world was going on here?
“I came back from that experience a changed man. I wanted to challenge the world, open it up, make sure that nothing like that ever happened again if it was in my power to prevent it.” He paused, looked at the police commissioner. “I have people in my employ all over the globe. They’re working for the greater good of all of us, far from home and vulnerable to the political tides of their host countries. I put them there. I’m responsible for them.”
“I can understand that,” Harrison said. “I send thousands of men in blue uniforms out into harm’s way every day.”
“Then you can understand that there is very little that I won’t do to protect my people.”
“Exactly where do you draw the line? Where do you stop when it’s important to you?” Harrison was beginning to get an inkling, finally, of what this was about.
“It depends — certainly, where law-abiding citizens are concerned, we follow the letter and spirit of the law of the land. Always. I’m proud of my company. But where criminals and terrorists are concerned, shall we just say there are gray areas in my corporate security measures, and leave it at that?” Gordian tapped the envelope against his leg. It rasped a little across the fine British wool of his suit. The tiny noise was loud in the quiet office.
“I’ll make it a point not to inquire too closely into your methods unless I have to.” Harrison, like Gordian, stared at the envelope.
“The Times Square incident was a terrible tragedy,” Gordian said. “I was watching on television when it happened. It reminded me far too much of my days in Vietnam. If I haven’t mentioned it, you have my deepest sympathies.”
Harrison took a deep breath. He could tell Gordian knew what he was feeling now, knew it all the way to the gut from hard experience. Gordian had been there. He’d survived it. Harrison swallowed hard. “Thanks. That means a lot, coming from you.”
“I don’t like terrorists.” Gordian tightened his jaw. “And when they threaten my people, I refuse to sit still, wring my hands, and watch. Some of my employees had family in that crowd.”
“So did I,” Harrison said softly. “So did I…”
“I’m sorry — I wasn’t thinking…” Gordian looked appalled, clearly realizing what he’d just said.
“It’s okay. I spend every day going through pictures of the crime scene, looking at the evidence from my men, from the FBI and the ATF, trying to see a pattern, see who did this. Believe me, the reminders are everywhere I turn. I’m going to find out who did this to my wife and my city. I’ve got 400 guys working on nothing but this twenty-four hours a day. We’ll get to the bottom of it if I have to dig the pit myself. We have to. For the city. For the mayor. And for my wife. It’s what’s keeping me going.” Harrison gave Gordian a long, level look. “I’d be willing to deal with the devil himself for a shot at the evidence to break this case.”
Gordian held out the envelope. Hands trembling, Harrison took it. He didn’t open it.
“I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t know what was in there,” Gordian said. “Nor will I say that we went through strictly legal channels to get it. We took some shortcuts.”
Harrison didn’t ask. There were some things a man preferred not to know. “I’ll assume you covered your tracks. ”
“Maybe not — I’ll deal with that problem if we get to it. Everything that we’ve been able to find out is in that envelope, along with the supporting evidence, if we’ve got it. If you’d like me to keep you updated from our end, I will. If you find it in your heart to do it, I’d like you, as far as you’re able under the law, to return the favor.”
“Thank you.” Harrison looked down at the envelope, now in his hands. “I’ll keep your name out of it if I can.” He looked back at Gordian, clearly gathering his things to leave now that his mission was accomplished. “I have one question. Why me? You don’t even know me.”
“It seemed to me that you had the greatest right to it. Use it well.” With that, Gordian shook Harrison’s hand, a warm, firm grip that somehow conveyed sympathy, confidence, and comfort without saying a word. Then he left, as quietly as he had come in. It seemed, Harrison thought, he was so bowled over by the encounter with this man he was unable to move, that Gordian’s reputation, considerable though it was, didn’t do him justice. It had taken balls to do what he had just done; balls, and a finely developed conscience, whatever the man said about gray areas.
He shook his head a little to clear it.
Tearing the envelope open, he poured the contents across his desk.
“Jesus!”
Names, photos, times, points of entry and exit, transcripts of conversations, audio cassettes, video cassettes — they were all there.
He shuffled them around, read snatches. He popped the VCR tape into his machine and watched for a second. His jaw dropped. Then he realized what the two people making out in that tape were saying.
He ran to his office door.
“Jackie,” he yelled, “get me the heads of the Times Square special squad, and get them in here right now. Call the D.A. — we’re gonna need some subpoenas. And call the FBI.”
He turned his attention back to the TV, now officially X-rated.
He was looking at the faces of his wife’s murderers.
It was time to take action.
Security had tightened at the Platinum Club. The number of guards had tripled, and new video cameras hung down from the ceiling beneath understated black plastic bubbles.
Boris smiled to himself as he surveyed the arrangements. Boris wasn’t his real name, but it was the name he was using for this assignment. He couldn’t help thinking that Nick’s effort to increase his security after the break-in was too much like that old American saying — what was it again? Ah, yes: locking the barn doors after the cows had gone.
Too little, too late. That was another American saying, and one that was just as true.
Feeling the weight of the silenced SIG Sauer P229 riding comfortably beneath the jacket of his stolen UPS uniform, he shifted the oversized bubblepak envelope resting on his electronic clipboard and started up the stairs leading to Nick’s private offices.
Two big, burly bodyguards, one with a close-trimmed beard, the other clean shaven, met him at the top of the stairs, cutting him off before he could do more than look around. Right
“I’ll sign for that,” one of them said.
Boris glanced up. There was one of those opaque plastic bubbles up here, too, hanging down from the ceiling at the far end of the plush, carpeted hallway. He wasn’t surprised, though. From what he’d heard about the man, he knew that Nick Roma liked to record everything.
“No problem,” he said, handing the oversized envelope to the bodyguard on his left, the one without the beard, and holding the clipboard out to the one on his right. As that bodyguard reached for the clipboard, Boris pressed a button built into its bottom, triggering its concealed taser and also setting off the small flash unit buried in the envelope.
The taser hit the bodyguard with the beard, burying its tiny dart lead into the soft flesh directly beneath the neatly trimmed black beard. Beside him, the other bodyguard had started to scream as the flames from the suddenly burning package ate at his hands.
Boris was already moving. Drawing his 9mm, he put two quick, subsonic bullets into each bodyguard, and then raced forward toward the door that led into Nick’s private office.
He knew his target was inside. He also knew that the door would be unlocked — Nick relied too much on fallible humans for his personal safety — and that the warning from his security force would come too late.
Nick Roma looked up as the door of his office swung softly open to reveal a man in a familiar brown uniform.
“A package? Who’s it from?” he asked, even as it dawned on him that his personal bodyguards weren’t flanking the UPS man as they should have been. He started to reach for the gun he kept in a drawer in his desk, but his hand didn’t make it that far.
