The Bricklayer

by Noah Boyd

  Feeling the movement on the rope, someone started pulling it almost immediately. Vail let it go, knowing it would not go through the hole without his help. The bag turned slightly sideways and couldn’t get through. The rope strained and then went slack as whoever was pulling on it tried to free the bag. Finally Vail turned and pushed the canvas container, guiding it through the two-foot-square hole.

  Once it was through, he could see a small amount of light coming in from the upper part of the other side of the opening that the money was pulled through. Whoever was up there was using a concentrated-beam flashlight, he supposed, to ensure the bag was not getting hung up anywhere else. As he watched the money disappear, Vail noticed a newspaper on the floor, half opened and standing tented about four feet directly in front of the hole. It seemed odd that it would have remained upright during the years that the tunnel had been sealed. He looked a little more closely at it. It was not yellow or faded. He couldn’t quite make out the date at the top or the headline.

  Then he thought he saw a smaller cord being pulled up after the bag. The last thing Vail noticed before it went dark was a two-foot square of plywood on the other side of the opening lying flat on the floor butted up against the hole cut in the wall. Then he heard the same sounds he had when he descended into the tunnel: the hatch being shut and padlocked, followed by the scraping of dirt and rock to cover it over.

  “WHERE ARE THEY NOW?” Kaulcrick asked.

  “Just passing the Encino off-ramp.”

  Kate pulled the microphone away from Kaulcrick. “Can you get someone up there to make sure it is Vail?”

  Kaulcrick grabbed the mike back. “Hold off on that, One-one.” He turned to Kate. “You’ve got to calm down. If they get burned, this could all be for nothing.”

  “You don’t know if it’s Vail, which means you don’t know where the bag is.”

  Her words set off panic in Kaulcrick’s eyes. “Okay,” he said, and keyed the mike: “One-one, maybe you had better get someone up there and make sure it’s Vail.” He shot a bitter sideways look at Kate. “Very discreetly.”

  VAIL RESTED with his back against the wall, trying to figure how he was going to get out of there. That’s why they had insisted that he could not bring a gun; he might have been able to shoot through the hatch and destroy the lock that sealed it.

  He heard something again along the tunnel’s walls, getting closer, apparently attracted by his scent and lack of movement. He decided that the rats weren’t necessarily meant to attack him, but to provide a constant distraction with the possibility, keeping him from thinking about any other traps that might have been set.

  Maybe he should just wait for the cavalry. But they wouldn’t know about the photocell-triggered explosives—if there were any. The irony of them opening the hatch and detonating it with their flashlights would certainly appeal to whoever was doing this, plus it would destroy any evidence. Then he thought of something even more alarming: they had him leave the wallet GPS so they could use it to draw the surveillance away from the tunnel. With both entrances covered over, he was virtually buried alive, and no one had any idea where.

  The only choice left to him was to crawl through the opening and see if he couldn’t somehow get that hatch open. He eased his shoulders into the hole, being careful not to break any planes on the other side. Pushing out on his shoulders and bringing his arms up to the sides to fill the opening as much as possible so no light would leak back into the section he was in, he snapped on the flashlight. The chamber was no more than five feet to the opposite wall, which was also constructed with cinder blocks. Against it sat the newspaper that was open along its center fold and sat, inexplicably, in a foot-high tent on the dirt floor. Its newness reminded him that it had to be hiding something. Then Vail noticed that the dirt around it wasn’t hardpacked like everywhere else in the tunnel. It had been dug up and then hastily tamped down again. A small spine of dirt led from the newspaper back to the plywood board, which was now less than an inch from the tip of his flashlight.

  And the plywood wasn’t completely level. Something was underneath it. Because of the telltale rise in the dirt that ran from the newspaper to the board, he had an idea what might be under the paper—a Claymore mine. Claymores contained hundreds of steel balls and C-4 explosive, and were completely directional. Someone struggling through that small hole headfirst and leaning on the board that covered the plunger would have their head vaporized. It seemed like something that the Pentad would consider a perfect ending.

  “THEY’RE STILL WEST on the 101. Going through Thousand Oaks,” the tech agent said, now sitting at the monitor tracking the GPS’s movement.

  Finally one of the surveillance units said, “I went by and got a good look at the two occupants. Neither of them is our guy.”

  Kate looked at Kaulcrick, who appeared to be frozen by indecision. She leaned over him and keyed the mike. “One-one, have your people stop that pickup and search it.”

  FIVE MINUTES LATER, the surveillance supervisor came up on the air. “Command, someone tossed the wallet GPS in the back of the truck, probably when it was stopped at a light on Second Street in West Hollywood. There’s no bag and both of the occupants look like working humps.”

  Kaulcrick slammed both of his fists down on the radio console. “Okay, One-one, have someone bring them both to the office to be interviewed,” Kate said. “The rest of your people I want back to that railway yard. Use that wallet GPS, and we’ll guide you to the spot where we lost contact with the bag.”

  STILL WEDGED IN THE HOLE, Vail carefully picked up the end of the board. Under it was a Claymore plunger.

  The mechanism was designed to fit in the hand and took only a couple of pounds of pressure to generate enough electrical current to detonate the blasting cap at the other end. Within the plunger was a simple safety device, a square wire loop, that when in place blocked the plunger’s path, making it impossible to squeeze. To arm it, the wire was simply rotated down out of the way. That’s what the cord Vail had seen being pulled up after the bag was for, to ready the mine for firing. The weight of the bag being pushed through the hole would have been enough to depress the plunger and set off the mine, blowing up the money, so the safety had to be on. The extortionists had run a doubled cord through the safety and after extracting the money pulled the loop flat, arming the device. It was then ready for an exhausted and possibly injured agent to crawl through the opening and put his entire weight on the plywood.

  Vail slowly extended his hand to the plunger and reengaged the safety by rotating the loop back up under the handle. Once he did, he turned off his light and crawled into the smaller chamber. Inside, he took the piece of plywood, tipped it up on end, and pushed it flush against the hole in the wall as a light seal. He opened both blades of the Special Ops knife and jammed the knife blade into the dirt and the saw blade into the board to hold it in place.

  After turning on the flashlight, he stood as far to the side of the newspaper as he could and carefully lifted it. The Claymore was sitting on its metal scissor legs, elevated to get as many of its projectiles delivered as accurately as possible at the opening. Behind it, on a plastic spool, was about a hundred feet of wire. Taking his time, Vail extracted the blasting cap from the mine’s body.

  At the same time Vail was climbing the rungs that led up to the hatch through which the money had disappeared, six of the surveillance agents, led by GPS directions from the major-case room, were only twenty yards from the hatch where Vail had originally entered the tunnel. Had he known this, he would probably have worked a little quicker in case the entire underground structure had been wired with explosives. When he reached the hatch, he found it tightly locked. Climbing back down, he retrieved the mine, then took it back up to the hatch and forced the scissor legs into the joint formed by the small door and the metal frame it fit into. That way the blast would be concentrated at the lock. Slowly he screwed the blasting cap back into the mine’s body and let the wire spool unravel. Turn
ing off the flashlight, he took the plywood board from the hole and crawled back through. Then tipping the board kitty-corner, he was able to shimmy it through the opening. He pulled the spool in after him and then felt around until he found the plunger. Before reconnecting it, he pushed the plywood up, covering the hole, and leaned his back against it. Even though most of the blast would be directed at the hatch, it would give off light in all directions. With the board in place the detonation flash would be contained. He hoped.

  “I’VE FOUND SOMETHING over here,” one of the surveillance agents yelled to the others. “This dirt is fresh.” He dropped down on his knees and started moving it with his hands. “There’s a door here.” The rest of the agents came running over to help.

  The surveillance supervisor came up and looked at the hatch. “Anyone got bolt cutters?” he said to them, as well as into his handheld radio.

  “This is One-four. I’ve got a set in my trunk. I’m just pulling up outside the fence. I’ll be there in two.”

  VAIL TOOK A MOMENT to run through everything in his mind again. Taking the plunger in one hand, he flipped the safety wire out of the way and squeezed.

  “COMMAND, WE’VE GOT an explosion a couple hundred yards to our north.” The surveillance agents started running toward it.

  ELEVEN

  KATE WALKED INTO THE EMERGENCY TREATMENT ROOM AT THE hospital, nodding at the two surveillance agents who stood conspicuously at either side of the door. Inside, a doctor was stitching up a wound in Vail’s back caused by a chunk of plywood from the explosion. “Are you all right?” she asked, putting her hand on his forearm and squeezing it without realizing what she was doing.

  “I’m about to get up and walk out of here. Any time you can do that after tangling with a Claymore, you’re having a pretty good day.”

  The doctor taped a bandage in place and said, “You’re all set. Just watch the stitches.” The doctor handed him a prescription slip. “You’re going to need this for the pain when that local I gave you wears off.”

  Kate picked up Vail’s shirt and held it for him while he put it on. A jagged hole was surrounded with drying blood. “I guess we owe you a shirt.”

  “Since I lost the three million, why don’t we call it even.”

  “Hildebrand has the whole office out at the tunnel. The LAPD bomb squad is checking the main section, but it’s going to take a while, since they can’t use lights. Because of the device at the exit, they’re taking the entrance warning as gospel. They have to use night-vision goggles to go in. Actually I think they’re making entry where you blew the hatch and are working backward. One of the sergeants is going to call me once they find out what they’re dealing with.”

  “That’s another reason I asked for you to come along.”

  “Which is?”

  “Because you’re a handsome woman, you can get favors outside the FBI.”

  “Handsome?”

  He had finished buttoning his shirt and took a step closer to her. His voice softened. “Do you think I should have said…beautiful?” He was looking into her eyes now.

  It took a moment for her to compose herself. “I think that painkiller has worked its way up into your brain.”

  Carefully, Vail started tucking in his shirt. “How’s Kaulcrick taking all this?”

  “Not as well as you are. In his mind, he got bested by Bertok.”

  “Maybe,” Vail said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means there are an awful lot of moving parts to this thing to be only one person. I have to think about it for a while.” As they walked out the door to the parking lot, Kate saw him discreetly slip the pain prescription the doctor had given him into a trash receptacle.

  Once they got to the hotel, she walked him to his room. “Sure you’re all right?”

  “If I’m not, what did you have in mind?”

  “The standard stuff—CPR, tourniquets, a kidney.”

  Vail smiled. “Thanks for the ride.”

  “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  As he turned to put his key in the lock, surprising even herself, she gave him a light kiss on the cheek, but immediately regretted it. He was the last man in the world she wanted to think of her as an emotional female. She reminded herself that Vail, however, was not most men. And maybe it was a good thing to show him that she was capable of a certain degree of intimacy. If nothing else, it would keep him from figuring her out as easily as he did everyone else. “There’s a conference call with the director at nine a.m. If you don’t feel up to it, I’m sure he’ll understand.”

  He stared at her for a second. “Thanks for hanging in on my side. I know that people like Kaulcrick see it as being disloyal.”

  “That’s all right, I plan to do a lot of sucking up to him over the next few days. And should push come to shove, I’ll give you up in a heartbeat.”

  “If you do, I’ll tell him you kissed me.”

  “He said, she said, bricklayer.” She turned to go. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  NO SOONER HAD VAIL gotten his shirt off than he heard a soft knock on the door. Thinking Kate had returned, he was surprised to find Tye Delson standing in the hallway.

  “Hi,” she said. “Came to see if you’re all right.”

  “I’m good. How’d you know?”

  “The pickup truck that was used to lead your surveillance crew away. They needed a search warrant.”

  “I’m sorry, come on in.” He opened the door wide and stepped back.

  She gave the room a quick look and said, “Thought maybe you could use a drink.” She pulled a silver flask out of her purse and held it up with ceremony. “I’ve brought bourbon. The shopkeeper told me it is the traditional celebratory for a near-death experience.”

  “So we’re celebrating?”

  “Actually he said it was good for calming the nerves, but if I thought you were that kind of man, I probably wouldn’t be here.”

  “Let me get some glasses.” He opened a drawer and pulled on a T-shirt.

  “How many stitches?” she asked when she saw his back.

  “It felt like seven or eight.” He walked over to a side table and picked up two glasses. “Do you want ice or water?”

  “This is twelve-year-old Kentucky sipping whiskey. The clerk insisted that it not be defiled with California groundwater.” Vail came back, and she poured a couple of ounces for each of them. Then she took out a pack of cigarettes. “Do you mind?”

  “It won’t be the first time I smelled smoke tonight.”

  After she lit one, she held up her glass and said, “To surviving.” They both took a healthy swallow. “So how bad was it down there? In the tunnel.”

  “It wasn’t the best of times; it wasn’t the worst of times.”

  “How very non-Dickensian. From what they told me, it sounded pretty bad. They don’t know how you weren’t killed.”

  Vail studied her for a moment, trying to figure out why she was there. The first time they had met, she admitted liking to hang out with agents, but this seemed more than that. She was wearing a dark workout suit that, unlike the long, loose dresses he had seen her in at the office, revealed an amply feminine figure. Was he a curiosity to her, someone who seemed so uncontrolled by the Bureau, yet the person called when there was a problem? “Is this a California thing, where the AUSAs make house calls?”

  “No,” she said mischievously, inviting more questions.

  “Then why?”

  “Just to make sure you’re okay. Sort of.”

  “Sort of what?”

  She took a long drag on her cigarette to make him wait for an answer. “You know, to see what you’re like away from work. You’re interesting. No, that’s a little overused. You’re enigmatic. I don’t get much of that.”

  “Funny, I seem to be getting too much of it lately.”

  She pulled a piece of tobacco from her lip. “How do you and Kate get along?”

  “She’s been a good boss on this.”

>   “I don’t know you real well, but from what I’ve seen, you’re not the kind of person who allows himself to have a boss. Is that what happened before? Why you used to be an agent?”

  “That observation would hardly qualify you as clairvoyant. So that’s it, I’m enigmatic? That’s why you’re here?”

  She stared at him for a moment searching for any hidden motive and then laughed. “You really don’t have any idea of the effect you’re having on people around here, do you? You’ve been here—what—two days, and you’ve already found all that evidence in Bertok’s apartment, virtually solving the case, and then tonight, you survived death, apparently with great casualness. You’re becoming quite the celebrity, so I thought I should try to get here before the crowds get too large.” She took another sip of her drink. “I was hoping you might need some company. You know, all that testosterone stirred up and looking for an outlet.” She brought the cigarette up to her mouth and used her tongue to slowly moisten the entire circumference of the unfiltered tip before taking another deep drag, her eyes never leaving his.

  “I’ve heard of picking off the weak and wounded from the herd, but never the overstimulated.”

  “Sooner or later overstimulation leaves a man weak.”

  “Is that something you picked up from Stan Bertok?”

  Tye laughed. “I can honestly say I never had the pleasure, or displeasure, depending on your point of view,” she said. “Oh, I see. You’re wondering if I’m some sort of Bureau camp follower. Well, I’m not. This is a very limited offer.”