by Tim Tigner
Not good news. I hadn’t expected it to be closed.
I widened the gap enough to put my ear to the wood—and barely made out muffled speech. Two distinct voices, one higher than the other. Neither intelligible. Both close by.
I began searching the paneling by feel, hoping to find a door handle of sorts.
I did.
It was right where you’d expect it to be, around waist level at one side. The handle was a simple piece of metal screwed into the wood. It wasn’t attached to a latch or lever, it was just something to tug on. A means of pulling the bookcase closed behind you, concealing your retreat. Something the prepper mind would undoubtedly consider important.
I braced myself and pressed lightly against the wood with a controlled movement. My fingers compressed without effect. I repositioned my hands and pressed again with more leverage. This time the panel yielded. Just a couple of millimeters, but enough to offer hope. I pressed a bit more and it continued to give. Cumulatively, I’d moved it a centimeter. That exceeded the slack on any typical latching mechanism and led me to believe that the bookcase wasn’t locked shut. I could push through.
When a SWAT team breaches a door, they assemble in a formation known as a stack. A role-designated line. The point person is the commander. The decision maker. The first to put eyes and a weapon on the scene. Second is the breacher. The man swinging the battering ram, positioned to step quickly aside. Behind the breacher is a second gun, followed by a mule carrying extra equipment, and so on.
I didn’t appear to need a breaching device, but I also didn’t have a firearm or any other weapon for that matter. I had no backup either. Worst of all, I had no way of knowing what resistance I’d encounter once I pushed the bookcase aside.
Put in this solitary position under ideal circumstances, I’d use a hand drill and fiber-optic camera to see what was waiting in the other room. As it was, I’d be going in blind. And blinded. My eyes were accustomed to absolute dark. The battle might be over before my pupils could constrict, with me on the losing side.
The conclusion was clear but depressing. I had to regroup. I had to go back down.
Frustrated but not defeated, I pulled the bookcase back to flush, and slid the elevator door closed. After taking a second to ponder the best means of descent, I pulled the second pair of socks from my pocket and put them on like protective gloves.
Still clinging to the doorsill, I reached into the black void until I found the cables that ran between the roof of the shaft and the top of the main elevator. They were considerably thicker than the one used to support the manual lift. No doubt specified for a much greater weight.
I paused to adjust my grip so the socks wouldn’t slip, then released my legs and slid down. After a few seconds of semi-controlled slide, I hit the top of the elevator car with a louder than optimal thud. Fortunately, a minute of silence convinced me that I alone had heard the noise.
By my calculation, I was two-thirds of the way down. That left twenty feet to go.
The cable had undoubtedly put a black streak on my scrubs, but there were plenty of clean ones in the bunker. Feeling freed by the fact that I was already messy, I rolled over the top of the cab, hung from its edge, and moved hand over hand to the greasy pole. I slid my way to the next crossbeam, worked around it, and a second later was on the ground. From there, all I had to do was rejoin my fellow captives and change my clothes without being observed.
In the past, whenever our captors had extinguished the lights, they’d left them off for hours. I couldn’t verify if that pattern held, because the keyhole was covered. If the pattern had changed and the lights were now on, it could get ugly fast.
I pocketed my drop key, then manually released the door latch. Cracking it a tad, I confirmed that my fellow captives were still in the dark. With a sigh of relief, I slowly and silently slid into the room.
Quite a few people were sleeping through this phase of the crisis, as evidenced by snoring. Others were talking in hushed tones.
Walking slowly and listening intently so as not to stumble over anyone, I made my way to the gym. The mats were a good meeting place, suitable for both meditation and slumber. At the moment, the love of my life was doing neither. She was in an animated but muted conversation with someone on the mathematics of blackjack. “Katya.”
“Achilles!”
“Who else is here?”
“Sabrina and Oz.”
“Anybody else?” As I uttered those words, the lights came back on. Everyone reflexively covered their eyes while their pupils contracted.
“What happened to your clothes?” Katya asked.
“Long story. Oz, would you mind running next door and grabbing me some clean scrubs? I’d just as soon nobody saw me this way.”
“Be right back.”
While Oz ran the short errand, I gave Katya a long kiss. It might have been rude with Sabrina watching, but given what had transpired and all that was yet to come, I sided with the poet Robert Herrick and gathered a rosebud.
Oz returned in haste and tossed me the clean clothes. As I turned my back to make the change, Katya asked, “What did you learn?”
“The top is blocked by the bookshelf Kai mentioned. I couldn’t see anything, and it would have been foolish to go in alone and blind.”
“So?”
“So I decided to come back for Oz.”
“For Oz?” Katya said.
“What can I do?” Oz asked, sounding surprised.
“Be a second set of hands. Help me with a bit of shock and awe.” I motioned him closer and the four of us sat in a circle.
While I laid out my plan, I was pleased to see Oz grow a look of determination in his eyes. Once I finished, he said, “I’m in.”
As I prepared to rise, Katya reached out to hold me down. With her hand on my arm she turned to Sabrina and spoke excitedly, “Tell them what you told me.”
Oz and I looked at them and then each other in surprise.
Sabrina blushed. “I saw something. Something I shouldn’t have.”
34
Game Changer
Western Nevada
KATYA had wanted to go with Achilles on his first trip up top, and now she wanted to go with him on the second. She wasn’t the passive sort. But she understood the logic he’d exercised in leaving her behind. As one of only two female prisoners, her absence would be conspicuous.
Skewed though they were, the demographics of the captives weren’t unusual. Ninety-six percent male. Ninety-eight percent white. One hundred percent stressed. That also described most corporate boardrooms.
The unusual aspect was that the men all seemed keen to avoid her. For Katya’s entire adult life, men had maneuvered to come close. They’d change direction or offer a hand or invite her to join this and attend that. She attributed the current reticence to Achilles’ display of extreme athletic prowess and an unwritten yet intuitive rule of the jungle. If you’re locked in a cage, don’t upset the gorilla.
The Maltese couple, on the other hand, wouldn’t leave her side. Part of that was probably the impulse to stick with the only other mixed pair, but most of it was motivated by the same jungle logic, no doubt.
Katya could tell by body language and verbal cues that Sabrina’s relationship with Oz was very different from what she enjoyed with Achilles. It wasn’t necessarily less loving, she told herself, but it was clearly more hierarchical. As fit, clever and beautiful as Sabrina was, Oz clearly held all the power.
Katya didn’t sense that Sabrina felt suppressed, so it was a harmonious imbalance. As much give as take. And Katya recognized that male dominance was more the norm than not, particularly if you considered not just modern wealthy societies, but the whole history of the world. Nonetheless, because of their fundamental difference in perspective, she knew that Sabrina would never become a best friend.
Fortunately, they were close enough that Sabrina had confided in her, even when she hadn’t in Oz. Now that both men were back and the four were alone
, she put her fellow female on the spot. “Tell them what you told me.”
Sabrina blushed. “I saw something. Something I shouldn’t have.”
If Oz was offended that his wife hadn’t told him first, he didn’t show it.
“Go on,” Katya said, making her tone soft and encouraging.
“Back in the restaurant, Cinquante Bouches, when we were led into the other room and told to turn around, I slipped. I landed hard and startled—in a puddle of someone’s urine. As I looked up, I saw one of our black-clad captors slip a big pair of headphones over my husband’s ears.” Sabrina looked at Achilles as she spoke.
“What happened next?” he asked.
“Oz collapsed into the waiting arms of the second captor. He just dropped like he’d been shot the instant the headphones went on. Then the first gunman grabbed an identical pair, spread them with both hands and raised them in my direction. That’s all I remember seeing.”
“They knocked us out with some newfangled device,” Katya couldn’t help but blurt. “And that’s why we don’t remember.”
Achilles and Oz both stared with rapt expressions. Katya recognized their contemplative countenances as the universal look of boys with new toys. Granted, these were mental explorations, but then both were the intellectual type.
“Are you sure you’re not just remembering a vivid dream?” Achilles asked. “That seems like the kind of subconscious scenario my mind might use to fill a void.”
“I asked myself the same question,” Sabrina said. “But it was easy to dismiss.”
“The urine on your dress,” Achilles said, answering his own question.
“Exactly.”
Everyone instinctively turned toward Oz, who maintained a deeply thoughtful expression. After it continued for several seconds, Katya asked him, “Did that trigger your memory? Are you remembering the headsets as well?”
Oz closed his eyes and slowly raised a finger.
Achilles took advantage of the opportunity to ask a delicate question. “Why didn’t you mention this earlier?”
Sabrina blushed once more. “I’m not sure, exactly. It felt like forbidden wisdom, if that makes sense.”
Katya knew exactly what she meant, having once walked in on her parents’ lovemaking. She also noted the religious subtext in Sabrina’s phraseology and wondered if that was why Sabrina had not taken it to Oz. It hadn’t worked out well for Eve—or Adam.
Oz mumbled “Excuse me,” and left the room.
35
Compromises
Western Nevada
I FOUND the headphone aspect of our kidnapping intriguing. From a tactical perspective, it was irrelevant to the task at hand. But strategically, it escalated the importance of my escape plan.
The possession of a unique technology was a potential means of identifying our otherwise anonymous assailants. So much so that I’d have wondered why they used it were I not familiar with the limitations of conventional anesthetics.
I knew from my spy days that drugs like ketamine and propofol have very limited durations. They only knock you out for minutes. That’s why they’re administered via IV rather than injection during surgical procedures, to hit you with a steady drip.
Theoretically, an earphone anesthetic would make it possible for a small number of people to manage a large number of prisoners for an extended period of time outside the confines of a hospital. Oz, as a technical guy, seemed to be fascinated by this advancement—the way victims often are.
But curiosity couldn’t be our guide.
We had bigger fish to fry.
Sharks you might say.
First on that list was the lights. Getting them turned off a second time was going to require a bit more finesse than the first time.
I considered throwing a towel over the camera. The sudden blindness would surely provoke a reaction that would likely include lights out. But it might well lead to a subsequent line-up, prison headcount style, during which Oz and I would be missed.
My next thought was to ask the governor for help. He was a politician, and as such would love to be able to talk of heroic efforts to aid our escape. But I couldn’t think of anything for him to say that wouldn’t put him in personal danger. He was maintaining an exceptionally low profile, and he was probably smart to do so. If the police showed up at the cabin door, he’d be the hostage our captors would threaten with a gun to the head.
After discarding several other alternatives on account of their anticipated side effects, I decided to suck it up and talk to Trey. He was already working with the robot.
I found the banker at the dining table with his coterie. They appeared to be busy drafting uniform loan agreements with pen and paper. The sight made me want to punch him in the face, repeatedly, but I spoke quietly in his ear instead. “We should talk. In private.”
He looked over his shoulder at me with a quizzical expression. Judging my intention to be sincere, he rose and led me to the empty garden which they’d been using as a negotiation room.
I expected a smarmy remark about my success obtaining a competitive bid, but he wisely waited for me to open. I said, “There’s a good chance we won’t be freed—even if we pay. You realize that, right?”
He replied with a single slow nod.
“They’ll cut the power—as they’ve already done several times—then just walk away. Within a few hours, all their problems will vanish.”
“I get it. What’s your point?”
“I’m working to gain us the upper hand, and I need some help.”
“What kind of help?”
“I need the lights turned off for a while. How much ransom have you raised?”
To Trey’s credit, he let me get away with the subject change. “The current total is eighty-eight million dollars, of which we’ve already paid eighty million.”
“Good. Go to the box and ask them to settle for that amount.”
“They won’t take it.”
“How do you know?”
“They know they can get a hundred million. They’ve done the research.”
“What research?”
“Your house, for example. Zillow values it at 4.2 million.”
I just stared at Trey.
He stared back.
“Is that a no?”
“It’s an opening to compromise. A bit of quid pro quo.”
“Why do I get the feeling the quid is all going to be mine?”
Trey didn’t smile at my pun, which was probably smart. One flash of those bleached teeth and I might lose control of my fist. “We’ll loan you the money, interest free. You just have to put it on the market and accept any offer that nets you four million or more. You agree to do that, and I’ll ask them to settle for ninety-two million.”
36
Repeat Performance
Western Nevada
OZ WAS RUBBING his lucky coin, and I was mentally rehearsing the mechanics of our upcoming climb, when Trey began arguing with the robotic voice. By that point, the two had spoken multiple times, typically with the banker transferring funds and our captor supplying intel on hostage assets.
But this wasn’t a typical transaction.
The hostage was taking a stand, trying to lower the total ask by eight million dollars.
As the negotiation grew contentious and everyone’s attention turned toward the rebellious banker, Oz and I moved to the blind spot beneath the camera beside the big elevator’s door.
We were both wearing two sets of scrubs. I also had a wide strip of sheet wrapped around my waist and small dumbbell plates strapped under my arms. The combination was a bit clunky, but nobody was watching me.
We slid into the elevator shaft the instant the power died, using the groans and sighs of others to camouflage our noise. Before the initial commotion died, I lowered Oz to the floor and dropped beside him.
Working silently from our script, we shed our outer scrubs and left them on the floor to facilitate a clean return if one became required. Then I se
t about turning the sheet into a rope by rolling it up and knotting the ends.
“Put all your focus into balance and feel and you’ll be fine,” I whispered in Oz’s ear. “Make the darkness your friend.”
Oz said nothing.
I positioned him in the right place along the back wall and repeated my climb up to the first crossbeam, which was made from two-inch angle iron. When coming down, I’d calculated that there were six crossbeams in total, located at ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty and sixty feet. We’d be using them like ladder rungs.
To kick off what was essentially a traditional assisted climb, I crouched atop the first crossbeam with my left shoulder brushing the wall and my feet firmly planted shoulder width apart. Confident in my balance, I got a good grip on one end of the rope and dangled the other end between my legs. Then I squatted, lowering the rope into Oz’s upraised hands.
My partner began wrapping the rope around his wrists, securing his grip while removing all slack. Once the rope was taut and Oz was still, I straightened up.
The classic deadlift move elevated Oz’s uplifted hands by about a yard. That put them just high enough to grasp the section of crossbeam between my feet. I moved aside once his grip took the pressure off the rope, then I braced my left hand on the wall and used my right to help him join me atop the beam.
“That wasn’t so bad,” he said, still breathing heavily.
I didn’t bother to point out that he was only a few feet off the floor. It was a whole different ballgame when you were fifty feet up. Fortunately, the dark would help with that. And it wasn’t like he could chicken out. At that point he wouldn’t be able to descend on his own, given that he was unaware of the central rail and unlikely to find it in the dark.
“The next step puts us atop the elevator,” I said.
“Whenever you’re ready.”
I checked the knots at both ends of the sheet. They hadn’t migrated or loosened. With the rope squared away, the weakest link in our crane was my balance. If I felt myself slipping, I would force myself to fall backwards, looping the rope over the rail and leaving us dangling face-to-face.
