy suggested the obvious. “The Hilton isn’t exactly Motel 6.”
“To which one might ask, why stay at the Hilton?”
“We’ve seen that he likes pricey places. You read the profile work-up. The guy’s liable to be feeling his oats.”
“Yeah, and if he’s feeling that complacent, why not stop by the lounge downstairs for a drink?”
“I thought he doesn’t drink.”
Hildebrandt rubbed his face. “What I meant was, the shit left his bathroom kit. Why isn’t he here?” Mulling over the events of recent weeks, he remained unable to see what opportunity they might have provided for either Devinn or Bloch, his lawyer, to suspect that the FBI had placed them under surveillance. Their last material contact had not really occurred since the Type III was put into place, when Devinn—Smith—checked out of the New York Four Seasons. Counterintelligence staff examining the case believed the suspect was merely practicing prudent tradecraft. Perhaps, although it wasn’t as if Devinn was averse to using his credit card. He had maintained its use for the ongoing rental car contract. Ford Motor did confirm the engine-to-serial number match on the van found after the refinery explosion. So, cash for the truck and the van... Had a pattern shift occurred there? Of course, he didn’t need credit card deposits at either of those outfits. He apparently had no need to spend additional money while abducting the CLI lawyer.
Hildebrandt asked Brophy, “Do we have the phone number handy where Emily Chang and the other guy are holed up?”
Brophy reached inside his shirt pocket and handed his partner a slip of paper.
Hildebrandt punched the area code and number into his cellular telephone. He heard the customary sounds of a call going through, followed by a recorded message indicating that the customer’s service was out of order. He snapped off the telephone.
Brophy recognized Hildebrandt’s expression. “What’re you thinking?”
“No service.” Hildebrandt depressed his collar mike. “TOC to Charlie group, I’d like a count-off of the number of cars you’ve seen drive by in the last hour.”
“Charlie One to TOC, two passenger vehicles traveling opposite directions on Church. Neither entered the hotel premises.”
“Charlie One, any traffic leave the hotel?”
“Negative, not in the last hour.”
The other two squad cars called in with similar sightings. Traffic was light, as one would expect this time of morning.
Hildebrandt swore. “I’m wondering if Devinn could’ve known somehow of our stake-out. Alright, listen up...”
TEETERING AT THE ABYSS of personal bankruptcy, his only concern had been latching onto any financial lifeline within reach. Tonight, Steven Reedy was out of his game and he knew it.
At least the task was a simple one, Reedy thought while eyeing the lobby of the hotel through binoculars. Several minutes ago, it had looked as though there might be activity inside, perhaps patrons preparing to leave, but nobody had yet exited the building and no cars had left the parking area. He had been instructed to expect if anything a flourish of activity—a dozen or so people and multiple cars. Hilton was not, after all, a charge-by-the-hour establishment. Couples trickling out in the middle of the night were not expected to interfere with his task.
Emma, his wife, did not expect him home from his business trip until late in the morning. He might as well try to relax, he thought with a sigh, resting the glasses against the steering wheel.
Reedy jumped nearly out of his seat at the figure appearing suddenly beside the door of his car.
The man stooped to take a closer look. “Would you mind stepping out, sir?”
Reedy could see that the man wasn’t a cop. He nonetheless maneuvered the glasses under his legs to the floor. “Why should I do that?”
The man pressed an identification badge against the window. “FBI.”
On the center console next to Reedy’s thigh was a cellular telephone, the numeral 2 key programmed to speed-dial a call. “Have I broken a law?” It was dark in the car, Reedy reasoned, easing his hand slowly toward the phone.
“I wouldn’t do that!”
Two metallic raps against the passenger window announced the agent wasn’t alone. Reedy turned toward the source of the noise to find a man with a pistol pointed into his face.
112
“JUST WHAT IS IT YOU THINK you’re protecting?” Devinn asked Emily Chang, attempting an appeal to her analytical side. “Your corporate servitude? A year-end bonus?”
Devinn finally grew tired of looking at the long drool of mucus hanging from Emily’s nose. He found a box of tissues on a table beside one of the computers, but the woman only recoiled from his outstretched hand.
He was beginning to fear that he had miscalculated their resolve. Measured doses of brutality had not produced the desired effect; if anything, his lashing out in frustration had been counter-productive. And yet they were typical of the average American citizen, even the Chinese immigrant, having no sort of training to endure torture, foreign to physical hardship or sacrifice throughout their obsessively consumptive lives. That he shared a similar background meant their tenacity served only to further perplex him.
Devinn flicked his wrist; Thackeray squinted, defiant, into the beam of the flashlight. Despite broken teeth, split and swollen lip, and blood running from his nose, the c
aptive refused to conform to expectations. As always he found amusing, if not pathetic, man’s quaint defense of woman, who in this case Thackeray obviously presumed to be weaker than he. Emily meanwhile seemed to make bolstering her will against him a deeply personal matter.
Lee had revealed little of the technology in question, other than to say that it had the potential to be militarized. Was Devinn to infer these two were involved in assembling some sort of a weapon? That hardly explained such disregard for their own physical well being; albeit intelligent, these two were still fundamentally cogs in a wheel. He should have pressed Lee harder for a fuller account of what this CLI ordeal was about; that Lee hadn’t been more forthcoming was itself disturbing. Had it not been obvious that their tampering with the GW Bridge evidence was to conceal the effects of some type of laser device? Yet Lee had not been forthcoming on the role of either CLI or these individual employees. Did Lee really find him so untrustworthy? And having insisted that he approach both Chang and Thackeray, Lee had pushed him in a risky direction.
Exacerbating his frustration was concern that something had gone wrong at the hotel, in which case his time might have already expired. Again, he should have challenged Lee’s strict compartmentalization and insisted he provide the sentinel’s cell phone number. Moving his two captives elsewhere would prove to be challenging. He would have to ensure each was able to walk since he certainly couldn’t drag them, while preserving that option contradicted his need to intensify things.
Devinn searched the confusing digits advancing on Thackeray’s computer screen until discerning the time; 4:13 A.M. He noted again that time seemed to be of crucial importance to everyone involved. Maybe there was a way for him to both beat the clock and ensure at least one of his subjects was able to walk. Thackeray being the weaker of the two, and as he seemed to find inspiration in a woman’s inferiority, perhaps his chivalry could be useful...
Razing Beijing: A Thriller Page 66