As Kittredge approached, Maria grabbed his unbuttoned shirt and dragged him into the apartment, slamming and locking the door behind him. Kittredge heard soft crying, and turned to see the poor woman who was now their reluctant host. She shook with fright, and tears streamed from her face as she babbled a stream of pleading Spanish, which Kittredge only caught half of.
Maria spoke in machine-gun Spanish and walked through the apartment’s entryway, stopping to stroke the woman’s face and hair gently with her free hand. The woman stopped her sobbing. Whatever Maria had said, it had apparently convinced their host that her life wasn’t in danger.
In a flash, Maria had the sliding glass balcony door open and had stepped out onto the small landing, clearly searching for something.
“You’ll be shot!” Kittredge hollered, but then realized that they were on the other side of the building from Maria’s apartment. Wide open space greeted him as he looked beyond the balcony railing. If there was another sniper stationed at the back of the building, he would have a much more difficult job without an adjacent high-rise to shoot from.
Maria took off her shoe and began pounding it against something.
Kittredge heard a metallic clang with each of Maria’s strikes, and then the horrible screech of rusting metal, followed by what sounded like an avalanche. Maria had loosed the fire escape.
Before Kittredge could request a different plan of action, on account of his irrational yet debilitating fear of heights, Maria had flung herself over the balcony railing and started clanging her way down toward the street, fourteen stories below.
“I really can’t do this!” Kittredge protested.
“Then you will be shot!”
“I’m afraid of heights!”
“But not bullets?” He heard what sounded like curse words coming from over the balcony, and could have sworn he distinctly heard the word puta.
He peered over the railing at Maria, now perched five rungs below him, and felt himself swoon.
“Kittredge, climb, now!” It was clear she was losing her patience with him. He shook his head. “You must climb down!” she said.
He shifted his weight, preparing to throw his leg over the balcony railing, then faltered. “I can’t do it,” he said.
He looked back down at Maria, and was shocked to find the barrel of her hand-cannon point at him. “Climb, or I will shoot you in the face.”
Kittredge shifted his weight again, raised his heel three or four times, but again failed to throw his leg over the railing and alight on the fire escape ladder.
He heard the explosion of Maria’s gun, and thought he might piss himself.
“You have been to El Grande’s,” Maria hissed. “You have seen our training camp. You are coming with me down this ladder, or I will kill you where you stand. I will not let you lead the gringos to us!”
Kittredge shook with fright, closed his eyes, and made his decision. He climbed out over the edge of the railing, white-knuckling each rung of the ladder as he followed Maria shakily down the fire escape.
“Faster,” Maria commanded. Kittredge forced his arms and legs to work more quickly, but he was hamstrung by fear, and he descended painfully slowly.
“Kittredge, it’s only a matter of time before they find us, and we’re very exposed. You must go faster!”
“I’m trying,” Kittredge said.
Maria cursed quietly in Spanish.
He settled into a rhythm, hand under hand, foot under foot, and felt he was finally making good time down the fire escape ladder.
“They rounded the corner!” Maria called out from below him. Kittredge glanced beneath him and felt his innards clinch with fear as he glimpsed a man in a suit on the sidewalk, stopping to raise a pistol toward them.
He heard the thud of feet on a hard surface nearby, and realized that Maria had jumped from the fire escape onto a third- or fourth-floor balcony.
Kittredge moved with a speed and agility that surprised him, whirling around the fire escape ladder and landing in a crouch on the balcony next to Maria.
She tried to open the glass door, but cursed as she found it locked.
She picked up a metal hibachi grill at her feet on the balcony floor and swung wildly at the glass door. Kittredge dodged her swing to avoid being hit, and the grill clanged noisily against the glass, causing it to spider.
The unmistakable sound of a bullet ricochet added urgency to Maria’s next swing, and the glass yielded in a shower of shards.
Maria used the grill to pound away the remaining jagged edges, then bound through the opening, exhorting Kittredge to stay close behind her. She reached the apartment’s entrance after passing a wide-eyed child wearing a diaper.
Kittredge stopped Maria from turning the knob to open the door to the hallway. “What if they’re out there?”
“Of course they’re out there,” she said irritably. “But probably not yet on this floor.”
His protest died in his throat as Maria bounded out of the apartment and down the hallway toward the elevators. “Time for another gamble,” she said, pushing the button to summon the elevator.
Four eternities passed while they crouched in the hallway, breathing hard, guns trained at the bank of elevator doors.
An elevator finally appeared. It had come from the first floor, and Kittredge felt his heart pounding as he pointed the small snub-nosed .45 in the vicinity of the opening doors. Maria held a kneeling firing position, her comically large pistol trained in the same direction.
The bell dinged, and the doors opened at a tectonic pace.
Kittredge found himself holding his breath, and realized that he had the trigger half-squeezed. Maria shifted her weight, and the suddenness of it almost made him shoot his gun. He regained his composure and looked intently into the elevator.
Empty.
“Come on!” Maria grabbed his arm and pulled him into the elevator with her. She mashed the button for the second below-ground parking level, the doors crawled shut, and a century later, the elevator began to move.
They held their breath as the car stopped on the second floor. The doors parted to reveal a tuft of white hair atop a flowery sun dress. The old woman’s eyes grew wide as saucers when she saw Maria’s gun.
Maria held her a finger over her mouth, indicating silence, and the woman complied. The doors shut again, and the cab didn’t stop until they reached the underground parking structure.
Maria grabbed Kittredge’s arm again, and he found himself dashing after her along the parking garage wall. “Are we driving out of here?” he asked, out of breath.
“You’ll see. Hurry!” She quickened the pace, now heading toward two large swinging doors beneath an illuminated sign warning of an electric shock hazard. The doors were locked, but Maria produced a key from her jeans pocket, and they were soon inside a musty room filled with the deafening roar of equipment.
It was hot, cramped, loud, and dark, a combination that Kittredge enjoyed only slightly more than he enjoyed heights, and he felt the familiar closed-in feeling descend on him.
Maria felt him hesitate, and tugged harder on his arm, keeping him close to her.
They followed the wall, stepping over a cluster of pipes and electrical conduit, and soon found their way to the back of the machinery room. It was strewn with disused tools and scraps of metal.
Maria swung her arm through the air and found what she was looking for: a string, connected to a bare overhead bulb. She tugged, and the weak light chased the darkness from the damp, dirty corner of the room.
She hefted and tossed the scraps out of the way to reveal a heavy metal doorframe, situated in the floor of the mechanical room. She stood, placed both hands through the metal loop opposite the door’s hinges, and gave it a mighty pull. Several Spanish curses later, the trapdoor opened, and Kittredge found himself staring down at another ladder, this one descending into nothing but darkness.
“Now, you find out the answer,” Maria said.
“What answe
r?”
“How deep is the rabbit hole.”
38
Getting in touch with Landers turned out to be remarkably easy, once Sam figured out which of the seven prefixes to place in front of the extension. Sam was reminded about some superlative relating to the number of miles of telephone lines encircling the Pentagon. To the moon and back? Around the globe six-point-nine times? She couldn’t recall, but it was quite telling that there were enough numbers in that building to require seven telephone prefixes.
“General Landers’ office, how may I direct your call?” answered a chirpy female voice, which cooled dramatically when Sam mentioned her desire to speak directly with Landers himself.
The receptionist, who turned out to be a lieutenant colonel, suggested a half-hour slot five days in the future, and Sam laughed. She mentioned she was working on a high-profile Homeland investigation, and the receptionist sounded even less impressed.
Then Sam floated the idea of returning in the morning with a warrant, which she would ensure was addressed to the Air Force Chief of Staff, suggesting that one of his hundred-plus two-star generals was a person of interest in a national security investigation.
Landers’ receptionist found fifteen minutes on the General’s calendar, commencing immediately.
“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” Sam said with a smile as she shook Landers’ outstretched hand.
“You made a compelling case,” Landers deadpanned, motioning toward a plain-looking chair in a surprisingly spartan and cramped office.
This is two-star digs? Not impressive, Sam thought.
She mused that all of these people must really love their jobs to put up with such shitty accommodations in the world’s dreariest office building, but the parade of frowns and angst-filled faces she had passed en route to Landers’ office told her that she was probably dead wrong on that account. It seemed like life in a salt mine might have been preferable to life in the Pentagon.
Sam sized Landers up. He was ridiculously short, and bald to boot. He was forced to hold his head at an awkward angle to look Sam in the eye, and she almost stooped down to reach his hand. It was like she was shaking hands with a child, except the general had the pear-shaped physique of a sedentary middle-aged bureaucrat.
The total package, Sam thought to herself. No wonder he’s no fun to work for. Brock wasn’t a Charlie Landers fan, and it didn’t sound like Brock was alone in his dim assessment.
“National security and all that,” Sam said. “I won’t take much of your time. I was just wondering about a person you escorted into the Pentagon on the 18th of last month, goes by the name Avery Martinson.”
“Sure. How can I help?” Landers seemed friendly enough, despite the fact that he had recently expressed his intention to punish Brock for his “affair” with Sam. She did her best not to think about that particular issue, because it made her want to stab Landers in his chubby little throat, along with the two castrati above her in her own DHS supervision chain. And she happened to need Landers’ help at the moment.
“Can you tell me what your meeting was about?”
“I really can’t.” He didn’t offer anything else.
Sam looked at him and let the silence linger a bit. Sometimes the social pressure of silence induced people to talk when they’d otherwise rather not. But Landers didn’t say a word. In fact, he put a mildly arrogant, expectant expression on his face, as if to say, “Now what?”
“Where did you meet him?”
“You don’t need me to answer that for you. It’s in the visitor logs.”
“You’re right. Thanks.”
Asshole.
Landers was beginning to live up to his reputation. She felt like tearing into him a bit, but she was completely at his mercy, because she had zero information on him. That meant she had no leverage to apply, and that she had to rely entirely upon his good graces. Informed by his nasty reputation, her expectations were low.
“And which organization is Martinson with?”
“Can’t say.”
“Is that because you don’t know, or don’t want to say?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does to me,” Sam said, smiling sweetly, hoping that a particular vein in her temple wasn’t bulging, the one that always gave her away when she wanted to wrap her hands around someone’s throat and squeeze.
More silence, which Landers handled like an old pro.
Sam tried another tack. “Brock tells me that you’re affiliated with the Council on Foreign Relations. They have quite a reputation. It must be exciting to rub shoulders in that crowd.”
“Not terribly,” Landers said. “Were you making a point just now, or was that investigative small talk?”
Sam was pretty sure her vein was pulsing, and she was pretty sure her face had turned slightly red.
She took a moment to bridle her growing anger, and decided to level with him. “General Landers, I was hoping for a bit more to help us with our investigation. As I mentioned, this is an issue of national security, as there’s already been an attack on US soil, which we think might have been perpetrated by an organization with operatives who’ve spent a lot of time here in the States.”
Big law enforcement words sounded very official, and she hoped they’d help play down the fact that she didn’t have a warrant compelling Landers to disclose any of the information she wanted from him.
Landers shrugged his shoulders. He sat ramrod straight, which was likely a habit cultivated over the years to keep his short body from sinking below sight during meetings, like a little kid at the dinner table.
He crossed one leg over another, which Sam knew usually indicated a defensive mental posture.
Asshole-ness aside, Sam realized, it was possible that Landers was genuinely not permitted to talk about the meeting he had held with the guy whose cell phone locations and times overlapped nicely with Arturo Dibiaso’s. Twice.
Landers smiled, a little smugly for Sam’s taste, which triggered her bastard-radar.
“You also met with this gentleman, Mr. Martinson, on the eleventh. One week earlier. Is that something you can discuss?”
“Nope.”
“General Landers, if you’d like, I can return with a warrant.”
“That might be best,” he said, calling her bluff. He smiled pointedly.
Then he looked impatiently at his watch. “Listen, Ms. Jameson, I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful. If you have more questions in this vein, I’m afraid I’m going to have to demur. It’s almost five, and I need to get out of here.”
Sam was used to the brush-off, but “it’s quitting time” was a new one on her. “You have an appointment this evening?”
“No. The slug line.”
Sam cocked her head, confused.
“It’s Pentagon-speak for carpooling with random strangers,” Landers elaborated, “to take advantage of the HOV lane. It’s as fun as it sounds, but I don’t want to have to take the train home. I hate missing dinner. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to wrap up and get out of here.”
Sam shook his hand and left the office, dejected.
39
Kittredge smelled damp, musty air, and felt a mild sliminess on the ladder’s rungs. He held his breath in prim disgust, but descended after Maria into the yawning darkness beneath the floor of the mechanical room, itself tucked within a parking level two floors beneath the Caracas street.
She called up to him to close the trapdoor after him, which took no small effort, and showered him with rust and filth as the door slammed shut above his head. He shuddered, then concentrated on not falling on top of Maria as he negotiated the slippery ladder.
“Where are we going?” he asked when he reached the bottom. He couldn’t see anything, but the close echoes of his own voice told him that he was in a short, narrow passageway.
“Our evening plans have changed slightly,” Maria said, grabbing his hand and leading him along through the darkness, using her other hand to
feel her way along the damp wall of the earthen passageway.
“It will be a while before we reach a light,” she said. “We’re close to the mechanical room, so there are no lights until a safe distance away. Duck your head, because there’s–“
She was interrupted by a dull metallic clang, caused by Kittredge’s skull impacting a support beam.
“. . . A low ceiling,” Maria finished.
“Thanks for the warning,” Kittredge said sorely. His forehead hurt with a sharp pain, and he was sure it would turn into a headache. He felt something warm and liquid dripping down toward his eyebrow, and realized that he was bleeding. He gritted his teeth.
The path narrowed in places, so that Kittredge had to turn sideways to pass, and he felt the earthen floor beneath him slope downward. They descended deeper beneath the apartment building, and the damp darkness and closed-in space caused a feeling of panic in his chest. “How much further?”
His voice betrayed his anxiety, and Maria laughed. “My brave spy.” She squeezed his hand. “We have a long way to go. This is not a new tunnel and it is not very well maintained. It must be that way, for safety reasons.”
Kittredge was confused. “Wouldn’t it be safer to maintain it? I mean, is this thing going to collapse on us?”
She laughed again. “Maybe. But probably not.”
Kittredge felt the slope even out beneath his feet, and heard the splash of water with their footfalls.
“Maintenance requires activity,” Maria continued, “and activity draws attention. Attention is not safe. So we weigh one risk against another risk and we hope for the best.”
“Life in a microcosm,” he observed.
“Ahh, here we are,” she said. He heard her hand searching along the wall in the darkness, and then heard a loud click, followed by buzzing. Lights flickered to life, spaced every dozen feet or so for what seemed like an infinite distance in front of them.
Kittredge thought he would feel better when the lights came on, but he actually felt worse – it was a horribly confined space, and his mild panic returned.
The Essential Sam Jameson / Peter Kittredge Box Set: SEVEN bestsellers from international sensation Lars Emmerich Page 22