Ridley Pearson - Cut and Run

“We’re setting up in the kitchen,” she was told.

Hope pressed past the woman holding the door.

“We were told it was black bottoms, white tops.”

Hope noticed that Donna had stuck to the uniform. “Yeah. I’ll change into my stuff after load-in.”

“Midnight to two,” Donna said. “You always work these hours?”

“We see it all here, believe me,” Hope answered, the cooler growing heavy in her arms.

“At least the pay’s right.”

“For you maybe.”

“These guys are real pricks about us keeping to the basement-”

“And the upstairs dining room,” Hope completed, having overheard this condition. “Same old, same old.”

Donna shut the door behind herself as she stepped outside.

Hope hurried down the hall and followed a line of water drops like a mouse after crumbs. She paused at the kitchen door. An exit sign, straight ahead. A small elevator-no, a dumbwaiter-to the right of the kitchen door. A set of stairs that beckoned her.

She stepped into the busy kitchen, set down the cooler, and wondered what came next.

The Odessa Room had once been a library and still retained the floor-to-ceiling shelves of leather-bound books, broken only by mahogany slabs bearing oil paintings under the warm glow of brass tube lights mounted above their frames. For years it had doubled as a more intimate dining room, for parties of less than thirty. Some time in the early 1930s, its recessed ceiling had been installed, an elaborately engineered panel with curving sections that met in the very center, surrounding an oval-shaped, hand-painted depiction of a fox hunt. On its north wall was a marble mantel and its matching hearth, a working fireplace. The mantel was shored up by twin stone columns, carved into which were two nude angels bearing baskets of wheat above their heads of flowing locks. Atop the mantel, two silver candelabra, their new candles unlit, protected a dried arrangement of deep-red roses, wheat straw, and burgundy fruit blossoms.

Around the polished rectangular cherry-topped table sat ten men ranging from thirty to eighty and in every shade of skin: African, Native American, Far Eastern, Caucasian, Hispanic. They represented Reno, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Oakland, Portland, and points in between. They were not unfamiliar to one another.

Philippe, at the head of the table, brought the meeting to order. He thanked them for coming, reached into his black Armani sport coat, and withdrew a plastic jewel case containing a gold CD-ROM, a computer disk capable of storing ten thousand documents. “The highest bidder takes home the entire list. Subsequent sales of the names of individual witnesses, or groups of witnesses, are at the discretion of the buyer.”

A Mexican, who wore a collarless shirt open to a gold chain bearing a St. Christopher, said, “My people tell me a general alarm was put out, that most of the people on that list have fled by now.”

“And that may or may not be true,” Philippe said. “But even so, do you run every time you hear an alarm? Do you uproot your entire family? This list includes everything there is to know about these people. Not just new identities, but employment, banking, known associates. It would take months, years, to regenerate all new data for these people. Whether they run or not, they’re out there, and they’re leaving trails to follow.” He paused, swallowed once, and said, “The bidding will start at ten million dollars.”

A knock on the door-no cell phones, no weapons, were allowed in this room-and Ricardo, who sat to Philippe’s left, was summoned by one of the guards.

Philippe considered Ricardo’s departure carefully, wondering what trick he might be playing. He didn’t want him outside this room where he couldn’t see him.

As the door shut behind Ricardo, Philippe heard whispers that included the words “… your wife…” Fast-moving footsteps followed. It was everything Philippe could do to remain focused as he turned to face the group of raised hands.

“Do I hear fifteen?” he asked.

The Skyjacks operated as motorized trolleys, a battery pack powering a high-torque motor with an oversize pulley-wheel that ran atop the steel aviation cable supporting the four black high-voltage lines. Each of the two ERT operatives hung suspended from one of the devices in a harness that featured quick-release carabiners that allowed them to bail out one-handed and rappel via a weight-balanced recoil, falling toward the ground, if need be, like frightened spiders.

As they entered the estate’s airspace, each carrying a semiautomatic rifle slung around their shoulders, they surveyed the property with high-power night-vision headsets with wireless technology that transmitted the digital images back to the command van. The hands-free radios and earbuds allowed continuous communication between all parties.

“You getting this, Flyswatter?”

“A picture’s worth a thousand words,” LaMoia’s voice came back to the dangling operative.

In the night-vision’s eerie green-and-black, viewed alternately between the V s of trees, they saw a small parking lot crowded with luxury SUVs, Town Cars, and two stretch limousines. A cluster of darkly clad drivers and chauffeurs, some of whom were smoking, loitered by a door to the building.

“We need more than a couple cars and chauffeurs,” LaMoia told his two men. “Keep looking.”

At each pole, the operatives were required to suspend themselves from the cross-ties and move the Skyjack past the pole to the next length of cable. Such transfers consumed three to five minutes, conducted with the utmost care, to avoid being electrocuted.

“Off-line,” announced the lead operative in a hushed whisper.

In the command van, Rotem had had his fill.

“We’re not going to get anything out of this,” he announced to no one in particular.

“Give it time,” LaMoia said. “Our guys know what to look for.”

“When that meeting breaks up,” Rotem said, speculating, “we lose what we’re after.” He had yet to explain, and never would, the loss of Laena . “By then we need legitimate reasons for stopping each and every one of those vehicles. And that’s not happening in this lifetime. If this goes down as a win, we’re going to have to take them as a group, while they’re still in that meeting.”

“It’s a catered event,” LaMoia reminded. “It’s not going to be over in a half hour. They’re probably not even set up yet,” he said, completing his argument. “Give ’em a minute.”

“There’s baggage,” Hampton advised from his uncomfortable seat.

“What about your guy inside?” LaMoia asked.

“That’s unconfirmed,” Rotem said. But then hearing himself say this, he ordered Hampton to try Larson’s cell phone again, muttering, “I’ve waited long enough.” ERT officer Peter Milton, suspended by a woven nylon climbing-strap from one of two wooden booms that supported four high-voltage electric lines, was in the midst of transferring his Skyjack to the next length of cable when he spotted a small stainless-steel box screwed into the wooden pole, and recognized it immediately. He’d moonlighted weekends for Cablevision.

Milton radioed his discovery to the command van and waited to see if LaMoia understood its implications.

LaMoia swiveled on the small stool and faced Rotem. “You may need our help on this one, Marshal Rotem-state law versus the feds, and all-but my officer just stumbled upon the unexpected. It seems someone in that compound is pirating their cable television.”

“Television?”

“A black box,” LaMoia explained. “Unauthorized intercept of a coaxial cable. It could be to steal high-speed Internet or a television signal, but state law’s the same either way.”