Ark Angel - Anthony Horowitz [54]
“Just relax. This won’t take long,” Shulsky said.
The doors had locked themselves automatically. Feeling far from relaxed, Alex sat back and watched where they were going.
They drove out of the airport, passing through a double barrier and a gate. That already struck him as odd. Hadn’t Shulsky just said he was going to have to spend the night at JFK? But it seemed they were heading for Manhattan. The driver joined the traffic on the freeway that led to Brooklyn Bridge, and suddenly Alex found himself looking across the water to the most famous skyline in the world. Even now, even in these circumstances, the view couldn’t fail to thrill him, the magnificent arrogance of the skyscrapers packed together on the cramped, chaotic island a monument to power and success and the American way of life.
Alex leant forward. “Where are we going?” he demanded.
“We’ll be there soon,” Shulsky answered.
“I thought you said we were staying at the airport.”
“Relax, Alex. We’ll look after you just fine.”
Alex knew something was going on. There had been nothing wrong with his passport. He was sure of it. But there wasn’t anything he could do. He was locked in a car on the other side of the world and he might just as well sit back and – as the Americans would say – be taken for the ride.
He looked out of the window as they crossed the bridge and turned north, heading past the terrible empty space where the World Trade Center had once stood. He had visited New York a couple of times and had happy memories of the city. Now he was being driven through SoHo, in south Manhattan.
The car slowed down and he noticed an art gallery with a window full of cartoons, its name printed in gold letters on the glass. They turned into a parking garage. Alex sighed and shook his head. Now he knew exactly where he was.
In Miami they had called themselves Centurion International Advertising. The gallery here in New York was called Creative Ideas Animation. Two different names but the same three letters.
CIA.
The car drove up to the first floor of the garage and stopped. Shulsky got out and opened the door for Alex. “This way,” he announced.
Alex followed him to a bare metal door that could have led into a storage cupboard or perhaps an electric generator room. A keypad was built into the wall and Shulsky entered a seven-digit code. There was a buzz and the door opened. Alex walked through into an empty corridor with a closed-circuit television camera pointing down at him from above and another locked door at the end. It swung open as he approached.
There was a comfortable reception area on the other side, and, beyond that, open-plan offices filled with phones and computers. Two telephonists sat behind the main desk, and men and women in suits walked along the carpeted corridors. A black man with white hair and a moustache was waiting to greet him. Alex recognized him at once. His name was Joe Byrne. He was the deputy director for operations in the Covert Action section of the Central Intelligence Agency of America.
“Nice to see you again, Alex,” he said.
“I’m not so sure,” Alex replied. He remembered how his passport had briefly disappeared into Shulsky’s attaché case. “You swapped my passport,” he said. “The one you showed Drevin was a fake.”
Joe Byrne nodded. “Come this way. Let me show you to my office. I think it’s time you and I had a little chat.”
THE BIGGEST CRIMINAL IN THE WORLD
Byrne’s office was identical to the one that Alex had visited in Miami. It had the same ordinary furniture, the same blank walls, the same air-conditioning turned up one notch too high. Only the view was different. Alex guessed he probably had something similar in just about every major city in America.
“You fancy a drink?” Byrne asked as he sat down behind his desk.
“Some water, thanks.” There were a couple of bottles on a sideboard. Alex helped himself.
“It’s good to see you again, Alex.” Byrne sounded