Agent X - Boyd Noah - Страница 20

Kate stared past him for a few seconds. “God help me, I think I may need some sort of therapy, because that actually makes sense to me.”

Charles Pollock’s house was surprisingly large but in a state of advanced disrepair. It was a half-timbered Tudor and in need of a fresh coat of paint. A front gutter hung by one end, angling across the first-floor windows. The second-floor stucco had some deep cracks in it and was chipping off. Weeds were over a foot high and frozen upright in the lawn. As the two agents pulled in to the driveway, there was a stillness that made Vail wary.

He got to the door first and unbuttoned his topcoat, hitting the thumb release on his holster. Gently he pushed Kate behind him. He knocked loudly. After a few seconds, he put his ear against the door and listened. “Can you check for his car?”

Kate went over to the attached garage and peered into the window. “Empty.” Vail watched her as he continued to listen for movement inside. She cupped her hand over her eyes to cut the sun’s glare and searched the garage’s interior. “The inside house door is open. As cold as it is outside, that can’t be intentional.”

Vail walked over and pulled up the overhead door, drawing his Glock. Kate slipped hers out of the holster in response. They walked into the garage, and he pushed the door leading into the house completely open.

Once in the kitchen, they listened for anyone moving around. “Hello!” Vail yelled. When there was no response, he nodded toward the doorway leading to the rest of the house, and without another word he and Kate swept from room to room, covering each other. “Okay, do you want the upstairs or the basement?” he asked.

“Basement.”

They split up, each heading for a different set of stairs. Five minutes later they were both back to the kitchen, their handguns reholstered. “Do you think he’s onto us?” Kate asked.

“Could be, if Calculus is talking. The Russians would most likely warn him then. Or he could just be at the grocery store. We’d better pull back and sit on it until we figure out which.”

Kate found a spot almost a block away and parked. She went to the trunk and came back with a pair of binoculars, handing them to Vail. “Pretty high-tech for us, isn’t it?” he said.

“I figured it was time to move our little adventures forward into the seventeenth century.”

Vail looked at Pollock’s house through them. “Nice.” Still holding them to his eyes, he turned and scanned Kate up and down. “Very nice.” She hit the front of the binoculars, causing them to bang into Vail’s eyes. “Ow!”

“I thought you bricklayers were a tough bunch.”

“Not us blind bricklayers.”

“What are we going to do if Pollock doesn’t come home?”

Vail picked up the pages from the suspected spy’s file and leafed through them. “There’s a cell-phone number here.”

“You want me to call it?”

“I’m not sure how much good that will do us, since we won’t know where he’s at.”

Kate thought for a second. “You want me to have it pinged?”

“As a deputy assistant director, you should be able to get something like that done pretty easily. I mean, there’s got to be some advantage to having you along.”

“You’d be surprised how there’s absolutely no advantage to working with certain highly rated people.” She jerked the sheet of paper out of his hand and dialed her cell phone.

It was late in the afternoon before Kate got a callback. She made some notes and hung up. “He had the phone turned off until about an hour ago.” She started the car and handed Vail her notes. “Just west of McLean. Those are the coordinates. If you’ve recovered your eyesight, please punch them into the GPS.”

Daylight was fading as Kate pulled over. “Do you think that’s it?”

Vail glanced at the dashboard locator. “It’s the only building within a half mile.”

They were looking at an ancient ten-story brick building. Kate was on her phone again, calling the McLean police to find out what the structure was. After waiting for a while, she made some more notes and hung up. “It’s some sort of historical building that housed World War One wounded soldiers who were brought back here to recuperate. After the war it was turned into a government warehouse. Because its heating and electrical were so out of date and rehabbing it would have been too expensive, they were going to tear it down. But then the historical people got involved. They started filing injunctions, and it’s been going back and forth for longer than anyone can remember.”

“Why would Pollock be in there? It doesn’t make any sense,” Vail said.

“Maybe he was just parked here when he made the call.”

“Why don’t you see if there’ve been any calls since the first one.”

Kate called headquarters again and, after being on hold for a couple of minutes, hung up. “Nothing. They’re going to check it every fifteen minutes and let us know if there’s a change.”

When they hadn’t heard anything an hour later, Vail opened the car door and said, “I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?”

“To see if there’s a way into that place.”

“You think he could actually be in there?”

“If there’s no way in, then we’ll know he’s not. At least we won’t have to sit here the rest of the night.”

Kate said, “I’m going to call his house and see if I get an answer.”

Ten minutes later Vail got back into the car. “I take it he’s not at home.”

“No answer.”

“I found a way in.”

“What does that mean?”

“Could have been just kids breaking in. Hard to tell.” He picked up the binoculars and used them to explore the building’s windows. After a few minutes, he said, “There! On the fifth floor. Did you see it? A light, and then it disappeared.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. Let’s go.”

Taking a flashlight, Vail led the way around the back of the building to a door that had been carefully jimmied open and then closed, giving the appearance that it was still secure. He pushed his fingers into the narrow crack on one side of the door and pulled on the edge until he worked it free. They both stepped inside. Vail stopped and listened. He snapped on the flashlight. “I think the stairway is straight ahead.”

Kate followed him in the semidarkness, occasionally stepping on something soft that she hoped were articles of abandoned clothing. Then they started climbing the stairs.

At each landing Vail stopped and listened, every so often turning to look at her. “You okay?” he whispered with uncharacteristic concern.

“Yeah, fine. You?”

He smiled. “I’m okay.”

When they reached the landing between the third and fourth floors, he stood motionless for a good five minutes. Kate could see that Vail sensed there was going to be trouble—and it was going to be soon. Her suspicion was confirmed when he drew his automatic. She did the same. As cold as it was, she felt a bead of sweat work its way down her spine. Slowly, Vail stepped onto the next stair.

On the fifth floor, they could see as some light from the street seeped in through a hallway window. Vail swept the floor with his flashlight to make sure there was nothing underfoot that might announce their arrival. The creaking floor was bad enough. He walked forward to the door of the room he thought he’d seen the brief flash of light come from. The number 508, painted on it in gold-edged black paint, had all but peeled off. Standing to the side, he tried the knob. The door was unlocked. He looked at Kate to see if she was ready, and she gripped her weapon with both hands. Vail turned the knob and pushed the door open.

It was pitch-black inside, no ambient light anywhere. Still at the side of the door and without being able to see in, he flashed the light into the room to see if it would draw fire. It didn’t. He motioned for Kate to stay where she was. He turned off the flashlight, took a deep breath, and stepped into the room. Quickly he moved to the side so he wasn’t outlined by the light coming from the hallway. He looked back and could see Kate leaning into the room. When he didn’t give her any instructions, she moved into the room and stepped from in front of the door as well. Vail held his light as far to the side as he could and turned it on. Other than some scattered debris on the floor, the room was empty. Ahead of him was another closed door to another room. They both moved to opposite sides of the door, and Vail opened it.