‘I’m on it, sir,’ Hendrickson said, but Hobart didn’t hear him. His phone was already closed and dangling in his hand by his side. He looked at Phil, only because the man was staring at him. Hobart’s mind was still racing through the consequences of a government agency being responsible for the killings. At that moment it didn’t matter which one.
‘This is bad, isn’t it?’ Phil said.
Hobart didn’t answer.
‘I mean, this is
‘I don’t need to tell you not to say anything about this to anyone, do I?’
‘You kidding? I may be an old conspiracy theorist but I’ve watched all the movies and I know what happens to the first guy with the hot info. Tell you the truth, I didn’t sleep a wink last night.’
‘This isn’t a movie, Phil. No one’s coming after you.’
‘What about when the report goes out? I’m supposed to send a copy to New York and another to the pool.’
‘Give me a hard copy. Don’t email it to anyone yet. Label the pool copy confidential then post it onto the site empty.’
‘But that’s going to throw up a flag. These people will be waiting for the report.’
‘Refer all enquiries to my office. And take it easy. It’s past you now. It’s in the system. Okay? Like I said, no one’s coming after you.’
Phil nodded and visibly calmed down. ‘You’re right,’ he said. Hobart was making perfect sense as usual. ‘I guess I got a little wound up when for a while there I was the only person who knew. I’m okay now. What are you going to do?’
‘You’re going to have to forget it and leave it with me, okay?’ Hobart said in a fatherly manner.
‘I’m already there,’ Phil said, allowing a smile of relief to grow on his face. ‘I’ll wait and read about it in the papers.’
‘You do that,’ Hobart said, knowing that it might never get that far. Like any bad news, if it could be kept in- house that was as far as it would go. His only concern about Phil was that the man was in the winter of his career in a business he believed to be corrupt and there was that distant possibility that he might decide to do something that he’d consider heroic while he still had the chance. As Hobart stared at Phil he decided that was probably unfair of him and he patted his old friend on the shoulder.
‘Come on,’ Hobart said. ‘Let’s go back and see this report.’ They headed across the parking lot towards the building while Phil began to explain the various chemical make-ups of different types of plastic explosive and how it affected their performance and dictated their different uses. Hobart tried to listen with some interest but his mind kept flicking to the new problem at hand. This case was now possibly one of the most important he’d handled in recent years.
18
A shiny black stretch limousine slowly pulled off the road and onto an uneven patch of sun-baked mud on the edge of a large bustling construction site. It came to a stop outside a chain-link security fence and a grey Cadillac sedan pulled alongside it. Three dark-skinned Caucasian Neanderthals in expensive suits climbed out of the sedan with muscle-bound slowness and spread out around the limo, checking in all directions, hands hovering close to pistols and sub-machine guns hidden inside their jackets. One of them nodded to the passenger in the front of the limo and he climbed out and opened one of the rear doors.
Skender eased out of the spacious interior, buttoning up the jacket of an immaculate cream suit, the collar of his shirt turned down outside it in a style that would provoke feelings of nostalgia in any who enjoyed the fashions of the 1970s. He walked over the hard ground in his patent-leather shoes and in through the security gate, followed by two of his men. The security guard, a redneck type who had never seen proper military service, saluted Skender and bid him good afternoon as he passed his sentry box. Skender ignored him and walked several yards onto the site before stopping to look up, a smile growing on his craggy face.
‘It’s beautiful,’ he said to his thugs without looking at them, not that he was addressing them in particular but he wanted to say it to someone. ‘I love watching it grow day by day.’
Skender was gaping at a huge new office building near completion, a startling design emulating ancient Egyptian pyramids. Shimmering plates of dark green glass locked into copper-sheathed steel frames covered all four steeply sloping sides from the second floor to the sixteenth. The seventeenth or top floor was also glass but was gold in colour. Two smaller pyramids were located at opposite corners of the site, creating an overall impression like a typical picture postcard of Giza. The ground around the building was paved in Italian marble that continued out several metres from the base of the building, with towering newly planted palms springing from it in places.
To some critics the edifice verged on the kitsch but it was eye-catching nevertheless. Hundreds of workers were busy operating cranes, earth-movers and dumper trucks as the exterior cosmetics – landscaping, lighting and pathways – were well under way. Lorries ferried their loads in and out through the main entrance where kerbstones were being laid in preparation for the tarmac fill that would connect the lavish drive to Washington Boulevard that ran along one side. The site took up an entire block in Culver City, a modern development of Los Angeles a couple of miles from Beverly Hills and occupied by the likes of Sony and MGM studios, fine restaurants and expensive art shops. The business premises were interspersed with middle-class residential buildings.
Skender traced the steep, imposing facade with his eyes from the pinnacle down to a magnificent main entrance of bronze-coloured glass and copper and steel supports. As his gaze rested on a pair of massive eleventh-century wooden doors twenty feet high and with heavily inlaid carvings, an import from India to maintain the impression of the ancient shrouded in the modern, Dren Cano stepped through them and into the pillared portico.
Skender headed off through the site towards Cano, followed by his men. ‘Is it gonna be ready in time?’ he shouted to an engin -eer who was perusing a stack of plans laid out on a table.
The engineer looked around and immediately grinned with forced enthusiasm on seeing who had posed the question. ‘Hey there, Mister Skender. You betcha it’s gonna be on time.’
Skender smiled thinly as he continued on without a pause, confident of the answer before he had heard it. Before the first bulldozer had moved in to demolish the old houses and apartment blocks that had previously occupied the site every contractor, supplier and union involved had been subtly warned that it would be most unwise if there were to be any sudden price hikes, cancellations or delays of any nature for any reason, including Acts of God such as weather or accidents. Similarly gilded threats as well as lavish gifts were bestowed upon certain members of the city authority to persuade against any unforeseen problems with the various planning permissions that would be required.
Only one company failed to heed the warnings, one of the two cement suppliers contracted to deliver the thousands of tons of concrete required. It was an oversight on their part: apparently they had not researched the client thoroughly enough to take the threats seriously. When one morning the cement trucks did not arrive due to a reprioritisation by the company concerned in favour of another client across town Skender’s retribution was swift and decisive. The company’s owner happened to be on holi -day in Hawaii at the time with his wife and two sons. The morning following the non-delivery they were all found in their rooms with their legs broken and the arms of the owner himself painfully fractured above the elbows as a bonus. Rumours spread swiftly among the workforce with some help from Skender’s people and there were no further obstructions to the site’s progress. In fact the general cordiality of the contractors and workers increased to a sycophantic level. When, after three weeks, construction was a day and a half ahead of schedule Skender rewarded every worker with a thousand-dollar bonus that sealed their devotion to the task.
Skender stepped onto the marble-floored concourse in front of the cathedral-like entrance and stopped to scrutinise the intricate inside roofing of the portico.
Cano looked like hell: his left eye was covered by a silk patch and there were stitches all over his face. He had lost the use of the eye, which had been removed, and he was waiting for the plastic surgery on the tattered
