Unlike the floor refinishing equipment, these were items with which he was intimately familiar, items he had used — or identical to items he had used — on dozens of successful missions. They were hidden under the diversionary floor tools beneath a canvas separator which would be unfolded and used for camouflage once Nikolai was in place on the roof. The cart would stand up to casual inspection, which was sufficient for Nikolai’s requirements. He would not permit a more thorough inspection by anyone, under any circumstances.
Nikolai wrapped his arms around the cart, straining under its weight, and lowered it to the sidewalk. He stumbled to his knees and the cart landed hard, clattering but remaining upright. He breathed a sigh of relief. Scattering the tools of his trade on the sidewalk just a few hundred feet from where the president of the United States was scheduled to make an appearance tomorrow morning would not be conducive to a successful mission or, in all probability, continued personal freedom.
A casual look around confirmed for Nikolai that there were still no police in the area. He locked up the van and began pushing his cart along the sidewalk. He crossed Columbia in front of an empty Plexiglas-enclosed bus stop and continued halfway down the block, eventually arriving in front of the Minuteman Insurance building just before midnight. His timing was perfect. Three men stood in front of the entrance, dressed in the identical charcoal-colored slacks of Cote Cleaning, the company contracted to provide janitorial service for the building. They wore button-down shirts similar to his, except with Cote’s logo sewn onto the pocket instead of Capitol Floor Refinishing’s.
He dragged the cart up the stairs one at a time. The cart was big and bulky and Nikolai had begun to sweat lightly despite the cool temperatures. As he approached the top of the stairs, the last janitor was being ushered through the front door by a uniformed security guard. The guard closed and locked the door. He was large and blocky, with greying brown hair trimmed in a military-style buzz cut. He wore a white uniform shirt and dark blue pressed trousers, a handgun displayed prominently in the leather holster at his hip.
Nikolai knocked and the guard reluctantly opened the door, squinting as he gave Nikolai the once-over. “Who’re you?” he asked with an aggrieved air, as if Nikolai’s sudden appearance represented some kind of personal affront. He was standing half-in and half-out of the doorway, blocking access with his bulk.
“Nick Kristoff,” Nikolai answered with an easy smile. “I am here for floor refinishing project.” There was no way to hide his thick Russian accent, so Nikolai didn’t even bother trying. His English was passable, but would never be anything more. He had neither the time nor the inclination to master the language, especially since he figured one day soon the Americans would be learning to speak Russian. It was inevitable.
“Floor refinishing, huh?” the guard said skeptically. He frowned. “Nothing like that on my board for tonight.” He held up a clipboard for Nikolai’s inspection as though it might mean something to him. Idiot.
“Capitol Floor Refinishing,” Nikolai said, pointing to the logo on the side of his cart. “We were contracted to service floors in entire building. You would like to see work order?”
“Yeah, I would like to see work order,” the guard answered in a tone which was just mocking enough to be clear to Nikolai, but not so obvious the guy couldn’t make a plausible denial if he were called on it.
Nikolai didn’t care about mocking tones, obvious or otherwise. He unzipped his windbreaker, making a show of shivering. “Cold,” he observed, and the guard said nothing. He pulled a folded document out of his breast pocket, making sure the Capitol Floor Refinishing logo on his shirt flashed at the guard. Positive reinforcement. He handed the paperwork to the guard and re-zipped, then stood rubbing his hands together while the man peered at the “work order.”
The forgery would stand up to the guard’s — or anyone’s — inspection. It had been created by top forgers inside the KGB, men who did nothing all day but reproduce important items for the Soviet Union. Currency, licenses, permits, work orders — you name it, the KGB forgers could reproduce it. The work order looked real, right down to the signature of Minuteman Mutual’s office manager. There was absolutely no chance this drone would identify the work order as being forged.
What there was a chance of — and the one way this mission could fall apart before it even got started — was the guard smelling a rat and deciding to phone the manager at home to question the legitimacy of the project. Given the time of night, and the relative stations in life of the guard and the office manager, Nikolai didn’t think there was much of chance of that happening.
If it did, Nikolai would be forced to take out the guard, something he absolutely could not afford to do here on the front steps of the Minuteman Mutual building, not fifty feet from Columbia Road. He had already decided that if the guard made any mention of double-checking with his superiors, Nikolai would slip his NR-40 combat knife — identical to the one currently hidden inside his cart, right down to the curved blade and lethal, razor-sharp cutting edge — out of its sheath strapped above his ankle and force his way inside the building. He would then bring the man to the interior stairwell, where he would kill him and hide the body.
He hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
It didn’t. The guard glanced at the paperwork, sweeping his eyes over it for maybe five seconds, not bothering to hide his utter disinterest. Then he handed it back to Nikolai and said, “Come on in, then,” in a tired voice. He stepped back, and just like that, Nikolai was inside.
Nikolai smiled again and nodded. One of the reasons he had been so successful in his current line of work — in addition to his proficiency with dozens of weapons and his total lack of compunction when it came to taking human life — was his physical appearance. Nikolai Primakov was utterly unremarkable, from his thinning sandy hair to his gold-rimmed everyman glasses, to his wiry frame, to his average height, to his lack of identifying scars or blemishes.
He was easy to underestimate.
He blinked owlishly at the guard and said, “I would like to start on top floor. Where is elevator, please?”
The guard shook his head slightly. “The elevators are right over there, on the far side of the lobby.” He gestured vaguely at the far wall.
Nikolai pretended not to notice the guard’s derisive correction of his phrasing and peered across the lobby. He nodded, as if he hadn’t known for weeks where the elevators were located. He suspected he was more familiar with the interior of this building than the guard had ever been. “Thank you,” he said, bowing his head submissively and trundling his cart across the shiny marble floor.
He was completely alone when he reached the elevators. Thanks to the length of his exchange with the guard at the front door, all three janitorial workers who had entered in front of him were by now dispersed throughout the building. He pressed the button with the up arrow and turned to look in the direction of the front entrance while waiting for the elevator car. The guard hadn’t moved. He stood staring at Nikolai through narrowed eyes, his forehead wrinkled like a Shar-Pei puppy’s.
Nikolai hoped the man wouldn’t be a problem.
41
Tracie rolled over and checked the bedside clock. Its iridescent numerals bathed the room in an eerie green glow, giving the unfamiliar surroundings an alien, almost lunar cast. She slipped out of bed, barely rippling the mattress, moving with a feline grace and economy of motion that belied her tension. Shane continued to sleep, breathing heavily, smoothly.