Relentless (11 page)

And here he was, about to David his way into this Goliath.

Grant and Julie ate breakfast in silence, both nervous at what waited ahead of them. After leaving cash on their table, they stepped out into the arid wind and squinted across the road at their target. The mammoth complex, dozens of high-rise buildings, sprawled over four square miles of land at a sloping angle, essentially a city unto itself. An enormous manufacturing plant was situated in the middle, with other buildings of all sizes surrounding it. The plant was clearly the oldest of the buildings on the grounds, with metal siding, a flat roof, and add-ons stretched outward in every direction. Many of the other buildings were much newer, with sparkling glass on all sides, or modern brick façades.

Grant’s eyes fell upon the tallest of these buildings, which was situated closer than any of the others to the diner, only a few hundred yards across the street and behind a tall perimeter fence. It was the executive building, his target.

Julie sat in the driver’s seat of the car and Grant knelt next to her, door open.

‘‘What’s your job?’’ he asked Julie.

‘‘Surveillance. Keep the car ready,’’ she recited, steeling herself.

Grant nodded then retrieved a shopping bag out of the blue convertible’s trunk. Carrying the bag, he strolled down the street to an abandoned gas station. It was here that he and Julie had struck gold during their research. Yesterday, while surfing the Net, one of their searches turned up a site on urban legends, which contained an entry about Inveo Technologies and a secret exit built long ago as an executive escape. They were about to write off the legend as a myth when another entry claimed to have proof that it really existed, providing step-by-step details on how to access it from the outside. A few urban explorers even claimed to have snuck into the plant and caused a little mischief. The plant being so big, once you were inside, it wasn’t hard to blend in with all of the employees if you could simulate their look, they explained.

Behind the decrepit gas station, Grant hefted open a set of wooden storm doors. A set of stairs inside led down to a cellar, where he tugged on a cord overhead to turn on a lone light bulb. He quickly stripped and put on the gray jumpsuit that was inside the bag, along with a matching pair of gloves. His heart pumping like mad, he stuffed his street clothes into the bag and stowed it under the stairs. A tiny earpiece went into his left ear, completely hidden from sight once inside; Julie had acquired a set of them rush delivery from an online store.

‘‘Okay, I’m set,’’ he said.

‘‘You’ve got eight minutes until shift change,’’ Julie said.

Grant found the door to the tiny closet on his left, just as the Web site had described. Following the instructions exactly, he stepped inside and shut the door behind him, which left him in the dark. To his right, he felt for and found a set of old wooden shelves attached to the wall. So far the instructions were dead on. Counting down, he grabbed the third one from the top and pulled it straight out. It only gave an inch. He pulled similarly on the top shelf, and then pushed it back in.

Straight ahead, a dim light appeared as the wall suddenly swung open.

‘‘Did it work?’’
Julie said, her voice clear but a bit tinny in his ear.

‘‘Think so,’’ he replied.

‘‘What do you see?’’

‘‘A really long hallway. Dark. What should I expect at the other end?’’

She was silent a moment.
‘‘I’m not entirely sure . . .’’

‘‘You can’t tell from the floor plans?’’

‘‘Collin,’’
Julie deadpanned,
‘‘my expertise in this area is summed up
in the number of times I’ve seen Tom Cruise dangling from that wire in
Mission: Impossible.
Give me a break, okay? Hey, you better hurry—
there’s less than five minutes.’’

Abandoning stealth, Grant sprinted down the narrow corridor. A stench like rotten potatoes filled the hallway, which was lit only by individual light bulbs dangling from the ceiling every thirty feet. A few minutes later, following a couple of turns and some more running, he came upon the next door and opened it. Out of breath, he pulled out a tiny flashlight and turned it on.

Stretched out before him was an enormous basement that looked like a vast warehouse. Wooden crates, cardboard boxes, and assorted shelves stacked floor to ceiling filled with more boxes, consumed the space in every direction.

‘‘What do they make here again?’’

‘‘New technologies, according to their website. Whatever
that
means.’’

He looked to the far left wall and saw his next door. Beyond it, he found a stairwell. So far, so good.

He glanced at his watch again:
5:30
.

Time’s up
.

He bolted up the stairs.

Opening the door to the first floor, he was met by an enormous, bustling lobby, complete with cherry wood accents, marble and carpeted floors, hand-crafted lounge chairs, and a giant glass façade that stretched from the floor to the vaulted ceiling, over three stories high. A behemoth of a receptionist desk stretched forty feet long, with no less than six employees seated behind it. All of them appeared to be speaking into headset telephones. The Inveo logo was emblazoned behind them in a monstrous 3-D art piece that stretched upward the entire three stories; it was a gaudy melting pot of Greek and Roman symbols mixed with high technology, with a stylized ‘‘I.T.’’ at the top.

Employees entered and exited the vast atrium, most of those entering making for one of the eight elevators at the far end of the lobby. Grant watched them come and go for a moment, considering how normal their lives were. They were grazing through their day like cows, casual, unconcerned.

Normal
.

He’d forgotten what that was like.

This certainly didn’t look like the command center for an identity-theft conspiracy.

Grant blended in with the crowd moving toward the elevator, his jumpsuit vaguely resembling that worn by the janitorial staff. As long as no one made a close inspection of his appearance, he’d be fine. The outfit was the least of his worries.

His heart skipped a beat as he approached the crowd inside the concave elevator foyer. This was possibly the riskiest part of his plan. If this didn’t work just right, the game was over before it had even begun.

Two sets of elevator doors opened at once and Grant intentionally entered the one that seemed to have more people on board. He squeezed through the tiny, congested space and stood at the back of the elevator.

Craning his neck around those before him, he saw that the panel of buttons was activated by a keycard. As expected. Several of the buttons were already lit up, indicating which floors the car would stop on. But his destination—the floor with Carl MacDugall’s office on it—wasn’t one of them.

‘‘Um . . .’’ Grant offering his best embarrassed fumble, ‘‘Could you hit sixteen, please?’’

The man closest to the panel of buttons turned in surprise. His refined, tailored ensemble stood in stark contrast to Grant’s loud coveralls, which he did not fail to notice, offering Grant a quick look up and down. With distaste, he turned back to face the sliding doors.

He pressed the button marked ‘‘16’’ with a pronounced sigh.

Grant breathed a silent sigh of his own, working hard to relax his raging pulse. He ran through his plan once more as the elevator moved up. Julie remained silent in his headpiece, but he could hear her misgivings beneath the dead air.

He knew what she was afraid of. Breaking and entering was one thing. But what if MacDugall refused to talk? Was Grant capable of doing what he must to
make
the man talk?

Guess we’ll find out
.

The elevator chimed and he exited into a pristine hallway fit for Caesar, complete with ornately-carved Roman pillars. A secretarial pool faced him; most of the desks were empty from the shift change. A few half-glances were cast in his direction from the handful of employees still there, but otherwise no one seemed to take notice of him.

‘‘The hall to your right,’’
Julie said in his ear, though he remembered where to go. A spacious assistant’s office at the end of the hall would lead into the vast corner office of Carl MacDugall, chief executive officer.

But he was looking for something else. ‘‘Which door is it?’’ he whispered, then smiled pleasantly at a woman emerging from a rest room on the right.

‘‘Should be the fourth one on your left,’’
Julie answered.
‘‘Assuming
they haven’t remodeled since the date on these floor plans.’’

That’s a comforting thought
.

The door she directed him to wasn’t labeled. There was no way to tell if it was the right one.

But he had no other options. With a deep breath—and a quick glance to both sides to make sure no one was observing him closely— he put his hand on the doorknob and turned it.

To his surprise, it opened. Inside was a lavishly equipped conference room, its centerpiece an oblong mahogany table surrounded by sixteen leather chairs. Doors were situated on either end of the long room, leading sideways into other rooms. He marched to the closest door on his right and opened it.

The next room was a plush office, with more mahogany fixtures, shelves on all of the walls, a flamboyant, hand-carved wooden desk, an old fashioned banker’s-style desk lamp, and a burgundy wingback chair. The chair was swiveled in Grant’s direction, as if waiting for him. In it sat an elderly fellow who could only be Carl MacDugall.

Streaks of silver defined his perfectly groomed head of hair, along with a navy blue pinstripe suit, manicured nails, and black loafers so shiny Grant found it hard to look directly at them. His brown eyes were sunken deep. He clutched at his pants with one hand yet gave off an appearance of being thoroughly unmoved by Grant’s entrance.

‘‘Mr. MacDugall, I hope you’ll forgive the unexpected entrance,’’ he began, wasting no time, ‘‘but my name is Grant Borrows. Do you know who I am?’’

MacDugall looked him in the eye but hesitated, as if trying to decide what to say.

‘‘No,’’ he grunted, his eyes still locked on Grant. He wasn’t panicking, he was barely even reacting.

This is very, very wrong
.

‘‘How about Collin Boyd?’’ Grant tried again, approaching the desk. ‘‘Ever heard that name?’’

‘‘I’m afraid not, young man,’’ MacDugall replied, but quickly gave a furtive glance in the direction of his secretary’s outer office.

Uh-oh
.

‘‘You shouldn’t be here,’’ the elder man said suddenly.

Grant ran for the receptionist’s door. ‘‘You knew I was coming!’’ he cried. ‘‘Who’s out there, security?’’

He flung the door open, frustration overwhelming all sense of caution.

He froze.

‘‘What do you see?’’
Julie said breathlessly from his earpiece.
‘‘Who
is it?’’

13

San Diego’s coolest winds of the year blew hard across the harbor against the Thresher and his motorcycle, tempting it from the road. But he was undeterred. Distractions were pointless.

He had an appointment with an old contact. It had taken days to track her down. In the end, he found her at an art studio that catered to a rather eclectic clientele.

Which was perfectly in keeping with what he knew about her.

‘‘Everyone’s buzzin’, man,’’ said Lilly, the girl with the paintbrush and palette, adding a flourish of green to her work. ‘‘I don’t know who started it, but just last night, more’n once I heard, ‘Someone’s come, someone who can protect us.’ ’’

She looked completely different from the last time he’d seen her. Her hair was pink and purple, her nose and ears were filled with rings, and one arm bore dozens of plastic charm bracelets.

‘‘Us?’’ he asked her, even though he knew the answer.

‘‘
Us
, man,’’ she said, as if it were obvious. She splashed yellow and orange in furious swings of her brush. In the three minutes since he had found her, Lilly had taken a four-foot-wide canvas and turned it into an impressionist vista of the Santa Ana mountains. It was so breathtakingly beautiful, even he was taken with it.

‘‘Why do you need protecting?’’ he asked idly, studying her work.

‘‘I gotta
gift
, dude,’’ Lilly gestured toward her canvas. ‘‘People hate anyone who’s different.
Tell me
you don’t know this.’’

The Thresher watched as she added magnificent, stringlike clouds over the painting’s sunset, mixing gorgeous shades of light red, teal, and a deep purplish tone.

‘‘This man who will protect you, who is he?’’

‘‘Never said it was a
guy
,’’ she teased, turning to look at him for the first time. ‘‘Don’t start in with the chauvinist male superiority crap. Because I will
ditch
you right here and now . . .’’

He stepped forward and pressed a wad of greenbacks into her hand.

She offered a fake wounded expression for a moment, but then grinned. ‘‘They call him Borrows. Friend of mine told me
everyone’s
talking ‘Borrows this’ and ‘Borrows that’.’’

‘‘Fascinating,’’ he said thoughtfully.

‘‘Liar,’’ she jabbed. ‘‘You could care less about anything but whoever you’re hunting right now.’’

He eyed her evenly. Watched her sign her initials to the fresh painting and set the used canvas aside for a fresh one.

‘‘Why do you help me, Lilly?’’ he asked, genuinely curious. ‘‘You know who I am and what I do.’’

‘‘Dude, I may be gifted, but I ain’t exactly rollin’ in it. I need the bank.’’

He resigned himself to her answer, satisfied.

‘‘Now when are you going to ask me what you
really
came to ask me?’’ she cast a quick glance over her shoulder before returning to her canvas.

‘‘What do you know of the Bringer?’’ he asked.

Lilly stopped painting and turned.

‘‘I’ve heard the phrase. Whoever or whatever it is, rumor mill says it’s in L.A.,’’ Lilly replied, her eyes falling to his hip.

Los Angeles . . .
His mind began formulating the fastest route to the big city.