The Descent From Truth by Gaylon Greer Page B

stopped him wore a blue blazer. The bulge under it had to be a shoulder holster, and he did not seem friendly. He looked Alex over, stared at the Silver Hill Security logo on his parka, and grunted. “Where you headed?”
     
    “Looking for the woman.” Alex patted the ammunition pouch on his utility belt. “Faust sent her some stuff.”
     
    The man eyed Alex’s Silver Hill Security emblem again and hooked a thumb toward the top of the stairs. “Corner suite. Gus is with her.” He headed back toward the rear of the building.
     
    What’s with all the security? Alex wondered as he mounted the stairs. If the objective was to keep Pia from snatching Frederick, shouldn’t the guards be watching the boy instead of the mother? If she was being held on kidnapping charges, she should be in the hands of the county sheriff. Otherwise, she ought to be free to go.
     
    The corner office on the second floor was empty, but the man downstairs had called it a suite, so there would be additional rooms. Alex spotted a security camera. As it swiveled, the only part of the room it missed was along the back wall, directly under its wall-mounted bracket.
     
    A toilet flushed. A man appeared through a side door, zipping his fly as he walked. “Whatchu want?” he grumbled.
     
    Gus is with her , the man downstairs had said. “Hey, Gus. The woman okay?”
     
    “Whatzit t’you?”
     
    “I just left Faust.” Wearing his widest smile, Alex closed the distance between them. “Got a message for her.”
     
    “Yeah?” Gus looked disoriented. He might have been sleeping. “Whatsa message?”
     
    “I’m supposed to deliver it myself.”
     
    Gus aimed a glance at double doors behind the security camera. “Nobody goes in there lessen the boss okays it.”
     
    “Swell, Gus. I’ll tell Theo you wouldn’t let me see her.” Using Faust’s first name, he hoped, would impress the guard. “That what you want?”
     
    Gus scratched his jaw. “Nah, but I gotta call it in.” He lifted a telephone and began tapping numbers.
     
    Something serious was going on. It was time to commit or get the hell out. The desk and telephone were within the arc of the surveillance camera, but the lens was swiveling away. In maybe ten seconds it would swing back. Alex stepped close, slipped a forearm around Gus’s neck from behind, and jerked to close off the man’s windpipe.
     
    Gus uttered a faint, high-pitched squeak. The phone slipped from his hand and clattered onto the desk.
     
    Dragging his victim, Alex back-stepped out of the surveillance camera’s range a second ahead of its sweep. “Nighty night, Gus.” He pinched the man’s carotid arteries. Gus struggled for several moments, then went limp and slipped fluidly to the carpet. He would be out long enough for Alex to gag and tie him.
     
    The camera panned the desk area and swung away. Alex replaced the telephone and rummaged in the desk for cellophane tape. He could only hope that whoever was monitoring the video hadn’t noticed the phone off its cradle. When the camera swung back, he ducked momentarily below the desk’s edge. He secured Gus’s wrists with laces from the man’s boots and lengths of the cellophane tape, muffled his mouth with paper towels, and sealed his lips with tape.
     
    Gus began to revive, writhing and bucking as Alex taped his ankles together and tethered them to the leg of a desk. On the floor between the desks, the man would not be visible to the camera.
     
    Alex stood, making certain he was directly underneath the camera, out of its surveillance arc, and took several deep breaths. He’d damned well burned his bridges. Best to get off the mountain and lose himself in Denver’s masses before Silver Hill security sicced the county sheriff on him. First, though, he would find out what was going on with Pia.
     
    He pushed on the double doors to the next room. They swung freely. Just inside, he paused and checked for surveillance cameras. None