Overfall

Sixteen

Shohei stepped outside the apartment and used his cell phone to call the office.

“Call back. Tell the office to use safe-talk,” Sam said.

Shohei did it and updated Sam.

“Our rose wants to be watered. Hair, you know. Tomorrow morning at ten forty-five A.M. Oh, and she has little afterthought. She wants to stop for espionage at the Carter Building.”

“Carl Fielding. Physics guy. He’s good. I’d use him. John Weissman would be better. If we say no, she’ll be pissed?”

“You got that right.”

Sam seemed to pause to think. “Let her go to the Carter Building. Same with the hair appointment. I’m sure Gwen is still her hairstylist. She’s nearby. Try to find out what these shadows are about.”

“Hey, Boss, you pretty good. How you know about Gwen?”

The door to the apartment opened. It was Anna. “Is that Sam?”

“Yes.”

“I’d like to speak with him when you’re finished.”

“Sam, you hear that?”

“Put her on.”

Anna took the phone and headed back inside.

“Wait,” Shohei said, “if you go inside, then you go in bathroom to talk away from any window.”

“Why?”

“Parabolic mike. Window is big eardrum.”

“Jeez, unbelievable.”

Anna’s bathroom was large and included a small sitting area.

“How are you doing?” she said as she sat down in her soft-cushioned wicker chair.

“I’m doing well. Are you behaving yourself?”

“Of course. What is our plan for Jason? I spoke with Roberto and he’s giving me the creeps. Bad.”

“We’re gathering information. We’re working on making an ally of Grady. I want to go get Jason and take him to another doctor but it takes planning. I need some Canadians with old ties to law enforcement to go in with me. I also need to make progress with Grady. Plus we have to line up a good shrink. It’s all coming together and there are a lot of good minds at work.”

“I haven’t officially hired you.”

“We’ll work out the contract soon.”

“Okay, well, it’s hard to wait I really want to get Jason to a doctor. Our doctor. So how is Grady doing?”

“Fighting. When they argue and tell you to get a life, you know there’s hope.”

“I see. A scream is better than a yawn.”

“Exactly. And how are you doing?”

“Fine. I’m sure Shohei just told you that I need to go out.”

“Gwen could come to your house.”

“How did you know that? Did Shohei tell you?”

“No. It’s my business to know.”

“It irritates me that you can find this out so easily.”

“Who said it was easy?”

She made a conscious effort to restrain herself. “Do you know anything more about what Grace is up to?”

“I pushed a contact at Interpol and got him to tell me the dark side of Grace Technologies. It is linked in some as yet indiscernible way, they think, with an international arms dealer.”

“And what does that tell us?”

“Well, people like that are willing to break the law in big ways, and you really hate to find out that you are dealing with them. They tend to be dangerous.”

“So what do we do?”

“We try to be careful and not get shot.”

“I need to tell you something,” she said. “I need to tell you how I got to where I am today.”

“Certainly, if you’ve waited this long, now would be a good time to tell me.”

“I had some resentment toward my father.”

“Alleged perfection is always a real bad sign.”

“When I was about nine I walked in on my mom and dad making love. Let’s just say it was graphic and not exactly conventional sex. As an adult I have no problem with it at all. In fact as an adult I would have laughed. In fact after my dad’s death my mom and I worked up the nerve to talk about it and we both laughed. But at nine it was a little bizarre. At the time it happened, my mother freaked, which probably didn’t help.

“After that day my dad never had a serious conversation with me except once; it was a rainy day under the tree in the front yard. He put his arm around me and he told me he loved me. That simple gesture and those few words were the only serious communications that I received right up until the day he died.

“All the rest of the time he only joked. Just smiley and friendly but never close, never truly warm. Never hugged me or touched me except to pat me on the head. It was like I knew something and he couldn’t wash it out of my mind. So I had leprosy or something.

“This does all relate to my brother but you have to be patient. When I was twenty my brother was married to Sydney. One day she comes over to the apartment. It was Saturday and I was cleaning up my room and trying to clean up the rest of the apartment that I shared with two other girls. It’s kind of my ritual.

“About midmorning Sydney was ushered in by a roommate. Sydney’s makeup had been running and she looked bad. We had this conversation. ‘Jason is seeing another woman,’ she said. She tells me she found jewelry under their bed. After being with her mother on a visit, Sydney came home to discover the jewelry. I pointed out that it didn’t prove anything, but at the same time I had this sinking feeling. And I hate to say it, but burned into my brain was the idea that my dad was, you know, oversexed or something. It was crazy, but I thought, oh, yeah, a chip off the old block. Then she tells me she found cocaine in his pants. Grady is only three and he was watching her and I freak out.

“Sydney made up an excuse to leave town, but hid her car and came to my place. Right in the middle of school and work when I had things to do fourteen hours a day, I faked an illness and we took turns watching Grady and following Jason.

“At that time part of Jason’s work was in conjunction with a molecular biology lab associated with the university. Often he went to the lab for conferences although his regular office was at the university. On a beautiful Saturday afternoon I was following Jason when he walked to the lab but did not go in. Outside he met a young woman who looked like a student. I figured a graduate student. Although the woman was no knockout, she was slim and not bad-looking.

“Scared to death he’d catch me, but determined, I followed them to a condominium. They walked into the complex and with all the corners, it was hard to follow. Near the swimming pool they disappeared. I was pretty sure they must have gone inside one of the units fronting the pool, but couldn’t be positive. It proved nothing, but two days later Sydney reported that Jason had gone to the condo with a woman matching the description and hadn’t come out for two hours.

“Thereafter Sydney showed up at my apartment with a bruised face, the result, she said, of a fight with Jason. She had confronted him. There was some counseling, but a divorce followed and I took Sydney’s side. I was convinced that Jason was a cocaine-using wife-beating two-timer. There was a divorce and then we had the custody battle. Jason’s money paid for both sides. It got very ugly and I was desperate to win. It had almost become my fight; I was pushing Sydney.

“God, I hate to say it but I saw my dad in Jason and I just fought like a junkyard dog. Even Sydney, I think, was feeling driven by me. I remembered every bad thing about Jason that I could, and I used whatever charm I had on that judge and we beat Jason until he gave up. I never personally asked him about the coke or the girl or the beating. In court he said it wasn’t true and I just knew he was a lying SOB. Once he tried to call me in the middle of it all, and he tried to stop me on the sidewalk. Both times I told him to go to hell. Now for the really ugly part.

“After Jason went to France he called me. I had just gotten my first really big checks from User Friendly. I had money. And this is the part I really hate myself for…” She choked but composed herself.

Sam was smart enough not to comment. He just waited in silence.

She cleared her throat. “Anyway, he calls and says that he’s having some mental issues. And I just told him to quit snorting coke and he’d feel better. Then I hung up. Right after that he got treatment of some sort, from Chellis Labs, and then went off to Canada and I never heard from him again. But his call really bothered me. I think I waited a week and then I went off to see Sydney in California. By this time I was mostly living in Manhattan, although I was spending a lot of time in LA so that I could be with Grady. This was back when Grady liked me.

“Anyway, I talked with Sydney and she was kind of ticked that I was bringing it all back up again. And she started reminding me that we had Grady and that was the important thing. She reminded me that we had fought for Grady. Why did we have to rehash the past? So really my questions about the coke and her story about the beating went unanswered except in the most general way.

“Then things went along fine for a while. At the ripe old age of fifteen Grady got her first boyfriend. She thought it was serious. Sydney and I were determined that Grady was too young, and she was, and we determined that we were going to break it up, and we did. Grady has the strongest will of any child I have ever known. The apple of my eye, my little honey, turned into a tigress. Since she didn’t want to hate her mother, she sent it all my way. Every ounce of it.

“Soon thereafter, when Grady was sixteen, Sydney was in a really bad car accident with a drunk who ran an intersection. We thought she might die, but she didn’t. I went to see her when she was really bad, and she begged my forgiveness and told me she had lied about Jason. He had been talking about moving to France and it scared her. She knew there would be a divorce and was desperate to get Grady.

“While Sydney was convalescing, Grady begged her mother to place her with her Aunt Lynn. Lynn was what Grady wanted because Lynn worked, wanted the money that went with keeping Grady, and meant well, but had no time. So Grady lived as though she were eighteen when she was sixteen. And I lost her. It broke my heart, but I understood Sydney giving in to Grady.

“With Sydney’s revelation I went after my brother and began visiting regularly and here we are today.”

“Quite a story,” Sam said.

“You’re not going to go over how stupid I was, are you?”

“Lectures? Nope. I’m the guy who got his son killed.”

For one of the first times in her life, Grady wasn’t sure what she should do. A full day and night had passed since she had spoken with Guy. Her trainers had announced a twenty-minute break, during which Grady was to pee, think, and, as Spring put it, find her center of gravity. Spring, like Sam, was a force to be reckoned with.

Grady had only twelve more minutes in her bedroom alone. She closed her eyes and picked up the phone, determined to call Guy.

“Grady?” A knock at the door. It was Spring.

She put the receiver back. “Yeah?”

Spring opened the door, looking partly stern, a little sad, and slightly amused. Jill was with her.

“Why did you have to go and blow the rest of your time?” Jill asked. “Now it’s another one-hour run. Why don’t you tell me what you are doing? Don’t lie to me.”

“I was trying to make a call.”

“To whom?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“Okay. Well, you know the rules. No calls until we have an agreement about calls.”

“And when does that happen?”

“When we trust each other,” Spring put in.

“That could be a long time.”

“That thought had occurred to us,” Jill said. “Now start your run.”

Devan Gaudet sat in the back of a dark-windowed van down the street from the Carter Building. The leaves were not yet showing autumn color, but the women were cloaking themselves for the season, and watching them was enthralling. They had style, and an aloof self-assurance that he found sensual.

An hour earlier he had seen a man named Shohei lurking around the apartment of Anna Wade. Shohei was a world-class bodyguard who sometimes worked for the man he knew only as Sam, a figure who was more apparition than man, hidden behind a cloud of emissaries, agents, and collaborators. This confirmed his hunch about the “Sam” who had found Anna Wade in the waters of British Columbia.

Had he been sure that Anna was involved with this man, he would have raised his price. When he last crossed paths with Sam he had nearly been caught, which meant that he had nearly failed in his mission. Having to move quickly made this one an especially challenging job.

For once the regular gumshoes rounded up by Chellis had been useful, setting up first-class electronic surveillance from across the street.

What he was doing now was risky and he knew it, far more complicated than simply killing her. In the new America there were more police, and the slightest hint of terrorism would bring in an army. Laws had changed and the American police had many more surveillance powers and greater numbers and were increasingly wary.

He stepped out of the van wearing gabardine slacks, a white shirt, and a name tag that said BRICKRIDGE TECHNICAL SERVICES. He carried a briefcase, a cell phone, and two pens. Salt-and-pepper gray hair and a neatly trimmed beard along with gold wire-rimmed glasses gave him the look of a college professor. Inside the Carter Building he took the elevator to the fifty-ninth floor.

After a quick survey of the hallways, he proceeded to the roof. The helicopter was no surprise; the people he was dealing with were far too clever to allow themselves to be trapped at the top of a high-rise. According to his sources this was the only office building in Manhattan on which a helicopter could be landed and it required a special permit. Quickly he moved back downstairs and entered the offices of Dyna Science Corp.

He greeted the receptionist who sat behind a large built-in island that looked like a breakfast bar in a modern kitchen. He smiled and showed her his name tag, while she transferred a call.

“Super sent us up here. We’re checking for spores. Stachybachus. There were some complaints on the fifty-ninth. I’ll just be taking some dust samples.”

“Spores?”

“Yes. If overly abundant they can cause a significant health risk. But we can fix it, even if the concentrations are high.”

“Well, that’s good to know,” said the young woman, a blonde with wonderful skin. She also had a name tag. Virtually everyone had a name tag these days.

The phone beeped quietly and she spoke into the headset.

He opened the briefcase and removed a tiny vacuum machine utilized in the collection of dust samples from carpets.

“Maybe I could just take a sample from under here,” he said, coming around behind the island. She looked slightly dismayed at having a man crawling around near her legs, but soon got caught up in another call. He pressed a small microphone onto the underside of her desk. It stuck on contact.

He went down the hall to the rest room, where he entered a stall and set up shop. From his briefcase he removed a Beretta semiautomatic with a silencer already affixed. Next he installed an earpiece and commenced the tedious job of listening to the receptionist. It was a full twenty minutes before he heard the serious-sounding male voice of Dr. John Weissman.

He placed the pistol in the briefcase and exited the rest room.

Alder leaves of yellow and mustard brown were strewn in the trail and the wet had matted them like carp scales, making the forest run almost quiet save for the wet thud of tennis shoes and the raspy breaths of tired lungs. Jill and Grady broke out of the park and onto a three-cornered beachfront road where a group of small shops attracted tourists.

“I’m going to use the rest room,” Jill said. “You be good.”

Grady saluted, and after Jill had disappeared into the ladies’ room she trotted to a nearby phone booth, punched in the number of Guy’s cell phone, and used her calling card number to make the connection.

“Hey,” she said when he answered.

“Where are you?”

“Way up the coast. Near Carmel, I think, maybe Big Sur. There aren’t any signs right here.”

“Are they holding you against your will?”

“I can leave any time I want. I’m okay. It’s rough but I’m okay. I could really use a hit but I guess that’s the whole point. Look, any second my keeper will be coming out of the can, and if she sees me I’m toast. So I just called to say I’m fine and I’ll call for a real talk as soon as I can.”

“Take your time. I know you’re working through things but I do love to hear your voice. You need to let me know where you are, just in case.”

She set the receiver in the cradle, knowing she could easily be caught. Then she ran toward the rest room door to put distance between herself and the offending paraphernalia. After a few strides Jill came out.

“Were you at the booth?”

Grady hesitated. For reasons she couldn’t get hold of she felt very uncertain about her response.

Jill stepped close and put a hand on Grady’s neck, then put her head next to Grady’s head as if they were huddling.

“Look, I’m starting to like you. Don’t let me do that if you’re going to disappoint me.”

For a moment Jill said nothing more. Grady figured she could be forgiven this one transgression. It was, after all, a nothing telephone call and unworthy of one of their foul punishments.

“You’re a druggie,” Jill began again, “and I know you probably still think like one-keeping that connection going with the old life. Calling your friends, telling them you miss the stuff. Come on, let’s run.”

Grady wanted to argue and explain that Guy was no druggie, but instead she put one foot in front of the other back down the trail with a half hour to go, too tired to lie or fight.

Seventeen

Anna sat in the limousine facing backward, as did Shohei. She wore a simple turtleneck sweater, a St. John knit given her by a fatally injured girl whose last wish was to meet Anna Wade. “Who would have ever thought that Shohei would sit on a seat with Anna Wade?” Shohei said.

“I don’t think it’s really such a big deal, Shohei. Wardy Long sat beside me, held my hand, and tried to propose before he threw up in my lap, and now he works in a correctional center making license plates.”

Shohei laughed and nodded. “Okay if I be impressed anyway?”

As they pulled to a stop, Shohei pointed. “Look at that guy over there.”

Anna peered through the tinted glass window at a wide-shouldered figure in a panama hat leaning against the concrete. His arms, neck, and chest filled out his leather coat. Sunglasses dangled from the open neck of the coat as if he expected the sun to shine. She looked closer, trying to discern the face under the shadow of the hat, and suddenly realized that it was Sam puffing on a cigar.

Without even thinking about the men who had been following she opened the door, jumped out, and confronted him.

“You son of a bitch.”

“Hello to you too. Shall we go up?” Sam asked.

“Where the hell did you come from?”

“California.”

“Sam, don’t give me a hard time.”

Maddeningly he took her arm and started walking toward the entry. Not knowing what else to do, she walked beside him, Shohei trailing. They walked briskly along the sidewalk to the entry level of the building. They entered a large lobby several stories high and hundreds of feet across.

From nowhere two men appeared in the lobby, escorting them to the elevators.

Instinctively she looked back to the front door, saw several men exiting a dark sedan on the street.

“Are they the ones? In that dark-looking car?”

“Probably, but don’t look at them.”

“Why are they following me?”

“Maybe they have personal business in the building, like you and me.”

“What floor are you going to?” she asked.

“I’m going to fifty-nine.”

“And I suppose by some marvelous coincidence you’re going to Dyna Science Corp,” she said.

“I can’t believe it. Is that where you’re going too?”

“Sam, I have a private meeting.”

“Oh, absolutely. So do I.”

“Who are you meeting?”

“Dr. John Weissman.”

“Well, I’m meeting somebody else.”

“Whose name is?”

“I’m sure you already know.”

Sam pushed the button for the fifty-first floor.

“Why are we doing this?” Anna asked.

“Fool the followers. A little-distraction-never hurts.”

They stopped at the fifty-first floor and exited.

“Now what?” Anna said.

“The stairs.”

They climbed eight flights to the fifty-ninth. By the last stair her thighs and calves were burning. She knew Sam was watching her and she could detect the mirth at the corners of his mouth. As far as she could tell he was completely unfazed by the fast climb.

According to the placard as they exited the stairs, the floor was occupied by Dyna Science Corp. Even the hall outside the offices was elegant with blue red-trimmed carpets, wall tables with blue vases, some paintings of the neoclassical period, and the occasional chair. Everything picked up on the blue and red, whether by echo or contrast.

“I want to attend to my business alone.”

“Okay. We’ll all wait inside in the lobby.”

“I’d prefer you wait here.”

“Okay,” he said, but continued walking toward the door.

“You said okay.”

“Okay, I understand you want me to wait out here.”

“So you’re refusing to wait out here.”

“Why would I wait out here?”

“To respect my privacy. To allow me to attend to my business uninterrupted.”

“Okay.”

“Screw you,” she said, walking in the double doors with Sam and the entourage following.

“To these people I am Robert. Don’t tell them otherwise. Get behind me, eyes on your toes. Leave your hat and sunglasses on no matter how dumb it feels,” Sam said in her ear. Instantly she took off her sunglasses and her hat and turned to look Sam in the eye, radiating her displeasure. Then she gave the receptionist her best infectious smile.

“Good morning. I’m here to see Dr. Carl Fielding.”

The receptionist’s face lit up. “Anna Wade. How exciting to meet you. They told me Anastasia Wade, not the Anna Wade.”

“Robert,” the receptionist said, still looking at Anna but talking to Sam. “Look at who you’ve brought us.”

“Quite an event, huh?” Sam said.

“It’s very nice to meet you, May,” Anna said. “You’ve got a great place here and I’ll bet that is your daughter?” Anna looked at a small picture on the woman’s desk.

“She’s my pride and joy.”

“She looks to be at that age where everything is exciting.”

“That’s so true.”

“What grade is she?”

“She’s in the second grade.”

“Well, give her an extra hug for me, would you?”

“I will. And I know you’re here to see the professor.”

“Dr. Carl Fielding. I’m wondering where I might find him.”

“Well, I was about to say that Dr. Fielding is not here but he suggested you see Dr. John Weissman. Who also has an appointment with Robert.”

“This Robert?” Anna asked.

“Well, yes. That’s our only Robert.”

“This is Sam,” Anna said.

“Nickname,” Sam said. “We just need one of the small conference rooms for twenty minutes. That’s it.”

“Okay, let’s see. Two-B. And it’s open for the next two hours.”

“Great. Anna and I will be in the guest office for a couple of minutes if you could get that call going for me.”

May nodded.

“We’ll be right back.” Sam led Anna toward a small office off the lobby. Anna knew how to allow her publicist and agent to handle her and her activities when she so desired. Sometimes it was easier to think about her work and not sweat the details. But right here, right now she wasn’t going to be handled. She stopped and turned to May.

“May, did Carl Fielding actually speak with you when he left a message for me?” Anna said.

“Yes. like I said, he suggested you see Dr. Weissman.”

“I see.” She turned to Sam. “Somehow this was your doing.”

“Only partly,” he said. “We can clear this up in this office if you’ll just come and listen.” This time she allowed herself to be ushered inside. Sam closed the door. “Dr. Weissman is the guy.”

“And why are you the one to determine that?”

“Good point. How would you like to decide this?”

“I thought I was doing okay.”

Sam stuck his head out the door. “May, is Dr. Fielding on the line yet?”

“Just coming, I’ll patch him through.”

Sam put a phone in Anna’s hand.

“You spoke with my ex-husband, Joshua Nash?” she asked Dr. Fielding, by way of introduction.

“I did indeed. I assume we’re talking about Jason Wade’s work?”

“Yes. I understood you would meet me.”

“Yes. I’m so sorry if I disappointed you by not being there. Dr. Weissman and I have been friends since graduate school. He would be most familiar with Jason’s work. We don’t really have a handle on all that Jason is doing, but I could do you no better than John. I would have been there today but I’m teaching this quarter and I’m a little strapped at the moment.”

“Well, thank you very much, Dr. Fielding. You’ve been very helpful.”

“If you need anything else…”

“We’ll let you know.”

“So who do you choose?” Sam asked Anna after she had replaced the receiver. “Will John fit the bill? He’s Carl’s man.”

“Carl’s or yours?”

“You talked to Carl.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me all this?”

Sam shrugged. “I knew you’d overlook any unintended slight.”

“Let’s go talk with Dr. Weissman,” she said.

“If that’s your choice I can live with it.”

John Weissman was a tall balding man with a confident smile and a fringe of once-blond hair. Sam immediately pulled the curtain over the interior glass wall of the conference room, giving them privacy from reception.

“Sam tells me that you would know more about Jason’s work than Carl Fielding.”

“He’s probably right, as far as I can tell,” John said. “Based on what little we know of Jason’s work, that is. If this is about the modeling Jason’s doing with the neurology people-trying to model consciousness-I don’t think anybody understands it.”

“Well, whatever my brother is working on,” Anna said, “he insisted I take this disk. I have no idea what’s on it.”

“Well, we can take a look and see what’s there, at least generally. Now why is it he gave this to you?”

“I’m not sure, but I’m sure it’s highly confidential.”

“I will say nothing. This will be a personal matter, just between us.”

Anna removed the CD from her purse, now in a Bob Dylan jewel box, and handed it to Dr. Weissman.

At that moment Shohei came in unannounced.

When Jill and Spring went to town to shop, Grady was too savvy to use the phone in the beach house. They had taken her cell phone.

As she considered how she might call Guy, she spied two young men walking onto the back patio of the neighboring beach house, obviously contemplating the barbecue and carrying a large piece of red meat.

She would ask for a quick ride to the nearest store, use the phone booth.

“Hi, guys,” she said easily with a good solid smile.

“Hi. I’m Clint. This is Seth.”

“I wondered if I could impose on you to give me a ride to that store down the road. I want to get some orange juice.”

“Yeah.”

“Sure,” Seth followed up.

“Who is the guy who brought you here?” Clint asked on the way to the store.

“You were watching?”

“We just got here ourselves and saw the Porsche.”

“You should see his other car.” In some detail she described the Vette.

“Who is this guy?”

“I don’t know. He was hired by Anna Wade, my aunt.”

“You don’t mean the Anna Wade? Not the movie star Anna Wade?”

“That would be who I mean.”

“You’re kidding!”

“Relax, fellas. I don’t even speak to her.”

When they got to the store she managed to send Clint and Seth to find a patio hummingbird feeder, a marvelous excuse that came to her as they were driving. She went to the phone booth with her enthusiasm mysteriously drained.

“I’m still in the program. I’m doing great. Still can’t talk long.”

“Where the hell are you?” asked Guy.

“I told you, California coast somewhere.” It amazed her that she was lying and she wasn’t certain why.

“I want to see you.”

“Keep your shirt on and you will. Right now you have to give me a little space to do the program, that’s all.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you that a little snort won’t fix.” His voice was strong with an edge and quite different.

“I’m not sure that’s true.”

“Yeah, well, you’re probably right. Hey, I miss you. I love you. I’d just feel so much better if I knew where you were.”

“I know. I’ll call soon.”

“They are now two floors below. Temporarily confused, I’m sure. And not too subtle in their searching,” Shohei said.

“Go,” Sam said.

“What’s happening?” Anna said.

“This is the part where you were to have kept on the hat and the sunglasses and let me do the talking so May wouldn’t have a clue that the Anna Wade was here.”

“Well, I didn’t do that. So how about plan B?”

Sam took out a radio. “Grubb in, Scott in,” he said.

Sam looked at her, then at John. “If you want to escape what might conceivably be a serious risk of death or injury, you should do exactly as I say.”

Seconds later one of her escorts from downstairs, a large black man in a suit looking like a linebacker on steroids, came through the door, followed by a leaner fellow nearly as tall and sporting a platinum-blond crew cut. Even in the loose-fitting suits it must have been an effort for the men’s tailors to contain the muscle.

“One in. One out. Anybody strange comes that May doesn’t know, stop them-whatever it takes, exclusive of shooting, unless they use heat first. Then kill them. Grubb,” he said, addressing the black man, “why don’t you stand out front? You make a good red flag.

“Anna and John, come with me.”

Anna and John followed Sam out the door and down the hall, away from reception. Sam was watching May, as if to make sure that she didn’t see which way they were headed. Glancing back, Anna saw Grubb take a position outside the conference room door with one hand in his suit jacket.

Offices lined the outer wall, each simple and fairly small. To their left were cubicles with four-foot dividers and the usual array of baby and spouse pictures, grade-school artwork, and the typical postings of office humor.

People were moving past them through the hall, looking busy and distracted.

They stopped at an empty office with the placard announcing Norman Rawles and went inside.

Sam closed the door. “I told you I hoped this wouldn’t happen, John, and I’m sorry. But it’s probably a little safer for you on the roof with us. On the other hand they will expect that you are there. What’s best for the safety of this data is for you to use the computer in this office to upload it to your computer at the university.”

“I can do that. Hopefully they have a fast pipe here to the Internet.”

“It’s a couple of T-ones,” Sam said.

“I’ll do it.”

Sam called a woman named Olivia and got a password that would access the computer. “John, you are Norman Rawles until I call and tell you otherwise. Close and lock the door. Leave the blinds open. Start the download, put your feet on the desk, and call the police. Tell them that you have reason to believe a robbery is in progress. If you hear shooting call them again and let them know about the guns. Don’t come out for anything. After the download is complete, hide that CD in a drawer or the computer. Don’t take it out until you leave. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Look natural and absentminded, like you haven’t a care in the world. Come on, Anna.”

At the end of the hall a placard announced the offices of one Oscar Feldman, obviously an executive.

Sam and Anna walked in. “Head down, hat on, and stay behind me,” he said.

Oscar, a balding man with black bushy brows, barely had time to open his mouth in surprise. Sam bee-lined for a back door that led to a hallway with rest rooms and janitorial and utility rooms. They came to a plainly marked door with a green sign that said ROOF-HELIPORT. Through this door they came to another hall, which led to a set of stairs.

“You’ve been here before.”

“Yes.”

“I thought it was illegal to land helicopters on rooftops in Manhattan.”

“It is. But this building has always had one and if you know the right Feds you can get a permit. Cost me a big favor, though.”

As they climbed the stairs, Shohei fell in behind them. On the roof waited a large, white Bell jet ranger helicopter.

Sam paused, turned to Shohei. “It was supposed to be a twin engine.”

Shohei shrugged. “I don’t know how they screwed it up.”

“I never put my clients in a single-engine anything. We’re not going.”

Shohei appeared surprised but nodded agreement.

“Tell the pilots to leave or stay; their choice. Tell them there is danger.”

Shohei ran to the chopper. Anna studied Sam, who frowned and studied the roof.

She let her eyes follow his. Well out of rotor range, the roof accommodated the house over the stairwell, an elevator room, a storage room, and beyond these a lounging area complete with a planter box garden. The patio furniture was bolted down.

The helicopter began to make a loud whining.

“Now what?” she said above the din. “How do we get out of here?”

Sam handed his radio to Shohei. “You might want to tell Scott and Grubb to follow those guys up here.”

Just then the chopper lifted off, climbing steeply and away from the building. Perhaps three hundred yards from the building the jet engine skipped horribly, went silent, and the bird dropped with its rotors nearly motionless. A loud crash came from the street level a quarter mile or more distant.

“Come on, come on,” Sam said to a stunned Anna. “I need your shoes.” She looked bewildered but took them off. Inside the utility building in the far corner, Sam found a green tarp and some sacks of fertilizer and vermiculite for the potted flowers. Turning the shoes upside down to create the appearance of someone kneeling, he jammed the heels under the bags and allowed the very tips of the soles at the toe end to protrude from under the tarp. With the tarp over the bags it was a powerful and convincing illusion.

“Sam, what are you doing?” He was rummaging through some tools; he pulled out a big wrench.

“Stay here,” Sam said, walking out the door to the elevator building. Sam used the wrench to break off the door handle with one big whack. The building was a mechanical room for the elevator motor, the cables, and assorted equipment.

Sam returned and grabbed a ladder from against the wall.

“Crawl up on the shelf,” he said.

“What are you gonna do?” she asked as she climbed.

“I’m going to invite some gentleman to beat me up. We hope it will be a form of aversion therapy. Shohei will be right here and he will make sure that nobody hurts you.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Self-defense is the only way we can legally break their body parts.”