“Girlfriend.”
“Right.”
“What time is it there?”
“Half past nine. So far, our girl is doing exactly what she said. You should have seen the look on Murphy’s face. I can run it back for you later.”
“Sure,” Keene said. No thank you.
Girlfriend, who until about thirty minutes ago was just another low-level operative, had contacted McCoy a few days ago with an intriguing proposal: Give me a chance to show you my talents. McCoy had been impressed she even knew how to find him. It was enough for him to kick her proposal upstairs and receive clearance to follow it up.
Girlfriend wanted a promotion. And she wanted to demonstrate how much she deserved it.
The employees in the office were slated to die anyway, she’d argued.
Why not let her try?
McCoy told Girlfriend: You impress us, we give you the way out and a new job. If not … well, nice interviewing with you.
Girlfriend accepted.
Keene, though, was more concerned with Dubai and this summer cold that seemed to be taking root in his head. It was never a good idea to focus on more than one operation at a time. That kind of juggling invariably led to mistakes.
But there was no stopping McCoy, who was enamored with this Philadelphia thing. So Keene had to pretend to be enamored, too. It made things easier.
Keene put on the kettle and took a green earthenware mug down from the cupboard. Wait. McCoy’s beer. He opened the fridge and snatched a can from the bottom shelf. That was the extent of McCoy’s weekly contributions to the pantry. Everything else he consumed was takeaway. Usually Thai or Indian.
He handed the can of Caley 80 to his partner, who was looking at one of the monitors with glee.
“Will you look at that,” McCoy said.
On screen, Girlfriend—who looked a bit mousy, if you asked Keene—was holding up a peace sign.
“Number two, coming right up.” McCoy popped the top of his beer, then started thumbing through a stack of papers on the desk. “You’ve got to love her style.”
“Hmmm,” Keene said. “As in Murphy was number one?”
“Right.”
“Remind me again what this Philadelphia office does?”
“Financial disruption of terrorist networks. Or something like that. Bunch of geeks using computers to erase the bank accounts of known terrorist cells. I’m not too familiar with it myself. I’m a human resources guy.”
“Oh, is that what you do?”
“Shhh. She’s moving.”
They watched as Girlfriend allowed herself to be led to another office. McCoy leaned forward and tapped some keys. A separate fiber-optic feed picked her up on the second screen. They watched another woman—a well-scrubbed, bright-eyed American with shoulder-length hair—try to comfort Girlfriend.
And then they watched Girlfriend start to beat the woman savagely.
“Ugh,” Keene said.
“Oh, she’s good.”
Amy couldn’t scream, but that didn’t mean she was giving up. She pretended to faint backwards, pivoting so she was facing her own desk from the opposite side. There. An orange-and-black Philadelphia City Press mug was loaded with Sharpies, ballpoint pens, and one pair of Italian forged steel scissors with black grips.
Behind her, Molly was closing the door. For privacy, presumably.
So she could kill Amy in peace and quiet.
Amy wrapped her fingers around the cold steel, then lunged out behind her. Molly stepped back; steel whisked against her blouse, ripping the fabric slightly. A smirk appeared on Molly’s face. Amy growled—that was all she could do—and lunged again, but Molly sidestepped it, in the exact opposite direction Amy thought she would. By then it was too late to lunge again. Molly kicked Amy in the chest, which sent her flipping backwards over her own desk. Her fall was temporarily broken by her rolling chair, but it slid away and Amy crashed to the floor.
Run, Amy thought. Run away.
Regroup.
She scrambled to her feet and pressed her palms against her window for support.
The entire pane popped out of its frame.
Amy gasped as the glass fell away from her palms.
Down.
Down.
Down.
The glass dropped thirty-six floors, flipping and coasting and flipping again before shattering in the small street behind the 1919 Market Street Building.
McCoy smiled. “Hah. I didn’t see her do that. I wonder when she did that.”
Keene frowned. “Isn’t that cheating?”
“No, no. She told us she would be doing a few hours of prep work, just like in a normal job. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Smacks of cheating to me.” Keene sipped tea. It soothed his throat, and the warmth—a good warmth—made its way up his sinus cavities. Did nothing for the dull throb in his head, though.
“No, she’s good. Her target is in total shock. That window popping out was the last thing she expected.”
They watched the monitor. Keene sipped his Earl Grey.
“Oh … wait!”
“What?”
“Now I get it. Why she sent me those employee performance sheets.”
Keene took another sip of his tea. He wasn’t about to sit here asking What do you mean? all afternoon.
That was one of the truly annoying things about McCoy. He loved to draw out everything. Instead of just coming out with it, he’d make cryptic statements designed to force you to ask “What?” or “Tell me!” or “Oh, really?” Well, McCoy could play with some other fool. He was either going to tell Keene what was on his mind, or he wasn’t.
This time, it didn’t take too much silence to goad McCoy into continuing.
“A few days ago, she sent me a bunch of paperwork. Résumés for her proposed targets, as well as their employee performance sheets. You know, the stuff bosses use to tell you if you’re doing a lousy job or not, if you’re getting a raise or not.”
Keene said nothing. But inside, a little voice urged: Go on, go on now.
“I couldn’t figure out why she sent me this stuff. I mean, we have everybody’s info, and then some, already on file. This was junk we didn’t need.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mmmm, this tea was good.
McCoy tuned in. “Hey—are you even listening?”
“Of course, love.”
“Anyway, it just dawned on me right now, when that pane of glass dropped away.”
“What?”
Keene silently cursed himself.
“She’s playing on their individual weaknesses,” McCoy said. “David Murphy would do some subtle mind-ops stuff during employee evaluations—that’s what he used to do, psyops—and work it into his evaluation. Girlfriend here picked up on that. She’s showing off.”
Keene sipped tea, then said: “Some people will do anything for a job.”
Amy was frozen; it was all too much to comprehend. The pane, gone. The pane of glass that shielded her not only from the temperamental seasons of Philadelphia—with its snow and humidity and rain and gusts—but also from her darkest impulses.
Amy had explained it to David years ago when he’d asked her what she feared the most. She’d answered honestly: losing her mind for three seconds.
David had tented his fingers, raised his eyebrows. “Care to explain that one?”
Specifically, Amy had said, “I’m afraid of losing my mind for three seconds near an open window. Because part of me might decide it’s a good idea to jump out the window, just to see what would happen.” If that did happen, Amy knew that she would recover her sanity almost instantly. Not in enough time to prevent her from jumping out the window, but plenty of time to realize her mistake as she plummeted at 9.8 meters per second—plenty of time to scream in horror before pounding into the concrete below.
“Interesting,” David had said.
And now she was looking at it. An open window, thirty-six stories above the ground.
Would Amy lose her mind?
And would it be for three seconds, or longer?
Then, at the moment of truth, the moment she thought she may actually do it …
Fingers.
Gripping the back of her shirt, pulling Amy away from the window. Thank God. A hand, reached into the waistband of her pants, holding tight, and guiding her backwards. Deeper into the safety of her office. Away from the window.
“Oh God,” she whispered, even though her voice was barely a murmur, and her savior was the same person who’d been brutally assaulting her just a few seconds ago. Thank you.
“You’re welcome,” Molly said.
Amy felt something tug at her waist. Her leather belt.
Slipping out of her pant loops.
Then she felt something wrap around her ankle.
Molly eased Amy back until her grip was secure, and she had enough room. Then it was time.
She looked up in the corner of Amy’s office, where the camera was tucked away.
Winked.
And then she launched Amy out the open window. Thirty-six floors above the pavement.
At the last second—and oh, how she hoped the fiber-optic camera in this office could capture this, her impeccable timing, reflexes, and strength …
At the last possible second she snatched the end of the leather belt. Grasped it tight, then collapsed down into a ball, wedging herself against the metal radiator that ran along the lower office wall. All would be lost if Amy’s weight were to pull Molly right out the window.
But it didn’t. Molly held the leather firm.
McCoy, eyes affixed to the laptop screen, said, “Wow.”
In that moment, Amy knew she had lost her mind, lost it to the point of imagining that someone would actually throw her out an open window, thirty-six stories up. Because who would do that? Clearly, she had lost her mind. Not to be recovered.
And it was nothing like she had imagined.
In all her dreams, a fall from a great height like this one was a nightmare, but one of only a few seconds. The crushing air, the blur of motion …it was all horrible beyond words. But it was finite. When she smashed into the ground, she would jolt awake.
Not this time. In real life, falling to your death felt like forever.
She felt like she would
be
falling
forever.
Molly didn’t look, even though she wanted to. She used the scissors to secure the leather belt to the metal grille of the radiator; as long as Amy didn’t jolt around, it should hold for a short while.
Taking a peek over the edge of the open window would be unprofessional. Better to seem aloof, as in: I don’t need to watch. The moment Amy Felton cleared the window, and was suspended—frozen—paralyzed—in midair, it was on to the next task. After all, she was being watched herself.
Molly was curious, sure. She wondered about the expression on Amy’s face. Wondered if her calculations had been correct. But she cared more about what her special audience thought.
There’d be plenty of time to watch later.
On playback.
Down the hall, Jamie stared at his two-way Motorola pager. It had sat in a front pocket of his leather briefcase for over a month, unused. As far as he knew, Jamie had never turned it off.
The day before the Fourth of July, he’d received a final page from Andrea:
GET HOME NOW, DADDY:)
Andrea’s water had just broken. She’d been pulling steaks out of the freezer, hoping to thaw them in time for a little pre-Fourth grilling session. She craved meat—big fat T-bone steaks, specifically—throughout her pregnancy, and damn it, she’d be eating steaks right up until the moment the baby was born.
As it turned out, Jamie rushed home, gathered up Andrea and the emergency baby bag she’d packed a week before, and raced—cautiously—to Pennsylvania Hospital. The steaks ended up sitting out on the counter for the next day and a half. When Jamie arrived home, delirious with joy and exhaustion, he was smacked in the face with the scent of rotting cow flesh. Welcome home, Daddy.
The pagers had been Andrea’s idea. Frustrated that she couldn’t reach her husband at will—whenever Jamie had his cell phone tucked away in his bag, the thing was hard to hear—she went Motorola on his ass. Found a sweet deal on matching Talkabout T900s. Less than a hundred dollars for the two of them. Ran on a AA battery. During the last month of her pregnancy, Andrea suggested that her husband carry the T900 at all times. She suggested it like an umpire suggests to a batter that he’s out.
Jamie’s T900 was a royal blue; Andrea’s hot pink. Totally out of character for Andrea. But pregnancy had done strange things to the woman.
So now Jamie stared at his T900, wondering if it had any juice left. He hit the power button, but no luck. The thing had lost its last volt probably right around the time the steaks had reached full ripeness.
But that was fine. All he needed was a single AA battery. And then he could text-message the cops or an ambulance or something. YEAH, OFFICER? MY BOSS JUST GOT SHOT IN THE HEAD. THINK YOU CAN SEND SOMEBODY UP? And get off this floor already.
Where did they keep batteries around here?
Amy Felton. She was always good for stuff like that.
There was a knock at the door, two quick taps, just as Molly was about to open it. She paused, then placed her hand on the sturdy silver knob. Opened the door an inch, then pressed the lock button. Then she opened it the rest of the way and quickly pressed her body into the space between the door and the frame. Whoever was there would notice the missing pane of glass, and the leather belt hanging over the ledge. The sticky August air was already flooding into Amy’s office.
Molly bumped into Jamie, who took a nervous step backwards. He looked stunned.
“Jamie.”
“God, are you okay? Is Amy in there?”
“No. She asked me to lock her office door while she went for help.”
“She did? Where?”
“Come with me.”
Molly charged down the hall, giving Jamie zero chance to refuse. He followed her, just as she knew he would. He had a crush on her.
She remembered that night a few months ago, when the staff had been out drinking. Jamie had joined them, which was uncharacteristic of him. They talked; they flirted. He offered to walk her to her car. He wanted to say good night. She pulled back slightly, and that only drew him in further. His breath smelled like beer, and his button-down shirt like a thousand cigarettes. It was difficult for her to pull back, but she did. It wasn’t the right time.
But now …
As she walked by one of the security cameras in the hall, Molly held her hands up in front of her chest. Five fingers on one hand, two on the other.
“Look at that,” McCoy said, sitting in front of a laptop screen 3,500 miles away. “Number seven. She’s going out of order. Now why would she be doing that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because the guy knocked on the door moments after Girlfriend hung his coworker out of the window.”
“Yeah, I know that. But someone like Girlfriend could have easily handled this guy. Look at him. He’s a cream puff. I got his file around here somewhere. She was saving him for last. Like dessert.”
“Why?”
“You always take out the toughest targets first. Girlfriend identified the first woman—this Felton woman—as her most formidable target. Despite her fear of heights.”
Keene sipped his tea. He was going to have to get up to pour another cup soon. “I’ve been thinking on that. Seems like a very sloppy move to me. You have the pane of glass shattering on the street below. No telling what that may have hit. There might be six schoolchildren down there, bleeding to death.”
“Not likely. That bank of windows faces north, and there’s nothing down below but a minor street used mostly by delivery trucks. Girlfriend was thinking ahead.”
“Fine, I’ll spot you the glass. But what about the target? Surely, somebody’s going to notice a woman hanging out of a window, no m
atter how small the street.”
McCoy smiled. “Again, not likely. This is Philly. You ever been there? I have, and the murder rate’s out of control. Plus, the sun’s strong today. A lot of glare.”
“Be serious now.”
“Seriously? I think this is Girlfriend showing off. It was a tremendously ballsy move. Because you’re right—you can’t keep that kind of thing under wraps for long. Somebody’s going to look up and see that woman. It may take a minute. It may take an hour. But you can bet that somebody’s going to spot her and start freaking out, and boom. That’s where the clock really starts to tick.”
His name was Vincent Marella …
… and he was reading a paperback thriller. He’d found it in the changing area. Someone had left it on a table with a few other books, the idea being that other employees of 1919 Market would bring in their old books and get a swap thing going. Of course, that never happened. Only the original guy brought in books. And that was it. Vincent guessed that there weren’t many readers on the security staff.
The book wasn’t bad, actually. It was called Center Strike, and was about a gang of high-class yet tough-as-nails thieves who tried to loot the gold stored in vaults beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center within forty-eight hours of the collapse. Completely ridiculous, Vincent knew. A red burst on the cover promised that the book was BASED ON ACTUAL EVENTS. Yeah. Right.
Reading stuff like this was both exciting and unnerving. Exciting because one of the book’s heroes was …wait for it … a World Trade Center security guard, who also happened to be a Gulf War vet who single-handedly saved his platoon from a nutty Iraqi general who had held them captive in the desert.
It was unnerving because … well, Vincent was a security guard in a thirty-seven-floor skyscraper in a major American city.
He wasn’t a Gulf vet—he’d grown up between wars. Too young for Vietnam, too old for the Gulf. And he’d never had anybody hold him captive.
Still, he’d seen some action. Not too long ago, in fact.
Vincent was in the middle of a flashback passage about the hero’s gruesome torture in the Iraqi camp when a disheveled-looking guy dressed in a ratty T-shirt walked through the revolving doors. Guy was white, but his black T-shirt was emblazoned with a fake cereal box advertising CHEERI-HO’S, and the busty woman on that fake cereal box—with oversize lips, hips, and bust—wasn’t exactly a General Mills mascot.
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