Slowly, carefully, she pushed herself over the edge until she hung head-down in the vertical duct. Using her arms and legs as brakes she slowly descended, leaving the ductwork of the 46th floor behind. She arrived at the 45th floor and slowly, oh so slowly, curled to her left and entered the horizontal duct there. She made very little sound the entire time, only a sliding scuffle here, a slight metallic creak there as the aluminum channel flexed beneath her body weight. She knew approximately where Lin’s office would lie, but she had no allusions about being able to attack him directly by alighting from the HVAC ducting. Nor would it be wise; Manning would likely be right with him.
And for some reason, she did not want to kill Manning…but she didn’t know how that could be avoided.
Slowly, she crept forward through the dark shaft, stopping every few feet to listen. All she heard were the sounds of the building, the air whispering past her, the gurgle of water in pipes. There was a distant metallic clicking sound, and it took her a moment to recognize it as a magnetic lock activating. And then-muted voices. Vague, indistinct, almost lost in the rumble of the building, but her keen senses picked them up the same way a bat’s sonar might detect a solitary moth fluttering along in the darkness. She peered through every vent she came across and found nothing more remarkable than empty cubicles or vacant carpet. Yet she was certain she was on the right floor…
And then she smelled it.
Chinese food. Wafting through the ventilation system, Very slight, but unmistakable.
Spurred on by this, Meihua Shi pushed forward through the ductwork, her heart hammering in her chest.
“But we didn’t call the police,” the security guard said. He was young black man with close-cropped hair who wrapped his arrogant air around him like it was an expensive topcoat. He glared at Ryker’s proffered badge and identification with surly eyes. Ryker sighed. He didn’t have the time to deal with some punk who had an attitude problem.
“Yeah, yeah, I get that,” he said. He tried to step inside the lobby of 101 California, but the kid wouldn’t budge-he stood smack in the center of the doorway. He’d decided to make his stand. From the corner of his eye, Ryker saw the squad car he’d arrived in pull away from the curb and merge back into the weekend traffic. He was on his own.
“Listen, you going to let me in, or not?”
“Why should I?” the kid said. “We didn’t call you.”
“Kid, let me ask you something-are you a special kind of stupid? Did you ride the short bus to school? I’m a police officer here on police business, and I need access to this building.”
“You got a warrant?” the security guard said.
Ryker looked past him at the older man sitting behind the desk in the lobby. The man watched the proceedings with something approaching a smile.
“Hey pal, can you give me a hand here?” Ryker called.
“We don’t need ‘a hand’,” said the younger man.
The older black man slowly rose to his feet and started walking toward the door. His gait was slow and ponderous, as if his knees were giving him some trouble. The bemused expression he’d been wearing before was gone. Now, he was all business.
“Malik! Let the man inside.”
The younger security guard kept his eyes on Ryker. “But we didn’t call the po-lice,” he said.
“Let him in.” The older guard made it to the lobby door and stood right behind the younger man, staring holes into the back of his head with his eyes. “Do it right now.”
The young man glared at Ryker for a moment longer, then backed off.
“Thanks,” Ryker said to the older man as he stepped inside. He presented his badge, and older man examined it for a moment then waved for him to put it away.
“I was on the Job myself for over twenty years,” he said. “Patrol. Retired out of Mission four years ago.”
“Ah-how’s life on the outside?”
The older black man shrugged and waved a hand at the lobby. “A lot less threatening.”
Ryker extended his hand. “Detective Sergeant Hal Ryker, homicide.”
“Willy Terrell. Good to meet you, sergeant. What can we do for you?”
“Looking for James Lin.”
“I see.” Terrell hesitated for a moment. “And might he be expecting you?”
“He might be, yes.”
“You don’t sound so sure.”
“I’m here on official business, Willy.”
Terrell looked past Ryker’s shoulder. “Where’s your partner?”
“At the Grand Hyatt, conducting part of the investigation there.”
“What investigation is that?”
“The son,” Ryker said simply. There was no need to be coy, especially since Danny Lin’s death had made the front page news. “And I guess you know that, right?”
Terrell nodded. “Kind of big news around here.”
Ryker glanced at the ceiling, several stories overhead. “Is Lin upstairs?”
“He is.”
“How do I get there?”
“Follow me,” Terrell said. He started lumbering across the lobby, and glanced over his shoulder at the younger security guard. “I’ll be right back. Keep your eye on things while I’m gone, and if I come down and find you surfing porn on the workstation, I’ll kick your ass.”
“In your dreams,” said the other security guard.
It took almost thirty minutes for her to make her way to the side of the building where Lin’s office suite lay. The vents leading to the office itself were too small for her to make use of, unless her intent was to drop a hand grenade into the office and hope for the best. Of course, that was not part of the plan. The plan was to see Lin’s blood flow from her artful blade work, to peer into his eyes as the light in them slowly faded. But a direct attack was out of the question. The vents were just too tiny.
But the single vent leading to the outer office was larger, and while not as wide as the duct she had crawled through for the past half hour, it was large enough. Slowly, she edged into it head-first, using the palms of her hands as brakes. Her shoulders barely fit, and she worried about her hips, but they were just narrow enough to allow her to slide her body inside the smaller channel. The aluminum sheath that made up the ducting flexed slightly, but the sound was virtually lost in the medley of background noise. She edged closer to the grating covering the vent’s terminus, barely moving now, descending only millimeters at a time, as silent as a phantom gliding through still air. She peered through the grate and looked into Lin’s secretary’s office. She could see only a small portion of the room; directly below her was a credenza and a patch of gray carpeting, over which a Persian rug had been thrown. She thought she saw a hint of a desk’s return, but the grating was too small to allow much more of the room to be shown. She examined the grate itself. It was plastic, and hinged on one side. Opposite the hinges was a small lever, meant to be pulled from the outside so the grate could be opened. She slowly reached for the lever with her left hand. As she did so, she heard a small squeak from below, something barely audible above the building noise that filled the duct. She watched as Manning suddenly appeared, leaning back in an office chair, his hands clasped behind his head. She couldn’t see much more than that, only the top of his head and a bit of his shoulders. His attention was not directed at the vent overhead.
And so, this is how it will be.
With that thought, Meihua Shi closed her legs and allowed her body to fall through the grate life a warm knife through butter.
“So the department’s still the same, huh?” Terrell asked as he escorted Ryker to the elevator bank.
“Same thing. More politics, though. Tough to get work done.”
“Tell me about it.” Terrell punched the UP button and turned back to Ryker. His expression still wasn’t very friendly, but it was more welcoming than the one the kid had shown him at the door. “Politics are the death of the department. When that lesbian became the chief a few years ago, that absolutely blew my mind.”