down the hall to the stairs. It seemed to take an eternity and any moment he was sure he would be stopped. As he approached the stairs that would take him to the second floor and Ben's office, he heard voices. He ducked in a room and discovered it was the dive room. It was near both the door to the docks, where Sam had entered, and the stairwell to the second story.
Right away he noticed a pile of clothing. He checked the wallet in the jeans and it was Ben's. Very interesting. Ben had left his credit cards and driver's license. Amazingly, no one had thought to check the dive room yet. Sam fished through the pants pockets and found a piece of paper. He pocketed it, returned to the door, flipped off the light, and listened. When he opened the door, it was plain that a group of three or four men was searching the lower floor, one room at a time. They had started at the far end and still had a distance to go.
Exiting the dive room, he rushed up the stairs to the first landing. He was able to see the top. A man sat on a stool, nipping through a magazine. Obviously he was permanently stationed. Sam doubted that he could bluff his way through, despite his fraying disguise.
He would need to try another way. Feeling exposed, he went back down the stairs and managed to cross the hall to the outside door without being seen. Once again he went down the outside of the building, only this time he remained low, and traveled in the opposite direction, heading for the balcony from which Ben had originally jumped.
He found the balcony and climbed one of the small trees at the southern end. It was a fir and it sagged terribly under his weight, but he managed to make it to the edge of the balcony and climb over. The door to the interior was locked. There was a window and he looked inside. Someone was turning on all the lights during the search for him. He waited, hi a couple of minutes someone made his way to the end of the hall, turning on lights in the various labs and offices.
When he reached the end of the hall, Sam tapped on the glass. Instead of panicking, as Sam expected, or calling for help, as Sam also expected, the man decided to be a hero, drew his gun, and approached the door. Sam lay on his back beside the door. The door opened and he could see the tip of the man's gun. Throwing the door open, the man stepped through, looking everywhere but down. His mouth was open and Sam shot a stream of pepper spray right at his partially opened mouth. Before the man could comprehend what had happened to him, he dropped the gun and grabbed for his throat.
In an impressive display of total surrender, the man fell to the ground with his eyes open wide.
'You'll be okay, it's just pepper spray,' Sam said. He could empathize because he was suffering badly enough just from the residue.
Working quickly, he got the man's pants and shirt off and put them on over his own.
Fortunately, he was a big guy. Sam found a badge indicating he was a special deputy, no doubt one of the newly deputized. Another play in Frick's game.
Unfortunately, the clothes reeked of pepper spray and the residue continued to burn his eyes. Using the man's own cuffs, he locked his hands behind his back; then he quickly closed the door, leaving the man gasping in his underwear.
This man carried a SIG-Sauer P229, standard fare for the FBI and a better weapon than Ranken's Smith amp; Wesson, if the criteria for 'better' was the efficient killing of people.
Sam hobbled down the hall dressed in the uniform of a security guard.
A loud boom came from outside-strong enough to rattle the windows.
'Check that out!' someone hollered. 'Opus Magnum just went off like a firecracker.'
Sam appreciated the timing but worried about Haley.
He made it all the way to Ben's office without being stopped. Those who saw him were evidently too busy looking out the window at Frick's barbecued boat to pay attention.
Inside half an hour Sam hoped he would be reading documents that without a doubt would blow his mind.
Ben Anderson had not disappointed him yet.
It was evening, and Sanker was in a mood.
Rossitter walked in wearing new shoes.
'That bad, huh?' Sanker said.
'What do you mean?' Rossitter didn't get his meaning.
'You're wearing new shoes.'
Rossitter still appeared confused by the comment, which was troubling because it meant the man didn't understand his own eccentricities. Sanker knew it was one thing to have them and another to lack any self- awareness of them. The old man sighed, suddenly feeling weary.
'Did you talk to our Judas?' he asked Rossitter.
'I tried calling him back. He won't return calls. Something is happening, I can feel it,'
Rossitter said. 'I think it's like you said: Judas is two people, and I have a good idea who one of them is.'
Suddenly the old man felt a welcome shot of adrenaline. 'Well, who?'
'Sarah James-Ben's assistant.' Rossitter said it as if trying to convince himself.
'How did you and your minions come to this conclusion?'
'Judas said we should follow Sarah to find Ben,' Rossitter said. 'Even said tell Frick to let her go.'
'That's inconsistent, isn't it? First he says we don't need to find Ben, that's not part of the deal. It's a backup in case Frick doesn't get him. Then he tells us to find Ben? By following Sarah?'
'What do we do?' Rossitter looked more and more worried as their control of the situation grew thinner.
'One thing Judas likes doing is talking. Let him talk. You listen. Act cooperative, but don't agree to anything. Then report back to me.'
'I see,' Rossitter said. 'He really could be on anybody's side.' 'He's on his own side.
We just have to figure out what he really wants. I'm tending to believe he wants something that Sarah has,' Sanker said.
'Sarah James is close to Ben Anderson. I hear she fancied him and he her. Ben took obvious precautions, hiding his work, et cetera. It's logical that she might know something. Or have something. Judas can't get to her if Frick has her. And Judas is supposed to deliver Ben's secret to us if he wants his reward.'
'I still wonder why deliver it to us.'
'That's easy,' the old man said, growing more sure of himself. 'Judas wants the Arc regimen. It's a complicated recipe, apparently. Judas says it has six primary components.
He knows so much about it that I think he's seen it, maybe used or taken it. So he's desperate. What if he can't get any more of it? If he can't get it from Ben, he hedges his bets. He knows we would have the means to produce it, if only we knew how. Can't you see it?'
'Isn't that a lot of conjecture?'
'I made my fortune being good at conjecture,' Sanker snapped back.
'So you think this Sarah knows the Arc regimen?'
'Not necessarily. She knows something that Judas wants to know, or has something he wants to have.'
Rossitter looked down at those new shoes, clearly at sea.
It didn't matter. Sanker knew Judas's need intimately, because Judas's need was his own.
'There is nothing in here,' Walrus Face said.
'What do you know about this?' Thin Man asked.
Sarah sat huddled in the back of Sheriff's Boat 3. Like Boat 2 it was a twenty-seven-foot Boston Whaler, but this one had a pair of 225-horsepower Suzuki outboards, and a tiny cabin. It was unusually aggressive for Thin Man to make the inquiries.
'I don't know a thing, other than what I told you,' Sarah said. 'I just saw the boat from the road.'
Thin Man: 'In the dark?'
'I wasn't sure this was the boat. But he usually ties up to that dock.'
'That sounds like bullshit to me, designed to waste our time,' Walrus Face said.
A breeze on the bay made sizable ripples that rocked the boats. The sheriff's boat tapped the gunnel of Ben's when they pitched.
'I'm sure you'd enjoy a stint with Frick,' said Thin Man. 'He's a charmer.'
Walrus Face climbed back in the boat. 'I think it's time for some candor lessons.'
