by Glenn Cooper
The nurse said, “When they went to his house, that was the only photo he had, so they brought it here, which was nice. Who are the other men?”
“We were roommates at college.”
“You can tell he was a smart man even though he doesn’t talk.”
“Does anyone think he’s going to come out of this?” Will asked.
“Heavens, no!” the nurse exclaimed. “This is as good as he’ll ever be. The lights are on, but Lord knows that nobody’s home.”
She left Will at the bedside. He pulled up a chair and sat a foot away from the rails, staring into Shackleton’s empty eyes. He wanted to hate him. This unhappy little man had snared him like a rabbit and drawn him down into his mad world. He had force-fed him knowledge of the Library and sent his life spinning off into a strange orbit. Maybe it was all predestined, meant to be, but this pathetic man had willfully plotted to muck up Will’s life, and he had succeeded spectacularly.
But now he couldn’t muster hatred against this half-dead, creature, gasping like a fish out of water, whose face resembled the openmouthed, anguished character in Munch’s painting, The Scream. He could only feel a dull sadness for a life wasted.
He didn’t bother to speak to him, in the hopeful manner of the naive bedside visitor to the comatose. He just sat there and used the time to think about his own life, the choices he’d made, the paths traveled and those not. All the times he’d made decisions that had consequences affecting the lives of others, had each decision been predetermined by an unseen hand? Was he responsible for his own actions or not? Did planning his next move matter? Whatever was going to happen was going to happen, right? Maybe he wouldn’t go back to the warehouse and spend a miserable night looking for the memory stick. Maybe he’d just strip off his shirt and spend the night lying on the beach, watching the stars. Maybe that was the next move on the grand chessboard.
Will’s brain wasn’t wired to be overly philosophical. He was a practical man who operated by instinct and action. If he was hungry, he ate. If he was horny, he found a woman. If a marriage or a relationship made him unhappy, he left it. If he had a job, he did it. If there was a killer, he’d track him down.
Now he was a husband again. And a father again. He had a great wife and a son full of promise. He needed to dwell on them. Nancy and the baby had to guide his decision-making. If there were other forces at play, so be it. He shouldn’t over-think things. His next move was getting the memory stick. Then he’d metaphorically ram it up Frazier’s ass.
He felt better, more like the old Will.
And what about 2027?
End of days or not, it was years away. He had seventeen years to make up for five decades of selfishness. There was time to redeem himself.
It was a pretty good deal.
“Thanks, asshole,” he said to Shackleton.
Chapter 35
On the way back to the warehouse, Will made one good phone call and two bad ones.
Nancy wasn’t alone any longer. Will’s daughter and son-in-law had just arrived to keep her company at the lake and stay until Will returned. She sounded happily distracted, and Will could hear the pleasant sounds of cooking in the background.
The other calls were troubling. Dane didn’t answer his cell phone. A second call to the motel rang through, but no one picked up in the room. The clerk confirmed he had checked in. Will figured him for a heavy sleeper but was queasy, nonetheless.
At Area 51, Dane’s cell phone registered the missed-call number of Will’s prepaid mobile. A tech at the Ops Center picked up that number’s beacon just north of Long Beach, heading north. He called Frazier with the news.
Frazier grunted. It was good to know Piper’s mobile number, but hopefully he wouldn’t need it. He had Will under direct visual, and if all went well, he’d be in custody soon enough, and Frazier would have the database.
Then he’d swoop down on Henry Spence and pick up whatever it was that Piper had found in England.
He looked forward to getting Lester off his ass. He wanted to report that he’d done his job, the threat was over, their targets neutralized. He wanted to hear the bureaucrat fawn over him for a change. Then he’d take a few days off, maybe stain his deck or do something else pleasantly ordinary. At the one-week point from the Caracas Event, the base would be on lockdown, and he’d be living there twenty-four/seven.
It was still too early to make his move, so Will stopped for dinner a couple of miles from the warehouse. In the parking lot of the Chinese restaurant, he tried unsuccessfully to reach Dane again. This time he left a message on his voice mail: “It’s Will. It’s five thirty. Been trying to reach you. This is taking longer than expected. Call me as soon as you get this message.”
An hour later, he was still there, full of moo-shu pork and up to his gills in green tea. The restaurant had a nice bar, and there was plenty of alcohol to be had, but he kept pouring himself the wretched tea instead.
Before leaving, he cracked open his fortune cookie: The smart thing is to prepare for the unexpected. Thanks for that, he thought.
As he turned the corner into the warehouse parking lot, Will held his breath. It was empty. Blessedly, no second shift. It was a half hour past sunset and the rapidly diminishing light gave him comfort though he would have preferred pitch blackness. He drove around the building twice to make sure he was going to be okay, then parked around the side and made for the front door. The purloined security badge turned the little red light on the magnetic pad green, and the door clicked open. He was in.
He steeled himself for a security guard, but the lobby and reception desk were empty, lit only by a single lamp. The card worked a second time, and he was inside the main warehouse.
It wasn’t completely dark. A handful of ceiling fluorescents were on, illuminating the vast space in a highly dilutive glow.
The first thing that caught his eyes were the robots, a row of them at the front of the room. They were like giant TV sets without screens. Each one had an open box-shaped compartment with a V-shaped wooden support designed to securely hold a book by elasticized cover straps.
At the machine closest to him, a robotic arm was frozen in action, shut down for the night, grasping a page in a delicate pincer grip. The optical wand was poised to begin scanning when the robot powered up, and the page was laid down flat.
Behind the robots was a large open warehouse floor that was the industrial doppelganger of a library, row after row of black-metal bookcases that were low enough for a person to reach the top shelves comfortably. The perimeter of the warehouse was lined by darkened staff offices.
Will sighed at the task before him. There were surely tens of thousands of books. While there had to be some kind of catalogue-and-location system around, he imagined he’d spend as much time rummaging through offices and files as taking a shoe-leather approach. So he picked a row at one end of the warehouse and just began to walk.
Half an hour later, his mind was numbed by the sea of book spines, with their pressed-on warehouse bar codes. He had to be meticulous. He couldn’t be sure all the L.A. Municipal Code books were grouped together. To his dismay, he noticed that some collections were scattered like bird-seed. At the end of one of the rows, at the rear of the building, he stopped to call Dane again but got voice mail once more. Something was definitely wrong.
His eyes leapt to a glowing image. Inside the office nearest to where he stood, there was a black-and-white monitor, a security-cam view of the dim lobby. The nameplate on the door said MARVIN HEMPEL, GENERAL MANAGER. He could imagine the weedy plant manager sitting at his desk, slurping soup, voyeuristically watching the receptionist for his lunchtime activity. He shook his head and started on the next row.
He picked up the pace and forced himself to concentrate. If he weren’t careful, he’d spend hours at it, complete the job empty-handed, and have to do it all over again. He began to touch each spine with his fingertip to make sure it registered before moving on, but stray thoughts kept entering his m
ind.
Where was Dane?
How was Nancy doing?
How was the endgame going to play out?
Frazier had the warehouse encircled, but he fretted that he was light on the ground for a building of this size. Only six men to cover the front, the rear loading dock, and an emergency exit on each of the long sides. He had DeCorso and two others at the front. Piper had gone in that way, he’d most likely exit that way. He dispersed his own team of three, sending one man to each side exit. He covered the loading dock himself and kept imagining Piper slowly opening the door and opening his mouth as Frazier fired a round into his body. Piper wouldn’t die, but hopefully there’d be pain.
DeCorso, of course, was taking his last breaths. Frazier mentally bade him farewell. The next time they met, he’d probably be a corpse. Something was going to kill him within the next few hours. Piper? Friendly fire? A heart attack? The night wasn’t going to end quietly.
Another hour passed, and Will marked his spot by pulling a book out halfway. He went to the men’s room to let Chinese tea out of his system and splash cold water on his face.
At the same time, Frazier and DeCorso were having an urgent debate over their radios. What was taking Piper so long? Was there an exit they could have missed? Was it possible there was a tunnel system connecting warehouses in the park?
Frazier decided to send DeCorso’s team into the lobby as an intermediate move. It was a good point of control if Piper came out that way, and it was closer to the mark if they opted to enter and take him down. One of DeCorso’s men had a piece of standard hardware that quickly hacked magnetic security card readers. They entered the lobby and took up defensive positions.
Will was approaching the rear of the building again and in the last bookcase of his current row he got a shock, as if he’d brushed against a live wire.
There they were! A row of them, L.A. County Municipal Codes for the 1980s. Getting there, he thought, getting there.
He pivoted 180 degrees to inspect the first case in the next row, and his heart began to race with excitement. The entire case was filled with the tan books. They weren’t in order, but his eye flitted over volumes covering all decades.
The 1947 volume had to be there. Somewhere.
He touched each spine and said the year out loud. He got to the bottom shelf. There, bent over, he touched it and quickly pulled it out-1947.
He sat down on the warehouse floor with the book on his lap and opened it wide, bowing the spine wide and tapping the heavy volume against the floor. The gun in his waistband bit into his leg, but he ignored the discomfort. There was a small, pleasant clatter as the plastic memory stick fell out onto the concrete. He closed his eyes and said a silent thanks.
When he got up, he saw that he was opposite the plant manager’s office again and instinctively he glanced at the TV monitor.
He froze.
There was movement on the screen.
Two men. No three. Weapons in their hands.
Watchers.
He pocketed the memory stick, drew out his Glock, and flicked the safety. There were seventeen in the mag and one in the chamber. That was it, no spares. Eighteen rounds wouldn’t last long in a firefight. There had to be a better way.
They’d have all the exits covered. At least he had a small edge on them. He could see them. Was there a way onto the roof? The warehouse was probably on a slab, but if there was a sublevel, he’d better find out.
He ran around the building, looking for escape routes, figuring the angles, returning to the office with each circuit to check on the lobby crew.
There weren’t any attractive options. He thought quickly and steeled himself for violence. He was BTH, but for all he knew, the next time Nancy saw him, he’d look like Shackleton. Fear left a coppery taste in his mouth.
DeCorso heard Frazier in his earpiece demanding a status report. He started to whisper back, “It’s quiet, no signs of…” when all hell broke loose.
The office lights went blazing on and an ear-piercing siren started blaring, almost too loud to stand without clamping hands over ears.
“The fire alarm!” DeCorso shouted, loud enough for Frazier to hear above the din.
“It’s got to be central-alarmed!” Frazier screamed back. “The fire department’ll be here any minute! Go in now! Take him! My team-maintain your positions at the exits.”
“I copy!” DeCorso shouted. “We’re going in!”
DeCorso ordered his man to unlock the door, and the three of them flew into the warehouse and immediately spread out.
They almost stopped dead at the sight before them.
The entire row of robots was dancing in a conga line of animation. Robot arms were turning pages. Flashes of blinding light illuminated pages. Digitized images of text appeared on computer displays.
DeCorso saw something. Through the scanning box of one of the middle robots he thought he picked up a glimpse of black steel. He shouted over the pulsating blare of the fire alarms, “Gun!” and raised his own to fire.
Will was in firing position behind a robot. He squeezed off two shots and placed both of them in the center of DeCorso’s chest. The man blinked once, fell straight to his knees, then pitched forward hard. The two other watchers were very good, probably ex-special ops guys, and in the next few seconds, Will was conscious of their coolness under fire.
Neither was distracted by their team leader going down. The man on Will’s left dove behind a metal cart and began spraying fire at all the middle robots. It was clear he didn’t know exactly where Will was. Paper shredded, glass shattered, but the robot arms kept looking for pages to turn.
Will concentrated on the man to his right, who was in a low crouch, searching for a target, more exposed. He aimed for central mass and let loose a three-shot volley. The man grunted and slumped, blood spreading from under his jacket.
Will’s muzzle flash was an unavoidable beacon, and the third man fired into his robot. Will ducked behind the machine and felt a searing pain in his inner left thigh, as if someone had laid a red-hot branding iron across his flesh. His pant leg quickly soaked with blood. He couldn’t deal with it now. If his femoral artery were hit, it was over. He’d know soon enough. Things would go gray, then black.
The robots were closely enough spaced to form almost a solid wall. Will dragged himself to his left until he was behind the farthest one. He no longer knew where the last watcher was positioned. His leg was bleeding heavily, but his senses were all operating. If it were arterial, he’d be struggling by now.
Then the last watcher mistakenly obeyed an order.
Frazier was shouting into his earpiece like a lunatic. “What’s your status! Give me your goddamn status! Now!”
The man shouted back. “Two men down! Under fire! Front of the building!”
Will put his weight on his good leg and popped up through the robot’s scanning box like a whack-a-mole at a fairground. He aimed at the direction of the voice and put six rounds into the metal cart. The last watcher tried to rise but fell over, leaking blood from his abdomen.
Will quickly pulled his own belt from its loops and wrapped it around his thigh, cinching it as tightly as he could stand. He could just about bear weight. He made a mad dash over the bleeding men, limped through the lobby, and emerged into the moonless night.
There were fire-engine sirens in the distance, getting louder.
He didn’t know how many more watchers were out there, but he knew they’d have to cover the other exits at least for a while.
His car was only yards away.
He was going to make it.
Chapter 36
The blood oozed from Will’s thigh onto the car seat. He was buffeted by ripples of light-headedness, then slammed by a wave of nausea that forced him to pull over. He leaned out the open driver’s door and vomited onto the side of the road.
He had to deal with his wound quickly. He needed his mind to keep working crisply. Without that, he was lost.
Fraz
ier knelt over DeCorso’s body, checking for the carotid pulse he knew would be absent. Piper two-DeCorso zero, Frazier thought. Shot twice by the same guy, the second time fatal. Guess who was the better man? DeCorso’s wife was friendly with his. She’d get a good payout for a death in action, so it wasn’t a complete loss.
He’d have to get Piper himself.
The other two men were alive but not by a lot. He had his team call for an ambulance. There wasn’t anything they could do for them. He knew one of them was going to die. He knew the DODs for all his men, an operational imperative as far as he was concerned.
He didn’t know his own.
He could have broken the rules and found out, but he was always by the book. And besides, in his marrow, he was sure he was BTH.
The fire sirens were almost on top of them. On his way out, he noticed a blood trail back through the lobby. Good, he thought. I hope it hurts.
He drove away with his two able-bodied men before the fire department arrived. Piper could be anywhere.
At a red light, Will readjusted his tourniquet and kept driving. He was on Vernon Avenue, heading east, looking for open stores. He needed a drugstore. He needed a new pair of pants. He needed a computer. He needed to find Dane. He needed to ditch his car. He needed to talk to Nancy. He needed more bullets; he only had seven left in the mag. He needed a lot of things in a little time.
He called Dane’s cell phone again and got voice mail one more time. There was no pickup at his motel room, and when Will pushed the front desk, someone ran over to pound on his door and open it with a pass key. It was empty. Finally, he called the general aviation terminal and was told that Dane’s plane hadn’t been touched since midday. The pilot hadn’t been back.
That’s that, Will thought. The watchers got to him. He was on his own. He looked at the phone in his hand and swore at himself in disgust.
If they had Dane, they had his phone, and they had his prepaid phone number. If they had that, they had him. He opened his window, dropped the phone onto the street, and said good-bye to his lifeline.