“Why don’t you let me go out and you stay here?” She asked that innocently, with big eyes.
I knew the ice was thin. Charges of sexism were lurking nearby, but I didn’t care. “Because I’m in charge,” I said roughly.
“The admiral didn’t tell me that.”
“Call him and ask.”
“No need to bother him,” she replied coolly, and went back to the kitchen.
I looked at my watch again. Five thirty-six. I was clean out of patience; didn’t have a scrap left. I went to the door and peered through the security viewer, just in case. The hallway was empty.
Okay, Willie. Keep your eyes peeled.
I got down on the floor and started doing push-ups.
An hour passed, then two. We finished dinner and were cleaning the dishes when Willie’s voice sounded in my ear. “Car just went by, dropped off two guys.”
“Uh-huh.” Everyone in the kitchen looked at me as if I’d made an audible social faux pas. I tossed the dish towel on the counter and walked into the living room.
“They’re medium-sized dudes,” Willie said. “Wearin’ jeans, dark hip-length coats, dark wool pullover hats. Skinny. They looked around casual-like, spotted the Saturn. Both of them looked at it, even though they drove right by it when the car came up to drop ‘em. Now they’re walkin’ down the alley behind the buildin’.”
“Let me know if the Saturn guy moves.”
I motioned to Robin, who was still in the kitchen but looking at me. She came into the living room.
“We’re on,” I said to her. I tossed on my coat, checked that my pistol was riding where I wanted it and told her, “Lock the door behind me.”
She nodded.
If they came into the building through one of the basement doors, I wanted to be there before they went higher. The fewer people around if they started shooting, the better. On the other hand, they were going to have to do something seriously illegal before I started shooting. I didn’t want to kill two local teenagers who were dabbling in burglary; after all, I’d done a little of that myself, way back when.
I checked the lights above the elevators. One was on the ninth floor and one was coming up, passing four. The two dudes couldn’t be in the up elevator—not enough time. I jabbed the down button and waited.
The elevator ascending went by my floor, and the one above came down. The door opened. I stepped in and pushed the button for the lobby, the door closed, and down I went.
There was an old lady in the lobby, checking her mailbox. She was the only person there, besides me. Beyond the glass doors the street contained the usual traffic and the endless stream of pedestrians going to and from the Metro stop down the street. Every parking place on the street was full. The parking garage across the street and down about fifty yards was probably also approaching capacity. Although the sun had been down for an hour or two, the streetlights, car headlights and lit signs made a good deal of light out there.
I glanced at the floor lights above the elevators. There were only three ways up from the basement: the two elevators and the stairs. If the two men out back got into the building, they had to come up this way. I opened the door to the stairwell and stood listening. I felt sure I would hear the basement door open, if . . .
Although I had thought through about a dozen scenarios in the last twenty-four hours, I was playing this tune by ear. Stay loose and keep thinking, my instructors had said. Great advice but difficult to pull off.
“They’re coming out of the alley,” Willie said into my earpiece. I clicked the button on my belt transmitter twice.
I saw them through the front windows of the lobby. They walked up to the entrance, looked in—I was busy trying to find a key on my ring that would fit a mailbox—and gave the keypad that unlocked the exterior door and intercom the once-over. After another glance into the lobby at me, they strolled away to my right, off toward the Metro stop. And the waiting car. And Willie.
“They’re coming at you,” I said into my mike.
“Got ‘em. The guy in the Saturn just started his car . . . Yeah, looks like they’re going to get in with him . . . Yep . . . That’s what they did. Car coming your way.”
An elevator door opened beside me. A man got out and walked toward the exit without bothering to acknowledge me. I ducked into the empty lift, out of sight of cars passing on the street.
“They’re gone,” Willie said.
“They’ll be back. Midnight or later.”
“I figure you’re right,” Willie said pleasantly. “They’re just workin’ up to something mean.”
So how would they do it? They looked at the entrances, decided the police weren’t waiting . . . Where should Robin and I be?
The elevator started beeping at me, so I punched the button for the eighth floor.
I went upstairs to brief the Graftons and my partner in crime, Robin Cloyd. I explained that an inspection of the premises before committing a crime aged quickly. The people who had looked this building over would be back fairly soon, or not at all. We needed to be ready. Callie nodded. Amy looked brave . . . and pensive.
Robin removed her pistol from her purse and checked it as I talked. When I fell silent she asked, “Are they suiciders?”
“I don’t know.”
I handed her a headset. “Hopefully Willie will see them and give us a minute or so warning. I want you to stay in the corridor outside. I’m going to be downstairs. I’ll disable the elevators. The only way up will be the stairwell. If you hear shots, you’ll know they’re bad guys. I’m going to wedge the stairwell door shut, so they’ll have to blow it or do some serious pounding to get it open. Be lying here by the Graftons’ door. If anyone comes out of the stairwell, use the shotgun on them. We want them dead or incapacitated quickly, just in case they’re bombers.”
“Okay.”
I looked at Mrs. Grafton. “If you hear shots, call the police on the landline.”
She nodded.
I looked at Amy. “If the phone goes out, be ready to call the police on your cell phone.”
She bobbed her head once, vigorously.
I looked straight into Amy’s eyes and said, “You could leave right now, you know. There really isn’t any reason for you to stay. This is Robin’s and my job. This is what we do—you teach elementary school.”
“What about the other people in the building?” Amy asked.
“We can’t knock on doors and ask them to leave. The object is to catch or kill terrorists. If the building is dark and empty, they won’t come.”
“I’ll stay,” Amy said.
Callie put her arm around her. They were Graftons, all right.
I told Robin, “Give Callie your pistol. You’ll have the shotgun and extra shells. Keep shooting until they don’t even twitch.”
“Okay.” Matter-of-fact. No sweat.
Say what you will about her hair and ditzy manner, Robin was kind of a class act. I was finding I liked her.
“This terrorist, Abu Qasim—tell me about him,” Huntington Winchester said to Jake Grafton. They were seated at the bar in the main room, and they were alone. Winchester was nursing a glass of old Scotch, and Grafton was working on a beer.
“Not much to tell,” Jake said. “Most of what we know is hearsay, picked up on the streets in dribs and drabs.”
“Maybe he’s a myth.”
“He’s real, all right. Real as a heart attack.” Grafton sipped at his beer. “The world is a far different place than it was on Labor Day 2001. Security is a lot tighter, more assets are devoted to it, everyone in law enforcement and intelligence takes it seriously, so it’s not as easy to be a terrorist these days as it was then. Sure, screwball amateurs can always pull off a spectacular atrocity, murder some innocent people and die doing it. But there are only a few terrorists competent and capable enough, with the necessary network, to really do something that would hurt Western civilization. Abu Qasim is one of them. He’s a damned dangerous man.”
“Ther
e aren’t many men, good or bad, who can make a difference,” Winchester mused.
“That’s not really true,” Grafton said. “I was just getting started in the Navy when I learned that every single person who makes a stand makes a difference. How you live, what you believe, what you do—it all matters. Results are important, too, but the critical factor, the most important thing, is making a stand, which is why we have to fight the Abu Qasims.”
“You see, when I weigh my life,” Winchester said, “and my son Owen’s, his was the more important. I’ve built a company, made a lot of money, but if I hadn’t made oil field equipment someone else would have. Owen, on the other hand, set forth to save lives. He gave all he had doing it.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Jake Grafton said. “You raised a fine son, which is more than many of us manage. And you took a stand when you signed on to this goat rope. With a little luck, your stand will pay off.”
“Umm.” Winchester sipped at his drink. “How will you know which one of these guys you think is coming is Qasim?”
“I’ll know.”
“How?”
“Marisa will tell me.”
“How will she know?”
Jake’s cell phone, which was lying on the bar, rang. He glanced at the number. “Ask her,” he said to Winchester, then answered the phone.
“Hello, Tommy.”
When I had finished briefing Grafton, he said, “I want the guy in the Saturn, too. Alive, if possible. In fact, get him first.”
I took a deep breath. “There are no parking places on the street, as you well know. He’ll probably pull up and the bad guys will pile out. If they’re suiciders, he’ll just drive away, leaving them.”
“I understand,” Grafton murmured.
“I can’t just shoot him right then. These may not be bad guys. And if they are and I gun him, I’m going to be in a shoot-out with three or four armed men right on the street. I can’t get ‘em all before they get me.”
“Use your best judgment.”
“I’ll try.”
“After you pop him, or when he drives away, have Willie call 911.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Call me when it’s over.”
“Yes, sir.”
We hung up then, and fifteen seconds later, I heard Callie’s cell phone in the kitchen ring. It was undoubtedly her husband.
I tested my radio with Willie and Robin, then grabbed four wedges and my hammer and headed for the stairwell. Robin went out into the hallway, and Amy bolted the door behind her.
In the stairwell I hammered home four wedges under the door to the eighth floor, then two in the gap between the top of the door and the upper jamb. There wasn’t room in the little vertical gap for a wedge. I figured they would blow the lock with some kind of explosive, unless they were willing to take the time to break the lock, pick it or remove the door from its hinges. Even if they blew the lock off with a charge of plastique, the door wasn’t going to open with the wedges jamming it. I hoped. When and if they did get through, Robin was going to be in the hall with the 12-gauge. Meanwhile I was going to be coming up the stairs behind them.
I climbed a flight of stairs and left the hammer there.
I had thought about wedging every door in the stairwell shut, but the risk was too great. If these guys were bombers and a fire started, everyone in the building would be trapped.
I was trotting down the stairs with my shotgun in hand when the fourth-floor door opened and an elderly gentleman poked an old revolver at me. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.
“Uh, Tommy Carmellini, sir. I’m staying with Jake Grafton on the eighth floor. You probably know him—a retired admiral? And who are you?”
He was suspicious, but I looked clean-cut and wholesome. “Fred Colucci. I heard someone pounding and came to see. Don’t want no trouble. What you got that gun for?”
“I heard the pounding and came to investigate. Would you please stop pointing that pistol at me?”
He lowered the revolver. Slowly, waiting for me to do something dumb.
“Thanks,” I said and trotted on down the stairs.
“Four-B,” Colucci called. “Stop by and tell me what that pounding was. I’m gonna call the Homeowners. Too much damn noise in this building.”
“Okay,” I called, and kept going.
I paused at the bottom of the stairwell and stuck the shotgun under my coat. Got my pistol out and put it in my right trouser pocket where I could get at it easily. The spare magazine was already in my left trouser pocket.
I stepped out onto the ground level, the basement. The elevator control box was mounted right there on the wall beside the garbage cans. It was locked, but I managed to open it with a pick in approximately thirty seconds. The elevator power switches were big and obvious.
“Hey, Willie, can you hear me?”
He answered in about four seconds. “Yeah.”
“I need to know the instant you see them.”
“They’ll probably drive by a few times, man, before they pull the trigger. No parking places out here.”
“Keep me advised.”
“Okay.”
“Robin?”
“Yes, Tommy.”
“They blow that door to get onto your floor, have your mouth open and ears covered.”
“I’ll manage, Carmellini. You handle your end.”
Willie chuckled into his mike.
The super had a little folding chair at his desk. I put the shotgun on the desk and parked my heinie in his chair. I waited.
“I’m leaving, Grafton,” Simon Cairnes said to the admiral. “I’ve called for my car.”
“Okay.”
Cairnes was standing by the bar, leaning ever so slightly on his cane. He looked a little startled at Jake’s answer. “What?” he said. “No comment about it’s my funeral?”
Jake shrugged. “I’ll send flowers. See you on the other side.”
“You nervy son of a bitch,” Cairnes growled and turned to go. He shot a glance at Winchester, who was descending the stairs. “Don’t ever call me again, Hunt. Not for any reason under the sun.”
Then he was gone along the hallway toward the front door.
Winchester came the rest of the way down the stairs and parked himself on a bar stool beside Grafton.
“She’s Qasim’s daughter.”
“Maybe.”
“Damnation, Grafton! He’ll come here to get her.”
“No,” Jake said with a sigh. “If he comes, he’ll be coming to get you.”
“And you, I figure.”
“More than likely,” Grafton muttered and keyed the radio on his belt. “Car will be coming to pick up Cairnes.”
He received two mike clicks in reply.
It was a quarter past eleven in the evening when Willie’s voice sounded in my ear. “It’s the Saturn. He’s slowin’, drivin’ by, four in the car maybe . . . maybe five. On past and down the hill toward the subway stop.”
“Got it,” I said. I grabbed the shotgun and strode for the elevator power box. Fortunately neither elevator was moving just then, so no one was going to be trapped between floors when I killed the power. One was on the lobby level, the other on nine. I hit the switches to turn off the power, closed the door to the box, then turned off the basement lights and ran up the stairs to the lobby.
“Here they come again, comin’ slowly.” Willie was excited. For that matter, so was I.
I shot out the main door and threw myself on my back behind a bush, holding the shotgun in front of me.
This position was terrible, and I was a fool to be here—but Grafton wanted the wheelman, and I had to be outside to get him.
“Still rollin’ . . . rollin’ . . . goin’ on by.”
I was so keyed up that I almost collapsed when he said that. I lay there frozen, looking up at the side of the building, the little balconies sticking out, the lit windows . . . Just then I had the oddest thought, wondered what someone up there would d
o if he or she saw me lying here.
“He’s acceleratin’, goin’ on up the street. Be right back, I figure. And Tommy, there’s five heads in there.”
“Got it.”
“Robin copies.”
I got up, took off my coat and wrapped it around the shotgun, then crossed the street. There was an office building entrance there right off the sidewalk, two steps up to the door. The sign out front said the thing was full of doctors’ offices. They were all gone for the night—not a light showed.
I sat on the steps and leaned sideways, as if I were about to pass out, with the shotgun on my lap.
The waiting was getting more and more difficult. I kept watching the street toward the subway stop to my left. They would come from that direction, I suspected; just turn around and come straight back. On the other hand, maybe they would go around the block. I forced myself to look in the other direction, too.
No pedestrians this time of night. The good folks were all home in bed.
When I looked at my watch I was surprised to find that only three minutes had passed.
Here came a set of headlights, up from the subway stop. The driver was moving right along.
“It’s them,” Willie said.
The driver turned into the alley that ran behind Grafton’s building, and four men piled out. They ran off down the alley. The car’s backup lights illuminated. They were suiciders. Oh, Lord!
I tore the coat off the gun, sprinted toward the car. The driver never saw me coming. He backed into the street and stopped. As he shifted gears I jerked open the passenger door and dove into the car. He put it in motion. I reached for the keys, turned off the ignition. Couldn’t get the keys out one-handed, so I didn’t try.
He decided I was his biggest problem, so he hit me. Hit me with surprising force, considering that he was seated and belted in. He was scared, pumped with adrenaline. So was I.
I got my knees under me and elbowed him in the face as hard as I could. He was still struggling, so I did it again and again and again. Until he went limp.
The Assassin Page 31