Empire State

by Henry Porter

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t have the time,’ said Ollins automatically, then he seemed to notice something was wrong. ‘Hey, sure I do. There’s a bar a couple of blocks away. We’ll get you something to drink. Maybe something to eat, too.’ He took her elbow and led her downtown to O’Henry’s Tavern on 38th Street. Above them the sky had darkened into a premature dusk and as they walked big drops of rain began to spatter the sidewalk. There was a pause followed by a sudden rattle of hail on car roofs. Herrick glanced up at the Empire State before they left 5th Avenue and saw lights beginning to dot its massive flanks.

  In the bar, she put her hands over her mouth, trying to control the intake of oxygen.

  Ollins looked at her, now genuinely concerned. ‘I know what you got. I had it myself a couple of years back.’ She looked at him doubtfully from behind her hands. ‘You got a panic attack,’ he said. ‘You want to know a breathing exercise? ’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Close your eyes. Shut off one nostril and breathe in on the count of four, hold it for twelve with both nostrils closed, then let it out on a count of eight through the nostril you closed at the beginning. Okay?’

  She began the exercise forlornly while Ollins ordered a Scotch and a Diet Coke. When the drinks arrived she opened her eyes.

  ‘Keep going,’ he said, smiling. ‘Do ten rounds. Then I’ll let you talk.’

  At length the symptoms began to disappear, although her arms felt weighed down and her legs were still like jelly. She took a sip of the Scotch, shook her head and slapped her cheeks.

  ‘Listen,’ said Ollins, ‘I know what it’s like. Our line of work, you never relax, you don’t sleep nights, you eat shit and wind up a friggin’ nutcase.’

  She nodded as Ollins ran through the connections they had made. At length, she found the energy to press her case on the Empire State.

  Ollins hesitated. ‘Sure, why the hell not? What is it exactly you want to see? I mean, we’ve been over the place so many times I lost count, and when we heard Loz had died we sealed the place up.’

  ‘You never know what’s to be found. I’ve learnt that in this last month. Every wall has something behind it.’

  The barman gave them an umbrella someone had left and they ran through the rain, hugging the buildings for shelter. The temperature had fallen dramatically and along the way there were still dirty drifts of hailstones. When they got to the Empire State Ollins pushed past the crowd of tourists lining up to ride eighty-six storeys to the observatory. A security guard intoned, ‘Electric storm. Observation deck closed. Inside viewing area only!’

  Inside the lobby, Ollins shook hands with the guards behind the desk and exchanged some words about a Mets signing that day. Then they took the elevator to the sixty-fourth floor. Ollins brushed his hair and flicked droplets of water from his clothes.

  ‘I gotta tell you,’ he said, ‘I can only be ten to fifteen minutes maximum. I have to get back to the office for a meeting.’

  She murmured her understanding and thanked him. The doors opened. Ollins turned left and hurried along a corridor on the north side of the building, the light fabric of his suit flapping as his legs worked. There was no one about, and she heard not so much as a voice or telephone bell from behind the doors they passed. ‘Most of these offices are waiting to be leased,’ he said, gesturing left and right with a flick of his hand. ‘They’re too big or too small or there’s not enough light. Things are tight with the downturn. And this building always feels the draught first. You know it was built just after the crash?’

  They came to a door with a plate that read Dr Sammi Loz DO FAAO. Ollins took out a pocket-knife from his belt and selected a small pair of pliers. He cut a wire loop that ran from the handle to a stud on the door jamb. From it hung a notice: FBI LINE - DO NOT CROSS. He turned two keys in the door, pushed and ushered her in. Herrick found herself in a cool, spotlessly clean waiting area with a couch, several chairs and a reception desk.

  ‘What happened to his receptionist? Did you interview her?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, but she wasn’t any help.’

  ‘Did she know anything about the other part of his life? The deals in TriBeCa done by the Twelver Real Estate Corporation, or for that matter Drew Al Mahdi?’

  He shook his head. ‘We didn’t know about any of that when we talked to her, but my guess is she didn’t. She’s your normal single mother from the Bronx. Good-looking, but no college professor.’

  ‘Can I talk to her?’

  ‘Yeah. Maybe tomorrow.’

  Herrick went through to the consulting rooms. She pushed at a bathroom door and changing room, both of which could be accessed from the reception area, and returned to the room where Loz obviously worked. There was an expensive chair and a maple veneer table, a light box, framed diagrams of human anatomy on the wall and plastic models of the different joints lined up on a shelf. A withered plant stood in the window and some bathroom scales nearby were covered in dust, but otherwise the place looked as if Loz had left half an hour before. She took her mobile from her bag and dialled Harland, ignoring the fact that it was past 11 p.m. in London.

  ‘I am standing in Loz’s consulting room,’ she said without any preliminaries. ‘Everything looks normal.’

  ‘Describe it to me,’ he said.

  She went through everything she could see and ended by saying, ‘There’s nothing here. And by the way, Eva didn’t appear or call.’

  Harland cursed, but she couldn’t hear him because Ollins was saying he really had to leave. ‘Hold on a moment would you? Frank Ollins is here and would like a word.’

  Ollins took the phone. ‘I hear you got shot up, buddy. That explains why you sent a woman over to do your work. Get better. I want to see those wrists cuffed when you come back to New York.’ He handed it back to her.

  Harland said. ‘The bed! Isis, you didn’t mention the treatment bed in his room. There was a really sophisticated adjustable bed. Levers all over the place.’

  ‘Well, there isn’t one.’

  ‘That’s odd. There has to be.’ said Harland. ‘What about the Arabic inscription on the wall, the one that says something about a man who is noble doesn’t pretend to be noble.’

  ‘There’s nothing of that sort, no.’

  ‘This could be important,’ said Harland. ‘Find out if Ollins has removed anything and call me back.’

  Ollins shook his head. ‘There was nothing to take, Everything that was here is here.’

  ‘What about the treatment bed in the consulting room?’

  Ollins shrugged. ‘I don’t know about that but I can’t delay my meeting because a goddam bed’s missing.’

  ‘And the computer, is that working? It might be worth going through it.’

  ‘I have to go,’ he said.

  ‘But I can stay and bring the keys back to you later? Federal Plaza, right? Look, I have helped you, haven’t I? I’m at the Algonquin. You have my number. I’m not going to steal anything. ’

  He thought for a moment. ‘Okay, but have them back to me by morning. And call me on the cell when you leave this evening. I’ll tell the guards in the lobby.’

  With that he bade her goodbye and hurried through the door, letting it swing shut behind him.

  Herrick walked to the window and looked down through the rain at the traffic crawling along 5th, aware of the unearthly solitude and detachment of the building. It rose above things, she thought, literally and metaphorically. She felt the weight of its presence.

  Now utterly calm, she turned on the computer and for half an hour or so went through Loz’s appointments diary, making notes. She spotted the initials RN, and concluded this was Ralph Norquist because of Loz’s visit to RN on May 13. She also found BJ - Benjamin Jaidi.

  There was still water in the cooler. She took a cup and wandered round the room gazing absently out of the window again. Her back was to the door when she heard a noise. She whipped round. The handle was moving. Then, improbably, someone knocked, and opened the door.

&nb
sp; CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  She knew instantly that the woman standing in the doorway was Eva Rath.

  ‘Miss Herrick?’

  ‘Why bother to ask? You know who I am. You’ve been following me all day.’

  The woman gave her a formal smile and approached with her hand outstretched. Herrick declined to take it and instead lit a cigarette.

  ‘Isn’t there some kind of no-smoking policy in the building? ’ said Eva.

  Herrick shrugged. ‘What do you want? There’s nothing to interest Mossad here. The FBI have been over this place a dozen times.’

  ‘Then why are you here?’

  Herrick thought for a moment. ‘Because I’m interested to see where Loz worked. I want to know what this is about.’

  ‘That is simple. It is about hatred and revenge.’

  ‘Revenge for what, exactly?’

  ‘The failure of the Muslim world - the failure to build a functioning state in Palestine, the failed jihad in Bosnia, the failure to retain Afghanistan, the defeat in Iraq. Take your pick. There’s no shortage of causes. They have to assert themselves and terrorism is the only way they can do it.’

  Herrick noticed that the trace of Eastern Europe in her voice clashed with her impeccable grasp of English idiom. ‘Well, they might have had a better chance in Palestine if you hadn’t wiped out all the moderate politicians.’

  Eva smiled again. ‘And the computer, what are you looking for?’

  ‘The site you told Harland about on the phone. That’s why I’m in New York.’

  ‘It will not be on this computer,’ she said imperiously.

  ‘What exactly is the site? We’re surely not still talking about the encrypted screensaver on Youssef Rahe’s computer in London?’

  ‘No, no. That was used to deceive you, although we didn’t know that at the time either.’

  ‘But it predicted the hit on Norquist?’

  ‘Which was used to distract you.’

  ‘Did the confirmation about the Norquist hit appear on this other site?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then who told us about it? We had two sources saying he was going to be hit.’

  ‘It’s simple. I told Walter Vigo by phone from Heathrow, while waiting for Admiral Norquist to arrive.’

  ‘You know Walter Vigo?’

  ‘Yes, I thought Harland must have told you our history. I helped him with a problem in the East some years ago. Vigo was my SIS handler.’

  It was another story, an age ago, and anyway Vigo was finally out of the picture. Or was he? That clumsy approach in the bar a couple of days before came to Herrick’s mind - the strange, almost plangent appeal, so completely out of character.

  ‘And now he’s working for you - right?’ she said. ‘The Mossad has contact with Vigo’s company, Mercator? That’s why he tried to get me to give him the stuff from the bookshop in London.’ She slapped her forehead. ‘Of course, Vigo had me followed from the bookshop and then you trail me around town here. You people are really plugged into this case, aren’t you? Did you know about the suspects in Europe all along? Was Vigo keeping you in the loop the whole way through RAPTOR?’

  Eva shrugged.

  ‘So one way or another,’ Herrick continued, ‘it was the old alliance. America, Britain and Israel were working on RAPTOR even though the first two had no idea they were sharing with you people.’

  ‘We don’t have time for this,’ said Eva.

  ‘Let’s get this straight,’ Herrick said venomously. ‘This is my investigation and I do have time for it.’ She paused. ‘As I understand it, the significant point about the website you’ve been monitoring is that it started up again after three weeks of inactivity?’

  ‘Yes. That is true.’

  ‘And you believe it’s being run from New York?’

  ‘But not from these rooms,’ said Eva. She placed her shoulder bag on the reception desk and swept Herrick with a look of appraisal. ‘Harland said you were the most natural talent he’d ever seen.’

  Herrick ignored this. ‘The site started up again last week when Rahe was here in New York. So he could well have had something to do with it?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said.

  ‘The trouble is that we’ve never worked out who was running this thing,’ said Herrick. ‘We thought it was Rahe, but if you look at the money trail it must have been Loz calling the shots.’

  ‘Maybe both,’ said Eva. ‘Can I have one of your cigarettes?’

  Isis handed her the crush-proof packet. Eva coaxed one out by tapping it on her palm and lit it with an oblong gold lighter. Then she walked to the window to look at the lightning illuminating the clouds on the northern horizon.

  ‘Did you know this building is hit five hundred times a year by lightning?’

  Herrick couldn’t help but admire the woman’s self-possession, the absence of the need to explain or to excuse herself. She returned to the computer. ‘I guess that’s why Loz liked it,’ she said.

  Eva turned. ‘Outside the bank, you looked sick. What was the problem?’

  ‘You were watching me then?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Why? Why didn’t you just make yourself known? You could have joined in at the bank.’

  ‘I wanted to see what you would do.’ She stopped and tipped her ash into the waste-paper basket. ‘I admit… I was also interested in you. Are you Bobby’s girlfriend?’

  Herrick turned from the screen. ‘I don’t do this, okay?’

  ‘So you are?’

  Herrick shook her head. ‘I’m really not going to talk about it.’

  ‘But you were ill. There was something wrong. I saw you.’

  ‘There was nothing wrong. I was tired. I needed to eat. I do now, in fact.’

  Eva revolved her bracelet on her wrist. ‘What are you doing? Let me see.’ She came to stand at Herrick’s shoulder. ‘Let’s look into the computer’s history.’

  She pulled the keyboard towards her and began to work, eyes flicking from her hands to the screen. Then she straightened and stood back, allowing Herrick to see a list of web addresses. There was almost nothing for the last six months, but in November and December of the previous year someone had visited the official UN website and sites concerned with Palestine, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon. Herrick began to write down the pattern of research on a piece of Sammi Loz’s headed notepaper. She scrolled down the list of sites visited in the last three years, noting down about twenty of them.

  ‘Why’re you taking these notes?’ said Eva.

  ‘Force of habit,’ Isis replied. As she said it, her eyes drifted to the address printed at the bottom of the notepaper. She read it several times, then got up and walked to the door. ‘This is 6420,’ she called out. ‘This office is 6420!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Eva. ‘It’s still listed in the lobby as Loz’s place.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand! In the bank this afternoon there was a document in which the Empire State was given as the address of the account holder - an American named Larry Langer who was a member of the Rahe-Loz group in Bosnia - the Brothers. We assumed he’d given Loz’s address for the account records. But he didn’t. He gave 6410 - not 6420. That means they could have another space on this floor.’

  ‘Well, let’s go and take a look,’ said Eva, picking up her bag.

  The storm had moved closer and the windows and polished floors flickered with lightning. But in the corridor, as they checked the office numbers, there was only the sound of their footsteps and the feathery exhalation of the air-conditioning. As they rounded a bend into one of the main corridors on the northern side, the lift bell pinged and they heard the doors open. Both instinctively withdrew into the corridor they had just searched. Herrick noticed Eva’s eyes, straining to interpret the new presence on the deserted sixty-fourth floor.

  They waited. A pair of heavily booted feet were approaching them - the solid, purposeful walk of a man, but a man who didn’t know the floor well. They heard him paus
e three times to look at the door numbers.

  Eva peered round the corner. ‘It’s okay,’ she whispered, ‘I think he’s a messenger looking for an office.’ Then she called out. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘No, I’m doing fine,’ came the reply. Herrick didn’t need to see the man to know who it was. He was just a few paces away now and there was nowhere she could possibly hide. She stepped out to join Eva.