Tower of Terror (11 page)

In the back of a customized van, Lyons checked the equipment. Outside, the reds and grays and golds of the sunset became the depthless turquoise of evening. Streetlights flickered on. In minutes it would be night. Through the tinted Plexiglass of the van's floor-to-roof side window, the headlights of a turning car flashed across the black metal of the M-16 that Lyons lifted from a phony trombone case.

"There any way we can block these side windows?" Lyons asked Smith, who sat alone in the front. "If somebody sees what I've got in here, the NYPD will drop a SWAT team on us."

"Pull down the shade, sir."

"Fancy." Lyons leaned to each of the two side windows, pulled down rolling shades.

"When they told me you asked for an M-16 with one of those night-sniper scopes, I knew we had to have this van," said Smith. "Couldn't have you trying to sight in on someone in that old Dodge I was driving."

"Thanks." Lyons pressed the lock on the M-16's actuator and hinged open the rifle. He flashed a penlight inside, saw gleaming, immaculate steel. It smelled of oil. He snapped the rifle shut, cocked it, pulled the trigger on the empty chamber. Then he tried to move the Starlite's mounts, but felt no wobble. He switched on the power, sighted out of one of the van's small back windows. Light standards, tree branches and distant windows flashed through his view. He slapped in an eighteen-round magazine, then returned the rifle to the trombone case.

The camera was more difficult. It was simply a 35 mm single-lens reflex camera with an electronic lens. An aluminum brace reinforced the assembly of the heavy lens and the camera, preventing the weight of the lens, electronics and battery from snapping the lens mount. An extension to the brace created a folding stock, like an assault rifle. For the left hand, there was a curved plastic grip. Lyons hit the power switch and sighted out the back windows.

"I think that thing would scare people worse than the M-16," Smith joked, watching Lyons in the rear-view mirror. "That thing looks like a space cannon."

"You know anything about cameras?" Lyons asked.

"Yes, sir. I graduated from the Academy. Photography is required."

"Then check this when you get the chance. It seems okay, but I wouldn't know."

"Yes, sir. We're coming up behind the surveillance cars now. Maybe you'd like to try those windows back there. They fold upward, so you can lie down on the carpet and put the rifle barrel out the side."

"What's the Bureau doing with a van like this?" Lyons joked, pushing up the folding window, then letting it fall down. He locked it closed. "It's perfect for direct action."

"You mean assassination?" Smith laughed. "It's for providing emergency surprise-fire superiority in case a suspect gets heavy. Such as in a decoy operation. Problem is, it has to be parked sideways to the target."

"That's no problem." Lyons checked the inside handle of the back door. It would unlock and swing open in an instant.

"Judging by what I've seen today," Smith said, turning and grinning at Lyons, "it's the opposition that's got all the problems. Like staying alive."

Lyons wasn't amused. "Prone to overconfidence, are you? Now where's the cab? Where's the surveillance team?"

"The cab's two or three cars behind us. Surveillance team is right in front of us. Subject is stopped at the curb. Chauffeur is buying a newspaper. We're passing him. Look out your right window — there's the limo."

A long black limousine slid through his view. Tinted side windows hid whoever might be a passenger. A chauffeur in a severe gray suit left a newsstand with a newspaper under his arm. Then the brilliant lights of a marquee and a neon window display lit the interior of the van. Lyons dropped the shade back. He keyed the secure phone. "You see him?"

Blancanales answered immediately.

"No one could see him in that limousine."

"Surveillance says he's still in there. Stay close for a few minutes. I'll have a conference with the team leader, give him a secure phone. The time's come to make something happen." Lyons returned the handset to the case and called forward to Smith, "Pull up beside the team leader. I need to talk with him." He saw Smith pick up the microphone of the scrambler radio. "Don't use the radio! Pull up beside him."

"Sorry, sir. I didn't understand." Smith accelerated, weaving through traffic, and braked as he came even with an unmarked late-model Dodge.

Taking the extra secure phone, Lyons climbed from the van's back door, went around to the door of the Dodge.

"That's the man!" Smith called out. The two agents in the front seat turned and saw Lyons. One of them reached back, unlocked the back door. Lyons stepped in as the traffic light changed.

The agent in the passenger seat stared at Lyons. "So you're the hotshot. I'm Agent Tate. That's Agent Lopez. Your man in the van said you had a phone for us."

"A secure phone," Lyons told them, opening the case and passing it forward to them. They made no effort to take it from him. "Impossible to intercept or monitor. Hey, take it. It'll be your only connection to us."

"We don't need it," Tate told Lyons. "We got scramblers in our cars."

"Yeah, and maybe they do, too. Nothing concerning my partner and me, or what we do, is to be sent over the scramblers. We can't risk it."

"That's being a little paranoid, don't you think?" Lopez commented. He made a right turn. "Going back around to pick up the limo again."

"All day long I've been paranoid," said Lyons coolly. "It seems to be keeping me alive. And while we're on the subject of staying alive, why don't you paste an FBI insignia on each door of this car, make it official? A three-year-old could spot this Dodge. And your clothes — how about just wearing uniforms? What's the point of keeping Davis under surveillance if..."

"Hey, hotshot," Tate interrupted Lyons, "Mr. Davis is not a suspect in this case. What we're doing is called protective surveillance."

"That just changed. What we're going to do now is to help him make a break. He's out here to meet one of the crazies, and he won't do it while he's got agents watching him. So, you're going to lose him."

"What're you talking about?" Tate sneered. "That man is not a suspect. He is our responsibility. He is not to leave our sight. Those were our instructions. And we will follow them to the letter."

Lyons looked at the man for a long moment. "Do what I say or take a walk. Resign."

The scrambler buzzed. Lopez took the microphone. "Here."

A tinny, mechanical voice came from the speaker. "Do you have Davis in sight? He pulled away from us."

"No, we don't," Lopez replied. "We're circling to come up behind him again."

"You can't, because he's gone," the mechanical voice told them.

"Not a suspect?" Lyons asked. "Then why is he evading you?"

Tate snorted, reaching into the glove compartment. "He can't go anywhere. We got a D.F. on the limo."

"You don't have one on
him
." Lyons punched the secure phone. "Taxi! You on our man?"

"This is Taximan. Hardman Two saw Davis dodge into a theater crowd. He went after him."

Killing the connection, Lyons keyed the code for his own secure phone in the van. Smith answered immediately, "Your partner's in motion. What do you want me to do?"

"Hold on." Lyons put his hand over the mouthpiece. He leaned over the front seat, grinning at the agents. "Well, our distinguished gentleman just became a suspect. Do you fellows want to get with it?"

"No scramblers?" Lopez asked. "How do we contact the other car?"

"Use the scrambler with them," Lyons explained, "but don't mention us. We'll direct you with the secure phone. You follow the limo, make like nothing's changed. We'll follow him. If we need you, we'll call you on the secure phone."

"Davis isn't in league with those terrorists, is he?" Tate asked, his confidence shaken.

"I think they've got a hook in him," Lyons told him. "I'll brief you later." Lyons spoke into the secure phone. "Smith, pick me up."

Swinging open the sedan's door, Lyons jumped from the car. He ran a few steps through traffic and jumped to the curb. The unmarked sedan turned the corner, became one of the thousands of cars on Forty-second Street. Lyons watched the early evening diners and theater patrons walking past him. Some of the people, dressed in expensive fashions or conservative dinner clothes, saw him and veered away, keeping six feet of sidewalk between him and themselves.

He did look bad. He'd borrowed a sports jacket from the FBI's wardrobe of costumes. It didn't fit right, but there was no blood on it. Blood splatters stained his white shirt, however, and his tie was gone. He needed a shave. There was a puffy bruise over his left eye. And he needed a shower too.

Headlights swept by him. A door flew open. Lyons ran three steps, then leaped into the van's bucket seat. Smith whipped the wheel around, U-turned.

"Taxi's right behind Davis and your partner," Smith explained. "They're on Forty-second, but if we try to navigate that street, we'll lose time in traffic. I'm going to parallel them in the alley."

Smith swerved the van around an idling truck and jumped the curb. A young couple walking arm in arm on the sidewalk saw the van's headlights bearing down on them and ran screaming into the street. Smith whipped into the alley, accelerated. Lyons braced his hands against the dash as stairways, stage doors, trash bins, drunks flashed past at sixty miles an hour. Then Smith slammed on the brakes as they approached Sixth Avenue.

"You can look now," Smith said. "We're still alive."

"Look yourself," Lyons muttered out of the side of his mouth. "See that man in the gray suit? That's Davis."

Davis stood at the alley's curb, hesitating to cross in front of this apparently reckless van driver. Only after he was sure the van had come to a complete stop did he continue down the Avenue.

"And there's my partner." Lyons nodded at Blancanales. Hardman Two gave his partner a quick glance, motioned for Lyons to accompany him.

Lyons took a hand-radio and told Smith, "He wants me to come along. Every few minutes, I'll give you our location. Real quick. Don't call me unless you absolutely have to."

Joining the sidewalk crowd, Lyons hurried after the two men until he had both in sight. Then he cut through traffic to the other side of the Avenue, pacing Davis.

The sandy-haired man walked briskly, passing other pedestrians, hurrying through traffic lights, putting block after block behind him. From time to time, he stopped, apparently window shopping. But his eyes were not on the windows' merchandise, but on the reflections of the street, crowds, and traffic behind him.

They followed him almost eight blocks before he suddenly took a handful of coins from his pocket, got on a bus going back up to Forty-second Street. Both Lyons and Blancanales whipped out their hand-radios.

"I'm running after the bus," Lyons told Blancanales. "You get the cars in motion."

Without waiting for an answer, Lyons sprinted after the uptown bus. He ran on the opposite side of the avenue, dodging through groups of people to block Davis' view if he looked back. The bus driver accelerated from one stop to another up the one-way avenue, but he didn't race the lights. Lyons did.

At one intersection, the bus coasted through a yellow light. Lyons, half a block behind, sprinted until he came to the intersection, then slowed only long enough to glance at the traffic. He wove through the slow-moving cars, forced one or two to brake, then sprinted again. A city cop waved at him, blew his whistle, but didn't attempt pursuit.

Davis got off the bus at Forty-second Street and started walking over toward Times Square. Lyons slowed, keeping a hundred yards behind him, and spoke into his hand-radio.

"Forty-second Street West. Maybe going to Times Square."

Lyons saw the customized van pass him. Blancanales waved nonchalantly. Ahead of Lyons, Davis walked quickly through the crowds. A panhandler approached him. Davis shoved the man aside without a backward glance. He hurried to a passenger loading zone in front of a hotel, grabbed for a cab's door, but three men with suitcases blocked him and took the cab.

Davis scanned the pedestrians and street traffic. Lyons ducked into a doorway. He saw Davis step into traffic and wave down a cab.

"Hey. He's in a taxi. Don't lose him, he could go anywhere!"

In reply, Blancanales' laughter came through the hand-radio. "I think we'll be able to keep up. Get out on the curb, we'll pick you up. Bet Taximan had a heart attack when Davis waved him down!"

Less than a minute later, the van slowed in traffic. Lyons ran to the back door, jerked it open and jumped in. Blancanales passed him a bottle of mineral water. Lyons gulped it.

"You did those eight blocks in record time," Blancanales commented. He glanced at Smith. "Even the hot-rod here couldn't keep up."

"Where's the limo?" Lyons asked. "You think he could be doing this just to check for shadows?"

Blancanales keyed the secure phone, but Smith stopped him. "He's out of the taxi. Going into that hotel."

"Must be a thousand rooms in that place!" Blancanales exclaimed. "Pull up into the taxi zone. Maybe he's meeting someone in the lobby."

They peered through the hotel doors and watched Davis cross the lobby to the elevators. He punched the button and waited. When the doors opened, the indicator arrow pointed down.

"I'm going to the garage!" Lyons told them as he left the van.

He ran to the entrance of the hotel's underground garage. At the bottom of the ramp there was a glass-walled attendant's booth. The uniformed boy inside watched Lyons. Deep in the cavernous garage, another attendant parked a car, started back.

Davis left the elevator and called to the attendant. He gave the attendant a dollar and a set of keys. The attendant ran to fetch the car.

"Can I help you, sir?" The boy in the booth asked Lyons.

"No." Lyons turned around, returned to the sidewalk. He stood with his back against the plate glass of a hi-fi store and waited. Within seconds, Davis was driving up the ramp in a white Mercedes coupe. Lyons keyed his hand-radio.