Ridley Pearson - Cut and Run

“Are we sure ?”

“Milton knows his stuff, believe me. If he says it’s a black box, it’s a black box. And I don’t know about Washington, D.C., but in Washington state that’s a no-brainer for a search-and-seizure: ‘to confirm and record the use of the unauthorized interception of radio or television transmission,’ ” he quoted. “More to your favor is that our guys typically make such raids evening or nighttime-like right now -when people are in their homes. It’s not going to ruffle any judge’s feathers to cut us the paper this time of night.”

“Let’s make the call,” Rotem said with reservation.

LaMoia could see through to his concern. “As CO, I’m free to solicit the assistance of any law-enforcement personnel that, in my judgment, will better protect my field personnel. A couple federal marshals joining up won’t raise many eyebrows. We’ve got that license plate, that link to OC, to give us good enough reason to go in hot.”

Rotem had his phone out. He told Hampton to get word to Larson to keep his head down because they were coming in.

“I’ve tried him, like, ten times,” Hampton said.

“Well, try him again.”

Hope spotted a tray holding ten empty water glasses and two pitchers with ice. Scooping it up, she headed into the hall and turned left toward the stairs. She climbed quickly, arriving into the dizzying smell of oiled wood, leather, and the lingering sweetness of cigar and pipe tobacco. Golf championship plaques lined the walls, some dating back to 1910. Yellowed black-and-white head shots of officious-looking men in blazers and club ties filled in the gaps between the plaques.

She forced herself to walk slowly. With all the activity in the basement and the dining room being on the first floor, she assumed Penny was being kept somewhere here. The first two doors she encountered were closed. She dared not open them. The third was open a crack. She peered into an empty secretary’s station, the anteroom of an office. The sound of male voices down the hall won her attention and drew her past two more doors. The hall opened up then into a large trophy room with pennants hanging from the crown molding. Clubby, with brown leather couches and overstuffed chairs, chess sets, and backgammon tables. An armoire concealed a television.

Hope cut across this room and into an opposing hallway where she came across a small window in a swinging door. She peeked through and saw a narrow stairway.

She pushed through and climbed to the second floor, knowingly out-of-bounds. She hoped a simple excuse of being lost might get her by. Stopping at the landing, she heard the elevator’s electronic groan. Peering out into this second-floor hallway, she saw the room doors were farther separated than on the ground floor. Bedrooms or billiards or card rooms, perhaps. The stairs continued up to her left. She knew she was in dangerous territory.

The tray grew increasingly heavy for her.

Out in the hallway, she heard the spit of a radio intercom. “Khakis, brown sweater.”

She didn’t have to look down to realize she fit that description.

She set down the tray, pushing it into the corner, and quickly climbed to the third floor.

From below she heard a male voice. “Hey, I got a tray here. Glasses. Pitchers. Fresh ice.”

If something was said back to this man, Hope didn’t hear it. She pushed through the door and stepped out into the third-floor hallway, struck by the immediate smell of a hospital ward. She wondered if Meriden Manor was serving as a retirement home for mobsters.

She darted past medical equipment, convinced her pursuer was coming through that door behind her at any second.

The smell of old people intensified, like a grandmother’s house on a winter day with the windows shut tight.

Through a partially open door she caught sight of a luxury suite of rooms and the back of a bald head-a man wearing hospital pajamas.

Not assisted living, but assisted dying , she thought.

Penny might be locked up in any one of these suites, held hostage in front of a color television with room service of ice cream sundaes and grilled cheese sandwiches. How simple here to keep a young child placated and free of complaint.

Burning with resentment, hungry for her daughter’s freedom, she retraced her steps, trying each and every door. All locked. Slots for key cards like hotels. The Meriden Marriott. She opened the first door without a lock, albeit cautiously.

A storage room containing linens, a pair of upright vacuum cleaners, and two rolling buckets with a variety of string mops.

Out of the corner of her eye she caught the door to the stairs swinging open. Reacting, she ducked inside and pulled the door shut. She collected herself into the corner, crouching behind the pair of vacuum cleaners. Hunkered down.

A muffled male voice. A guard on a radio checking room to room.

The complaint of the hallway’s parquet flooring presaged the doorknob’s twisting. Hope ducked farther down, her eyes trained to the floor, head as low as she could manage.

The door opened, the room flooding with light. She could hear his breathing. The light lessened as the door started to close.

The BlackBerry lit up and buzzed in her pocket. She slapped a hand over it, tried to squeeze the buttons through the fabric of her pants. The vibration of the plastic continued.

The room lit up as the door was flung back open.

“Come out from there,” a tentative male voice ordered.

She heard a bucket kicked out of the way. Another crash, extremely close to her.

“Do… not… move,” the voice demanded.

She looked up slowly, just as the BlackBerry stopped buzzing.

Head down, she managed to get three numbers typed into the device quickly and hit SEND.

He was just a kid: twenty, twenty-two. Dark skin. He held a gun aimed at her head, the barrel’s small black circular hole staring at her like an unflinching eye.

After twenty minutes of watching the bunkhouse, Paolo saw something in the dirt by the far end of the structure. Only as he came up to him did he see it was one of his team-Todi, they called him. Out cold.

Paolo patted himself down, looking for his phone, only to remember Philippe had stripped him of it in the study, and he’d gotten out of there without it. He patted down Todi-he had a gun but that was all. He untaped the injured man, for all the good it would do.

Paolo entered the bunkhouse with his razor gripped tightly in his right hand, ready for a fight. With his one good eye, he saw two more men, also hurt and unconscious, tied up and stretched out on the floor. He decided to clear the building. He didn’t need anyone coming up from behind him as he untied his buddies.

He moved like a wraith through the small corridor, room to room, his shadow bending as it followed. Finding each of the rooms empty, he proceeded to where he’d left the little girl.

He stood above the crawl space access door in the back closet of the back room. A fabric loop protruded from the carpet. The carpet had been cut perfectly to match the pattern.

Paolo pulled on this, lifting the trapdoor. He stepped back, anticipating a gunshot. A cool wind wafted up through the crack. Nerves tingling, he stepped forward, prepared to jump.

He’d practiced such tunnel raids in his training, though he’d never used the skills. He counted down from three, jumped into the dark space, and rolled upon impact. He crashed into a pony wall of lumber that braced the trailer’s central support beam. With a vertical clearance of less than four feet, he squatted on his haunches, his razor held out in front of him. He struggled to see clearly.