Blowback

THIRTY-THREE

Harvath turned the stereo speakers around so they faced the wall and then let the music rip.

Not only was George Clinton great to swing a hammer to, but a song like “Atomic Dog” had enough bass in it to disguise any sounds that might be heard on the third floor of Sotheby’s. As crude as his plan was, Harvath felt fairly confident they were going to be able to get in and out without anyone knowing, until tomorrow morning, that they had been there. By then, it wouldn’t matter. They’d have what they needed and be on the trail of whoever sent the artifacts to Sotheby’s.

Once the plaster was successfully chipped away, Harvath got to work with the RAPTOR. After loosening several large blocks of stone, he removed a set of telescoping titanium poles from the duffel bag along with a block and tackle set. Jillian and Harvath both used small pry bars to edge the stones out to a point where a web harness could be slipped around each one of them and then they could be lowered to the floor on their side. It was two and a half hours before they had finally cleared a space big enough to crawl through. After packing the equipment, Harvath punched through the plaster on the Sotheby’s side as quietly as he could and crawled inside.

Using the filtered blue beam of his SureFire to light his way, Scot stepped into Molly Davidson’s office with Jillian right behind him. Rain lashed the windows and very little light from the street below found its way inside. The room was a disjointed jumble of shadows, and it smelled different for some reason. There was a mix of odors he couldn’t exactly place. It was a combination of melted plastic and something else — something not as strong, but definitely distinct. Though he didn’t know why, Harvath had a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. That little voice in the back of his head that never steered him wrong was trying to tell him something. As they moved farther into the room, the hair on the back of his neck began to stand up.

Harvath swept the beam of his flashlight over the long table and noticed all of the artifacts seemed to be there. That was strange. Why wouldn’t Davidson have locked them up?

As they crept closer to her desk area, Harvath saw something that stopped him dead in his tracks. Not only did the blue filter on his SureFire reduce the intensity of the light, making the beam harder to see, it also caused certain substances to stand out under dark conditions.

Harvath noticed the splatters on the wall first. It looked like someone had flicked a heavily soaked paintbrush at it. As he angled the beam toward the floor, he moved it forward and saw a large, dark pool spreading out from the direction of Davidson’s desk. Suddenly, there was a flash of lightning and the room was illuminated for just a fraction of a second. It was enough for Harvath to see a bludgeoned body and, lying next to it, the ancient war hammer.

Harvath risked flipping the hinged filter up from his SureFire to get a better look at the body as he ran over to it. The war hammer was covered with blood and little pink morsels of tissue, which could only be pieces from Molly Davidson’s scalp. The scene was horrific. Jillian choked back a scream.

Harvath took one look at the intense damage to her skull and knew there was no way she could be alive, but he reached down and checked for a pulse anyway. The body was still warm — too warm, especially considering the massive loss of blood. Whoever had killed her had done so very recently, maybe even as Harvath was in the final stages of breaking in. He didn’t like the thought that they might have been able to do something to save her, but there was no way they could have known what was going on while they were busy punching through the wall.

The other thing Harvath didn’t like was that they might have interrupted the killer midway through his work. He swept the flashlight in a slow arc around the room. There were very few places a person could hide, but he wanted to make sure they were absolutely alone.

Understandably, Jillian was extremely frightened and stayed as close to Harvath as possible. “What is it?” she asked as he lit up the different corners of the room.

“Nothing. I just wanted to make sure we were alone.”

“Who do you think did this to her?”

“I have no idea,” replied Harvath, “but—” Harvath stopped mid-sentence as he focused the beam of his flashlight on Davidson’s desktop computer and then responded, “Goddamn it!”

“What is it?” she asked, carefully stepping around the body to see what Harvath was so angry about.

“Whoever killed her was concerned enough about what was on her computer to crack the tower and burn everything inside before leaving.” Now he knew where the burned plastic smell had come from. Davidson’s blood had turned out to be the other odor.

Jillian looked at the computer’s blackened and melted circuitry. “How do you create a fire that burns something that bad without setting off the smoke alarms?”

“You need a type of fire that burns with very little smoke — a real hot one. Whoever did this must have had some sort of a handheld blow torch or soldering iron with him.”

“So much for this being a spur-of-the-moment crime of passion,” said Jillian.

Harvath couldn’t argue with her. Whoever did this had come prepared. And, as he had just pointed out, there must have been something on Molly Davidson’s computer that they were desperate to erase.

“What do we do now?” asked Jillian.

“I don’t know,” he responded as he looked at his watch and realized it was nearing four o’clock in the morning. There had to be something. They were already in the building. Sotheby’s had to have another copy of the information somewhere, but where? Think, he told himself. The hard part is over — we’re already inside. Where would Davidson have kept backups of her files? Was there a central server in the building? Did they have hard copies in a file room somewhere? Harvath laughed at that idea. If Sotheby’s did have a file storage area, there was no telling how big it would be. With all of the transactions they did in Paris each year, the room would be enormous. It could take up an entire floor. It could even comprise a completely different building. Not only were they searching for a needle, they had no idea where the haystack was.

Then, something hit him. “Didn’t Davidson say she worked from home sometimes when she needed peace and quiet?”

“Yes. She most likely had copies there of everything she was working on. I often do the same thing.”

“So do I,” replied Harvath as he opened one of Davidson’s desk drawers. “She must have carried a purse, or a wallet or something that might have her address in it.”

After several moments of looking, it was Jillian who found the purse inside a tiny cabinet beneath the small sink in the corner. “Got it,” she said, pulling it out so Harvath could see it.

“Good job.”

Jillian cleared a spot on the nearest workbench, and while Harvath held the flashlight for her, she turned the purse upside down and emptied its contents. Among an assortment of useless items were a wallet, cell phone, and set of keys. Immediately, her attention was drawn to a Swiss Army knife, just three inches long, hanging from the key ring.

“What is that?” asked Harvath as Jillian extended a rectangular piece of metal-tipped plastic from beneath one of the blades.

“It’s a compact flash memory stick,” she replied. “It’s like a portable hard drive or storage device. I use the same thing to transport files between my computer at work and the one I have at home. Dr. Davidson must have been doing the same thing.”

“That might be exactly what we’re looking for,” said Harvath as another flash of lightning exploded.

Jillian, who was standing near the windows, suddenly saw a figure dressed completely in black, perched on the sloped roof and staring through the glass at them. But before she could scream, Khalid Alomari raised his pistol and fired.