The Tower

by Gregg Hurwitz

  “I had a guy a few years back who beat up real bad on his kids. I was tracking him on a drug case, wound up at this shady apartment in Oakland. Kids all cowering in the background. I got over there and he looked charged, like he wanted to go. Didn’t even try to escape. I was just praying he’d try’n hit me. He came on and I dropped him to one knee with a single shot to the gut.” Jade’s right arm tightened as he recalled the shot, the soft sink of his fist into the stomach just below the rib cage.

  “Had a blade out and tried to swipe at my legs. I broke his fuckin’ cheek in four places with the butt of my gun.” He told the end of the story gazing at himself in the mirror behind the bar. His face had the dreamy look of someone recalling a romantic interlude.

  Tony watched Jade with some concern. He cleared his throat loudly and took a long sip.

  “How’s the kid?” Jade asked.

  “Tommy?”

  “Whatever.”

  “He still remembers that time you brought him that—”

  “Yeah, well, it was left over.”

  Tony lowered his head and smiled. “He’s good. Starts kindergarten in the fall.”

  “That’s good. Outta your hair more, huh?”

  “Yeah. Guess so. Hadda birthday party last week. Clowns and cake and all that shit. It goes by so fast sometimes you can’t even see it.”

  Jade stared into his own eyes in the mirror again. “Clowns, huh?”

  Tony glanced over at Jade’s expression and laid a hand on his shoulder. “All right. This nun gets into a cab, and the cabdriver asks her what’s up with the celibacy vow thing, right? So the nun says, ‘Well, maybe I’d consider having an affair, but the man would have to be Catholic, unmarried, and not have any children.’ So the cabbie says, ‘Well that describes me perfectly. Why don’t you come on up here?’ And the nun goes in the front seat and gives him a blow job.”

  “That was quick.”

  “Indeed. So she finishes up and the guy starts laughing, and she asks him, ‘What’s so funny?’ And he says, ‘Well, I’m Protestant, and I’m married with two kids.’ And the nun looks at him for a moment, then shrugs and says, ‘Well, that’s okay, my name’s Fred and I’m on my way to a costume party.’”

  There was a long, uncomfortable silence as Jade continued to stare at his reflection. He normally knew how far he could get inside his quarry without losing his balance, but something about this case made it hard for him to find the line of demarcation. Allander kept moving, playing, changing. It was almost impossible to nail him down.

  “That’s the punch line, you see,” Tony said. “The nun was a guy, which provides us with good homophobic humor.” He looked at Jade’s serious expression and stood up, raising his hands in defeat. “Well, as good company as you’ve been, I’m outta here. Gotta get back to Maggie and ‘the kid,’ you know?” He tossed money on the bar.

  “Yeah.”

  “See ya later, hotshot.”

  As the door banged shut behind Tony, Jim walked over. “Hey,” he said, “we’re closing up.”

  Jade turned slowly to face him, his eyes unfocused. Jim blanched.

  “I’m gonna lock up the front then, so no one wanders in. I gotta cash out in the back. You take your time and I’ll let you out when you’re ready.” Jim spoke slowly as he inched away, a lion tamer backing out of a cage.

  Jade ignored him, gazing ahead at his reflection in the mirror. He thought of the sprawling bodies, the wash of blood on the walls, Leah’s frightened little face floating above the sheets of the hospital bed. People were dying because of him. He glared at himself in disgust.

  He sensed a slight movement in the mirror, reflected from outside. He wouldn’t have noticed earlier, but it was late now and the streets were empty. His eyes darted to his left, fixing the spot on the mirror and focusing on the image. It was difficult given the darkness outside and the reflections of the bar’s lighted interior.

  It seemed like an eternity as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the image outside, but he sat like an animal, head trained on its prey. Finally, he saw the two eyes peering at him from the darkness; he could make out the sweep of the cheekbones and the casually drifting hair. The rest of the face and body faded straight into the night, a ghostly apparition.

  But it was enough for him to know.

  Jade’s lips moved silently. He mouthed the name once before he was on his feet and across the bar in a few giant strides, his bar stool sent spinning like a top.

  Four

  THE CONVERGENCE

  47

  THE thick door was locked and Jade’s arm almost ripped out of its socket as he tried to yank it open. He could have sworn he felt the big brass handle give slightly at the screws. He was locked in the bar.

  Yelling at the top of his lungs, Jade seized the nearest stool and raised it above his head, charging the window. He followed the stool through the window as pieces of glass showered over him. Hitting the ground in a roll, he was on his feet almost immediately, whirling to check all around him, moving not just his head but his whole body.

  Then, he stood perfectly still. Steam drifted slowly up from a sewer grate and somewhere, far away, someone tuned a violin. The streets were empty. No one. Nothing. Just the tinkle of a shard of glass falling from the window’s shattered frame.

  He moved swiftly to check the alley next to the bar and along the neighboring streets. As he pursued imaginary footsteps, the heat of his temper rose until it flushed his cheeks, and his breath hammered in his throat. He had lost him. He had lost Allander.

  “FUCK,” he screamed, kicking a metal trash can end over end across the bar’s parking lot. The sudden ache in his foot returned his clarity. He took a deep breath, then walked slowly back to the bar, his fingers tracing the scar on his cheek.

  Jim, the bartender, stood fearfully regarding the damage from inside the bar as Jade approached.

  “Don’t you ever lock me in!” Jade yelled. Reaching through the broken window, he seized Jim by the shirt, lifting him off his feet. He yanked him outside, hurling him to the ground. Jim skidded to a halt facedown on the street, and Jade was on him immediately, pulling his head back with a fist laced with his hair. His other hand was around Jim’s throat.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Jim said, struggling to catch his breath. “Don’t … don’t hurt me.” He tried to shake his head but his chin was ground into the pavement.

  A station wagon turned onto the street, its headlights catching Jade in the face. He squinted into the light. The vehicle slowed as it approached, and Jade saw a young couple gazing at him in horror.

  As they passed, he noticed a young girl in the backseat. She wore a bright yellow slicker and had one hand raised, palm open, pressed to the window. There was a look of fright in her eyes, a confused terror about the world outside.

  Jade felt a flash of shame. Goddamnit, he thought. What’s she doing up so late?

  Her eyes continued to watch Jade as the car passed and disappeared into the night.

  Jade blinked heavily, fighting through the rage clouding his mind. What the hell am I doing? he thought. He looked down at his knee in the bartender’s back, his hands gripping the man’s head like claws.

  Like an animal squatting over its kill, Jade thought. Like a fucking animal.

  He released Jim’s throat and rose carefully from his back. “Jesus, I’m … Jesus, I’m sorry.”

  Jade reached to help Jim to his feet, but Jim jerked away from his touch. His chin was bleeding and Jade could see that he was crying. Jade’s face was red with regret and self-loathing. He took a step forward, but Jim cowered away from him.

  Jade opened his mouth but nothing came out. Silently, he turned and walked to the BMW. There was a squealing of tires, and Jim was alone in the parking lot.

  Allander sucked the cool night air through his teeth. His feet swayed beneath him, dangling off the roof as he watched the black car speed away.

  Jade had nowhere to direct his rage, and Allander sensed that
he knew he was losing ground. I’m so far inside him I can touch him wherever I want, Allander thought.

  He tilted his head back and stretched his arms before getting up to head back to the new house. His house.

  48

  A leg protruded from the glade of trees, a blue-and-brown hiking boot on the foot. A line of blood ran over the exposed calf, matting the thick black hair.

  Allander stood with his back to the body, gazing through the last line of trees to the edge of the cliff. The sun was rising gloriously, its golden rays glittering off the ocean surface.

  There was a drop of several hundred yards that ended in a small forest just outside the grounds of Maingate. The gates were laid open to the world as workers scuttled back and forth, towing out ruined materials and bringing in new equipment and tools.

  What the prisoners would have done to see the gates spread like that for just a moment during their captivity, Allander thought. The entire facility was emptied of inmates for these weeks of repair. With the exception of Claude Rivers and the single guard watching him on the Tower, Allander had emptied it. He had emptied Maingate.

  As he looked out over the main prison and saw the Tower in the distance, he slid his hand under his shirt to his nipples. They were hard in the crisp San Francisco air, and he ran his fingers over them, one at a time.

  He had taken a new house for himself in the western hills of San Francisco. It was being entirely remodeled, so it had no decorations or heating, just bare walls and a few pieces of covered furniture. For some reason, construction had ceased, but Allander had still prepared a careful escape route in case workers showed up.

  He was quite content with his new home. And how wonderful that he could keep the lovely red Jeep from his former house in Palo Alto.

  He had found a small motorized saw in the front closet of his house, no doubt left there for use in the remodeling. He had used it last night, employing one of the extra-long, heavy-duty extension cords he had found, and wrapping a water-cooler insulator around the saw to try to dull the noise, since he was working out in the open, away from the protection of his home. But he needn’t have worried; the traffic had drowned out everything anyway. And now it was ready—waiting, hidden. His entrance. That was for later, however. He had to focus on today, on completing the first part of his plan. There was so much to do, so many things he’d set in motion.

  For the past week, he had been timing the workers at Maingate. They usually left the site at around four o’clock (bless those government workers). The guard on the Tower switched at 6:00 A.M. and 4:00 P.M. There was never more than one guard, probably because the rest had been moved to San Quentin to deal with the Maingate overflow. They were accustomed to having two men guard eighteen Tower prisoners; they probably figured one-on-one was a breeze.

  Someday soon, he’d have to go down and take care of things. He’d have to wait until after they left, of course, although he had no choice but to hide his supplies there during daylight. Aside from the Tower guard and Claude Rivers, Maingate was pretty much abandoned by four-thirty. He’d have to remember to wear the pair of dusty overalls from his house, though, just in case someone saw him—that way they would think him one of the workers.

  He took pleasure in the solid, unwavering path of his plans.

  Walking over to the green Blazer on the path, he opened the door using a key from the carabiner key ring he had lifted from the body. He drove the Blazer far enough into the woods so that it was no longer visible from the road. Leaving it behind a cluster of trees, he got out and headed back to the body, looping his arms under its shoulders so he could drag it to the Jeep. He grunted with effort as he lifted it in the back, pushing it facedown across the seats. He would dump it somewhere down at the base of the hill.

  Throwing the car into drive, he glanced over at the second body he had propped up in the passenger seat. He leaned over and patted its knee.

  He would keep this one.

  Jade’s eyes opened; the ringing was so loud that at first he thought it was inside his head. He rolled over and lifted the phone off the cradle.

  “Marlow. Travers.”

  He groaned and rolled onto his side. “If you want to gloat, I’d prefer a singing telegram.”

  “No time, thanks. We got him located. Placed a call and stayed on the phone sixty-three seconds. Three seconds too long. Must’ve mistimed it.” Travers’s voice was charged with excitement.

  Jade pulled on his sunglasses in an attempt to shield the onslaught of light from the crack beneath his curtain. No way, he thought. No way he fucks up like that, not by three seconds.

  “Who’d he call?”

  “His former defense attorney. Made a few threats, shook the guy up pretty bad.”

  Jade rubbed his eye with the heel of his hand. It wasn’t adding up. Allander would’ve known that line was hot. “Where’s he fixed?”

  “Mountain View. Cross section of Fisk and Glen Boulevard—4512. We have it listed as unoccupied. Perfect hideout. We’re set up and we’re moving in twenty. Be there in fifteen.”

  “I’ll be there in ten,” Jade said, and was immediately out the door.

  The complex was surrounded when Jade arrived. It was a two-story strip of small apartments, guarded by a thick brown railing. The apartments were arrayed in two wings that met in the middle, giving a sense of enclosure to the front parking lot. Heavy green curtains were visible through most of the windows on both floors. Probably low-income rental units, he decided.

  The building sat back off a fairly busy four-lane street. Jade glanced up the street and saw road workers in orange vests diverting traffic. Jade stood tall next to the officers crouching behind their car doors. FBI all the way. Flashing lights on undercover cars. He walked through the vehicles lined in the front parking lot.

  McGuire looked up at him. “Get behind a door, Marlow,” he hissed.

  “He’s not gonna shoot from far away,” Jade said, surveying the scene broadly. “Not intimate enough.”

  McGuire yanked him down by pulling beneath his knee. “You don’t know that. He’s never been cornered before,” he said.

  Jade glared at him for a long time, biting his cheek. “Be grateful you have your title between us,” he finally said, looking away.

  Travers appeared at their shoulders. “Nice you could show up, Marlow. We’ve been in position for fifteen minutes without response. We have snipers on neighboring buildings and men in position there, there, and there.” She pointed to the black-vested men with Heckler and Koch MP5 9-millimeter full automatics scattered on the roof and under the windows. Agents were flattened against the wall near the corner apartment on the second floor.

  Jade reached behind his jeans and fondled his Sig Sauer—P226, 9 millimeter. Stopping power. A lot of firepower here and probably nothing to use it on, he thought.

  “We waited for you to give the final countdown, Marlow,” Travers said, handing him the megaphone.

  Jade waved it off. He looked at the corner apartment, shaking his head.

  Travers glanced at McGuire.

  “All right,” he said. “You take care of it.”

  She moved out slightly from her crouched position behind the car door.

  “Probably not a bright idea to use a megaphone,” Jade said. “Just a guess, but I’m assuming you don’t want to come off like an authoritative asshole during negotiations.”

  “It seems like you don’t even think he’s in there, Marlow,” Travers replied coolly.

  “Good point,” Jade said. “What the fuck.” He gestured her forward.

  “ATLASIA,” she bellowed through the megaphone. “WE’VE GIVEN YOU AMPLE TIME TO RESPOND. IF WE DO NOT RECEIVE A SIGNAL FROM YOU IN SOME FORM, WE WILL TAKE THE HOUSE.”

  “What if the signal’s a dead hostage, Travers?” Jade muttered under his breath, but she didn’t hear him.

  “WE’RE GIVING YOU A FIVE COUNT.” She paused and ran her fingers over the top of her left ear, pushing the hair back off her cheek.
Jade thought he could make out the scent of her perfume.

  “ … FOUR … THREE …” Travers looked nervously to McGuire, who nodded her on. “TWO …”

  Jade stared at the pavement. Nothing made sense—the sixty-three-second phone call, the look of the shabby complex, the fact that the apartment was on the second floor.

  McGuire leaned against the car in a raised crouch, holding his gun up by his cheek. His left hand was shaking back and forth in a nervous tick. Something on one of his fingers was flashing in the sunlight. His wedding ring.

  Jade’s mouth went entirely dry. He heard an echo of a conversation in his head. Where’s McGuire? Actually, he’s at his kids’ baseball game.

  “ONE,” Travers shouted into the megaphone. Everyone went into motion. Jade leaped to his feet and ran in the opposite direction of the other agents, heading for his car.

  The house imploded with bodies as FBI agents crashed through the doors and windows, springing from the ground and swinging from the rooftop. They led with large black boots and pointed barrels. It seemed as if every point in the apartment was instantly covered by the agents’ guns.

  Travers was already up and running and she leaped through the smashed front door into the apartment. It was bare and unfurnished, with wooden floors and white walls. On the floor in the middle of the living room sat a single black phone. It was old-fashioned, its big receiver clunked down heavily on the metal jaws.

  She moved slowly through the scattered agents.

  “Where’s Marlow?” one of them hissed nervously. She didn’t know, so she said nothing.

  The agents stood motionless, their guns trained on the zone of the apartment for which they were responsible. Travers felt as if she were walking through a sculpture garden. The sound of her footsteps knocked through the empty apartment like raps on a door.

  There was nothing in the entire apartment except the phone. Travers circled back to the small living room and stopped. They all stood perfectly still, stunned by the silence.