For an hour of sped-up time, Michael watched Laura lift and lower her laptop as the security guard paced around the foyer, talking on the phone. He wondered what the emergency was. Had the ceiling camera in the lift broken.
He checked, just to make sure. No, all the lift cameras worked fine. Better than fine, in fact, for women were taking their jackets off in the lift and fanning themselves in the footage he saw. Michael figured it must have been really hot or raining outside, for the ladies’ shirts clung to their skin as if they were soaked through. Or it was a hot day and the air conditioning in the building was broken… Fuck. Is that what had the security guard so stressed? Hell, the air conditioning breaking on a hot day in February in a building that big…no bloody wonder!
Reluctantly, Michael clicked back to the foyer footage, looking closely at the people coming in from outside. They looked hot and sweaty, with bright sunlight glaring up from the pavement through the glass windows. He turned his attention back to the stressed security guard just as the man collided with a woman holding a squash racquet.
His hands flew up and he kept bobbing his head as he spoke. He looks like he’s really sorry, Michael thought. Looking at the woman as she straightened up, her knuckles tightening on the racquet handle, it wasn’t hard to see why. With her spare hand, she patted her plaited hair, all tied together in one big ponytail. Laura’s attention and camera were pointed at the pair, as several men carrying matching racquets came to the lycra-clad lady’s assistance. She made Michael think of one of those Williams tennis players. Serena or something? She didn’t look serene. She looked pretty pissed off.
The security guard backed away, still talking feverishly on his phone, as Lycra’s three friends flanked her like bodyguards. Are they her bodyguards? wondered Michael. Is THAT Al Himar? She looks African, not Arab or from the Middle East at all. What the hell?
He saw Laura take another picture and shook his head. Whatever else she was, she was definitely on his list.
She must be the sporty woman, then, Michael thought, watching one of her friends poke his racquet at the lift button for the top floor. He ticked her off the list and wrote down the times she appeared and entered the lift. That’s everyone but the angel and the doctor.
He checked his watch. Time for lunch.
YOU ARE READING
Going Down (Nightmares Prequel)
Misterio / Suspenso“Find Al Himar. That’s one terrorist who’s going down!” After a dead terror suspect’s body is found, anti-terrorist operatives search her house. The only clue she left was a handwritten diary. Cryptic references to Al Himar and six people are all th...
