Or She Dies Read online

  It was the Long Beach office of Festman Gruber.

  The elevator hummed pleasantly up fifteen levels. A floor-to-ceiling wall of thick glass — probably ballistic — rimmed the lobby, funneling visitors to the bank-teller window of the reception console. The security guard behind the window had a sidearm and an impressive scowl for 8:00 A.M. Behind him was a beehive of offices and conference rooms, also composed of glass walls, with assistants and workers scurrying to and fro. Aside from the dollhouse view, it looked just like any other business, depressing in its sterility. The front barrier muted everything beyond to a perfect silence. All that classified work, taking place right in the soundproofed open.

  It didn’t seem that the guard recognized me, but the bruising on my face said that I was out of place here among the plush carpet and Aeron chairs. My palms were damp, my shoulders tense.

  Four hours until Ridgeline would kill my wife.

  ‘Patrick Davis,’ I said. ‘I’d like to speak to the head of Legal.’

  He pushed a button, and his voice issued through a speaker. ‘Do you have an appointment?’

  ‘No. Just give my name, and I’m sure he or she will want to see me.’

  The guard didn’t say anything, but his face showed he thought that to be improbable. I prayed that the cops wouldn’t be summoned before I had a chance to talk to someone.

  Of course I’d yet to sleep. I’d picked up Jerry’s signal analyzer from a drop point in the wee hours, and some of Kazakov’s unnamed associates were rigging it to plug into a standard GPS unit so I could zero in on Ariana’s — or at least her raincoat’s — location. After that I was on my own. I’d have to source that tracking signal and catch up to the Ridgeline crew wherever they were hunkered down before they headed out to our meet point at high noon. Right now I needed something to drive that wedge deep and hard between Festman Gruber and Ridgeline, something to arm myself with to take in to the men holding my wife. There were more variables than I could wrap my sleep-deprived mind around, and if any one of them tilted in the wrong direction, I’d be making funeral arrangements, standing trial, or filling out a casket.

  As I waited for entry or arrest, treated to a little piped-in Josh Groban, I watched an assistant walk down a glass-walled hall and enter a glass-walled conference room. Men in suits rimmed a granite table the length of a sailboat. One man, identical to the others, rose from the head abruptly when she whispered in his ear. He glanced through the walls at me, Ariana’s life hanging in the balance of his decision. Then he walked briskly into an office next door. Waiting breathlessly for his verdict, I was struck that all the glass wasn’t some pretense of feel-good corporate transparency; it was an embodiment of the ultimate paranoia. At any time everyone could keep an eye on everyone else.

  To my great relief, the assistant, an Asian woman with a severe bob cut, fetched me and led me back. I passed through a metal detector, dropping Don’s car keys to the side in a silver tray that passed through a scan of its own. But I kept my sealed manila envelope in hand.

  Now came the real challenge.

  The man waited for me in the middle of his office, arms at his sides. ‘Bob Reimer,’ he said, not offering his hand.

  We stood centered on the slate rug, regarding each other like boxers. He seemed to fit with the total ordinariness of the setting, a mover and shaker who left nary an imprint on the retinas, as bland as a watercooler in a bomb factory. He was older — fifty, maybe — of a generation that still wore tie clips, carried through on their side parts, said ‘porno’ instead of ‘porn.’ I couldn’t help but think of those replicating G-men from The Matrix — Midwest white, neat suit, not a hair out of place. He was Everyman. He was nobody. Blink and he’d been replaced by an alien, simulating human form. A crushing disappointment, after all the fear and loss and menace, to be confronted with such banality in an air-conditioned office.

  He crossed behind me and tapped the glass wall with his fingertips, and it clouded instantly, blocking us from the rest of the floor. Magic.

  He went to his desk and removed a handheld wand, which I assumed, in light of my continuing spy education, to be a spectrum analyzer. ‘Given circumstances, I assume you won’t object,’ he said.

  I held my arms wide, and he ran the wand up and down my sides, across my chest, my face, the manila envelope. I resisted an impulse to drive the point of my elbow down through his nose.

  Content that I wasn’t emitting any RF signals, he slid the wand away in a well-oiled drawer. A framed photograph of an attractive wife and two smiling young boys was on proud display. Beside it sat a coffee mug picturing a cartoon fisherman that said WORLD’S BEST DAD! I realized, with revulsion, that he probably was a good father, that he likely carved his life into neat little compartments and managed them with a despot’s efficiency. This compartment had all the trappings and symbols of an ordinary family man, but I had the sensation of being in a well-appointed viper’s nest, designed to replicate human surroundings.

  ‘You’re a fugitive from justice,’ he said, not unpleasantly.

  ‘I’ve come to deal.’ My voice sounded level enough.

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Clean hands up here on the fifteenth floor.’

  ‘Why did you come here?’

  ‘I wanted to look you in the face,’ I said. Though fury had edged into my voice, his expression remained amiable. I took a half step closer. ‘I can connect you to Ridgeline.’

  If there was shock at hearing the name, he concealed it beautifully. ‘Of course you can. Ridgeline is a security company. They handle our international executive protection.’

  ‘We both know they’ve been handling a lot more than that.’

  ‘I’m uncertain what you’re referring to.’ But his eyes stayed on the envelope.

  The phone on his desk bleated. He crossed and punched a button. ‘Not now.’

  The Asian assistant: ‘There’s an investigative reporter team here from CNBC. They say they want a statement on a breaking story.’

  He crossed his office in four steps, knocked the milky glass with a knuckle, and it grew clear again. More magic.

  Across in the lobby stood two men in windbreakers, one toting a massive video camera with CNBC TV emblazoned on the side next to the familiar peacock rainbow flare. ‘Get rid of—’ Reimer’s jaw flexed out at the corners, and his gaze swiveled to mine.

  ‘I haven’t leaked this yet,’ I said. ‘Obviously, or I wouldn’t be here. But I can’t speak for what Ridgeline’s doing.’

  ‘Why would you think Ridgeline’s making a move against us?’

  I didn’t answer.

  The assistant again, through the phone: ‘Would you like me to have them wait out here?’

  ‘No.’ He shot his watch from the cuff of his jacket. ‘I don’t think we should keep investigative reporters in the lobby to hobnob with the Jordanian contingent due here ten minutes ago.’ His sarcasm was understated, and all the more biting for it. ‘Put them in Conference Four, where I can keep an eye on them. Offer them coffee, Danish, whatever, I’ll be in with Chris to see them shortly.’

  His mouth pulled to the side in a straight line, no curl — his version of a smile. ‘Perhaps we could speed this along? What’s this about, exactly?’

  ‘As I said. Ridgeline.’

  ‘I don’t know what stories you think you’ve caught wind of, but you should know that companies like Ridgeline are a dime a dozen. They’re given an assignment, and off they go. They don’t even know why they’re doing what they do half the time, so it’s easy for them to misinterpret instructions, overstep their bounds. They’re composed of former Spec Ops guys, and let’s just say that type has been known to get a little . . . overzealous on occasion.’

  The breezy tone, nary a stutter — to him this was all just business as usual. And being here behind the scenes where levers were thrown and accounts brutally balanced, I felt naïve and sickened. I watched his pink lips moving an
d had to check my disgust to focus on his words.

  He continued, ‘That’s why Festman Gruber is very careful to limit its dealings with companies like Ridgeline to specific contracted services, such as executive protection. You need a junkyard dog sometimes, but you also have to make sure that you’re holding the leash.’

  ‘It would be unfortunate if that junkyard dog maintained records of all its transactions with Festman Gruber.’ I held up the manila envelope.

  I looked at him; he looked at it. He took the envelope a bit more hastily than suited his demeanor, breaking the seal and sliding the sheaf of papers into his hand. A complete set of those documents I’d pulled off the Ridgeline copier’s hard drive — payments, accounts, and phone calls tracing the connection from Ridgeline back to Festman Gruber.

  His tie, set neatly to his Adam’s apple in a broad half Windsor, appeared suddenly too tight. His face colored, accenting the stubble pinpoints beneath that close shave, but he needed only a moment to process the surprise and regain his composure. When he looked back up, he was completely in control again. ‘Whatever Ridgeline elected to do on their own time, they will answer for.’

  I just looked out across the floor, giving him rope. There was plenty to behold, a whole world contained in the glass walls — all that respectable industry in constant, efficient motion. The reporters had been ushered into the conference room across the hall. They sat slurping coffee, the large camera with the CNBC logo resting on the table between them.

  ‘We do a lot of business in the international community, Mr Davis,’ he said. ‘We have dealings with over two hundred thousand individuals, last I checked. Many of them in the aggressive professions. We can’t account for the temperament of each one.’

  ‘But these individuals answer to you,’ I said. ‘Or they did. You’re the top dog, at least when it comes to this little scheme. It stops with you, so everyone above remains nicely insulated from the truth.’

  He didn’t refute the point, which felt an awful lot like confirming it.

  ‘You can reach Ridgeline,’ I said. ‘You can make them stop.’

  His bottom lip bowed in just barely, as if he’d tasted something repulsive. ‘It’s safe to say that contact — and loyalties — between our companies has frayed.’

  ‘You’re not in touch at all?’ I asked.

  From what Kazakov had told me about the workings of such arrangements, I’d assumed as much. And given the aggressive moves Ridgeline had taken against their omniscient employer, they’d need to stay off the grid as much as I did. But I wanted to confirm the communication breakdown, and I needed to draw Reimer out.

  ‘Regular communication can be a detriment when it comes to matters where both sides require’ — a pause as he selected the right word — ‘prudence. All the more when dealings achieve a heightened level of complication. And now this.’ He sighed, disappointed. ‘These documents make clear that Ridgeline isn’t interested in upholding their agreements. But that cuts both ways. We are no longer obligated to offer them the customary protections.’

  I nodded at the papers in his hand. ‘Looks like they read that one coming.’

  ‘This’ — he raised the sheaf — ‘this can be explained away in a few phone calls.’

  ‘If your bosses are willing to make them for you. Ridgeline is expendable. My guess is you might be, too. You know what they say: never be the senior man with a secret.’

  A cough of disbelief. ‘Documents can be altered. Put into context. The news waits for us.’ He gave an almost unconscious nod to the reporters sitting patiently across the hall. ‘You think a few pieces of paper are enough to make my bosses want to hang me out?’

  ‘Combined with the story I can tell.’

  ‘You?’ He smiled. ‘We can erase you. Not kill you. Erase you. From all consideration. It’s not just us, it’s whose shoulders we’re standing on, which databases we plug into, which institutions are reliant on our continued success.’

  ‘Is this the “I am the government” speech? Because I’ve heard that one already.’

  His lip curled, almost imperceptibly. ‘Ridgeline, like everyone else’ — he waved a hand around — ‘they’re just fish in our aquarium. We tap a little food into the tank, and they come swimming.’ A faint grin. ‘But I’m sure a grounded college instructor like yourself can’t relate to that.’

  The words cut deep. My mind moved to Deborah Vance in her apartment, the vintage travel posters and antique furniture and spot-on style, all selected with painstaking desperation to transport her to another age. Roman LaRusso, agent to the washed up and disabled, hunkered down in his stacks of dusty paperwork, his view of a brick wall offering barely a craned-neck glimpse of billboard and blue sky. All those faded dreams hung framed on his office walls, head shots with signatures and stale advice from would-bes and also-rans no more qualified to proffer it than I: Live Every Moment, Don’t Stop Believing, and yeah, Follow Your Dreams. I thought of who I’d let myself become by the time this had all started twelve endless days ago — a has-been almost-screenwriter with a marriage on the rocks. Impatient, gullible, desperate for attention, eager to be exploited, to be noticed, to hasten whatever was coming my way. I’d been out of the spotlight, off the stage, consigned to the real world, where I was unwilling to deserve what I already had.

  Reimer was watching me expectantly, his words still lingering: I’m sure a grounded college instructor like yourself can’t relate to that.

  ‘Not anymore,’ I said.

  ‘No?’

  ‘I don’t care about movies or writing or whales or sonar,’ I said. ‘I care about my wife.’

  ‘They have her?’

  ‘They do.’

  ‘Looks like they read you coming, too,’ he said with a measure of satisfaction. ‘They’re trying to clean up their mess. They will do what they have to do, and they will invent stories and defenses later. I’m afraid that doesn’t bode well for you and your wife.’

  ‘So you and I are in the same boat.’

  ‘The difference is, we can scrape a company like Ridgeline off the bottom of our shoe, and we can use a nuclear warhead to do it. It’s all about allies, who’s on the other end of the phone. Ridgeline thinks they’ve built an insurance file in this’ — he shook the papers, the first little show of emotion — ‘but they’ve done nothing more than arrange for their funerals. You — and they — know next to nothing about something that never happened. They’ve compiled proof of our dealings, but proof is relevant only if there’s a legal inquiry, an arrest, a jury. We will make calls. We will rewrite this. That’s what all you fish — circling in your glass bowls, captivated by your own reflections — never grasp. Companies like Festman Gruber, we decide which stories get told. Festman Gruber doesn’t answer to a bunch of copied documents or a crusading murderer with a bone to pick. Everything will be hung on you. And the fallout will land on Ridgeline.’

  ‘Unless,’ I said, ‘you’ve been good enough to give me what I came for.’

  His eyes darted back and forth, scanning my face. ‘As in this is being recorded?’ He barked a one-note laugh. His grin looked stuck to his teeth. ‘Bullshit. You went through a metal detector.’

  ‘There are cutting-edge devices,’ I said, ‘that function using tiny amounts of metal.’

  ‘I scanned you myself for RF.’

  ‘It wasn’t transmitting then. In fact, you turned it on yourself.’

  He looked down at his arms, his hands, finally focusing on the envelope he still grasped. With dread, he lifted the loose flap. A razor-thin clear square, the size of a postage stamp, remained inside on the gummy strip. Its transparent contact, which had been pulled open to activate the device when he’d raised the flap, was stuck to the envelope. ‘There’s no’ — he paused for a breath — ‘power source.’

  ‘It vacuums free RF out of the air and converts it to power to run itself.’

  His gaze moved through the walls, all those cell phones strapped to belts, assistants tapping
on iPhones, routers blinking from bookshelves, all that free RF floating around, waiting to get grabbed out of the air he breathed all day up here on the fifteenth floor. A single bead of sweat emerged from his sideburn and arced down his cheek.

  ‘A . . . a transmitter that small, it would need its receiving equipment close by’ — he tried on a shrug — ‘or . . . or there’s no way this tiny signal could transmit beyond our front barrier.’ He pointed to the wall of ballistic glass that framed out the lobby and the outside world.

  I knocked on the wall, the glass clouding. My second knock brought it clear again. Across the hall, in Conference Four, the CNBC reporters sat cocked back in their chairs, feet on the table, eating crullers. The guy at the head of the table nodded at me, sucked glaze from his fingers, and made a ta-da gesture at the massive camera.

  ‘Hidden in the camera,’ Reimer said hoarsely. ‘That’s the receiving equipment.’ His voice was flat, but I thought it was a question.

  ‘Receiving,’ I said, ‘and relay. To a safe off-site location.’

  ‘I don’t believe it. Besides us, there’s maybe a handful of places in the world with that kind of teeth in the surveillance arena. You . . . Where would you get technology like that?’

  ‘Where do you think?’

  His face shifted, and I believe he understood what fear was for the first time in a very long time.

  In Conference Four the fake reporter leaned forward and peeled the magnetic CNBC peacock sign off the side of the camera, revealing the North Vector logo beneath.

  Reimer made a noise — something between clearing his throat and grunting.

  I said, ‘There’s an internal study on relative sonar levels I managed to get into the hands of North Vector as well.’

  He blanched.

  ‘That junkyard dog you hired seems to have slipped the leash,’ I said. ‘Some of those important calls you were talking about? They’re being made right now. I understand that the contract at stake is worth twenty billion dollars, give or take a few billion. I’m guessing a figure like that might go a certain distance toward eroding your bosses’ devotion to you.’