Several hours later roadblocks surrounded the square, keeping the public well back while the emergency services began their work. Engineers conducted safety surveys as well as initial demolition planning and the designation of areas where the fire department could safely search for bodies. The explosives and ordnance department had cleared much of the building although it would take a thorough examination lasting days before it was officially declared safe.
Seaton sat in the open door of Hobart’s sedan, staring at the building and sipping a cup of coffee while contemplating his immediate future in LA. The way things were going, it might take days to get to the spot where the penthouse had landed and Stratton’s and Josh’s bodies could be found. Hobart had given him the okay to remove the corpses when they were unearthed from the rubble but the delicate part was going to be managing it without raising the interest of the police. Worse still, the media were hovering all over the place and were as keen to find the mysterious man and boy as Seaton was.
Beside Seaton on the back seat were some of the items taken from the pick-up that Stratton had stolen. Seaton took a look at the pyramid blueprints, curious to see how Stratton had planned the placement of the explosives. The horizontal struts on the fourth, eighth and twelfth floors were marked: he was impressed at Stratton’s assessment of how to do maximum damage with the minimum amount of explosive since it was not obvious to Seaton. But the results were there for all to see. The guy
Seaton would have expected Stratton to have made some kind of plan to get out of the building once he had killed Skender, no matter how impossible it might have seemed. He refused to believe that Stratton was the suicidal type. Seaton appreciated that Stratton had not known that Josh was in the building, otherwise he would never have detonated his bombs. It would have been second nature for him to have considered a way out.
Several pencil marks looked like places where Stratton had changed his mind about charge placement. But as Seaton studied the blueprint while sipping his coffee the design of the central pillar conjured up an image from his memory. He held the plans out at arm’s length to get a broader perspective and realised that the central pillar was the shape of a champagne bottle. It was wide at the base until the tenth floor where it gradually narrowed until the fifteenth and then became straight the rest of the way to the top. It reminded him of Stratton’s trick in Jack’s garden where the challenge had been to get the glass inside the champagne bottle.
Seaton took a closer look at some of the pencil marks and discovered that one at the base of the pillar corres ponded to another at the top. The centre of the pillar was hollow, with conduits and piping of every description running to each floor. There was also a ladder that extended from the garage to the roof, with a hatch on each floor hidden behind the wall fabric. The hatches were not intended to be used once the building was complete except when major work was required.
Seaton climbed out of the car to take a look at the building. A flush of excitement ran through him at the possibility that had just occurred to him. However, he could not remove from his mind the image of Stratton and Josh on the edge of the floor barely seconds before it had collapsed.
As he closed the car door and headed for the square he was stopped by a voice calling out to him.
‘Sir!’
It was a police officer who was walking towards him from the barrier where a crowd of rubbernecks were packed, watching and photographing the scene.
‘Are you with the FBI, sir?’ the young officer asked.
Seaton was more interested in investigating his theory. ‘Yeah,’ he said, hoping he would not be delayed long.
‘I got a woman says she knows the man and the kid who were in the building.’
Seaton looked past him at the woman standing alone and watching him. It was Vicky: although he did not know her, the need to block every source of potential information about Stratton and Josh was essential.
Seaton walked over to her and said hello.
‘My name’s Vicky Whitaker,’ she said, wringing her hands nervously. ‘I just wanted to know if John Stratton and Josh Penton are okay – the young boy who was in the building?’
Seaton saw bystanders starting to take an interest. He stepped to the side of the barrier. ‘Come with me,’ he said.
The police officer moved a section of the barrier aside to let Vicky pass. She joined Seaton several yards away.
‘How do you know them?’ Seaton asked.
‘I work at the child-protection centre, where Josh was kidnapped. I’m his case officer.’
Seaton remembered having heard Hobart talk about her. She looked pensive and concerned and holding on to her emotions by a thread.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘We don’t believe anyone survived inside the building.’
Vicky looked down at her hands. ‘Have … have they found … ?’ she said. She could not continue.
‘No,’ Seaton answered, trying to be as considerate as he could.
Vicky’s lips trembled as she nodded. Then she squeezed her eyes shut in a vain effort to hold back her tears.
‘Come with me,’ Seaton said, taking her elbow. She walked alongside him as if in a trance while he led her to the sedan and opened the back door. ‘Why don’t you sit inside?’ he said. ‘I’ll go and check if there is any news.’ He wanted to get away, not only to check on the possibility that Stratton might be alive but because there was no one more uncomfortable to be around than the bereaved.
Vicky sat on the back seat and stared down at her hands on her lap.
‘Can I get you anything?’ Seaton asked, feeling lame.
She shook her head without looking at him, lost in her thoughts.
Seaton walked away from the car across the square and around the side of the building to the garage entrance where an engineer was talking to a senior police officer and a fire department chief.
As Seaton headed past them the engineer reached out an arm to stop him. ‘Excuse me, sir. Where are you going?’
Seaton reached inside his jacket, pulled out a small leather wallet and opened it to reveal his badge.
‘CIA,’ the engineer said with surprise, looking at the other two men and then back at Seaton. ‘Can I ask you why you wanna go inside?’
Seaton looked at him. The thin smile on his lips clearly said no. He put his badge away.
The engineer was out of his league. His body language became that of someone stepping back without actually doing so. ‘Well, it’s not officially cleared but as long as you accept responsibility—’
‘I’ll take full responsibility,’ Seaton said. ‘And I’d also appreciate it if no one else came down here while I’m inside,’ he said to the police officer.
The men looked at each other and shrugged. ‘Sure,’ the officer said.
Seaton left them watching him as he walked down the concrete ramp and into the darkness.
He headed into the centre of the garage where a handful of cars were parked, all of them covered in dust, and paused to check around. There was no sign of damage, no collapsed ceiling as far as he could tell in the poor light. He took a look at the pillar in the gloom as he drew near it. The drawings had the hatch on the west side opposite the elevators and he followed the curved wall until he found a large metal hinged bulkhead similar to that on a ship. It was held shut by six bolts evenly spaced around it. He was going to need a tool. Without wasting another second he turned around and headed back to the garage entrance.
After a brief exchange with the fire chief a fireman was sent off and a few minutes later returned with a huge wrench. Seaton thanked him and carried the tool back down into the garage, much to the interest of the men watching.
Seaton returned to the pillar, adjusted the wrench to fit the first nut and pulled down on it. The nut moved easily, being new, and within a few minutes he had removed all six of them.
But the hatch did not readily budge and he had to use the end of the wrench to prise an edge open enough to let him get his fingers inside. He placed the wrench on the ground and pulled hard on the hatch. Putting his weight behind the effort he managed to push it open.
Seaton looked back towards the garage entrance to ensure that no one had followed him. Then he looked inside the pillar. It was too dark to make out anything and he did not have a flash-light. Too impatient to go and get
