Time understood the signal as clearly as if Treeves had turned and shouted at him. Soon, the tasteful décor and hushed conversations in the luxurious law offices of Lang & Ellsworth would not set the tone. An irreversible act was about to shatter the day-to-day business calm. The people on the twentieth floor, several who had just completed a short pleasant walk from Wall Street’s life-sized bronze statue of a bull, were minutes away from a dramatic change in their plans. At least one person near Time was about to be killed.
Time didn’t speculate about who was fated to die. To guess would be a dangerous waste of his concentration. Time was like a man engrossed in a book, except that he was reading Edgar Treeves.
The heavy elevator doors opened and the prince’s lead bodyguard stepped out.
As he followed him, the prince remarked, “I don’t care for offices. Can you imagine having to work while simultaneously being forced to deal with other people all the time?”
The men surrounding the prince didn’t seem to appreciate the irony of his remark, even though as well-trained bodyguards, they were constantly forced to interact with each other and almost everyone around them.
However, Time, at the rear of the entourage, imagined Treeves might allow himself the subtlest of smiles. Although it was not relevant to their current mission, Treeves appreciated everything about human behavior on one level or another.
As Time stepped from the elevator, he tested his footing on the expensive carpet. His shoes had been custom made to provide maximum traction and control on a variety of surfaces, but he automatically checked any critical factor that might impact his abilities. He continued to watch the tall frail Edgar Treeves, waiting for the subtle indicators that would tell him which people in the operations area would remain civilians and who would become his targets.