The Illusionist received the automatic page and slipped into one of the vacant janitor’s closets at work. He pulled out his palmtop computer and watched the agents burst into the house on the video feed from the camera positioned in the forest nearby. Oh, it was all so very dramatic with that large agent bursting through the door, everyone drawing their weapons. So very gung ho of them.
He almost giggled. Almost. It was even better than he’d planned it, though they arrived faster than he’d thought they would. He hadn’t expected them to connect the dots quite so quickly. Ah well, good for them. A pleasant surprise. All it did was move up the timeframe a bit.
But it was too bad, in a way, that all three of them went in.
Shame to have all of them in there at once.
He sent the email to the woman whose car he had visited earlier in the morning and then sat back and waited. It wouldn’t be long now.
The timer on his computer had started the five-minute countdown as soon as the door was breached.
Just four minutes and twenty-two seconds remained before the three federal agents would find even more than they bargained for.
Lien-hua headed toward the kitchen, and I moved slowly, methodically, down the hallway, found two doors at the far end, called out, no response, identified myself as a federal agent, pressed open the first door and leaped back out of the range of fire, then burst in, leveling my gun with both hands, sweeping the room. Grolin’s bedroom. The bed wasn’t made. Rock-climbing gear, harnesses, ropes, and carabiners cluttered the floor. It looked like he was either packing for a trip or had just returned from one.
“Clear!” I heard from upstairs. The sound we’d heard must have just been the house settling after Ralph demolished the front door.
I checked the other room. A small office. Computer. Printer. Bookshelves. Desk. Posters of rock climbers and mountaineers on the walls. A Native American dreamcatcher dangled in the window.
“Clear!” I called.
“Clear!” Lien-hua called from the kitchen.
After the initial sweep, we each started to go over the house again, more thoroughly. I’d seen a small inset window as we approached the house, and started looking for the staircase to the basement. It would be the perfect place to take Jolene.
There.
Halfway down the hall past the kitchen I came to a door. I grabbed the doorknob and twisted it. Locked.
I leaned against it. Listened.
“Jolene?”
3 minutes 14 seconds.
For a moment I thought of trying to smash the door open like Ralph had done but decided it was better to keep the damage to the house, and to my body, to a minimum. Besides, that door-smashing stuff is a lot harder than it looks. I glanced around the house. A pile of bank statements held together with a paperclip lay on the kitchen table.
I grabbed the paper clip, straightened it out, hurried back to the door, and slid the paper clip into the lock. I’d learned to pick locks on an undercover assignment back in 2001. Very handy.
The lock clicked, and the door swung open faster than I expected. Since I was leaning against it, I nearly stumbled down the steps. Awkwardly, I ducked back to the side as best I could, in case Grolin was down there with a gun. When nothing happened, I leaned over and called into the dark pit yawning before me, “Jolene?” I slid one hand along the wall, searching for a light switch. I kept my gun trained on the darkness just in case Grolin was here.
Above me I could hear Ralph’s footsteps as he scoured the house, systematically searching it room by room.
My fingers found the switch, and I flipped it up. A single bulb flickered on, illuminating the staircase with a jaundiced light. The air curling up toward me was thick with the smell of mold and decay. At the base of the stairs the dirt floor seemed to swallow the wooden staircase abruptly in mid-step.
“Jolene?” I called again, this time softer, my heart hammering in my chest. This is where he brings them. This is where he does it.
I stepped forward onto the staircase. Behind me, the door swung creakily shut on its own.
I took the steps slowly, watching for trip wires or booby traps. If Grolin was as good as I thought he was, he wasn’t just going to let us walk in here and find her.
“Jolene?”
Step. Step.
No reply. But I did sense a rustle of movement in the darkness somewhere below me. My heart raced.
“Jolene, are you here?”
No reply.
Step.
I reached the bottom of the stairs.