by Andrew Grant
“You know what?” I threw the pen down and turned to face McKenna. “I’m not doing this. If you’re going to shoot me, go ahead. I won’t make it easier for you. And it won’t work, anyway. No one will believe I’d ever kill myself.”
“Marc, you’re wasting time. Pick up the pen. I can dictate, if—”
McKenna’s phone beeped. He glanced at the incoming message, and a flash of annoyance crossed his face.
“What’s up?” I felt a flutter of hope. “Change of plan?”
“No. Just a delay with my ride out of here.”
“So we have some time? Long enough for me to see Carolyn? And say goodbye, properly? If you could let me have, maybe, a couple of hours—”
“Don’t insult me. And don’t ask for more time. You’ve had more, already. When I broke you out of jail? That’s when this was supposed to happen. And even then, it was your fault. I tried to help you. I gave you chance after chance to cooperate. But your greed wouldn’t let you, Marc. All this—your house, your car, your paintings, your marriage—it wasn’t enough for you. So you lied. You meddled. You pushed your luck so far my people lost patience with you.”
“Why not kill me yesterday, then?” I was desperate to keep him talking. “Why wait, to make it look like I planted the virus?”
“Because when Homeland Security checks ARGUS, they’ll find a ton of evidence—a ton, more than you could ever outrun, even if we let you live—linking you to half a dozen Syrians. Sleepers. They’ll be neutralized. And the United States will go on the offensive against the people they think tried to kill the President. You’re the last link in the chain. Now, write.”
I turned away from him, but left the pen where it was. The harder I tried to think, the slower my mind seemed to work. My last hope was fading away. Then I looked up at my Lichtenstein, and the spark of a new idea took hold.
“One last question.” I spun around in my chair. “Just out of curiosity. You know how your guys searched the house but missed the memory stick hidden under the countertop? I was wondering. Did they find the other one? Upstairs?”
“What other one?”
“The one I hid in the attic. In case the one in the kitchen was found.”
“What crap are you trying to pull here, Marc? You told me your wife handed over the last one.”
“I had some insurance, too.” I shrugged. “And now I’m curious. I thought I’d found a secure spot, but you can never be sure.”
“In the attic?”
“Your guys aren’t back yet. We’ve got time. I could show you …”
CRUSTY DROPLETS OF DRIED BLOOD were still visible near the bottom of the stairs, reminding me not to be too clever this time. I stepped over them, and led McKenna up to the second floor. And as soon as we turned toward my bedroom, I made sure I stayed between him and the wall.
“There it is.” I pointed to the trapdoor in the ceiling. “Do you want to do the honors, or shall I?”
“I’ll do it.” He reached up, grabbed the cord, and pulled. The catch released. The door dropped down and the ladder shot out of the darkness, metal shrieking against metal. McKenna leapt out of its path. And I launched myself off the wall, slamming against his shoulder and sending him spinning into the banister rail.
The same banister rail I’d been thrown against myself, on Thursday. It had been three-quarters wrecked then, so it was no match for McKenna’s weight and momentum. Pieces of wood broke free and scattered in all directions, and for a moment McKenna’s body seemed to pause, frozen at an impossible angle.
I could have reached out and saved him, if my arms had been longer.
And he hadn’t just tried to kill me.
Sunday. Late morning.
IT LOOKED LIKE JACKSON POLLOCK HAD BEEN TO WORK ON MY hall floor.
I went to the linen closet and pulled out all the sheets and blankets I could find. I kept one back, and threw the others down until they’d formed a cover over the worst of the bloody mess. Then I ran down the stairs and along to my study. I grabbed the spare keys to my Jaguar. Fished an old cell phone out of a drawer. Took my Lichtenstein off the wall. Wrapped it in the sheet. Made doubly sure the canvas was well protected. Moved to the kitchen to recover McKenna’s black box from under the countertop. And then left my home for the last time.
WHEN CAROLYN’S DESPERATE FOR something to happen a particular way, she visualizes the outcome she wants. A new contract. A raise. The Mets to beat the Yankees. I’d never been convinced, personally. But that morning I needed all the help I could get. So, as I reeled in the miles between my house and LeBrock’s—and the hands on the clock crept ever closer to noon—I conjured an image into my head. His driveway. With Carolyn’s car on it. Just like it had been on Friday night.
Her method worked. A hundred yards from LeBrock’s drive I caught a glimpse of silver paint through the trees. Two glimpses. Carolyn’s BMW, and another car. An Aston Martin. The photographer’s? My heart jumped. I leaned harder on the gas, and seconds later I was out of the Jaguar and hurrying along his front path.
For the second straight day, LeBrock opened his door before I got there. But this time he was fully dressed—in black jeans, boots, and a faux biker’s jacket, which looked ridiculous on a man his age—and he wasn’t coming to greet me. He actually flinched when he saw me, which scotched a fleeting hope that Carolyn had sent him out to give us a little privacy.
“Going away somewhere, Roger?” I nodded at the gray polycarbonate suitcase he was wheeling behind him.
“No.”
“Then why do you need luggage? And what about Carolyn? Is she here?”
“Change of plan, Marc. Sorry. Carolyn couldn’t make it, after all.”
“No? Then why’s her car on your drive?”
“She asked me to sell it for her. Dropped it here earlier, and took a car service to the airport.”
“But she’s having the fake passport photo done at noon. That’s in, what? Ten minutes? She can’t have left already. She wouldn’t travel under her own name. So spill. What’s really happening?”
“Nothing. I had the photo guy come early. She didn’t want to wait till tomorrow to fly out, is all.”
The lower lid of his left eye started to tremble.
“What’s in the case, Roger?”
“Nothing. Sorry, Marc. I have to go.”
I grabbed the handle, ripped it from his grip, and held him off long enough to ease back the zipper.
The case was stuffed full of neatly-wrapped bills.
“The forty million? You’re running off with my wife, after all? You lying bastard.”
“No.” He lunged for the case, but I shoved him away. “There’s no we, here. Just me. Carolyn’s not coming.”
“You stiffed her, too? You piece of shit.”
“I didn’t. This isn’t my idea.”
“Then whose is it? Carolyn’s? She asked to be left behind, vulnerable and penniless?”
LeBrock didn’t reply.
“This makes no sense, Roger. Look, neither of us is blameless. I’m not looking to pin anything on you. I just want to understand what’s happening.”
“OK. But not here. Come away from the door.”
LEBROCK PERCHED ON THE HOOD of his Mercedes, and his head dropped.
“Carolyn is in the house,” he admitted. “In the basement. But you can’t see her.”
“Why not? Is she OK?”
“She is. At the moment.”
“Stop this cryptic bullshit. Tell me what’s happening.”
LeBrock took a small leather folder from his jacket pocket and handed it to me. Inside, a piece of paper was attached to each cover. On the left, two names: Roger LeBrock and Carolyn Clark Bowman. On the right, three words: Death by suffocation.
“Note there are only two names,” he said. “And one outcome.”
“This is from the guy you were telling me about?”
“He gave it to me this morning. Showed up in my bedroom and handed it to me like a room-service br
eakfast menu.”
“And you chose to save yourself, leaving Carolyn to die? How could you do that?”
LeBrock didn’t answer.
“Oh.” I raised the suitcase. “Maybe this made the choice a little easier. Did the guy know the cash was in the house?”
“Of course he did.” LeBrock looked up at me, his back stiffening. “He brought me the case to carry it in! Don’t you get how this guy works? It’s not just psychopathic with him. It’s psychological. Think about it. If I walk away with the money, how can I enjoy it? Knowing what I did to get it?”
“And yet you’re doing it anyway.”
“Easy for you to sit on your high horse and judge! You think you’d have done the noble thing? Because let me tell you—you wouldn’t.”
“I would.”
“Yeah? Like when you shot down Carolyn’s chance to leave AmeriTel? So you could live off her fat paycheck? Like a damn pimp?”
“That was different.”
“Prove it.” LeBrock dived across the hood and this time he managed to claw the case away from me. Then he zipped it open the rest of the way and started to hurl handfuls of wrapped-up bills at me. Dozens of them. He didn’t stop till they were heaped and scattered at my feet like bricks at a construction site. “There. That’s five million, at least. Go inside and offer your life in your wife’s place. Or scoop up the cash and drive away.”
“Wait. What about other options? How many guys are in there with her?”
“One.”
“Only one? There’s two of us. Why don’t we go inside and bring her out? And tell this guy to fuck himself at the same time?”
“We can’t. You don’t understand. Carolyn’s tied up in my safe room. The guy’s cut off the air supply. Right now, the door’s open, which means she’s still OK. But he’s holding a dead-man’s switch. Can you believe I paid extra for that? Anyway, all he has to do is let go, and the door closes. Automatically. And once it’s closed, there’s no way to open it from the outside. Literally, no way. The thing’s impregnable. And totally airtight.”
“OK. Then we call the police. They have negotiators. And hostage rescue teams. They deal with this kind of thing all the time. That’s got to give her a better chance than walking away and leaving her. Unless you think the guy’s bluffing?”
“The one thing this guy doesn’t do is bluff. Ask Melanie Walker’s husband.”
“Then I’m calling 911.” I pulled out my phone.
“No point. There’s not enough time. Because regardless of the dead-man’s switch, the guy’s closing the door at noon. The only question was who’d be inside. Carolyn, or me? Now it’s Carolyn, or you.”
“Noon?” I looked at the phone. “That’s six minutes away!”
“Then you better make your choice.” LeBrock picked up the case and climbed into the Mercedes. “Let’s see how strong those morals are now, buddy.”
I looked across at the door to the house.
Then started to grab up the money.
Sunday. Noon.
LEBROCK’S BASEMENT WAS LIKE A PRIVATE OUTPOST OF THE Container Store.
The stairs opened into the center of a broad, brightly lit space. In one direction all I could see were rows of shelves, perfectly fitted to the height and length of the walls, and filled to capacity with color-coded boxes and baskets and buckets. But on the other side of the staircase there was just a single object. A giant cuboid. Fifteen-feet wide. Twenty long. Ten high. Plain, gloss white surfaces.
The safe room?
I kicked myself for not asking LeBrock to explain how it worked. Where the controls were. Or even to tell me the name of the bastard who was holding my wife hostage.
“Hello?” I hurried around the far side of the smooth, white perimeter. “Whoever you are? I need to talk to you.”
“Marc?” Carolyn’s voice was shrill with stress. “Is Roger with you?”
I ran faster, turned the corner, and found the door to the safe room. A six-inch-thick slab of steel, which looked like it had been stolen from a bank vault. It was set on rollers, top and bottom. And it was still open. I breathed again. But I couldn’t see much more because my way was blocked. A man was sitting on a Barcelona chair in front of the doorway, his immaculate black suit merging against the leather so that his head and the front panel of his shirt seemed to be floating in space. His hair was parted in a neat, anonymous style, but his skin was waxy and his face immobile, like he was made out of parts from a mannequin. Even his eyes moved only once, homing in on mine and holding me in an unblinking stare.
His left hand was resting on his lap but his right was out of sight, tucked away in his trouser pocket.
“Is Carolyn Bowman in there? I just heard her. Is she all right?”
“Where’s Roger?” Carolyn yelled. “Is he coming back?”
“Be my guest.” The guy smiled. “See for yourself.”
I peered around the door frame. Carolyn was dressed in an outfit I hadn’t seen before. A casual gray dress with a matching cashmere cardigan and low-heeled sandals. They’d have made good travel clothes. Except that she was standing on tiptoe, hands above her head, chained to a ventilation duct.
“Marc?” Her face was white with panic. “Has Roger gone? Has he left me here?”
“Five million dollars.” I tore my gaze away from Carolyn and stepped back toward the guy in the suit. “Five million. Maybe a little more. I didn’t have time to count it. But it’s yours, if you let my wife go. Every cent.”
“It’s no good, Marc,” Carolyn yelled. “You don’t understand. You have to find Roger!”
“The five million?” The guy stood up. “Do you have it here?”
Had LeBrock been lying? Had he even tried to save Carolyn?
“I can get it in two minutes.”
“Good. Then you can have the same deal as LeBrock. I close this door. You walk away, and take the money with you.”
“No!” Carolyn’s chains clattered as she tried to rip them free of the duct. “Marc, you fool! You’ve messed everything—”
“Quiet!” the guy interrupted. “Or, Marc, you take your wife’s place, and she walks away with the money. Only, I wonder how much she’d enjoy the rest of her life, knowing the price you paid for her freedom?”
Carolyn stopped moving and the chains fell silent. I wanted to throw myself on the guy, knock him down, and beat his head against the shiny concrete floor. But then I remembered the switch LeBrock had mentioned. The guy’s hand was still in his pocket. Could I take the chance?
“Those are your choices,” he went on. “Only you’ve got less money on the table than LeBrock had, so I’m giving you less time to decide. You mentioned two minutes. Let’s go with that.”
“No. Listen—”
“Did LeBrock fill you in on the details? In case you’re thinking of anything stupid.”
“Yes, but—”
“Then the clock’s running. You have a minute fifty-five.”
“Wait. Let’s talk. There must be something else you want? How about this? I design management information software. I’m working on a new project, right now. It’s going to be huge. You could—”
“A minute fifty.”
“OK. What about art? I have a Lichtenstein. An original. It’s worth a fortune. You can have—”
“One, forty-five …”
I COULDN’T BARGAIN WITH HIM. I had to concede that. Could I kill him? Knock him unconscious? Maybe. Maybe not. But what about the switch?
I needed to paralyze him. Completely. In the next hundred seconds. But how?
The answer was simple.
I couldn’t. Not without help.
I started to walk away, much as LeBrock must have done earlier. But I paused when I was level with the door. The guy was standing between me and Carolyn, with the chair still behind him. Carolyn’s face was pale. It was half hidden by her wild hair. A tear formed in the corner of her left eye. It defied gravity for a moment. Then started to roll down her cheek.
&
nbsp; “Sweetheart, I’m sorry. I was wrong. About everything. This is all my fault. I should be—”
“Screw you, Marc!” More tears appeared. “You fool. You Judas!”
I took a step back, then another, until my back was touching the basement wall.
“Why are you dragging this out?” Her tears were streaming now, dripping down and soaking the front of her cardigan. “Just go!”
I gazed at Carolyn for another second then dropped my shoulder and charged, driving my head into the guy’s chest and knocking him backward. The chair pivoted on its hind legs and we flew over it, crashing onto the floor. Pain jolted through my knee. And the safe room door began to close.
I pushed myself up and started to scramble away but the guy grabbed my lapel, pulling me back down. The edge of the door reached my shoulder. It started digging into my flesh. Desperate, I gouged at the guy’s eyes. His grip slackened and I tore myself free, springing back and tumbling over the chair again.
The guy screamed. I leapt to my feet and saw the door had shunted him sideways. It was crushing him against the steel frame. His legs thrashed frantically. His hands clawed the concrete, unable to grip. The door motor continued to hum. It grew louder, rising in pitch. The guy’s movements ebbed away. And then the mechanism was silent, locked in place, and he was finally still.
“Carolyn? Are you all right?”
She didn’t reply.
“Carolyn!”
“I’m fine. Marc? What happened?”
The dead-man’s switch had fallen from the guy’s pocket. I picked it up. Pressed the button. It had no effect. I grabbed hold of the door and heaved, but couldn’t move it even a fraction of an inch. So, conscious of the seconds ticking away, I planted my foot on the guy’s chest and squeezed through the narrow gap.
I’d always imagined safe rooms to be spartan holdovers from the Cold War, full of metal shelves, canned food, and army cots. But LeBrock’s was a combination of boutique hotel and industrial chic. He had leather furniture. Blond-wood fixtures. Paintings on the walls. Even a bowl of potpourri.
“Don’t touch me.” Carolyn’s body was rigid. She wasn’t crying anymore, but her cheeks were still slick with tears. “Stay away from me.”