Downfall

by Jeff Abbott

  She wondered what Glenn had kept inside.

  He went to the bathroom wastebasket and scooped the safe clean.

  “I can’t lie to the police. Can’t I just clean up the mess? Send my mom and the kids away, give them a reason…”

  “Holly, you don’t have the luxury of grief right now. Diana and this bartender are trying to destroy us. Destroy you. He’s already killed Glenn. Do you want him to take away the rest of your life? Take your children from you?”

  A weird calm poured into her. “No. I understand. All right.” Time later to mourn. Time later to curl up in a ball and let a part of her die.

  “We can’t have Audrey calling the police and asking about Glenn yet, Holly, not for a few days.”

  What’s in a few days? she wondered. Why then? Belias’s lips went tight and she thought, Maybe to do with whatever Diana’s mother is doing for him. “He could go straight to the police.”

  “He didn’t call the police before he came here. I think not. He must have a reason. That is why he is fascinating to me.”

  She turned on him, shoving him hard across the floor. He staggered back, shock on his face. “You…you can’t think of recruiting him. He killed Glenn.”

  Belias raised his hand toward her, the one wearing the silver ring, and smoothed her hair with his fingertips. “I just want to draw him close to us, Holly. Then we’ll get rid of him.”

  That was a lie. Belias could recruit Sam and she might never know. She didn’t know anyone else he had recruited into the network, but there had to be more, many more, and that meant Sam Capra would live and have a good life all while Glenn moldered in a forgotten grave and the children missed him every day. I’ll kill him before I let that happen. I will kill Sam Capra.

  She could not stand to look at either man. “I’m done. I want out. I’m done.”

  “With Glenn dead, the debt is fully yours.” He gestured at the grand house, the stone fence, the cool grass that her children rolled across, laughing. “None of this was free, Holly. You owe me, and I need you more than ever right now.”

  “You want me to leave my kids while their dad is dead?”

  “I believe the word you are looking for is missing.”

  “Whatever! No, Belias, I won’t.”

  “Holly. I remind you we have a deal. You don’t want to dishonor our arrangement the moment the going gets tough.”

  Glenn is dead, she thought. The going is well past tough.

  “Of course,” she forced herself to say.

  “You’re the best, Holly.” So much for his grief, she thought. Glenn was dead, and this sick jerk they’d sold their souls to was patting her on the head. Somehow this was worse.

  “I have to go, Holly. Roger and I rely on you completely. I trust you’ll be very convincing to the local police.”

  She looked at him through her tears. He and Roger left, and she watched them from a window. He cocked a finger at her, like it was a gun, before he turned and headed toward his car.

  26

  Friday, November 5, late morning

  JANICE KEENE’S TOWN HOUSE occupied the top floor of an elegant building in Russian Hill, one of the toniest neighborhoods in the city. She had a marvelous view of the bay. And we were inside her town house in roughly five minutes, thanks to an electronic master keycard for the elevator and Felix’s skill with a lockpick for her front door. The Round Table’s resources sometimes make me uneasy. I wonder, Who are these people? And then I decide not to press the question, because they’ve always been on the side of right. That’s what I tell myself.

  The town house itself was magazine beautiful and tasteful. There was no sign of Diana; this was too obvious a place to hide.

  In Janice’s home office we found a wreck. A splintered cabinet door, the lock shattered, files spread around the floor. I knelt among the mess. I flipped and dug until I saw the logo of a cancer center on a set of papers: diagnosis, follow-ups, prescriptions to help manage the pain and the other symptoms, but no record yet of chemotherapy or surgery. “She’s going untreated,” I said.

  “Sam,” he said. “Sam.” His voice sounded like ice. He’d picked up a folder I hadn’t noticed as I squatted among the files.

  I opened it up. Inside was a veritable dossier on Dalton Monroe. Bio, press clippings.

  The Round Table member and billionaire who’d nearly been poisoned at the dinner a few nights ago. Where Mila and I had stolen the security film.

  “What…what is this?” His hand shook.

  “Maybe she was interested in getting him as a client.”

  “It can’t be coincidence. She used me. She used me. I was at the reception. I took her as my guest. She poisoned him. She did it.” Felix’s face purpled in rage, in shock.

  “We don’t know that, Felix,” I said, but my mind was insisting this was not a coincidence. This Belias, does he know about the Round Table? Is this an attack on us—first Dalton Monroe, now me?

  Felix stood and dropped the file. “Maybe she’s not even sick. Maybe she’s faking her cancer. Maybe they found out I’m part of the Round Table and she got close to me as a lie. To find out more about us.”

  “Felix, I don’t think these medical records are fake.”

  “They could be. It’s not like we can go ask her doctor. When you worked for the CIA, didn’t you have fake documentation to back up your story?”

  I did but I didn’t say anything to him. If Belias had aimed Janice at Dalton Monroe—if she had indeed been the one to try and hurt him—then was this something I didn’t suspect, an attack on us?

  “A trap, Sam. They know we exist, they want to draw us out.”

  “Maybe.” But couldn’t they then just have kidnapped Felix and interrogated him? And how would someone like Belias find out about the Round Table? Too many questions, not enough answers. So maybe what was on this video Diana had was directly related to the Round Table. Perhaps Felix was named on it and that was why Diana sought him out, even if she didn’t tell him what the video was about. Perhaps she was afraid to.

  Felix shook his head. “I thought…it was stupid. Stupid.”

  I put my hand on Felix’s shoulder. “What?”

  “That she and I could be a comfort to each other…if our cancers, you know…No one who’s healthy understands what it’s like to be sick. No one…” And then he turned away from me to look at a picture of her on the wall, with her daughter, smiling.

  On the floor was a torn envelope—FOR MY DAUGHTER DIANA ONLY IN CASE OF MY DEATH. The package was torn at one end. It was empty. Whatever had been inside was what Belias wanted. Janice gone, Diana found this and opened it. It was big enough to hold a DVD or a portable drive—Belias said Diana had a video.

  “Search everywhere,” I said. I started to go through her desk drawers but found nothing of interest. Felix took the bedrooms.

  We found nothing else in Janice Keene’s town house—no hint where Diana might hide, no hint where Janice could be. Felix was broken, miserable.

  I couldn’t fall into the trap of guessing. The stakes were higher now. We had to find the video, not just to help Diana, but help ourselves.

  I called Mila’s number. But instead, a man answered with a British accent that oozed money and education.

  “You must be Jimmy.”

  “You must be Sam. Haven’t you kept us busy today?”

  “How are my son and my friend?”

  “Fine. Enjoying room service. I’ll be sure they’re protected.”

  “There may be a continuing threat against a Round Table member.” I explained what we’d found about Dalton Monroe at Janice’s house.

  “Thank you for the warning. I’ll take care of it.”

  “So this is more than a threat against a woman who just came into the bar,” I said. “It’s a threat against us.”

  “And you’ve uncovered this in one morning. Very good.”

  I thought he might be sneering at me, but then he said, “Mila thinks the world of you, you know.”r />
  “I think the same of her. She’s been a good friend to me.”

  “Ah. Well, yes. She has her charms. So who is this man in black then, and what’s he got against us?”

  I felt like James Bond answering questions from M. “We’re working on that.” I hesitated to tell him about the morning’s events at the Marchbankses’ house—he might try and stop me, given the danger of exposure if I got caught.

  “Mila’s on her way to see you. Her plane was due to land ten minutes ago.”

  I welcomed the idea of her help, but not of her telling me what I could and couldn’t do. And I wished she’d stuck close to Daniel and Leonie. “I’ll hope to have answers for her soon.”

  “Take care, Sam. Be careful. And know that I will do everything to keep Daniel and Leonie safe.”

  “Thank you.”

  I hung up the phone.

  “Jimmy’s a good guy,” Felix said. “Mila can be overcautious sometimes. Jimmy will totally back us taking the fight to Belias.”

  I wished I could be sure it was a fight we could win.

  Technology makes our lives easier. It also makes deception easier. For example: most people use electronic calendars in the workplace. This advance has made it so much easier to fake appointments.

  We headed back into the city, driving east until we got to the Embarcadero Center. Felix was silent, his mouth set in a tight frown. He parked the car in a garage in the building where Keene Global was located, and then he opened his laptop and began typing and probing the firm’s electronic firewalls.

  “Hey, I know you’re upset. But maybe this isn’t what we think…”

  “She was at the party with me. I dislike being used, Sam.” He tapped at the keys. Conversation over. He didn’t want to talk.

  After fifteen minutes, he wormed his way into Keene Global’s server; they had not installed a recent software patch for a known security hole. Boom. Felix was accessing Diana’s workstation, scanning and searching her e-mails and calendar appointments.

  “According to an e-mail sent to all employees, she’s not there today. Called in sick,” he said. “So her calendar’s clear. How would you like a noon appointment?”

  “Perfect.”

  “And I have control of her e-mail account. I can e-mail the receptionist, say she’ll come into the office for the noon appointment but is running late, ask to have you wait in her office.”

  “You’re evil,” I said. “I love it.”

  “Don’t joke about evil, Sam. It exists in this world.”

  “I know.” I watched his pained glance in the rearview mirror as he typed.

  “Okay, Sam, you’re in.”

  A top-grade public relations firm’s office is all about selling the perception, so the walls were covered with photos of Janice Keene posing with prominent clients. Leaders of industry, politicians, stars. Prospective clients needed to know they were getting the best. Janice Keene was a striking woman, with a reserved smile that suggested determined intelligence. Her smile was gentle but there was a hardness to her eyes.

  The receptionist (who looked like he might double as a supermodel after work) smiled and got up and led me down the hallway to an office with DIANA KEENE on the nameplate. It was small, with a narrow window of glass next to the door, presumably so everyone could peer in and reassure themselves you were working.

  “Diana was out of the office this morning, sir, but she’ll be here momentarily. She asked that you wait for her in her office. May I bring you coffee or tea or a soda?”

  “No, thank you, I’m fine.” I sat in the office’s single guest chair. The receptionist, clearly unused to leaving potential clients in offices rather than conference rooms, hovered for a moment. I smiled, took out my phone, and pretended to read e-mails.

  The receptionist lingered for another moment and then vanished.

  I waited two minutes, then checked the hallway. Empty, the lunch hour had started. I headed down the hallway. A few doors down, in a corner, was a grander door. Either a conference room or an owner’s office, maybe. I kept my phone glued to my ear. In a suit and with a smartphone you are invisible.

  The door was marked with a simple plaque. JANICE KEENE.

  Across from the door sat a squat, tidy cubicle with the facing wall half gone so the assistant could see Janice’s door and manage access to the queen. The desktop was tidy and a screen saver played across the computer monitor. Not here. But not here like Janice was not here or just gone for a few minutes?

  I’d have to risk it. I opened the door. Closed it behind me and, after a moment’s hesitation, locked it. Corner office, marvelous views. Her desk was a grand antique. Right now it was dotted with a rainbow of sticky notes, written pleas for attention when the boss returned.

  I moved to the desk and a piece of artwork caught my eye. It was on the wall facing inward toward the rest of the office. It was a set of pictures, line drawings. Like the one I’d seen on Belias’s and the Marchbankses’ jewelry that looked like a house of sticks. But this was—I counted them quickly—sixty-four of them. The one most like the ring and the necklace I’d seen on the Marchbanks and Belias was on the bottom row, in the fifty-seventh position.

  Filed away for later. Back to the now.

  I glanced down at the array of notes. All written in different hands. Reminders, urges to call. Had these people not heard of voice mail or e-mail? I nearly didn’t read them but then was glad I did. One of the messages was dated three days ago: CAN’T BELIEVE I CAN’T CALL OR E-MAIL YOU. IN CASE YOU COME BACK EARLY CALL ME RE CORDOVA FILMS ACCT.

  So Janice was gone and not reachable via phone.

  Imagine. A public relations exec without a phone.

  So where was Janice Keene? Maybe hunting down Dalton Monroe for a second try at murder? Jimmy already promised me Dalton would get more protection.

  I began to search the office. Surely if she was traveling there was an itinerary, a receipt. No laptop stood on the desk. Odd.

  Her desk drawers revealed nothing but a very organized collection of pens and stationery. In one drawer was a leather notebook. Inside were notes and strategies relating to clients.

  I quickly flipped through pages. Nothing about her daughter, nothing about Dalton Monroe, nothing about Felix, nothing that sounded like it could connect to Belias.

  I’d been in here two minutes. At any moment the receptionist could come looking for me to offer coffee or apologies that Diana wasn’t here yet and notice my absence.

  I shut the drawer. This woman had secrets, and they might be tied to her business. Would she keep them close? You’d be surprised. I’d found cooked books right in the offices of an Ugandan warlord and an Italian money launderer during my CIA days.

  A secret kept close is a secret kept safe to some.

  I searched under the desk. The chair, the sofa. Behind the credenza. Time ticked away. I stood and regarded the odd painting again. I touched the frame and the painting opened like a door.

  Behind it, in the wall, was an electronic safe. Not the same one that I’d seen in the Marchbankses’ house. This one had a keypad but also had a backup key entry. So a leading venture capitalist and a leading public relations expert, both with secrets to keep and hide.

  I peeled off the camouflaged front of the key override—you don’t have the lock exposed for the casual thief. The lock was only there in case you forgot the combination for the keypad, and my experience said people who were changing the keypad often were the most likely to forget the new combination. If you forgot, you could use a key. But it made the safe more vulnerable.

  Then I slid a pronged lockpick deep as I could into the keyhole. Worked it, felt it grip tumblers. I inserted a thinner lockpick, twisted. No go. Tried it again from the opposite direction, carefully. After twenty seconds of fiddling it was open.

  I held my breath as I pulled the door. No alarm sounded. No fire erupted to crisp the contents.

  Inside was an envelope. Marked FOR DIANA’S EYES ONLY. But big and bulky
.

  Maybe a duplicate of what Janice had left for Diana in her file at home? I didn’t stop to open it. I took it and stuffed it in the back of my pants, under my suit.

  The other item was a passport. Canadian. With Janice Keene’s face, but not her name.

  Interesting.

  And a gun. A Beretta and ammo. The gun would be easy to disassemble for travel; there was a permit for it, in the same name as Janice’s fake passport. A wallet with the same ID, credit cards, and a driver’s license.

  This was a run box. I’d had one when I was working undercover. You needed documentation and maybe even a weapon if the CIA could not extract you quickly from your assignment—if I needed to vanish and run for home under a false name.

  So if Janice hadn’t run—and one presumed she wouldn’t leave behind her daughter—then where was she?

  The doorknob of the office jiggled. Someone trying the door to leave yet another sticky note.

  I left the gun and the passport. I closed the safe and relocked it and closed the painting back over the safe. The thick interoffice envelope of papers lay wedged in my back, concealed by the suit jacket.

  The doorknob had gone still. I listened. Had opening the safe triggered a silent alarm? I wondered how big a public relations disaster it would be to fight my way out of a public relations office.

  I waited. Presumably the door would be unlocked in a few moments and I would confront an outraged subordinate and maybe a security guard. I was not worried.

  Silence. No one coming to the door.

  I eased it open. A fresh, new sticky note adorned the door. I guess such messages got transferred to her desk over the course of the day. I shut the door and walked back down the hallway, past open offices and a now full conference room, and back into Diana’s office. I sat. Waited five minutes.

  Got up and went out, past the receptionist. He shrugged. “I’m sorry, sir, I haven’t heard from her.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll reschedule.” I gave a most understanding smile and didn’t want to look like an annoyed client because if I did he might try to foist some other account exec on me.