Chapter 31: "This is important"; a metal locker
Please note: In the Works Cited portion of Chapter 1 there are suggested music pieces to accompany this and other Chapters to enhance your experience of reading. I hope you enjoy them..
Manhattan, 2 a.m., December, 2016
It was cold in the car, sitting there in the dark with the lights off and the engine quiet now. Reese could see his breath in the air, fogging the windshield each time. He glanced down at his watch, then up to the rear view mirror.
It shouldn't be long now before she'd pull up behind him and get out of her car. Reese could already smell her perfume, see her hair fall in long brown waves to her shoulders. Tall and slender, with those long, chiseled legs – like a model's; he closed his eyes and leaned back against his seat, pulling in the image a little sharper. Her face, her hair, her long slender body and long legs - Zoe had worked with him before - she was the first one he'd thought of for this mission. She was the perfect one to make this work.
Zoe Morgan was a fixer, a woman paid to intervene when rich men – and it was always men according to her – needed help with a delicate matter. They paid her big money to fix things for them. Not exactly what you'd expect for a woman like her.
He remembered his first encounter – Finch had sent him to work undercover, her chauffeur. When her own driver went missing, she'd wasted no time checking on Reese and his story – Zoe made it plain from the start she didn't trust him or the situation.
He smiled to himself, remembering how she'd kept him at arm's length for so long. Zoe wasn't the trusting kind and didn't mind telling him so to his face. He'd been left watching her negotiate her deals while she'd kept him standing in the background like the help. Zoe could hold her own, though, applying pressure at just the right pressure point to get what she wanted – he'd watched more than a few men crumble. But hers was a dangerous business; not everyone was willing to bend her way without a fight. Sooner or later Zoe was going to need a little help.
Reese had turned out to be useful to her - and resourceful – getting them both out alive when one meet-up lured them to an ambush instead of a payoff. Reese had to tip his hand, though, and use his skills to get them out. Zoe was no fool; she knew there must be more to his story than he'd said. How convenient was it that Reese came packaged with all those skills? And why would a man like that be content to loll in the background as a chauffeur? Things just didn't add up in her mind.
Who was Reese, really? Zoe wanted to know, and she usually got what she wanted.
A car swung around the corner behind him, lights shining on the back of his car. He watched in the rear view mirror to see if it passed by. Headlights flicked off and the car swung in close to the curb behind him. Reese waited, scanning through his side view mirror for someone to open the door.
Nothing happened. Moments passed. The two cars sat there in the dark.
Reese looked around him quickly then, and automatically his hand went to the handle of his gun. His eyes swept the street for anything that looked wrong. while the car behind him sat there, dark inside. Reese couldn't see a driver through the glass.
He lifted his weapon, weighty in his hand, and backed it out to the top of his thigh, sweeping the street around him with his eyes again. Movement in the side mirror caught his attention - the driver's door swung open and a leg dropped down to the street – a woman's leg, high-heeled shoe, then another. Reese could see her long slender body rising up behind the door, and brown curls dropping down around her shoulders.
Tension in his body relaxed a bit. He slid the gun back in the leather holster at his shoulder. In the mirror, Reese watched Zoe check around herself in the darkness and then push her car door closed. He heard heels click on the pavement as she walked up behind him and leaned down to see inside.
Reese turned to show himself and a moment later the passenger door opened. Zoe slid in next to him, a swirl of shimmery dark coat, long hair and perfume. It made him stop to take a deeper breath. He didn't check himself, but let himself have this one small moment – stirred inside by the nearness of her again.
And when she'd settled, Zoe turned to him, flashing a wide smile, leaning in. Her lips brushed his and her perfume engulfed him. He took a breath and by then she was there; soft, warm lips on his. Lingering. Just a little too long for hello. What he wanted was to reach around her, pull her in closer to him. But no - Reese held himself back, remembering why they were here tonight.
Zoe pulled away and flashed her smile again. "Hello, stranger," with a little edge in her voice.
He nodded. It had been a long time. Guilty as charged. Reese refocused and noticed she'd worn a pair of dark glasses tonight, odd for the middle of the night. Zoe could see it in his eyes and touched the glasses.
"Part of my disguise," she said and lifted them up. He could see then what she'd done around her eye to prepare for tonight.
"Where's Harold?" she asked, replacing the glasses.
"You'll meet him in front of the diner," in his whisper-voice. Zoe nodded and then looked down to her handbag, opening it and rummaging to be sure everything was in easy reach. When she was satisfied, Zoe snapped the bag closed and looked up at Reese again. She cocked her head to one side, reaching with a hand to the side of his face.
"You look tired, John."
He sat there for a moment, then reached up and pulled her hand down, holding it between both of his.
"This is important, Zoe," in his whisper voice.
She tipped her glasses up off her face then with her other hand so Reese could see her eyes, see her expression – serious, with all trace of her smile gone now.
"Don't worry. I'm not going to let you down." Her voice was steady, and the look in her eyes – all business. They sat in silence as another car pulled around the corner behind them and both turned back to look at it. The headlights lit their two cars, and then accelerated past, leaving them in darkness again.
Zoe turned to Reese. "When this is over for you – don't be such a stranger," she said, her eyes on his. Then she took his hand and turned it palm-up between them, dropping a key into it.
"Use it if you need it," she said, eyes steady on his a moment longer.
Her face changed once more and Zoe leaned in closer, her hands on both sides of his face. He felt her breath on him, and her perfume engulfed him again. She pressed her lips against his - so warm, he felt himself pressing back.
Slowly, Zoe leaned back, straightening, swinging her glasses down from the top of her head. She turned the other way then, opening the door and stepping out with those long legs onto the sidewalk. In a swish of glossy brown curls, shimmery dark coat and perfume, she was gone.
Reese watched her go, through his back window. He saw her look around herself in the darkness on the way. And then she glanced back before she slid in behind the wheel. A moment later headlights flashed on, glaring inside his car. She backed away a little, and then swung out onto the street and past him, a quick look his way as she passed.
When she turned at the next corner, all went dark again on the street.
Reese sat there in the silence. He took in a breath. Her perfume.
Manhattan, blocks away, 2:30 a.m.
Harold stood in the cold as Zoe approached. For the cameras, the two embraced like old friends, and Harold offered her his arm. He noticed that she seemed different tonight when he embraced her – fragile in some way. He hadn't seen her for a long time – perhaps things had become more difficult for her. Perhaps her career choice was beginning to wear on her. He knew from experience that it couldn't be easy to do what she did. Harold noticed she almost seemed unsteady as she walked beside him. He hoped that they hadn't made a mistake involving her in this.
Harold opened the door for her and then the next. Then they stood at the desk inside, looking around for someone to seat them. A waitress popped out of the alcove at the front and hustled toward them. He watched her eyes scan them and when she walked up, Harold stepped forward. In a soft, muted voice, suggesting discretion, he addressed her.
"A booth, please," he said and he let his face show his concern. The waitress eyed him and then the woman on his arm, dressed in a certain way, wearing dark glasses in the middle of the night. She pulled out two menus and walked them to a darker corner of the diner. Zoe took the side facing away from the front door, while Harold sat where he could see and be seen.
"Something to drink?" the waitress asked. Harold spoke up first.
"Tea, green tea, please." Then the two turned to Zoe. She clasped her palms together on the table, lacing her long fingers. If you looked closely, there was a slight tremor there.
"Something stronger for me – scotch, rocks." Zoe looked down at her hands, and tried to steady them. Harold started to say something, but thought better of it, his eyes full of worry.
"Of course, my dear," he said finally, and then Harold reached out with his hand to cover hers. The waitress lingered a little longer, her eyes scanning Zoe. Harold saw her eyes fix on the cheek below her dark glasses – on a dark purple spot the glasses didn't quite cover.
"Get ready," Root whispered. At her signal, the Machine would cut over to its own video stream, uploading new input from each of the diner's cameras to the diner's central security system. With the cameras controlled, their Team could take up their access positions and breach the diner, unseen.
"Now," she whispered, and a nearly imperceptible blink occurred in the feed. They were now in control of all the video sent upstream from the diner's cameras. Their Team need only avoid the human traffic inside.
"Clear," she said, and three figures in dark clothing made their way to their access points.
Joey Durban headed for the privacy fence enclosing the dumpster in the back lot. He found the steel pipe in the corner and grabbed on with dark gloves coated with tacky nubs on the palms. Hand over hand, he made short work of climbing and stepped out onto the rooftop. The sniper had been seen up here but then disappeared. He hadn't come down the front or back of the building, so there must be another way off the roof.
Harper knelt down in front of a wide door, working the slot between the door and the frame with a flat stiff card to push the lock open. After a few tries she felt the door give, and turned back to nod at Reese. He tapped his earpiece then and, in his whisper-voice, alerted Logan. Pierce was watching the real camera-feed from his laptop in the safe house.
"I see one person inside, Reese, at the far end of the kitchen. There's a short hallway on your right side connecting to the main one with the offices. That short hallway is a lot closer to the person than to you, Reese."
"We need a distraction then," Reese whispered.
Harper slipped the door open just wide enough for both of them to pass and closed it behind her. There was a click from the lock when it closed, and a little blast of cold air from opening the door. They found a place to stand in the shadows near the door, watching the cook for any sign he'd noticed. His back was turned to them, and they could see him whacking with a cleaver on something in front of him.
Reese reached into a pocket and slipped the key into his hand. Zoe's key. Her car was parked in the back lot outside. He gave Harper a heads-up to be ready and then clicked the panic button on the key fob. An ear-piercing sound went off outside.
They watched the cook. He stopped mid-chop to listen. Then, when it went on and on, he wiped his hands down the front of his apron and turned to the back door, cleaver in hand. Reese could hear him muttering something in Russian as he trudged their way. He passed in front of them, inches away, and popped the metal handle on the door. A blast of cold air and the piercing sound of the car alarm came in. Reese signaled for Harper to go first, and she slipped out of the shadows down to the corridor.
Meanwhile, the cook raised his cleaver and moved out onto the landing at the back. He glanced around the kitchen door then out into the lot, while Reese stepped silently away to the corridor with Harper. She was down at the end already, checking around the corner for anyone coming their way. Reese raised the fob again, then clicked the panic button to kill the alarm.
The two turned right into the main hallway. Reese recognized the office where he'd found the Russian men. He pointed and Harper made for that room first.
A young man in a white shirt and black pants delivered water glasses and a basket of bread to their table. Harold noticed his furtive glances at Zoe's face; the waitress must have told him about it. Then, while he was there, Zoe's car alarm had gone off in the back lot. Harold saw the young man perk up and start to head for the kitchen area. Harold started to call him back - if the young man got there he might discover their Team. Zoe interrupted:
"Excuse me. Hello." He stopped and turned around. "Could I have some ice in my glass?" He looked unsure for a moment which way to go.
"Please," Zoe said, holding out her water glass. The young man fetched a silver pitcher from the table where he'd left it. And he brought another empty glass along. He splashed water and ice into the new one and placed it down in front of her, then looked over to Harold.
"Thank you, yes," he said and the young man patiently reached for another glass from the next table, filling that one with ice and water, too. As he was placing it in front of Harold the car alarm went silent and the young man raised his head to listen. No need to go to the back and check it out, then. He looked pleased. Zoe raised her glass to her lips and drank deeply, then shook the glass a bit, rattling the ice inside. Success so far.
Their waitress appeared with drinks next; green tea for Harold and scotch on the rocks for Zoe. She wrapped her fingers around the heavy glass and lifted it for a long pull, while Harold sipped green tea. Zoe shook her glass, rattling the ice inside. The busboy and waitress stood there, taking it all in.
"Do you know what you like?" the waitress said, with her Russian accent.
"Ladies, first," Harold said, gesturing to Zoe. She seemed to hesitate, and then shook her head.
"Nothing for me," she said, staring down at her scotch, rattling the ice. Harold reached out for her arm.
"You must eat something, my dear," he murmured. She still hesitated.
"Breakfast?" Harold offered. She fingered her glass, and then nodded his way.
Before she could change her mind, Harold ordered breakfast for both of them, relief showing on his face. He noticed the waitress kept glancing at the bruise on Zoe's face. Then, in a reflex, Zoe reached up to fan herself, like she'd gotten too warm with her coat on. The coat slid apart at the top. Stifled sounds came from all of them - on Zoe's throat, a clear print of a man's right hand, in black and blue.
Harold tried to speak, but his voice sounded strangled. He looked up at the waitress.
"Could you bring another green tea for me, please."
The woman turned away and walked briskly to the coffee station. The busboy followed and the two of them started speaking together in Russian. Harold heard dishes clattering and then she was filling a new cup for him.
Zoe raised her hand in front of Harold and shook her glass again. The ice rattled. Then she reached over and emptied most of the scotch from the glass into her ice water. With all the ice inside, you couldn't even tell the scotch was there. She smiled over at Harold and shook her glass. As the waitress returned with Harold's tea, Zoe raised it to her lips to drain the rest. When she lowered the glass she rattled the ice inside. The scotch was gone now, and the waitress noticed.
"Another one, Miss?" she asked, and Zoe nodded.
"Thank you, that'll be all for now," Harold said, with some irritation in his voice. She backed away to leave them then, but as she turned to leave, she could just overhear the man speaking softly to the woman.
"You must leave him this time, Margaret, before he – "
Harper and Reese had made their way inside the office, after Harper picked the lock on the office door. It was nearly dark inside, except for a small bank of security monitors opposite the door. Harper aimed a tiny flashlight around the room to get her bearings. Then she donned the same glasses Logan had used to search the inside of the diner. He'd discovered the marker she'd sprayed on their hacked cellphones. It was smudged all over the front desk, so someone here had handled the marked phones and left evidence all over the front desk.
Harold thought that the Russian owners of the diner might be the ones who'd handled the phones. The green phosphorescent marker was on the desk and the cash register; the owners were the ones who handled all the money. If Harold was right, maybe there'd be more of the marker here, in their office.
She pushed the glasses higher on her nose, and aimed the flashlight around the room. Nothing caught her eye on the first sweep. Moving deeper inside, she aimed the light onto the furniture. A flash of green fluoresced and she went back to aim the flashlight directly at the glow. The front of one of the desks in there had smears of the green marker all over it, mainly near the handles of the drawers.
There were other smudges nearby, too. Harper snapped her fingers and Reese turned to look her way. She pointed at her glasses and then at the desk. He nodded and started to walk back to take a look. The floor let out a loud metallic groan and Reese lifted his foot to silence it.
He moved to the edge of the large braided rug and lifted it, rolling the rug back on itself like a cigar. His flashlight reflected off something shiny, metallic on the floor. Harper saw it, too, and the two of them rolled the heavy rug back so they could see what it was - a metal locker laid flat in the floor, covered over with the heavy braided rug – Reese grabbed a loop of metal on the front to lift the wide door of the locker.
Their flashlights revealed a thick foam cover under the door. They knelt down and worked the foam free. Reese lifted it and inside were dozens of black shapes resting inside perfectly-molded spaces. He pulled out one of the shapes. A handgun.
This was a cache of weapons. There were semi-automatic rifles, handguns, scopes, and one more thing that caught his eye. On one side, half-hidden from view, he saw something he'd never seen in person before. He'd only read about it on certain internet sites. If this was what he thought it was, then there was someone here who was far more dangerous than any of them had realized.
Reese lifted the rifle and turned it on it's side, then hefted it and raised it up against his shoulder. He looked at the clean lines, the grooved sides, the Picatinny rail on the upper receiver. In the locker he found the high-powered .338 Lapua Magnum rounds for it. Harper watched him while she was picking the lock on the desk. She could tell this was something special to Reese.
He was holding the latest model of Russian sniper rifle – the one the U.S. Army recommended soldiers disengage with, or risk losing more than the two men it would take to know they were in trouble.
Harper clamped the end of her flashlight between her teeth and aimed the light down at her hands. She slipped throwaway gloves on, then pulled the drawers open, one by one. The last one down at the bottom held a folded newspaper wrapping. She lifted the paper and inside it she could feel the outlines of something hard. Cellphones. Through her glasses, they glowed intensely green in the light of her flashlight. Even the newspaper wrapping glowed green. She lifted the paper to show the cellphones to Reese, and he nodded back. Then they both replaced their finds, resetting the office just as they'd found it.
The Team had discovered what they'd come to find. Time to go.
There was a soft tapping coming from the corner of the room. The two of them stood up and listened. It came again. Reese used his foot to roll the rug over the locker in the floor. He made his way toward the sound. Soft tapping. He tapped back once and then he could hear Joey's voice on the other side of the wall.
Reese ran his flashlight all over the surface, looking for any way in. There were no breaks that he could see in the smooth surface of the wall. Then he reached up and tapped lightly over the surface. Hollow for a few feet side to side. Then dull where the real wall began. He tried pressing on the corners next, where the hollow part joined the wall; and after trying two, he heard a click and the panel swung open in front of him. Joey was standing on the other side, smiling.
Reese gestured for Harper to follow. Inside was a passage, claustrophobically narrow. It took them a good fifteen or twenty feet to a long cut-out in the floor. It was some kind of hatchway that lead up and down. Hand- and foot-holds screwed to one of the side walls lead up to the roof and down inside a hole that had a familiar smell for Reese. Hot air escaped from the hole. It smelled like the air in the New York subways beneath them. An escape route out of the office? Reese aimed his flashlight into the hole, but he couldn't see to the bottom.
Joey snapped his fingers at the two of them and pointed upward. He gestured to follow him, and stepped onto the foot-holds. Harper went next, and then Reese. At the top of the hatchway they climbed out onto the roof, and they could see that a fake air handling unit sat there on top of the opening. Joey replaced the access cover and twisted the four screws home with his knife.
"We can get down over there," he said and lead them to the steel pole in the corner. Once they were down, Reese slipped Zoe's key out of his pocket and handed it to Joey.
"You two can stay in her car until she comes out. Make sure she gets home without a problem. We'll meet back at the safe-house." The two nodded and walked around the privacy fence toward Zoe's car. He watched them climb into the back seat and lower themselves below window-level.
Reese headed the other way. It was his job to keep an eye on Harold.