Nightrise (12 page)

The forty-fifth floor. He stepped out.

It was all very ordinary, after all. What had he been expecting? A wide corridor ran left and right with the words nightrise corporation in raised, silver letters. There was a floor-to-ceiling window at one end, looking across to the building opposite, and a pair of modern, glass doors at the other. He could see a reception desk and two women in smart suits, wearing headphones and throat mikes.

"Good morning. Nightrise Corporation. How may I help you?"

"Good morning. Nightrise Corporation. How may I direct your call?"

A second set of elevators doors opened and a FedEx deliveryman stepped out, holding a parcel. Jamie waited while he went ahead, through the glass doors. The package would have to be signed for. That was good. It would distract their attention. That would give him his chance.

One of the women was talking on the phone. The other was dealing with the delivery. Now. Quickly, Jamie passed through the glass doors, walking as if it was his right, as if he had visited the building a dozen times before. He found himself in a carpeted area with leather seats and a water-cooler. There were pictures on the wall — modern art. A wide, glass door stood on each side, leading to corridors and more offices. Which way? He had to make an immediate decision. If he hesitated, he would be noticed.

And then he would be stopped.

He turned right and went through the door, expecting at any moment to hear one of the receptionists call out after him. But they hadn't seen him. Now it would be easier. He was inside. Anyone seeing him would assume that he had been allowed through.

But where was he to begin? Jamie glanced at his watch again. Everything depended on exact timing and somehow another two minutes had gone by. That just left him five minutes to find Colton Banes. He looked around. The forty-fifth floor had been expensively decorated in different shades of blue with more paintings between the doors.

On the left-hand side of the corridor, all the outer rooms, the ones with a view, had been given over to senior executives and their assistants. Their names and the office numbers were printed in small letters beside each entrance. On the other side, the central part of the office was open plan. Jamie could see a maze of desks divided by partitions. There were perhaps twenty or thirty men and women, most of them young, bent over computer screens or talking on the phone. The carpets were thick and seemed to absorb any sound. Was that how business was done here? With the same hush as a laboratory…or perhaps a church.

He came to an open door and looked inside. There was a photocopying machine and a young man in jeans and an open-neck shirt, only five or six years older than Jamie, sorting through a stack of documents. Jamie was about to move on but the young man suddenly looked up.

'You okay?" the young man asked.

"Sure."

'You looking for someone?"

'Yeah…"Jamie lifted the envelope, showing the name on the front. "I've got to give this to a Colton Banes."

"Banes? Do you know his department?"

"No. It doesn't say."

"Well, let's take a look…" The young man went over to a table and picked up a plastic ring binder. He flicked through it. "Banes…" he muttered. He turned a page. "Here he is. You're on the wrong floor.

He's up on forty-nine…room forty-nine twenty-five. Must be a big shot! That's the way it is here. The bigger you are, the higher you go."

"Thanks." Jamie backed out the door.

He thought he would have to go back to the elevator but as he came out of the photocopying room, he noticed a sign: fire exit

. Of course, in the event of a fire, the elevators would shut down. There had to be stairs.

He continued down the corridor. A woman holding a bundle of files hurried past him but nobody stopped him. Nobody even looked in his direction. He came to the fire exit, pushed it open, and found a flight of metal and concrete stairs on the other side. He climbed up, taking two steps at a time. He had Banes's office number, but time was running out. Alicia would make her call in just a couple of minutes.

And all of this was easy compared to what had to happen next. Jamie dreaded it even as he quickened his pace. He could feel his heart beating and knew it wasn't just the exertion of the climb.

The forty-ninth floor was exactly the same as the one he had left, with the senior offices and conference rooms on the outside and the common pool at the center. There were more people moving between the different workstations but they were still talking in low voices as if afraid of being overheard. But there was no art here. The walls were covered with posters: the same poster. It showed a serious-looking, gray-haired man. He had been caught half smiling, as if he wanted to be friendly but had too much on his mind, vote Charles baker

. Jamie recognized the name of the senator running for president against John Trelawny. From the look of things, the entire floor had been turned into a campaign office on his behalf.

Jamie felt more exposed here. It could only be a matter of time before he was noticed. But at least he knew where he was going. 4907, 4908…he followed the office doors around. Another quick look at his watch. He had two minutes left.

Colton Banes had an office suite at the far corner; the door was half open. Jamie edged forward and looked through. There was an outer room with a desk for an assistant but it was empty. A second door, also open, led into another, larger space. And there he was, sitting in a high-backed leather chair behind an antique, highly polished desk. Jamie drew a breath. He had come here looking for Banes but even so, it was a shock to see him again — the cold, watery eyes, the bald head that could have been the result of some disease. This was a world away from the Reno Playhouse, and Jamie found it almost impossible to make the connection. Had Nightrise sent this man to kidnap his brother and himself? Had Banes really killed two people — Don and Marcie — when the plan had gone wrong?

He looked at his watch. Thirty seconds left.

"Who are you? What are you doing there?"

The voice had come from behind him. A man was moving down the corridor and Jamie could see at once that he wasn't anything like the younger man he had met in the photocopying room. He was plump and bearded, wearing a suit, and he had a radio transmitter in his hand. He must be part of security. And he was suspicious.

The telephone rang. Jamie heard it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Banes pick it up.

"Who are you?" the security man demanded.

"Hello?" Jamie heard Banes answer the telephone and knew he had to get into the office. There were just seconds left.

Sitting outside the office building, speaking on her cell phone from the car, Alicia asked, "Is this Colton Banes?" She had been passed through to his office by the receptionist.

'Yes." Banes was already puzzled. He didn't know the voice. Why was this woman calling him?

The security man was waiting for Jamie to answer. When Jamie said nothing, he took a step forward. "I think you'd better come with me," the man said.

"I'm with him." Jamie jerked a thumb in the direction of the office. He knew it sounded feeble but he couldn't think of anything to say. He stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

On her cell phone, Alicia knew the moment had come. "Where is Scott Tyler?" she asked.

Banes looked up and saw a scrawny boy in a brightly colored shirt and baseball cap standing in his office and knew he had been tricked. The woman on the phone had asked him a question and although he had no intention of saying anything more, he couldn't stop himself from thinking the answer. That was why Jamie was here. This was what the two of them had arranged. He had arrived just as Alicia had opened a window in the man's mind.

Jamie jumped through it.

He did exactly what he had done a thousand times on the stage. He jumped — not physically but as if he were throwing a miniature replica of himself out of his head. But this time it wasn't Scott at the other end. This time it wasn't his brother with his warm and familiar thoughts.

It was Colton Banes.

Jamie felt himself plunge into utter darkness. It was like diving into a pool of frozen oil. And at that moment, he shared everything that Banes had ever felt or thought. There were pictures — millions of them — but there were also experiences and emotions: fear, arrogance, lust, anger, cruelty, hatred, and much, much more. Jamie had tried to explain it to Alicia but he would never have been able to find the words. A man's brain is a world. That's what he should have said. And the world in which he now found himself was beyond any imagining.

He saw the death of Kyle Hovey. Worse than that, it was his hands that were around the other man's neck. He could feel the warm flesh and the pulsing vein under his own fingers as he squeezed. This had been the most recent killing and it was uppermost in Banes's mind. He saw a woman watching him. She had very short, gray hair, a long neck, glasses. Banes was afraid of her. Jamie felt the fear. He saw the cruelty in her eyes and for a moment she was looking straight at him, smiling while he committed murder.

But then the image folded away and he was inside a trailer. There was a young girl lying on a bed with a dazed expression on her face and long hair, straggling over the pillows. She moved her arm and Jamie saw that the flesh was bruised and mauve and that there were puncture marks, some of them covered with scabs. There were clothes everywhere, crumpled beer cans and ashtrays spilling out their contents, a dirty calendar on the wall. Colton Banes at home. It was there, and then it was gone. Jamie had seen it only for a second. But it felt like an hour or even a day.

And then he saw other murders, a gun fired endlessly in front of him, a whole line of people, young and old, being shot down as if in an obscene fairground gallery. Some had died quietly. Some had cried for mercy. Jamie heard them and watched them fall. Mainly men. A few women. The bullets spat out, one after another, and blood splattered a dozen different walls.

And then he came to Don White.

"Whose murder?"

"You shouldn't have asked."

He heard the words and saw Don White jerk backward as the bullet hit him. Then it was Marcie's turn.

She had been taken by surprise in the kitchen. She hadn't even heard the door open. She had just turned around and that was it.

So many deaths. A chamber of horrors.

He saw himself, chased out of the theatre. The dog — Jagger — forced to the ground. And the man who was running for president, Charles Baker. That was crazy. What was he doing in Banes's head? But it was definitely him, raising a hand and smiling, saying something to a journalist.

Another flicker, a hundred different places, flashing past in no particular order like a falling deck of cards. He had arrived in a city, maybe somewhere in China. A strange boat with dark, wrinkled sails making its way across a stretch of water. Gone. Now he was back in Los Angeles, seeing himself as he entered the office. He felt the moment of recognition, his own name whispered in anger and surprise.

Jamie fought against the torrent of words, images and emotions, searching for the one thing he needed.

"Where is Scott Tyler?"

Alicia had asked the question and the answer had to be there, ricocheting through Banes's mind. Jamie wasn't sure how much longer he could stay there. He was going to be sick. He felt as if he was drowning.

And then he saw him. His brother. Scott.

He was lying on his back in an enclosed room, stripped to the waist. He was ill. There was a tube running into his nose, the sort of thing you get in a hospital, and another in his wrist. Some sort of transparent liquid was dripping down. Scott was covered in sweat. His hair was soaked through. There was a trickle of dried blood at the corner of his mouth. His eyes were open and filled with pain. Jamie wanted to know what Scott was thinking, but that was impossible. He was seeing him as Banes had seen him. When? Not yesterday. The day before, maybe. Recently…

"Where is Scott Tyler?"

Banes didn't want anyone to know. He was fighting it. But still the images came, one after another.

Jamie saw desert. A cactus shaped like the letter Y. He saw mountains with the moon suspended eerily between two peaks. There was a loud, electronic buzz as a gate opened automatically, then an echoing crash as a second one closed. Faces. Other boys, some the same age as Scott but all of them lifeless*

vacant. A security camera swiveling around. Showers, the steam rolling out. More boys, their outlines just visible behind plastic curtains. Another gate smashed shut. And there it was at last, the sign that Banes didn't want him to see.

SILENT CREEK.

Jamie saw it and began to back out from inside the man's head. He couldn't stay here any longer, surrounded by so much poison and pain. He felt himself pulling away, as if flying up through a great tunnel. More images swept past, but so fast that he couldn't see them.

And then he was back where he had started, in the office, with Banes staring at him, openmouthed, from behind the desk.

For a few moments, neither of them moved. Jamie couldn't have if he'd wanted to. He was exhausted. He felt drained. Then Banes smiled. "Jamie," he muttered.

Jamie could only watch as Banes reached into his .desk and took out a gun. It was the dart gun that he had used on Scott. The man seemed to know that Jamie was helpless, that he had nowhere to go. His movements were careful and unhurried. He didn't even stand up. He took careful aim.

And then the outer door crashed open and the security man blundered in.

"Excuse me, sir…" he said, and stopped dead in his tracks. He had come through the outer office only to find a Nightrise executive pointing a gun at a child.

Jamie saw the look on his face and realized that although he might work here, the security man had no idea what went on behind the closed doors of the different suites. What would he do now? Jamie decided not to find out. He reached behind him and grabbed hold of the man, pulling him forward between Banes and himself. It was at that exact moment that Banes pulled the trigger. The dart flew its short distance and buried itself in the man's arm. The security man shouted out in pain and alarm. Jamie let go of him and ran out. He heard a second dart slam into the door frame as he ran through. Then he was back out in the corridor, running as fast as he could.