The Memorist

Chapter 91

Thursday, May 1^st-8:01 p.m.

“David Yalom hasn’t made any phone calls from his hotel room or ordered any room service since yesterday afternoon. The manager at the hotel finally called me back. He had to track down the head of housekeeping to get the reports. His ‘do not disturb’ sign has been on the door since about two in the afternoon when he also left a ‘do not call’ order on his phone,” Kerri reported.

“That’s not good news. Call the police. Ask them to check out his room ASAP,” Paxton said. “He could still be there. Hurt or worse.”

“The symphony will be over in less than a half hour-” Kerri started.

“I’m not sure this has anything to do with the symphony,” Paxton interrupted, “but the man is on a known terrorist hit list and we might be the only people who know he’s missing.”

She nodded and opened her phone.

Paxton looked around for Vine but didn’t see him. Hurrying out of the makeshift office he found his number two man monitoring a checkpoint at the end of the hall near the stage entrance.

“Where’s Tucker Davis?” Paxton asked Vine.

“Supervising all the teams we have crawling through those fucking underground labyrinths.”

“Good. We’ve got less than twenty minutes left to this symphony and I want them working till the last round of applause,” he whispered so as not to alert anyone nearby. He knew all too well how easy it was to start a panic and that was the last thing he wanted in an enclosed space holding over two thousand people. But even more important, he was concerned about image management. He didn’t want anyone from ISTA thinking he wasn’t completely in control.

“All the activity they’ve identified is related to an infestation of rats that live-”

“Fuck the rats,” Paxton interrupted. “I know this is a long shot and I know there are miles of tunnels down there but we have Semtex missing and a reporter missing. If David Yalom is being held hostage under this venue, we need to know about it and empty out the theater fast.”