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And once again the amateur guards were looking everywhere but the place they should be looking.
Climbing from the vehicle, he donned the hard hat—yellow like the other workers wore—and zipped his Carhartt overalls up tight at the neck. He walked to the back, raised the liftgate and pulled out the heavy backpack.
He made his way to the tunnel and began to shimmy through. At the end, some fifty feet away, he climbed the steel rungs set into the concrete as a ladder and emerged near the crane’s base.Above him the jib loomed. The wind was up and there was a faint whistle as it streamed through the yellow tubing and black support wires. The operator had released the clutch so that the jib weather-vaned safely.
He examined the base of the mast. The drone was resting in peace, but his plan didn’t call for that anyway. Nor was any of the lovely HF acid involved.
This crane incident would be different.
In a few minutes, the packages had been delivered and he returned to the tunnel and made his way back to the car.
In the driver’s seat he tossed the helmet into the back, began the drive back to his safe house on Hamilton. As he left, he examined the site once more.
He supposed that this particular crane, while towering, garnered less attention than others. The area around it had been completely cleared in a four-hundred-foot circumference. So if, for some reason, the terrorist, or pyscho, sabotaged it, there were no apartments or office buildings to crush.
Which didn’t mean there wasnotarget within the crane’s reach.
The most important one in fact of his whole project.
51.
DETECTIVE LYLE SPENCER—a full foot taller than Ron Pulaski—stood at the door. He wore a black suit and white shirt, no tie. Pulaski looked up and shook the man’s meaty hand.
They stepped into the living room, and Ron introduced the detective to Jenny. They too shook hands.
The children, at the Dog-opoly board, looked up. Jenny said, “And our children. Martine and Brad. This is Detective Spencer.”
“You’re big.”
“Brad!” she said.
Spencer laughed. “Not a worry.” The detective’s eyes looked around the comfortable room: affordable furniture, pictures, vacation souvenirs, sports uniforms, family relics going back generations. Then the accessories that make a dwelling a home: video game cartridges, magazines, recipe cards, soccer and softball gear, mismatched running shoes, pretzel and potato chip packets.
Jenny cast her husband a playfully exasperated look, and he realized he’d forgotten to tell her there’d be a houseguest calling.
“We’ll be out back.”
“The game!” Martine called.
“I won’t be long.”
“Coffee? Beer?”
Both declined Jenny’s offer.
Brad called, “Detective Spencer? Were you like Special Forces?”
“SEALs.”
“Man … Team Six?”
“No.”
“But did you do secret missions?”
“Oh, you bet. But I can’t talk about them.”
“Cool!”
