“No, sir. He’s not up there?”
“Haven’t you been watching me?”
“Yessir.”
“Well then you know the answer to your question.”
He was about to add “you moron” but bit it back. Wrong thing to show frustration with an underling. Always stay in control.
“But, sir, that’s impossible,” Cruz yammered. “He hasn’t used the elevators or the stairs and—”
“Speaking of the stairs, did the doors register when I opened them?”
“Yessir.”
Damn. He’d been hoping that was it: a faulty sensor on one of the doors. But then the guy should have shown up on the Communing Floor and stairway cameras.
One fucked-up situation here.
“I’m going to do a little more looking around,” he told Cruz, then thumbed the two-way off.
He strode to the elevators and hit the DOWN button. As he waited for the car he turned and surveyed the wide-open space of the Communing Level and the city towers beyond its floor-to-ceiling windows, many lit up even at this hour. But he was not in a mood to enjoy the view.
This temple was his turf. He was responsible for its integrity. Last week a man using three false identities had infiltrated his turf and burned him. He was still stinging with embarrassment. And now another—or perhaps the same man—had invaded his space and disappeared.
Jensen had to find him.
That meant searching the temple from top to bottom—literally. He’d start with Brady’s floor. He couldn’t imagine how anyone could have reached twenty-two. Only he and Brady knew the access code. Without it you could press 22 all you wanted, but the car would stop at twenty-one and go no farther unless someone already on twenty-two—Brady or Vida, his receptionist—overrode the autostop.
Someone on twenty-two? No chance.
But the seemingly impossible had already happened, so…
He’d have to search twenty-two alone. Couldn’t allow a squad of TPs to poke through Brady’s quarters. But when he’d determined that the floor was deserted, he’d call the next shift in early and start an organized gang-bang search from twenty-one down. He’d bring in a pack of fucking bloodhounds if he had to. Nobody disappeared on his watch. Nobody.
The elevator dinged behind him and he heard the doors slide open. He turned absently and stepped toward it. Too late he realized that no car awaited him, only cables and empty space.
He let out a terrified bleat as he tilted over the chasm. His heart pounded as he flailed his arms trying to catch the doorway. The fingers of his right hand caught the lip of the molding. Not much to hang on to but enough to stop his forward motion. He teetered there, looking down at the top of the elevator car ten floors below, then began to pull himself back. He was just starting to congratulate himself on his quick reflexes when an arm shot out from the left, grabbed his tunic, and yanked him into the void.
He screamed, turning and windmilling his arms as he began to fall. He twisted far enough around to grab the floor of the doorway, first with one hand, then the other. He hung by his fingertips, kicking his feet back and forth in search of a ledge, a girder, even a loose brick, anything to help support his weight.
But he found nothing.
And then movement to his right as a man swung out of the elevator shaft and crouched before him on the edge. Jensen looked at his face and knew him. Even with his crummy fake beard and his low knit cap and his dirty clothes, Jensen knew him.
Farrell-Amurri-Robertson-Whoever.
The guy.
“Help me!” Jensen said, trying to keep from screaming. He hated pleading with this son of a bitch, but…“Please!”
Then he looked up and saw his eyes, brown and cold as dirt from the bottom of a grave, and knew he was as good as dead.
“‘Please’?” the guy said in a low voice, barely above a whisper. “Is that what Jamie Grant said when you were about to cut off her finger?”
Jensen’s intestines clenched, sending a wave of terror through his belly.
How could he know? How could he possibly know?
And now the guy had a knife in his latex-gloved hand. He opened it.
“Oh, please! Oh, please don’t!”
“I bet Jamie said that too. But what if I were to do some of the same to you? What if I start cutting off your fingers, one at a time?”
He drew the blade lightly across the knuckle of the right little finger, then the left. The steely caress sent a tremor through Jensen’s tortured arms.
“Please!”
“Let’s make this a game. How many fingers do you think you can spare before you can’t hold on any longer? I’m thinking three—a pinkie on each side, and then when you lose a ring finger on, say, the left side, you’ll fall. You’re a strong man, Jensen, but you’re heavy.” He nodded and smiled—not a nice smile. “Yeah. I think three will do it.”
“No! No, please!”
The eyebrows lifted. “No? Okay. If you say so, then no it is.”
And then, miraculously he was folding the knife and leaning away.
He means it?
“Hey,” the guy said. “Just kidding about that amputation thing. Had no intention of doing something like that.” He drew back his right leg. “Haven’t got time!”
The leg shot out and Jensen caught a flash of a rubber sole just before his nose and left cheek exploded in pain. The blow jerked his head back and that was just enough to loosen his grip on the threshold.
His fingers slipped and grabbed empty air. He screamed as he tumbled backward.
Jack watched Jensen’s twisting, kicking fall come to an abrupt end atop car one. He’d twisted around in midair to land face first, denting and cracking the roof but not breaking all the way through.
Jack stared down at the scene for a while. He didn’t see how anyone could survive that kind of fall, but he’d heard of people who’d lived through worse, and with a guy that size—
Jensen’s chest moved.
Jack stared, thinking his eyes were playing tricks. Then he saw him draw another breath.
Christ, what did it take to be rid of this guy?
Right now the fall looked like an accident—Jack needed it to look like an accident. But if Jensen lived…
Couldn’t allow that.
Steeling himself for what he was about to do, Jack climbed down the rungs toward the car. Jensen’s hands were beginning to move, his arms too. But not a twitch from his legs. Back was probably broken…spinal cord injury.
Well, his spinal cord was about to get worse.
Jack stopped his descent about six feet above Jensen and car one. He turned and clung precariously with his back to the rungs. He hesitated, something holding him back. Then he thought of Jamie Grant having her finger amputated, being buried alive, how it must have felt to be engulfed in concrete…
He jumped, aiming his boots for the back of Jensen’s neck. He heard the vertebrae crunch as he hit with enough force to ram the bald head through the roof of the car.
For an instant Jack teetered backward, but he managed to grab one of the cables to steady himself. The palm of the glove was black with grease. He knelt next to Jensen and removed it, inverting it as he pulled it off, pocketing it, and replacing it with a fresh one.
Then he wormed a couple of fingers through the opening around Jensen’s head and felt his throat for a pulse. Nada.
Jack straightened and took a deep breath. Two of three scores settled. Only Brady remained.
He climbed back up to the twenty-first, reattached the call-button wires, and replaced the inspection plate. Then he stepped through the doorway and hit the down button. He removed his gloves as the pulleys whirled into motion. Seconds later he was looking at the inside of cab one, with Jensen’s glazed eyes staring back at him from a hole in the ceiling. Slow drops of blood dripped from his nose.
Keeping his head down, Jack stepped in and knuckled the lobby button. Jensen’s head lay above the angle of the surveillance camera, so as far as any observer could te
ll, the bearded, knit-capped guy was alone in the car.
When the car stopped, Jack pressed a knuckle against 10 as the doors opened, then stepped out into the lobby.
“Roselli?” the TP at the kiosk called. “Is that John Roselli?”
“No, I’m LFA Roselli,” Jack said, making for the front door. He added some attitude. “You got a problem with that?”
This was the last hurdle. If he could get past this guy without too much fuss, he’d be home free.
“Just hold on there. Where have you been?”
Jack didn’t break stride. “On the Communing Level.”
“No, you weren’t. You didn’t show up on the cameras so the GP went looking for you and—”
Keep moving…keep moving…
“I just left Jensen. And he didn’t mention cameras.”
The guard had a two-way up to his lips. “GP Jensen? GP Jensen?” He lowered the two-way and looked at Jack. “He’s not answering. Where did you see him?”
“I left him upstairs. He’s going to hang around awhile.”
As Jack reached the doors the TP came out from behind his kiosk and hurried toward him.
“Wait! You can’t go yet!”
“No? Watch me.”
Jack pushed through the doors, hit the sidewalk, and began walking uptown. The guard stepped out behind him.
“Hey! Come back! The GP will want to talk to you.”
Jack ignored him and kept walking. He was heading home. He needed sleep something awful. He found his car two blocks away where he’d left it, parked on a side street. After checking to make sure the TP hadn’t followed him, he slid behind the wheel and hit the ignition.
He drove a dozen blocks then pulled over and threw the Buick into park. He put his head back as far as the headrest would allow and took a few deep breaths. A tremor shuddered through his body. That cold black rush was fading, leaving him shaky and exhausted.
He scared himself when he got like this. Not while he was in the dark thrall—he feared nothing then—but in the low aftermath it unsettled him to know what he was capable of. Sometimes he’d swear never to let it loose again, to push it back next time it lunged for freedom. Yet inevitably, when the moment came, he’d embrace and ride it.
But he never wanted another episode like tonight. It would take him a while to forget this one.
7
As per usual, Luther Brady had awakened early and driven in from the hills. He’d started the day with a slight headache—not unexpected after a night of carousing—but that was gone now. And as always after a bout with the boys, he felt rejuvenated. Give him the right playmates and he’d never need Viagra.
He liked to arrive before seven, when the temple was relatively deserted, and slip up to his quarters.
But this morning he found chaos—flashing police cars and ambulances outside, bustling cops and EMTs within.
One of the TPs recognized him and came rushing up.
“Mr. Brady! Mr. Brady! Oh, thank Noomri you’re here! It’s terrible! Just terrible!”
“What’s happened?”
“It’s GP Jensen—he’s dead!”
Shock passed through him like a cold front. Jensen? Dead? He’d been Luther’s most valuable asset—loyal to the Opus, fearless and relentless in pursuing its completion. What would he do without him?
“How?”
“An accident. He fell down the elevator shaft. It was awful! TP Cruz found him. His head…his head had smashed through the top of one of the elevator cars!”
An accident…
Already Luther could feel a small sense of relief tempering the shock, a slight loosening of his tightened muscles. For a moment there, and he couldn’t say exactly why, he’d feared that Jensen had been murdered. Bad enough that he’d lost his right-hand man, but a murder…that would cause a storm in the media. An accident, however…well, that was a nonstory. Accidents can happen anywhere, to anyone, at any time. No reason the Dormentalist temple should be expected to be any different.
“This is terrible,” Luther said. “This is tragic. I must get to my quarters to commune with my xelton.”
“The police may want to talk to you.”
“I’ll speak to them in a little while. Right now I’m too upset.”
Too true. He’d invested a lot of time, money, and effort in Jensen. He’d been one of a kind. How was he going to replace him? Worse, this was going to set back the Opus Omega timetable.
Damn it to hell! Just when the end was in sight.
He’d worry about a replacement later. Right now he had to get Vida working on a press release, and have her prepare some public remarks about what a kind, gentle, wonderful man Jensen was.
Oh, yes. And he needed her to look up Jensen’s first name. He should know the first name of the man he’d be publicly mourning.
8
The clock radio woke Jack at nine. He lay in bed listening to the news about a murder in the Bronx and a fatal accident in the Midtown Dormentalist temple. He shook off the memory of Jensen’s dead eyes staring at him from the ceiling on the elevator ride down to the lobby and got to work.
Wearing boxers and a T-shirt, he dug out his X-Acto knife kit and seated himself at the round, paw-foot oak table in his front room. He pulled on a pair of latex gloves—man, he was going through these things like chewing gum—and got to work.
He removed the stack of Cordova’s photos from the envelope and shuffled through them a second time. Familiarity did not make the task any less nauseating. Last night, while Cordova was unconscious, Jack had sorted them into three stacks: Brady alone, Brady pulling on the mask, and the masked Brady with the boys. He’d picked one at random from each of the first two, but it had taken him a while to find three from the third with the boys faced away from the camera. He’d cut off the corners where the camera had imprinted the date and time, and left them all with Cordova.
On this new pass through the stacks, Jack culled the most damning examples from each pile, then set to work with the X-Acto, cutting out the centers of the boys’ faces. No need for something like this to follow them the rest of their lives. Again he cut off the camera’s date-and-time imprint.
That done, he placed them in a FedEx envelope along with the letter he’d printed out from Cordova’s office computer.
If you’re reading this, I am dead, and this is the man who did it. Please don’t let these pictures go to waste.
Richard Cordova
He sealed it and addressed it to The Light. He made up the return address.
Then he picked up his cell phone for the first of two calls he had to make. Information connected him to the Pennsylvania State Police. When he said he wanted to report a crime, he was shunted to another line. He told the officer who answered that they needed to go to a certain farm where a concrete cylinder had been buried, and that within that cylinder they’d find the remains of the missing New York City reporter, Jamie Grant. He also told them where they could find the mold used to make the cylinder and that the symbols on it were strictly Dormentalist.
The officer wanted to know who he was and how he knew all this.
Yeah, right.
The second call went to Mrs. Roselli-Not. She picked up on the second ring.
“Good morning, Jack.”
That startled him. He had no name listed with his phone. Even with caller ID, how could she…?
Maybe she recognized his number. Or maybe she didn’t need electronics.
“Good morning. Feeling well enough for company today?”
“Yes. Finally. You may come over now if you wish.”
“I wish. See you in about half an hour.”
He got dressed, switched his latex gloves for leather, and headed out. He had the overnight envelope in hand and Anya’s skin in the pocket of his coat. One he’d mail along the way. The other was for show and tell—he’d show and the old lady would tell.
He hoped.
9
Gia stood at the corner of Second Avenue an
d Fifty-eighth and marveled at how good she felt today. She seemed to have regained most of her strength and ambition. She’d even done some painting this morning.
But now it was time for some fresh air. This was the first time she’d been out of the house in almost a week. It was good to know the city was still here. It even smelled good. A fall breeze was diluting the fumes from passing cars and trucks. And most amazing of all: traffic was moving.
She planned to walk up to Park, maybe head downtown for a few blocks, then circle back home. As she waited for the light to change, she felt the baby kick and had to smile. What a delicious sensation. Tomorrow she was scheduled for another ultrasound. Everything was going to be fine, she just knew it.
Finally, the walking green. She took one step off the curb but froze when she heard a blaring horn. She looked up and saw a delivery van racing toward her along the avenue. Gia heard a scream—her own—as she turned and leaped back onto the sidewalk. One of the front tires bounced over the curb just inches from her feet. The sideview mirror brushed the sleeve of her sweater as the truck slewed sideways and slammed into the rear of a parked UPS truck.
The rest of the world seemed to stand silent and frozen for a heartbeat or two as glittering fragments of shattered glass tumbled through the air, catching the sunlight as they showered the impact area, and then cries of shock and alarm as people began running for the truck.
Gia stood paralyzed, feeling her heart pounding as she watched bystanders help the shaken and bloodied driver from the car. She looked back to where she’d been standing and realized with a stab of fear that if she hadn’t moved, the truck would have made a direct hit. At the speed he’d been going, she could not imagine anyone, especially her and the baby, surviving an impact like that.
She looked back and saw the driver shuffling toward her across Fifty-eighth. Blood oozed from the left side of his forehead.
“Dear lady, I am so sorry,” he said in accented English—Eastern Europe, maybe. “The brakes, they stop working…the steering it no good. I am so happy you are well.”
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