I’D BUILT AN HOUR OF CUSHION INTO MY SCHEDULE, in case the logistics of parking and unloading at the Grove Park proved complicated. My unscheduled stop on the shoulder of I-40 had used every minute of that. I might have been tempted to make up the lost time by speeding, but that impulse was held firmly in check by my frequent glances in the rearview mirror. There behind me, a respectful but vigilant hundred yards back, hung Officer Harrington. He followed me all the way to downtown Asheville, then parted company with me when I took the exit ramp. I rolled down my window and waved. He answered with a brief whoop of his siren.
Rankin had phoned as soon as I’d emerged from the mountains and gotten back into the land of cell-phone signal. “Jesus, Doc, what was that about? You had us shitting bricks.” When I told him, his reaction—half amusement at my predicament, half anger at my meandering driving, which had nearly derailed the operation—wasn’t quite the dose of sympathy I’d hoped for, but Rankin wasn’t inclined to listen to my woes. “I gotta go, Doc. We’ve got to finish setting up. Get here as soon as you can. Break a leg.”
The Grove Park Inn was set on a hillside a couple of miles north of downtown Asheville, amid historic mansions and towering hemlocks. The original stone lodge was rustic and charming. The lobby was flanked by a pair of fireplaces large enough to roast entire oxen, and a broad veranda overlooked the floor of the valley. In recent decades, though, the lodge had been virtually swallowed up by a series of additions: two wings of guest rooms and meeting facilities, a golf course and country club, a sports complex, and a luxury spa.
For the training, Sinclair had booked a large room on the tenth floor of one of the new wings. I threaded my way to the underground parking garage, scanning for a truck or van that might contain half a dozen FBI agents and a raft of electronic gear. I didn’t spot anything promising between the service entrance and the loading dock. I backed up to the dock and parked, feeling alone and uneasy. I pressed the
“Deliveries” button on an intercom box, and a voice crackled through the speaker: “ssszzztttssshelp you?”
“I’m here for the medical seminar that’s up in the Heritage Ballroom,” I said. “I’ve got some cases of material that need to go up the freight elevator. It would help if you’ve got a flatbed cart.”
“ssszzztttsssthere.” A minute later, as I fumbled with the tiny switches on the audio and video recorders—I’d almost forgotten to turn them on—I heard the hum of an electric motor. In the wall beside me, a metal shutter door began to rise and the hotel’s basement opened like a massive rolltop desk. A slight young Hispanic man emerged, pushing a cart to the edge of the platform. He helped me wrestle the five coolers out of the truck and up onto the dock, which was a foot higher than the tailgate. Then we stacked them on the cart, and he bent low over the handle, putting his weight behind it. “It’s very heavy,” he said once it began to move. “What is it?”
I wished people would quit asking me that. “Refreshments,” I said.
I’d phoned Sinclair when I reached the hotel, and he was waiting for me as the elevator door opened on the tenth floor. “Glad you’re here,” he said. “I was getting worried. We’re cutting it a little close on the schedule.”