by Rhine, Scott
“Do you remember Wolfgang from Pensatronics, the rude gentleman who left last night?”
“I remember. He leave?” She took out a clipboard from the cart and smiled. “I will open the door to air it out for a while before I clean. What do you need?”
“Well, Wolfgang left his briefcase upstairs in the computer room. Do you know where it is?” I asked in my best lost yokel voice. I figured anybody who worked the fifteenth floor regularly had been to the seventeenth floor.
“Si. But we cannot go there since the new manager closed it for the game. They even change the keys.” She sounded piqued by this restriction.
“Did they have the employee break area there?” I guessed.
“Si. Now we have to go to one of the other two areas. All the people smoking in the eighth floor break area makes the room stink like a chimney. I cannot eat there. Now I go up to the helicopter airport on the roof. They have a nice waiting area with a coffee pot and popcorn machine for the business men.” She bustled about replacing towels as we spoke. Her hands and feet were so rehearsed at their duties that the rest of her needed to pay little attention.
“Interesting. Well, I’ll just knock on the door and tell them what happened. Which way do I turn when I get off the elevator? I get lost easily.”
“The hall goes about two doors each way. There are air-conditioning rooms on both sides. This is a very big building. The computer room is down the right side, across the hall from the break room. That is why we cannot go there. Too much security. Why can’t we use the oven to heat up a simple meal?” She stripped the sheets from a bed with ruthless efficiency.
“Why not put a new break room on the left side of the elevator? A microwave can’t take much space.” I said, egging her on.
“They have a phone closet, janitor closet, and the air conditioning. There is no more room, unless we put it in the manager’s office. Ha!” she said, launching into a flood of heated Spanish and fluffing a new set of sheets into place. I vaguely understood a few of the phrases from TV and my childhood exposure to Portuguese, but the emotional gist was clear.
“The new manager sounds like he’s a lot of trouble. Any other strange rules?”
She paused for a moment. “You know, he hasn’t bothered. He comes in only two or three times a week. Senor Sarano does all his work for him. We told him the people in the kitchen are stealing him blind, and he does nothing. He only cares about this contest and his china.”
Somewhere, a shoe dropped. “China?”
“Si, gold rim, very pretty. He insists to be served his food on this. Takes it with him every place.”
My poisoning may not have been such an accident after all if Fontenelle had anything to do with it. But if he were cheating, why did half of his team bite the dust in the massacre at Piccadilly? What else could be motivating him? Questions were popping up faster than answers.
I wasn’t expecting any more information out of her, but I remembered to thank her graciously. Sam taught me to be nice to everybody, because the best advertising is free. I handed her my card. “Very interesting. Thank you, again, Carmelita. You’ve been so helpful, I’d like to tell your supervisor what a jewel you are on my way out. Where did you say his office was?”
“You are too nice. Senor Sarano’s office is on the eighth floor, in the middle of the chimney,” she confided.
“I’ll be sure to complain about that when I see him. Buenos Dias,” I said, murdering the Spanish phrase on my way to the elevator.
She bade me farewell in Spanish as I pushed button seventeen.
Chapter 18 – Rescue
As the elevator doors slid slowly apart, my first glimpses of the reception area on the seventeenth floor were of a few tasteful abstract paintings and two potted palms in need of a good dusting. I noticed a large mirror on the right wall that screamed security. It was probably a one-way mirror for watching the hallway. I stepped out and did a quick scan. On the wall to my left was a bank of light switches and the promised metal door to the air conditioning area labeled “COOLING UNIT A.” All of the rooms on this floor had key card entry units sticking out of the wall to the left of the doors, just like the rest of the hotel.
Someone had blocked most of the right hallway with a metal desk. Beyond the desk, the two goons guarding the computer room caught my eye as they moved toward me. Across the hall, the break room wall was made of clear Plexiglas, with nobody visible. Mare had to be here somewhere. I searched frantically. Far to my right was a familiar looking door labeled “COOLING UNIT B.” Strangely, door B was held shut with a metal brace of the style inner-city crack houses have been known to use. Aside from being a definite fire hazard, it meant that someone was being held inside.
The two coming at me looked like teamsters from a loading dock. They were big. No way I could take them, and I didn’t plan to bleed all over them to prove it, even though every male hormone in my body was trying to go Tarzan on me. I met them at the makeshift barricade shouting. Maybe she’d hear me, and give me a sign, or something.
“I need to speak with Sarano immediately.”
They both wore hotel security uniforms that were just a little too tight across the chest. Their utility belts contained mace, night sticks, and about everything short of a gun. That was a relief. “I’m sorry, sir. I’ll have to ask you to leave,” said the blond one politely, while his slick-haired friend played wall-of-angry.
“Do you see this?” I said pointing to my cheek. Under my sunglasses, my eyes were still roving. The stairwell door opened between the elevator and the barricade, with the fire alarm beside it. “One of your bellboys did it to me. I want to have him fired!”
They flanked me, and herded me back into the elevator with practiced ease. “I’m sure you have a valid complaint, but Mr. Sarano is on floor eight. We would be glad to radio for an escort if you like.”
When I noticed that the blond was limping slightly, I had to hold back a smile. Looked like a smashed instep to me. Mare was here, and she was still fighting! “No, no. Quite all right,” I said, pushing eight.
On the way down, I rang Waters to let him know I was still alive. Then I dialed up the game to make sure everything was going fine. My reporting functions told me that Ghedra was just leaving Austria and cruising into Germany. So far nobody was bothering LAS or me. From the overhead time-lapse images, I could see that the LAS vehicle was gaining on an injured Korean tank. From what I recalled from the nightly damage reading, the Korean main gun couldn’t fire, and LAS was hot on his tail. I backed off my pursuit distance a little to give the autopilot more time to react.
I ignored the results from the vehicle vibration test and logged off in order to continue my quest. Next I had to find a way to distract those goons and get into that air conditioning area. I was also curious about what was in the computer room, but that could wait till I had Mare back.
I decided to pay Mr. Sarano a visit after all, especially if the Black Hats were watching on all these cameras. He was wearing spotless green coveralls, and haggling with a man about a floor waxing machine. “It works fine, you’re just not using it right,” he told the employee.
I took off my hat and dropped it in my nylon bag because it was getting to warm, and my brow was sweating. The jacket wasn’t so annoying now that I had been wearing it for a while. I took off the sunglasses to get a better look at things. The building superintendent had a set of master key-cards strapped to left his side.
“Twenty-three years, I use these things. It’s not working!” the smaller man insisted.
“Mr. Sarano?” I asked.
“I am a busy man. Talk to the man at the desk, and he will arrange everything. No more wiring in the auditorium today.” He was swarthy, and had sideburns like Elvis. I almost could hear his ulcer churning.
“Maybe I could have a look at that,” I said, taking out my screwdriver. “I’m good with machines.”
“Please. You’ll void the warranty,” he fretted.
The smaller man, gl
ad that someone was taking his claim seriously, smacked him on the shoulder. “Who are you kidding? These things are so old, they should get retirement pay. Open it up, Mister. We didn’t see anything.”
“Who are you? The traveling repair guy?” asked Sarano.
I popped the lid as I chatted. “I just stopped by to put in a good word for Carmelita on fifteen. She does a great job, she’s friendly, and she puts up with so many things.”
“So she tells me.”
Convincing him to talk about everybody’s favorite subject, himself, I said, “She mentioned that the manager is rarely in, and how you end up doing double duty. That must be a heart-attack waiting to happen with all these convention details.”
“I watch my diet, and exercise. But I can’t take all the credit. The racing committee has a liaison who handles most of the activities. He just tells me what hotel resources he needs, and coordinates all the outside people for me. Everybody has a little colored tag to get into any area they need.”
I lifted the metal shell off, noting a dent in the side. “Ah,” I said. “The damage.”
“See, I said you weren’t using it right!” said Sarano.
“It’s been like that for a year,” replied the little man.
I pointed to some unhealthy, black lint patches inside the machine, and said “This is what smoking does to you.”
While everyone was gawking at the truly grotesque collection of dirt around the wiring I was cleaning, I slipped in another question. “Do I also talk to you to complain about the security guards on seventeen?”
“Not my department. I only get involved when a drunk and disorderly harasses my men, somebody accuses the maids of stealing, or some teenager sets off the fire alarm.” I cleaned out some dirt from the interior, found a loose part and tighten it. The thing was ancient, but still in good shape. I’d have to remember the brand name when buying equipment for my own building.
“The first two make sense, but why the fire alarm?” I put the cover back on again.
“The security guards phone the fire department, and one of them brings all the elevator cars down to the first floor for safety. They need me to get the whole works going again.” He held up a small cylindrical key clipped to his right hip. It looked like something you’d use to tighten a roller skate.
“Is that all this piece of junk needed?” asked the little man.
“Sometimes you just need to see the problem the right way, and everything is easy. Let me plug it in, and Mr. Sarano can show you the right way to use it.” They both got a chuckle out of that. On my way to plug the machine in, I bumped Mr. Sarano’s right hip. Once he had turned on the noisy machine, we waved good-bye, and I made a bee-line for the roof.
As promised, I could see the well-kept reservations desk staffed by a single eager clerk. There were no customers at present, but I could see a local news helicopter and a hospital life-flight both sitting empty out on the pad. I briefly considered leaving the evidence here for the television journalists, but I couldn’t risk Mary Ann’s life on it.
The sky outside was fading to gray. It would probably rain later in the day. I was remembering how it felt to live somewhere that didn’t have snow in the winter. For a moment, I drifted back to Brazil. I stared out at the microwave dishes and gathered my resolve to do what was needed. The clerk couldn’t stick around or he might get hurt. I couldn’t chance that, but I’d have to bend the law a little to get rid of him.
“Good afternoon, sir. Airport taxi?” said the youth with the name tag Kevin.
“No, thank you, Kevin. I’m here on different business. I’m working with the Federal Government, and we’ve received a tip about a bomb in this building. It hasn’t been made public yet, and the suspected terrorist is still in the building.” The suit was working for me. He almost believed half of it already. I could see how this would be useful in a business situation, but nobody takes a mechanic seriously if his nails are too neat. “The FBI has been called in already and they’re about to deploy downstairs. I was sent ahead to secure this route of escape and begin searching.”
“Mr. Sarano...” he began.
I held up the elevator key I had snatched moments before. “Is cooperating fully with the search. He gave me this key in case I need emergency access to the elevators for the search teams. But don’t call anybody over hotel lines. Our suspect has a hotel security walkie-talkie. That’s how I got this black eye.”
Kevin had a real gee-whiz look on his face. He was swallowing the fast-talk, but I had to get him moving before he started questioning me on anything. I pulled a brochure out of its display on the counter and wrote my cell phone number on the back. “I need you to go downstairs and wait for them to check in at the desk. When you see them, tell the agent in charge this is how to reach me. They’ll be looking for me under the name of Ethan Hayes.”
He hesitated for a moment, recognizing the name. “The Scarab!” I thought I was busted. “So it’s true what they say about you. You are just a front man.”
“No, there really is a team here from DeClerk enterprises, but they have been cooperating with us in the investigation from the beginning. Look, my partner has already been killed over this. The bomb is on a timer and I have to ask you to lock up and leave immediately.”
Kevin nodded, grabbed a clipboard, locked the doors out to the helipad and left obediently. After the floor indicator showed that he was well on his way, I started searching. I unplugged all of the courtesy phones there for the use of customers, and put them in the stairwell. To this pile, I added the radio base station and reservations computer terminal which could be used to send messages, and a coat tree and floor lamp which could be used as battering rams. I pulled off all the cords I could, tied their ends together, and stuck them in my bag. Making one last pass, I discovered a cordless phone behind the counter that had sufficient range to help me in my plan. I place the hand-set in my bag, and left the receiver plugged in.
I stepped out the door to the fire stairs and methodically wedged every penny I had between the door and the frame. Just to be sure, I gave the knob a two fisted tug without it budging. This door would never open from the other side. Now the only way in would be through the elevator, and if I did my job right, there would be no way out. I walked down the stairs until I saw the security cameras again, and came out on the twenty-fourth floor by the ice machine. Acting more on instinct than thought at this point, I grabbed the fire extinguisher there and hefted it like a weapon. It would do nicely. Riding an elevator to the sixteen floor, the one with no camera in the stair well, I looked at my watch, I decided it was time to check in again.
I stood in the stairwell threshold so that I could see the elevator floor indicator and hear any activity on the stairs above me. I turned on the phone I had borrowed from the roof, and dialed my suite. After four rings, Mark picked up.
“Hello,” he said, raising the pitch of his voice to sound more like me.
“Hey, Mark. It’s Ethan.” I said, exposing the disguise.
“This isn’t...” he began, trying to maintain my cover for me.
I could almost hear the black hats tracing where the call was originating from. “It’s all right. I’ve got a meeting in five minutes with the local media. I have the evidence disc with me, and I’m going to blow the whistle on everything. Then whoever grabbed Mary can’t touch me.”
He didn’t approve of my strategy, knowing the bad guys were listening. “Are you with the reporters right now?”
“No,” I admitted. “I’m waiting by their copter with the satellite uplink. We’re going to do a live feed as soon as they schedule it with the network and get up here.”
Mark started to object, but I cut him off when I saw the elevator moving to seventeen. They were taking the bait. “No, I’ve said too much already. This isn’t going to take long. You might want to order some Chinese so I can get FED soon. If they don’t deliver, I’d consider it a personal favor if you picked up the order yourself. Bye!” I hope he
got the hint and sent himself or the FBI to the seventeenth floor. I shut off the roof phone and stuffed it in my bag. For good measure, I switched my portable to vibrate mode instead of ringing. No point in advertising.
I crept up to the seventeenth floor fire door and listened. Very muffled voices were arguing, so I risked a peek. Nobody was in the hallway. The guards had left to chase me, and Mare was still safe. I crawled across the hall to hide behind the metal desk barricade while I watched the floor indicator climb. I cradled the fire extinguisher, listening for voices or movement in the computer room. I guess they thought they had me, so they quietly went back to whatever they had been doing. Once the elevator stopped on the roof, I had to wait for them to get out, but not wait so long that they knew it was a trap.
At what I hoped was the right moment, I hit the fire alarm, then most of the light switches, and went back behind the barricade. Cursing came from inside the computer room, and as he opened the door, an older man said, “I’ll see what it is. You finish the clean up.” He had to shout over the constant annoyance of the alarm ringing. I could see dimly by the light from the other end of the corridor.
Here’s where I got nervous. I figured that even if the goons did get free upstairs, I had about three minutes to rescue my damsel. I didn’t worry about disrupting the game with this false alarm because all the serious players would ignore it until the power failed or some fireman dragged them away kicking and screaming. I just didn’t want to kill anybody. However, if he had Mary’s gun, and I didn’t hit hard enough to knock him out, he might shoot me. With my condition, any bullet wound could be fatal, wherever it hit. I decided to aim for the right shoulder. I could incapacitate the arm without worrying about head injury.
When the man walked by, I didn’t see the face I had been expecting, Fontenelle. I did, however, see the gun. I had seen him before, and trying to goad my memory for the exact place almost caused me to delay too long. With one fluid motion, I stood up and smashed his collar bone with the extinguisher. He gave a brief grunt of pain which was silenced when his jaw bounced off the corner of the desk. I grabbed his crumpled form in a wrestling hold almost immediately. The gun had fallen on the carpet from his limp hand. I duct-taped his mouth, not bothering to rip off the end. I left the roll dangling down his back. I was worried that someone had heard the attack, but evidently the loud alarm had covered the noise. Next, I cuffed his hands together around the cross brace that ran along the front of the metal desk. With a fevered glance at the computer room door, I searched the old executive type for some identification and the keys to Mare’s prison.