"We'll be armed?" Tony asked.
"Of course. I think we should be ready for anything." She looked at her watch. "It's 2300 hours now. I want to go in very late, at 0300. Let's go back to the apartment, get a little food, a little rest. We'll go back out at 0230."
Chapter 46
At 2:30 in the morning, Laika, Joseph, and Tony, fully armed, drove south toward the financial district of the city. There were still people on the streets of midtown, but when they got below 34th Street, the small crowds thinned and became nonexistent.
The area in which they found themselves, just north of streets which were among New York's busiest during the day, seemed in the early morning to be a no-man's land. The only thing moving was the occasional cab, or the steam rising through manhole covers like thin, insubstantial ghosts, scrawny, drug-raddled wraiths of the city. Here and there a coffee shop or a bar was open, but even the lights announcing their presence were low and subtle, speaking in soft voices of blue and purple neon. Inside the coffee shop windows, the brighter lights fought a losing battle against the darkness of the streets.
Because of the minimal traffic, all of them felt confident that they would easily spot any car trailing them. That lack of vigilance made them fail to notice the low red car that had been following them at a distance of three or four blocks shortly after they had left 72nd Street, or the van just behind it.
The three operatives finally pulled over to the curb a half block from the Weyandt Tower. It must have been imposing in its day, Laika thought. Even now, a hundred years after its erection, it dwarfed most of the structures in the vicinity.
It was at the end of a triangular block, and like the Flatiron Building, was the three-sided shape of the block it dominated, an enormous sharp-nosed wedge. In the mist which crept up from the Hudson and the East Rivers, Laika could nearly imagine the building as the hull of a great ship steaming through the night, leaving a wake of two streets as it glided into the current of the avenue ahead.
Except for the dim lights that shone inside the closed shops on the ground floor, the building was totally dark. As far up as they could see, the only lights in the windows were reflected from the city around it. The Weyandt Tower seemed a great body without a heart.
According to the scale of Peder Holberg's map, Joseph had estimated that whatever it was that Holberg was pointing out was located on or near the top floor of the building. "Any thoughts," Laika asked Tony, "as to how to get inside?"
"Not yet," he said, as he swung the car out into the street again.
"Not giving up already, are we?" Joseph said.
"This is recon," Tony said, "or did you forget already? I want to check out all the entrances, see if there's an interior courtyard that might be open. Not to park—too easy to get trapped that way—but to stay out of sight from the street."
"You weren't this picky in the Bronx," Joseph said.
"Better security in Manhattan than the Bronx, in case your finely attuned senses didn't pick that up. Ah, here we go. . . ."
Tony slowed the car. Ahead of them was a motor entrance covered by an iron gate. Tony drove past it as he looked at it carefully. "Looks good," Laika said. "Padlocked."
Tony nodded agreement. "Probably an underground garage put in later." He parked the car half a block away and they got out, locking all the doors.
They saw no one as they walked to the gate. Tony looked at the street, and up at the windows of the buildings on the other side, but if anyone was watching, they watched from the darkness. Finally he shrugged. "Let's do it," he said, and went to work, checking first for any sign of an alarm system. Finding none, he began to pick the lock.
Five minutes later, he shook his head in frustration. "This is one tough sonofabitch," he said, as he changed picks and tried again. Still another few minutes passed until Laika heard the sound of the heavy padlock opening. "I should get some locksmith's award for that one," Tony said, as he took it off the hasp. "Let's go."
The paved drive angled steeply downward, and Laika knew that it must lead to an underground garage. After a walk of forty feet and a descent that she estimated as fifteen feet, they came up against a wide garage door set into an old brick cellar wall. Tony opened the inset lock easily and raised the door just enough for them to get under it. Laika winced at the sound of it going up on its rollers.
They ducked under it and went into the dark garage, leaving the door open for an escape route. The garage had room for 'several dozen cars. At the far end they saw another ramp leading up, wide enough for only one vehicle. Laika thought it might come out somewhere on the other side of the building, though she couldn't remember seeing any exit there.
A van was parked near an elevator door. It was large and had no side windows except for those in front. Laika made a mental note of the New York license number, though it seemed to have been parked there for months. Dust had settled on the oil-stained floor all around it.
Tony shined his light on a door next to the elevator. In it was a small glass panel through which Laika could see stairs leading up. As best as she could determine, the stairs were at the narrow end of the building, where the two long outside walls met at the point of the wedge. "Let's go," she said softly, pushing open the unlocked door.
They walked slowly, their sneakered footsteps making no sound on the hard-surfaced stairs. They stopped every five flights for a few seconds' rest. A thirty-three-story hike wasn't bad, but Laika didn't want them to be winded when they reached the top floor, not knowing what might be waiting for them there.
"We can't be sure, can we," she whispered to Joseph on the twenty-fifth-floor landing, "that we want the thirty-third?"
Joseph shook his head, then pointed upward, circling his finger to indicate that their goal could be anywhere above them. "Thirty-two or thirty-three, I think," he whispered back, careful to use no word with a sibilant. Ss would carry through the echoing silence of the stairwell like a gunshot.
Laika nodded and continued to walk. They would enter the thirty-second floor. If there was nothing there, perhaps they could hear movement on the floor overhead.
Then a sound came to Laika's ears that made her stop. She could not tell where it had come from, but she didn't think it had been made by her party. The others stopped, too, and she listened for a moment but heard nothing more. Joseph and Tony looked questioningly at her, but she shook her head and continued to climb the stairs.
Ten floors below, James Winston continued to freeze. He didn't move and scarcely breathed, though it was hard to breathe quietly through a broken nose. He pressed the lens of his flashlight against his body, trying to ignore the pressure against his aching ribs, smothering its light for a long time, before he dared to let it shine between his fingers again and illuminate just enough of the stairs to let him see where he was walking.
Maybe he'd shine it a little more brightly. It had been too damn dark, which was why he'd tripped and fallen and rapped the flashlight against the stairs. But not too bright. If he could look up the narrow stairwell and see their lights high above, that meant that they could look down and see his, too. And he didn't want them to know he was coming. No, he didn't want them to know he was there until the very last minute, just before he shot them all.
James Winston had spent the past several weeks brooding, nurturing his grudges like a string of cancers. The list of sins against his righteous ass was long and unforgivable. First, Laika had blindsided him and beat on him; next, that goddamn dago had showed him up in the lobby of the apartment building; and finally, and worst of all, that bitch had pulled some karate shit on him in that parking lot—busted his nose and his jaw and four of his ribs before he even had a chance to defend himself. His ribs were still taped, his jaw was going to be wired for another two weeks, and his nose hurt like a sonofabitch.
On top of everything, his car had been stripped down to the chassis. He barely made it out of that shithole alive by finding a cop and giving him a story about how these guys had carjacked him in
Manhattan, made him drive across to the Bronx, and then beaten the shit out of him. Then the insurance company went medieval on his ass, with three different investigators, and only one of them a brother, questioning him up and down, trying to find out if he was bullshitting them. And the goddamn brother was the one who said he was full of crap and here was why, and threatened to have him busted for filing a false report if he didn't withdraw his claim.
It was all that bitch Laika's fault. Her and her two white boyfriends. And now it was time for her to make it all up to him by dying.
He had gotten a sweet little piece from his old homeboy Pipe. It had cost an arm and a leg, but it was brand new, a Smith and Wesson .38 revolver with a big-ass barrel. James had told Pipe that he didn't want a revolver, he wanted an automatic, but Pipe had just shaken his head. "Automatic, my ass. Cops don't carry automatics, they carry revolvers, and you know why? 'Cause revolvers don't jam up on ya, James. Last thing you want is to just be about to smoke that bitch when that automatic jam up on ya. Shit man, the cops, they know. . . ."
So he had taken the revolver, and he had to admit it was pretty nice. Made him feel like a cowboy when he carried it. Bought himself a harness for it, too; tucked it under his armpit just like Dirty Harry. Sure, it only had six shots, but if he couldn't take out three people with two bullets each, then he wasn't much of a man, was he?
But he was a man, and that was what he was going to prove to Laika Harris once and for all, and to her two pimps, too.
He had tried to follow them before, but had lost them most times. He didn't want to go back to the warehouse because there was too much open space there, no place to hide and sneak up on them. After all, trying to hide under that car had been a real disaster. But though he wouldn't admit it to himself, he just didn't want to go back to the place where he had gotten the shit kicked out of him.
Her apartment wouldn't work, either. There were people all around that neighborhood, even if he could get out of the building afterward without some asshole sticking his head out after he heard shots. No, James wanted to kill them, but he wanted to kill them and walk away, maybe even spend a little time gloating over them as they lay dying, spitting on them while they were still alive. He had had worse fantasies than this one, or more pleasant, depending on your point of view.
But this, Jesus, this was damn near perfect. He had been able to follow them easily through the nearly empty streets, even hanging back a good piece. And when they had tooled into the financial area, which was a ghost town after rush hour, he knew this was the time, and things just got better and better.
He had parked his new car (leased, and insured under a new carrier) two blocks from where their taillights had finally stopped. Then he'd followed them through the iron gate, waiting at the top of the ramp until their lights had vanished. He had held the lens of the flashlight in his fist, spreading his fingers enough for a few slashes of light to shine on the floor and show him the way.
He had walked right into the partially open garage door that way, bumping his nose and jarring his tender ribs before he saw the door itself. Cursing between his teeth, he crouched, trying to keep his torso from bending, and duck-walked under the door. Then he had followed them up the stairs, staying far below them.
Now he waited to see their lights begin to move again so that he could follow them to their deaths. He didn't know what the hell they were doing in this building, what the hell they'd been doing in that warehouse. And he didn't care.
He had them where he wanted them now. There didn't seem to be a soul but them in this whole building. Nobody would hear the shots, and nobody would hear that bitch scream as those bastards went down and she joined them. It was going to be mighty sweet.
James took a deep breath, wincing as the air pressed his lungs against his ribs, and started to climb the stairs again.
In the garage, now far below James and the three operatives, eight people dressed in dark colors spoke quietly together, their heads looking toward the floor. There was no visible light in the room, but each person wore night goggles that lit the garage with a pale, monochromatic light. They all carried weapons.
Finally one of them said, slightly louder than the others, "Amen," and raised his head. Then he looked intently at one of the others and said, "Got it?"
The other nodded, and the leader smiled. "'Today,' " he said, "'you will be with me in paradise.'" Then he headed for the stairs and pushed open the door. The group followed and noiselessly began to climb.
Chapter 47
At the door stenciled "32," Laika paused and turned off her flashlight. Tony and Joseph did the same. She looked through the glass panel, but saw neither light nor motion. Tony examined the door frame and found no indication of any alarms, so they opened it. They entered a small vestibule that opened onto the hall.
It led straight down the center of the building. There were small, shallow offices on either side, but as the building widened, so did the offices. Dust coated the floor, and there were no footprints that Laika could see. Many of the doors were open, and most of those that were not had translucent glass panels through which dim light filtered in from the glow of the city outside. Laika discovered that there was easily enough light to show their way.
As they moved into the wider part of the wedge, the offices on either side grew into suites. They explored several and found them to be increasingly labyrinthine, one leading into another. By the time they reached the end of the hall, there were numerous side halls as well, going to left and right and having their own tributaries.
Laika gestured back toward the point of the wedge and they retraced their steps. But halfway back she thought she heard, directly above them, a dull rumbling noise, as of something heavy being moved on rollers. She held up a hand, and the others stopped and listened, too, nodding to show they heard.
There was someone in the building, after all, and on the floor above.
They moved more quickly now toward the stairs, and Laika turned on her light, pushed open the door, stepped onto the landing, and started to climb the last flight to the thirty-third floor.
James Winston turned off his flashlight, unthinkingly pressing against his gut so hard that he nearly yelped from the pain, but he choked it back just in time. The light had come like a flare through the glass pane of the door above him, and he sank to his knees on the landing where the stairs switchbacked between the thirty-first and thirty-second floors. He even put his head down so that his eyes wouldn't gleam.
If any of the three he figured were coming through that door shone his flashlight down at him, he'd be seen instantly, and then he'd have to shoot, and he didn't want to—not yet. He wanted to get them on his terms.
But they didn't shine their lights downward, or come that way. Instead, they went up the next flight, and he let a sigh of relief hiss slowly from between his clenched teeth. He waited until he heard the door above open softly, and then waited for another few minutes on the dark landing, his heart pounding so loud he thought he could hear it.
Laika trotted up the steps and looked through the glass panel in the door. Seeing only darkness, she opened it, and they stepped into the vestibule.
She listened intently and thought she heard the sound again, a low trundling noise. Beckoning to the others, she started down the hall. They looked to either side as they walked but saw only empty offices until they reached the wider part of the building.
There the hall started to brighten, and Laika saw that a light was on somewhere in one of the corridors to the left. She increased her speed, running silently down the carpeted hall, and eased her head around the corner. A short, straight hall lit by fluorescent overhead lights lay ahead of her, with several doors to either side and a strange panel at the end.
Laika put away her flashlight and took out her pistol, then stalked down the hall, Tony and Joseph at her flanks, both holding their weapons, checking each empty office as they passed. Finally, at the end of the corridor, they saw that the office on the righ
t had been occupied. A floor lamp and a desk light shone on a twenty-foot-square room that held a couch, two easy chairs, a desk, and a coffee table, along with a mini-refrigerator. There were no windows. A coffeemaker sat on the desk, its red light glowing. Two nearly full mugs, still sending up plumes of steam, were on the coffee table, along with an Andrew Greeley paperback, several magazines, and a small Bible. A Walkman and headset were on the floor near the couch.
But what drew Laika's attention most was a metal panel mounted on the far wall. It was a foot square, and on it were four small red light bulbs, one of which was blinking.
"Alarm," she said. "They knew we were coming."
A door at the far end of the room was slightly ajar, and she ran to it. At this point she didn't expect a fight. These people, whoever they were, had fled. They wanted to get away, not stand against intruders. Otherwise, the operatives would have been met with a hail of bullets. Still, she did not holster her weapon.
Beyond the door was another short corridor, dimly lit by inset ceiling lights. At the end were two doors, one ajar, the other closed. Laika pushed open the one that was ajar and found herself in a small room that was as dead as Father Samuel's tomb. The walls, floor, ceiling, and door were lined with lead, and the door frame had the same material around its edges, as if to make a seal when shut. The room was utterly empty.
Tony had already tried the other door, but found it locked. There was no keyhole. "Locked or barred from the other side," he said.
"Get it down," Laika said, and the three assaulted the door with their shoulders. Something in the frame cracked, and in another few seconds they threw it wide open. A dimly lit hall lay ahead, and from the grooves in the carpet it was obvious that whatever had been wheeled away was very heavy.
City of Iron Page 28
