She lowered the phone. Denis’s eyes had turned to her and were watching.
Tulliver would normally catch the shuttle to Manhattan, but he’d heard the door-to-door limo service was as quick when you took into consideration delays and cab lines at La Guardia, so a car picked him up at his hotel half an hour after he left Anastasia. She was right to warn him about the phones, but he’d need one when he was in Manhattan to arrange a rendezvous with Angel. He’d brought an old phone and it was on charge at the USB port in front of him. The driver, a big talker named Andy, was eventually asked to keep quiet and Tulliver used the time to catch up on sleep.
He called Angel when they’d passed through the Lincoln Tunnel, but someone named Manny answered.
‘Is this the Hisami residence?’ he asked.
‘Think so, yes.’
‘What do you mean, you think so? Where’s Angel?’
‘Angel is illegal.’
‘What?’
‘Angel is with ICE – they say he is illegal. I am Manny, from Nicaragua. His friend. I watch place for Angel. He is in jail.’
‘Are you at Mr Hisami’s apartment now?’
‘No, at home.’
‘Why did you say you were? How long will it take you to get there?’
Manny had problems of comprehension but finally it was established that he was in the Bronx and it would take him forty-five minutes to an hour to reach Tribeca. He promised he would leave soon. Tulliver repaired to a sports bar and watched baseball. It was over ninety minutes before Manny phoned to say he was in the apartment. He had some bad news, however. Someone had been there and the place looked a mess.
Tulliver went to see what kind of mess before using Manny’s phone to call Anastasia. ‘They had Angel arrested on a phony immigration offence and tossed the place,’ he said, surveying the empty drawers, upturned furniture and gutted cushions. ‘Maybe you should check Mesopotamia.’
Anastasia muttered, ‘Got it,’ then hung up.
Tulliver began his search. First he looked beneath the top of the elaborate drinks table, but someone had already lifted the bottles and decanters and checked the space below. He went to the office. The five or six desktop computers used by Denis’s staff when they were crashing a deal were all askew. He had no doubt their passwords had been hacked and their hard drives stripped. An Apple laptop Denis used for business had gone, an iPad also. The box files had been opened and papers dumped at the bottom of the shelves, plainly unread. In the small library all the books had been pulled from the shelves and left in heaps. There was no attempt to hide the search, or the desperation behind it. Manny came to ask if he should start clearing up the kitchen, or wait until Angel was released later that day.
Tulliver did a double take. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that Angel was being released?’
He pulled out his personal phone. There was brief message from Angel’s wife in Spanish.
‘You get some big-shot lawyer and Angel is free, right?’ said Manny with a broad grin.
No such lawyer had been employed, but Tulliver didn’t bother to question that.
‘Call Mrs Lopes and tell her to get Angel here as soon as possible.’ This he did, then stomped off, bow-legged and cheerful, to deal with the kitchen. Manny was more maintenance man than major domo, but when Angel appeared three hours later his talents were needed. It was Angel’s idea to follow the electricity. If there was a computer hidden somewhere, it would, given Mr Hisami’s fastidious nature, be on charge. They began to check all the sockets in the apartment. Manny, with a headlamp fixed around his reversed baseball cap, traced every flex and cable along ducts, behind radiators and through wardrobes and cupboards. At midnight they found what they were looking for – a socket in the office that had been hard-wired with an extension lead that vanished under the reclaimed oak panel floor. Manny followed it with a wire tracker to an air-conditioning vent on the wall. He unhooked the grille, peered inside then felt the top of the vent. A grin spread across his face. A disguised security drawer. There was a lock but no key. He forced it open easily with a pry bar and the drawer, in which lay a pristine laptop, slid out.
Tulliver unplugged it and slipped it into a padded envelope. He thanked Manny, gave him a hundred-dollar note and asked Angel to remain.
‘Tell me about the lawyer, Angel,’ he said when Manny had gone. ‘I want to know everything about your arrest and release.’
Cuth Avocet liked to do crossword puzzles and he sent what he insisted later was an ingenious clue by text to Samson. ‘Meet oldest bird in conservative surroundings.’ Samson knew to go to the Museum of Natural History and without much trouble found his way to the dinosaur wing, paid for by the late David H. Koch, one of the ultra-Conservative Koch brothers – thus, the ‘conservative surroundings’ – and to a cabinet of four fossils, the last two of which clearly had feathered wings. In front of these stood the Bird, in his oversized trainers and faded cap, mouth open in wonder.
‘Are you the fossil or the oldest bird?’ said Samson to his back.
‘Contemporaries,’ he replied, turning with an unhinged look of joy. ‘Good trip? No problems with our friends in the Office?’
Samson moved close to him. ‘Nyman and Ott are going to be a problem here in Washington. They’re working against us through the UK ambassador and the White House. The CIA has been called off and Anastasia thinks the FBI have been told to find other things to do. They refused to give her the briefcase, by the way.’
‘That’s a pisser,’ said the Bird, turning back to the cabinet and the fossil of a small dinosaur frozen in balletic pose. ‘But I’m sure
