Damage Control

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Venice’s mind raced as she listened to Gail over the open phone line, leaning on Venice to engineer a way out of the predicament. As she pulled her keyboard out from under the edge of her desk, Venice slipped her headset into her ear and hit the button to redirect the sound.

“It’s not that easy to pull up security plans,” she said as her fingers flew across the keyboard. With advance notice, she could research sites and steal passwords. With a little planning she could be brilliant with this sort of thing. Doing it on the fly was second to impossible. “It could take some time.”

“I don’t have time,” Gail said. “They have to know that we ducked into one of the floors. If they have enough cameras in place, they may even know exactly where we are.”

Venice’s stomach clamped. Gail had stated it exactly: when a commercial facility had any security at all, they tended to have a lot of it. It was an either/or kind of thing. The bad guys probably knew exactly where she was hiding. Even if Venice could pull up the access she needed, it was likely too late to be of much help. With advance notice, she could have recorded empty hallways and played them on the security screens in real time, but even that would have been difficult.

“I just don’t know what kind of help I can be.” She searched for some way to gain access into a system that she’d never researched.

“Then take a few notes,” Gail said. “Dennis Hainsley is the key player here. Remember-” Venice heard chatter in the background as Gail turned away from the phone. “All American Industries. One of the big last-minute donors. He’s very important to Reverend Mitchell. Harriett Burke says that his meetings had a big negative impact on Dr. Mitchell’s mood.”

Venice clicked to a different screen and typed the information formlessly, as stream-of-consciousness words.

Then she clicked back to the business of getting Gail and her new friend out of harm’s way. She started with the easy stuff, cross-referencing Crystal Palace with security companies, but that produced nothing. Then she found the Scottsdale building permits office. Most jurisdictions required that building plans be submitted to the public record. If she could find those, and the schematics for the Crystal Palace, then she should be able to find a way out for them.

The problem was the lack of time. Even with the highest of high-speed connections, it took time for-

“Shit,” Gail said. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “They’re on the floor. The lights just came on.”

“Keep the phone live,” Venice said. “Whatever happens, don’t hang up.” She glanced across her desk to make sure the recorder was running, and the green light assured her that it was. She looked to her keyboard, but realized that with the clock run down to nothing, she had no options available that would help.

The sound in her ear rustled as Gail put the phone down. That’s what Venice assumed she was doing, anyway.

“I want you to lie flat on the floor,” Gail whispered. “If I tell you to do something, do it. But if I don’t you just stay put till it’s all over.”

“Are they here?” another voice asked. Venice assumed that to be Harriett.

“Shh.”

Then things went silent. Venice froze at her keyboard, hands poised over the keys as she leaned closer to the screen, as if by doing so she could get her earpiece closer to the action. She closed her eyes, trying to turn the sounds into images, but the electrical connection combined with the fuzziness of the cellular service made it almost impossible to discern nuance.

A minute passed, maybe two. Twice, she heard Harriett ask something, but both times, Gail responded with a long, soothing shhh.

More silence.

Then a crashing sound, loud and tinny through the phone line.

“Here!” a man’s voice yelled, but a gunshot cut it off.

Then there were a lot of gunshots. One weapon was louder than the others, and it hammered long and hard in three-round bursts.

Gail was shouting something, but over the cacophony, Venice couldn’t make out words. Men shouted, too, and in the background, a woman screamed. It was the sound of panic.

The maelstrom continued for fifteen or twenty seconds before it finally ended in a silence that lasted for a few seconds, then erupted again for a few shots and then fell silent again.

Venice sat riveted in her chair, her eyes closed, trying to see through her ears what was going on.

“Are they down?” a man’s voice asked.

Venice’s eyes filled with tears.

“What is this?” the voice asked, and then there was a shuffling sound again in Venice’s ear. “Hello?” a male voice said into the phone. “Anybody here?”

Venice wanted to hang up, to run away, but she didn’t. If the phones hadn’t been encrypted, this would be the time to break the connection, before the bad guys could trace it back. As it was, the phones and their signals were untraceable, and it therefore posed no harm for Venice to remain on the line.

“Who are you?” she asked. She winced at the tremor in her voice.

“That’s a stupid question,” a man said. “If you’ve been listening, then you know I’m the guy who just killed your friends. Have a nice day.”

The line went dead.