The Kill Clause

16

THE STORK BOBBED in the driver’s seat of the overheated Chevy rental van, peering across at the KCOM building at Roxbury and Wilshire. He’d toned down his shirt for the low-profile drive-by, but Tim still wasn’t pleased about having his distinctive mug pointed out the window. The Stork fidgeted continuously, shifting in the seat, polishing his watch face, one knuckle or another endlessly assisting his glasses on their Sisyphean climb up the barely existent bridge of his nose. He was an incessant mouth-breather, and he smelled like stale potato chips. Tim contemplated how he’d come to be here with this bald, lisping man prone to peeling sunburns and too-bright shirts.

They stared at the fifteen-story building, rising up in planes of concrete and glass to shade a bustling stretch of Beverly Hills. A window washer hung suspended from cables about a hundred feet off the ground, swaying and wiping, his silhouette standing out from the late-morning sun’s brilliant reflection off the panes. An enormous front window on the ground floor housed a panoply of plasma-screen televisions broadcasting KCOM’s current offering, a talk show exhibiting couches, ferns, and women of various ethnic backgrounds sharing a common unpleasantly vigorous demeanor. Since the TVs ran on closed circuit, showing the sets even during commercial breaks, they drew a small crowd of voyeurs and Rodeo Drive tourists hungering for table scraps of behind-the-scenes showbiz.

“If the new metal detectors at the entrance are any indication,” the Stork said, “they’re gearing up to turn this place into a high-tech fun-land by the Wednesday interview. Entry control points, IR sensors, metal-detector wands. The whole ten yards.”

“Nine yards.”

“Yes, well.” He shifted his weight deliberately from one side to the other, as if breaking wind. “Heck of a lotta security.”

“News orgs are all about confidentiality and scoop. They’re notoriously difficult to penetrate. CNN used to come in with stories ahead of Army intel.”

“What’s CNN?” the Stork asked.

Tim studied him to see if he was joking. “A news station.”

“I see. I can help you more if you tell me what you’re planning here.”

“I appreciate that, but I don’t need more help. I just need you all to do your respective jobs.”

“Okeydokey.”

As they pulled past the building, Tim armed some sweat off his forehead. “Listen…Stork-”

“No origin.”

“Excuse me?”

“My name has no origin. At least none that’s exciting. Everyone asks, everyone wants a story, but there isn’t one. One day, third or fourth grade, a kid on the playground remarked that I looked like a stork. Perhaps he intended it to be hurtful, but I don’t believe I look like a stork-I mean, truly resemble a stork-so I took it as neutral. The name stuck. That’s it.”

“That’s not what I was going to ask.”

“Oh.” The Stork strummed the padded wheel with the heels of his hands. “Fine, then. That. Okay, not that it’s any of your business, but it’s called Stickler’s syndrome.” His voice slipped into a drone as he launched into a rehearsed speech. “A connective-tissue disorder that affects the tissue surrounding the bones, heart, eyes, and ears. Among other things it can cause nearsightedness, astigmatism, cataracts, glaucoma, hearing loss, deafness, vertebrae abnormality, hunchback, flattening of the nasal bridge, palate abnormalities, valve prolapse, and vicious arthritis. As you can see, I have a relatively mild case. I can’t type, I can’t shuffle cards, and I’m nearsighted to twenty over four hundred, but I could be curled in a wheelchair deaf and blind, so I try not to bitch. Does that satiate your curiosity, Mr. Rackley?”

“Actually,” Tim said, “I was just going to ask if you could turn down the heat.”

The Stork made a soft popping sound with his mouth. He reached over and rotated the dial. “Righto.”

They finished their turn around the block and came up on the building again. Tim tracked a bike courier at the crosswalk, heading for the shipping and receiving dock at the northeast corner of the ground floor. She had a KCOM decal on her helmet and a Cheesecake Factory bag in the bike’s front basket.

“Slow down,” Tim said.

The courier biked up the ramp and flashed an ID card at an obese security guard with a clipboard, who lazily wanded her down with a metal detector, then tugged open the roll-up gate. Heading back into the dock interior, she slotted her front wheel into a bike rack by the service elevator, yanked the bike seat free of the frame, and tucked it protectively under an arm. Just before the guard slid the rolling gate down, Tim saw the courier punch a code into a numeric keypad beside the elevator. An extended metal frame shielded the pad from view; her hand disappeared to the wrist by the time her fingers reached the keys.

The Stork eased the van over to the curb in front of a pharmacy and medical-supplies store that displayed a wheelchair and a bevy of aluminum walkers in the front window. They sat watching the closed, corrugated dock gate and the security officer rolling something he’d dug out from his nose between his thumb and index finger.

“Do you think the bike-courier cards are strictly ID, or do they double-function as access-control cards for movement within the interior?”

“They’d be strictly ID, I’d bet,” the Stork said. “Access-control cards are usually only issued to high-clearance people, not mailroom gofers. Corporations are very strict about them. If they’re reported missing, they’re immediately deactivated.”

“Fine,” Tim said. “Forget the access-control cards. If I gave you a prototype of a regular ID, could you manufacture a fake one?”

The Stork snorted and flopped his hand in a dismissive wave. “I engineered a microphone that could fit in a pen cap and pick up a whisper at a hundred yards. I think I can deal with duplicating an overglorified library card.”

Tim indicated the dock gate with a slight tilt of his head. “The bike rack’s just past the checkpoint, near the service elevator.”

“Probably a Beverly Hills zoning law-they don’t want the sidewalks cluttered up.” The Stork popped a pill into his mouth and swallowed it effortlessly without water. “If you want to get a pistol through, smuggle in a dismantled Glock. They’re mostly plastic. Only the barrel has enough ping to set off a detector-make a key chain out of it and stuff the rest down your shorts. The firing pin doesn’t have enough metal to get picked up.” He studied Tim curiously, awaiting confirmation.

Instead Tim said, “We need to get a better angle on that keypad.”

The Stork pointed at the narrow street running parallel to the north edge of the building. “A window on that side would look directly in on it.”

“Give a drive by.”

The Stork pulled out and eased down the street. There was indeed a window, but it was largely blocked by a decrepit truck.

Tim barely turned his head. “Keep moving, keep moving.”

The Stork drove down the block and pulled over again.

“The truck’s in the way, and it’s a narrow sidewalk. The only way we could see in would be to press up against the glass, which would be more than conspicuous.”

The Stork said, “Then we wait for the truck to move.”

“It’s a parking-permit street-no meters in need of refreshing-and the truck has a permit dangling from the rearview. There are reservoirs of leaves collected around the front wheels from the last rain four nights ago. I’d bet that’s the resting place for someone’s old rig.”

“I’ll get it moved.”

“How?”

The Stork grinned. “I just will.”

“Even if you get that truck moved and we get binocs on the window, there’s no clear sight line to the keypad. It’ll be blocked by the courier’s body when he’s punching in the code.”

The Stork’s mouth shifted and clamped. “Let me work on that.”

“Also work on getting into the security phone lines-tap in to however many phone junctions it takes. I’d like you to monitor all developments.” Tim had already asked Rayner to nose around his media contacts to get a read on the security politics, but the more information sources he had, the better.

“How many minutes to pickup?”

Tim glanced at his G-Shock. “Seven.”

The Stork dug an eyedropper out of his pocket, removed his immense glasses, and applied the drops. When he put his glasses back on, still blinking against the liquid, his eyes looked like those of an agitated turtle. Tim felt the pull of empathy, followed quickly by an urge for comradeship, for unity in their common cause.

“It hit you hard?” Tim asked. “When your mother was killed?”

The Stork shrugged. “I’ve learned not to expect much from life. If you never expect things to go right, you’re less upset when they go wrong.”

“Then why are you doing this? The Commission?”

“Honestly? For the money. A nice little salary on top of my FBI pension. That may sound awful to you, but I don’t have anything in this life but money. I’ve never had many friends. I’ve never played baseball. I’ve never had sex with a woman. I’m just an outsider, looking in at this other life I see in movies and advertisements. After a while I just checked out. I don’t watch TV anymore, any of that stuff. I read. Mostly older stuff. Now and then I’ll rent black-and-white movies when I can’t sleep. I have trouble sleeping. My breathing…” He gestured to the knot of scar tissue beneath his nose, then folded his hands peacefully in his lap. “The zeitgeist alarms me because it reminds me of all the things I’m missing.”

He removed his glasses again and rubbed his eyes. The lenses were concave, thick at the edges. “There’s a reasonable chance I may be blind someday. I don’t mind having extra money to buy books, to travel around and see things. Different oceans. Arctic snow. I took a helicopter ride around the Grand Canyon last May, and it was divine.” He tapped his chest gently with his fingertips. “It’s all more than I should do, given my heart condition, but it’s my one pleasure.” The glasses slid back on again, and his turtle eyes blinked at Tim. “I like money. It doesn’t make me a bad person.”

“No, I don’t think it does.”

They sat awkwardly for a moment.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Rackley. I don’t have much occasion to talk to people, so when I start…” He cleared his throat moistly. “Perhaps we should get moving.”

Tim reached into the backseat and removed two magnetic logos the size of garbage-can lids. He stepped out and stuck one on either side of the Chevy, where they proclaimed PERFECT TINT WINDOW WASHING.

The Stork pulled back down the narrow street, past the loading dock, and looped around the front of the building. Tim’s watch blinked from 12:59 to 1:00 precisely as Robert stepped out the maintenance door on the west side, rags hanging from the pockets of his overalls, baseball cap askew.

It took him fifteen steps to reach the van-already Tim had the side door rolling open-and he ducked in as the Stork pulled away. They rode in silence for several blocks. The Stork stopped the car on a deserted street, just behind Tim’s parked Beemer.

Robert coughed into a fist, then spit out the window. He tapped a cigarette out of a crumpled pack he pulled from his shirt pocket. He snapped open the lid of a Zippo with an American-flag decal. “Mind if I smoke?”

“Yes,” the Stork said.

Robert lit up and blew a gust of smoke up at the driver’s seat. It wreathed the head of the displeased Stork like a laurel. The Stork tried to hold in a cough, but it hiccupped out of him.

Tim looped his arm around the headrest so he was facing Robert. “The fourth and tenth floors are empty, right?”

“Yeah, they are. The dot-coms that used to rent them went the way of the dodo.”

“Are there still infrared-strobe motion detectors in place?”

“Both floors are rife with ’em-SafetyMan casings. They’re off during the day because of the occasional maintenance guy or mover, but I’d imagine they go hot after five, six o’clock.”

“Tomorrow, before we throw you back up there as a window washer, we’ll figure out a way to slide you past security-as a maintenance guy, maybe-to breach the interior. I’ll need those IR strobes made bad-operating. Stork?”

“I’ve dealt with SafetyMan before,” the Stork said. “I’ll size some mirror fragments to fit the casings. Robert can get ’em in tomorrow during working hours when the strobes are deactivated. When they reactivate at night, the mirrors’ll bounce the IR beam back on itself and you’ll be able to do the lindy hop down the hall.”

“The lindy hop?”

“It’s a lively swing dance, Mr. Rackley. Named after Charles Lindbergh.”

“Right. Thanks for your help.” Tim’s eyes flicked to the door, in case the Stork didn’t catch the hint.

The Stork tossed Robert a tiny, flat camera, which he slid into his T-shirt pocket, and then the Stork hopped out, climbed into a second rental van parked at the curb, and motored off.

In the back Robert was changing out of his overalls, throwing on a pair of jeans. “Weird dude,” he said, jerking his head in the direction of the departing van. “He’s a solid operator, but you don’t exactly want to drink beers with the guy.”

“He’s all right,” Tim said. “A little soft, but he’s had a tough time, I’d guess.”

Robert stuck a pencil behind his ear and slid a clipboard into a copy of Newsweek. He bent over to relace his sneakers, the Lee insignia popping out on its leather tag in the back of his fitted true-blue jeans. “So why’d you send him packing? Who cares if he overhears?”

“Give me the intel dump.”

Robert stared at him, irritated, then inhaled sharply so the cigarette’s cherry flared. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“I don’t have to answer your questions.”

“Look, I’ve done everything you asked, like a good little soldier. Now I’m not giving you shit until you tell me what the plan is.”

“Fine. Then I drive off right now and you can explain my absence to Dumone and Rayner and carry out the mission by yourself.”

Robert leaned back and tapped ash out the window with a flick of his thumb, a sharp, efficient gesture. His movements were uniformly tense, anger simmering, violence barely contained. Tim didn’t know or trust his steadiness or that of the other operators-no small part of why-on a high-risk mission that carried the potential for collateral damage and civilian injury; he preferred to keep them focused on specific, isolated tasks.

Finally Robert said, “Maybe you should show a little respect. I got the shit you asked for. And then some.”

“So give it to me.”

Robert shot a jet of smoke in Tim’s direction and began. “The skeleton is steel, walls are concrete with plaster overlay, the floors are twenty feet high and supported by metal ceiling joists and metal posts, twelve to a floor. Each floor is a rebar-reinforced poured-concrete slab base, nine inches thick, with a polished finish. The roof is plywood and tar, and it houses twenty-one air diffusers with fans and fifteen three-by-seven skylights with metal bars securing entry. Gas-fed AC and heat-pump units with shutoff valves located in the ground-floor maintenance area. Electrical power enters the building from the southwest corner, heads into an electrical closet through a main disconnect, and gets routed from there. The closet wiring’s a mess-more fucked up than a nigger’s checkbook.”

“Lovely,” Tim said, but Robert had already moved on.

“Each floor has roughly five electrical-distribution panels around the interior perimeters, rated from two-to three-hundred-amp service. Emergency power is provided by battery, but there are two high-capacity backup generators. Fire enunciator is located at the northeast point on each floor-zoned single-partition system, monitored locally via phone line, FireKing-manufactured panel. Extensive smoke-and flame-detection devices, fire extinguishers, fire hoses in the stairwell. The elevator does go down to the underground garage-my guess is they bring Lane in there in an armored car. The building core is very well protected-no outside windows into the inner rooms, so we have dick on a sniper angle if that’s what you’re thinking…?” Cocked eyebrow, pause. “Windows don’t open. Garbage chutes located to the right of the service elevator on each floor. The doors on the way to the stairwells are metal, push-handle, and they all have mag strikes. Flip-style light switches are to the left of each door, interior side. Stairwell’s vacuum-sealed, no floor-to-floor access-you get locked out there, you’re going all the way down to the first floor. The stairwell door locks are single-cylinder handle-turns that autolock, and they open into a rear kitchen on odd floors, a conference room on evens. Interview recording usually takes place on the third floor, but-clever fuckers-they’re building a replica of Yueh’s set on the eleventh floor. The switched locale is a secret security precaution-I spotted construction workers with bulges at their hips moving set backdrops across the floor.”

Tim made a mental note to confirm that.

“They’ve started installing metal detectors on several floors today, I assume to have them good to go by the time Lane arrives. Access-control-card checkpoints on every floor to breach the inner rooms, guard booths to boot before the editing and interview suites. And there’s a brunette on the seventh floor with an ass like Jennifer Lopez who almost made me plummet to my death when she dropped her keys.”

“All right,” Tim said. “Good job.”

“I don’t need you to tell me that.” Robert hopped out and slammed the door behind him.

•Mitchell was just leaving Rayner’s house when Tim drove through the gates in the rental van and parked beside his own car. Mitchell ignored him, climbing into his truck. He was backing up fast when Tim knocked the side panel with a fist. Mitchell hit the brakes.

“What?”

Tim pulled a pencil from behind his ear and pointed at the eraser. “Can you make me a contained explosive charge this size?”

“What for?”

“I need something I can hide inside a small item.”

“Like in a watch?”

“Right, like in a watch.”

Mitchell’s mouth shifted and clamped. “It’ll be tricky. I’d have to build a minuscule, custom-made detonator.”

“What’ll you use? C4?”

“C4? And why don’t we throw around a few sticks of dynamite or fire off an ACME cannon while we’re at it?” He shook his head. “Leave the pyrotechnics to me. We’ll need a sensitive primary explosive, like mercury fulminate or DDNT.”

“And you’re thinking an electronically initiated receiver?”

“Yeah, but that’ll be the problem. There’s not much space-especially if you’re wiring this shit into the existing circuitry of a watch- so I doubt I can fit anything that’ll pick up a specialized electrical transmission from any sort of distance. Maybe I can get you a couple hundred yards’ range on a remote-control device.”

“A couple hundred yards would be fine. And the charge can’t send out shrapnel. We can’t hurt any bystanders with the explosion.”

Mitchell ground his teeth. “Ya think?” He started the truck rolling again, and Tim had to step back so the tire wouldn’t run over his foot.

•Tim drove to the Moorpark firing range to break in the. 357, practicing his draw, getting a sense of the new metal. It felt like home.

When he left, he inadvertently drove several blocks toward his and Dray’s house before realizing his mistake and turning around. Passing a park where he used to take Ginny, he broke out in a clammy sweat. He detoured, heading past the long drive leading to Kindell’s garage. The . 357 fit snugly in his old hip holster. He removed it and pressed it to his thigh, felt its heat even through his jeans. The fact that he had again moved from grief to anger was not lost on him.

Anger was easier.

After driving downtown, showering, and cleaning his gun, he stretched out on his bed and finally checked the Nokia’s messages. Two, both from Dray, over the past couple hours.

She sounded discouraged on the first. “I’ve been hitting walls in every direction on the accomplice angle. I finally caved and called the LAPD detectives who worked Kindell’s priors-they were actually really kind, had heard about Ginny…” She cleared her throat, hard. “They still wouldn’t give me specifics, but they took a turn through their case logs and assured me there weren’t any trails or red flags. Almost all of what they had, they said, would be in the court transcripts, which I already have. I played the guilt card with Gutierez and Harrison, pressed them pretty hard, and they rousted Kindell for us one last time. Said he’s not talking-his lawyer made real clear that keeping his mouth shut is what’s gonna keep him out of jail. He’s a regular constitutional expert now, even ordered them off his property unless they were gonna press charges. We’re not gonna get anything from him. Ever.” A deep sigh. “I hope things are panning out better on your end.”

The sadness expressed in her voice on the first message gave way to irritation on the second, since Tim hadn’t gotten back to her. He tried her first at the office, then at home, finally leaving a vague message saying he had nothing to report on his end and explaining he’d wanted to wait until he was alone to talk to her. Hearing her voice, even on a recording, set the hook of his grief more firmly.

He took a moment to consider how lucky he was to have so much to do.

He relieved Robert at four o’clock. Robert slid out of the coffee-shop booth, leaving a clipboard full of notes and charts on the table, hidden in the Newsweek. Tim sat and glanced through his jottings. Calendar of movements, times the trash went out, security positions. It was impossible to deny Robert’s proficiency.

Tim sipped coffee and watched who came out of which exits and when. Just before five he crossed the street, passing the immense window full of suspended TVs, and entered the lobby-a large marble cavern with a grotesquely baroque chandelier, oddly dated given the building’s exterior. Just inside, a newly positioned guard directed a perfunctory glance at Tim’s license-thank you, Tom Altman, RIP-before letting him pass. A huge screen, composed of sixteen close-set TVs, formed the west wall. No side doors, no open stairs, no pillars behind which to hide. About twenty yards in from the revolving doors, a massive security console greeted visitors.

Tim took note of the cameras at each corner of the ceiling before acknowledging the security guard with a nervous smile. “Yeah, hi, I, uh, I was wondering if I could fill out a job application form. For, you know, maintenance or whatever.”

“Sorry, sir, there’s a hiring freeze right now. You might want to try ABC. I’ve heard they’re looking.”

Tim leaned forward on the counter for a moment, taking in the bank of bluish-white screens the guard was monitoring. The angles were largely south-facing, capturing the faces of visitors as they entered. Tim searched them for blind spots. “Thanks anyways.”

“No problem, sir.”

Tim turned and headed out. The security lenses above the revolving doors represented the sole cameras devoted to recording people as they exited. Tim kept his head lowered when he pushed through onto the sidewalk.

He took a new post in the window booth of a deli next door to Lipson’s Pharmacy and Medical Supplies. Munching on pastrami, he recorded the order of the office lights blinking out on the eleventh floor.