The Tower

McGuire leaned against the car in a raised crouch, holding his gun up by his cheek. His left hand was shaking back and forth in a nervous tick. Something on one of his fingers was flashing in the sunlight. His wedding ring.

Jade's mouth went entirely dry. He heard an echo of a conversation in his head. Where's McGuire? Actually, he's at his kids' baseball game.

"ONE," Travers shouted into the megaphone. Everyone went into motion. Jade leaped to his feet and ran in the opposite direction of the other agents, heading for his car.

The house imploded with bodies as FBI agents crashed through the doors and windows, springing from the ground and swinging from the rooftop. They led with large black boots and pointed barrels. It seemed as if every point in the apartment was instantly covered by the agents' guns.

Travers was already up and running and she leaped through the smashed front door into the apartment. It was bare and unfurnished, with wooden floors and white walls. On the floor in the middle of the living room sat a single black phone. It was old-fashioned, its big receiver clunked down heavily on the metal jaws.

She moved slowly through the scattered agents.

"Where's Marlow?" one of them hissed nervously. She didn't know, so she said nothing.

The agents stood motionless, their guns trained on the zone of the apartment for which they were responsible. Travers felt as if she were walking through a sculpture garden. The sound of her footsteps knocked through the empty apartment like raps on a door.

There was nothing in the entire apartment except the phone. Travers circled back to the small living room and stopped. They all stood perfectly still, stunned by the silence.

The phone rang, a high, shrill jangle, startling everyone. It rang three times before Travers picked it up. Still the agents didn't move.

McGuire had stumbled into the house a few seconds after her, and he stood behind her panting as she raised the receiver to her ear.

"What?" she asked tightly.

"Ms. Travers, I presume. I've read so much about you. Could you be so kind as to place Agent McGuire on the line before you can get a tracer in place?" Allander asked. He knew they wouldn't have brought a tracer with them; they were expecting more than a phone. He just wanted to play with her a little.

"Yeah, but tell me-"

"Your time is up, Agent Travers. I need to speak to the important people now. Like I said, put your boss on." "Boss" would get to her, Allander thought. He was sure of it. "Get him. Now."

Travers realized she didn't have any options without losing the line. She bit her cheek and held the phone out silently to McGuire. His eyes lit up. "Giving his demands?" he asked, whispering anxiously.

Travers said nothing. He's playing with all the cards right now, she thought. I doubt this is about demands. He doesn't need to ask us for anything.

"McGuire here." He spoke in a gruff, efficient voice. Travers could tell he was intimidated as hell and trying to cover it with the briskness of his tone.

"Well, Agent McGuire. Let's play a little guessing game to find out where I am, shall we? I'm thinking of a lovely crocheted wall piece with dark brown beads hanging from its fringes. Looks like it belongs on the floor of a doghouse, but someone made the unfortunate decision to display it as a wall ornament. It's a virtual shrine to the seventies, as seems to be most of the house. And look, here's a beautiful blue marlin plastered above the fireplace, evincing the Hemingwayesque masculinity of the man of the house. How noble in reason. In action, how like a god."

"H N E." Three letters splashed in crimson, their boundaries marred by the drip of the dark blood. They looked ready to slide right off the window; they were drifting, living letters.

Allander's bloody fingers were wrapped around a cordless phone. He moved into the kitchen and plucked a photograph off the refrigerator, leaving a red smudge across the front.

"How cute," he said into the phone. "A photograph of Grandma on her eightieth birthday. However did you fit all those candles onto the cake… Agent McGuire?"

Allander smiled in awareness of the stunned silence on the other end of the phone. He walked into the living room and faced the two boys who were bound to chairs with tape.

They were about fifteen and sixteen years old, just starting to build muscles in their chests and shoulders. Tears ran over the tape that bound their heads firmly to the high backs of the chairs. Only a small strip of their faces was visible, their eyes and a thin band of their cheeks.

Behind them on the floor lay the body of their mother. Both of her ears had been cut off and her throat was slashed. Allander had used the spout of blood that welled from the wound as his paint bucket. The blood was still warm when he dipped his fingers into it.

Firecrackers were pushed into the boys' ears. Allander had wedged them tightly into the ear canals so they would be sure not to slip.