by Andrew Grant
“Don’t be silly, Tanya. I’m coming to get you. Don’t worry. This will all work out fine. Now, tell me. How many people are holding you? One. Two. Three. Four.”
“Yes.”
“Which part of the building are you in? The basement. Ground floor. First floor.”
“Yes. Ow. They hit me again. They say our time’s up.”
“OK. Stay strong then, Tanya. I’m on my way. There’s nothing to worry about. And whoever these guys are, they’re going to pay.”
“One more thing. They’re going to text a photo of me to your phone. To remember me by. Because they say if you don’t make it here inside an hour, or don’t come alone, you won’t recognize what you find.”
“Tell them not to bother,” I said. “I won’t be needing it.”
THIRTY-ONE
Dead-letter boxes went out with the ark, but the navy still trains you to use them.
It’s not that unreasonable, if you think about it. Often the simplest solution is the best, and it’s unwise to always rely on technology. And whether we thought we’d ever need the skill or not, we were sent into a south London housing estate, in pairs, to practice. One person to leave a coded message, the other to retrieve it.
My role had been to retrieve. I waited until the agreed time, then approached the drop. I walked past twice, to be sure no one was watching. But when I was happy the coast was clear, I found there was no package to pick up. I was annoyed, rather than worried. I assumed the other guy had screwed up, so I pulled back to our rendezvous point to share my thoughts on his performance. I was fifty feet away when someone sprang out at me from a gap in a broken-down fence. It was a guy from the next group up on our course. He said my partner had been mugged by a bunch of local youths and dragged into a lockup garage around the next corner. There were eight of them, and they’d been laying into him with baseball bats. He was hurt pretty bad.
We moved silently forward and peeked around the end of the fence. I could see the garage. It was on its own, surrounded by crumbling, gravel-strewn tarmac. A trail of blood led to a single vehicle-sized door at the front, which was now closed. The guy from the course wanted to rush it. With two of us he thought we’d be OK. I wasn’t so sure. There was no way of approaching silently or under cover. We had no weapons. No knowledge of the youths’ objectives or disposition. Nothing to force open the door. No information on the area or surroundings. And strong odds we’d end up giving them three hostages instead of one.
I pulled out my phone. It was the right decision to make. The whole scenario had been staged. The emergency procedures were drummed into us every day. We all knew the backup facilities that were available to us. The question was, did you have the presence of mind to use them when it really counted? Or would you become John Wayne and make the situation worse?
Varley, Weston, and Lavine were already in their mobile command center when I got there, twenty minutes after I sent the balloon up. It was tucked in at the end of a row of maintenance vehicles behind Temple Emanu-El on Sixty-fifth and Fifth. All three were in the control room. Weston was nearest the front, sitting at a console. The others were standing behind him. They were all staring at an array of flat-panel monitors. There were nine, arranged in a square that covered the whole end wall. None of them were working.
The central panel flickered into life just as I walked in. It showed a dainty four-story building, only two windows wide with ornate stone carvings around the frames and a sloping roof covered with embossed copper sheeting. The hulking, utilitarian offices that bore down on each side made it seem tiny and out of place, like a slice of old-world Europe sandwiched between two concrete cubes.
“The external camera’s online,” Weston said.
“That’s the place?” I said.
“It is,” Lavine said. “Looks respectable, doesn’t it, for a human chop shop.”
“It does,” I said. “But we can soon change that.”
“That won’t be easy,” Varley said. “We have no ground-level access at the back. No approach for a vehicle. First- and second-floor windows are heavily barred. There are no skylights.”
“What about a cellar?” I said.
“There’s no access to one. And we can’t blast through from the neighboring buildings. Old place like that, there’s too much risk of collapse.”
“That just leaves the front,” I said.
“Right. The front door, and the two dormer windows on the roof.”
“What about inside?” I said. “Any idea where they’re holding her? She told me the first floor on the phone, but she could have been moved.”
“Nothing yet. But we’ve got surveillance teams in both office buildings. Kyle, any word on the fiber cameras?”
“Any minute now,” Weston said. “They’ve finished drilling through. The cables are all in place. Wait—the first camera’s coming up now.”
As we watched, a shadowy, indistinct picture spread across the bottom left-hand monitor. I had to look closely, but could just about make out three rows of shelves piled up with bedding and towels. They were leading away from us, toward a distant flight of stone steps.
“It’s the basement,” Weston said. “There’s not much light. The others’ll be better.”
One by one, brighter pictures filled the other screens until finally eight were in use. I held on, waiting for the ninth, but it remained stubbornly dark.
“OK,” Lavine said, after a moment. “This is what I see. Basement: storage. Access by stairs only. Ground floor: reception desk, waiting area, two offices.”
“No,” Weston said. “One office, one consulting room. Look at the walls. The diagrams and posters.”
“You’re right,” Lavine said. “One’s a consulting room. Also we have stairs and an elevator. A large one.”
“Big enough for a gurney,” Weston said.
“It would have to be, I guess,” Lavine said. “OK. First floor: I don’t know. It looks like a room within a room. I can’t see inside.”
“It’ll be their OR,” Weston said. “It’s an old building, drafty, they probably had to make it self-contained. Only way to guarantee it’s sterile.”
“Makes sense,” Lavine said. “And again, stairs and an elevator. Leading to the second floor: two beds, hospital style. Vases. Flowery decor. Must be their recovery ward.”
“Right,” Weston said. “Looks like a nurses’ station in the corner.”
“And finally the attic,” Lavine said. “Two small bedrooms. A bathroom. Functional, not fancy. Must be for the on-call staff.”
“Right,” Weston said. “But staff? Where are they?”
“Where’s Tanya?” I said. “I didn’t see anyone in the whole place.”
“Must be in that OR,” Varley said. “It’s the only room we can’t see into.”
“That’s where I’d go,” Lavine said. “It’s self-contained. No external walls or windows. It’ll even have its own oxygen supply.”
“How would you see out?” Weston said. “You wouldn’t know what was going on.”
“CCTV,” Lavine said. “See the cameras? Both sides of the front door. More at the back. They’d just need to reroute some cables and hook up some monitors.”
“How are we for sound?” I said. “Have we got any ears in there?”
Weston picked up a headset from his console, pressed a button, and repeated my question.
“Nine,” he said, after a moment. “Two parabolics and seven probe mikes. Not a whisper on any of them.”
“But they wouldn’t reach the OR anyway,” Varley said. “So we still have to assume that’s where everyone is. Agreed?”
No one replied.
“Good,” Varley said. “Now, time check?”
“Tanya told David one hour,” Lavine said. “That means we have twenty-four minutes remaining.”
“I don’t want to take this to the wire,” Varley said. “They may not be that precise. Or they could panic, we could hit a snag, anything. So, Kyle. The office buildings. What’s their statu
s, please?”
Weston made another call on his headset.
“Red and blue teams are in position on the roofs,” he said. “They’re roped up and ready to go, in case you need both of them. All civilians are contained within the buildings. No one is being permitted to leave. All exit points are secured by our own people.”
“Good,” Varley said. “Now, the NYPD?”
Weston checked with someone else.
“They’re ready,” he said, covering his microphone with his hand. “Covert units are in place on Fifth and Madison, both sides of the junction. But they’re getting jumpy. Worried about the number of people. They want to start intercepting the pedestrians right away.”
“Tell them no,” Varley said. “It’s too risky. The clinic guys could have eyes on the street. They don’t deploy till I say so.”
Weston passed on Varley’s orders.
“Done,” he said, turning back to us. “They’re standing by. Waiting for your green light.”
“And the chopper?” Varley said.
“In place,” Weston said. “Two minutes and we’ll have their live pictures.”
“All right,” Varley said. “So. That just leaves you, David. Are you good to go?”
“Always,” I said.
Varley decided to go with both roof teams. Eight agents. That was a big number for such a small building, especially with the lack of confirmed targets showing up on the monitors. The whole setup was a nightmare. It screamed of a trap or an ambush. But we were concerned about time. We still couldn’t see into the OR. We couldn’t hear anything. There was no telling what the kidnappers would do if we were forced to go in.
And they had Tanya.
I walked across East Sixty-sixth Street, directly opposite the clinic, until I reached the edge of the sidewalk. I forced myself to move slowly and smoothly, but it was nearly impossible. With each step I took another tortured vision of Tanya squirmed its way into my head. I imagined her tied up. Hooded. Thrown on the ground. A gun pressed to her head. A finger on the trigger . . .
I pushed the thoughts away and opened my jacket. I held it wide, to show anyone watching that I wasn’t armed. I let ten seconds crawl by. I lifted up my shirt, to show that my waistband was clear. Five more seconds ticked away. I turned around to show I had nothing tucked in the back of my jeans. Another ten seconds. Then I stepped up to the door, paused, and knocked twice.
I was at the clinic, alone. Unarmed. It was less than an hour since Tanya’s call. If the kidnappers were true to their word, it was time to let her go.
Ten seconds passed. Fifteen. There was absolute silence from inside the building. No one moved. No one came to open the door.
I raised my arms, held them out by my sides for a moment, then slowly knocked two more times. As my knuckles rapped against the wood for the last time I heard something, high above me. A pair of muffled explosions, one right on top of the other. It was the agents blowing the two dormers out of the pretty copper roof. My diversion had been a success. The kidnappers hadn’t complied. Now they’d lost the chance to negotiate. I just hoped Tanya hadn’t lost an awful lot more.
Another four agents streamed out of the office building to my left. One handed me a Glock. The next fixed a shaped charge to the clinic door, checked everyone was clear, and hit the button on his detonator. The door dissolved into a cloud of sawdust and the first agent was through the gap before the final few splinters had landed on the sidewalk.
Two agents dived through the door to the basement. The others stormed through reception and crashed into the consulting room. I could hear a commotion above me, but no gunfire. It would be the two roof teams swarming through the upper floors, working their way down to join us. The plan was to coincide in the hallway, but I wasn’t concerned about that. Tanya had said she was on the first floor. That meant there was only one place I was interested in going. Up the stairs.
My way was blocked by an agent, on his way down. The moment I saw him I knew something was wrong. It was more than annoyance over me ignoring our instructions. I could tell by the tilt of his head. The stoop of his shoulders. The distance he kept away from me. The tired way he removed his goggles before speaking.
“Commander Trevellyan?” he said. “Sorry to tell you this, sir, but we’ve found your friend. At least, I think we have.”
THIRTY-TWO
Every couple of years the navy brings in a new initiative. The last one was a health screening program. A series of examinations was to be held at the same time as the regular psych evaluations, presumably to keep the costs down. It was billed as a benefit, but that didn’t fool anyone. Its real purpose was obvious. To minimize sick leave. It was as if we were the machines, and the bosses wanted as little downtime on the production line as possible.
The scheme was optional. I’d estimate about half a percent of people took up the offer. Even that figure might be too high. Worrying about whether you may or may not get sick at some point in the future is not a typical mind-set in my line of work.
I didn’t go, myself. The way I saw it was that if something bad was waiting around the corner, I’d rather not know. And that didn’t just apply to health matters.
My view had made sense, back then.
I wasn’t so sure, anymore.
I passed four more agents on the stairs, on my way up to the first floor. All of them were carrying equipment—guns; an aluminum stepladder; a folding metal arm with a kind of claw on the end, like a larger version of the things park keepers use to pick up rubbish; a video camera on an extending pole. But none of them would look me in the eye. And I noticed something else. They were all breathing through their mouths.
The closer I got to the top of the stairs, the more I understood why. The hallway had stunk of disinfectant, like most hospitals do. The odor had lingered as I began to climb. But once I’d reached the midpoint it gave way to something else. A harsh metallic tang that coated the roof of my mouth and clung to the inside of my nostrils. It was unmistakable. The heavy, cloying stench of blood. An unhealthy smell. The kind that humans are programmed to avoid.
The final three agents were gathered outside the entrance to the OR. I walked toward them, and the stink grew worse with every step I took. They watched grimly as I drew closer and finally all three backed away, leaving me with a clear view through the door.
The body had been left neatly on the operating table. Its head was missing, but taking that into account, I figured the person would have been around five feet eight. Tanya’s height. The hands were also missing, but I could see one severed wrist peeping out from under the blood-soaked theater greens. It was slender and delicate and hairless, like a young woman’s. So were the feet. They were still present. And both big toes were bent slightly inward, as if she’d been used to wearing pointed shoes or boots.
Something had been left on her chest. A stainless-steel kidney dish. A small object was propped up inside. It looked like a computer memory stick, but I couldn’t get close enough to check. Not without wading through an unbelievable amount of blood. I’d never seen so much in one place before. I didn’t know a person contained so much. The stout pedestal holding up the operating table had literally become an island at the center of a sticky, red lake. It was almost perfectly circular, and had already flowed around two trolleys of electrical equipment and a yellow surgical-waste bin. No way was any part of me going to be next.
A sudden agitated rustling sound behind me broke my concentration. I looked around and saw four people in white paper suits emerging from the staircase. They had clear plastic bonnets on their heads, like hotel shower caps, and similar covers stretched over their shoes. Their faces were hidden behind thick breathing masks, and each one was carrying an aluminum tool case like an artist or a fisherman.
“My name’s Maher,” the first of them said. “Dr. Melvyn Maher. Now. You, in the leather coat. Step back. This is my crime scene. Go and wait at the MCC with the others.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I don’t f
eel like cricket.”
“What? Are you part of this investigation?”
“No. I just came to laugh at the clowns.”
“Who are you?”
“Nice outfit, by the way. It could do with some color, though. Red might suit you.”
“Are you threatening me? I’ll have you removed.”
“You can try. But the remains of my friend are lying in that room. And until I know who’s responsible, I won’t be leaving.”
Varley’s patience with the forensics crew lasted just less than an hour. Then he summoned Dr. Maher to the command center. I followed him to the control room. Weston and Lavine were already there.
“I know you’ve just got on this, Doc,” Varley said. “But something’s way out of whack, here. That’s obvious. So I need an early heads-up. What can you give me?”
“Nothing,” Maher said. “It’s too soon. We’re still processing. I wouldn’t want to draw any conclusions at this stage. You’ll have to wait.”
“Nobody’s going to wait, Doc. Talk to me now.”
“Don’t pressure me. You’re being unreasonable.”
“Kidnappers and murderers can have that effect. Now give me what you’ve got. Qualify it later if you need to.”
“And if you run off down any blind alleys as a result?”
“Forget ass covering, Doc. That’s not what this is about. The buck stops with me.”
Maher looked down at the table and silently chewed his upper lip.
“I think this is unwise,” he said, after a moment. “I want you to know that. But if you insist, there are a few things we can be reasonably certain of. Three so far, I believe.”
“Sometime today, Doc?” Varley said.
“OK, then. Don’t rush me. First thing. Let’s start with the victim. I understood you were aiming to rescue a woman hostage?”
“Correct.”
“Well, the body in the OR isn’t hers. It’s male.”
Weston, Varley, and Lavine exchanged puzzled glances.