7
While Ferguson was wining and dining Arna Kerr, Rankin went upstairs to the floor where her room was. Breaking in was too much of a risk; even if she hadn’t left a detection device behind, if she was good enough to be working for T Rex most likely she’d be good enough to figure out if someone had been inside. Rankin intended on doing everything but.
Ferguson had already planted a video bug to cover the hallway. The size of an American dime, the unit sent a signal to a transmitter hidden in a fire hose box two floors below. The transmitter boosted and relayed the signal to a satellite system used by the First Team. The ops could tap in via laptops and small purpose-built viewers that looked like video iPods to see what was going on. The deskman also monitored the feedback in the Cube, giving the team another set of eyes and ears. They had installed a series of bugs, both video and audio, along with transmitters around the city to help them monitor what was going on. The major drawback to the tiny devices was their limited batteries; they had an average life of only eight hours, though occasionally could last for as many as twenty-four. Larger units had greater capacity, but were correspondingly easier to detect.
Rankin wanted to place one of the larger video bugs in the base of a fire extinguisher at the end of the hall. But first he had to make sure that Arna Kerr hadn’t placed her own devices here. He walked down the hall swiftly, holding what looked like a handheld computer in his hand; it was actually a bug detector.
Rankin had almost finished his sweep when one of the doors opened. He stopped at a room at the far end of the hallway as if he was going to knock. Two women and a small child came out and began milling around. The kid was watching Rankin, so he went ahead and knocked at the door he’d stopped in front of.
No one answered — perfect, he thought. He mimed being puzzled, knocking again, calling for a friend named Maurice. To his surprise, the door suddenly opened. A man big enough to be professional wrestler stood inside.
“Gotta be the wrong room,” said Rankin. “Made a mistake. Sorry.”
“Who’s Maurice?” repeated the man, angrily.
“Relax,” said Rankin. He didn’t know much Italian, and in fact couldn’t be sure that was what the guy was speaking. “Sorry I woke you up, all right? Sorry.
The man took a threatening step into the hallway. For a moment Rankin worried that the guy was going to start a fight. The last thing Rankin wanted to do was start a commotion — especially with someone who actually looked big enough to give him a serious fight.
If not beat the crap out of him.
“It’s OK; it’s OK,” Rankin said, holding his hands up. “Just relax. I made a mistake. Wrong floor.”
The women and kid by now had taken the elevator downstairs. Rankin waited by it, the anti-Maurice watching him the whole time, his eyes flickering with an unspoken threat until the elevator finally came back and Rankin got on.
Was he connected to Arna Kerr? No, thought Rankin — it was just an unlucky coincidence.
“Why doesn’t this shit ever happen to Ferguson?” he mumbled as he got out of the elevator on the floor above and walked to the stairs.
Thera was shown to the worst table in the house, a tiny half-moon squeezed between the waiters’ station and the ladies’ room. She couldn’t quite see Ferguson from where she was, but she did have a good view of Arna Kerr. The blonde was exactly the sort that turned men’s heads: perfect nose, thick lips, oversized breasts. Her arms looked sculpted.
Probably tennis muscles, Thera thought; all show, no power.
Thera pushed her jealousy away as the waiter approached. She had a little trouble with her Italian, confusing it with the Greek she’d learned as a child and still spoke with her relatives. Her pronunciation was so far off she had to repeat her order several times before she was understood.
Thera suffered through a limp pasta dish before Arna Kerr finally excused herself and headed for the ladies’ room. Thera waited until she passed, then rose and walked toward the lobby, taking her phone out as if intending to make a call. She detoured to her left, avoiding a party of eight and walking right next to Ferguson’s table. As she passed, he moved his chair back and bumped into her.
“It’s nothing,” she said, pushing away.
“I hope I didn’t hurt you.”
Thera went into the foyer, grabbed her coat from the rack, and then left the restaurant.
“I thought you were going to eat,” said Guns when she found him in the car down the block.
“I didn’t feel like it.” She pulled a pair of rubber gloves from the glove compartment and opened her pocketbook, where Ferguson had tucked Arna Kerr’s wineglass when he accidentally bumped into Thera.
“Think we got prints?”
“We’d better. I’m not going back in there.”
Thera put her hand inside the glass and then wrapped what looked like a thin electric blanket around it. Instead of an electrical plug, the blanket connected to a USB port in the team’s laptop, which was under the foot mat in the car. After fiddling with the sensitivity setting, she got an image of the glass on the screen. There were two smudges, a thumbprint, and what looked like the print of a middle finger.
It figures, she thought.
Ferguson suggested they go back to Arna’s room, but she preferred his.
“You don’t even know where it is,” he told her.
“It’s not at the Borgia?”
“I was there to see a friend. Who turned out not be in. Luckily for me. Or I wouldn’t have met you.”
“You look like the kind of man who would have a nice room. Sauna, right?”
“No sauna,” said Ferguson. “The marble sink is on the large size, though.”
“That sounds nice.” She brushed his cheek with her finger.
“Then let’s go,” said Ferguson, rising.
Arna Kerr ran her hands across his back as they waited in the lobby for the taxi, making sure he didn’t have a gun.
Maybe he was what he seemed — an attractive, well-off but somewhat lonely man about her own age. Maybe he’d seen her in the lobby of the Borgia and decided he wanted to sleep with her. Or maybe something else. She couldn’t be sure; the way he looked at her didn’t
She had never once been made while on a job. Would it go down like this? Would Interpol send some smooth Irishman — or whatever he was — to romance her?
No — that happened in movies. In real life, they arrested you. Or shot you.
Most likely shot you.
Which he might be planning to do when he got her to his room.
The wine she’d drunk was making her take chances she shouldn’t, Arna Kerr thought. She should just tell him good night, go up to her room.
But part of the attraction was the danger, or its potential.
“Here we go,” said Ferg as the cab pulled up. “Are you with me? You’re so quiet you might be sleeping.”
“I’m awake,” she said, and leaned up to kiss him.
After Rankin planted his video bug, he left the hotel and walked around the block to a building subdivided into apartments. He reached for one of the buttons, as if he were going to ring to be buzzed in. Instead, he pushed a thin plastic card into the jamb near the lock. The door opened easily.
Inside, the place smelled of boiling greens; the pungent, spinachlike smell reminded Rankin of his childhood,
