Locked, single dead bolt. An alarm sticker was pasted across the wood, but Stahl knew, from prior research, that it was false advertising. No wires, no open account at the alarm company. He removed his kit, pulled out his high-focus, narrow-beam penlight, inspected his collection of key specimens, eyeballed the slit in the bolt. Two blanks looked promising. The first one fit.
The Army had taught him how to play with locks. And all sorts of other skills.
He’d used these particular skills only once. In Riyadh, the heat and the sand nearly unbearable, the relentless sun bleaching his retinas. Despite all the high-rises and conspicuous consumption, the availability of American food on the base, the city had never been anything to Stahl but a desert hellhole.
The lockpick assignment in Riyadh had been part of a bigger plan: breaking into the penthouse of a Saudi prince who’d seduced the eighteen-year-old daughter of one of the military attaches at the U.S. embassy.
Skinny, plain-looking blond girl, borderline I.Q., subterranean self-esteem. The prince, handsome, rich, soft- spoken, had sweet-talked her into sex-on-demand at his place and fed her dope. Now feathers were being ruffled. Royal
“Think of it this way,” Stahl’s C.O. told him. “She’s getting off easy, being American. She was Saudi, they’d stone her to death.”
Officially, the prince lived with his family in a palace. His fuck pad was a white marble paradise atop one of the highest-rises, the delivery door of which just happened to have been left open and unguarded on a certain night.
Same night the prince was due to dine with a couple of the State Department flunkies everyone despised. Accompanied by one of his three wives, but that afternoon he’d stashed the American girl in the f pad, plied her with pills, left her there, supervised by one female Filipina servant, to be available when he dropped in for a sexual nightcap.
Stahl staked out the high-rise and saw the prince stash his slut: a yellow Bentley Azure pulled around to the building’s delivery entrance. The prince, dressed in a white silk shirt and cream slacks, got out of the car, leaving the driver’s door open. An attendant rushed to close it, but the car didn’t move. Five minutes later, the left passenger door opened and two men in suits emerged with a bundled figure that they hustled into the building. The same attendant was ready for them, too, holding the door.
An hour later, the prince, decked out in long, white Arab robes and a gold-banded
Twenty minutes later, the two men in suits left on foot, got into a black Mercedes parked nearby, and drove away.
Soon after dark, Stahl was inside the building, lifting the skirts of his own robe and climbing twenty-eight flights to the prince’s digs.
A sleepy guard was stationed on the other side of the stairwell door. Stahl walked toward him, muttered a few memorized Arabic phrases, flipped the guy around, put on the chokehold, dragged him into the stairwell and bound his arms and legs with plastic ties. Then he pulled out his pick kit and flipped the lock. Expensive digs, but cheap lock. No reason for Talal to feel insecure.
The girl was in plain sight, lolling on a purple brocade sofa, naked, stoned, eyes fixed on satellite-delivery MTV.
“Hi, Cathy.”
The girl stroked her breasts and licked her lips.
The Filipina maid appeared. Stahl gave her a puff of whatever was stored in the little blue inhalator the med officer had slipped him and she nodded out and he placed her in a chair. Peeling off the Arab robes, he continued working in his black T-shirt and jeans. Wrapping Cathy in the same blanket the prince’s guys had used, slinging her over his shoulder and getting the hell out of there.
He carried the girl down twenty-eight flights. A car was waiting behind the building. No Bentley, not even a Mercedes, just a plain old unmarked Ford. Had she been awake, Cathy would have seen it as a comedown. Talal liked to do her in the Bentley, and she’d told her sister she loved it.
Riyadh had been nothing but deceit… stay on task, no time to get distracted.
The lock kit was one of the few things Stahl had taken with him when he’d entered civilian life.
Such as it was.
He entered the apartment’s ground floor. Drummond’s flat was on the second floor toward the back, but a staircase ran from the front. He made his way up the thinly carpeted hallway.
The building smelled of bug spray and hot sauce. Under the carpet was old wood flooring that sagged and creaked; he trod carefully. Two light fixtures in the ceiling; only the one in front was operative. The steps were tile over cement and silent under his rubber soles.
Within seconds, he was at Drummond’s unit, unnoticed. Kit out, penlight on the keyhole. Same make as the back door, the same master popped it.
He shut the door, locked it, removed his Glock from the black nylon holster that rode his hip, stood in the darkness, waiting for a life vibration- some nuance of occupancy- to disturb the silence.
Nothing.
He took a step forward. Whispered, “Kevin?”
Dead air.
He scanned the room. One room, not large. Two small windows, both shaded, looked out to the building next door. Turning on the room light would yellow the shades, so Stahl relied on his other flashlight, the black Mag with the wider beam.
He swept it over the room, careful to avoid the windows.
Kevin Drummond’s living space was occupied by an unmade single bed, a crappy-looking nightstand, and a folding chair positioned in the center of a low, wide desk. Closer inspection revealed the desk to be an unpainted door laid over two sawhorses. Lots of work-space. The right side, bordering the bed, was taken up by a hot plate and provisions. Three cans of generic chili, a bag of potato chips, a jar of mild salsa, two six-packs of Pepsi. A toothbrush in a glass.
To the left were three computers with nineteen-inch flat screens, a pair of color printers, a scanner, a digital camera, a stack of toner-cartridge replacements for the printers, twelve reams of white paper.
Past the equipment a door led to the bathroom. To get there, Stahl had to manipulate his way around piles of magazines. Nearly every free inch of floor space was taken up by boxes.
He checked the lav first. Shower, sink, toilet, no signs of recent usage, but the room smelled stale. Mold in the shower, rings of grime around the sink drain, and Stahl wouldn’t have used the blackened toilet on a bet. No medicine cabinet, just a single glass shelf above the sink. Carelesly squeezed toothpaste tube, OTC sinus remedy, ladies’ hand cream- probably a masturbatory aid- aspirin, Pepto-Bismol, prescription acne pills dispensed three years ago at an Encino pharmacy. Three pills left. Kevin had stopped paying attention to his skin.
No soap in the shower, no shampoo, and Stahl wondered how long it had been since Kevin had been here.
Did he have another crib?
He returned to the front room, stepped among the boxes. Anything he came up with tonight would be useless- worse than useless, if the break-in came to light, he’d have screwed the investigation.
He began checking the boxes’ contents.
Expecting Drummond’s cache of
Wrong; not a single copy of the zine anywhere in the apartment. The guy was a pack rat, but he collected other people’s creations.
From what Stahl could tell, the junk was divided into two categories: toys and magazines. The toys were Hotwheels cars, some still in their boxes,
