City of Endless Night

43

It had taken Longstreet some time to make the phone calls and apply the necessary pressure, especially over a holiday, but by 1 PM on New Year’s Day, Pendergast’s Rolls was once more creeping into the underground parking garage of the DigiFlood complex in Lower Manhattan. The guards meeting their car led them to what seemed the farthest spot from the elevators, necessitating a five-minute walk back to the entrance, where they were denied access to the private elevators, and instead were required to take the concrete stairs up to street level and enter the building through the main lobby. And here they were selected for extra vetting by security. Howard Longstreet felt his annoyance rising, but he kept his mouth shut. This was Pendergast’s deal, and the special agent seemed to take it in stride, unperturbed, not remarking on the treatment that could only, Longstreet felt, be aimed at humiliating them.

At last they cleared security and rode an elevator to the top floor. Now they were ushered into a small, windowless room, where they were seated and made to wait, watched over by an impassive young drone in an expensive suit.

After an hour in the room, with no visible sign of annoyance from Pendergast, Longstreet finally lost his temper. “This is outrageous!” he said to the drone. “Two senior FBI agents on an active investigation, being obstructed! We’re doing Ozmian a favor by trying to solve the case of his murdered daughter — and we’re forced to sit here like this?”

The drone only nodded. “I’m sorry — orders.”

Longstreet turned to Pendergast. “I’d just as soon go back to Federal Plaza, get a court order ourselves — and a SWAT team for good measure — and beat down the man’s door with a battering ram.”

“Du calme, H; du calme. All this is obviously calculated to create a particular effect — as was the case with my visit here two days ago. Mr. Ozmian wishes to demonstrate total control of the situation. Let us allow him to believe he has that. Remember what you told me earlier: this is my show; you’re just along to observe. Even in the waiting, we’ve been shown valuable information.”

Longstreet swallowed and sat back, determined to let Pendergast handle it his way. The two sat in the room for another half an hour before the door opened once again and they were at last ushered into Ozmian’s private eyrie. As they approached the huge double doors through soaring spaces, Longstreet was surprised at the number of people busily working all around them on what was a major holiday. Things such as holidays probably meant very little to Anton Ozmian.

The man himself was sitting behind his massive desk, arms folded and fingers interlaced on the surface of black granite. He regarded them impassively. A woman sat in one of the chrome-and-leather chairs arrayed before the desk. She seemed more interested in the view of New York Harbor through the floor-to-ceiling windows than she was in the new arrivals.

After an insolently lengthy interval of silence, Ozmian gestured for Pendergast and Longstreet to take seats. “Special Agent Pendergast,” he said laconically. “How nice to see you again.” He turned to Longstreet. “And you are—?”

“Howard Longstreet, executive associate director for intelligence.”

“Ah, of course. You’re the person responsible for expediting this meeting.”

Longstreet began to speak, but Pendergast restrained him with a gentle hand on his arm.

Ozmian smirked at Longstreet. “Well, I’m pleased you’re here. Because this investigation could certainly use some intelligence.” The CEO turned his attention back to Pendergast. “No doubt you’ve come to fill me in on the blitzkrieg swiftness and rapier-like brilliance with which you’ve been advancing the case.”

“No,” Pendergast said. He was still, Longstreet noted, adopting the deferential posture he’d assumed while waiting at security.

At this, Ozmian affected surprise. He sat back in his chair, fixing Pendergast with his ascetic stare. “Very well, then. Why are you here?”

“Mr. Ozmian, in your line of work, you buy out, take over, or otherwise absorb other companies and their technologies.”

“It’s been known to happen.”

“Is it fair to say that not all of these companies are eager to be so acquired?”

A look of amusement came over Ozmian’s face. “That’s right. It’s called a hostile takeover.”

“Forgive my ignorance. In matters of business, I am but a child. Is this the case with most of your takeovers? That they are hostile?”

“In many cases, the CEOs and shareholders were happy to be made rich.”

“I see.” Pendergast appeared to consider this for a moment, as if such a thing had not occurred to him before. “But there are some who aren’t so happy?”

Ozmian shrugged, as if the observation was so obvious as not to merit reply.

“Again, you’ll pardon my ignorance,” Pendergast continued in the same deferential tone. “And if these people were unhappy — extremely unhappy — they may well have come to hate you, personally?”

There was a brief silence during which Pendergast sat forward, almost imperceptibly, in his chair.

“What are you getting at?”

“Allow me to rephrase. The question is too vague, admittedly, because I’m sure that many people hate you. Mr. Ozmian, who hates you the most?”

“That’s a ridiculous question. Takeovers are the bread and butter of corporate life, and I don’t pay attention to whiners whose companies I’ve acquired.”

“Perhaps then you’ve made a serious miscalculation — one that has landed you in your current unfortunate circumstance.”

“Unfortunate circumstance? Are you referring to my daughter’s death?” His face darkened; Longstreet could see he was enraged.

As Longstreet watched, Pendergast sat forward a little more. “Consider my question very carefully, Mr. Ozmian, as I ask you once again: who hates you most of all?”

A look Longstreet could not quite read passed across Ozmian’s face before it mastered its anger and once again assumed its remote, faintly supercilious expression.

“Think carefully,” Pendergast pressed, a faint iciness now lacing his voice. “Who hates you so much that he would kill your daughter, and not even leave it at that, but come back and take her head?”

Ozmian did not reply. His face had grown very dark.

Pendergast straightened up and pointed a white finger at the chairman of DigiFlood. “Who hates you that much, Mr. Ozmian? I know that you must have a name in your head. And, by not telling me that name, you’re indirectly aiding the person who, perhaps, killed your daughter.”

A strangled, poisonous atmosphere filled the room. Both Ozmian and his unnamed associate were now staring at Pendergast with undivided attention. Ozmian’s expression once again became studiously neutral, but behind that face Longstreet could sense wheels turning furiously. A minute passed, then two, before he spoke again.

“Robert Hightower,” Ozmian said at last, in a neutral voice.

“Again,” Pendergast said. It was an order, not a request.

“Robert Hightower. Ex-chairman of Bisynchrony.”

“And why does he hate you?”

Ozmian shifted in his chair. “His father was a beat cop from a long line of NYPD beat cops. Grew up poor in Brooklyn. But he was a mathematical whiz. He devised an algorithm for simultaneously compressing files while streaming them in real time. He kept improving it, maximizing bandwidth use while increasing the binary resolution. When the algorithm was able to process a bit depth of thirty-two, I became interested. He wanted no part of the DigiFlood family. I sweetened my offer several times, but he continued to rebuff me. The algorithm was his pet, he said; his life’s work. In the end, I was forced to dilute the value of Bisynchrony’s stock — never mind how. He was forced to sell me everything. At the time, he blamed me for what he melodramatically called ‘ruining his life.’ Brought several lawsuits against me, which did nothing but drain his bank account. Telephoned me again and again, threatening to kill me, ruin my business, and destroy my family, until finally I had a restraining order slapped on him. His wife’s car went over a cliff a year after the takeover. She was behind the wheel, intoxicated. Totally unrelated, of course.”

“Of course,” Pendergast said drolly. “And why did you not share this information with the police earlier?”

“You asked who hates me the most. I answered the question. But there are a hundred others who hate me, too. I can’t imagine any of them murdering an innocent girl and cutting off her head.”

“But you said Robert Hightower actually threatened to kill you and your family. Did you believe him?”

Ozmian shook his head. He looked defeated. “I don’t know. People say stupid things. But Hightower…he went off the deepest end.” He looked from Pendergast to Longstreet and back again. “I answered your question. Now get out.”

It was clear to Longstreet that he would have no more to say on this or any other subject.

Pendergast rose from his chair. He made a slight bow without offering to shake hands. “Thank you, Mr. Ozmian. And good day.”

Ozmian responded with a perfunctory nod.

Minutes later, as the elevator doors whispered open and they stepped out into the main lobby, Longstreet could not restrain a chuckle. “Aloysius,” he said, slapping the man’s slender back, “that was a tour de force. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone turn the tables quite so neatly. Consider yourself officially out of the doghouse.”

Pendergast acknowledged the compliment in silence.

Across the expansive lobby, Bryce Harriman — who had just entered from the chilly street via the bank of revolving doors — stopped in his tracks. He recognized the man exiting one of the elevators: it was Special Agent Pendergast, the elusive fed who had figured, one way or another, in several of the murder cases he’d reported on over the years.

The FBI agent could be doing only one thing here at DigiFlood: following up on the Decapitator case, perhaps even interviewing Ozmian. That would put Ozmian into a foul mood. So much the better. A moment later he was hurrying toward the security station.