by Tod Goldberg
"Names?"
"Hard to say," Sam said and winked again, because when you're a guy like Harvey, a guy winking at you means you're part of a secret. And if you work at Longstreet, that's probably pretty cool, even if you just work the door. "And let Front-Door Freddie know about it, too. No screw-ups, Harvey."
"Understood, Mr. Finley," Harvey said. And then he gave Sam a salute. Christ, Sam thought. Poor sucker was going to lose his job.
When you think about the office space belonging to an elite security force, you'd probably imagine lots of blinking lights, massive computer screens on every wall detailing troop movements, satellite positions and the standing heart rate of every person currently in Longstreet's employ. You might think that the halls would be filled with people staring intently into files, shaking their heads, muttering about the military-industrial complex, maybe even holograms of Eisenhower and Patton that constantly spout motivational speeches if anyone with a body fat percentage under 25 percent walks by.
You'd be wrong.
Just like any other business where most of the sales are done outside the office, a successful multinational security firm is a pretty quiet place, the top guns more likely perched on a berm somewhere than in a cubicle; thus what's left behind is office staff. File clerks. Accountants. People in charge of ordering flak jackets and body armor and TEC-9s, but who were unlikely to need flak jackets, body armor and TEC-9s during the course of their own life.
Guys like Kyle versus guys like me and Sam.
All of which is good, because Sam wasn't looking for an armed conflict. He was just looking for records. Insight. A lead. A last known address. Anything to get us around Cricket's problem. And, it turned out, to see about my problem with Natalya as well.
In the lobby-which looked to be decorated with an eye toward reviving Communism as a design aesthetic and then combining it with some of the nicer floors of the Pentagon-Sam found an office map bolted to the wall. The bulk of the warehouse was taken up by a storage facility-Sam didn't need access to know what was in there, and why at least the front of the store was guarded by a man with a gun: assault rifles by the dozen, maybe a decommissioned Black Hawk or two, even more Hummers, a few rocket launchers, hell, maybe even a small nuclear sub if these guys were really pulling the bank in- while the administrative offices occupied a perimeter around the goods in a U.
Sam found what he was looking for. Across from the ladies' restroom and just adjacent to an emergency exit-a good thing to note-was the employee-relations office. A quick scan showed that the men's room was on the other side of the building, next to the office of the president.
You want to find the one woman working in a building likely filled with men, find the ladies' room and then count twenty paces, which, naturally, is precisely where the employee-relations office was.
Sam checked his reflection in his sunglasses-it wasn't going to get much better-and made his way down the hall.
The employee-relations office, like every other door Sam passed, was closed. The difference was that every other office was placard free, as if maybe all that was there was a door that opened into a brick wall. But right on the door was a sign that said employee relations and then, beneath it, a name: BRENDA HOLCOMB.
Sam gave the door a pound. It opened a few seconds later and revealed a woman in her midfifties. Her hair was straight and black and came down to her shoulders, though it looked like it had been cut using a rock. She wore a white buttoned-down shirt that she'd opened to the middle of her chest (where Sam saw a few red freckles and the outline of her sports bra) and a black skirt of, sadly, an appropriate length. Thick clunky sandals with heels probably two inches too tall. Painted toenails. Calves that showed about two dozen years of regular workouts. If pressed, Sam would guess she'd been an MP somewhere. She had that cop stance-one leg forward, one leg back, a hand on the hip reflexively, as if still looking for a gun, but instead holding a venti Starbucks cup.
More interesting, however, was that she had a lightning-bolt tattoo that started at her clavicle and shot up the right side of her neck, dying into her jaw line. It covered a jagged scar. That must have hurt, Sam thought.
"Who are you?" she said, all business.
"Finley," Sam said. There was always a Finley on the books.
"What do you need?"
"I'm here about that OSHA thing," Sam said. When Brenda just stared at him blankly in response-not mad, not confused, not suspicious, just not getting it-Sam added, "Iraq?"
"Oh, workers' comp," she said, her voice not unpleasant. Brenda opened the door and Sam got the full measure of her office. There were three file cabinets along the right wall, a garbage can overflowing with shredded paper, a desk that held two laptops and stacks of paperwork that didn't seem to have any order whatsoever. Two more venti Starbucks cups. On the left wall, there was a huge map of the world with white thumbtacks shoved into different regions. The Middle East was filled. Africa had scattered clumps. Afghanistan was covered corner to corner. The weird thing was the number of thumbtacks in Wyoming, Texas and Georgia. Who the hell needed paramilitary units in Wyoming? Maybe it was to keep the people in, stop them from infecting the rest of the country. There was a separate blown-up map just of Miami, with thumbtacks along different streets. "Have a seat," Brenda said, pointing to a white plastic chair covered in newspapers. "Just toss that crap onto the floor."
Sam did as he was told. It gave him time to look at the file cabinets. No one had file cabinets anymore. It was all digital. But Brenda, apart from her tattoo, seemed old school. That was a good thing.
"Where'd you get shot?" Brenda asked. She was yanking paper out of a drawer in her desk, compiling them into a stack.
Sam did a quick catalog of his body. He'd taken some bullets. "Back of the right thigh," Sam said. He doubted she'd ask him to strip down to see the scar.
"No," she said, "I meant where in the country?"
Sam took a look at the map. "See all the tacks? Right there in the middle."
Brenda laughed. She seemed like a nice lady. Apart from that, Sam sensed that she actually wasn't a very nice lady. "We'll put down Sunni Triangle and let them figure it out," she said. She'd compiled about twenty pages of documents and was now going through them with a yellow highlighter and marking places where, presumably, he'd need to fill things out.
That wasn't going to happen.
"Nice ink," Sam said.
That did it.
"You think so?" Brenda said. She was staring at Sam now, trying to see if he was mocking her or if he meant it. Sam liked that. That little bit of unease on her part. Opened up some avenues of charm.
"Know so," he said. "How'd you get cut?"
"A knife, soldier," she said. Smart, like of course he was soldier. Now he was getting somewhere, could feel things changing in the room.
"That carotid is a bleeder," Sam said. "One time, in Caracas, I saw a guy milk out completely in under a minute. And that was with a Norelco Electric during a shaving accident." He had Brenda laughing again. "I like that you're not afraid of the scar. Highlight it. Own it. Pretty cool, you ask me. Gives you a real element of intrigue."
"Guys around here," she said, motioning around the building, "they call me Bolts now. Brenda Bolts. I guess I'm like a sister to them, mother to half of them, all of thirty, you know? But still, I'm not a robot."
No. No, you aren't, Sam thought. "How did it happen?" Sam used his quiet voice, let her know that he wasn't trying to get some sort of glee out of it, but that he was deeply, deeply concerned. Brenda (who he could only think of now as Bolts, thought, in fact, that it was a much more alluring name) told him a long and rather circumspect story about helping out on a mission in San Salvador two years ago-some on-the-ground work, paying off people, that sort of thing, when shit got tight and, well, next thing she knew, there was a knife to her throat and demands for her money or her life.
"I'm glad you gave your money," Sam said. He reached across the table and touched her lightly on the hand
. Nothing sexual. Nothing overt. Just letting her know she had a friend who understood. He was surprised to find her hand shaking.
"Whew," she said, "it's like it's happening all over again. It does feel good to talk about it."
"They say talking about trauma splits it in half," Sam said. He didn't know where he heard that. Oprah? Maybe Dr. Phil.
"Isn't that true?" Brenda said and then she was uncomfortably silent.
The rat saw a space to squeeze through again. "You keep any beer here?" Sam said.
"It's a little early for that, don't you think?"
Sam didn't really consider it a question. More like a coconspirator making sure they were on the same job. Plus it was clear she wanted one, too, so he said, "I'm still on Iraq time," though not really sure he even knew what time it was in Iraq.
Brenda pushed back from her desk. "We could have one, right?"
"Of course," Sam said.
"Didn't you earn it, soldier?"
"Didn't you, soldier?" Sam felt his own skin crawling. But this Brenda, good old Bolts, seemed to fall for every line. You don't get any sympathy, even false sympathy probably felt pretty swell.
"It is lunchtime," she said, convincing herself. Sam liked that. Liked that in just a little over fifteen minutes he'd actually convinced Bolts to have a liquid lunch with him. "Why don't I run down to the kitchen, get us both a taste, maybe a bag of chips? There's no harm in that, right?"
"Right," Sam said. He pulled the stack of papers from in front of Bolts and a pen. "And I'll get started on these forms."
Brenda got up then, straightened her skirt and gave Sam a look that he usually associated with nature programs where a wildebeest finally figures out that the stream is filled with crocodiles but figures, What the hell? Take a chance or two in life. "Why haven't I seen you before?"
"Bad luck," Sam said and then, when that didn't seem like enough, added, "For both of us."
When Brenda left her office a few moments later, she still looked a bit puzzled but aroused. Sam figured he had maybe five minutes to get what he needed and get out before puzzled and aroused turned into suspicious and angry. He could still hear her heels clomping down the hall, like she was a Clydesdale. Those calves. Man. He had to get to work before she got back and wanted to tussle. That might be a fight he'd lose.
His first thought was to jump onto the laptops, but he was for shit on a computer. Worst case, he'd take one of them and let Fiona work that. So he hit the file cabinets first, particularly since he could already see a drawer marked s-z and had a pretty good idea they'd contain at least something he could use.
He rifled through the files, finally finding Dixon Woods' toward the back. It was thick with work documents-close to an inch-so Sam took out his cell phone and just started clicking photos, figuring time spent examining the docs would be better done somewhere less.. armed.
Problem was, the things he was taking pictures of were fairly meaningless. And old. Nothing newer than 2003, probably when they took everything and put it on the computers. He found requisitions for desert clothing. A stack of rental-car receipts from Japan. A purchase order for a GPS system and night-vision goggles.
Sam didn't even really know what he wanted to find, except that he knew a detailed list of Woods' actions over the course of the past fifteen years would be a bonus. A phone number, a mailing address, an idea of how whoever was sleeping with Cricket O'Connor and taking her money happened to come across Dixon would be even better, which got Sam to actually pause and think.
He sifted to the very back of the file and found what he didn't know he was looking for: Dixon Woods' original application. Rather than take a photo, he just yanked it from the file and shoved it down his pants. Sam then went over to the map of Miami and clicked a few photos of that, too, particularly since he noticed several thumbtacks in South Beach and five on Fisher Island alone. A pretty high density.
It had taken him four minutes to do all of this, which Sam thought might be a personal record, but didn't feel like he had time to gloat. It was either get out or get trouble.
But that's the thing about Sam. Trouble finds him.
Just as he was about to walk out into the hallway, he heard Brenda Holcomb clomping back.
Plan A was that he could punch Brenda in the face and run out of the building. But he liked to avoid punching women in the face.
Plan B involved pistol-whipping Brenda and running out of the building. Again, he had a code about pistol-whipping women.
Plan C was a few drinks and maybe see where things went, though he really did like Veronica. And the Caddie. Why wreck a good thing?
Plan D was to just act like a dumb man.
He grabbed one of the Starbucks cups and dumped it across Brenda's desk and onto his pants. Sam popped his head out the door. "There you are," he said. Brenda had two bottles of Amstel in one hand- Sam could actually see the sweat coming off of them, like he was in some damned commercial and a bunch of sorority girls were about to pop out of a broom closet to get the party started-and a bag of tortilla chips in the other. Maybe, after all of this, after he retired, he'd look into a job at a place like Longstreet. Cold beers and chips in the company fridge had a certain appeal. "You think it would be okay if I used the ladies'? Seems I can't be trusted around a coffee cup."
"What kind of soldier are you?" Brenda said. He had to admit, this "soldier" stuff was pretty cute. He'd see about getting it worked into a fantasy or two down the line. Brenda got up close to Sam and examined his pants, took a gander inside her office, shook her head. Can't be the worse mess she's ever seen, Sam thought. "Better get some water on those before the coffee stains," she said. "Go ahead and use my bathroom, but don't tell anyone. They'll think I'm getting soft and think worse about you. Bad enough they've probably already seen you spilling the coffee on yourself."
Sam gave her one of his newfound winks and headed to the restroom, where, he realized, exactly what Brenda Holcomb had said, and realized, indeed, there was about to be a situation.
6
Most people don't want to get hit in the face. Who can blame them? Getting hit in the face hurts, but it's also expensive, especially if you don't have insurance. A severely broken nose? The kind you'd get if someone who knew how to hit you just right managed to hit you just right, thus collapsing your nasal cavity into your face but not actually killing you by shoving upward and into your brain? That's four to seven thousand dollars in plastic surgery just to get you looking human again. A blown-out orbital bone? That's another eight grand, plus there's always the chance you'll lose some sight. Broken jaw? That's a bad time: months drinking your meals out of a straw and then a bill for ten grand at the back end, along with maybe a few permanent metal plates in your face, just to keep things together.
If you're doing the hitting, you also don't want to hit someone in the face, unless you are certain you can find a soft spot, like the eyes or the bridge of the nose. Hit someone in the mouth, there's an excellent chance you'll end up with teeth lodged in your knuckles, which is hard to explain when you're at the hospital. Hit someone in the forehead, you're likely to pop the joint at the base of your pinkie, by far the weakest joint in your entire hand, or, if you're really unlucky and the person you're hitting is particularly hardheaded, crush all of your knuckles at one time.
You really want to incapacitate someone? You go for the throat. Or, barring that, you go for the ears. Mike Tyson was no dummy. Well, he was, but he knew how to spot vulnerability in an opponent and legalities never seemed to bother him.
I thought about this very issue as Fiona and I pulled up in the Charger at the front gate of Longstreet's offices. The security detail was standing in front of the gate with his back to us, talking on a walkie-talkie, so when he heard the car roll up, he turned and gave us an absent halt sign with his palm. Ahead of him I could see three beefy-looking fellows huddled around Sam's Caddie in the parking lot. All three were wearing workout gear-shorts, tank tops, New Balances-and I could see the sun
gleaming off of their skin even from one hundred yards away.
Still, this didn't look good. If they were looking in the car, that meant they knew it didn't belong. And if they were outside in their workout gear, it was probably because someone had yanked them away from their free weights somewhere inside. I put the Charger in park and turned to Fiona. "Watch me," I said.
"Just run him over," Fiona said.
"If it looks like that's a viable option, go ahead." I jumped out of the car and started walking toward the guard. When Fiona slid behind the wheel, I said, " 'Scuse me. My lady and me, we can't find the airport. I see all these planes buzzing around, but for the life of me, can't find nothing."
The guard turned his head toward me. "What?"
I was about a yard away from him now. "The airport? Place with all the planes and people? I can't find it."
"Get back in your car," the guard said. "This is a secure facility." Not for much longer, I thought. He put his hand on the butt of his gun to prove his point nonetheless and probably because I was about a foot away from him now.
"No problem," I said. I raised my arms wide to show him I meant no harm and took a step backward.
When he turned his back to me again, he pulled out his radio and said, "I think he's under one of the…," but before he finished, I clapped him simultaneously on both ears.
You do this hard enough, two things happen:
• The person passes out.
• The person vomits and then passes out, because you've turned their semicircular canals into a centrifuge.
I hit him really hard.
The guard grunted and then vomit splashed out of his mouth in a rushed torrent. At the same moment his knees went completely slack. Though I had to jump back to get away from the puke, I did manage to grab the guy by the waist to give him a soft landing. Bad day to be a security guard, but I figured there was no need for him to wake up with a broken neck. Still, I didn't want him causing too much more trouble, so I yanked his cuffs off of him-a nice pair of heavy-duty hinged cuffs, the ones you'd use if you wanted someone to be as uncomfortable as possible while being detained-hooked him to his guard shack and took his. 357.
