would take turns watching his door through their peephole, a task that Vail knew from experience could be done effectively for only fifteen to twenty minutes before eyestrain and stress set in. The others would watch TV in between. If Vail did enter his own room, two of the agents would step into the hallway to intercept him while the third called for backup.
He also knew that because of proximity, these agents would be called first to respond to the theater until reinforcements could arrive.
Vail figured he needed no more than thirty seconds in his room, enough time to retrieve his handgun, hidden on top of the TV cabinet, and the laptop.
Not twenty minutes later, the elevator doors opened and two agents came hurrying through the lobby, not taking the time to maintain their anonymity. Vail got up and went to the house phone and dialed the operator, asking for room 431. “Hello,” the voice answered inquisitively; Vail could hear the television on in the background.
“Yes, sir. This is room service. The manager has instructed me to call you and offer you a complimentary lunch. We have a very nice chicken parmigiana today on a bed of angel-hair pasta.”
Of the thousands of rules in the FBI, there was only one that had yet to be violated: Never turn down a free meal. “Sure, that would be great.”
Vail wanted to make sure he had the head count right. “How many orders?”
“The other two guys had to run out for a while. Can they get something when they come back?”
“The chicken is very good, but not when it’s cold. I’ll put two orders aside. Call when they’re back. Anything to drink?”
“A Coke?”
“Yes, sir. It’ll be about a half hour.”
Vail hung up and headed to the stairwell. He stopped at the second floor looking for a maid’s cart. On the third floor, he spotted one. She was busy in the room’s bathroom. He took two hand towels, two bath towels, and a steel-handled dust mop and disappeared back into the stairwell.
Before entering the fourth floor he tied each of the bath towels around the ends of the steel shaft. Out of his pocket he took out the Post-its and peeled off the top one. Quietly he moved to room 431. First he stuck the yellow tab across the peephole so the agent would have to come out to discover him there. Chances were that with Vail being “located” at the multiplex, the remaining agent’s vigilance would be intermittent, leaving him watching television more than the peephole.
Vail then slipped one of the hand towels around the door handle. He took out his handcuffs and hooked them around the handle and squeezed the strands tightly against the cloth. Raising the mop handle horizontally, he adjusted the positions of the bath towels so each rested against one side of the doorjamb. He wrapped the last hand towel thickly around the middle of the steel bar and tightened the other cuff to it. Now the door could not be pulled open.
Immediately he turned and used his key card to open the door to his room. The Do Not Disturb sign was still hanging from the knob. He reached up to the recessed top of the TV cabinet—his automatic was gone. They had already searched the room. The laptop, however, was still in place. If he came back, they probably wanted him to have the initial impression that no one had been there. He unplugged the computer and, as he wrapped the cord around it, opened his door. As he started to close it quietly, he saw his handcuffs on the door across the hall strain against the mop’s shaft. The agent inside was trying to get out.
Vail ran to the stairwell and down to the first floor, exiting through the back of the hotel. Just as he walked into the garage’s first floor, he saw a Bureau car come slicing around the corner behind him. Then another. Fortunately, they hadn’t seen him. He was going to have to hole up for a while.
He had parked on the third level in an end spot. Hopefully, once the search at the theater was abandoned, they wouldn’t think to look for him so close by. He turned on the Bureau laptop that was equipped with an internal wireless Internet card, but because of the garage’s construction, he couldn’t get a signal. It would have to wait.
Suddenly he realized he had not slept in thirty-six hours, the night after his first