Page 27

After the echo of the clanging metal door dissipated, she stood quiet and unmoving. After a few seconds, she sensed that she wasn’t alone. She could hear what she thought was breathing.

“You are in a secured vestibule,” the same male voice said over a speaker. “It serves as a metal and thermal detector, which we use as secondary security protocols. Remain still. The testing will be complete momentarily.”

Hannah remained frozen in place. After fifteen seconds, a dim overhead light turned on and she blinked, trying to adjust. She squinted as she looked around. The man hadn’t been kidding. She was essentially in what amounted to a completely enclosed, mirrored phone booth. There was a second buzz and a door in front of her unlocked and popped open slightly.

“You can enter now,” the voice said.

She stepped through the door into a narrow hallway. There was a small glassed-in window to her right, like a ticket booth at an old-style movie theater. A man with long black hair and a bird’s nest of a beard slid a piece of paper under the glass and said, “you’re number four. Go to the end of the hall, take a seat, and wait for your number to be called.”

Hannah grabbed the piece of paper, which as promised said simply “4.” As she walked down the hallway, she considered sliding her earphones back into her ears but decided not to chance it. Kat would have to make do with silence for a while.

She reached the end of the hall and turned the corner, where she found three metal folding chairs lined up against a wall. Rex Stiller was sitting in one of them, looking nervous. He glanced over at Hannah for a second before returning his attention to the man standing in front of the door at the far end of the room, which was otherwise completely empty.

She took some brief solace in the knowledge that their surveillance of him must have been pretty good. If he'd noticed her previously, he would have probably had a stronger reaction when she walked in. But her relief was quickly replaced by anxiety caused by the man that Stiller was staring at.

The guy was easily six foot five and 250 pounds. His head was shaved, and his scalp had multiple scars, as did his cleanly shaven face. He was wearing all black—black sport coat, black turtleneck, black slacks, and black boots that were meant to look like dress shoes but could clearly do much more damage.

Hannah also noticed a slight bulge under the man’s sport coat at the right hip. Wherever she was right now, it required metal and thermal detectors, as well as a giant armed security guard who looked like he’d been in a war zone, a cage match, or both. What had she gotten herself into?

She wasn’t going to ask, and the security guard obviously wasn’t in a sharing mood. As a result, the three of them, including Stiller, remained quiet. As the silence stretched into minutes, Hannah’s fingertips and toes began to tingle slightly. It occurred to her that her body’s reaction to the situation was as close to nervous as she was capable of getting. It was refreshing and unsettling at the same time.

Then, the door behind the guard opened. Out stepped two men. One, in his thirties, was of modest build, with neatly trimmed brown hair and wire-rimmed glasses. He was wearing a gray designer suit.

The man beside him, likely in his sixties, looked like a long-time roadie for a rock band. He was wearing faded black jeans and a tie-dyed t-shirt under a long-sleeved, unbuttoned denim jacket. He was mostly bald, with the little bit of gray hair on his head matching the color of his long, straggly beard. It took her a moment to realize that guy wasn’t a roadie for a rock band but an actual member of one. Though she wasn’t a fan, she recognized him as the lead singer of the popular 90s jam band, The Cherry Pits. She couldn’t remember his name, but she knew he was pretty famous to older people.

“We’ll have the item ready for you by Friday,” the suited man, who also had what she thought was a vaguely eastern European accent said. “Someone will text you with the pickup time.”

“Cool, cool,” the singer said as he pulled a baseball cap out of his back pocket and put it on his head. “I’ll wait to hear from you. But it has to be by Friday. We head out on the next leg of the tour Saturday morning.”

“No need to worry,” the suited man said crisply. “That’s why you come to us. No muss, no fuss.”

As the singer shambled down the hallway Hannah had just come from, she wondered exactly what item he needed and why it had to be ready by Friday. Exactly what kind of place was this? She didn’t have long to ponder the question.

“Number three,” the huge guy said.

Stiller stood up and walked over, handing the security guard his slip of paper. The man glanced at it and nodded to his much smaller boss.

“Mr. S?” the smaller, suited man asked by way of confirmation.

“Yes,” Stiller confirmed.

The small, suited man glanced over at Hannah, and through his thin glasses frames, eyed her with a mix of suspicion and curiosity. But he said nothing to her, instead returning his attention to the fidgety man in front of him.

“Shall we go inside?” he asked Stiller, nodding at the adjacent room.

Before the man could answer, there was static-y squawking sound. Jessie noticed the security guard touch his ear. She realized something she’d missed earlier—he had a small earpiece.

“Everything okay?” the suited man asked the guard.

“Viktor wants me to come to the booth for a moment,” the guard said. “He says there’s a street cop walking the alley and he wants to know if it’s one of ours or if he should be worried.”

The suited man looked at Hannah again.

“She’s gone through the full body security check?” he confirmed.

“Yes, boss,” the guard said.

“Then go check. Make it quick. Mr. S and I will visit inside, and our lady friend will wait her turn. Won’t you, lady friend?”

Hannah nodded compliantly. The suited man led Stiller into the inner room. She heard a loud click as the door closed. Hearing it, the guard headed down the hall. The second that he was out of sight, she stood up and tiptoed over to the inner office door. Somewhere deep in her gut, she felt the slightest stirrings of what she assumed were nerves, but they weren't enough to deter her. She pressed her ear to the door.

“What are we looking for today?” she heard the suited man ask politely.

Hannah leaned in even closer, if that was possible.

“Um,” Stiller said, his voice hoarse with nerves, “earrings, diamond ones.”

“And I assume that by your presence here, you’re not picky about the origin of the stones?”

“Not if it means they save me thirty-five percent off the prices in the jewelry district,” Stiller said.

Now Hannah got it. This was an underground jewelry outfit that seemed to traffic in blood diamonds, which apparently didn't trouble the moral conscience of Rex Stiller. But that wasn't her concern at the moment. The issue now was: what was his plan for these earrings? To re-sell at a marked-up rate? Or were they for someone?

“It could be as much as forty percent off, depending on the stones you prefer,” the man said. “We’ll take a look at some options in a minute. But first, what universe are we talking about here? Are these for the wife? Or perhaps the sidepiece? They tend to have different tastes.”

This guy was doing Hannah’s work for her. She considered trying to record the conversation, but worried that if the guard came around the corner and saw her there with her phone, he might just shoot her then and there.

“There is no sidepiece,” Stiller said firmly. “They’re for my wife. She’s had a rough few months. We’ve had some trouble with our son that has been a source of stress. Add to that, I recently had a cancer scare. Since then I’ve been eating healthier and go to the gym after work—anything to make her less worried about me. But it doesn’t help. So I thought I’d try a more traditional way to brighten her spirits.”

“A lovely gesture,” the man said, “and one I’m sure will be effective. I have yet to meet a woman who didn’t like diamond jewelry. Shall we look at some options?”

So the guy wasn’t after drugs or sex after all. He just wanted to do something nice for his wife. Admittedly, it was via illicit means and at the price of the well-being of the diamond miners, often impoverished men, women and children in war-torn regions. But considering what his wife thought was going on, she might find this explanation far preferable.

Now that Hannah had her answer, she needed to get out of this place without drawing suspicion from the large man with the gun. But before she could come up with a plan, she heard footsteps. The guard was returning. She tiptoed back to her chair and sat down just as he rounded the corner.

He eyed her skeptically but said nothing as he returned to his spot outside the inner office door. As he squared up to his full height, with his back to the door, Hannah made a decision. To get out of here, she would go with an oldie-but-goodie, the “I’m a just a girl out of my depth” routine.

“You know,” she said, standing up, “I’m kind of embarrassed to say this, but after being here for a few minutes and seeing what a nice place you have here, I’m starting to think that I couldn’t afford the price of what I want.”

“Who sent you here thinking you could pay, if you can’t?” the security guard asked suspiciously.

“A girlfriend of mine,” she said, doing her best to sound like an airhead, “Her dad’s this rich banker type. I guess he used you guys in the past. The truth is, I gave her the impression that I’m more well off than I really am. And now that I’m here, I’m feeling really silly. And in over my head. I think I should just go.”

“What’s the rich dad’s name?” he asked.

"Oh, I don't think I should say that," she told him. "It's clear that you guys take confidentiality very seriously. And I know he does, too. I don't want to mess with any of that."

The man walked over to her slowly, his hand on his hip. She could picture what was waiting for her under there. For the briefest of seconds, she considered making a move to try to bring him down.

Maybe she could dive at his knees and take one out. But he seemed like the kind of guy who would be prepared for that. And he’d still have a gun. Even if she could temporarily incapacitate him, she’d have to run back down the hallway to the locked phone booth thing, where the guy behind the ticket window probably had a gun too. That plan was no plan at all.

The man came to a stop just feet from her and stared down. She could see the gun peeking out from under his jacket and wondered: if she moved quickly enough, could she snag it from him and shoot her way out? But she shoved the idea from her mind. It was even crazier than the first one.

“I think you’re right,” he said with contempt in his voice, “you should just leave. Go back the way you came. And never return here again, little girl.”

She didn’t need to be told twice. Nodding hurriedly, she turned and walked back down the hall as quickly as she could without actually running. The guard shouted something in a language she didn’t understand. Whatever it was, it made the ticket taker guy buzz the phone booth door. She snuck through and moved toward the large exterior metallic one.

But it remained closed. Had they changed their minds? She was about to turn back around when she heard a nasty chuckle followed by a loud buzz. The ticket-taker guy had been toying with her, trying to freak her out. It had kind of worked.

She pushed the door open and stepped out onto the shadowy but infinitely brighter walking path. Asia was still sitting on her stool, only now she was biting her nails. Hannah gave her a forced smile and headed down the path in the opposite direction from the one she’d taken to get there.

It was only after she rounded the corner onto the adjoining street that she realized she’d been holding her breath this whole time. She took a giant gasp of air. And then another. It took a full minute before she felt something like her normal self again.

Only then did she pull out her phone to let Kat know she was still alive.