The Scapegoat, page 24
“Thanks.”
“Do me a favor. Don’t kill him, okay?”
“That’s up to him.”
Sato hit the gas and they were gone.
38
The building on Figueroa was being built on land that previously operated as a parking lot. About half the lot still remained and Sato was able to get a spot still warm from a silver Toyota. Coombes glanced at the clock on the dashboard as he stepped out the Dodge and saw it was just after six. Neither of them had eaten since half eleven.
He tilted his head up to the top of the building.
Coming here was a stroke of genius by Marks, he had to hand it to him. The building could be seen from all over L.A. but it would never have made anyone’s list of potential locations. Only a small number of people knew the site was closed and fewer still had access.
He opened the back of the Charger and they changed into running shoes and put on their bulletproof vests. He didn’t mention to Sato how little protection the vests offered against Marks’ gun, there didn’t seem to be much point.
The base of the tower was surrounded by eight feet high wooden boards with a single security gate that was padlocked shut. He brought the thick jaws of their department-issued bolt-cutters up and began to squeeze on the hardened steel of the padlock.
“We are calling for backup, right?”
“We don’t know he’s here yet, Grace.”
“And if he is, when do we find out? When it’s too late?”
The jaws of the bolt cutter chewed through the padlock hoop until it broke in half and fell on the ground.
He turned to face Sato.
“Look, I’m not waiting. It might already be too late but on the chance it’s not I’m going in. If we call for backup, we have to wait for it to arrive before we do anything. Maybe word gets back to Block and he decides we need to get a judge involved. Get a search warrant, or an arrest warrant. We don’t have enough evidence to connect Marks with this property, so then what? Judge says no, do we still go in?”
“Ask forgiveness, then?”
“You’re goddam right. Tell me this isn’t the very definition of exigent circumstance.”
Coombes didn’t wait for her to answer. He opened the security gate and walked toward the tower. She ran to catch him up.
“Johnny, I asked so we’re on the same page. I don’t disagree with you.”
“All right then.”
“It’s just,” Sato said, “I think we should have a fallback position.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“I don’t know. Like if we confirm he’s there we call for some uniforms to lock down the base to prevent him from escaping.”
Coombes said nothing for a moment, thinking how best to say it.
“Actually, I want to face him alone. I think he sees me as some kind of fellow traveler. We both served. In some ways we’re different halves of the same whole.”
“You’re talking about a guy that tried to kill you.”
Sato hadn’t served, she didn’t understand what it was like. On the other hand, it was a long road between Afghanistan and the Taliban to protecting diplomats in Berlin. Marks’ tour of duty had been a walk in the park, there were no two ways about it.
Coombes saw a track going up the side of the building like a railway line. At the bottom sat a wire cage and a generator. He supposed this was the crane elevator Holland had mentioned. He turned back to Sato.
“If Marks wanted me dead, I would be dead. His goal was to put me out of commission and sink the investigation. At the very least, he didn’t want a dead cop against his name. That’s a one-way ticket and he knew it.”
“You think you have a connection? C’mon, that only happens in movies.”
“It might not be much, Grace, but it’s a hell of a lot better than a SWAT team rushing him with face masks and riot shields. He sees me, sees my face, I’m a known quantity.”
He walked to the doors to the building and saw a chain with a padlock on it. The chain hung down, wrapped around nothing. Either Marks had forgotten to lock it behind him, or he was inside. Unlike the gate, this could not be locked from the inside, the glass prevented it.
They went through the door into the building.
There were no lights on in the lobby and little of the early evening sun made it past the wooden perimeter and the dust-coated windows. Two elevators sat open and in darkness. No power. There were stairs at either end of the lobby. Coombes walked to the doors at the far side and fed the legs of the bolt cutters through the handle to prevent them from opening.
Only one way out.
He turned on his flashlight and walked to the other stairwell.
“Johnny, we don’t know what floor he’ll be on, or if he’s even here.”
“He’s holding Amy Tremaine prisoner. His friend tells him the site’s shut down so he knows he’s got the pick of the building. Any floor he wants. I say he chooses one far enough from ground level that even if she were to start screaming it doesn’t matter.”
“That makes sense but I’m afraid where this is going.”
“Yeah. My guess is he’s on the highest finished floor, or one close to it. That way he probably figures he’ll get plenty of warning when anyone is on their way up even if they don’t take the elevator.”
“I knew you were going to say that.”
They began to climb.
Each floor was separated by two flights of steps connected by a half landing. Between the two was a gap wide enough to drop a former Marine Lance Corporal without too many regrets.
They reached the second floor.
Coombes aimed his flashlight at his feet. Ahead of him he saw recent footprints in the thick layer of concrete dust that covered the floor like snow. The prints went on up the stairs, not out through the door.
He turned to Sato. “You see that?”
“I see it.”
Coombes put his shoe next to one of the prints. His shoe was a quarter inch longer which made it a good match with Marks who was three inches shorter than him. He walked across to the start of the next stairs and played the light across the steps. The concrete dust faded away the farther he moved from the exit to the second floor.
“I only see Marks’ prints. No Tremaine, no Stone.”
“Only a man’s stupid enough to climb 30 floors when there’s an elevator.”
“An elevator that could run out of gas and trap you in a wire cage.”
Sato said nothing and they began to climb again.
The dust was the same on the third-floor exit, the footprints not stopping, feeding around to the next steps and up.
Coombes had worried they could miss Marks on a lower floor without realizing it, but the dust would tell them exactly what floors he had been on.
He was getting into a rhythm with the climb, barely needing to check the floor for prints. When they reached the eighteenth floor the purple crease pulsed through his vision and his head pounded with pain almost as great as that first impact with the baseball bat.
His foot stumbled and he gripped the rail. Sato piled into his back.
“You can’t be done, Coombes, we’re barely half-way.”
She cast her flashlight at his face, filling his vision with burning after-images. He turned away from the glare and raised is hand to shield his eyes.
“Do you mind?”
The pitch of her hushed voice changed.
“What’s wrong? Is it your head again?”
He ignored her and started up the next set of stairs. Slower now. Better to keep moving. Having a rest was like giving his body permission to quit. Maintaining forward movement prevented his partner holding a flashlight on his face and seeing for herself his physical state.
When they reached the twenty-sixth floor, he felt a breeze coming down the stairs from somewhere above. They’d nearly run out of building. There was no layer of dust on the floor now, the breeze had been enough to push it down onto lower floors.
He paused and looked at the door out of the stairwell.
Logically, they had to check if Marks or Amy were there. He knew they could expect the dust to be the same on the next four floors. Clearing each of those floors would take too long, he knew it in his gut. He decided to continue, follow his hunch to the end.
On the landing for the 30th floor he paused and drew his weapon. According to Holland, this was the last floor that had been glazed. He eased the stair door open and looked around the gap. The space beyond was lit by the evening sun which shone through the windows.
He saw no sign of Nathan Marks or Amy Tremaine.
Coombes pocketed his flashlight and moved carefully through the doorway, his eyes scanning the space he found himself in. Thick plastic sheeting divided up the area, preventing him from quickly clearing the floor.
They moved forward, guns dipped but ready.
He used his left hand to move another plastic sheet aside. Right in front of him was a saw table with a large black backpack next to it. Coombes pulled back the zipper and found that it was packed with bundles of cash.
The ransom money.
Their climb hadn’t been for nothing.
They came to an area that appeared to have been boxed in on three sides with stacked drywall and the fourth side left open to the wall of glass. A bed of sorts had been set up with layers of cardboard acting as a makeshift mattress and a blanket covered in dark stains. A steel cable snaked out from a bolt on the wall and disappeared under the blanket.
He bent down on one knee and touched the blanket. There was no warmth to it. When he turned his head to the side, he saw blood on the floor. It was fresh and bright. He realized he could smell it now too, his nose filed with the distinctive metallic tang.
Whatever happened to Amy had happened recently, and close by.
Sato spoke to him in a hushed voice.
“It’s not hers, Johnny. It’s yours.”
Coombes reached up and wiped his face. His fingertips came back covered in blood. Thick and dark. The medic had warned him, now his body was warning him. The purple crease, now the blood. His body was ready to collapse, but he wasn’t through yet.
He got to his feet and moved clear of the bed area before he contaminated the scene any further.
Marks had kept Amy here for four days, but she was gone now. The obvious conclusion was that she was dead and that the other man had disposed of her body somehow.
The saw table.
Coombes moved reluctantly over to it and studied the blade for signs of blood. Nothing.
Suddenly a voice filled the room.
“DO YOU EXPECT ME TO BELIEVE THAT? YOU COULD PAY TEN TIMES WHAT I WANT AND NOT EVEN NOTICE IT.”
Marks. Coombes and Sato glanced at each other.
The other man sounded close, yet not on the same floor. If anything, it sounded like it came through the window from outside.
Sato tilted her head up to look at the ceiling.
Right. They moved quickly back to the stair door. Despite the long climb, he felt a sudden burst of energy flow through him. Marks was here, he was close, and it sounded like he was trying to ransom Amy Tremaine again, which likely meant that she was still alive.
On the 30th stairwell again, Coombes now saw lines on the wall where someone had reached out with their fingernails to try hold onto something. He’d been too busy looking at the floor, he’d missed it.
He followed them to where the stairs went up again. A sheet of plastic blocked the next set of stairs that rose up into the unfinished section of the building.
Down the middle of the plastic, was a four-foot cut.
The lines, the cut.
Nathan Marks had dragged Amy Tremaine across the landing and taken her up into the unfinished section of the building.
A large drop of blood dropped from his nose and landed on the webbing of his right hand between thumb and forefinger.
“YOU HAVE A YACHT, A PRIVATE PLANE, THREE HOMES, FIFTEEN VEHICLES, AND A FIFTY PERCENT SHARE OF A RESTAURANT CHAIN. DON’T TELL ME YOU’RE RUNNING ON EMPTY.”
Coombes stepped through the hole in the plastic into cool night air. The landing of 31 and 32 were the same as all the others, except that a metal device was fitted over the exit door handle to prevent the door being opened.
He began up the steps to 33.
The setting sun bathed everything in a golden light. As he looked up, he could see unfinished steel reaching up into the night sky like the rotting hull of a shipwreck.
With the fingers of his left hand, he pressed Sato back against the last remaining piece of concrete stairwell and held up his left hand, then pointed two fingers at his own eyes.
Wait. I’m going to have a look around.
He saw anger on her face.
She thought he was dick-blocking her again, and maybe he was, but he was the senior detective and he had that right. Coombes moved clear of the stair riser and out onto one of the steel beams. Wind pushed past his body fast enough to whip his trousers side to side.
He saw Amy Tremaine first.
She was bound with her hands behind her back and was hanging from one of the beams by a long orange rope. The wind was causing her to sway dramatically to the side, over the edge of the building. If the rope snapped, she’d be blown onto the streets below.
He swung his head around to place Marks.
The sharp movement caused the purple crease to move through his vision and pain tore through him like ripping paper. The pain was unbelievable and it caused him to double over.
Above him the air seemed to explode.
His feet skidded and he fell so that he was now hanging from the beam he’d been standing on, his right hand still gripping his Glock.
Never relinquish your weapon.
He heard Marks laughing.
“OH, MAN! I NEVER SAW ANYBODY DODGE A BULLET BEFORE, THAT’S AMAZING.”
Coombes was breathing fast, his lungs trying to catch up with his heart. Blood was running off his chin. He located Marks standing in the beams on the partial corner of what would eventually be the floor above. He had the huge Desert Eagle in one hand, and a cell phone in the other, his feet bracing him into the beams.
Coombes assessed his situation.
Pulling himself up without releasing his pistol would be difficult. He could wait and see if Marks came close enough to shoot, but why would he? Time was on his side. He could stay up there in the beams like some kind of rooster, waiting for him to either drop the gun or drop a whole floor onto the concrete below.
He glanced down.
It was about fifteen feet. Survivable no doubt, but it would take him out of the picture. He’d be no use to Grace, or to Amy, and a sitting duck to whatever Marks decided to send his way with his hand cannon.
Climbing back up surely committed him to losing his weapon and even if he got it back in his holster there would be a point between hanging over the side and regaining his footing where he was unarmed.
Marks held the cell phone to his ear again.
“NO, NO. SHE’S FINE. I JUST GOT A VISIT FROM THE LAPD.”
Marks had to shout, because of the airflow up in the beams. Out the corner of his eye, he saw Sato at the side of the concrete stairwell. With the other man distracted by the call to Tremaine, this might be his only chance to get his footing back on the steel.
There were worse things than dying he figured, and seeing Grace die in front of him trying to save his life would be one of them. He’d rather be dead than see that. So he did something he’d never done before.
He let go of his gun.
39
Coombes watched his gun fall onto the concrete below, knowing that losing it might cost him his life. He pulled himself up onto the steel, then stood slowly up to full height. Hanging from his arms had taken a lot out of him, more than he’d expected.
Marks jumped down and landed on the same beam as him, his arms spreading wide to maintain balance. At almost the same moment, the wind that had been pushing past them eased and became still.
“You don’t look too good, Coombes.”
“Don’t make me your problem, Marine. You served eight years as a door stop while I was fighting the Taliban. You really think a nose bleed gives you a chance against me?”
“Well, this door stop still has a gun and you seem to have lost yours.”
Marks put on a big smile, like they were on a TV show and he was waiting for the canned laughter to stop.
“I’m here for the governor’s kid, not you. The FBI want you to themselves and I’ve decided that I can live with that. Far as I’m concerned, you were already gone when I arrived. I found Amy where she is. What do you say?”
“That’s very generous of you, Coombes, but I’m not finished with that brat.”
“Then we have a problem.”
Marks laughed.
“I’m not the one with the problem, Detective.”
“It’s going to take you an easy fifteen minutes to run down those stairs. That’s if you leave right now. Five minutes after that, and you’re going to be looking at close to thirty cops standing there waiting for you. But you’ll have to allow some extra time to find that bag full of cash because it’s not where you left it.”
The smile fell away from Marks’ face.
“Let me tell you how it is, cop. You’re going to tell me where my money is or I’m going to shoot that brat right through her head. If that doesn’t work, I’ll blow one of your legs off. You’ll tell me anything I want after that.”
“All right, but she stays with me.”
“I’m just not getting through to you, am I Coombes?”
“Your margin of escape is now about three minutes. How quickly can you carry a hostage down those stairs? Face it, Marks, you wouldn’t make it ten floors.”
“The bag!”
“I dropped it between the stairs. It’s at the bottom waiting for you.”
Marks lifted his gun and pointed it at Coombes.
“That saves me carrying it and the woman.”
“You know, you were right before. I have lost my gun, but she hasn’t.”
Marks glanced over his shoulder at where Coombes was looking. As soon as he turned, Coombes rushed forward, halving the distance between them. Marks turned hurriedly back, away from Sato.
