“You got a pass, man?” one of the men asked.
Blaine fished in his pockets for the picture ID belonging to the real janitor. He had been hoping displaying it wouldn’t be necessary to gain access into the building. He bore only a slim resemblance to the man he was impersonating.
The guard checked his face against the ID. “This don’t look much like you, man.”
“It’s the beard. Didn’t have it six months ago.”
The guard was still looking.
“Hey, look,” Blaine said suddenly, coolly, “you want me to leave, I get right in the van and head for home. Don’t mean shit to me, boss. I got two guys out sick and I just as soon watch the Hawks game on TV. Up to you.”
The guards exchanged glances, then shrugged.
“Keep the badge pinned on you anyway,” the first one told him. “And wear this under it.”
He handed Blaine a visitor’s badge and Blaine immediately clipped it onto his pocket and started to back the floor polisher toward the door. One of the guards held it open. Then he was inside, the pounding in his chest starting to slow down. He wondered what might have happened if they had checked the machine before letting him enter. Would they have found the pistol he had wrapped inside the coils of the cord? No matter now. Blaine pulled it free and jammed it into one of his spacious pockets.
He dragged the floor polisher across the tile, his mind searching for a means to locate Sahhan and get in to see him. It seemed crazy, but back in New York Blaine had concluded that his best strategy now lay in convincing the black radical that he was being used, that he was merely a tool for a white billionaire. McCracken would offer his own knowledge of the plan as proof and hope Sahhan believed him. If he found Sahhan, he would have to find a way to convince him. It was as simple as that. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve.
Without realizing, Blaine had pushed the floor polisher straight into the lobby, which was congested with guards. Too late to turn around; that would draw even more attention to him. So he crossed the floor en route to the elevators.
A pair of Sahhan’s guards appeared on both sides of him. Blaine looked up briefly, then back at his polisher. His heart was thudding against his chest again. He followed them into the elevator.
One of the men hit the button marked 10 for the top floor. McCracken feigned pulling his hand back as if that were his choice as well.
“Sorry, that floor will have to wait for tomorrow,” an icy voice informed him.
“I don’t work Christmas Eve, boss,” Blaine said.
The speaker just shook his head. “Not tonight.”
Without protest, Blaine hit the 9. The tenth floor was closed to him. He had found Sahhan. But which office? Where on the tenth floor would he be? Each floor contained yards and yards of corridors. There was no way he could check the room arrangements on the tenth.
The elevator stopped on nine. Blaine backed out and dragged his floor polisher after him. This level seemed deserted. All the doors along the corridor were closed, and only the standard night lighting was in use. His quarry was above him. Somewhere. Well guarded, too well guarded to reach easily. There had to be a way.
McCracken started to unwind the polisher’s cord, pretending to search for an outlet in case his actions were being viewed on the building’s closed circuit television monitors. His mind kept working, though. He could take the stairwell up but it, too, would be guarded and even if he overcame the guards, there would still be too many obstacles to surmount before he reached Sahhan. He needed a direct route into the fanatic’s office, but how?
His first thought was to make an approach from the outside by scaling the building. Its design, though, was quite modern, the side little more than a sheet of glass.
Blaine looked up at the ceiling and felt a thin smile cross his lips. If this was of the standard office building design, there would be an insulated crawlspace between each floor. The top floor, the tenth in this case, would have an attic over it containing duct work, wire conduits, and plenty of room to maneuver if he could get up there. Blaine logged the options through his mind. The stairwell was out, as was the elevator. …
Wait! The elevator! Certainly he couldn’t use it in the traditional sense, but what if he improvised? With the polishing machine behind him, he moved to the elevator bank and pushed the down button.
The doors chimed open thirty seconds later and Blaine breathed easier at the sight of an empty compartment. He entered routinely, machine in tow. Once inside, he flipped the switch that would lock the doors open and, more important, hold the elevator in place.
McCracken’s eyes focused on the trapdoor above him. There was no sense worrying about the possible discovery of the inoperative elevator on the ninth floor and the subsequent investigation. He would have to hope that with everything else on their minds, the security guards wouldn’t notice until it was too late.
The trapdoor was well out of his reach, and Blaine did not want to venture into an office for a chair or something to provide a boost. Then he realized he already had just that in his faithful floor polisher. It was certainly heavy and sturdy enough to support his weight. With the base propped against the wall, it would do fine as a makeshift ladder.
Blaine had to get a yard off the floor and the polisher enabled him to do it. His hands pushed the trapdoor open and shoved it aside. Hanging tightly on to the edge of the opening, he pulled himself up into the shaft above the compartment, eyes widening to grow accustomed to the suddenly dim light. The smell of grease and oil flooded his nostrils as he climbed atop the elevator’s roof and reached out to test the cables. They were slippery but strong. His eyes probed around him.
What he sought lay fifteen feet up, an opening in the shaft half the size of a door. The opening would permit him access to the attic that lay directly above the tenth floor, thereby providing him with a direct route to Sahhan’s office from above. Blaine tested the cables one last time and started to climb.
The going was extremely slow. The grease on the cables coated his hands and made it hard to get a grip. Every time he removed a hand from the cable, he had to lower it to his white uniform and wipe it clean. Then he would pull himself up a bit more and lower the other. He found a twisted rhythm to the process and finally reached the doorway. It was latched but not locked. Blaine held tight with his hands on to the cable as he thrust his legs out and forced the door open.
He maneuvered his body through and crawled inside. In the near darkness he made out miles and miles of wire conduits and overlapping duct work, all in neat and orderly patterns. The heat was stifling, adding sweat to the grease coating his flesh, and Blaine started pulling himself along on his stomach, skirting some obstacles and passing under others. The tenth floor would be deserted except for Sahhan and his guards. He needed to find a reasonable cluster of activity, at least voices, to tell him he had found his mark.
He wanted to do his best to avoid the corridor. Guards would be poised there, and they might be alerted by scraping noises coming from above. Stiff and cramped, the heat cooking his flesh, McCracken crawled cautiously forward. He stopped when he heard a voice beneath him, muffled by the insulation, precise words indistinct. The words came in spurts lined with pauses. Sometimes the spurts were long, sometimes not. A phone conversation, Blaine realized. It had to be Sahhan, which meant he was directly over the militant’s office.
A few yards later, over what he judged to be the room next to Sahhan’s office, Blaine found a trapdoor which, when opened, revealed the layers of fiber glass insulation below. He stripped them away until the white drop ceiling panels were revealed and reached down to slide one back.