Page 248 of Fractured Loyalties
“Schedule change,” I say. “Truck in twenty. Volker wants doors clear.”
He groans and stands. “Volker can clear his own—”
I hit him in the ribs where the vest doesn’t cover and catch his temple on the way down. The second man has time to widen his eyes. The clipboard edges cut his nose when I drive it into his face. He sways. I guide him to the floor and let him meet it.
Two down inside. Two more across the bay. Sliding door on the right cracks open, and a real problem steps through it. Jacket that actually fits. Pistol with a light. He scans the room out of habit, not suspicion, and clocks both men on the floor. His mouth opens.
I shoot the light off his pistol before he can raise it. He flinches at the flash and fire. I cross the gap and slam his hand into the jamb until the gun goes slack. He swings. I take it on the shoulder, put my knee into his thigh, and ride him to the ground. His head clips the doorstop. He goes still enough to use. I drag him into the crack he came from and ease the door shut with my boot.
The corridor beyond smells like dust and printer ink. Offices on the left, two with blinds that don’t close right. The first is empty except for a dead plant and a monitor loop. The second holds a thin man with a headset who keeps saying the word “dispatch” as if it makes him belong. He sees me and yanks the cord. I shake my head. He nods like I’ve convinced him. I take the phone off his desk and remove the battery. He puts both hands flat on the wood and stares at a coffee ring like it knows how to save him.
“Where,” I say.
“Conference room,” he answers at once. “End of hall. Corner. He’s got the big screen on. He never turns it off.”
“Security?”
He swallows. “Two near him. Two in the server closet. No one on the roof. We got pigeons instead of men.”
“What’s the code for that door?”
“Four-nine-one-three.” His gaze flicks to my shoulder holster. “You aren’t law.”
“No.”
He nods like that’s better. “He keeps a safe behind the map.”
“What map?”
“You’ll see it.”
I leave him his tongue and continue down the hall.
Fluorescent tubes buzz overhead. The floor tile carries sound if you stomp. I don’t. The server closet hums on my right. I hear a chair scrape faintly against the floor.
The corner room has frosted glass with a stripe cut clear at eye level for people who like watching without being seen. A blue glow leaks out under the door and paints a thin line across the tile. I angle to the far side and test the handle. Locked. I type the code. Four. Nine. One. Three.
The latch clicks. The hum of the screen gets louder when the seal breaks.
I step in and close the door behind me.
Volker stands at the far end of a long table, eyes on a wall-sized map that shows the river and the roads in a web of routes. He hears the door, glances over his shoulder, and smiles likewe’re late to a meeting. His hair is cut to government length. His suit is the color of bad weather. He holds a marker like a scalpel.
“Eidolon. Or should I say Elias,” he says, as if he picked the time. “I was beginning to wonder when you’d stop dancing in circles.”
Two men flank the screen—one with a compact submachine gun he looks too eager to fire, the other gripping a pump-action shotgun like he doesn’t realize how useless it is in a room this size.
I walk to the table and set the stolen clipboard on it. He watches my hands. He enjoys watching anything.
“You took Vale’s ring,” he says, amused. “He kept rubbing the tan line like it meant something. I told him it didn’t.”
I say nothing. Talking will not make this cleaner.
He gestures to the map. “You kill me, and this keeps moving. You know that. I know that. You’re a precise man. You don’t like wasted motion.”
“I like endings,” I say as I step further into the room.
“Then you should like this,” he answers, and taps the map right where the freeway splits. “You leave this room, and a van will hit your street three minutes after you arrive. You might be fast enough to stop the first man. The second will still make the door.”
