The woman turned on her heel and stomped away in the direction she’d come. Jing Yo shifted the mental map he had constructed of the interior: she must be walking toward the staff offices, which he had thought were on the other side.
He went to the stairway door and opened it, as if going down to the basement. But he went up instead of down, coming out on the second floor.
He found himself in the middle of a display of rocket ships. A black man about his age wearing a tan turtleneck and faded blue jeans looked at him expectantly.
“I need to find thermostat,” said Jing Yo, his English failing as he tried to come up with an excuse for being there.
“All the thermostats are in armored cases,” said the man.
“Are there any on this floor?” asked Jing Yo.
“Out near the restroom, over there. Better hurry. There’s a hundred kids on their way into the building. And the first place they go is always the john.”
The left side of the hallway opened on the side of an atrium that rose to the top of the building. Standing by the rails, Jing Yo could see the front entrance. Two school buses were parked in front of the doors. Children were being lined up on the sidewalk.
The door opened. The kids were not nearly as disciplined as Chinese schoolchildren would have been. They spoke loudly and rudely. Their line was barely distinguishable from a mad jumble. The teachers seemed not to notice, talking to one another rather than herding their charges back in line.
Americans really were a doomed race.
The children were directed toward an auditorium at the left side of the atrium, just out of Jing Yo’s view. One peeled off and headed for the stairs. A second and third followed. Soon there were a dozen, running and laughing, heading for the restroom, as the man inside had said.
Shooting someone from here was simple. The P90 would make quick work of him.
Jing Yo wasn’t concerned with getting out. If he got out the way he came without any trouble, then he would. If not — what did it matter? Very possibly Mr. Wong or the government would arrange for his death even if he did escape.
It would be better to die sooner rather than later, rather than waiting to be tortured and questioned, forced to betray his country. If possible, he would die in a firefight. If wounded, he would end his suffering honorably.
“What are you doing up here?”
Jing Yo turned slowly. The woman who had accosted him downstairs was standing in the hall near the rocket exhibit.
“Thermostats,” he told her.
“What?”
“I have to check them.”
“Get moving. Senator Grasso is going to be here in half an hour. Do you even know who he is?”
“He’s a U.S. senator.”
She shook her head, disgusted, and stomped past him. Jing Yo resisted the urge to throw her over the railing. He went to the thermostat, pretending to look at it.
“She’s a bitch on heels, huh?” said the man he’d seen earlier in the rocket display.
Jing Yo didn’t understand the idiom, but realized he should agree. He tapped the thermostat as if he had just finished what he was doing, then began walking toward the stairway at the far end of the open space.
A uniformed guard was standing near the top of the landing as he came up. The guard, in his late sixties with a gray buzz cut and a trim belly, nodded at him. Jing Yo nodded back. The man didn’t have a gun.
He did have a radio, which might be useful.
Jing Yo went over to the thermostat, which was on the wall right next to the opening down to the atrium area. He opened his case and took out a screwdriver, then quickly closed it so that the submachine gun couldn’t be seen.
The screws on the thermostat were star-heads rather than conventional screw or Phillips heads. With the guard watching, he couldn’t fake working on the device without taking it apart. He dropped down to his knee to see if he had the right driver.
“Whatcha workin’ on?” asked the guard as he zipped his bag open.
Jing Yo turned to him. He was still over near the steps.
Stay there, old man, he thought.
“Heating system,” said Jing Yo.
“Thermostats are bad?”
“Just need checking.”
The guard took that as an invitation to come over. Jing Yo pulled a large screwdriver from the bag and zipped it closed quickly.
“These commercial systems a lot different than residential?” asked the guard.
“Different.”
“I used to do some work with a plumber,” said the guard. “Before I joined NYPD.”
“Mmmmm,” said Jing Yo.
He still didn’t have the right screwdriver in his hand. He looked at the thermostat.
“This one’s okay,” he said, pointing.
“How can you tell? Jump them and look for a spark?”
“Yes,” said Jing Yo, hoping that was the right answer.
“Nothing changes, huh? You don’t use a meter?”
Jing Yo had no idea what the proper answer would be, and certainly could not have identified the meter the guard was talking about.
He could grab him by the throat, clamp his hand over his mouth, and drag him somewhere.
Where?
The restroom must be nearby.
The guard gave him a quizzical look.
“Restroom?” asked Jing Yo.
“Just over there.” He took a few steps back and pointed.
Jing Yo took his tool bag and walked over to the men’s room. Inside, he waited near the door, hoping the guard would follow. But he didn’t. When Jing Yo came out, he was gone.
The nearby exhibition halls were empty as well. One was dedicated to exhibits on the human body; the other demonstrated how evolution worked. The displays were in glossy colors. The place looked more like a toy room than a science lab.
He went back out to the walkway over the atrium. The children had been sequestered inside the auditorium, joined there by a second group whose buses had just arrived.
As Jing Yo watched, a limo pulled up to the door, angling in front of the buses. Two men in suits came out from the area directly below Jing Yo, followed by the woman who had scolded him twice earlier. They waited at the door as a young man in his early twenties got out of the limo, holding the door open for another man.
Senator Grasso. Short, balding, with a round belly, Grasso swaggered as he walked the short distance from the car to the door.
Jing Yo unzipped his tool bag. The gun was right on the top, easy to grab.
“Senator, so pleased to see you,” said the woman, her voice easily carrying across the open space. Her tone was 180 degrees from the one she had used to address Jing Yo.
“Maria — so nice to see you again. How is my favorite museum administrator doing?”
The senator pulled her toward him and kissed her on the cheek. She didn’t resist.
“You know the chairman of our board, Dr. Giddes. And my assistant, Ralph Kinel.”
“Doc, Ralph — how are yas?”
The senator didn’t introduce his aide, who stood in the background.
“We have a lot of children here today,” said the museum director. “We thought you’d like to accept your award in front of them.”
“Oh-ho,” said the senator. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
