Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 44, No. 6, June 1999

The top floor was one long, narrow hallway with office doors fining both sides. Guns drawn, Becker and Timmons stepped out into the corridor. Becker held the elevator car until he saw the two uniformed figures at the far end of the hall more than a hundred yards away; then he leaned back into the elevator, pressed “1,” and came out again as the doors sighed shut. He heard the car start its long trip back down. Timmons acknowledged the two colleagues with an upraised hand, and Becker saw one of the figures bend down to lock the stairwell door on their end.

Well, that’s that, Becker thought. All the exits were now sealed.

He took a moment to look around. From where he stood he had a clear view of everything in the hallway. All the lights were in fact on, there were no obstructing objects like file cabinets or water coolers or potted palms, and the only break in the corridor was at this end, where it widened a bit to include a receptionist’s area complete with desk, computer, and telephone. There was no place to hide. Whoever else was here — if he was here at all — had to be in one of the offices.

Okay, Becker thought. Here goes. Another glance down the hall told him the other cops were already unlocking office doors and venturing inside. Signaling Timmons to stand by, he unclipped the ring from his belt, found the key to the first office on his right — 3201 — and turned it in the lock. The door swung open.

Becker crept inside. The office was large and cluttered. Plenty of hiding places here. While Timmons stayed put just inside the open door, Becker did a quick search. Nobody home. Before leaving he took a look through the tall window at the end of the room. At first he was puzzled: the entire city block below him, just behind and to the north of the building, was pitch black — no lights, no people, no anything. Then he saw perimeter lighting and a chain-link fence and, as he looked more carefully, the deep pit with heavy equipment parked at the bottom. Construction site.

Satisfied, he turned and went back to the hallway. “One down,” he whispered as he moved past his partner. He doubted whether Timmons had heard him; the guard, as it turned out, had been right about the air conditioning. It made a deep, steady rumble that seemed to come from everywhere at once, with an occasional knock or rattle thrown in. Becker couldn’t imagine having to listen to it all day long. If it did come down to a search for the device, the bomb squad would definitely have to get the a/c shut off first.

Slowly they worked their way down the corridor, checking rooms on both their left and right; 3202 was a restroom, and 3203 contained only a copier and a fax machine. The rest were offices. Ten minutes after starting out, while they were searching room 3208, the air conditioning cut off — or at least cycled down. The resulting silence was even more unsettling than the noise had been.

That was when they heard the shots.

Two of them, one right after the other. A second later, the crash of breaking glass. The sounds had come from the other end of the hall.

Both Timmons and Becker froze for an instant, then eased out into the hallway. Resisting the impulse to hurry, Becker flattened himself against a wall and waited for several seconds, his heart pounding and his gun sweaty in his hand. Finally he nodded to Timmons, who was trying to make himself small on the other side of the corridor. They both moved forward.

As they approached the west end of the floor, Becker saw that the five farthest office doors were open. He assumed that whatever had happened had happened behind the nearest door, since the other team would have started its search at the stairwell and come this way. Having heard no more noises, he and Timmons stopped just outside the door of 3246, cocked their revolvers, and waited a moment.

If one of the cops had just been trigger-happy and then knocked over a lamp, Becker said to himself, we’re all going to feel like fools.

Oddly enough, when he followed his gun around the corner and into the open doorway, the first thing he saw was a broken lamp lying in the middle of the room — but beyond that was a broken window, and on the floor beside the window was the sprawled body of a policeman. Off to the right, on the far side of a wooden desk, a second cop was looking through an open briefcase. He jerked upright when he saw Becker and Timmons; then all three relaxed.

Becker lowered his gun, his mind racing with a combination of relief and confusion.

Where was the suspect?

As he stood there dumbfounded, Timmons brushed past him to check on the fallen officer.

“He’s dead,” said the second man, who had immediately resumed his search of the briefcase. Becker studied him a moment. The man’s shirttail was out, his hat was off, and his blue nametag said Spellman in white block letters. He continued with the briefcase for several seconds, then closed the lid and pushed it away in frustration. “The bomb’s here somewhere,” he added. “We surprised him.”