False Impression

by Jeffrey Archer

  He sat alone in the darkness and waited patiently.

  Fenston was considering a loan application from a Michael Karraway, who wanted to borrow fourteen million to invest in a group of provincial theaters. He was an out-of-work actor with few stage credits to his name. But to his credit he had an indulgent mother, who had left him a Matisse, View from the Bedroom, and a thousand-acre farm in Vermont. Fenston studied a transparency of a young nude looking out of a bedroom window and decided that he would instruct Leapman to draw up a contract.

  Fenston tossed the application to one side and began thumbing through the latest Christie’s catalog. He paused at a reproduction of Matisse’s Dancer Before a Mirror, but turned the page once he had seen the low estimate. After all, Pierre de Rochelle had supplied him with a Degas, The Dancing Instructor, at a far more reasonable price.

  He continued to study the prices of each picture, a smile regularly appearing on his lips, when he realized how much his own collection was increasing in value. He glanced up at the clock on the corner of his desk: 7:43 P.M. “Shit,” he said, aware that if he didn’t hurry he was going to be late for his own speech at the bankers’ dinner. He picked up the catalogue and walked quickly to the door. He entered a six-digit code on the pad next to the light switch, stepped out into the corridor, and closed his door. Eight seconds after he’d locked it, he heard the security grilles slam into place.

  On the ride down in the elevator, Fenston was fascinated to see the low estimate for Caillebotte’s Street Sweepers. He had acquired the larger version for half that price from a client he had recently bankrupted. When the doors slid open, he walked quickly across to reception and signed himself out: 7:48 P.M.

  As he strolled through the lobby, he could see his driver waiting for him at the bottom of the steps. He kept his thumb stuck in the catalog as he climbed into the backseat. He was annoyed when he turned the next page and came across Van Gogh’s Reapers in the Field, low estimate, $27 million. He swore. It wasn’t in the same class as the Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear.

  “Excuse me, sir,” said the driver, “but are you still going to the bankers’ dinner?”

  “Yes, so we’d better get a move on,” said Fenston, and he turned another page of the catalog.

  “It’s just that . . .,” said the driver, picking up a gold-embossed card from the passenger seat.

  “That what?” said Fenston.

  “That the invitation says dinner jacket.” He turned and passed the card back to his boss.

  “Shit,” said Fenston, dropping the catalog onto the seat beside him. Tina would normally have put out his dinner jacket rather than leave it hanging in the closet. He jumped out of the car, even before his driver could open the back door, and took the steps up to the entrance of the building two at a time, quickly bypassing reception, not bothering to sign back in. He hurried toward a waiting elevator and pushed the button for the thirty-second floor.

  When he stepped out of the elevator, the first thing he noticed as he walked down the corridor was a beam of light coming from under his office door. He could have sworn he’d switched the light off after he’d set the alarm, or had he become so engrossed in the catalog that he simply forgot? He was about to enter the code on the pad by his door, when he heard a noise coming from inside.

  Fenston hesitated, wondering who it could be. He didn’t move as he waited to find out if the intruder was aware of his presence. They didn’t stir, so he retraced his steps, slipped into the adjoining office, and quietly closed the door. He sat down in his secretary’s chair and began to look for the switch; Leapman had alerted him to the fact that Tina could observe everything that was taking place in his office. After searching for some time, he located the switch under the desk. He flicked it across and the little screen in the corner lit up, giving him a clear view of the interior of his office. Fenston stared in disbelief.

  Leapman was sitting at his desk, a thick file open in front of him. He was slowing turning the pages, sometimes stopping to study an entry more carefully, while occasionally extracting a sheet, laying it on the table, and photographing it with what looked like a high-tech camera.

  Several thoughts flashed through Fenston’s mind. Leapman must be collecting material so that he could at some later date blackmail him. He was peddling information to a rival bank. The IRS had finally put the squeeze on him, and he’d made a deal to sacrifice his boss in exchange for immunity. Fenston settled for blackmail.

  It soon became clear that Leapman was in no hurry. He had obviously chosen this particular time with some thought. Once he had finished one file, he methodically returned it to its place and selected another. His routine didn’t alter: search slowly through the contents of the file, select certain items to study more carefully, and then occasionally extract a page to be photographed.

  Fenston considered his alternatives before finally settling on something he considered worthy of Leapman.

  He first wrote down the sequence of events that would be required to ensure he wasn’t caught. Once he was confident that he had mastered the order, he flicked up a switch to stop all outgoing or incoming calls from his office. He sat patiently at his secretary’s desk until he saw Leapman open another thick file. He then slipped back into the corridor, coming to a halt in front of his office. Fenston went over the order in his mind and, once he was satisfied, stepped forward. He first entered the correct code, 170690, on the pad by the door, as if he was leaving. He then turned his key in the lock and silently pushed open the door no more than an inch. He then immediately pulled it closed again.

  The deafening alarm was automatically set off, but Fenston still waited for eight seconds until the security grilles had clamped firmly into place. He then quickly entered last week’s code, 170680, opened the door a second time, and immediately slammed it closed.

  He could hear Leapman running across the room, clearly hoping that by entering the correct code he could stop the alarm and cause the grilles to slide back into the ceiling. But it was too late, because the iron grilles remained resolutely in place and the overpowering cacophony continued unabated.

  Fenston knew that he had only seconds to spare if he was to complete the sequence without being caught. He ran back to the adjoining office and quickly scanned the notes he’d left on his secretary’s desk. He dialed the emergency number for Abbott Security.

  A voice announced, “Duty officer, security.”

  “My name is Bryce Fenston, chairman of Fenston Finance.” He spoke slowly, but with authority. “The alarm has been triggered in my office on the thirty-second floor. I must have entered last week’s code by mistake, and I just wanted to let you know that it’s not an emergency.”

  “Can you repeat your name, sir?”

  “Bryce Fenston,” he shouted above the noise of the alarm.

  “Date of birth?”

  “Twelve six fifty-two.”

  “Mother’s maiden name?”

  “Madejski.”

  “Home zip code?”

  “One zero zero two one.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Fenston. We’ll get someone up to the thirty-second floor as quickly as possible. The engineers are currently responding to an incident on the seventeenth floor, where we have someone stuck in an elevator, so it might be a few minutes before they get to you.”

  “No hurry,” said Fenston casually, “there’s no one else working on this floor at the moment, and the office won’t open again until seven tomorrow.”

  “It’s sure not going to take us that long,” the guard promised him, “but with your permission, Mr. Fenston, we’ll change your category from emergency to priority.”

  “Okay by me,” shouted Fenston above the deafening noise.

  “But there will still be an out-of-hours call-out charge of five hundred dollars.”

  “That sounds a bit steep,” said Fenston.

  “It’s standard in a case like this, sir,” came back the duty officer’s reply. “However, if you were able to report t
o the front desk in person, Mr. Fenston, and sign our alarm roster, the charge is automatically cut to two fifty.”

  “I’m on my way,” said Fenston.

  “But I have to point out, sir,” continued the duty officer, “that should you do that, your status will be lowered to routine, in which case we couldn’t come to your assistance until we’ve dealt with all other priority and emergency calls.”

  “That won’t be a problem,” said Fenston.

  “But you can be confident that whatever other calls we have outstanding, we still guarantee that yours will be sorted out within four hours.”

  “Thank you,” said Fenston. “I’ll come straight down and report to the front desk.”

  He replaced the receiver and walked back into the corridor. As he passed his office, he could hear Leapman pounding on the door like a trapped animal, but he could only just make out his voice above the shrill scream of the alarm. Fenston continued on toward the elevators. Even at a distance of some fifty feet he still found the piercing drone intolerable.

  Once he’d stepped out of the elevator on the ground floor, he went straight to the front desk.

  “Ah, Mr. Fenston,” said the security guard. “If you’ll sign here, it will save you another two hundred and fifty bucks.”

  Fenston slipped him a ten-dollar note. “Thanks,” he said. “No need to rush. I’m the last one out,” he assured them as he hurried out of the front door and back down the steps.

  As he stepped into his waiting car, Fenston glanced up at his office. He could see a tiny figure banging on the window. The driver closed the door behind him and returned to the front seat, puzzled. His boss still wasn’t wearing a dinner jacket.

  49

  JACK DELANEY PARKED his car on Broad Street just after nine thirty He switched on the radio and listened to Cousin Brucie on 101.1 FM, as he settled back to wait for Leapman. The venue for their meeting had been Leapman’s choice, and he’d told the FBI man to expect him some time between ten and eleven, when he would hand over their camera containing enough damning evidence to ensure a conviction.

  Jack was suspended in that unreal world somewhere between half awake and half asleep when he heard the siren. Like all law-enforcement officers, he could identify the different decibel pitch between police, ambulance, and fire department in a split second. This was an ambulance, probably coming from St. Vincent’s.

  He checked his watch: 11:15 P.M. Leapman was running late, but then he had warned Jack that there could be over a hundred documents to photograph, so not to keep him to the minute. The FBI technical boys had spent some considerable time showing Leapman how to operate the latest high-tech camera so he could be sure to deliver the best results. But that was before the phone call. Leapman had rung Jack’s office a few minutes after seven to say that Fenston had told him something that would prove far more damning than any document. But he didn’t want to reveal the information over the phone. The line went dead before Jack could press him. He would have been more responsive if it hadn’t been his experience that plea bargainers always claim they have new information that will break the case wide open, and therefore the FBI should reconsider the length of their sentence. He knew his boss wouldn’t agree to that unless the new evidence clearly showed an unbreakable link in the chain between Fenston and Krantz.

  The sound of the siren was getting louder.

  Jack decided to get out of the car and stretch his legs. His raincoat felt crumpled. He’d bought it from Brooks Brothers in the days when he wanted everyone to know that he was a G-man, but the higher up the ranks he climbed, the less he wished it to be that obvious. If he was promoted to run his own field office, he might even consider buying a new coat, one that would make him look more like a lawyer or a banker—that would please his father.

  His mind switched to Fenston, who by now would have delivered his speech on Moral Responsibility for Modern Bankers, and then to Anna, who was halfway across the Atlantic on her way to meet up with Nakamura. Anna had left a message on his cell phone, saying she now knew why Tina had taken the job as Fenston’s P.A., and the evidence had been staring her in the face. The line had been busy when she called, but Anna said she’d phone again in the morning. It must have been when Leapman was on the line. Damn the man. Jack was standing on a New York sidewalk in the middle of the night, tired and hungry, while he waited for a camera. His father was right. He should have been a lawyer.

  The siren was now only a couple of blocks away.

  Jack strolled down to the end of the road and peered up at the building in which Leapman was working, somewhere on the thirty-second floor. There was a row of blazing lights about halfway up the skyscraper, otherwise the windows were mostly dark. Jack began to count the floors, but by the time he’d reached eighteen he couldn’t be sure, and when he counted thirty-two, it just might have been the floor that was blazing with lights. But that didn’t make any sense, because on Leapman’s floor, there should only have been a single light. The last thing he would have wanted was to draw attention to himself.

  Jack looked across the road to watch an ambulance come to a screeching halt in front of the building. The back door burst open and three paramedics, two men and a woman dressed in their familiar dark blue uniforms, jumped out onto the sidewalk. One pushed a stretcher, the second carried an oxygen cylinder, while the third held a bulky medical bag. Jack watched them as they charged up the steps and into the building.

  He turned his attention to the reception desk, where one guard—pointing to something on his clipboard—was talking to an older man dressed in a smart suit, probably his supervisor, while the second guard was occupied on the telephone. Several people strolled in and out of the elevators, which wasn’t surprising, as they were in the heart of the city where finance is a twenty-four-hour occupation. Most Americans would be asleep while money was changing hands in Sydney, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and now London, but there always had to be a group of New Yorkers who lived their lives on other people’s time.

  Jack’s train of thought was interrupted when an elevator door opened and the three paramedics reappeared, two of them wheeling their patient on the stretcher, while the third was still holding onto the oxygen cylinder. As they walked slowly but purposefully toward the entrance, everyone in their path stood aside. Jack strolled up the steps to take a closer look. Another siren blared in the distance, on this occasion the droning pitch of the NYPD, but it could be going anywhere at that time of night, and in any case Jack was now concentrating on the stretcher. He stood by the door as the paramedics came out of the building and carried their patient slowly down the steps. He stared at the pallid face of a stricken man, whose eyes were glazed over as if they’d been caught in the blaze of a headlight. It wasn’t until he’d passed him that Jack realized who it was. He had to make an instant decision. Did he pursue the ambulance back to St Vincent’s or head straight for the thirty-second floor? The police siren now sounded as if it could be heading in their direction. One look at that face and Jack didn’t need to be told that Leapman wasn’t going to be speaking to anyone for a very long time. He ran into the building with the sound of the police siren no more than a block or two away. He knew he had only a few minutes before the NYPD’s finest would be on the scene. He paused at the reception desk for a moment to show them his FBI badge.

  “You got here quickly,” said one of the guards, but Jack didn’t comment as he headed for the bank of elevators. The guard wondered how he knew which floor to go to.

  Jack squeezed through the elevator doors just as they were about to close and jabbed at the button marked 32. When the doors opened again, he looked quickly up and down the corridor to see where the lights were coming from. He turned and ran toward some offices at the far end to find a security guard and two engineers in red overalls, along with a cleaner, standing by an open door.

  “Who are you?” demanded the security guard.

  “FBI,” said Jack, producing his badge but not revealing his name as he strode into the
room. The first thing he saw was a blown-up photograph of Fenston shaking hands with George W. Bush, which dominated the wall behind the desk. His eyes moved quickly around the room until they settled on the one thing he was looking for. It was in the center of the desk, resting on a pile of spread-out papers beside an open file.

  “What happened?” demanded Jack authoritatively.

  “Some guy got himself trapped in this office for over three hours and must have set the alarm off.”

  “It wasn’t our fault,” jumped in one of the engineers, “we were told to downgrade the call, and we’ve got that in writing, otherwise we would have been here a lot sooner.”

  Jack didn’t need to ask who had set off the alarm and then left Leapman to his fate. He walked over to the desk, his eyes quickly scanning the papers. He glanced up to find all four men staring at him. Jack looked directly at the security guard. “Go to the elevator, wait for the cops, and the minute they turn up bring them straight back to me.” The guard disappeared into the corridor without question and headed quickly toward the elevators. “And you three, out,” was Jack’s next command. “This may be a crime scene, and I don’t want you disturbing any evidence.” The men turned to leave, and in the split second their backs were turned, Jack grabbed the camera and dropped it into one of the baggy pockets of his trench coat.

  He picked up the phone on Fenston’s desk. There was no dial tone, only a continuous buzzing noise. Someone had disconnected the line. The same person who triggered the alarm, no doubt. Jack didn’t touch anything else in the room. He stepped back into the corridor and slipped into the adjoining office. A screen was fixed to the corner of the desk and was still relaying images from inside Fenston’s office. Fenston had clearly not only witnessed Leapman’s actions but had enough time to set in motion the most diabolical revenge.