Eddy's Current (48 page)

“You’re a tough man, Briggs. You’re very tough.”

Ignoring Samuel’s direction, Briggs proceeded, “We have got to review the layout of this place. I need to know the exact route each person will take out of the building, to the convention center, back into the building, and even into the offices and conference rooms. Every person.”

“Okay, Briggs, we have to trust you. USFIA has a spotless record of protecting VIPs, and you don’t have enough agents to take over the world, so we don’t have to worry that you’ll try to do that,” Samuel said, attempting a joke.

Briggs didn’t get it, nor did waste even a second to try to get it.

“I’ve been told to trust USFIA completely. Straight from the top. Mr. Peterson and Mr. Hall met and said that you can have access to the entire building.”

“Only God and Jesus are at the top, Samuel. They don’t share their pinnacle with anyone, not even Peterson and Hall. Peterson and Hall’s thrones are far lower. I know what you meant to say, though,” Briggs said.

“Blueprints?” Briggs saw no harm in asking.

“Yes, again, straight from the top,” Samuel replied. “Approval straight from the top. You can review the blueprints, but only under my direct supervision.”

“Let’s start with the prints, then,” Briggs replied.

Something was wrong. It was too easy, Briggs reasoned. There would be no logical reason to allow access to the building’s blueprints. Why would Samuel do that? Way too much information was being offered by an otherwise highly skeptical person. No questions, reservations, no hint of suspicion. Were the prints accurate? Would they provide all information needed? Would they cause the group to be misdirected during the execution of their plan?

Near the top of the building, on the seventy–second floor, a nondescript office that contained a large table, a few chairs and bright lighting, housed the blueprints for the building. The area was heavily guarded by Samuel’s agents. Fireproof file cabinets, rows of them, housed the prints. Access was granted only after the most extensive and detailed procedures, including secret codes, secret keys, safe combinations, completed sign–in logs, and on and on.

Briggs felt that although the access process was excruciatingly detailed, it was amateurish. Why not simply have a large safe door, like a bank vault door, guarding access to a vault room? Anyway, each print was pulled, rolled open, and studied by Briggs. There was only one problem. Briggs had no idea what he was looking at. He didn’t know the difference between a blueprint and an instruction form detailing the recipe for rocket fuel. So Briggs did what any good detective would do—he asked a lot of questions. Some showed his ignorance, and were down right embarrassing. “What’s this?”

“That’s a toilet. Why? Does it resemble a refrigerator to you?”

Some yielded valuable information. “Why does the storeroom in the northeast corner of the fifty–second floor show on the prints, yet it’s not actually there?”

“You are mistaken, Briggs. The fifty–second floor has a storeroom in the northeast corner, as do many of the other floors. Let’s go; I’ll show you,” Samuel said, bluffing.

Briggs was somewhat embarrassed, but he realized that his lack of knowledge could be used to his advantage. He would find out later, on his own, if Samuel was lying about the storage closet on the fifty–second floor. For now, he was content to act the part of the bumbling detective.

Samuel was turning the pages of blueprints quickly to get to the one needed for review. Briggs found himself studying each page that was turning, looking for useful information that Samuel might be hiding. He made a mental note of the floor that each page represented. Samuel turned to the page for the sixteenth floor. Briggs saw wording that had been stricken and somewhat blacked out, next to an unusual icon:

Briggs couldn’t be sure of the exact location of the vault, but at least he knew that the building had one, that it was somewhere on the sixteenth floor, and that Samuel was using it for something other than the storage of the blueprints. Briggs kept quiet about it.

Samuel now mistakenly believed that he could explain away any questions Briggs threw at him about the prints. Briggs played along, allowing his opponent, even encouraging him, to believe that Briggs was ignorant.

“I’m sorry, but I just have no idea why Room Twenty–nine thirty–seven shows an air conditioner intake vent line when there isn’t one for other rooms located directly above and below that room on the other floors,” Briggs said.

“That’s not an A/C intake vent line; it’s a clothes dryer exhaust line. See, look at the print.”

“Oh, I see. Sorry, I should pay closer attention.”

Hours went by. Then the day ended. The next day was tedious as well. Briggs’ dumb questions were wearing on Samuel. Samuel’s answers were curt, and hardly hid his disdain for much further questioning by Briggs.

By the end of the third day, the two had reviewed all blueprints. Briggs had learned to read blueprints. Samuel had answered so many questions with so many lies that he couldn’t be sure that he knew the difference himself between an icon used to designate a sink and one used for a tree. Samuel had enough. He needed to return to work. He would have to work late six or eight days in a row preparing all the details for the convention.

“Okay, thanks for your help. Now all I have to do is personally survey every square inch of the actual space,” Briggs said. Samuel was not impressed.

“Look, Briggs, I have been ordered to cooperate with you, but you and I are through working together. I have to get to my office and stay there for at least six days to finalize the security for next week.”

“Sorry, Samuel, but you are not finalizing any such thing. USFIA has been put in charge. We are known not to screw up security detail such as this. You guys are still tainted by the assassination of Premier Ivan Lexocov last month. Nothing personal, but we don’t want any more dead leaders, do we?”

“That was a cheap shot, Briggs. You offend me. You can’t even read a blue—”

“A blueprint, Samuel? Yes, I can read one now. I have my doubts about whether or not you can read one, though. Some of your answers were questionable.”

“You set me up! You set me up! You fake. Get this straight, cowboy, you might get me once, but it will never happen again.”

The use of the word cowboy bothered Briggs. Maybe Samuel had picked up on the accent. Maybe the mannerisms. Or maybe he knew the truth. Briggs would have to chance it. He didn’t flinch.

“Cowboy? Fake? That description, coming from a person who is as easy to see through as waxed paper!” Briggs exclaimed to Samuel. “I suggest that you change your policy from lying and name calling to one of truthfulness and respect for USFIA agents. We’re trying to help you guys by keeping you from bungling the protection of the world leaders who will be here next week. We can’t have you screw up the way you did when you allowed Lexocov to be blown apart by an amateur killer with a pop gun. The guy didn’t even know how to tell time,” Briggs said, referring to the facts that Lexocov’s assassin killed Lexocov with a twenty–two caliber handgun and was discovered to have been late for the event, nearly missing his opportunity to shoot Lexocov. The assassin would have missed his opportunity if Samuel’s team had not botched the schedule, resulting in Lexocov remaining in one place much longer than planned.

Briggs and Samuel had experienced three very stressful days accommodating each other. Briggs had gained valuable knowledge that Samuel couldn’t have realized. Briggs believed that he had discovered the location of the twins; not that he saw on the blueprints the words, “kidnaped twins stay here,” but he did see something that spoke just as loudly to him.

Down on the fifth floor Briggs discovered that an “office” was in fact a nursery. He was not allowed to physically inspect the office — it was one of the four areas that were off limits to his inspections — but all signs pointed to it as the nursery.

The main nursery for staff children would not have been used to keep the twins, Briggs surmised. Older children would interact with the twins on a daily basis, and, as children tend to do, the others would have talked openly about the twins.

The nursery would have been located on a lower floor. Not even Peterson or Hall would have endangered young children by keeping them on the upper floors of a skyscraper. Basic safety dictated that they would be below the tenth floor. Briggs also reasonably presumed that the nursery would be in close proximity to the fire escape, the stairs that provide a direct route to the ground courtyard, which provides direct escape to the city streets. In the event of an emergency, the agents assigned to the twins could be whisked away by a waiting car to another location. The twins could not be abandoned. They had to be kept safe, not because Peterson and Hall held them in the highest regard, but because they provided the insurance needed to keep the USFIA in check. Hall believed that as long as River felt that his babies were safe, attempts to avenge Eddy’s death would be held in check.

Briggs estimated that there was a sixty percent chance that the twins were being held in the fifth floor nursery. It was the best he could do. He could not be caught doing an exhaustive search for the twins. He took what he could get from Samuel. He would have to gamble.

Rescuing the twins would be easy compared to getting Peterson and Hall. Located on the forty–third floor, Peterson’s office was guarded in every way possible. A helicopter waited at all times on the building’s roof, including its pilot, ready to go. Access was provided by either of two elevators that existed to go directly from the forty–third floor to the roof or back to the forty–third floor. They went to no other location in the building. Travel time to the roof from Peterson’s office was thirty–three seconds. Drills conducted weekly proved that Peterson could be evacuated from the building to one of twelve secret locations in the Houston area within two and a half minutes. Each drill had to conclude with Peterson and Hall seated in their desks at the secret location within three minutes of rising from their chairs to evacuate the headquarters building.

The evacuation drills worked each time with absolute precision. The single–purpose elevators sat empty, doors opened, in the middle of Peterson’s office. Hall’s office was next to Peterson’s. He would be the first person notified to get to the elevator to be evacuated since it took him four and three tenths seconds longer to arrive at the elevators. The decision as to which elevator to use for the evacuation was made at the last possible moment.

The forty–second and forty–fourth floors were filled with Samuel’s security agents. His agents also occupied all of the offices on the forty–third floor, except for Peterson’s and Hall’s and a few members of the support staff. In all, then, between the forty–second, forty–third and forty–fourth floors, there were ninety–eight of Samuel’s security agents guarding Peterson and Hall. Each agent was armed, and each was sworn to protect Peterson and his staff. They all took an oath to die in Peterson’s stead, if necessary. Undoubtedly, any one of them would have given his life to protect Peterson.

Samuel had established a seemingly ironclad system of protection for Peterson. Yes, the guards were well armed, and they had access to nearly unlimited numbers of additional heavy weapons stored in arms closets throughout the building, especially on the floors they occupied. Samuel’s plans for Peterson’s escape from the building far exceeded the details any member of the group had contemplated. But Samuel had devised a system that relied too heavily on complicated procedures.

“That’s a brick wall,” al Qatari said. “That plan, that escape plan, to the roof, to the helicopter, that’s something we will not overcome. It’s air tight.”

“Few things are air tight,” Briggs said with simple confidence. “But I will admit that it’s formidable.”

“What about the roof? What about sabotaging the helicopter?” Albert asked.

“There’s room to land three helicopters. Cripple one, and you will have delayed the evacuation by no more than two minutes, unless it becomes too dangerous to land one of the backup helicopters at all. One of the two backups can fly in and land within one minute. Get that one, and the third will fly in within another minute,” Briggs said.

“They’ve protected Peterson very well,” Briggs said, “with one exception.”

“What’s that?” Albert asked.

“They put Samuel in charge. He relies on gadgets, canons, plans, deception, computers, bombs, everything, including the kitchen sink. He has demonstrated one big flaw, though.”

“What?”

“His stupidity. He’s dumb.

“In Montana we have a saying for stupid people. They can’t outsmart you, so they try to scare you with great detail. They throw the kitchen sink at you. When someone throws the kitchen sink at you, they’re trying to kill you with it because they want to keep you from looking at the sludge in the drain trap.”

“Great, but what are you talking about?” al Qatari asked, exasperated.

“To use a figure of speech, there’s a drain trap, a hidden area in the building that contains an embarrassing dirty little secret, that Samuel’s security team overlooked,” Briggs explained.