House on Fire

50

I froze.

Considered whether to go back into Dr. Scavolini’s office, grab the Bash Bunny, yank it out of its USB strip in the middle of its data download, and close the office door. But I didn’t know how much time I had. A few seconds? I didn’t want to be caught inside the CSO’s office. Actually, I could finesse that. I just didn’t want to be caught with spy equipment in my hands, looking guilty.

But what if it wasn’t the security guard from earlier? What if, instead, it was the Waltham police?

I had my answer about four seconds later, when the glass door slid open and a security guard hustled in. Not Jomi, a new one. He was holding a walkie-talkie in his left hand. This guard, unlike the last one, was armed. I could see the Glock in a holster on his left hip. He looked older, around fifty, and had a gray brush cut. Maybe he was a supervisor or a manager.

“Hey,” he called out. “What’re you doing here? Who are you?”

I’d left my iPad and my clipboard in Dr. Scavolini’s office, but my badge was still hanging around my neck on a lanyard. I held it out to him. “Didn’t Jomi fill you in?” I said.

“Who’s your supervisor?” he asked.

I parried with my own question. “What’s your name? I need it for my report.”

But this guy would not be deterred. “I called the VP for operations, Mr. Thomas, and he never heard of no security audit.”

That I hadn’t counted on. Someone was doing their job. That rarely happened.

“Well done,” I said. “I’ll write you up with a commendation.”

The guy hesitated, for just a moment. He wanted to believe me, but he’d made up his mind that I wasn’t on the level. He’d come up to the seventh floor to kick me out.

Then he noticed that Scavolini’s door was propped open.

“Hey, you’re not supposed to be in there, I don’t care who you are. Can I see your badge, please?”

I pointed to my ID key card on the lanyard around my neck.

“Your company badge.”

I didn’t have one. This guy was determined to break my balls. He was stubborn as a mule.

He pressed a button on his walkie-talkie and began to speak into it. “Omega six, this is Alpha twelve. I gotta run a check, do you copy?”

The guard was older than me and looked out of shape. He looked more like a back-office guy. But he did have a gun.

His radio crackled. “Roger, copy. Send traffic.”

I took out my phone and swiped at it, touched the email app, and held it up for the guard to see. I approached, moving it closer to him.

He didn’t even look at it. With his right hand he reached for his pistol. “Hold it right there,” he said. “I’m shutting this down unless you have authorization.”

Now he pointed the gun at me. One hand held the walkie-talkie, the other held the gun. He wasn’t going to fire it. Not even close. But I couldn’t take the chance of his flushing me out as a fake.

I shot out my left hand and grabbed his left sleeve, pulling him toward me suddenly, spinning him around clockwise. Now his body was between me and his gun. “Hey!” he shouted. His walkie-talkie fell to the carpet. I snaked my right hand behind him and grabbed his wrist tightly. Then I yanked his right wrist up and back into a chicken wing. At the same time, with my left hand I shoved his head forward, cracking his forehead into the solid mahogany of the doorframe. Hard.

He sagged in my arms.

I took his gun and set him down on the carpet, facedown. He was out.

There were no security cameras in the executive suite, I’d noticed. For reasons of executive privacy, probably.

So his colleagues in the back office hadn’t seen what I’d just done to the man.

I grabbed his walkie-talkie, pressed transmit, and said, “Disregard my last. The guy had the wrong building. He’s leaving. Out.”

Quickly, I went to Dr. Scavolini’s desk. The light on the little device was still red, meaning it was in the middle of copying, but I couldn’t wait here any longer. I unplugged it from Scavolini’s laptop. Gathered the USB hub and the black credit-card-size drive, and put everything in my messenger bag.

Closing the door behind me, I raced for the elevator and punched the button.

The elevator doors opened on the freight entrance, the dark garage, lit dimly by low emergency lights. To my right was the entrance to the clinic. I glanced at my watch. No one would come into the clinic bedroom, I was sure, until six in the morning. Early, but not thumb-in-your-eye early. So no one would notice I was gone until then. Probably.

Then they’d find my discarded pH probe, slick with gel or whatever, and an empty bed. But by then I would be long gone. Maybe they’d conclude I had freaked out about that damn probe dangling down in my stomach and called it quits.

The best way out was through the loading dock exit, which was probably locked from the outside, not from the inside. Closed-circuit cameras in here, probably monitored by some security guy in another part of the building. Maybe they’d be watching, on alert. Maybe the guy who’d come to intercept me had informed the watchers in the monitoring station.

Or maybe not.

I walked through the gasoline-smelling loading dock, quickly but not too quickly, along the concrete apron to the right of the first vehicle bay, which was being used as a truck servicing area. The asphalt floor gleamed with motor oil. Past a pallet of wooden crates, five trash bins, a pile of cardboard boxes, past the closed door to the loading dock manager’s office. A couple of dollies and a hand truck.

Down a short set of concrete steps. Past an electric forklift.

To the exit door, which opened easily, and I was outside in the cool air.

But I was not alone.