The Bricklayer

by Noah Boyd

  His phone rang. “Yes.”

  “Flashlight.”

  This time Vail shined it only in the direction of the factory to see if that was where Radek was. “You’re in position now,” Radek said. “Get across the river and bring those bags to the roof of the factory.”

  “And then what?”

  “Meaning, where is your woman? All your questions will be answered when you get up there.”

  “How do I get to the roof?”

  “I wouldn’t use the front door.” Radek hung up.

  Vail lowered himself from the track and walked down to the angled concrete bank of the river. It was about fifty yards wide at that point. The water appeared, by the debris in it, to be a couple of feet deep at the most. He slid down the embankment and half fell into the water. It was waist-deep and its coolness felt good. The current was surprisingly strong, and as he walked, he held the bags above it. On the other side he waited for the water to drain from his clothes before climbing the equally steep embankment.

  Tossing the bags over the fence that had been scaled a little over an hour before, he vaulted himself over. The laptop was gone but his clothes were still there. After changing, he wondered about Radek’s warning to not use the front door.

  Above the entrance to the building was an engraved stone anchored into the brickwork above the door identifying it as the Y. P. Androyan and Sons Wire Works, established in 1913. It was a four-story brick structure whose footprint was triangular. One end of the building was not much wider than its double door, but the far end was close to a hundred feet wide. Probably the original piece of property had dictated the design of the building. Located less than a hundred yards from the Los Angeles River and with a rail line on either side, it looked like, at one time, the area had been a prime industrial location.

  Between the second- and third-story windows was a faded blue and white sign that read “For Lease.” A heavy steel gate protected the front door, but it was ajar, like at the house on Spring Street. And Radek had warned him not to go in that way, probably more to protect the three million dollars than Vail. He decided to look for another way in.

  Along the street side of the building was a fire escape, which ran from the second floor to the roof. Vail drove onto the sidewalk and parked directly underneath the steel lattice of ladders and landings. He got out and could see that if he stood on the roof of his car, even with his best vertical leap, he would still be a foot or two short of the fire escape. He went to the trunk and took out the Halligan tool. After patting his pockets to make sure he had his flashlight and cell phone, he decided to take along the low-light monocle, since the building appeared to be completely dark inside.

  He had figured out how to get himself onto the fire escape, but the two bags of money were going to be a problem. Remembering how Dan West had negotiated his way out of that naval prison cell, he took his knife and, pulling out each of the seat belts to its maximum length, cut them free. Knotting the ends as tightly as possible, he had a length of strapping almost twenty feet long. He threaded it through one bag’s handle and tied it to the other.

  After climbing up on top of his car, he fed the pick end of the Halligan up through the fire escape’s grated floor and pulled himself up. Once he swung himself up onto the landing, he lifted the tool and money up after him.

  As quietly as possible, he started making his way up to the roof. The windows he passed were a common factory type, the kind that after turning a handle inside the bottom of the frame rotated outward. On the third floor he noticed that the pane directly above one of them was broken. A few small pieces of broken glass were on the outside sill, indicating that it was not the result of kids throwing stones, but broken from the inside. A little too convenient. He regripped the pry bar and bags and headed up the final ladder.

  Once he stepped onto the roof, the only thing visible was an eight-foot-high structure along the back edge that housed an access door for the building’s stairwell. He looked over the side and let his eyes trace the railroad tracks he had walked. Radek must have watched him the entire time from there, making sure that no one else was anywhere near.

  Sitting on the tarred surface next to the access structure, he could see something emitting a small green light. Halfway across the roof, Vail could hear a woman’s muffled voice coming from it. When Vail reached the source of the light and sound, he discovered it was a baby monitor. Because of the limited range of the device, it meant Tye had to be inside the building. Underneath it was a note, which simply stated, “Leave the bags here.”

  He set down the bags and tried the doorknob. It was locked. He pushed the adze end of the Halligan between the door and the frame just above the lock. It sank in just far enough so he would be able to get some leverage on it. He took a half step back and pulled evenly on the tool’s shaft. The door shifted inside the frame but the pry bar started tearing through the edge of the wooden door. Vail pushed the tool’s head deeper into the widened gap. Again he pulled back, and this time the door sprung open with little sound.

  He had no idea what lay ahead. Other than his knife, he had no weapon, so the Halligan would have to do. He started to take out the flashlight but then remembered the photocell trigger in the tunnel. Instead he closed the door behind him, which enclosed him in darkness. He stood perfectly still while his eyes adjusted. After a moment, he could see some light at the bottom of the stairs on the fourth floor, possibly coming through the windows from the streetlights.

  The stairs were wooden and creaked with almost every step. He took his time, listening after each one, and at the same time feeling ahead for any wires or rigged construction. It took twenty minutes to descend the three floors, and his legs were starting to feel the exhaustion of the last couple of hours.

  At the bottom of the stairs was a door. It was locked. To his left was a hallway that skirted the outside of the first floor. The main part of the floor was most likely a factory workspace. Halfway down the corridor was another door. Vail tried it, but it was also locked. At the end, the corridor turned right toward the building’s main entrance. There was light from the street coming through the double door windows. To his right was a large open door that led to the floor’s workspace.

  Then he noticed, sitting six feet from the entrance door, an object that was four feet tall and three feet wide. He stepped slowly toward it. It looked like an industrial-size cable spool for heavy-gauge wire. After another step, he could see that it was coiled with hundreds of feet of barbwire. It didn’t make any sense until he looked at the core. It was packed with something light in color. Thin electrical wires ran out of it toward the door. Carefully he stuck his finger into the center of the spool. The material had the consistency of C-4. He was afraid to move any closer, but instead took out the monocular and traced the wires visually. They ran to two electrical contacts, one on each of the front doors, like a burglar alarm. As soon as either door was opened, the electrical signal was interrupted and the blasting caps at the core of the spool would be detonated. Any person or persons entering through that door had no chance of survival.

  Ever so slowly, he pulled the blasting caps out of the C-4. Stepping around the spool, he laid them on the floor. Not wanting to get any closer to the doors, he took the sharp, claw end of the Halligan and drove it accurately into the wooden floor, severing both wires, one with each side of the claw. He picked up the caps and tossed them down the hallway as far as possible. Blasting caps were relatively inert. Even if they went off at that distance, they couldn’t detonate the stable C-4. Vail knew the bomb was not for him, but rather for any FBI cavalry should they somehow be tracking Vail’s movements. If there was an “obstacle” for him, it lay somewhere else.

  He pulled the Halligan out of the floor and looked through the inner door into the workspace. The windows had been drywalled over. Only a thin slit of a window at the back end of the room allowed any light at all. Using the monocular, Vail could see a dozen or so dark shapes of uniform size placed irregular
ly along the floor. The pattern seemed to be random, but Vail could see that it was arranged so that eventually, in the dark, anyone walking through the room would bump into one of them, and possibly with the same consequences as entering through the front door. After memorizing their positions, he gripped the Halligan at its balance and stepped into the room.

  Immediately he heard a woman’s desperate moans. She was somewhere inside the large room. Straining his eyes to confirm the location of the objects along the floor, he slid each foot forward, testing for trip wires while continuing to move toward the voice.

  Halfway across the room, he stopped and took out the monocular. He could see the outline of a coffin-shaped box along the far wall where the muffled syllables seemed to be coming from. This was where he was supposed to become emotional and charge toward it. He stopped, took a deep breath, and blocked out the muted pleas.

  The objects placed between him and the box containing her turned out to be eighteen-inch-high wooden cubes. He could now see a small green dot of light up on the wall, and he suddenly became aware of an almost inaudible hum, an electrical hum. The transmitter for the baby monitor? He took one more step forward and felt the floor give way slightly, causing a distinct mechanical click underfoot.

  A small spotlight snapped on, illuminating what housed the green point of light. It was a motion detector, the kind used in home security systems, and its green light had changed to red, indicating it was now armed. He froze. Illuminating it meant that Radek now had him trapped and wanted him to know.

  He was standing on a two-foot square of plywood, which had been painted flat black to make it unnoticeable. He suspected that the click heard under it might have done more than turn on the light. Vail turned his attention back to the sensor. Ordering himself not to move his head, he used eye movement only. A snarl of wiring surrounded the monitor. It was hooked into a larger cable, which ran up the wall and then overhead toward him, finally disappearing behind a large black void above his head.

  Imperceptibly, Vail moved his head upward slightly to determine exactly what was above him. It was not a void at all, but a huge steel plate hanging ten feet over his head. His mason’s eye estimated it to be approximately sixteen feet square, and he was at its dead center. Printed in large chalked letters on its underside was a note:

  VAIL—

  EM wired to pressure release and motion sensor.

  Good-bye.

  Vic

  That’s what the hum was, an electromagnetic crane used to move stock around. And it was double primed. Two systems to make sure he couldn’t move. Either the sensor or the pressure-release switch he was standing on would shut it off and drop the steel on him. He couldn’t see how thick the plate was, but the thinnest he was aware of was three-sixteenths of an inch. A sixteen-square-foot piece of that thickness had to be close to two thousand pounds.

  An urge to laugh at his own insolence started to rise up in him. He would gladly have given in to it to relieve some of the tension if he hadn’t feared it would set off the motion detector. His contempt for anything meant to control him, even if it was concocted by Radek, was about to take his life. Insolence had always been a trusted, if expensive, ally, but never this costly.

  His self-recrimination was interrupted by another burst from the wooden box, now only twenty feet away. It reminded him that more than his life was at stake. He had to find a way out. Trying to gauge the speed needed, he doubted that he could make it beyond the edge of the steel plate before it crushed him. However, it would be close. The eight feet to the edge looked like a hundred.

  Then he remembered that he was still holding the Halligan tool in his left hand, a possible solution to the ton of impending death hanging over him. The pry bar was three and a half feet long and the shaft was one-inch-thick steel alloy. Primarily it was manufactured for fire departments, so its strength had to be exceptional.

  Running and diving straight forward was the best chance, since turning in any other direction would add an additional split second. Once he took that first step, he would have to flatten out as horizontally as possible and at the same time move the bar behind him, turning it vertical with the claw downward. That way, if he didn’t make it to the edge in time, the Halligan would stick upright in the wooden floor and absorb the initial blow of the steel. He hoped. If he ever needed to take a deep breath it was now, but that pinpoint of red light reminded him that if he did, it would probably be his last.

  He closed his eyes and could feel his heartbeat pounding against his eyelids. He forced himself to slow his breathing. Inside his head, he visualized what he had to do: flatten out and at the same time move the bar into position and behind him. He waited until he could no longer hear his heart. One more time he closed his eyes and watched himself perform the intricacies of the long eight-foot dash.

  He exploded forward. At the exact same instant, the hum of the electromagnet crane above him stopped. Everything became slow motion, and the last thing Vail remembered was the first gray light of dawn coming in the small, slotted window.

  THIRTY

  AS KATE BANNON RODE UP IN THE ELEVATOR, SHE TOOK A SIP OF HER coffee. It was too hot but she took a mouthful anyway, hoping the sting might bring her to life a little more quickly than just waiting for her system to metabolize the caffeine. Again she had not slept much, if at all. The night balanced at the tipping point between suspected sleep and dreamlike wakefulness.

  She was the only person in the elevator and tried to distract herself by listing out loud the things she had to do today. After a few items, her thoughts returned to Vail and how awful their dinner had been last night. The night at the Italian restaurant had been the most fun she had had in years, until the call from Tye Delson. She had been wrong to let it come between them. Even though she had apologized to Vail, he seemed to understand her behavior better than she did and accepted it as the only way things could be between them.

  The elevator doors opened and she stepped off. After punching in the security code, she pushed open the door and headed to her office. Two agents were sitting across from her desk. The older one was overweight and his suit was worn and ill-fitting. The younger one didn’t seem old enough to be an agent. He was thin and wore wire-rimmed glasses. His suit was new but too heavy for the Southern California climate, giving her the impression he was just out of training school. They both stood and introduced themselves as being from the accounting squad. “We’re finally here to take the three million dollars off your hands,” the older one said with a certain amount of boredom.

  “Believe it or not, with everything going on, I forgot it was here.” She pulled open her desk drawer and took out the safe combination, handing it to him. While he bent over the dial, she opened another drawer and handed a sheaf of papers to the younger one. “This is a list of the serial numbers from the third drop. We’d like to verify that they are the same.”

  He took it from her and adjusted his glasses as his eyes slid quickly down the list.

  The older agent pulled the drawer open and said, “Which drawers is it in?”

  Kate jumped up. She looked down into the empty drawer and then started opening the other three. They were all empty. How could she have been so stupid to leave the combination in her desk and the office door unlocked? She grabbed the phone on her desk and ordered the two accountants away from the safe so as to not further contaminate any physical evidence that it might hold.

  “Don, the three million’s gone.”

  VAIL DIDN’T KNOW how long he had been out, but the first thing he heard was a woman’s sobs. Back over his shoulder he could see the silver Halligan holding up one corner of the two-thousand-pound steel plate. It was bent, and the claw had been driven into the floor three or four inches, but it was holding. His legs were still under the plate but they weren’t pinned. He pulled himself forward until he was clear. Standing up, he felt pain in his right shoulder blade. The plate must have caught him there just as he was diving to its edge, slamming his head in
to the floor and knocking him out. He touched his aching cheekbone. It was scraped raw.

  He looked around for something to pry open the box. The voice became louder now that she could hear him moving around. He found a claw hammer on the floor behind it. “Hold on, Tye.” There were a dozen nails on both sides, and he sank the claw between the top and side, working the hammer along the seam until he could get his fingers in between. The crying became louder with relief. With one great pull he tore the lid up.

  The woman inside sat up immediately. It was not Tye Delson.

  DON KAULCRICK stared down at the empty drawers. “When’s the last time you saw the money in here?”

  Kate said, “The day Vail put it in there. The day the safe was delivered. Actually, I never saw it in there. I was late for a meeting and had him secure it.”

  “Who else knew the combination?”

  “Tom Demick changed it before bringing it down, so just him, Vail, and me. But,” she continued, her voice anxious, “foolishly I left the combination in my desk drawer.”

  Kaulcrick turned to the SAC. “I want a list of everybody who hasn’t been to work in the last couple of days.”

  “I assume you’ll want to talk to Demick, too,” Hildebrand said.

  “Yes.” He looked at Kate. “Where’s Vail?”

  “I haven’t seen him today.”

  “Get him in here now.”

  VAIL WAS ABLE TO CUT AWAY the flex-cuffs that bound the woman’s hands and feet without much trouble, but the duct tape wound around her mouth and head took more time because of her hair. When she was finally free, she told him that she had been coming out of work late and was in the building parking garage when she was abducted at gunpoint. She was brought to this factory, bound, and gagged and placed in the box. Vail showed her a picture of Radek and she said he was the individual who had kidnapped her. “Who are you?”