Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3) by Gary Ross (100 best novels of all time txt) 📗

“They don’t call it that anymore,” he said, smiling. “That nickname is stuck in the popular imagination.”

“What was your squadron, assault or intelligence?”

“If I were part of any of it, I wouldn’t be at liberty to say so.”

“Your body language and posture tell a lot more than you think,” I said. “Must be why Mr. Torrance has so much faith in you.”

“So what makes him say we ought to hire you?”

“He’s a good judge of character?”

Loosening up enough to laugh, Mark pumped my hand once, hard, and thanked me for my service as I thanked him for his.

He took Pete and me on an uneventful walk-through of every area I asked to inspect. He answered questions directly, pointed out details we missed, and let us take all the time we needed to chart the particulars of the convention hall. Afterward, he led us to the surveillance room. It had a bank of CCTV monitors connected to the camera bubbles I had noticed in various parts of the hotel. Overseen by two men in DPS blazers, the monitor screens held images that shifted every few seconds as the surveillance software cycled through the public areas and the parking ramp. Next, we went to the hotel manager’s office. A thin, balding, man named Shawcross listened to our requirements and led us to a vacant suite on the seventeenth floor. When I agreed this suite would meet our needs, he blocked in the dates on his iPad. Finally, before leaving us with the hostess at Charmaine’s Table, a lavish steakhouse on the ground floor of the North Tower, Mark took us to the DPS office and loaded a Torrance Towers floor plan into a flash drive, which he handed to me.

Pete and I had kept separate notes during the walk-through. Now, at a corner table for two near an unlit stone fireplace, we compared them. We checked and counterchecked to be certain we had anticipated all our security concerns.

“So what do you think?” I asked.

“Everything’s cool except the catwalks in the convention hall,” Pete said. “I counted eight access points, ladders and doors, any one of which would give a shooter a chance to turn a simple contract kill into a hitman’s holiday. There must be two hundred light fixtures in the ceiling. Viva Las Vegas, G! With six hundred people on the floor and interconnected catwalks masked by ceiling panels, a guy could move from light to light without being seen and make Stephen Paddock look like a Boy Scout with a Red Ryder BB rifle.” He blew out a long stream of air and shook his head. “Sure, the Ninja Turtle said those doors would be locked and he’d have people stationed there. But what if the shooter is one of his people, with a keycard? What if he goes up there early and puts a dozen ARs with bump stocks in different places? Empty clip, drop rifle, move to next position. Repeat. A suicide mission for sure, but everybody will know the guy’s name afterward.”

I nodded as I flipped through my own notebook, noting I had stopped counting at two hundred light fixtures. “If you’ve started In the Mouth of the Wolf, you know the bastards who killed the Post reporter would love nothing more than to turn a diversity conference into a slaughterhouse. Some wouldn’t mind being a martyr to the cause.”

“I finished the book,” Pete said. “You’re right. This is not Charlottesville.”

“Where too many cops did nothing when everybody knew what was going on.”

“We gotta talk to the department. We have no idea who’s gonna show.”

“Exactly the point,” I said. “We’re spitballing here. There might not be a shooter. Without proof of a specific threat, how much support will we get? How much time and money for a hunch?”

“Not enough.” He sighed. “So what are our options?”

“A sweep before every plenary session. There are seven, morning and late afternoon the first three days, morning the last day, the awards brunch where she’ll give the keynote. Eight if you count the opening night reception. For the hotel we need more mini-cams and motion detectors, a better laptop than mine to manage it all. Jimmy’s shop doesn’t have enough. I’ll have to order the small stuff and beg for the big things.”

“So far there’s just four of us,” Pete added. “You, me, and the two Weisskopf guys. I know you’re doing this as a favor, but we’re gonna need more people.”

“I’ll talk to James Torrance,” I said. “He’s backing this conference too. A massacre could put his beautiful luxury hotel out of business, so I expect he’ll get the Donatellos to do more. Also, I’ll ask Rory Gramm at APP if he can scare up money to hire more help.”

“Including surveillance people.”

“I know somebody who might be able to organize that,” I said. “Yvonne.”

“Yvonne who?”

“Brewster. A friend who works in IT. Maybe she can even get us a couple of laptops.”

Just then our lunches came, a club sandwich with a side salad and iced tea for me and for Pete the largest steak on the menu, with double orders of bread, garlic mashed potatoes, and vegetables, along with a plastic take-out container. But before he took his first bite, Pete cut the steak in two and put one piece in the box along with half the bread and sides.

“Man, don’t look at me like that,” he said, grinning. “How many times does a guy get to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the same billionaire?”

14

I met Yvonne at the downtown Spot Coffee on Delaware and Chippewa after she finished her day at the Humanitas Institute four blocks north. I had become acquainted with Humanitas staff a year and a half earlier, during my search for Keisha Simpkins, who worked there.

Yvonne came in wearing a long clinging navy skirt and a short pale blue spring jacket. Her head still shaven, she wore hoop earrings and bright red lipstick that enhanced the richness of her deep brown skin.