Within moments of the intermission announcement, just as the room erupted into applause and people jumped from their seats, throwing the auditorium into chaos, her phone buzzed and tickled her right hand, and she touched LaMoia’s shoulder to get his attention.
He nodded, and she answered it, plugging a finger in her left ear.
A low, mechanical, sterile voice said, “It’s time.” The line disconnected.
She felt all the color drain from her, all warmth. She existed in another realm where all motion slowed around her, and all sound stretched and distorted. LaMoia asked, “What’s up?” but her brain barely processed the inquiry.
“It’s time,” she managed to say.
“What about the phone call?” LaMoia asked, misunderstanding.
“It’s time,” she repeated, explaining that this had been the message delivered. The room spun. She locked on to the armrests in order to slow the carousel. She wanted the movie back. She didn’t want to go anywhere, do anything. As childish as she knew it to be, she wanted nothing more than to stay right where she was.
LaMoia leaned into her ear. “I’m going to tell the Sarge, but not until we’re out of here. This is our chance-this craziness. You gotta get up. We gotta get moving.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“I’ll carry you if I have to, but we’re outta here.”
That got her moving. She stood and followed him out into the throng. LaMoia motioned toward a side exit where a number of people were already lighting cigarettes as they stepped outside. She and LaMoia cut through a row of seats toward these open doors, and as they did she felt the eyes on her once more and the seeds of distrust and fear fought to take root yet again. Up the street the WestCorp Bank Center loomed.
“I don’t know that I can do this,” she said to LaMoia.
“I don’t think you got a choice,” he returned. “Hang with me. We’re almost there.”
But in her heart of hearts she knew this too was just another lie.
They had barely begun.
TWENTY-THREE
BOLDT WORKED THE CASE LIKE a fire juggler with too many torches in the air. He had recused himself from direct participation in Liz’s surveillance, surprising no one by declining an offer to take a seat in the Special Ops steam-cleaning van, electing instead to drive himself around and listen in on the radio. Riz warned him politely but directly that he didn’t need “any rogue operatives” during his effort to keep Liz safe, and Boldt lied, assuring Riz that he would keep his distance.
He took up a position, parking across the street from the bank building’s north entrance, a place that included a view of one of the two entrance/exits to the high-rise’s private underground parking facility. His biggest concern remained Svengrad and men like Alekseevich. Into the mix he threw Foreman, whom he knew to be operating solo but whose motives remained unclear, and therefore his danger to Liz difficult to assess. Somewhere out there, Boldt believed Olson and Organized Crime were keeping watch now that Alekseevich’s status remained so closely tied to this case and Boldt’s decision making.
His job was to trick Special Ops into sitting on a decoy-Daphne Matthews or one of the several dozen other nuns in attendance at the movie-while LaMoia smuggled Liz out of the theater and put her in play. Svengrad had made it perfectly clear that no substitutions were to take place, and as yet, Boldt felt unwilling to challenge the man. The second part of his job was to allow Liz to transfer the money without Danny Foreman messing things up or getting selfish. Ultimately, he had plans beyond this, but early into the chicanery, his focus remained his wife’s safe transfer, slipping her past the watchful eyes of Special Ops’ “B”-as in “bank”-post, a group of three technicians who currently occupied a Seattle Post-Intelligencer panel truck conveniently parked over an open manhole with unseen video trunk lines running into the bank through the floor of the truck. From that truck the three could monitor every surveillance camera in the building, could directly communicate with bank security, and could even listen in over the public address system’s microphone during tonight’s reception. He knew his one advantage was that unbeknownst to anyone but him and a trusted few, he was working directly with his nemesis, David Hayes. Hayes was the wild card he intended to play to its fullest. As much as Boldt was loath to admit it, Hayes could run circles around all of them.
“Yo!” Boldt heard in his ear after answering his mobile phone. LaMoia informed him that Liz had received a call just after the start of intermission. A synthesized voice again, short and to the point. Foreman, Boldt thought, finally beginning to sort out the various roles being played. Assuring Boldt that he and Liz had slipped away successfully, LaMoia concluded by saying, “We’re happening.” Translation: They were about to cross the street to the WestCorp Bank Center.
Call-waiting chirped in the phone and Boldt signed off with LaMoia, accepting a call that turned out to be from Heiman at the On-Sat navigation offices. Foreman’s Escalade was on the move, heading downtown.
“Interesting timing,” Boldt muttered. This too fit into an expected pattern.
He called Gaynes into action. Posing as a waitress, she would now join the reception, a stopgap and final line of defense known only to him. Hayes was to be guarded by Milner, one of LaMoia’s trustworthy soldiers. Boldt ended the call, expecting to see his wife at any moment, wondering if his plan could get her into the bank without her being seen or detected and identified by the elaborate electronic surveillance already in place.
He counted on David Hayes to help him, if indirectly. In fact, Liz’s survival now depended on him.
In the midst of a light drizzle and traces of ground fog that swirled between the high-rises like smoke from a fire, a darkened figure stalked through the rain toward the west pedestrian entrance to the WestCorp Bank Center shopping complex, a lower-level mall that sat below the bank.
Police radios, quiet for the past several minutes, drew attention to this visitor. The mall stores had all closed at 6 P.M., though access to parking and the tower elevators remained open. Not one pedestrian had entered the shopping complex in the past half hour, raising suspicions as this figure approached.
The “B” unit commander, Dennis Cretchkie, jockeyed his team, directing an undercover wheelchaired officer to enter the facility behind this visitor. Cretchkie called for reports. Off Fifth on University, the Town Car set jammed the Olympic Hotel’s U-shaped driveway, the hotel doorman blowing his whistle for taxis stacked along the curb. A small group of white seagulls flashed in the black sky and shrieked noisily overhead. A homeless woman pushed a supermarket cart laden with soggy blankets and aluminum cans uphill, leaning into her effort. A street-cleaning machine lumbered slowly up University, brushes spinning, eliciting the complaint of car horns as it hindered traffic.
The undercover officer in the wheelchair reported that the unidentified pedestrian was a woman carrying an umbrella that obscured her face. As this unidentified subject-“unsub”-approached the west entrance of the underground mall, the cop in the wheelchair worked furiously to intercept her, hoping she might hold the door for him and thereby give him a good look at her face. His effort failed.
Monitoring surveillance activities over the police radio, Boldt sat forward in the front seat of the Crown Vic, the steering wheel pressing into his chest. Every action, every move by Special Ops was crucial to the success or failure of his plan. Boldt was parked with a view of the north side of the block-square complex, with no view of the unidentified woman who had just entered WestCorp Center. With the announcement of her entering the mall, Pahwan Riz, one block east, with a view of the 5th Avenue Theatre, pressured his detectives and operatives in the audience for the exact location of “the mark.” Liz.