6
Jensen held his pistol against his right thigh as he walked through the Communing Level.
"Mr. Roselli?" he called, keeping his tone gentle. "John Roselli?"
Come out, come out wherever you are…
… if you're here at all.
Not many places to hide on this level. He obviously wasn't in the big open area; that left the private Communing Booths along the south wall. Jensen would have to check them one by one…
And if he found no one… what then?
Jensen had no idea.
Jack watched Jensen's elevator car descend on its own to maybe the tenth or eleventh floor and stop. It had started down a minute or so after Jensen stepped off. Apparently the cars were programmed so that one waited at lobby level and the other stayed midshaft when not in use.
If nothing else it gave him some room.
To do what?
One thing he knew: He couldn't hang on these rungs till dawn.
The omnipresent surveillance cameras on the floor limited his options. Brady's lair and this elevator shaft were the only places he could move about unobserved. He could climb down to the base of the shaft and hide there until he could figure an escape route. Or…
Or what?
Jack noticed a metal inspection plate in the wall between the elevator doors. Desperate for some direction, for any sort of plan, he pulled out his screwdriver and went to work on the rusty screws. When he pulled off the plate he found half a dozen or so wires running to and from a pair of switches embedded in the opposite side. It took him a moment to realize he was looking at the rear innards of the elevator call buttons.
Fat lot of good that did him.
And then… an idea…
Jack had planned to catch up with Jensen later. But maybe he could do that now and then simply walk out of here.
He went to work on the wires.
"Where the fuck is he?" Jensen muttered.
He pulled his two-way from a pocket and called the lobby.
"Cruz? Any sign of Roselli?"
"No, sir. He's not up there?"
"Haven't you been watching me?"
"Yessir."
"Well then you know the answer to your question."
He was about to add "you moron" but bit it back. Wrong thing to show frustration with an underling. Always stay in control.
"But, sir, that's impossible," Cruz yammered. "He hasn't used the elevators or the stairs and—"
"Speaking of the stairs, did the doors register when I opened them?"
"Yessir."
Damn. He'd been hoping that was it: a faulty sensor on one of the doors. But then the guy should have shown up on the Communing Floor and stairway cameras.
One fucked-up situation here.
"I'm going to do a little more looking around," he told Cruz, then thumbed the two-way off.
He strode to the elevators and hit the DOWN button. As he waited for the car he turned and surveyed the wide-open space of the Communing Level and the city towers beyond its floor-to-ceiling windows, many lit up even at this hour. But he was not in a mood to enjoy the view.
This temple was his turf. He was responsible for its integrity. Last week a man using three false identities had infiltrated his turf and burned him. He was still stinging with embarrassment. And now another—or perhaps the same man—had invaded his space and disappeared.
Jensen had to find him.
That meant searching the temple from top to bottom—literally. He'd start with Brady's floor. He couldn't imagine how anyone could have reached twenty-two. Only he and Brady knew the access code. Without it you could press 22 all you wanted, but the car would stop at twenty-one and go no farther unless someone already on twenty-two—Brady or Vida, his receptionist—overrode the autostop.
Someone on twenty-two? No chance.
But the seemingly impossible had already happened, so…
He'd have to search twenty-two alone. Couldn't allow a squad of TPs to poke through Brady's quarters. But when he'd determined that the floor was deserted, he'd call the next shift in early and start an organized gang-bang search from twenty-one down. He'd bring in a pack of fucking bloodhounds if he had to. Nobody disappeared on his watch. Nobody.
The elevator dinged behind him and he heard the doors slide open. He turned absently and stepped toward it. Too late he realized that no car awaited him, only cables and empty space.
He let out a terrified bleat as he tilted over the chasm. His heart pounded as he flailed his arms trying to catch the doorway. The fingers of his right hand caught the lip of the molding. Not much to hang on to but enough to stop his forward motion. He teetered there, looking down at the top of the elevator car ten floors below, then began to pull himself back. He was just starting to congratulate himself on his quick reflexes when an arm shot out from the left, grabbed his tunic, and yanked him into the void.
He screamed, turning and windmilling his arms as he began to fall. He twisted far enough around to grab the floor of the doorway, first with one hand, then the other. He hung by his fingertips, kicking his feet back and forth in search of a ledge, a girder, even a loose brick, anything to help support his weight.
But he found nothing.
And then movement to his right as a man swung out of the elevator shaft and crouched before him on the edge. Jensen looked at his face and knew him. Even with his crummy fake beard and his low knit cap and his dirty clothes, Jensen knew him.
Farrell-Amurri-Robertson-Whoever.
The guy.
"Help me!" Jensen said, trying to keep from screaming. He hated pleading with this son of a bitch, but… "Please!"
Then he looked up and saw his eyes, brown and cold as dirt from the bottom of a grave, and knew he was as good as dead.
"'Please'?" the guy said in a low voice, barely above a whisper. "Is that what Jamie Grant said when you were about to cut off her finger?"
Jensen's intestines clenched, sending a wave of terror through his belly.
How could he know? How could he possibly know?
And now the guy had a knife in his latex-gloved hand. He opened it.
"Oh, please! Oh, please don't!"
"I bet Jamie said that too. But what if I were to do some of the same to you? What if I start cutting off your fingers, one at a time?"
He drew the blade lightly across the knuckle of the right little finger, then the left. The steely caress sent a tremor through Jensen's tortured arms.
"Please!"
"Let's make this a game. How many fingers do you think you can spare before you can't hold on any longer? I'm thinking three—a pinkie on each side, and then when you lose a ring finger on, say, the left side, you'll fall. You're a strong man, Jensen, but you're heavy." He nodded and smiled—not a nice smile. "Yeah. I think three will do it."
"No! No, please!"
The eyebrows lifted. "No? Okay. If you say so, then no it is."
And then, miraculously he was folding the knife and leaning away.
He means it?
'"Hey," the guy said. "Just kidding about that amputation thing. Had no intention of doing something like that." He drew back his right leg. "Haven't got timeV
The leg shot out and Jensen caught a flash of a rubber sole just before his nose and left cheek exploded in pain. The blow jerked his head back and that was just enough to loosen his grip on the threshold.
His fingers slipped and grabbed empty air. He screamed as he tumbled backward.
Jack watched Jensen's twisting, kicking fall come to an abrupt end atop car one. He'd twisted around in midair to land face first, denting and cracking the roof but not breaking all the way through.
Jack stared down at the scene for a while. He didn't see how anyone could survive that kind of fall, but he'd heard of people who'd lived through worse, and with a guy that size—
Jensen's chest moved.
Jack stared, thinking his eyes were playing tricks. Then he saw him draw another breath.
Christ, what did it take to be rid of this guy?
Right now the fall looked like an accident—Jack needed it to look like an accident. But if Jensen lived…
Couldn't allow that.
Steeling himself for what he was about to do, Jack climbed down the rungs toward the car. Jensen's hands were beginning to move, his arms too. But not a twitch from his legs. Back was probably broken… spinal cord injury.
Well, his spinal cord was about to get worse.
Jack stopped his descent about six feet above Jensen and car one. He turned and clung precariously with his back to the rungs. He hesitated, something holding him back. Then he thought of Jamie Grant having her finger amputated, being buried alive, how it must have felt to be engulfed in concrete…
He jumped, aiming his boots for the back of Jensen's neck. He heard the vertebrae crunch as he hit with enough force to ram the bald head through the roof of the car.
For an instant Jack teetered backward, but he managed to grab one of the cables to steady himself. The palm of the glove was black with grease. He knelt next to Jensen and removed it, inverting it as he pulled it off, pocketing it, and replacing it with a fresh one.
Then he wormed a couple of fingers through the opening around Jensen's head and felt his throat for a pulse. Nada.
Jack straightened and took a deep breath. Two of three scores settled. Only Brady remained.
He climbed back up to the twenty-first, reattached the call-button wires, and replaced the inspection plate. Then he stepped through the doorway and hit the down button. He removed his gloves as the pulleys whirled into motion. Seconds later he was looking at the inside of cab one, with Jensen's glazed eyes staring back at him from a hole in the ceiling. Slow drops of blood dripped from his nose.
Keeping his head down, Jack stepped in and knuckled the lobby button. Jensen's head lay above the angle of the surveillance camera, so as far as any observer could tell, the bearded, knit-capped guy was alone in the car.
When the car stopped, Jack pressed a knuckle against 10 as the doors opened, then stepped out into the lobby.
"Roselli?" the TP at the kiosk called. "Is that John Roselli?"
"No, I'm LFA Roselli," Jack said, making for the front door. He added some attitude. "You got a problem with that?"
This was the last hurdle. If he could get past this guy without too much fuss, he'd be home free.
"Just hold on there. Where have you been?"
Jack didn't break stride. "On the Communing Level."
"No, you weren't. You didn't show up on the cameras so the GP went looking for you and—"
Keep moving… keep moving…
"I just left Jensen. And he didn't mention cameras."
The guard had a two-way up to his lips. "GP Jensen? GP Jensen?" He lowered the two-way and looked at Jack. "He's not answering. Where did you see him?"
"I left him upstairs. He's going to hang around awhile."
As Jack reached the doors the TP came out from behind his kiosk and hurried toward him.
"Wait! You can't go yet!"
"No? Watch me."
Jack pushed through the doors, hit the sidewalk, and began walking uptown. The guard stepped out behind him.
"Hey! Come back! The GP will want to talk to you."
Jack ignored him and kept walking. He was heading home. He needed sleep something awful. He found his car two blocks away where he'd left it, parked on a side street. After cheeking to make sure the TP hadn't followed him, he slid behind the wheel and hit the ignition.
He drove a dozen blocks then pulled over and threw the Buick into park. He put his head back as far as the headrest would allow and took a few deep breaths. A tremor shuddered through his body. That cold black rush was fading, leaving him shaky and exhausted.
He scared himself when he got like this. Not while he was in the dark thrall—he feared nothing then—but in the low aftermath it unsettled him to know what he was capable of. Sometimes he'd swear never to let it loose again, to push it back next time it lunged for freedom. Yet inevitably, when the moment came, he'd embrace and ride it.
But he never wanted another episode like tonight. It would take him a while to forget this one.