Second Contact Page 16

  “Three of them, actually,” she replied. “I saw them listed at the desk when we checked in: car dealers, librarians, and sporting goods manufacturers. The car dealers will provide us with an unexpected bit of camouflage.”

  “I don't think I follow you,” said Becker.

  “They've got a lot of sleeping rooms at the Regal, but not that much convention space. The car dealers are using the function rooms from nine at night until three in the morning. That means we won't look out of place no matter when we come and go.”

  “We'll raise more eyebrows for your being black and my being white than for going out at four in the morning,” replied Becker. “This is New York, remember? Everyone goes out in the middle of the night when they're on vacation here.”

  “Well, at least having the car dealers scheduled all night long can't hurt,” she replied.

  They walked out into the thick, polluted air and began walking along 58th Street.

  “Where did all the panhandlers go?” asked Becker, looking around curiously.

  “They obviously haven't paid off the cops on this block,” said Jaimie. “I saw them all over 59th when we drove in. Why did you ask?”

  He shrugged. “Just looking over all my possibilities for approaching Roth.”

  She shook her head. “They'll never let a beggar into the Diamond Tower.”

  “How about a charity collector?” suggested Becker. “You know, for starving children in Zambia or Nepal?”

  “I don't like it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if Building Security says no, they've already seen you, and that makes your next approach all the more difficult.”

  “We could call them and see if it's permissible.”

  “If you want,” she said. “But I can't believe it's gonna be that easy.”

  They turned onto Fifth Avenue, walked past a row of posh jewelry and clothing stores, and then turned onto 56th Street a couple of minutes later.

  “Here we are,” she said, walking up to a soot-covered canopy that had once been a metallic gold.

  “Looks expensive,” remarked Becker as they entered a small foyer that was filled with 18th Century gilt furniture.

  “Not to worry, Counselor,” she said. “It's my treat. Or General Roth's, anyway.”

  “You're going to put him on his guard.”

  “Not a chance. Even the bank won't know I've appropriated some of his money until the end of the month.”

  “I still feel badly about it,” said Becker. “After all, he's not the enemy.”

  “He's the one who put out the hit on you,” she said. “If he's not the enemy, I'd like to know who is.”

  “So would I,” muttered Becker, as the maitre d' approached them and led them to a tastefully secluded table in the back of one of the two dining rooms.

  “He acted like he knows you,” said Becker when they were studying their menus.

  “He does,” replied Jaimie. “But he'd act like that just the same. It's his job. Now tell me what you want and let me practice my French.”

  “You speak French?”

  She nodded. “And Swahili, and Japanese.”

  “Why Swahili and Japanese?” he asked.

  “Japanese for the same reason as French: not all computer users speak English, but the bulk of them speak one of the three languages.”

  “And Swahili?”

  “My father came from Uganda. I learned it as a child.”

  “You're a woman of many accomplishments,” he said. “Most of them illegal, but an awful lot, anyway.”

  She laughed. “Am I being complemented or insulted?”

  “I never insult ladies who pay for my dinner,” said Becker.

  “Good. What will you have?”

  He ordered a pea soup, duck in a fruit sauce, and a salad, and she deftly translated their orders into French so that their waiter could go to the kitchen and translate them back into English.

  “These are such elegant surroundings that it's difficult to remember why we're here,” confided Becker with a smile, after the waiter had left. “I'm almost tempted to suggest that we catch a play before breaking into General Roth's apartment and threatening his life.”

  “It sounds like fun,” she agreed. “But there will be a lot more people wandering around the Diamond Tower before midnight than after. I think we'd better go over there as soon as we're through with dinner. And Counselor?”

  “What?”

  “Don't order dessert.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because there's bound to be a coffee shop or two at the Tower, and if we decide to sit down and discuss our options while we're there, we might as well do it over dessert as over coffee. It'll buy us a little more time, just in case the place is crowded and they're trying to turn the tables over every few minutes.”

  He nodded. “Makes sense ... though I just got a look at the dessert cart here. I hate to miss it.”

  “You're too fat already.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Just being honest.”

  “You lie to everyone else,” he noted. “You might tell a little white lie to me every now and then.”

  She shook her head. “We're partners, Max—and I never lie to my partner. If I start lying to you, I won't stop.”

  He sighed. “Fair enough.”

  “Then get that unhappy look off your face. Here comes Jacques with our soup.”

  “You know him too?”

  “No. I call them all Jacques. No one's ever corrected me.”

  “Then you can't possibly mind if I call him Henri?”

  She smiled. “Suit yourself.”

  “What's so funny?”

  “His French is atrocious. His real name's probably Murray.”

  “That's okay,” grunted Becker. “My French is even worse than his. I couldn't understand a word you said to him.”

  “Let's see what kind of soup he's bringing us. It may turn out that you weren't the only one who couldn't understand me.”

  The soup was as ordered, and they spent the next hour enjoying the meal. Becker couldn't believe the size of the tab, but Jaimie paid it cheerfully and left a substantial tip as well. Then they were back out on the street, heading toward the Diamond Tower.

  When they reached it, Becker decided that it looked even more impressive in person than on holovision. No less garish, but more impressive. The arched entryway was studded with false but glittering diamonds, and the lobby displayed a sparkling diamond pattern on its immense floor. The building took up no more than fifty feet of Fifth Avenue frontage, but once inside it spread out, covering most of the short block between 56th and 55th Streets. Pricey stores lined the various upper and lower lobbies, five levels of them including a pair of open restaurants and a trio of bars.

  Various electronic information boards, their LED lights constantly flashing, directed the visitor to his destination. The first five floors were commercial, the next twenty were the parking garage, the next thirty were offices and exclusive retail outlets. From the 56th floor to the 139th, the building was residential. There were four large apartments on each floor from the 56th to the 100th, and two truly grandiose apartments on each floor above the 100th.

  “Oh-oh,” said Jaimie, as she and Becker stopped to read the board. “Here's the rub. Visitors are not allowed above the 56th floor.”

  “That's got to be wrong,” said Becker. “They've got a restaurant on the top floor.”

  She read further. “Elevator Number 36 goes non-stop to the rooftop restaurant.”

  “What's to stop us from taking the elevator that goes to 115?” he asked.

  “Take a look,” she said, nodding her head in the direction of a bank of residential elevators. “Each passenger has to have his ID okayed before the elevator will let them on. My guess is that you have to go through the whole process again to get off.”

  He shook his head. “That can't be right. How do these people have friends over for dinner?”

  She shrug
ged. “It doesn't say anything about it on this board.”

  “Let's hunt up another one,” suggested Becker. “There's got to be something about it near the residential elevators.”

  They strolled toward the three banks of residential elevators, pretending to window shop as they went. Finally they came to another electronic board.

  “Here it is, Counselor,” announced Jaimie, pointing to the operative instruction. “You call up on a house phone, they give you a code that they then program into the elevator's computer, and you use that to get on. They then change the code and give you the new exit code while you're in the elevator.”

  “There are a few bugs in the system,” remarked Becker softly. “For one thing, if you're visiting a friend on, say, the 88th floor, and I'm in the elevator with you, I know your exit code.”

  “Getting in may be the easy part,” she said. “I've got a feeling that you have to go through the whole process again on the way out, and the elevator computer has to be tied to the personal codes. Even if we get up to Roth's apartment, we may not be able to get back down.”

  “There's got to be a firewell.”

  “Coded.”

  “I doubt it. Some old lady panics and forgets her code and winds up burning to death, the Tower is asking for one hell of a lawsuit.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “The problem is, it's all guesswork. We won't know the situation until we actually try to get in.”

  “Let's narrow the odds, anyway,” said Becker.

  “How?”

  “It's time for that dessert we never had. Let's go up to the roof for it.”

  “The place is probably reserved six months in advance,” noted Jaimie.

  “Good. Then we'll have to find our way down, won't we?”

  “You really think the firewell staircase is gonna be accessible, don't you?”

  “Let's find out.”

  She shrugged, and they walked over to Elevator Number 36. Two minutes later it came to a stop at the 140th floor, and Becker had to steady himself for a moment before he stepped out.

  They found themselves in a small lobby, and Becker gestured for Jaimie to wait in a plush chair while he approached what was obviously the reservation desk.

  “Welcome to the Diamond in the Sky,” said the elderly man who was standing behind the desk. “Have you a reservation?”

  “No. Do I need one?”

  “I'm afraid so, sir. Perhaps you might try the Queen of Diamonds on the 4th level of the lobby, or one of our other fine restaurants on the lower levels. Would you like me to call down and see if they have any tables available?”

  “In a few moments, perhaps,” said Becker. “Do you mind if my companion and I just look around for a few moments. We're from California, and we've been reading about this place for the past three or four years.”

  “Certainly,” came the reply. “As you reach the north end, you'll find a number of telescopes set up for your enjoyment.”

  “And is there a restroom?”

  The man nodded. “Both restrooms are down this corridor,” he said, gesturing to his left.

  “Thank you,” replied Becker. He turned away from the desk and approached Jaimie. “You've got to go to the ladies’ room.”

  “I do?”

  He nodded. “It's down that corridor. Keep on going, and see if you can find anything that looks like an exit or a service elevator.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “There are a bunch of telescopes at the north end. I'll walk off in their direction and see what I can find.”

  “Where do we meet?”

  “If the corridors keep on going, we ought to run into each other. Since the restaurant's got a view, I don't see how that can be, so once you've gone as far as you can go, check everything out and come back here.”

  She nodded and headed off toward the restrooms while Becker walked slowly toward the north end of the building.

  He passed three locked doors—two offices and a storeroom—and then the corridor bore to his right, and a moment later he came to a truly spectacular window wall. A number of telescopes stood on sturdy metal stands, and he lowered his head slightly to look through one, which was pointed toward the East River. It was too dark to see anything, and he manipulated it until he was able to focus in on the northern end of Manhattan Island. Then he continued walking, checking every door he passed, hoping to find an EXIT sign somewhere.

  At the very end of the corridor, just before he reached what he assumed was the back wall of the restaurant, he found a service elevator, but although he tried to summon it numerous times nothing happened. Finally he gave up and walked back to the lobby, where he met Jaimie.

  “Come on,” he said in a voice loud enough to be overheard by the man at the desk. “I want you to see the view.”

  As they walked out of earshot, he turned to her.

  “Find anything?”

  “I found your stairwell,” she said.

  “You don't seem enthused.”

  “You can forget about it. As far as I can tell, it's got a computer lock that won't release unless all the power goes off or the temperature in here reaches the high eighties—and you can bet the farm that the moment it does release, there'll be bells and sirens you can hear from ten blocks away.” She paused. “Did you fare any better?”

  “Maybe,” he said, as they reached the telescopes. “I found a service elevator, but I can't make it work.”

  “Let me see it,” she said, and he led her down the corridor until they came to it.

  “Pressing the button's just the first step,” Jaimie announced after a brief examination. “Then you've got to insert an ID card in this slot.”

  “What kind of ID card?”

  “Who knows?”

  “Well, it was worth a try,” he said. “Let's go back down, and then take an elevator up to 55.”

  “Why bother? The stairwell system is gonna be the same throughout the building.” She paused. “As I see it, Counselor, you've got three options: swipe an ID card from someone in Maintenance who's qualified to use the service elevator, sneak on a residential elevator down in the lobby and hope whoever's on it gets off on General Roth's floor—or wait for Roth to leave the building, follow him, and try to get him alone.”

  “I don't like any of them,” said Becker. “Roth could stay in his apartment for a week; it's certainly big enough. We'd be calling too much attention to ourselves if we tried to take the residential elevator, and the odds against it stopping at the right floor are too high. And a building like this has to have a maintenance staff of several hundred, maybe even a couple of thousand. Where would we start—and if we stole an ID from the wrong guy, how long would it be before he reported it and everyone was on the alert?”

  “Well, I just don't see any other way. Maybe if we waited in the lobby and only tried to get on elevators that had military men in them...”

  Becker shook his head. “There's that second ID code, just before you get off. If Roth knows I'm still alive—and he must by now—he's not going to let anyone off until he knows who's in the elevator.”

  “In that case, I'm fresh out of ideas.”

  “Let's go back to the hotel and think about it,” said Becker. “If we have to, we'll try stealing some maintenance man's ID, but I'm not happy with it.”

  They walked back to the little lobby, summoned the elevator, and were down in the main lobby about two minutes later.

  They were halfway back to their own hotel when he suddenly turned to her.

  “You said the stairwell lock was geared to a temperature in the high eighties?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that all the locks are on the same system?”

  “That's right.”

  “What if we set a fire on, say, the 53rd floor, and were on the 140th when the computer lock read the temperature. Would it open?”

  “A heat bomb with a time-delay?” she mused. “Yes, it ought to work.”

  “Nothing big,” said Becke
r. “We don't want to burn the place down. Hell, I'd be just as happy setting up a space heater. But whatever we do, if I can put it on, say, a twenty-minute delay, that ought to give us time to get to the 140th. We'll do it at ten in the morning, when the restaurant's virtually empty, so no one's around to watch us in the stairwell. Then, when the lock disconnects, we'll just walk down to the 115th.”

  “What if someone finds the source of the heat and re-locks the doors before we can get to the 115th?”

  “Once we're in the well, we're home free. It's against the law to have a fire door that can't open from the stairwell.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Let's say we actually get into Roth's apartment. How will we get out?”

  “We have to enter secretly,” said Becker, “but we don't have to leave secretly. Once I've had my talk with him, I'll point my gun at him and tell him to take us downstairs.”

  “Where he'll yell for help at the top of his lungs,” said Jaimie.

  “He won't say a word,” Becker replied confidently.

  “Oh? Why not?”

  “You're going to see to it.”

  “Me?” repeated Jaimie. “How?”

  “I don't know yet—but once we get back to your computers at the Regal, I sure as hell intend to find out.”

  15.

  “It's coming through now,” said Jaimie, looking up from her computer.

  Becker, who had been sipping a beer that he found in his room's well stocked pay-by-the-item refrigerator, walked over and looked at the screen.

  “He doesn't drink, he doesn't drug, he doesn't gamble, he doesn't screw around,” she announced. “Or if he does, he's kept it pretty well-hidden from his superiors.”

  “We've got to find some kind of leverage to use against him,” asserted Becker. “He'll know we're not going to kill him. We need something to get him to cancel the hit.”

  “How will he know you're not going to shoot him?” asked Jaimie.

  “He's probably got more information about me than I've got about him.”

  “But he doesn't know that I won't kill him,” said Jaimie.

  “It won't matter. As the head of Covert Operations, he's probably the kind of guy who's willing to die before he'll say two words to us.” He gestured toward the computer. “Keep looking for a weakness.”