The Operative (48 page)

Cano gave up and called an elevator.

‘Shall I come with you, boss?’ Klodi asked.

‘Next person leaves their post I’ll cut their balls off. Make sure everyone knows that,’ Cano said as the doors opened. He walked inside, hit the garage-parking button and the doors closed.

Klodi nodded and turned to see the Mexican guard grinning.

‘You think he’s joking, ass-wipe? That goes for you guys, too,’ Klodi said.

The Mexican lost his grin and Klodi walked back to the main entrance.

Cano stepped out of the elevator into the garage and looked around the concrete vault. He walked to the dumpster cage, which was open, and stopped to take another look in every direction. The only sound was the faint hum from the air-conditioning plant in a room at the other side of the car park. Then a slight noise came from behind him and he turned to scrutinise the dumpsters. The noise came again. At first he thought it was a rodent but as he stepped cautiously into the cage it began to sound more like a moan.

Cano opened the first dumpster and looked inside to find it filled with trash. Then the surface of the garbage moved ever so slightly. Cano reached in a hand and pulled a bag aside to reveal the green-painted wooden planks that had made up boxes which had been used to pack the Albanian artefacts that decorated Skender’s penthouse. He lifted one of the planks to expose an extremely ill-looking Tony who was barely hanging onto life.

‘Klodi,’ Cano shouted into his radio. ‘I’m in the garage. Get down here and bring a couple of the guys. Now!’

A few minutes later Klodi and two others were hauling Tony out of the dumpster and onto the concrete floor where he lay prostrate.

‘He don’t look too good,’ Klodi said, kneeling over the man
who appeared to be having problems breathing but was still trying to say something. Klodi lowered his ear to Tony’s mouth. ‘Anyone here speak Italian?’ Klodi asked.

Apparently no one did since there was no reply.

Cano was growing impatient and shoved Klodi aside. ‘Who did this?’ he asked Tony. ‘What happened?’

Tony mustered a breath then said something that Cano could not quite understand.

‘Say it again,’ Cano said, moving his ear closer.

Tony softly repeated the word.

‘A waiter?’ Cano repeated, not quite understanding.

‘English,’ Tony struggled to say.

The penny dropped with a clang and Cano stood, raising the radio to his mouth as he moved towards the elevators. ‘This is Vleshek. Close all exits. No one gets out of the building. Do you understand? No one!’

Stratton stepped through a fire-exit door into an alcove that led directly into the lobby. He paused to observe the frenzied activity around the entrance as several of Cano’s men brusquely shoved back people who were coming in as well as those who were on their way out while the goons closed the massive main doors.

The next phase of Stratton’s plan required him to get outside but all indications were that the building appeared to be closing down. He quickly scanned around for anything that might provide a clue to getting out and his gaze landed not on the perfect solution but probably the only one. A fire alarm was fixed to the wall beside the fire exit and Stratton whacked it with his elbow, breaking the glass. The building immediately erupted in a cacophony of bells and sirens and he walked into the crowded lobby as event staff emerged from the banqueting hall, wondering what the alarm was about.

‘Fire!’ Stratton called out. ‘Fire! Get out of the building! There’s a fire!’

It had the immediate desired effect with a general shift of people towards the main doors. The security guards tried to hold them back. Skender’s thugs were overly physical in their own efforts, which only served to increase tension, ignite tempers and fuel the urgency to escape.

Stratton joined the pack, shouting scary warnings above the din of the alarm bells. The mass of people quickly began to reverse the efforts of the guards and Skender’s goons to close the doors as Cano stepped from an elevator.

Cano quickly made his way to the side of the crowd, shouting at his men to hold the doors as he pushed his way towards them. As he forced his way to within a few feet of the entrance he noticed someone staring at him from the other side of the mass and suddenly realised it was Stratton.

Cano increased his efforts to push forward, never taking his stare off Stratton while his hand slipped inside his jacket and grabbed his pistol. He ripped it from its holster and struggled to raise it above the heads of those in front of him. As he got it roughly aimed, Stratton ducked out of sight.

Cano pushed even more violently, trampling a woman who had lost her footing in front of him. He ignored her screams as he stood on her in an effort to gain some height so that he could find Stratton.

The mass of bodies squeezed through the main doors as the guards finally gave in to the greater force. Cano surged out with them and onto the concourse where people were flooding away from the building in every direction. Most stopped at what they considered a safe distance to look back and see what the alarm was all about. Cano moved further out, scanning beyond and behind, his gun in his hand, ready to shoot should he catch sight of the person he hated most on this planet. As he came to a stop
and turned a full circle, looking far and near, he caught sight of a figure in a waiter’s uniform running from the square and down a side street. Although he could not see the man’s features clearly enough he knew that it was Stratton. His empty eye socket began to throb.

As Cano continued to look in that direction he was filled with an intense curiosity to know what the man had been doing in the building and why he’d left.

‘Top-floor security, this is Vleshek,’ he shouted into his radio. ‘Top-floor security!’

A moment later there was a reply.

‘Is everything okay?’ Cano asked.

‘Everything is fine here.’

‘Check with all the other guards on that floor. I want to know if there has been anything suspicious in the last hour.
Anything
.’

‘Give me a minute. I will check,’ the voice said.

It had been about an hour since Tony had been tossed into the dumpster. Stratton had been in the building somewhere, doing something that had taken that amount of time to complete. Perhaps he had been looking for the boy, but that would have been a stupid risk unless he had good reason to suspect that the kid was there. And to search a building that big by himself would have been pointless anyway. Cano could not but respect Stratton’s explosives skills and audacity but what the Englishman could possibly have been doing in the building he could not imagine.

‘Vleshek?’ a voice barked over the radio.

‘Yes,’ Cano said.

‘I’ve spoken to all the guys and no one’s seen or heard nothin’ suspicious.’

Cano lowered the radio, his mind churning through possible reasons Stratton could have been there.

‘Vleshek?’

‘I heard you,’ Cano snapped. He made his way back to the
main entrance. Anger once again dominated Cano’s emotions as the feeling grew inside him that he did not have the initiative in this fight. He of all people knew the advantages of the small against the mighty. The only thing he had in his favour was time – or, more precisely, knowing that Stratton had little of it.

As Cano entered the lobby, the alarms bells still ringing, he raised his radio to his mouth. ‘This is Vleshek. Everyone listen. I want anyone who is not covering an exit to meet me on the second floor, and I mean everyone. And turn those goddamned alarm bells off !’

A sedan pulled into a side street across from Skender’s building and came to a stop alongside the kerb. Inside it Hobart, Seaton, Hendrickson and the driver all sat in silence, looking dishevelled and somewhat fatigued after a night without sleep. They’d spent hours at a medical facility, undergoing checks. Then they’d examined the mine at dawn for any clues or evidence. Having found nothing of value, they’d then learned of the pick-up that had been stolen outside the bar in Twin Oaks and discovered that Stratton’s vehicle had been left in its place. They’d decided to head for Los Angeles and Skender’s business centre since that was the next logical focus point of the manhunt.

Hobart finally broke the silence with a heavy sigh. ‘I’m gonna tell Skender to cancel his opening ceremony,’ he said as if he had just made the monumental decision.

Hendrickson, still wearing his singed coat, turned around in the front passenger seat to look at him. ‘He’s not going to like that, sir.’

‘I don’t give a damn what he likes,’ Hobart said. Then, after considering the comment, he acknow ledged the implications of such a decision. ‘Call the mayor’s office. I think the governor’s coming too. Let ’em know we’re closing down the building and not to come.’

‘Should I say why?’ Hendrickson asked.

‘Go ahead and tell ’em it’s a bomb scare but make sure they understand this is not al-Qaeda or anything like that. Just say we’ve got a crazy out there with an explosive device.’

‘The press’ll be here five minutes after I make the call,’ Hendrickson said.

‘They’re gonna know as soon as you call the police chief, the fire department and emergency services. We’re gonna need a cordon at least three blocks deep – plus EOD and ECM.’

‘We’ll have to evacuate every building within the cordon,’ Hendrickson said.

‘A goddamned nightmare,’ Hobart sighed. ‘Got anything to add?’ he asked Seaton.

Seaton was ignoring him and staring directly ahead.

Hobart looked at him. ‘Seaton?’

‘There he is,’ Seaton said.

Hobart didn’t quite understand who Seaton meant – his mind was on so many characters at that second. ‘Who?’ he asked, looking ahead in the direction where Seaton was staring.

‘Stratton.’

Hobart focused through the windscreen on a man in a waiter’s outfit walking across their front as Hendrickson spun round in his seat to look.

‘That’s
him
?’ Hobart asked, unable to see a clear resemblance to the picture from the angle he was at.

Hendrickson looked at Hobart, waiting for him to make the next move. Hobart quickly opened his door and the driver and Hendrickson followed, pulling their guns from their hip holsters.

Hobart put out a hand to keep them behind him. ‘No shooting unless I tell you to – is that understood?’

Hobart took the lead and hurried down the centre of the road, a warning tapping anxiously at his brain that this was too easy and something was about to blow up. As he turned the corner Stratton came into full view, walking along, hands empty and swinging by his side, as unthreatening as anyone else in the street.

‘Hold it!’ Hobart shouted, closing the gap, his gun gripped in both hands, held out in front of him and ready to come up on
aim. Hendrickson and the driver adopted similar stances behind and to either side of him.

Stratton heard the voice call out and instantly believed the worst. But he kept walking.

‘John Stratton!’ Hobart shouted, walking briskly behind him. ‘This is the FBI. Stand still or so help me I will shoot you!’

Pedestrians close enough to hear halted as they looked at the three men in the street who were carrying weapons.

Stratton slowed.

‘John Stratton, this is your last warning,’ Hobart shouted as his pistol came up on aim.

Stratton came to a stop although he did not turn to look. He knew that it had all come to a grinding halt for him and even though he instinctively searched for a clue to a way out there was nothing. He was in the street, cars and people either side and nowhere to run. Suddenly he could see Josh in a dirty corner somewhere, hands tied, desperate and hungry. Stratton was almost filled with the urge to make a run for it, even though he knew that he would never survive. But in many ways it would have been an act of cowardice, taking the easy way out of his guilt for failing Josh. Stratton had never felt such anguish and loss before that moment: it was as if a strange sense of invulnerability that he’d had all his life had suddenly disappeared.

At that moment Grant appeared, walking down the sidewalk and clapping eyes on the very man he had hoped to. ‘Hey! You! Motherfucker!’ he shouted at Stratton, completely unaware of the guns drawn in the street. ‘We need to talk. Yeah, you!’

Grant walked out into the road to confront Stratton. ‘Where’s my motherfucken’ five hunnerd dollars? You lied to me, you motherfucker. I’m talkin’ to you, ma—’ Grant stopped in mid-sentence as he saw the men behind Stratton with guns aimed at them both. His mouth remained agape as his hands went into the air. ‘Holy shit.’

‘Keep perfectly still,’ Hobart said to Stratton as he came to a stop yards from his back. ‘Let’s not do anything stupid here. Put your hands up.’

Stratton slowly complied.

‘I ain’t done nothin’ man,’ Grant said, quivering. ‘I ain’t no paparazzi.’

‘Move to one side, please, sir,’ Hobart said to Grant. ‘You stay perfectly still, John.’

Grant stepped to the side, keeping his hands high as Hobart’s driver moved to where he could cover him.

‘Now I want you to turn slowly and face me,’ Hobart said. ‘Nice and easy.’