P Deutermann - The Moonpool

I was on the diagonal corner from them when I got to Water Street. I thought about going over to them and commenting on the weather, but then decided to go on back to the hotel, which was only three blocks away. I’d have to cross one relatively dark parking lot and then walk up the flood ramp in front of the lobby, but there were people up there, and it didn’t look like a promising place for a mugging. When I went through the hotel doors and glanced back, I didn’t see anyone following me. Okay, too many late-night TV movies. I stopped at the lobby PC to check my e-mail, then went upstairs.

The corridor on my floor was empty and quiet. There was a room service tray with dirty dishes in front of the suite diagonally across from mine, but no other signs that there were humans about. I keyed open my door, flipped on the light.

And there they were.

One was standing by the window with his back to me, looking out at the river. A second was sitting at the desk chair, facing me, and holding a large black semiautomatic out at arm’s length, pointed at my stomach. The third, older than the other two, was sitting in the other chair, hands behind his head, and grinning at the expression on my face. I stopped short, keeping the door open, mentally kicking myself for not having the shepherds with me.

“Oh, shut the damn door, Lieutenant,” the older one said. “This is just a social call.”

I thought about shutting it and running, but had not yet looked at the fire escape card to see where the stairs were. There was also the wee matter of that. 45 looking right at me.

Some social call. The young guy with the big black gun was not smiling. Plus, the older one had called me lieutenant.

“C’mon,” he insisted. “We’ve all had dinner, and none of us wants to chase your ass around the hotel. Come in and close the door. Please?”

“Well, since you said please,” I said, putting on the best front I could muster. The guy looking out the window hadn’t turned around, but I knew he was watching me in the reflection of the room lights.

“Thank you very much,” the older guy said. “You’re wondering how we got in here.”

“Question crossed my mind,” I said.

I felt increasingly stupid standing in the little entrance alcove next to the bathroom door. I wondered if there was anyone in the bathroom, or if they’d found my own weapon in the hidden compartment of my toiletries bag. The rest of my stuff didn’t look as if anyone had been through it. “So what’re we here to talk about?”

“Actually, I’m here to talk, and you’re here to listen, if you don’t mind,” the man said. He was about fifty-five, with a hard face, a hatchet nose, and reddish gray hair planed into a flattop haircut. Like the others, he was wearing a windbreaker, khaki trousers, and military boots. There was a small black knife in a pouch on his right boot.

The other guy whose face I could see looked Italian. He was much younger, maybe in his late twenties. He was obviously trying to look like some kind of unblinking, lizard-eyed, hard-boiled young soldato in a crime family. He was succeeding. All three of them were in shape, with flat bellies, big chests, and heavy shoulders under those oversized windbreakers. I wondered how long the young guy could hold that heavy. 45 out at arm’s length like that. My arm was getting tired just watching him do it.

“A lot of that going around tonight,” I said, trying to look more relaxed than I felt. I could not possibly get to my gun before the guy in the chair could do some damage. “First the FBI, then-”

“We know,” the man said, waving his hand dismissively. He had a large gold university ring on his left hand. “Especially, we know Dr. Quartermain. That’s kinda why we’re here, Lieutenant. Dr. Quartermain’s operating way off his patch, talking to a civilian like you.”

“So, what, he’s operating on your patch, perhaps? And who is ‘we’-you got a mouse in your pocket?”

The man gave me a patient, mildly annoyed look that said, I’m not done talking and you’re not done listening. The hoodlum wannabe shifted in his chair, as if waiting for the command to jump up and bite me or something, but that. 45 never wavered. The third man continued to take in the sights out on the river, but he had one hand hanging casually in the folds of his jacket.

“We are the other half of security at the Helios power plant,” he said. “The so-called physical security half. We’re the guys who deal with the Navy SEALs when they run federally sponsored intrusion drills on the plant.”

I guess I was supposed to be impressed, but I was getting tired of standing at the door. I waved my right hand to include everyone in the room. “This is a little extreme for a bunch of rent-a-cops, isn’t it?”

“Ow,” Hatchet-Nose said. “Now you’ve hurt my feelings. But let me make sure the message gets through. You need to do two things: go away, and stop talking to your new best friend, Dr. Aristotle Quartermain.”

“According to Dr. Quartermain, you work for him.”

“Yes, he would probably say that. But security in an atomic power plant is a complex business. Multi-layered, if it’s done right. Lots of need-to-know barriers. The administrative wiring diagram doesn’t always tell the whole tale.”

“Let me get this straight-you’re security contractors at a commercial power plant who’ve followed me, broken into my room, with at least one gun visible, and the reason I shouldn’t break out my cell phone and dial 911 is…?”

“First of all, your cell phone is over there on the desk, and we have the battery. And young Billy here isn’t going to let you go over there and get it or anything else.”

I looked at young Billy, whose arm remained straight out with nary a tremor. That really was impressive.

“Secondly, your ‘going away’ is the operative part. It’s really good advice. We’re sorry for your loss and all that. We don’t know what happened, either, but what we do know is that the bad shit, whatever it was, didn’t come through my perimeter.”

My Bureau, and now my perimeter. “It came through somebody’s perimeter,” I said. “You got a name? Cops’ll want to know.”

He laughed softly. “You’re not going to call the cops, Mr. Richter. Unless you startle young Billy here, nothing’s going to happen. We’re going to leave, and you’re going to pack. Feel free to spend the night, but tomorrow, you’re going back to your fascinating private-eye work in beautiful downtown Triboro, North Carolina.”

“And if I don’t?” I said.

“There will be unpleasant consequences. The array of federal agencies involved in keeping nuclear power plants safe is, let’s see, how shall I put this-legion?”

“Oh,” I said. “Legion. Dozens of inept bureaucracies, tripping over each other while fucking up by the numbers? That legion? When you said unpleasant, I thought you meant Billy the Kid here.”

His semijocular, we’re-all-buddies-in-this-together expression slipped a little. “That can be arranged, too,” he said. “He’s young, but he’s impressive.”

“Holding that. 45 straight out like that for all this time-that’s impressive,” I said. “But I’d guess he needs two other guys for anything personal.”

Billy’s eyes narrowed. I’d hurt some more feelings.

The third man turned around at last. He, too, was lean from top to bottom, in his early forties, with close-cropped blond hair and the face of a Nazi death camp commandant, complete with disturbing pale blue eyes. “You can try me if you’d like,” he said.

“Actually, I prefer girls,” I said. I stepped to one side and held open the door. I saw Billy’s trigger finger, which had been resting alongside the trigger guard, slip into firing position. For some reason, though, I didn’t think he’d shoot. They hadn’t come here to shoot people. This time, anyway.