Turns out it didn’t matter.
Sam spoke low and Brad leaned in, ready to finally be on the right side of a need-to-know basis. “Mackendrick, can I trust you?” she said.
“Of course. We’re all on the same team here.” He pointed to the badge on his chest and I wanted to laugh. I’m surprised she didn’t.
Could be she was too busy unfolding the knife. Before he knew what hit him, his throat split open and his precious badge dripped with blood.
I stopped as I reached the bank of glass doors. I turned and moved away from the glass, out of view from the rest of the lobby.
Sam eased Brad’s body down to the floor. No noisy body falls for her. Goes against the plan. And she’d worked a good one. She’d made it inside. Behind enemy lines. Lucas’s office, origin of the email, lay a mere six floors of back stairwell ahead.
And there I stood, trapped on the outside.
BENCH WARMER
If there’s one thing you learn working the drug game—doing stakeouts, undercover ops, waiting for warrants—it’s patience. If you don’t have any, you don’t make it as an agent.
Right then, I didn’t have any.
I knew the smart play said to hang outside, watch on the video screen in my brain and hope for the best. If I entered the lobby there is no way I’d be able to get to the elevators with no ID and a gun in my belt.
So first things first—ditch the gun. Hmmm, seemed like a dumb idea. I’d been working with nothing but dumb ideas for nearly three days now and I wasn’t keen on trying out another one. No, I needed everyone to look the other way. I needed to give them something to look at. Luckily I had something.
Nine times out of ten it would be my tits. Great built-in distractors we’ve got. This situation called for something to take eyes off me. Still, boobs in general are the greatest “hey, don’t look over there, look over here,” distraction ever invented. Another day perhaps.
I went through the glass doors of the lobby with Sam’s feet pounding in my head as she banged up the stairs, passing the third floor as best I could tell. Her footsteps an uneven beat as she limped up to the sixth floor.
I walked up to the security desk. “Can I talk to Mackendrick, please?’
An older black man behind the bank of monitors with Gifford on his name tag looked over his shoulder. “He’s not around right now.”
The other man at the metal detectors held his phone in both hands, typing with his thumbs. Two civilians were the only other people in the lobby and they waited over by a cluster of potted plants, nervously going over documents of some kind.
“Didn’t I just see him go back there with a woman?” I asked.
Gifford turned over his shoulder again to look. The door to the stairwell had closed behind them. It couldn’t have been more then ten feet away, but he seemed disinclined to get up and check for me.
“I think he may have.”
“Can you check for me, please. I need to speak with him.”
“Can I ask what this is regarding?”
“It’s personal,” I said. In my head I screamed: Open the fucking door and find his bloody body already!
Slow as a DMV worker Gifford spun his swivel chair, scooted twice with his feet for the absolute minimum of walking effort and stood up. I eyed the pair of walk-through metal detectors. They stood like two futuristic doorways, plunked down in the marbled lobby of a stately building like monuments to paranoia. So unsubstantial they didn’t feel like they would help anything if the shit really hit the fan, and they wouldn’t. If someone really has a gun or a bomb and wants to do some damage, oh they will do some damage. Metal detectors be damned.
The stairwell door opened and the hit on something. Gifford looked down and then recoiled, the door slamming shut behind him on automatic hinges.
“Jesus H. Christ,” he said. The man at the metal detectors perked up.
“What is it?”
“It’s Chad.” (so close)
The man from the metal detectors heard the panic in his coworker’s voice and unmanned his station. Perfect.
I stole a glance at Sam’s view. I saw the stenciled number 6 on the wall as she pushed open the stairwell door to enter Lucas’s floor. Her breathing came heavy and she paused to catch up. She still had an insurmountable lead over me. My best bet would be for the past few days to have put Lucas on high alert and his heightened senses would hear her coming.
Both security guards stood by the door now, each daring the other to open it like some haunted house. Gifford’s stricken look made the new guy very timid about what lay behind the door.
I had to move and risk them seeing me. I doubted they would both ever be behind the door fully anyhow. I stepped up to the metal detectors, pulled the gun from behind my back and threw it in the air, lofting it high up toward the sixteen foot ceilings of the lobby, well over the rectangle door shapes of the metal detectors. Good thing I’m not a terrorist—this half of me anyway—because making it inside came way too easy.
I caught my gun like an outfielder. Don’t ask for names, I’m not a baseball gal. Daddy’s biggest disappointment. What did he want from me, it’s fucking boring. And when you’re a girl all they let you play is softball anyway. What a slap in the tits. Could you get a more in-your-face example of the world thinking girls are weaker. Here, honey, let me take that nasty ball away from you. You need to play with a soft ball. And if you’re having your period, you can sit on the bench.
But, now is not the time for that. Sorry.
I hit the elevator button as I stuffed the gun back in my waistband. Upstairs Sam walked through the yellow-taped office space. Nothing had been moved. Dozens of taped outlines of bodies decorated the carpet. Chairs remained overturned, soda cans spilled. She moved slow across the littered battlefield advancing toward Lucas’s office.
My elevator arrived. I got on and pushed six. Then waited. Whoever invented the elevator had no sense of urgency.
Sam reached the hallway outside Lucas’s office. I shut my eyes and held my breath. She moved slowly forward and as she came around the door frame we both saw his office stood empty, his computer gone. I exhaled.
She moved into his office as I started going up. She pushed around some papers but the computer was gone, not merely hidden away. The eight by eight room offered no place to hide anything much bigger than an envelope.
2nd floor. 3rd floor.
She looked at the phone on his desk. The digital display listed several options. Speaker phone, conference call, page all. A small paper tab listed the extension number—686—and then the letters FWD.
We both got it at the same time. Forward. Shit. Lucas and his compulsive organization. She snatched up the phone as I passed the fourth floor. She hit a button and another extension number came up—145.
Again, we both got it together. I quickly slapped the 5 button as we reached the stop. The elevator caught and slowed. The doors opened. I got out, turned and pulled the emergency stop. The elevator gaped with doors open, not moving. I turned for the stairs.