House on Fire

69

“I want the Tallinn study,” I said.

“I don’t— That was on a portal that’s been shut down. I never kept a copy. I wasn’t allowed to.”

I was afraid he’d say that. Another strikeout.

But I wasn’t done with him. “One more thing,” I said.

A quick stroll through the hotel confirmed that Conrad Kimball was staying, of course, in the presidential suite, on the third floor. Room 322. Which was on the other side of the building from the suite Sukie and I were in. I walked along the third-floor corridors, noted the room numbers on either side of the presidential suite, outside of which a security guard was sitting, even when the old man wasn’t there. In short order I had a fairly good mental map of the main resort building.

I glanced at my watch. I had to keep track of time, because I didn’t have much of it. I had until Conrad Kimball finished his dinner. Which could be forty-five minutes, or it could be longer. Or it could be less.

Back in Sukie’s suite, I called room service.

“Yes Mr.... Kimball?”

“I’m doing a surprise birthday celebration for Megan Kimball. I’m going to want a bottle of Dom Pérignon, if you have it, delivered to her room — actually, I forgot her room number, I believe it was room three oh—”

“Ms. Megan is in room two-twenty,” the woman said.

“Two-twenty, right. One bottle of Dom Pérignon to— No, actually, you know what, deliver it to my room and we’ll bring it to her directly. Yeah, let’s do that. Thank you.”

Room 220 was, unfortunately, on the floor below the presidential suite. But I could work with that. It was directly below, which was useful. Now all I needed was a key to 220. I changed into a pair of jeans and sneakers, a small backpack slung over my shoulder, and went down to the front desk, where I noticed with relief that the shift had changed. The woman with the dreadlocks and the orange-sherbet blouse from this afternoon was gone. In her place was another woman, chubby with a spray of freckles across her dark face.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I’m such an idiot, but I left my key in my room. It’s under my wife’s name, Megan Kimball in Room 220?”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “Could I bother you for a driver’s license?”

I patted the side pockets of my jeans. Shook my head.

She smiled. “No worries.”

She tapped at her keyboard and put a plastic blank into the machine, then handed it to me.

“Thank you,” I said.

I knew that Megan Kimball was at dinner in the restaurant, sitting at her father’s table. That meant there was no one in her room. I took the elevator to the second floor and found 220. Stood for a moment outside the door, listening. Then I tapped my key card against the sensor. The green light clicked on, and I pushed open the door.

Room 220 was a suite, the same size as Sukie’s. I knew its layout already. I noted the sliding glass doors to the balcony off the living room. The floor-length drapes were half drawn. A crescent moon suspended in the dark sky shone watery light into the room.

And then I heard an electronic beep and the room door coming open.

I slipped behind the drapes and tucked my body in against the glass of the window. Was it housekeeping, with the evening turndown service? At night they would probably draw the drapes all the way. I stood there breathing silently and then heard a woman’s voice saying, “Lactaid, Lactaid, Lactaid.”

It was Megan. She’d forgotten something.

I waited. If she decided to pull open the drapes, or close them, I’d be caught. It would not be easy for me to explain what I was doing in her room. Hiding behind the drapery.

About another minute went by, and then I heard the door shut again. She had probably just left, though I couldn’t be sure. I waited for another full minute and then emerged from behind the drapes.

She wasn’t there.

I’d left the black backpack on the floor a few feet away. Had she come into the living room she would surely have noticed it.

I grabbed the backpack, slung it over my right shoulder, and returned to the balcony. Slid open the glass doors. The air outside was noticeably warmer than the air-cooled inside. The water was a thousand feet away, down a gentle sandy slope, but at night it seemed closer. A soft breeze was blowing. Then I looked up and saw the balcony of the room directly above: the presidential suite.

Less than ten feet above my head, but more than I could reach, even if I jumped. From the backpack I took out a nylon rappelling rope and all the rest of the equipment: some carabiners, a waist harness, and a titanium overhead anchor, proof tested to twenty-two hundred pounds. I’d set it all up in advance in Sukie’s suite. I tossed the anchor up, and on the second try it hooked over the steel railing on the balcony above with a metallic clang.

I waited a moment, just to make sure that sound hadn’t been heard within the presidential suite — if anyone was in there, which I doubted. Conrad, I knew, was downstairs in the restaurant.

Sliding the ascender up the rope, I stood up and then moved the second ascender. With two healthy pulls, I was hanging on the rope, dangling up in the air, nearly level with the balcony railing. Now I was looking directly into the presidential suite, into a room with a large table. I grabbed the railing and swung my legs over, landing on the balcony.

As far as I could tell, I hadn’t been seen by anyone on the ground. I decided to leave the rope in place. It was risky, but it was my only way out of there. I couldn’t leave the presidential suite through its front door, outside of which sat the security guard.

There was a good chance, I knew, that the sliding doors here might be locked. That would have been unfortunate.

I would have had to climb down and abandon the plan.

But they weren’t; they slid smoothly open, and I was inside.