The Old Man(98)

He had been tense, waiting for the blare of an alarm. Now he waited for the rapid footsteps of a squad of armed bodyguards pouring out of the buildings to kill him. He lay still for a long time and then turned his watch toward the moon so he could read it. Ten minutes had passed. He began to crawl again.

He crawled beside the fine path of pulverized gravel, among the potted palms and agaves. He never lifted his head, simply made for the side of the big house, where the security cameras were turned outward and wouldn’t pick him up. When he reached the side of the house, he sat there resting and rubbing his knees and elbows after his long crawl. He stood and listened, and then moved on.

He stayed beside the house, touching it most of the time to remain in the cameras’ blind spot. It took him another few minutes to reach the back of the house, which had not been fully visible from the streets he had walked earlier.

There was a balcony above him. It was on the second floor, overlooking a small ornamental pond. The pond was a surprise. He ducked closer and saw in the moonlight that there were lily pads on the surface, and he thought he caught the silvery flash of a scaly fish as a slight ripple disturbed the surface.

Spencer looked around him, and noticed that there was a tiny toolshed about the size of an outhouse along the wall, and near it a long, narrow wooden bench, where a person could sit and watch the fish. He opened the door of the shed and tried to see, but it was too dark to make out much. By touch he found a workbench, and on it was a toolbox that consisted of a metal tray with a handle, and some tools. He found a long, narrow screwdriver and stuck it in his belt. He went out again and looked up at the balcony.

He tried lifting the long, narrow bench, and found he could. It was just a thick board with a support at each end. He used the screwdriver to remove the support at one end. He lifted the end that still had its support, rested it on the roof of the toolshed, and climbed it like a ramp. When he was on the toolshed he dragged the bench up there with him.

Spencer stood on the roof and lifted the bench so its remaining support hooked over the railing of the balcony. This time, his ramp was a bit steeper, but he was able to climb hand over hand on the long board as his feet walked him up to the spot where he could grasp the railing.

He climbed over the railing to the balcony, and then looked through the sliding glass window into the room. It was a bedroom, large and luxuriously furnished. He could see into it fairly well because the bathroom had some kind of night-light, and the faint illumination was much brighter than the rest of the compound tonight. This had to be Hamzah’s room. He stepped to the side and looked at the corner near the window. There was nobody in the bed.

Spencer was overwhelmed with disappointment. He felt a weight in his belly, and a sick sense of futility. He had come so far, tried so hard, risked so much to throw away his life because he’d come on the wrong night. Spencer thought about going back the way he’d come. After a moment, he decided that was wrong. He would almost certainly be caught and killed. And maybe he’d simply come to the wrong room.

He tested the sliding door, but it was locked. He used his stolen screwdriver to bend the metal trim around the sliding door outward so he could slip the blade of his knife beside the door and pry the latch up. He slipped it off its bar and slid the door open. He entered and closed the sliding door.

Spencer took out his pistol, screwed the silencer on it, and went to the door that led to the interior of the house. He opened it a crack, looked, and listened. The house was designed in a European style, with a hallway upstairs lined by doors that probably led to bedrooms. But at the center of the upper level the rooms ended and there was a curved staircase leading down to a foyer. He could see that the dim light he had detected from outside came from a chandelier hanging above the foyer. He moved to the railing to look down and see who was awake.

In the light, just inside the large double doors of the front entrance, two men sat on identical armchairs. They wore military battle dress, but their only weapons were holstered pistols. Spencer was sure that somewhere very close to them, possibly in the closet by the door, there would be assault rifles. There was a buzz, and one of the men took a cell phone from his breast pocket and spoke quietly.

Spencer could tell from the rhythms of his speech that he was speaking Arabic, but he couldn’t hear the words from where he was. The man ended his call and said to his companion, “Ten or fifteen minutes.”

Spencer retreated from the railing and moved up the hallway, quietly opening the doors of the rooms. If Hamzah was sleeping in one of the other rooms, he had to find him now. He looked in each room he passed. Only three of the eight rooms were furnished as bedrooms. The others were an office, a conference room, a couple of storerooms, and a lounge of a sort, with a big-screen television, a couple of couches, and a refrigerator.

Spencer slipped inside the nearest of the storerooms, to see if it contained any munitions he could use to rig a bomb. If Hamzah wasn’t here now, sometime he would be.

Spencer heard an unexpected noise, the sound of engines. He stepped to the narrow window of the room and looked out to the courtyard. He saw the automatic gate swing open slowly. As the gate opened inward, vehicles began to nose their way in.

There were three cars, three identical black SUVs. Spencer knew security men liked that method of transport, because it was a shell game that made the enemy guess which cup held the pea. Somebody important was in one of the cars. Was a dignitary about to visit Faris Hamzah, or did he rate this kind of treatment?