Last Man Standing (66 page)

“Three strikes and you’re out,” muttered Web.

He went downstairs to the security desk, flashed his badge and asked if anything unusual had happened the previous night.
The rental cop snapped to attention at the sight of the FBI shield and flipped through the notes left by the night shift.
Web had gone through the security check before when he had come to see Claire because guests had to sign in, but he didn’t
recognize this guard. They probably rotated them throughout lots of buildings.

“Yeah, the log shows a call from Dr. Daniels at twelve-thirty
A.M.

She said the lights had gone out in her office and the guard informed her that all electrical systems were a go and that it
might be her circuit breaker and asked if she needed assistance.” The young man read this all in a stilted yet quavering voice
probably not all that far removed from puberty. “She replied in the negative and that was all.” He looked up from the paper.
“You want me to do anything?”

The kid’s big eyes were just begging Web to send him into action. The guy was armed and probably shouldn’t have been, Web
noted.

“I know you keep a record of visitors entering and leaving the building. I just signed in on my way in.”

“That’s right.”

Web waited patiently for a few seconds, but the kid just wasn’t getting it.

“Can I
see
the register?” Web finally said.

The fellow almost jumped out of his chair. Web had noted that the kid had checked out his face and might have recognized him
from all the TV stuff lately. He was probably thinking that Web was half insane and needed to be humored at all costs if one
wanted to avoid a violent death. And right now Web was perfectly fine with that perception.

“Yes, sir.”

He pulled the book out and Web quickly searched through the pages. There had been lots of guests during business hours the
day before, but they ended at six o’clock. He looked at the guard.

“What about after hours? What’s the sign-in procedure?” “Well, it’s a keycard system and the doors automatically lock at six.
If you want to get in after six, a tenant has to call down and let security know, and when the guest gets here we call up
and the tenant has to come down and get the person when they show up. Or the guest may use the exterior phone, identify themselves
and who they’re here to see. We call up, and the tenant comes down. If the tenant doesn’t answer or isn’t expecting the visitor,
they don’t come in, that’s the rule. There are some government offices in here and such. I think maybe something to do with
the Pentagon, even,” he added, with a small measure of pride. “It’s a very secure facility.”

“I’m sure,” said Web absently as he continued to study the pages. “This place have an underground garage?” Web had always
parked out front.

“Yes, sir, but it’s on a keycard system twenty-four hours a day, tenants only.”

Web made a mental note to check and see if Claire’s Volvo was there. “So tenants can come and go through the garage elevator
and bypass security?”

“That’s right, but tenants only.”

“Regular lift gate on the garage?”

The guard nodded.

“How about someone slipping into the garage without a car? Can they take the elevator up without a keycard?”

“Not after hours.”

“But how about during business hours?” persisted Web.

“Um, that might be possible,” said the guard in a small voice, as though Web’s observation had just blown his whole professional
life.

“Right. Look, is there any way I can talk to the guy who was on duty last night, the one who spoke with Claire?”

“Tommy Gaines. He’s a friend of mine; we actually joined up at the same time, right out of high school. He’s working the ten-tosix
shift.” He grinned. “Tommy’s probably home dead asleep.”

“Call him,” said Web in a tone that made the kid grab the phone and start dialing.

Tommy was reached and Web took the phone and identified himself. He could hear the sleepy Gaines become instantly alert. “How
can I help you?”

Web explained what he was looking for. “I take it you didn’t see Claire Daniels leave?”

“No, I figured she just went out through the garage like she always does. I worked the day shift there for a year and so I
knew who she was. She was a real nice lady.”

“She’s not dead yet, son,” said Web.

“No, sir, I didn’t mean that.”

“It says she called you at twelve-thirty last night. Did she often work that late?”

“Well, I wouldn’t necessarily know that, since she didn’t have to come and go through the front lobby.”

“I understand that; I was trying to find out if you had ever seen her here that late before.”

“No, I hadn’t.”

“Did she sound strange when she called?”

“She sounded scared, but I guess if the lights went out on me I would be too, and she was a woman by herself and all.”

“Right.” Web knew female FBI, Secret Service and DEA agents who could bite young Mr. Gaines in half and never break a sweat.
“Did she
say
that she was all by herself?”

“What? Well, actually, come to think of it, no, she didn’t. But I sort of got that impression because she called down and
all.”

“And the lights down here were fine?”

“Yep. And I could see some of the other buildings out the front. The lights were all right there too. That’s why I told her
the breaker might have popped. See, this building is set up that each unit has control boxes for their space. That way if
one office is doing renovation or has to cut the power for some reason, it doesn’t affect the rest of the building. There
is a main power switch for the whole building, but that’s locked up and the building engineer has the key.”

“And you told her you’d come up, but she said that was all right and she said she’d check the circuit breaker box herself.”

“That’s right.”

“And you didn’t hear anything else from her?”

“That’s right.”

Web thought for a moment. The lights were working in Claire’s office now. But it might be worth another check.

“Oh, Agent London,” Gaines said. “Now that I think about it, about twenty minutes after Claire called I did notice something.”

Web tensed. “What? And give it to me exactly as you remember it, Tommy.”

“Well, an elevator started up. That can only happen after hours if somebody has a keycard and activates it.”

“Where did the elevator originate?”

“From the garage, heading up. I could see it on the floor indicator. It was on P2 and then was coming back up. I was doing
rounds and got a clear view of it.”

The other guard piped up to Web, “Maybe that was Claire Daniels leaving.”

Web shook his head. “Most elevators, especially after hours, are programmed to return to the lobby level. If Claire had hit
the button for the elevator, it would have originated from the lobby, not the garage level.”

“Oh, that’s right,” said the crestfallen kid.

Tommy Gaines obviously had heard this exchange and said, “I guess I was thinking it was Ms. Daniels too, because she had called
so recently, and I was thinking the lights going out had freaked her out and she had decided to go on home. But you’re right
about the elevators. The car must have been called from someone on the P2 level and I happened to pass by it when it was heading
back up and got it in my head that Ms. Daniels had called it up.”

Web said, “But did you see where it stopped at? If I remember correctly, the office where she works takes up most of that
floor.”

“No, I just kept making my rounds. So I didn’t see that or when it came back down either. But whoever it was didn’t come out
the lobby, I would have seen them.” He added, “Sorry, that’s all I know.”

“No, that’s okay, Tommy, you’ve helped me a lot.” He looked at the kid at the desk. “And you too.”

As Web hit the elevator button and headed back up, he had a lot to think about. Either it was coincidental that somebody had
gone up about twenty minutes after Claire called down, perhaps just another tenant burning the midnight oil, or something
else was going on. Under the circumstances, Web just had to assume it was the latter.

When Web got to Claire’s offices, he asked the same woman who had helped him before if he could see the electrical closet.

“It’s over there, I think,” she said uncertainly.

“Thanks.”

“Do you think something’s happened to Claire?” the woman asked nervously.

“I’m sure she’s fine.”

Web went to the closet and found it locked. He looked around, but the woman had gone back into her office. He pulled out his
little picklock kit and soon had the closet open. He looked around. The first thing that struck him was that something had
been pulled out of the wall. There was a clear gap on the power board and wire insulation and other bits of debris were on
the floor. Web had no idea whether it had been done recently or long ago. He hoped it hadn’t happened last night. As he swung
his head around, his experienced eyes picked up what Claire’s had missed: the wireless button trip on the inside of the doorjamb,
similar to those installed in homes that would trigger an alarm if the door was opened and the contacts broken. Web had seen
lots of these devices but never on an electrical closet in an office building. He walked to the front door of the office and
opened it. There was no trip button there; in fact, he saw no security panel at all. Why have a security system on your electrical
closet and not your office? A cold sense of dread hit Web as he looked at all the closed doors of this space. Claire had told
him that a great number of FBI agents, spouses and other law enforcement types sought professional help here. A lot of intimate,
confidential information was being revealed behind those portals.

“Shit!” Web ran to Claire’s office. The door was locked. He picked it and went in. He saw the flashlight on the floor and
was about to search her desk when he happened to look up and saw the smoke detector dangling there. He reached for it and
drew back as his FBI training took over. Potential crime scene, fingerprints; don’t contaminate the evidence. He called Bates,
explained the situation to him and the FBI put out an APB on Claire; and Bates and a tech team showed up thirty minutes later.

W
ithin three hours the entire office had been meticulously gone over and the people questioned. Web was sitting out in the
waiting room the whole time. Bates came out, looking pale.

“I don’t believe this, Web, I really don’t.”

“The smoke detectors were listening devices, weren’t they?” Bates nodded. “And video. Pinhole cameras.”

“PLC technology?”

Bates nodded again. “Like the spooks use. Sophisticated stuff.” “Well, I guess we just found our leak.”

Bates looked down at a list he held. “I guess, you look at it singly, and it’s like an agent here, a spouse there, no big
deal. But we checked uptown, where they keep records on this because the Bureau’s insurance foots the bill. Can you believe
that almost two hundred agents, spouses and other personnel connected with the Bureau are patients here? I’m talking people
at the bottom all the way to people at the top. And who knows how many at other agencies like DEA, Secret Service, Capitol
Police?”

“Well, going to shrinks wasn’t real popular with agents before this. Now I guess you can just kiss it good-bye.”

“O’Bannon had high-level clearances. Ex-Army, worked in-house at the Bureau as a counselor, solid as a rock. Or so we thought.”

“An ocean of intelligence.” Web just shook his head. “Debbie Riner, Angie Romano and others. Guys aren’t supposed to really
talk to their wives about work, but it happens. I mean, everybody’s human.”

“That must be how they knew you guys were hitting the place that night and even which team was going to be where. It was a
planned assault, lots of lead time. One of the guys could have told the missus and she lets it slip to O’Bannon and,
bam
, the bugs pick it up.” Bates covered his face with his hand. “Damn, how do I tell Debbie Riner she might have helped kill
her husband?”

“You don’t, Perce. You don’t,” Web said firmly.

“But if I don’t, she’ll find out from some source. And, God, think of the blackmail potential. How do we know
that
hasn’t happened already?”

“Face it, Perce, this is an octopus with tentacles that never stops growing.” Web looked around the office. “All personnel
accounted for here?”

“All except Claire Daniels.”

“And O’Bannon?”

Bates sat down. “It looks like he was definitely involved. His files have been cleared out. We checked his house. That’s been
cleared out too. We’ve got APBs out, but if this all went down last night, he’s got a big head start. By private plane he
could already be out of the country.” Bates rubbed his head. “This is a nightmare. Do you know what will happen when the media
gets hold of this? The Bureau’s credibility will be wrecked.”

“Well, if we can nail the people behind this, we might be able to get some of it back.”

“O’Bannon’s not sticking around for us to come and arrest him, Web.”