“How the hell do I know?” the man said. “Let’s get down to business. The button that’s supposed to open the safe room. It should be on this wall somewhere, right?”
The two disappeared from the monitor. She realized they were leaning down, inspecting the lower part of the wall and bookshelf.
“Hey, I think I found it,” said Sargosian. “So push it.”
“I am, but nothing’s happening. Maybe it’s stuck.”
She could hear them banging against the wall. The banging went on for perhaps five minutes.
“For Christ’s sake,” the unknown man finally said. “I’m going to use my gun on it. That ought to break something loose.”
“Wait,” Sargosian said. “If the wall is lined with steel, that might not—” He was interrupted by a loud bang.
“Goddamn it!” the other man shouted. “The fucking bullet bounced off. It just missed me, and it broke the button clean off. Wait! There’s a little lever inside.” He was quiet a moment, then said, “I can flip it, but nothing happens.”
Sargosian pointed his flashlight downward. “We’re going to have to get something to break through the wall,” he said.
“Yeah,” said the second man. “Pickaxes, something like that. We’ll go to the police equipment warehouse over in Van Nuys. They’ll have what we need.”
“They open at this hour?”
“Twenty-four seven.”
Nicole couldn’t see them actually leave, since the camera in the front yard was broken. Even though she wanted to get out of the safe room and run for her life, she knew she had to wait a little while before she did anything. They still might be in front, talking about what they were going to do. She decided to give it ten minutes. With shaking hands, she used the time to copy the rest of the files from the computer onto the second flash drive. When she was done, she popped both drives into her backpack, slung it over her shoulder, and went to work unlocking the door. She had to look at Robert’s instructions again to find out how to open it from inside the room. His directions told her to release the locks and then push the button under the light switch twice.
She did as instructed. The mechanism made a grinding sound, but nothing happened. She pushed it again and again. Nothing but that sound. She had a sickening realization. The bullet that hit the button on the other side of the wall must have jammed it closed. She got out Robert’s instructions again, hoping there’d be some hint about how to handle a situation like this—another exit, perhaps. But there was nothing. This was one contingency that Robert hadn’t anticipated.
Nicole thought of one last option—calling the police. She pulled the burner phone out of her purse, then hesitated. If Sargosian’s companion had access to the police equipment warehouse, did that mean he was on the force? Would he be able to hear an alert directing officers to the house?
Whatever happened she couldn’t let the two men find her when their boss wanted her dead. She tapped 911 into the cell’s keypad but nothing happened. She looked at the little screen on the phone. At the top, in tiny letters, it said “no service.” She remembered the two men discussing the steel reinforcement that usually lined safe rooms. Was the steel blocking the telephone signal, or was this part of the house a cell-phone dead zone?
Whatever the case, there was nothing more she could do. She was trapped.
Fourteen
Nicole looked around the room. There was nowhere to hide, nothing to do but wait for them to return. Eventually, they’d figure out how to open up the room. And—surprise!— there she’d be. She went over to the water cooler and, with shaking hands, poured herself a paper cup of water. She drank it, refilled the cup twice more and drank that, too.
She had to calm down and think this out. From the self-defense class she’d taken several years before, she could remember one thing: She had to stay calm and, whatever she did, not show fear. The instructor had also said it sometimes helped to address a would-be assailant in a take-charge manner, as if she expected him to do what she said.
It struck her that she had to get rid of anything that might suggest she knew she had reason to be afraid. It had to look as if she’d come here at Robert’s request to get the computer. She’d say she heard Rick and the other man enter the house and thought it was the murderer returning. That would explain why she was in the safe room.
She took Sue’s gun out of her backpack. To hide it, she tried tucking it into the back of her jeans, but quickly realized how uncomfortable that would be if she had to sit down. She shifted it to the right side of her waistband. Her oversized T-shirt covered it. That might work, as long as nobody thought to pat her down.
She also had to do something with the flash drives, which now contained all of Robert’s computer files. Her best option was to hide them somewhere on her person. She loosened the shoelaces of her sneakers and slid a flash drive under the tongue of each shoe, then pulled the laces up again—not too tight—and tied them.
Her next step was to change the password on Robert’s computer. If the password wasn’t an easy guess like nicole—and how dumb was that?—she could claim she hadn’t been able to crack it and was completely ignorant of its contents.
Maybe Sargosian would be able to protect her. She could see he understood that it would stir up a hornet’s nest if she disappeared or turned up dead. Even an accident would be suspicious. The tabloids would have a field day, and the LAPD would be on the spot to explain her death. It could get ugly for a lot of people.
She changed the computer password to D9l7oN5r3A1, one of her go-to passwords, nearly impossible to figure out, except by an expert. It was her dog’s name, Arnold, spelled backward with odd numbers from one to nine, also backwards, between the letters and some capitals thrown in.
To keep from thinking about her situation, she decided to take a closer look at what was on Robert’s computer. Flipping through the folders, she found one named Pizer. For a moment, she stared at it, remembering the billionaire she’d shared the elevator with. What possible connection could Robert have with him? The first file she opened listed amounts of money Robert had apparently received from Pizer over the past five years. Adding in her head, she was astonished. Pizer had forked over several million dollars to Robert, but why? For services rendered? What kind of services?
Another file acknowledged receipts of the same amounts deposited in a company called the ABC Corporation, located in the Seychelles. This must be Robert’s offshore account. She was even more stunned when she read the next files, which contained Robert’s notes on Pizer. They included documents Robert had apparently scanned in, letters and official documents dating back decades. Put together with the notes, they showed that, early in Pizer’s career, he’d made the capital to start his first venture by working for the Romano-Valdecci crime family operating in New Jersey. He managed operations like drug dealing, prostitution, and so-called protection. So this was it, she thought. Robert was blackmailing Pizer, and this was what Robert had on him.
She read on, astonished to learn that, after all of these years, Pizer had never completely separated himself from Romano-Valdecci, which now had legitimate businesses as well as criminal enterprises. A Pizer company under the aegis of USBG—purportedly a hedge fund—was actually a money-laundering operation for the mob.
These files, on this computer, were the reason Robert had been killed. Pizer was afraid the information would get out. If it did, it would ruin him.
Another file contained encrypted messages, which Robert had somehow unencrypted, saving both versions. Even if he was nuts, Nicole thought, he really was clever. How had he figured all this out?
She was surprised, then shocked, to see that most of these messages were between Pizer and Jonathan Rice of Bascomb, Rice, Smith & Di Angelo. She’d known Rice was Pizer’s attorney, but it appeared that Rice was also knee-deep in illegal activities on Pizer’s behalf. Even unencrypted, the messages between them were couched in euphemisms and fairly hard to understand. She read, then reread them b
efore she grasped the broad outlines of their discussions. They showed how the two men used Pizer’s “special relationship” with various officials to put in the fix whenever Pizer wanted something done, such as permits for developments and property tax breaks. He also used these connections when his executives, top clients, friends, or loved ones ran afoul of the law.
She opened another folder. It contained lists of officials Robert was blackmailing. Many of them were receiving bribes from Pizer through Rice. At the top of the list was the LAPD police chief, who’d accepted large “stipends” from Rice on behalf of Pizer for special favors. In addition, several judges, city council members, and quite a few state legislators were on the list. Another file contained names of ordinary citizens Robert was blackmailing for various transgressions. He’d probably picked these up while he was on the vice squad, although some of them appeared to be more recent. They ranged from suspected involvement in child pornography to frequenting prostitutes.
It appeared that Robert had hacked some of this information through this computer. Like any competent hacker, he would have done his best to disguise his identity and location, making it difficult to trace this activity back to him. He probably imagined they’d never find him. But apparently they had. A recent email, from an anonymous source warned him that he’d been identified and that his “victim”—no name was mentioned—would no longer pay. In Robert’s letter to Nicole, he’d mentioned that he’d brought his “projects to a conclusion and cut all ties, no matter what the risks.” Perhaps he’d told Pizer or Rice, whoever that message was from, that he’d hand over the computer for a final payout. And perhaps they’d agreed, but had sent a hit man instead.
Nicole knew that the only way she could get off Pizer’s hit list was to make this information public. If it were exposed, Pizer’s criminal enterprise would be brought down, along with the police chief. She also knew it would ruin the law firm she worked for.
Once she finished looking through the files, she logged out of the computer, leaving the startup screen with the cursor blinking in the empty password field. The house was still quiet. Sargosian and his buddy hadn’t returned.
She was no longer in a panic. An eerie calm had taken over. She knew she was trapped and in danger, but the threat seemed somehow remote, as if she were watching the scene from a distance. Every once in a while, she got up, tried the phone, and attempted to open the door again, but it was no use. It wouldn’t budge. By now it was 1:30 a.m. and she was exhausted; she lay down on the couch and fell asleep.
The racket woke her up—earsplitting crashing and banging. From the sound of it, they were going at the wall with pickaxes. Her heart was pounding as she checked the monitor and realized she was right. Nicole could see the men wielding the pickaxes. Through the speaker, she could hear them grunting. It was undoubtedly hard work, but she doubted the pickaxes would get them through the steel reinforcement. Then she realized that wouldn’t be their plan. They were breaking down the outer wall so they could get to the steel reinforcement. Undoubtedly, the police would have equipment that could cut through steel.
As she watched them on the monitor from the CCTV’s view of the bedroom, she had a sudden realization. She had to disable the surveillance console. She couldn’t let them know she’d been listening in, had heard their conversation, the incriminating things they’d said. She rushed over to Robert’s desk and grabbed his Swiss army knife. Besides its electrical cord, the console had a cable connecting it to another type of wall outlet. She disconnected the cable from the console and went to work on it. Her breath was coming in short, panicky gasps, and it was an effort to keep her hands steady. She shredded the cable until little wires inside were exposed. She cut some of these off, then reattached the cable. Sure enough, she’d broken the console’s communication with the house’s security cameras. The monitors now only showed swirling gray snow.
While she was doing this, the thumping and crashing on the other side of the wall continued. Now the only thing left to do was wait.
At last the banging stopped, and another noise took its place, an electrical whining sound. It wasn’t long before she saw the tip of a blade appear a couple of feet below the ceiling. It was some kind of saw designed to cut through steel. The work was slow, but steady, throwing off sparks while it cut a fairly straight line down to the floor. The saw blade was removed, then began again along the bottom for about two and a half feet. The next cut was along the top, then the final vertical cut began. As the saw blade reached the floor, the steel sheeting fell inward, toward Nicole. She was sitting in Robert’s desk chair, which she’d pushed against the opposite wall so the sheeting wouldn’t hit her.
“Holy Christ, Nicole,” Sargosian said, when he saw her. “What the fuck are you doing here?” She was surprised by how disheveled he was, how unlike his usual well-groomed self. His face was sweaty, his hair covered with plaster dust and other debris. His shirt was dirty and sticking to him. He looked completely exhausted.
“I should be asking you the same question, Rick,” she said. “This is my house, remember? Robert left it to me.”
The two men looked at each other. “But what are you doing in the safe room?” Rick said.
Nicole explained that she’d panicked when she heard them enter the house and that she knew about the safe room from the notes Robert had left for her. She reached into her backpack and pulled out the envelope that held Robert’s property information. She got up and handed it to Rick. He went over to sit on the couch while he looked through it. The other man plopped himself on the floor, glowering at her.
Rick looked at the man, then at Nicole. “Nicole,” he said, “this is Earl. Earl, Nicole.”
“How do you do,” Nicole said, as if this were a perfectly normal introduction. Earl looked away without responding. It took Rick a while to look through the material. Finally, he said, “Blair told you to erase the computer’s hard drive. Did you do that?”
“No, I was going to hand the computer over to the police,” she lied. “I did want to see what was on it. But the computer is password protected, and he didn’t give me the password.” She gestured toward the papers in Rick’s hand.
He looked at them again. “Yeah,” he said. “I see that.”
“So,” she said, “you still haven’t told me what you’re doing here.”
“We’re here to take the computer into evidence,” Rich said. “This is still a crime scene.” He’d gotten up and was taking a close look at the computer screen. The cursor was still blinking in the empty password field.
“It’s all yours,” she said. “Good luck figuring out the password. I still don’t get why you’re here, though, Rick. I mean, if this is police business.”
“It’s like I explained before,” Rick said, quite reasonably. “The firm wants to make sure confidential information involving our clients isn’t handed over wholesale to the police. Rice had a talk with the police chief, and he said I could supervise the handling of this piece of evidence.”
Nicole regarded him. Rick is a good liar, she thought. Or maybe he isn’t actually lying. With the police chief in their pocket, the firm could do just about anything.
Earl got up. “OK, buddy,” he said to Sargosian, “Let’s step into the other room and have a talk. Oh, and I almost forgot. You’d better search your little friend here. Make sure she’s not armed.”
She stiffened as Rick moved toward her, and not just because she thought he’d find the gun tucked into her jeans. But his search was quick and impersonal. He simply patted lightly down her body. He immediately located the gun. He held it up, then gave a little laugh. “Seriously?” he said. “Do you even know how to use this?”
“Sargosian?” Earl was getting impatient. “We have to talk.”
Rick dropped the gun in his pocket, and the men retreated out of the safe room and into a far corner of the master bedroom, where they murmured in low voices. Whatever Sargosian was proposing, Earl didn’t like it. Nicole wished she had a way o
f listening in. She had no idea what they planned to do with her. Her best guess was that she should keep her mouth shut, listen to whatever she could pick up from them, and watch for a chance to escape.
Soon they were back. “I’ll take the computer to the car,” Earl said. “You bring her.”
Nicole opened her mouth to protest, but Rick took her arm. With his other hand, he grabbed her backpack and slung it over his shoulder. “Please don’t argue,” he said in a low voice. “It’s going to be OK.”
“Yeah,” said Earl, “you’re safe with us. We’re just going for a little ride.”
They marched Nicole out of the room, through the house and out the front door. Parked at the curb was an unmarked police car, a beige Dodge Charger, fairly new. The men put the computer and Nicole’s backpack in the trunk. Earl took the driver’s seat, while Sargosian got into the back seat with Nicole. She expected them to head downtown. But when they got to Mulholland, the road that runs along the crest of the Santa Monica Mountains, they went west toward the San Diego Freeway and, after merging onto it, headed north and away from L.A. One thing was clear: They weren’t going to police headquarters.
Fifteen
They continued north. Nicole had checked her watch when they first got into the car. It was 3:00 a.m. Once the car doors closed, the interior light went off, making it impossible to keep track of the time. The longer she sat there, trying to figure a way out of her situation, the more terrified she grew. The only hope she had was that Sargosian would continue to take her side and that he actually had the power to protect her.
After what felt like hours, she was getting drowsy. Sargosian, himself, was fast asleep. She must have dozed off, too, because she was suddenly surrounded by fog, running from someone who was chasing her, gaining on her. She was jolted awake when she felt someone grab her shoulder.
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