Hartmann shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘And none of this goes any further, right?’
Hartmann shrugged. ‘Why would that matter to you?’
Verlaine smiled wryly. ‘I got parents here in Orleans, and then I got the Feds and whoever the fuck else on the other. You drag me into this any further and you endanger either my professional reputation or my life. You know the deal, Mr Hartmann.’
‘I do, and no, this won’t go any further-’
A sound outside. The sudden hubbub of voices. Hartmann rose from the desk as someone knocked sharply on the door and opened it.
Stanley Schaeffer stood there, his face flushed, his eyes wide. ‘You got someone here,’ he said, urgency in his tone.
Hartmann frowned. ‘I got someone?’
‘Your caller, we think it’s your caller.’
Verlaine looked at Hartmann. His face was grave.
Hartmann came out from behind the desk and followed Schaeffer at a near-run.
EIGHT
There were three of them, and they all looked the same, and they all wore the same expression of confusion, anxiety, the tension of the moment, and all three of them had their hands on their guns, but had not drawn them, for they were uncertain of what they were dealing with. And one of the three agents was Sheldon Ross, and when he turned and saw Hartmann burst through the door at the far end of the entrance foyer there was a momentary yet very evident flicker of relief in his eyes.
For a handful of seconds, couldn’t have been more than six or seven, everyone stood silent and immobile. Three agents surrounded the man, and on the other side of the foyer Hartmann stood next to Schaeffer, and when Hartmann looked at Schaeffer there was something about the way he looked that communicated the same sense of disbelief as Hartmann himself felt.
The man who had walked into the foyer of the FBI office had to have been at least sixty or sixty-five. He was dressed immaculately: an overcoat, a three-piece suit, white shirt, a deep burgundy tie, patent leather shoes, leather gloves, a black cashmere scarf around his neck. His face was a network of symmetrical lines – creases and wrinkles and crow’s feet like origami unwrapped – and beneath his heavy-set brows his eyes were the most piercing green – emerald almost – intense, somehow possessed.
The old man broke the silence, and the words that came from his lips were spoken with the same unmistakable dialectic tones that Hartmann had listened to on the phone, and yet again many times on the tapes they had made.
‘Mr Hartmann,’ the man said. ‘And Mr Schaeffer.’ He paused and smiled, and then he looked at the three younger agents facing him and said, ‘Gentlemen, please don’t feel any necessity to draw your guns. I am here of my own volition, and I assure you I am quite unarmed.’
Hartmann felt his heart thudding in his chest. His throat was tight, as if someone had gripped it and was damned if they were going to let go.
The man took one step forward, and the three agents – armed though they were – each simultaneously took one step back.
‘My name,’ the man said, ‘is Ernesto Perez.’ He smiled, a broad and genuine smile. ‘And I have come to talk about the girl.’
It was Schaeffer who moved first, and as he moved so did two others beside him. Who started shouting was uncertain in Hartmann’s mind, but there was no doubt as to the contagious effect a single raised voice had on the proceedings. Schaeffer pushed past the agents in front of him, and before Hartmann could react he was holding a gun, a gun that he aimed directly between Perez’s eyes.
‘On the floor!’ Schaeffer was commanding.
Pandemonium broke out instantly. It seemed that there were twice as many people in the foyer all of a sudden. Schaeffer was at the head of them, and at one point he turned and looked at Hartmann, his face white, his eyes wide, and it seemed that all the frustration and pressure he’d been feeling since this began were encapsulated within that split-second glance.
Perez looked back at Schaeffer implacably. He raised his right hand slowly, then his left; he too looked at Hartmann, in his eyes a sense of resigned disbelief that such behavior was necessary.
‘Down!’ Schaeffer commanded once more, and then there were three or four of them, guns drawn and leveled, and Perez went slowly to his knees.
‘Hands behind your head! Get your hands behind your fucking head!’
Hartmann took a step backwards and looked down at the floor. For some reason he felt awkward, almost embarrassed, and when he looked up he saw Perez was staring right back at him.
Hartmann tried to look away but he could not. He felt transfixed, pinned to the spot, and when Ross went forward and handcuffed Perez it seemed that the whole world slowed down to ensure that this moment lasted forever. Hartmann sensed the breathless tension in those present, and he was aware of the tremendous pressure such a confrontation would create. He closed his eyes for a second; he prayed with everything he possessed that a sudden movement wouldn’t prompt a reaction, an unsteady hand, a moment’s nervousness, a dead kidnapper…
After a moment everything went quiet.
Perez, his upturned face visible to all, smiled at Stanley Schaeffer.
‘I have come of my own accord, Agent Schaeffer,’ he said quietly.
The two agents to Schaeffer’s right were visibly shaken and on-edge. Hartmann prayed that one of them wouldn’t pull the trigger in a moment of agitation and uncertainty.
‘I don’t believe that this is altogether necessary,’ Perez went on. His voice was steady, as were his hands, his eyes, everything about him. Kneeling there on the floor of the foyer he appeared just as calm as when Hartmann had first seen him.
‘This is a good suit,’ Perez said, and he smiled with his eyes. ‘A very good suit, and it is such a shame to dirty it by kneeling here on the floor.’
Schaeffer turned and looked at Hartmann.
Hartmann didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. He thought of John Verlaine, reminded that he had left him in the back office. He wondered where Verlaine was, if he had somehow managed to leave the building amidst the confusion generated by Perez’s arrival.
Perez shook his head. ‘It seems that we have reached an impasse. I remain here on the floor and we accomplish nothing at all. I stand up, you release these quite unnecessary handcuffs, and I shall tell you what it is you have been waiting for.’
Again Schaeffer turned and looked at Hartmann. Hartmann did not know what was expected of him; here he possessed no authority at all. Schaeffer was in charge of the investigation and was the one who’d believed it necessary to put Perez on his knees and handcuff him.
‘You stand slowly,’ Schaeffer said. His voice broke mid-sentence and he repeated himself. There was the slightest waver in his tone, as if he was unsettled by this man even though he was now cuffed and almost prostrate.
Perez nodded but did not speak. He rose slowly to his feet, and even as he did so the men behind him, the men who had been so quick to draw and aim their guns, stepped back and looked awkward. One of them lowered his gun and the others quickly followed suit.
Hartmann watched, slightly amazed at how Perez seemed to have effortlessly taken control of the situation with barely a word.
Perez stood facing Schaeffer with his hands behind his head. He merely nodded and Schaeffer motioned for Ross to unlock the cuffs. Perez lowered his hands and massaged each wrist in turn. He nodded at Schaeffer and smiled courteously.
