Verwandte Artikel zu Nobody's Safe

Nobody's Safe - Softcover

Steinberg, Richard

 
9780553581881: Nobody's Safe
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0553581880 ISBN 13: 9780553581881
Verlag: Bantam Books, 2000

Inhaltsangabe

Master thief Gregory Picaro hides in a closet when a seemingly routine burglary is interrupted by three men who first interrogate and then kill the apartment owner, and after they leave to dispose of the body, what he finds in the safe may change America's past as well as its future. Reprint.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Richard Steinberg lectures on issues that include counterterrorism, international security, and the history of assassinations in America. A former consultant and founder of an international high-risk security firm, Steinberg began writing full-time after recovering from a gunshot wound incurred in the line of duty. His first novel, The Gemini Man, is currently being developed for feature film adaptation by producer Steven Haft.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Getting onto the roof was the easy part.

It was just past three that afternoon when Greg casually walked into the high-rise's lobby. An elevator to the forty-third floor, neither looking anyone in the eye nor looking away. Just another faceless visitor to the newly built high-rise on a crowded Friday afternoon.

As expected, he was the only one to get off on the still-unfinished floor; the last before the two private penthouse floors. And ten minutes after he'd entered the building, he stood in front of the secured fire door that led to the rooftop access stairway.

It was locked.

Of course.

He stood there, very still, carefully listening for any footsteps on the stairs below him. Finally satisfied (the closed-circuit cameras wouldn't be installed on this floor until next week), he set his briefcase on the ground and began to work.

The door was alarmed.

No problem.

Two small pieces of well-chewed bubble gum and four nine-inch-long, pale blue, pure silk threads and the alarm ceased to be a concern.

Attention on the lock.

"Oh, Linus, Linus," he barely whispered, "this is a most piddling little thing." He studied the lock as he reached into the case. "Quality control just isn't what it used to be." He sighed as he came up with what his fingers had been reaching for. "But then, what is?" A quick spray from a can of graphite, a slight push from an Allen wrench and . . .

On the roof, there was no hesitation.

A quick, casual-seeming look around to ensure that he was alone, then straight for the spot he'd been observing from a rented office across the street for the past week: an equipment shed for elevator servicing and light storage.

It was beige, as was most of the building's exterior. Three sides on the roof like some misplaced pigeon coop, the fourth wall just inches from the roof edge. With the bottom thirty inches of it in constant shadow from the roof's restraining wall.

He quickly reversed his jacket to expose its flat-black lining; pulled on a black hood and gloves from the case; took a last lookaround, a last listen, then slid into the narrow, deeply shadowed space.

And lay there, unmoving, for the next nine hours.

Normally he would've willed sleep to come. Forced rest and relaxation through his adrenalized body to prepare for the night's work ahead.

But ever since he'd decided on this job, sleep had become his enemy. A thing to be avoided at all costs.

Well, not sleep exactly, but the things that sleep brought with it. Phantom pains and fanged shadows that reached out for him from a place he'd thought no longer existed within him.

A place that had been mostly silent for so many years.

He never should've even considered this score. He knew that now. With the clarity of a man who has the time to think Oh? I took that curve a little too fast, moments before crashing over the side of a cliff.

But to walk away, even now, would be conceding a power over him to the dusty, moldy demons.

And this man conceded nothing to no one.

It was a little past midnight when he slowly, carefully crawled from his hiding place. His ears strained to hear everything, anything. Any noise that might give a second's warning of trouble or, worse still, that might give him away.

Once he was fully out of the crawl space, he rolled onto his back, staring up into the starry night, slowly counting to 300.

He felt the blood come racing back into previously cramped limbs. Forced pinioned muscles to stretch, then relax. Rolled his neck to loosen his shoulders.

Felt himself come alive again.

Only then did he try to stand.

After testing his legs and arms, convinced that they'd fully recovered from the odd positions they'd been forced into all day, he moved silently across the gravel roof to the Gravesend Avenue side.

Avoiding any look down at the dark street, he spent more than a minute spotting the rented office across the street that he'd used for his reconnaissance. Then he checked his watch.

Nine minutes after twelve.

Counting down the seconds in his head, he kept his eyes locked on that distant office window. Where a steady light meant Go. The target is dark and has remained dark for at least the last two hours. Where a flashing light meant Something is different. Beware! Take precautions! And no light would mean . . .

Greg wiped his sweaty face beneath the nylon hood.

No light could mean Abort! Something has been compromised! Return to hiding, then leave with the lunch crowd later in the day.

Or it might mean that Foss just wasn't there.

Maybe he'd forgotten. Or was there and so stoned that he couldn't tell time or see across the room, let alone the street. Or maybe he'd been picked up on some bullshit buy-bust or reverse sting. Maybe he'd given Greg up to the cops already. Maybe they were waiting below, in the dark, to grab him.

All because he had a stone dope fiend for a partner.

For a friend.

"Be there," he whispered as he counted down the last seconds.

A light flicked on.

It shone brightly, steadily, for thirty seconds, then flicked out as suddenly as it had appeared.

The rest now depended on faith.

He glanced down at the street below. Gravesend Avenue. An empty, dirty street with only back doors, back walls, and no hope.

A street Greg used to know as intimately as any in the world.

But would rather die than return to.

It was a bad sign, Foss would say. A dark omen, Deo might laugh.

And Greg would agree.

But the building's address wasn't on Gravesend, but Beecher. A difference that Greg told them made all the difference in the world.

So long as he was awake.

After listening at the door to the stairway for long minutes, he put his hiding place behind him, silently descending toward the four luxury penthouses on 44 and 45.



Across the street, Bobby Fosselis sat shivering on the floor of the rented office.

He had no way of knowing if Greg had seen his signal. Or if Greg was even on the roof. But he gave it anyway. As he would three more times in the next hour.

He wiped the heavy sweat from his eyes and peeked out the window.

The targeted penthouses were still dark, had been since just before nine that evening. If everything was going according to plan, Greg should be walking around in the first one right now. It should all be over in the next forty-five minutes.

Should be.

But to an addict who hadn't fixed in six hours, forty-five minutes was a lifetime.

The late-fiftyish man (who looked twenty years older) glanced back at the desk where his works and a rock of black tar heroin sat waiting.

It would be easy, so easy for him to shoot up now. To feel the warmth course through his collapsing veins. It would steady him, he tried to convince himself, sharpen him for the vigil he must keep. It would make him more alert to any changes in the status of the penthouses. Changes that Greg must instantly be made aware of.

Hell!

Greg would understand, he continued in his silent argument. He always did. Right? He would sigh and say, "Hey, it happens." Then shake his head and walk away, a look of disappointment and pity on his face.

But Foss had given his word to the younger man. And, for the moment at least, that was a stronger, more visceral demand on him than the drugs.

For the moment.

He checked the penthouses again, then glanced down at the street below. Wondering if there'd be any dealers around when he left.

* * *


The two apartments on 44 had yielded gems and jewelry worth at least $100,000. And the beauty was that he would have the pieces...

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Verlag
Bantam Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2000
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0553581880
ISBN 13 
9780553581881
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
496
Kontakt zum Hersteller
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Verantwortliche Person
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