The Lazarus Trap (2 page)

WHEN THE OFFICE STAFF STARTED HUSTLING IN AT A FEW MINUTES after eight, Terrance d'Arcy was at his desk as usual. Just another Tuesday morning in downtown Orlando. Except, of course, for the seeds of mayhem he expected to watch sprout. Any minute now.

When his secretary knocked on his door and asked if he wanted anything, Terrance did not acknowledge her. She gave him ten seconds of her patented mask, then left. Terrance remained as he was, his wireless keyboard in his lap and his back to his office. The credenza behind his immaculate rosewood desk held three flat screens. One showed quotes from the European markets and early currency dealings. The second was tuned to Bloomberg News with the sound cut off. The third scrolled through his daily cascade of e-mails. Terrance saw none of it. His fingers remained locked in stillness. Waiting.

Then the middle monitor burst into sound. An hour earlier he had keyed in several words to unlock the volume. Though he had been hoping for it, still the voice hit his shock button.

“—explosion,” the newscaster intoned. “Reports are sketchy at this point. But it appears that several floors of the Rockefeller Center have been destroyed. Police are refusing to rule out terrorist—”

Terrance slapped the keys to kill all three screens and bolted from his chair. He did not run down the hall. That would appear unseemly. He walked at a pace just slightly slower than a trot. He skipped the elevators and took the stairs. Only when the steel door slammed shut behind him did he bound up the three floors to the penthouse.

When Terrance entered the chairman's office, he was greeted with Jack Budrow's customary glare. The CEO detested Terrance d'Arcy. When time had come for the board to approve Terrance for the senior vice-presidency he now held, Jack had voted against him and for Terrance's corporate enemy, Val Haines. Jack suspected that Terrance had counterfeited documents and effectively stolen the promotion, as Val maintained. Terrance's admittance to Jack's inner sanctum was a constant irritant. There had been times when Terrance wished he could wind back the clock and dislodge himself from the whole affair. But today, this minute, he was delighted to be here. Positively thrilled.

Terrance d'Arcy considered himself to carry a true Englishman's heart. This despite the fact that he was only half British by blood, had lived most of his life in the U.S., and could not disengage his American twang no matter how many elocution coaches he hired. But one did what one could. Terrance's suits were staid Saville Row. His shirts were Turnbull and Asser and starched to perfection. His cufflinks were twenty-two-carat-gold Dunhills. His only other splashes of color were his reddish-gold locks, a sprinkling of freckles that women considered boyishly attractive, and a four-hundred-dollar I Zingari tie. Terrance had a polite word for everyone. Combined with his freckles and his crystal blue eyes, this was enough to charm those who did not know him well.

Jack Budrow's office encompassed almost a third of the former Dupont Building's top floor. Dupont had erected the structure in the early eighties as an investment property, back during the first faint glimmerings that Orlando might become a regional powerhouse. Dupont had been right, but too early. The rents were too high for back then, the lobby too ornate, the building too New York flash for the gentrified South. But times changed. In the ensuing quarter century, Orlando's dismal downtown had experienced an extreme makeover. Money and power and strict zoning enforcement had removed most of the dives, spruced up the remaining smaller structures, bricked the streets, and added art deco streetlamps with hanging floral arrangements. Newer high-rise centers shouted big money. Now the Dupont's atrium was too squat, the marble too dull, the chandeliers not flashy enough. The metallic pinnacles fronting the building's stepping-stone roofline were now faded by the fierce Florida sun. Insignia, Jack Budrow's company, had obtained the long-term lease for a song.

The wall opposite Jack's desk held a shoji screen of antique hand-painted silk. Behind this resided an eighty-two-inch plasma screen, the largest made. Jack used it for teleconferences and showing guests what was supposed to be an introduction to Insignia International. Terrance thought of it as a five-minute stroll down Jack Budrow's personal hall of fame. Today, however, the screen showed three talking heads on
Good Morning Orlando
. Which, for Jack Budrow, was about par for the course.
Good Morning Orlando
news-breaks ran an ice age behind the national wire services.

Terrance walked to the desk, picked up the television's controls, and switched to Bloomberg News.

The CEO barked, “Do you mind?”

“Ease up, Jack.” This from the third man in the room, Don Winslow.

“Last I checked, this was still my office. Change back the channel!”

“Ease up, I said.” Don came out of his customary slouch. “You got something?”

“Listen.”

“—We can now confirm that the top two floors of the Rockefeller Center building fronting Forty-Eighth Street were completely destroyed early this morning by what appears to have been a massive explosion. No report of casualties has yet come through. According to preliminary police reports, the early hour spared New York from what otherwise would have been a massive death toll, as debris rained down on sidewalks that two hours later would be jammed.

“The floors were home to Syntec Bank, an international merchant bank based on the island of Jersey. Police refuse to comment on the possibility of a terrorist attack. Adjacent buildings have been evacuated while a full search is underway . . .” The announcer touched his earpiece, then added, “We now take you live to our reporter at Rockefeller Plaza.”

The rap on the door startled them all. Terrance killed the television. Budrow's secretary, a stone-faced woman of indeterminate years, opened the door. “There's a caller on line one.”

Jack's voice sounded raspy from the sudden strain. “I said no interruptions.”

“This one is for Mr. Winslow. The caller knew he would be in this office and insists it is urgent.”

Don asked, “He give a name?”

“It is a woman, sir. All she would tell me is that you are expecting the call.” The secretary was clearly displeased with having her authority breached. “She was most adamant.”

Don said to Jack, “I guess I better take it.”

“Put it through, Consuela. And no more interruptions.”

When the door shut, Don said, “This must be Wally.”

Her name was Suzanne Walton, and she was a former cop. She had been working narcotics in Baltimore and got greedy. Don had insisted they hire her as their outside security consultant. When Terrance had asked what for, Don had merely replied,
In case we ever
need ourselves a hammer.

The phone rang, and Don hit the speaker button. “Winslow.”

“I been trying to reach you for an hour.”

“My cell phone's doing a fritz.”

The woman asked, “You heard?”

“We were just listening to Bloomberg. They're talking terrorists.”

“They do that with everything these days.” The woman's voice rattled like a deluge of glass shards. “It'll pass.”

Terrance watched Don smile approval of her attitude. “So what now?”

“You get confirmation. I get payment.”

“We'll be waiting.” Don glanced at Terrance, then added, “You need anything more, you go through Terrance d'Arcy.”

“Who?”

“The man who signs your paycheck.” Don gave her Terrance's cell phone number. “My dance card's about to get extremely full. When you talk to Terrance, you talk to me.”

“I don't like change.”

Don's tone hardened. “Deal with it.”

They waited through a long moment, then the line went dead. Click and gone. Terrance shivered once more. He really had to meet that woman. See if reality lived up to the mental image and the one photo he had obtained through his sources. Wally was a tall brunette who would have been truly striking, had it not been for the scar running from her hairline to her left eyebrow. That and her dead-eyed cop's gaze. Well, former cop, actually.

Don stretched his arms over his head until his joints popped. Don Winslow was executive vice president of Insignia, a company whose revenue topped two billion dollars a year. He was a graduate of Columbia Law School and earned a high six-figure income. But the man looked like a tramp. He could take a top-line suit straight off the rack, wear it five minutes, and look like he had fed it to his three Dobermans. The only hairbrush Don owned was the fingers of his right hand. He was a tennis fanatic, a long-distance runner, a fitness freak. He possessed no waistline to speak of, boundless energy, and a total absence of moral convictions. Terrance admired him immensely.

Don asked no one in particular, “Can you
believe
this?”

Jack responded as only Jack could. “With our luck, they'd already finished their appointment and left the bank.”

“No, Terrance checked that out carefully.” Don wagged his fingers. “Remind the man.”

“I downloaded their latest schedules at midnight. They both showed at the Syntec meeting beginning at six-thirty this morning.”

“Which is a little odd, if you think about it,” Don said. “Our Val does love the New York nightlife.”

“They obviously wanted to get in and get out before the bank woke up.”

“Astonishing,” Jack Budrow mused, perhaps for the thousandth time. “I still can't believe that Val Haines was a thief.”

Don gave Terrance a sideways look. “Right, Jack.”

“Well, really. The man's been a trusted employee for almost seven years. Of anyone on my payroll, Val would be the last person I would ever imagine to do such a thing. It's positively astonishing.”

“Astonishing,” Don repeated, still watching Terrance. “Absolutely.”

“And he was at it for almost three months,” Terrance added. The pleasure of watching his corporate nemesis crash and burn was exquisite.

Jack Budrow shook his head. “Being so wrong about someone is unsettling.”

“Tell you what I think, Jack.” Don pointed with his chin at the television screen. The top of the New York building was a smoldering ruin. “Looks to me like you won't need to worry about him anymore.”

A TRIO APPROACHED WITH FLAT COP EXPRESSIONS. ONE WORE A rumpled suit. The other two, a man and a woman, had gold detective badges clipped to their belts. “Jeffrey Adams, that right?” The male detective slid into the seat behind the desk. He was burly and pockmarked with eyes the color of congealed molasses. “You recognize me?”

His cop escort had led him into a bull pen of an office and manacled his wrist to a metal plate clamped to a desk's corner. His wooden chair struck his bruised body like a paddle. Across the room a phone rang and rang. “No, sorry.”

“Wish I could say the same.” The detective swiveled far enough around to ask the woman, “You got a Kleenex or something? The guy is leaking.”

“Thank you.” He accepted the tissue and applied it to his oozing temple. Mentally, he repeated his own name. Jeffrey Adams. The words meant nothing.

His one free hand lay limp in his lap. His suit pants were filthy and one knee was torn. The ringing phone sounded like a panic alarm. The absence of any knowledge was like a vacuum inside his brain. The mental void threatened to collapse his head like an empty paper bag.

“I'm Lieutenant Dangelo. This is Detective Suarez. The suit over there is Peters from the DA's office. You got any recollection of taking a swing at me? I'm asking on account of the state you were in at the time. When I restrained you, you tried to lay me out with a roundhouse. Which is why you got clipped.”

“No,” his partner corrected. “First you tore his jacket trying to restrain him. When he wouldn't calm down, then you clipped him.”

“Mind telling me why you were in the Barron's Club last night, Mr. Adams?”

“I have no idea.”

“Do you realize you could be facing felony charges for striking an officer?”

He made a procedure of inspecting the stained tissue. “It looks like I'm the one who's bleeding.”

The prosecutor leaned on a desk across the narrow aisle. He wore a heavy brown suit and an expression to match the cops'. “How long have you lived in Des Moines, Mr. Adams?”

Des Moines. The name echoed through his pounding skull. “I don't remember.”

“You don't know how long you have resided in your own hometown?”

“I told you. Everything is very muddled. Was I drugged?”

The prosecutor exchanged glances with the cops. “Have you been through this booking process before, Mr. Adams?”

“I assume you've pulled up my records.”

“There are no outstanding charges or convictions,” the woman detective said.

“Barron's is an odd place for a tourist to visit, Mr. Adams. Where did you learn about the place?” When he did not respond fast enough, the prosecutor barked, “What exactly do you recall about last night?”