White Death (36 page)

No. He had to get there now, and on his own.

He went back out of the lobby into the street and looked up. The hotel was only four stories tall. The penthouse suite would, naturally, be on the fourth floor, and it was reasonable to assume that it would have the best view over Harvard Square: architects don’t tend to have suites looking over back streets or service areas.

One of the windows on the fourth floor led on to a balcony. There were no other balconies in sight. Balcony must mean suite: you wouldn’t assign your only balcony to a lesser room.

If Patrese climbed out of the next window along, he could inch along the ledge until he reached the balcony. It was ten feet, perhaps twelve, and involved going round a corner. Not hard if you weren’t scared of heights and had two good hands to grip with.

Patrese wasn’t scared of heights, but he didn’t have two good hands.

‘Stay here,’ he said to the watchers. ‘Unzicker comes down again, you keep following him. Have a coffee or something while you’re waiting.’

‘You seen the prices?’

‘Our salaries come from taxpayers’ money. We’re taxpayers ourselves. Charge it to the Bureau, and think of it as perpetual economic motion.’

He headed for the stairs, which were less conspicuous. Elevators come out front and center on most hotel floors, but stairs are more functional and therefore hidden away. Most people use elevators. Most people are overweight. Bit of exercise for Patrese before he got back to doing the lighthouse run.

He took the stairs two at a time all the way up to the fourth floor, where he opened the door from the stairwell on to the corridor very slowly. Another advantage of staircase doors over elevator ones: they don’t ping when they open.

Patrese pressed himself flat against the wall and risked a quick glance down the length of the corridor. He could hear voices: low, deep, foreign. Must be the bodyguards. But he couldn’t see them. They were out of sight round a corner: the same corner, he realized, that he’d seen while looking up from street level.

He shut the stairwell door behind him as slowly and carefully as he’d opened it, and tiptoed along the corridor – thank God for carpets – until he reached the window he’d identified as the one along from the balcony.

It would open, he saw: it wasn’t one of those plate-glass ones with no catch. He gripped the handle tight and twisted. No squeaking. It opened smoothly and easily. Making a mental note to buy each and every man in the hotel’s maintenance department a large beer, he opened it fully, sat on the sill, swung his legs out into the fresh air, and felt for the
ledge below with his feet. With his heels flush against the
wall, he had about six inches of ledge to play with in front of his toes. Not much. But enough.

He took a deep breath. Had to do this reasonably fast, not just because the longer he took the more likely he was to freak out, but also because this was the middle of the day in Harvard Square, and sooner or later someone would notice a man climbing along a ledge. Not instantly, probably, as most people tend to look around themselves rather than high up, but the moment some moron saw him and pegged him for a suicide case, he might as well take out a personal advert on radio and attach a neon sign to his head.

Don’t think about it. If this ledge was two feet above ground level, you could do it without thinking. So all that’s going to make you mess this up is just that: thinking. Don’t look down. Keep your head straight, and your balance will follow.

He pressed his back against the wall, kept both his hands in contact with the wall as well, and began to shuffle along the ledge. Cars hissed and honked beneath him. A little different from the usual student bustle in the square: more families walking and laughing, the restaurant waiters hurrying in and out.

To the corner: a right angle away from him, so he was almost going back on himself. He got to the end of the first side. A sudden lurch as he went a fraction too far, and the briefest swirling of panic in the pit of his stomach as he pulled back before overbalancing. Press hard against the wall. Breathe deeply. Calm.

The corner went away to his left. He put his left hand round it until he found the next piece of wall, and shuffled along until he could feel the crack of his ass against the jutting edge where the two walls met. Left leg round on to the next bit too, to join his left arm. He was right on the corner now, exactly halfway, caught in the pose Kate Winslet had made famous on the prow of
Titanic
.

Take your time. Don’t rush. Calm again.

He kept shuffling until he was clear of the corner, and fully flat against the next section of wall. Glance to his left. The edge of the balcony was a few feet away.

A shout from the street below. For a moment Patrese thought someone had seen him: but no, it was only some guy hollering across the traffic to his buddy on the other side of the road. Another couple of deep breaths to rein his heart rate back down from runaway to galloping.

He reached for the balcony with his left hand. Typical balustrade, about waist-high. Getting over it and on to the balcony proper wouldn’t be the problem. Getting seen by Nursultan as he did so might be.

He leaned as far across the balustrade as he dared, trying to see in through the French windows. Two men were in there – Nursultan and Unzicker, he thought, though he couldn’t tell for sure, as they both had their backs to him.

That was enough. If they had their backs to him, they couldn’t see him.

He flopped a little gracelessly on to and over the balustrade, half dropping and half falling on to the floor of the balcony itself. He stayed there a few moments, regathering his breath and his wits, before pushing himself to his feet, pressing himself once more flush to the wall, and sidling up to the edge of the French doors.

Hard to hear what they were saying inside through the glass and over the thumping of his own heart. Patrese turned his head so his ear was pressed against the window.

And at that precise moment, his cellphone rang.

Anderssen turned the mask over and over in his fingers while he waited for Patrese to pick up. This really was something, he thought. Part of him wanted to put it on and
walk round the cop shop like that, but forensics would prob
ably have a fit. Besides, he wasn’t putting his face anywhere Merrimack’s pores had been. Guy must have sweated buckets during his hold-ups, what with all that adrenalin. It was like those soccer players who swapped shirts the moment a match had finished. Ninety minutes in your own sweat was bad enough, let alone in someone else’s.

‘Yeah?’ Patrese’s voice was muffled and hurried.

‘Franco? You’ll never guess.’

‘This better be urgent, man.’

‘Where are you?’

‘On a balcony outside the Veritas hotel.’

‘The fuck are you doing there?’

‘Nursultan and Unzicker are inside. Trying to listen to them.’

‘Well, I wasn’t ringing for anything crucial.’

‘Tell me. I’m here now.’

‘The bank robber? The black guy you saw? Not a black guy at all. White dude in a two-thousand-dollar mask.’

‘You’re shitting me.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Didn’t look like no mask to me.’

‘That’s ’cos it cost two grand. Hollywood-style, some special-effects company out in Van Nuys. Hell of a thing. Show you when you get back. You want some back-up?’

‘Not yet. I’m good.’ Anderssen heard a beep on the line. ‘Hold on,’ Patrese continued. ‘That message tone … wait.’ A pause, some more beeps as Patrese fiddled with his phone, and then he was back, concern lacing his voice. ‘Max, something weird. I just got a message saying Unzicker’s used his keycard in the Stata Center.’

‘But you said you were looking right at him?’

Patrese risked another look through the window. Unzicker was in three-quarters profile from behind, but it was definitely him: Patrese could tell that from the voice alone. ‘I am. I’m looking at him now.’

‘And his keycard’s just been used? It’s not a delayed message or something?’

‘Just been used. In the last minute.’

‘I’ll go check it out.’

‘Probably some malfunction.’

‘Probably. Some MIT nerd screwing around, or something.’

‘What about your bank robber?’

‘Him? He’s not going anywhere. I’ll let him stew for a few more hours. Let you know what I find.’

‘And me you.’

Anderssen ended the call and headed toward the duty sergeant’s desk. ‘You can put Mr Merrimack back in his cell.’

‘Sir?’

‘I’ve got to go out. I’ll talk to him when I get back.’

‘Sir.’

‘And don’t give him a damn thing. Not food, not water, nothing. Make him sweat.’

‘Sir.’

On the balcony, Patrese switched his BlackBerry to silent mode and put it back in his pocket. Neither Nursultan nor Unzicker had reacted to it ringing, so either they hadn’t heard it through the glass, or else they – like everybody else – were now so used to the ceaseless, ubiquitous ringing of cellphones that they no longer took any notice unless it was their own.

He, on the other hand, could hear their conversation perfectly well, because voices were being raised: pitches shriller, words more staccato.

‘You try bargain?’ Nursultan was saying. ‘You give me shit like this and think you walk away? You get Misha to work, now you keep it from me? On Misha, I own everything.
Everything
. You got that? Computers, chips, diagnostics, game logs: everything. You done amazing, no? You going to be famous. You going to be rich. And now you want
more
?

‘You couldn’t have done this without me.’

‘I say same back to you.’

‘Someone else would have funded it.’

‘Someone else didn’t. I did.’

‘How do I know you’re going to keep your word?’

‘You don’t trust me?’

‘You’re a businessman. I’m a computer engineer.’

‘So?’

‘I don’t know if you’re ripping me off. But I can’t take the chance. You pay me up front, you get the chip, the diagnostics, everything.’

‘I pay you for things I already own?’

‘You’re going to pay me anyway. Just – a little earlier than usual.’

‘The
schwarz
: he make you do this?’

‘Schwarz?’

‘Nigger. King.
He
not trust me. You got deal with him? You and him against me? That it? You no idea what you doing? No fucking idea.’

‘Five million.’

Nursultan laughed. ‘You think I even start this? Misha is mine. You hand it over so we can start on commercial patents.’

‘Five million.’

Nursultan sighed, as though a great injustice was being done to him. Then he turned his head toward the door of the suite and shouted: ‘Almas! Irek!’

The bodyguards came hurrying in. Nursultan spoke to them briefly in Tatar. They looked at Unzicker, and at Nursultan again, and they nodded. One of them – Patrese didn’t know whether it was Almas or Irek, and since they both looked as though they’d been hewn from stone, he supposed it didn’t really matter – moved toward Unzicker.

Unzicker should have been quaking. Even from out on the balcony, unseen, Patrese felt a jolt of trepidation. But Unzicker simply looked blankly at this man mountain.

‘This Irek,’ said Nursultan.

Well, there’s my answer, Patrese thought.

‘You have ten seconds,’ Nursultan continued. ‘You don’t hand Misha to me, Irek do you harm.’

What the hell to do? Patrese thought. He couldn’t stand here and watch some psychopathic bodybuilder work over Unzicker for fun. He’d have to go in and stop it. He was armed, of course, but he had no doubt that Nursultan’s men would be too. There were two of them, they were much bigger than him, and they had four working arms.

He reached for the handle of the French doors and twisted slightly. Locked. He’d have to shoot it off, and then all hell would break loose.

Say yes, he silently pleaded with Unzicker. Just fucking say yes. Give him what he wants and walk away. If Patrese had understood right, and Unzicker had gotten Misha to work, he’d instantly be a god among computer nerds – which, since computers now ruled the world, meant a god to everybody. MIT would erect a statue of him made from computer chips. He’d have the scientific immortality he’d dreamed of.

Nursultan checked his watch with the mild impatience of a man waiting for a train.

Irek moved a pace closer to Unzicker. Almas was coming round the other side of his chair. It was happening in excruciating slow-motion, seconds stretching for eons. Patrese took a step back from the doors, the better to give himself room, and reached for his gun. Shoot the lock off, come in through the French windows and …

… well, he hadn’t really got much further than that. Hold up his badge and arrest them all in the name of the Bureau. Perhaps he’d get to lock horns with that nice Mr Levenfish again when they were all in the cells.

Unzicker leaned forward, as though about to push himself upwards from the chair. His hand went down to his ankle, and Patrese saw what was going to happen quicker than anyone else in the room did; because Patrese knew what they didn’t, that Unzicker liked to do pistol shooting on the MIT range, that he was a heck of a shot, and that – oh Jesus, how could the watchers have missed the significance of this? – he’d been to that very range before coming here. Thanksgiving vacation, skeleton staff: must have been the easiest thing in the world for Unzicker to have snuck his Walther 22 out without anyone seeing. Bend down to tie your lace, pop it in your ankle holster, walk out whistling Dixie.

But Ivory hadn’t used a gun in any of the murders, and they’d been watching Unzicker on the grounds that he might be Ivory, so perhaps there’d been no reason for the watchers to connect the two. The gun club was below a gym: perhaps the watchers thought Unzicker had just gone to the gym. Perhaps the watchers were in holiday mode too, grousing to each other about how much they hated working Thanksgiving. These things happened. Didn’t make it right, sure, but didn’t make it unusual either.

Four thumps, two soft and two much heavier: the apologetic coughs of a pair of .22-caliber bullets, one into Almas’ heart and one into Irek’s, and the crashing of two very large, very dead men hitting the floor.