“Today?”
“The task force is penciled in for tomorrow morning.”
“Are they crazy?”
“Be ready in an hour. I’ll come to your office.”
“Today’s an out day. I’m at my apartment.”
“See you there, then. Twenty minutes.”
Tanya had turned away and moved over to the far window while I was talking, but as soon as the call ended she spun around and almost ran back toward me.
“David, what are you thinking? You’ve deliberately compromised the whole investigation. How can this possibly help?”
“What did I compromise?”
“The whole case. You told Taylor about the warrants, the raid, everything.”
“They were already expecting those things.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. At Tungsten’s offices, did you see a metal carrying case down on the floor next to the filing cabinets?”
“About twelve inches tall? Yes, I did.”
“Do you know what was inside?”
“How could I? I don’t have X-ray eyes.”
“A portable degausser. I checked when I went to the bathroom.”
“What’s one of those?”
“A device that wipes computer hard drives. Permanently.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. There are new regulations here. You have to wipe hard drives now, before you dispose of them. To safeguard employee data and so on. Having one could be perfectly legit.”
“Tanya, you don’t believe that. Think about it. Whether this is about stealing money or the hospital or something we haven’t even thought of yet, someone organized is at the heart of it. They’ll be prepared for things going wrong. Whole teams of ex-marines don’t end up dead by chance. They obviously have a backup plan, and now they’re executing it. Step by step. If we leave them to it there’ll be nothing left to find.”
“Now they know we’re coming, will they leave anything anyway?”
“That doesn’t matter. That’s not what my call was about. It’s thrown a monkey wrench in the works. I’ve given them a decision to make. How they respond to it will tell us more than any search.”
“And what about Taylor? If they’re so well prepared for contingencies, what will he tell you?”
“Anything I want to know.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
I was sent to a company in France once, where the entire office was obsessed with milk.
A list had been drawn up to determine who had to fetch each day’s supply from the local shop. It sounded easy. But the system never worked. People would forget to pay their dues, so the club ran short of money. Others would say they couldn’t find time to leave the premises. Or they might refuse to go because someone else had missed their turn the previous week. And so it went on until a kind of anarchy broke out. Factions sprang up that brought their own provisions. They refused to share. Then tried to steal from each other if they didn’t have enough. The organizers took steps to hide their supplies. One old guy went to incredible lengths to conceal his. He’d secretly decant his milk into all kinds of unlikely containers, then distribute them all around his workspace.
I wasn’t interested in the milk-I drink my coffee without-but the job was so boring I needed something to amuse myself. So I came up with a game. Trying to locate each day’s hiding place. I was considerate, though. I didn’t root around in the old guy’s stuff. All I did was watch him. I would drop a hint about being thirsty then deliberately hang around in different areas of the office and observe his reaction. I wasn’t concerned with the exact spot-which bookcase, not which book-and my method worked every time. It formed the bones of a strategy I would use for years to come.
It might not tell you the precise location of the thing you’re searching for.
But it will confirm the direction you should look.
Taylor opened the door to his apartment the moment I knocked and then stepped aside, gesturing for me to come in. He didn’t say a word-just stood back and waited. I guess that was a favorite act of his, because as hallways go his was pretty unusual. Apart from the external door the space was completely circular. The floor was covered in five-bar chequer plate like you find in factories and warehouses, only his was polished to a flawless shine. The paintwork was plain white, and if you looked carefully you could just see the outline of concealed, curved doors set into the walls on the right and the left. A corridor led through an archway in front of us, presumably to the bedrooms and bathrooms. The center of the space was filled by a spiral staircase. The frame was gleaming metal. All the bolts and structural parts were exposed, and the treads were textured to match the rest of the floor.
“There’s nothing to see down here,” Taylor’s said, when he’d finished enjoying my reaction. “Let’s go up. After you.”
The higher floor of Taylor’s duplex had been knocked through to form a single, continuous rectangle. The floor, walls, and ceiling were made from some kind of granitelike material. It was crisp white with tiny silver flecks, and it must have been somehow molded in place like an inner skin because there were no joins or seams visible anywhere.
All the power cables were carried externally in round zinc-coated conduits. These were connected to heavy, industrial-style switches and ran up to three parallel lighting bars hanging on chains from the ceiling. The one on our right was above a dining table. It was made of greenish glass with flowing irregular edges, three-quarters of an inch thick, supported by adjustable metal trestles. Eight chairs surrounded it. They were covered in suede. There was one in each color of the rainbow, plus one in plain black.
“Is that a dumbwaiter?” I said, nodding toward a square steel hatch set into the right-hand wall.
“Sure,” he said. “The kitchen’s downstairs.”
The other two lighting bars were on our left, hanging over a large white leather sofa. It was L-shaped. The two segments were the same length, and it was set up so you’d be equally comfortable watching TV or looking out of the floor-to-ceiling windows opposite us.
The TV was huge. At least fifty-two inches, set into rather than hung on the far wall. There was no sign of any cable boxes or DVD players to drive it. But whatever AV equipment Taylor had hidden away, it would be hard- pressed to compete with the view. First your eyes were drawn to the lavish green of the park, twenty-one floors below. Then the jagged gray and brown buildings of the Upper West Side. And finally the cold blue of the Hudson. Individually each swath of color was fascinating. Together they were hypnotic. No wonder Taylor didn’t feel the need for pictures on his walls.
“Do you live here alone?” I said.
“At the moment,” he said. “Why?”
“I’m just looking at what you’ve done with the place. It’s hard to be so focused if you’ve got to compromise with someone.”
“That’s true. Can I get you a coffee?”
“Please. No milk, no sugar.”
“I’ve got a pot brewing downstairs. It’ll be ready in a minute. Meantime, take a seat. Let’s talk. Tell me what’s got the feds all riled up.”
“Down to business already. OK then. Well, remember your dead ex-employees? We talked about them yesterday. It turns out they were killed by someone from Tungsten.”
“No way. Who?”
“A guy called Salif Hamad.”
“Hamad? I got a call about him, this morning. He’s dead.”
“I know.”
“Hamad killed those guys? Are you sure?”
