The Pandora Key aka The Hostage Room

It was the voices from the other room that got me moving. I pulled myself to my feet. The pistol was still in my waistband. The knife I’d used in the basement was nowhere to be found. I used kitchen cutlery to free Harvey’s hands and feet.

“Should I take the mask off?”

He nodded, so I did. I got him a damp dish towel and told him to wipe his face, then weaved my way back into the living room to see what was going on.

Kraft was on the couch, hands and feet still tied. He looked like a big cat with his face in a throw pillow, trying, no doubt, to keep his eyes from dripping out of his head.

Our anonymous rescuer was standing over Thorne, who was unconscious in a heap on the floor.

“Is he dead?”

He shook his head.

I raised the weapon and took aim. “Put your hands up and turn around.”

He didn’t say anything, but then he had a gas mask on.

“Do it.”

He did. I stepped forward and took the semiautomatic sticking out of his waistband. I popped out the mag, and it dropped to the floor. I tossed the empty pistol onto a chair. I searched him and took away everything he had scavenged off Tatiana’s body and threw it onto the chair, hoping he didn’t notice my clammy, sweaty palms. Then I took a step back. “Take off your mask.”

He did that and turned around. He seemed familiar, though there was no reason he would. I had never seen his picture. No one had.

“Mr. Hoffmeyer, I presume?”

38

IT WAS BEGINNING TO DAWN ON ME THAT BLAND WAS THE look of choice for spies, and Stephen Hoffmeyer, or whatever his name was, was no exception. He had on a white open-collared shirt, tan pants, and a well-used black leather jacket. Everything else about him was average. Sandy hair, blue eyes, average build. I didn’t know if I could pick him out of a lineup, and I was looking right at him. He did have a nice tan.

“Stay cool,” he said. “I didn’t come here to do harm.”

“What did you come here to do?”

“You have something I need. I have something you need. I came to do business.”

“Take off your jacket.”

He shrugged the leather jacket from his shoulders and let it slide down his arms. In one smooth move, he caught it in his right hand and offered it to me.

“Drop it on the floor, get down on your knees, and put your hands back on your head.”

Harvey appeared in the doorway. He had made his way down the hall, using the kitchen chair as a walker.

“What is this?” He looked, as I probably did, as if he’d been weeping for a week. “What is happening? Who is this man?”

“This is Hoffmeyer.”

“How do you know?” With one arm, I helped him to his wheelchair.

“It’s the only person it could be. Isn’t that right, Kraft?”

Kraft didn’t bother to answer. He had managed to get himself to a sitting position. I had no reason to untie him. For the moment, I had enough balls in the air.

“Check this.” I picked up Hoffmeyer’s jacket and laid it across Harvey’s lap. Hoffmeyer didn’t move, but something told me he was humoring me, letting me keep him under control. I stepped back and positioned myself so I could watch both him and the doorway.

Harvey pulled a long, flat wallet from the pile of leather and opened it. Without his glasses, he had to hold it at arm’s length to head it. “Joseph Hildebrandt of Tucson, Arizona.”

“Where did you come from?” I asked him. “Don’t say Arizona.”

“Check my bag.” He nodded to a black gym bag on the floor near the door.

I went over and got it and put it on Harvey’s lap. “Take a look.”

“What am I looking for?”

“Take out the Mylar envelope,” he said, “and open it.”

Harvey reached in and pulled out a silver bag. It rustled and crinkled as he handled it. Then he opened it and pulled out a hard-drive unit that looked as if it would slide right into the computer Kraft had brought us.

“That’s the lock,” he said. “All I need is the key.”

Vladi’s laptop was still on the coffee table. It had been powered down and unplugged. Thorne or Red must have been packing it up to go.

I looked at Hoffmeyer, still on his knees in the center of the room. “What happened to Red?”

“Was he the second man down the stairs?”

“Yeah, he must have been.”

“I broke his neck.”

If he was psychologically scarred by having done it, he hid it well. That made two dead in the basement-Tatiana and Red-and Cyrus, still breathing but not moving, next to Hoffmeyer. Dead bodies…spies…tear gas…How would we explain all this? I couldn’t think about it. I had to think about what was right in front of me.

“Let me have the drive, Harvey.”

He gave it to me, and I went to the couch and sat down. Kraft must have felt the shift. “Cut these goddamn things off of me.” He was fighting the cuffs, which only made it worse for him. “My eyes are killing me.”

“I know. I’m sorry. Hang on for just a few more minutes.”

“Goddammit. You are such an amateur.”

It was so tempting to reach over and smack him across the face, but it would have been bad form to do that to a man with his hands tied behind him.

I had never swapped out a hard drive before, though I had watched Felix do it once. To get to it, I would have to take apart the laptop’s housing.

“Harvey, I need you to go to your desk and get a-”

“Phillips-head screwdriver?” Hoffmeyer was still down on his knees with his hands on his head. “I’ve got everything you need in my gear.”

“Where’s your gear?”

He pointed to a corner, where a black backpack was nestled in a basket of magazines. He must have tossed it there in the heat of the moment. Harvey had maneuvered his chair closer to the couch. I checked with him for his input. “He did save us,” he said. “In rather dramatic fashion.”

He had also killed two people in rather dramatic fashion. Had he wanted us dead, though, he could have waited five more minutes, and Tatiana would have done the job for him.

“Okay. Go ahead.”

Hoffmeyer stood up and took a moment to shake out his left shoulder. He kept rotating it as he stepped over Thorne. He brought the pack over and dug around until he found something that looked like a manicure case. He unzipped it, and it turned out to be a case full of small tools, one of which was exactly the one I needed. He extracted it and handed it to me.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. What do you want to do about Cy?” Thorne had begun to stir.

My nose and my eyes were still ru

“How about if I cuff him?”

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s good.”

He went off to do that, and Kraft started agitating again, albeit with his eyes squeezed shut. “What about me? You trust him and not me? He wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for me.”

I watched Hoffmeyer tie up Thorne. He was efficient but almost deferential as he lifted him to a sitting position against the side chair where I had been tied up. He was a hard guy to figure out. I didn’t want to use my last brain cells trying. He dragged over a chair and sat, letting out a big sigh as he did.

“I’m getting too old for this.”

I wasn’t afraid of him. I wasn’t really afraid of Kraft, either. Hoffmeyer had a lock blade in his pack. I borrowed it and cut Kraft’s restraints. He got up and stumbled out of the room, presumably in search of water for his face.

Hoffmeyer sat across from me, staring coolly back. The laptop was on the low table between us. I had that feeling again that I was in charge only because he permitted it. “Who are you, really? Why are you here?”

“You can call me Hoffmeyer. I’m here for the money.”

“Drazen’s money?”

“I think of it more as my money.”

That was the straightest answer I’d gotten from anyone since the whole thing had begun. “Where did you get the hard drive?”