Not So Dead: A Sam Sunborn Novel

by Charles Levin

  Wilbur’s little Prius pulled to the curb beside them and I got out of the Uber car. “Hey, guys.”

  “Nice of you to come.” Al looked down at her watch. “You go partying last night or did you somehow know we’d be here wasting our time?”

  “Tough night, huh? I was taking care of some important business.” Time to change the subject. “I just spoke to or I should say, heard from the Leopard.”

  “What?” Little and Al said in unison.

  I filled them in on the conversation. Just telling Al and Little what had happened in the Uber helped me calm down. I dropped my smartphone on the ground and crushed it with the heel of my shoe. “I’ll need a new secure phone and I’ll need to contact Monica, both to make sure she’s OK and give her my new number.”

  “I can take care of that. I’ll make sure you get a secure phone on Uncle Sam. It’s the least I can do,” Little said.

  OK, I had to focus. “I think maybe he’s fled. What’s the status here? Have you found anything?”

  Little broke the tension. “Shit. We’ll have to talk more about your Leopard call later. We haven’t had much luck here. We went door-to-door and office-to-office on Water, Bridge and Pearl Streets all the way over to State. Ironic that we’re so near to the New York Stock Exchange. You probably couldn’t feel it in the car, but we felt a rumble below the street a few minutes ago. I’m going to have the guys fan out and see if they see anything new or out-of the-ordinary, Here, take this com and stick it in your ear.”

  “Cool. Does that mean I’m official?”

  “No. You’ll never be official, but we want to keep track of you and maybe you’ll even make yourself useful.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence. I now feel so empowered. When do I get my badge?”

  “In your dreams.”

  Al said, “Why don’t you stick with me. Besides we make a pretty good team.”

  “Thanks, that makes me feel better. Just no swimming please.” I put the com in my left ear and we proceeded to walk up Broad Street. “Where were you when you felt the rumble?”

  “Back where you found us.”

  I turned and saw Little and his team spreading out like ants down the side streets. “Did you get any sense of direction from the rumble? Was it more pronounced on one side of you versus the other?”

  “Now you sound like the detective.”

  “Well we both are problem solvers. Except I’m usually debugging code and you’re chasing murderers and rapists. So what’s the answer to my question?”

  She laughed, “So I’ve got a code jockey as a partner, helping to track an international terrorist? I felt like the rumble may have come from up Broad Street. That’s why I chose to have us go this way.”

  “Code jockey, huh. What could be better?” We walked up Broad. As we passed Pearl I spotted smoke coming from one of the sidewalk grates. Sometimes in New York, you’ll see steam or vapor coming from the subway grates or manholes, but this had the distinct odors of cordite and maybe burnt wires. “Wait.” I grabbed Al’s arm. “Over there. What’s that?”

  We crossed the street until we were just in front of 90 Broad. It looked like maybe a law office building. The smoke was still wafting from the grate in front. The odor was even more pungent now. Al spoke into her com. “Little, get over here—90 Broad. We’ve got some smoke coming from underground. Bring some guys. We should check it out.”

  About two minutes later, Little and six suits showed up. “Where is it?”

  I couldn’t help myself. “Oh, that’s right the FBI can’t smell anything.”

  “Very funny. And I’m DHS, FYI.” Little looked down, literally two feet in front of us. “Oh, down there. Let’s see if there’s stairs or an elevator.”

  All of us moved into the lobby. A lone, short, balding security guard looked surprised and maybe a little terrified. “Can I help you?”

  Little raised his ID. “DHS. We need to know where the stairs and elevator are, and if there is any other way to get below ground here.”

  The security guard pointed to the rear of the lobby. Little pointed to his guys. “You come with me. We’ll take the stairs. Al, Sam, you try the elevator.”

  Al smirked. “I love DHS—always in charge.”

  I could smell the burnt wire odor even more now. I turned to the guard. “Did you feel a rumble here a few minutes ago?”

  “Yeah, but I thought maybe it was the subway.”

  “Do you smell that burning odor?”

  “I have a pretty bad cold at the moment.”

  “OK, thanks.” I rushed off with Al to the nearest elevator.

  CHAPTER 78

  THE 9TH CIRCLE

  Al and I pressed the down button and one of the two elevators appeared. It was smallish for a pretty tall building. It smelled like chicken soup. As a kid, I was pretty claustrophobic, but it hadn’t bothered me in years. Now, that queasy, anxious feeling came rushing back. Maybe it was just the fear of what we would find down there.

  “Sam, they sent specs of this building to me and Little.” She looked at her smartphone and then at the elevator buttons. The lowest button read, “SUB2.” She kept glancing back and forth between her phone and the elevator buttons.

  “What is it?”

  “It says here on the specs that there was some heavy excavation work and renovation a few years ago, but it’s sure not apparent looking at the building.” She punched SUB2. “Let’s take a look. The rumbling came from down there somewhere.”

  The door opened on Floor SUB2, the sub-sub-basement. The light was dim. Al broke out her flashlight. All we could see was some storage lockers and supply closets. It was cold and dank, but seemingly undisturbed. We walked back to the elevator, which thankfully was still there. The last thing I needed was to get stuck down here.

  “Hmm…” Al said staring at the elevator buttons again. “If they had excavating equipment in here, how’s it that this place doesn’t look like it’s been changed in decades?”

  “Maybe there are more floors or a different elevator or stairs?”

  Al barked into her com, “Little, how are you doing on the stairs?”

  “We went up and we went down. Stairs stop at the basement. You?”

  “We’re in the second sub-basement and we don’t see anything unusual. Did you look at the building specs? Where are all the renovations and excavating that they got a permit for three years ago?”

  “I was thinking the same thing. Hidden storage or backroom maybe?”

  “I’d think if there was an underground explosion and smoke, we’d know it here.”

  I didn’t realize it, but I was thinking out loud. “What if there is a key or combination that gets this elevator to go lower, maybe to a hidden floor. This elevator has a round keyhole.”

  “Yeah, that’s called a tubular or tumbler lock. Common in elevators for emergencies. Let’s get that key and try it.”

  We returned to the lobby and approached the mini security guard.

  Al put on her best in-charge voice. “We need the key to the elevator now.”

  The little man started to protest, but Al cut him off. “This a matter of national security. Cough up the key right now.”

  He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a large keychain that seemed to have a hundred keys on it. Why anyone needed that many keys was beyond me. I think most people just collect keys and never discard the old useless ones. I’d bet most of those keys didn’t do a thing. He looked nervously at the key ring. Fortunately, there was only one tubular key or we could have been there for hours trying to find the right one. He unclipped it and handed it to Al.

  Back in the elevator, Al slipped the key into the lock and turned. “OK, here goes.” We just stood there.

  “There’s a down button. Maybe now with the key turned, we could be in manual mode. Try that.” She pressed the down button and the elevator descended, this time dinging as we passed the basement, dinging again at SUB1 and dinging a last time when we came to a stop at
SUB2. “OK, so now what?”

  I thought about it for a minute. “Let’s try some combinations of buttons together. Like press one and two together.” She did that and nothing happened. “Try another.” She pressed three and four together. Again nothing.

  “Hey, you’re the math guy. There are fifteen floors in this building, plus a basement and two sub-basements. I bet there are thousands of combinations, and we’d be here for days trying to figure it out when it might not be a combination at all. C’mon, you can do better.” She smiled despite the predicament.

  “Now that’s a good puzzle for a math geek like me. Well, the building has no thirteenth floor. I always loved that one. Don’t the people on the fourteenth floor realize they are really on the thirteenth floor?”

  “C’mon, cut the crap. Get to the point.”

  “Sorry, so then there are seventeen floors. Assuming that the combination is of two, one button for each hand, and that the order doesn’t matter, then there are one hundred thirty-six permutations. That’s a lot, but we could probably do them all in an hour or less, except…”

  “Except what?”

  “See punching the numbers may be like entering a PIN or password. It may have a lockout after three or five failed attempts.”

  “Great, so we’re screwed.”

  “We could always dig up the floor.”

  “So you’re suggesting we come in here with jackhammers and backhoes to dig up something that might not even be there. Not going to happen. Even if I could get all the permissions without getting locked up in a padded cell first, it would take too much time. The trail is growing colder by the minute.”

  We stood in silence. Neither of us knowing what to do next. Sometimes you merely hit a wall. Then an idea came to me. Just like it seems to happen to me when I am in the shower. Your unconscious works a problem or retrieves a memory—it’s always amazed me. “Try 9—11.”

  “What?” Al looked at me. I couldn’t tell if she was asking a question or wondering if I had gone crazy on her.

  “Press the buttons 9 and 11 together.” The significance had not been lost on either of us. Suddenly, the elevator lurched and began to descend again, farther down. As it moved, it dinged as if it was passing floors, but did not open. It was so slow, it seemed to descend forever. However, after the eighth ding, the door opened. We’d found it.

  CHAPTER 79

  THE NUMBER 2

  He could feel the adrenaline pumping. In a way he regretted killing Eskabar. He had been useful and loyal. But LaSalam was a hunter and a killer. Death of your prey was the only successful outcome. He got a little aroused when he thought about the site of the young men convulsing on the floor. This would be the fate of his true enemy soon, he thought. Very soon.

  However, now he had to move and move anonymously. The Americans were on his trail. The private jet was out, as that might be compromised. He couldn’t even take a taxi as that would leave a witness and a trail. He walked over to Wall Street and descended to the subway platform. The Number 2 or 3 train uptown would do. He boarded the subway and took a seat. The trains weren’t particularly crowded this time of day, midday between rush hours. Most passengers were heads down in their iPhones. They wouldn’t even know he was there and the mortal danger he was capable of. Like robots. These automatons have had their minds stolen by technology, he thought. Well, he’d turn that technology back on them, Inshallah.

  He exited the Number 2 subway at Penn Station, went upstairs and paid cash for the next train to Boston. This way he could stay anonymous and the Acela was pretty fast—maybe four hours to Boston. His jet could do it in less than an hour, but the risk of being caught was too great now. The plan must go forward, and he had to give the final command when everything and everybody was in place. This would make 9/11 look like a pin prick compared to the massive heart attack he planned to inflict. After this, there might be no coming back for the Americans.

  CHAPTER 80

  SHERLOCK

  The elevator doors opened onto an office-like floor full of cubicles, but this was no ordinary office scene. As we stepped forward, our feet sloshed in water. Al swept her flashlight around the office. There were dead bodies strewn about everywhere. She focused her light on one, then another. Judging from the foam on their lips and their contorted limbs, it looked like poison for sure, maybe a neurotoxin. Something must have set off the sprinklers, but there were no signs of a fire. Then we turned to the left and saw the blown out glass of a server room where telltales of smoke still wafted into the main office across our flashlight beam. The smell of burnt wire and something else sickening, like loose bowels, filled the air

  We walked closer to the server room, holding our noses, and saw bent metal and fragments of electronic parts and pieces all over. The servers had clearly been destroyed, but that room was relatively dry. I assumed that’s because most server rooms with expensive, important equipment use halon gas for fire suppression. If a fire breaks out, the gas is released into the room starving all the oxygen, extinguishing the fire and saving the delicate equipment.

  “Well Al, I guess we found our explosion.”

  “No shit, Sherlock. We’ve got to get Little and some forensics down here right away.” She tried talking into her com, but ten stories down—no way that was going to work. “Crap, no com. I’ve got to go back up and get the team. You can come with or hang out here and have a look around.”

  Dark, dead bodies, ten stories down and alone. Every part of my being screamed to me, Get the fuck out of here, but I knew this was our best chance to find a clue. “I’ll stay. See what I can find.”

  “Just don’t touch anything. Oh, and here. Take my flashlight. I have another. I’ll get Little and the guys and be back as fast as I can.” She hurried back to the elevator, her light beam sweeping right and left, leading the way. She got in the elevator and looked back at me. I looked at her face that was only a ghostly shadow in the reflection of the light from the flashlight. Then the elevator door closed and she was gone. I was alone in the dark. Nothing left but the awful odor and the sound of water dripping off the desks onto the floor.

  I thought, Right, don’t touch anything. Not a problem. I began tentatively moving back toward the server room sweeping my flashlight beam from side to side, sloshing through the water. What kind of clue could we possibly find?

  I moved into the server room and stumbled over a large object. Steadying myself, I turned the flashlight to the floor. There was another body. This one was older. A man, maybe in his fifties with gunshot wounds, fatal wounds. Take a deep breath. I knew what detectives do. They try to reconstruct what happened in what sequence.

  I stood in the muck feeling totally over my head. My hands trembled from either fear or the cold or both. The elevator door opened again. I saw a flashlight beam sweeping the office. I thanked God.

  “Al?”

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “Over here.” She came into the server room. “That was quick.”

  “I just went to the lobby, called Little, gave him the 9/11 code and came right back here. He’s pulling the team in and will be here in a few minutes. Find anything?”

  “This guy.” I pointed my light down again. “He’s older and was killed by a gun in this room. I’m glad you’re back. Maybe we can figure out what happened? If we can do that, maybe it will give us a clue as to the Leopard’s next move or location.”

  “Maybe. OK, so what do we know? We’ve got a bunch of dead guys gassed or poisoned, whatever, in that room. Then this older guy with the GSWs. Water out there. Dry and burnt up in here. Hmm. Let’s start with the older guy. He was probably in charge or supervised the younger guys, just based on age maybe.”

  “And location. He was in here and probably together with his killer. OK, what happened first? Gassing the young guys or shooting the older guy?”

  “You’re getting pretty good at this. An accurate timeline or sequence of events can make the whole difference. Let’s assume for the sake of a
rgument that the older guy was working for or at least cooperating with his assailant. If that’s the case, then they probably killed the young guys first. The older guy may have even pushed the button.”

  “Then the Leopard has no more use for the older guy, knocks him off and sets off some kind of explosive to destroy the trail.”

  The elevator opened again and several light beams came out sweeping all over. “Al, Sam, are you there?”

  “Over here, Little,” Al said. Then she brought him up to date on our theory so far.

  “Sounds plausible. My guys will check out the bodies, search and gather evidence. I need you both not to touch anything.”

  “There he goes again—Mr. G-Man in charge. How about you work with us instead of bossing us around?” I liked Al—You go, girl.

  I decided to break in before a “Who has the bigger dick” interagency fight ensued. “Why don’t we all just have a look around and call each other if one of us finds something interesting? Sound like a plan?” I felt like the daddy with the kids fighting in the back seat. They both just nodded silently and moved off in different directions.

  “Al, wait a minute.” I called her back feeling as though we had not finished playing out the scenario. “I felt like we were in a groove and maybe getting somewhere. Let’s talk this through a little more. What if this older guy was an unwilling participant? It would fit the Leopard’s pattern to threaten or intimidate to get his way. If the guy had half a brain, he might have guessed he’d end up this way.”

  “And if that’s true, what might he have done as insurance or a way out?”

  “Or if he felt there was no way out, but he wanted to confess or explain his actions. Somehow make it right.”

  “Then he would have left something behind, but everything in here is destroyed…or is it?”

  “Let’s look with that in mind. It might help us focus.”

  “I’ll go tell Little.”

  CHAPTER 81

  SKYPE ME, BABY

  I took a deep breath. I don’t know what made me think of it, but I lapsed into a daydream. I was recalling our time together in California.