Greg Rucka: Patriot acts

"Where is she?"

"She's outside, but you've got two either in or on the room. I don't know how you're going to manage that."

"Don't worry about it," I told him. "I'll call you when it's done."

"Good lu-"

I hung up before he could finish, took my toolbox, and headed for the service elevator.

It was as I stepped out onto the fourteenth floor that two of the things I'd missed struck me at once. The first was that fourteen-forty-one could, conceivably, not be the room Jason Earle was in; Alena had disconnected the thermostats in two of the rooms, and he could only be in one of them. I was quite possibly headed to the wrong place.

The second thing was more irrational, and struck me just as I was able to confirm that I, at least, was headed to the right room. Panno said the guards were Gorman-North. That Earle had brought guards at all worried me, and that there were only three of them confused me. If there had been more, I'd have believed he'd been tipped to our attempt at Georgetown, and was building protection around himself. But only three, I didn't know what to make of that, if it was only for show or for ego or for something else entirely. If it was a trap then it wasn't enough muscle. If it was for his protection it wasn't enough coverage.

So what the hell was it?

I came out of the service corridor and into the carpeted hallway to see two men standing post perhaps fifty feet away. They saw me as I emerged, and both turned to watch my approach, and I raised my free hand in greeting, trudging towards them. They didn't wave back, but one of the two knocked on the door they were guarding, then stuck his head in, most likely to announce my arrival.

"Sorry," I said as I drew closer. "Sorry, it's been crazy this evening, I got up here as soon as I could."

"Can I look in your toolbox, please, sir?" the larger and older of the two asked me.

"Yeah, sure." I handed it over to him. He set it down on the floor and opened it, began rifling through the contents.

The other guard, perhaps six or seven years younger than his partner, was looking at me closely. I met his eyes and he looked away, checking down the hallway. He hadn't liked the eye contact, which had been the point of doing it.

His partner closed the box and handed it back to me, saying, "There you go."

Then he opened the door, and held it until I had stepped fully into Jason Earle's suite, before letting it fall closed behind me.

"Maintenance," I called.

"Go ahead."

I looked to the source, saw a man seated at the desk by the window off to my right. He was bent to his work, a large pen visible in his hand, and I watched as he put pen to paper, scribbling quickly. He didn't raise his head at all. The two words were the extent of his acknowledgment that I was even there.

I stared at his back for a moment, then moved to where the thermostat was on the wall. I set the toolbox down at my feet, snapped it open, then used a flathead screwdriver to pop the faceplate free. It dangled on its wires, and, now exposed, I could see where Alena had disconnected the mercury switch to render the thermostat useless. I ignored it, fiddled for several seconds, then dropped the screwdriver back into the box. It went in with a clatter, and at his desk, the man stiffened for a moment in annoyance, then resumed what he had been doing.

From my breast pocket, I pulled the rag I'd grabbed and sprayed it with a hit from the can of WD-40. I stood up again, using my body to block any view he might have if he turned around, pretending to work the thermostat some more while running the rag over the two buttons on the faceplate. The smell of the solvent was rich in the air.

I went back to the toolbox again, clattering through it, then pulled the small metal box Alena had given me and popped open the top. I took a second to glance to the desk, and the man still hadn't even turned to see me, now moving a new set of paperwork in front of him. With the top of the toolbox as a shield from his view, I tapped the contents of my little tin onto the corner of my rag. The granules were fat and almost chalky, light gray. I closed the tin with one hand, stuffed it back into my pocket, then turned to the faceplate one more time. I smeared each button with the rag.

The room seemed very quiet, just the sound of two men working to two very different ends.

I folded the edge of the rag over into itself, then folded it again, and then used it to protect my fingers as I fitted the plate back into position over the thermostat. Then I folded it a final time and tucked it carefully back into my pocket. The buttons glistened slightly from the WD-40, but against their own almost-white, the powder was nearly impossible to see.

I cleared my throat, and when he didn't respond, said, "Pardon me, sir?"

He straightened in his seat, half turning. "Yes?"

"I've done everything I can, but I don't have the parts I need with me. I'm going to have to go back downstairs to get them."

"I see."

"If I can bother you for a moment to come over here, I'd like to show you the reset, though. That way, if it starts working, you'll be able to get it set how you like without me needing to come back up here."

Even from across the room, I heard his sigh. Then he capped his pen and pushed back his chair, got to his feet, and started over towards me. I turned away, to face the thermostat.

"All right, go ahead," he said.

I indicated the two buttons on the faceplate. "Once it's in reset, you need to reinitialize it. The way you do that is by holding these two buttons down together for about five seconds. You do that, you should hear a click. You want to try it, you should be able to hear it now. Won't do anything, but you'll know what I'm talking about."

"Both of the buttons at once, like this?" He pushed his index and middle finger of his left hand against the buttons, depressing them firmly.

"Just like that, now you hold it."

He held them down for several seconds, then released, saying, "I didn't hear anything."

"I'm sorry, sir, are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"Sometimes it doesn't work first time."

He shook his head slightly, finding me tiresome, and again depressed the buttons with his index and middle fingers. He held them longer this time, and I could see the circulation in his fingertips diminishing from the pressure he was applying. After almost ten seconds, he released.

"Nothing." He looked at his fingers, searched for a place to wipe them, then gave up. "Don't you clean your work surface after you're done with it? It's covered with oil."

I pulled the rag again, still folded, and used it to wipe the faceplate down, saying, "Sorry about that. I forget sometimes."

"I didn't hear anything that time, either."

"Must be something in the power source, then, like I was afraid of." I replaced the rag in the same pocket as before. "I'll see if I can't find a replacement, bring a whole new unit up here."

"If you could. It's getting stuffy in here."

"Shouldn't take me too long, sir."

I turned to face him, and Jason Earle was looking at me, and our eyes met.

I thought about everything I wanted to say to him. How I wanted to tell him that he was a dead man and he didn't know it yet and that I had killed him. I wanted to tell him why I had done what I had done to him. I wanted to tell him that Elliot Trent had taken my bullets with a smile all in the hope of this moment. I wanted to tell him that he had taken my best friend from the world, and that I didn't care who the hell he was or thought he was, she hadn't been his to take. That he shouldn't have done it, he should have let it all go, because I would have been happy to do the same. I wanted to tell him that I almost had, but that, like Elliot Trent, I had someone who was precious to me, even more than Natalie had been, and he had threatened her, too, and that I wouldn't-I couldn't-let that stand.