The Breach

CHAPTER NINE

Darkness over LaGuardia. Dawn at the horizon, cherry red like a heated wire. Karl watched the world come to life, the hotel room dark around him. His reflection in the windowpane, side lit by the bathroom light, stared back with its visible eye blue and cold.

Twenty-five minutes to takeoff. He had all the time in the world. Nobody would make him wait in line.

Not when he was wearing the suit.

It lay in two halves on the chair beside him. He felt for the bottom half, found it, sat on the bed and pulled it over his jeans until he felt the built-in feet, like the feet of a child's pajamas, snug tightly around his shoes. He found the shoulder straps and secured them. He reached for the chair again, felt for the suit's top half, and slipped it on as he stood. He smoothed its long hem, which overlapped the waist of the bottom half by a foot or more. The material, so unlike anything else he'd ever worn, was hard to get used to, even after all his experience with it. It felt like spandex in a way, matching every dimension of his six-foot frame, but at the same time it seemed almost relaxed. At least, relaxed was the closest term he had for it. It was also breathable like the screen of a tent, and nearly weightless. On a previous occasion he'd worn it for more than forty-eight hours straight without any discomfort, even from the portions that covered his hands and head. Though he'd never asked his employers about it-not that they knew any better than him how the thing worked, considering where it had come from-he felt sure that the suit's perfect fit resulted from some narrow intelligence of the material itself. Even now he felt the suit taking the shape of his body until he could hardly tell he was wearing it. It would not be surprising, of course, to learn that the suit had intelligence built into it. It would also not be its most impressive attribute. Not by a long shot.

Karl checked the peephole, saw that the hallway was clear, and left the room. He passed by the elevator bank, opting for the stairwell-elevators were a no-no, of course. Five flights down, he put his face to the little window in the door that accessed the lobby. It was empty except for two girls at the front desk, thirty feet away.

Walking out in front of them was not ideal, but protocol allowed it given that there was no easier option. He pushed the door open and stepped out. As he had expected, both girls glanced up at the opening door, expressions casual and then perplexed, trading looks now. As Karl passed directly in front of them, their eyes stayed on the door, falling shut far behind him with a light thud.

"Um… okay," the older girl said.

The other shook her head and went back to her half-finished sudoku puzzle.

Karl could leave by the main exit, right in front of them, but because he had another choice this time-it would take less than a minute to reach the back door, around the corner and down the hall-protocol demanded that he take it. Really, the rules governing the use of the suit boiled down to three words: don't fuck around.

He reached the rear exit and, quite alone, shoved it open and strode into the chilly New York morning.

Traffic on the Grand Central Parkway was heavy enough to merit caution, even at this hour. He waited for his chance, then sprinted across all five eastbound lanes at once. A moment later he'd crossed the other half, scaled the fence, and was out on the open sweep of LaGuardia, the terminals and airliners silhouetted against the red eastern sky like an alien fortress.

He walked across Runway Four, two access roads, and rounded the Central Terminal Building to the nearest entrance to Concourse D.

Outside the sliding door, he waited; its electric eye could no more see him than could the sleepy rent-a-cop standing a few feet to the side. No matter-caution would have demanded that he wait for someone else to trigger the door anyway. Airports were no places to start getting overconfident. No places to fuck around.

He waited only thirty seconds before a weary-looking businessman got out of a cab and lumbered through the entrance. He followed the man inside, broke left and made his way past the sparse lines of early travelers at the baggage check. From here on in, everything was easy. The security checkpoint, a farce even without the suit, was reduced to something like a kindergarten obstacle course. He stepped onto the raised barrier that boxed in the metal detector lanes on the left, and simply walked past the entire charade, stepping back down to the floor twenty feet beyond.

The concourse itself would have presented a challenge had it been busier. Crowds, even moderate ones, were a logistical nightmare; people would walk right into him if he wasn't careful. At this hour, however, the wide, open passageway was mostly empty, save for the clot around Gate D7 far ahead, his destination.

When he reached it, he paused for a long while, studying the layout of the crowd. Where to stand? Not here, certainly. People would be coming and going in both directions, and the movements of those already camped here would be unpredictable. Worse, two little kids were chasing each other around, their mother, absorbed in a paperback, giving them only an occasional half-assed admonition to sit down.

The prime spot was obvious: right beside the jetway door, beyond the attendant's stand. Karl skirted the crowd at a comfortable distance, ducked the stanchion barrier, and took his place. It wouldn't be long; the 737 was already docked outside. Beyond it, the city skyline jutted into the still dim morning like a row of teeth.

The attendant went to his microphone. "Ladies and gentlemen, Cayman Airways flight 935, nonstop service to Georgetown on Grand Cayman, is now boarding rows one through five. Rows one through five."

Another attendant opened the door, and the moment she stepped away from it, Karl moved past her and into the cool air of the jetway, moving fast now to stay well ahead of the first passengers. He paused briefly at the door to the plane, where a stewardess blocked the way. She glanced through him down the jetway, saw nobody coming just yet, and ducked back in to speak to one of her coworkers. Karl slid past her and went to the back of the plane.

On a 737, depending on its configuration, the best place to ride out the flight was almost always the aft concession storage. The tiny room was empty for much of the flight, and even when a crew member came in to take or return a cart, evasion was a simple matter of ducking into the nook beside the ice bin.

Getting off the plane, of course, would be even easier than getting on. Karl sat at the edge of the shade, five feet from the naked girl sunning herself by the pool.

By far the most interesting aspect of wearing the suit was the ability to study people when they thought they were alone. Until the first time he'd found himself in that position, it had never occurred to him what a unique perspective it could be. Ordinarily, you could never be with someone who was alone, simply by definition. You could set up a hidden camera, but it wasn't the same as being there.

Nobody ever showed outward signs of anxiety when by themselves. No one ever fidgeted, or blushed, or moved awkwardly. What a strange thing to find: everybody was cool when there was no one around to judge them.

The girl was twenty-three and heartbreakingly beautiful. Olive skin. No tan lines. Deep brown eyes and sun-faded hair. She was five-foot-two and probably not a hundred pounds soaking wet. Five minutes ago she had in fact been soaking wet. Karl had watched her remove her clothes and dive into the pool. Now the Caribbean sun had almost completely dried her. He watched the last little collection of moisture droplets evaporate from her skin in the dry heat.

Her name was Lauren Cook. Karl had learned that fact along with everything else he'd learned about her father, Ellis Cook.

Lauren had the house to herself at the moment, all fifteen thousand square feet of it, overlooking Bodden Bay and the wide, blue Caribbean to the south. There were security personnel, of course, manning the entrances and ready to storm the place at the first cry for help. They were American, and professional; Karl had taken a close look at each of them and concluded that they were ex-something impressive, a hell of a lot more impressive than cops. The house's fortifications were rounded out with thermal cameras and motion detectors, all of which might as well have been hollow decoys where Karl was concerned.

A yellow cabbage butterfly landed on Lauren's thigh. She flinched and waved her hand at it, then saw what it was and smiled, watching it corkscrew away. It flew behind Karl and, by chance, dragged Lauren's line of sight directly to meet his eyes for just a heartbeat. He felt a chill pass through him, meeting her innocent gaze. Then she sank back into her lounger and closed her eyes again.

Beyond her, the two-story house more than filled Karl's frame of vision, extending seventy feet both to his left and right. Several of the second floor windows were open above the balcony, which was easy to climb to. Karl had already done so, had already walked the rooms of the house, inspected cabinets and drawers in Ellis's bedroom, and formed his plan. It was very straightforward, no room for mistakes. Don't fuck around.

A few minutes later Lauren rose, gathered her clothes and went inside, locking the patio door behind her. Karl went to the poolside rail and gazed down at the manicured lawns, and the yachts riding at anchor in the harbor beyond. He felt bad for the girl; she didn't deserve what was coming. Though he had yet to see her interact with another soul, she had kind features and was probably a nice kid.

Well, it wasn't a nice world. Twilight over the bay. Haze had rolled in during the afternoon, and now the horizon was a blur between pink water and purple sky. Only the brightest stars shone through.

Karl watched Ellis enter the bedroom. The man walked past all three sets of balcony doors, wide open to the sea, without shooting so much as a glance through them. Why live here, then, Karl wondered.

Ellis went to his computer, switched it on, and paced while it powered up.

At the back corner of the desk were two framed photos: Lauren, and Ellis's wife. Karl had seen no evidence of the wife's presence in this house. The information provided by his superiors had indicated trouble in the marriage.

Karl reached deep inside the overlap of the suit and took hold of what he'd found in Ellis's nightstand.

Icons bloomed on the computer screen.

Ellis sat in his chair.

Karl drew the chrome-plated.45, put it to Ellis's temple and fired.

Immediately came shouts from security outside the house. Screams, too, from Lauren's room. Seconds left to finish the job.

Karl lifted Ellis's hand, wrapped the man's fingers around the pistol grip, and fired again, this time into the framed photo of Mrs. Cook. Powder burns now assured, he let both the hand and the pistol fall free. Not two seconds later the bedroom door broke in, almost off its hinges, and four security men were in the room, MP5s shouldered and covering all angles.

"Room clear."

Two broke formation, one to the master bath and another to the enormous closet.

"Bathroom clear."

"Closet clear."

Karl chose the broadest stretch of the wall, far out of the way, and simply stood. Outside in the hallway, other security men were holding Lauren back as she screamed and demanded answers. The men in the room spoke over headsets with other teams outside, locking down the grounds, though a certain calm had descended in their eyes. They could see what had happened.

Watching from the perimeter of the chaos, Karl felt his cell phone vibrate. He was expected to answer under all but the most unforgiving circumstances. These qualified.

Ten minutes later, in the lull between the security response and the arrival of local police, Karl went to the balcony, slipped over the rail and dropped to the patio. He saw two security officers just inside the living room-one of them a woman-sitting with Lauren, holding on to her and speaking softly.

He went to the far end of the patio, where a six-foot drop put him on a gentle slope to the beach.

A quarter mile up the shore road he found an empty bench, and sat. He took out his cell phone and, as expected, found a text message. RETURN TO AIRPORT, NUL CURRENT JOB IF NECESSARY. TAKE UNITED 820 TO CHICAGO, THEN UNITED 71 TO FAIRBANKS, AK. WEAPONS/INSTRUCTIONS WILL BE WAITING IN YELLOW LAND ROVER W/GREENPEACE STICKER, LONG-TERM PARKING D. THIS WILL BE DIRECT AGGRESSION AGAINST TANGENT PERSONNEL.