“Nothing,” I said, taking Lavine’s gun and $130 in bills from his wallet. “London has washed its hands. You can’t get involved.”
“Hello? News flash-I am involved. I want to be. What London’s doing is wrong. I’m not going to just stand by and see you stabbed in the back.”
“Sure?”
“Absolutely. Why not? In for a penny, in for a pound.”
“You’ll end up in hot water.”
“Not necessarily.”
“OK then. Maybe there are a couple of things you could do.”
“Tell me.”
“Keep your phone on. Hook me up with the right people when I’m ready to come back in. No one too trigger- happy.”
“You’ve got my number. What else?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute,” I said.
Something on the wall had caught my eye. About waist height, fifteen inches in from the corner. From a distance I thought it was just a dent, but looking up from the floor I wasn’t so sure. I moved closer and saw it was actually the mouth of a metal socket. It was square, about half an inch across. The plaster had been chipped away all around it, disguising the shape. I ran my hand across the surface and into the narrow alcove that formed where the two walls met. I reached up inside the dusty channel but didn’t find anything. Then I moved my hand down again and my fingers brushed against something cold and metallic. I took hold, pulled, and it came away from its moorings quite easily. It was a steel bar, shaped like the starting handle from a vintage car. One end was squared off. I tried it in the socket. It fitted perfectly.
I turned the handle gently, but nothing happened. I tried a little harder, and very gradually the entire side wall began to move. It was sliding away toward the far side of the room and gathering up like a concertina between two banks of windows. I could have wound it all the way back to join our room up with the next one, but there was no need. I stopped after a dozen turns, leaving a space just wide enough to squeeze through.
I poked my head through the gap and quickly scanned the room. It was a similar size, also empty, with nothing on the walls. I didn’t go through. There wasn’t time for a thorough inspection, but that didn’t matter. I could see enough from where I stood. A socket for winding the folding wall back into place-this time with a metal plate around it-and a door leading to the corridor. Everything I was going to need.
Tanya had her back to me, still gazing down at Lavine.
“That other favor,” I said. “Tell them I overpowered their guy on my own. Don’t mention that you found the keys. Then say I knocked you down, and you don’t know what happened after that. OK?”
“Do you think they’ll swallow it?” she said.
“Just keep it simple, don’t elaborate, and stick to your story.”
“I’ll try.”
“Oh, Tanya?” I said, pulling the handle free from its socket. “One last thing. I need you to scream.”
She didn’t disappoint. I kissed her-just for luck-then hooked her legs out from under her. She went down, hard, already yelling before she even landed on Lavine. I dived through into the next room. The handle slotted into place and I quickly started turning. A door opened in the distance. It sounded like the boardroom. Rosser and the others coming to investigate. More footsteps thundered down the corridor. Two people, running. Coming from the opposite direction. The agents who had been stationed by the elevators.
The wall inched across as if it were being pulled by a snail. I turned the handle even faster and the edge finally slotted home just as I heard the door fly open on the far side. People rushed in. I heard them milling around. Their voices were raised. They sounded angry and confused. I moved over to my door, eased it open a crack and peeped out into the corridor. It was clear. I opened the door wider and slipped through. Then I had to wait there for a moment, easing the door closed against the mechanism so it didn’t bang into the frame.
But thanks to Tanya, there was no one around to see me.
NINE
Stairs are your enemy, my Escape and Evasion instructor used to say.
He repeated it constantly, never missing a chance to drum it into our heads. At first I thought he must be mad, but pretty quickly I came to see his point. Run up or down enough of them and your legs turn to jelly, however fit you are. Bad if you’re carrying a tray of coffee back to your office. Worse if there are people with guns waiting for you at the other end.
I figured that with their top brass in an insecure building the bureau guys would be doing everything by the book. The agents who had been stationed by the elevators would be the inner perimeter. I didn’t have to worry about them. I’d got through, and I’d hear if they tried to follow me. But there’d also be an outer perimeter, either on the ground floor or in the garage. And probably a backup vehicle outside on the street. That put a lot of stairs between me and anyone with a hostile disposition.
I decided to take things nice and slow.
I stopped on the twentieth floor to see if anything was happening with the elevators. There was only one in service-the same one that Lavine and Weston had taken me up in-and the display showed it was on the ground floor.
I stopped again on the first floor. This time I went straight through the lobby area and down the corridor, looking into all the various rooms. The first few on both sides were empty. Then I found one with a desk in it. That wouldn’t work. Too big to carry. A large cardboard box had been left in the next room, but it was damaged. Too flimsy to stand on. But in the next room-the last but one-I found a small set of wooden shelves tucked away in a closet in the corner, next to the window. They were three feet wide, two feet high, and nine inches deep. Sturdy enough, and a perfect size. I picked them up and headed back to the elevators.
I went directly to the active one and hit the call button. The doors parted after a few seconds and I moved inside. I placed the shelves in the center of the floor, climbed up on them, and shoved the escape hatch in the ceiling just hard enough to partially dislodge it. Then I laid the shelves on their side, hit the buttons for the tenth and the ground floors, and stepped back out into the lobby.
Without making a sound, I ran down the one remaining flight of stairs. I slowed down as I approached the door to the reception area and peered through the coating of dust on the little window. I saw four men on the other side. They were wearing black utility suits with FBI in large yellow letters on their backs. Three were standing, looking at the active elevator. The other was facing the other way. He was talking on a handheld radio, his empty hand pressed against his free ear.
His conversation ended and he turned to join the others. He gestured with his arms and they moved to form a shallow horseshoe facing the metal doors, an arm’s length apart. They all drew their weapons. I checked the floor indicator. The elevator was on the tenth. The display blinked. The elevator had started moving. It was coming back down. None of the agents reacted until it reached the second floor. Then, in unison, they raised their Glocks and took aim at the join in the center of the doors. I took hold of the handle in front of me and gently started to twist.
The elevator reached the ground floor. The agents were like statues. Their legs and backs were taut, their necks strained forward, all their senses focused in front of them. The elevator doors slid apart. At the same moment, I slipped into the lobby through the gap I’d made and carefully eased the door back into place. That put me six feet away from the nearest agent, directly behind him.
For a moment, all four stayed perfectly still. The agent who’d been on the radio was the first to move. He crept forward toward the elevator, his pistol snapping up and down between the abandoned shelves on the floor and the crooked escape hatch above them. As he moved, I moved. He went forward. I went sideways. He reached the entrance to the elevator, only looking up now, satisfied the car was empty. I reached the line of silver posts and kept moving, slowly and smoothly, until I was level with the entrance to the garage stairs.
Without warning, the elevator doors timed out and began to close. Another agent stepped up and hit the call button. The doors paused at the halfway point, then slid apart again. The two agents moved forward, together now,
