“I can’t remember the last time I had this dessert, but it’s really special,” he remarked. “I do hope you like cherries.”
“I certainly do. And I understand that your first president, George Washington, also liked cherries very much.”
Sinclair raced out into the hallway. Four security men were standing around the empty corridor, waiting for the dinner to end.
“You have to clear the room! . . .” Sinclair shouted, his lapel mike transmitting to the security center. “It’s the butane canisters. The weapon is in the dessert carts! Moustaffa just left through the kitchen!”
The security men in the corridor all raced toward the door of the ballroom. One turned back.
“Sinclair, go to the safe room! Make sure they are ready and the hallway is clear!”
Every single officer in the third-floor control room leaped to his feet. They were looking at one another in confusion.
“No! He’s wrong!” the head of operations shouted. “We checked the dessert carts. The canisters were fine!”
“Clear the room! That has to be it!” his second in command snapped. “Moustaffa said the attack would come at the end of dinner.”
“I don’t . . . no! Keep everyone in place,” the head of operations insisted.
“If we don’t clear that ballroom, they could die!”
The two men stared at each other in horror. They had directly conflicting opinions. A wrong decision would be fatal. The head of operations caved in.
“You’re right,” he said. “Let’s get everyone below. We’ll err on the side of caution.”
The chief of operations turned to the security officers.
“Evacuate the dais! Do it now!”
Moustaffa sat at the industrial table in the kitchen with four pistols pointed at his head. Security teams had forced him into a secure position and were keeping him pinned there until further orders. Despite his capture, Moustaffa was smiling.
This plan was proceeding perfectly. In about three minutes the security team would evacuate the dais and move the dignitaries via elevator to the underground passage. All twelve of them would go inside the safe room and shut the door.
Inside the room would be airtight, sealed, with ventilation only through a closed circulatory system. The lock would be set for a predetermined thirty-minute period. No one inside or outside the vault could override the mandatory seal. They’d be trapped. There, in that bunker, the weapon would trigger, with all twelve of the world leaders inside!
Paul Oakley heard Sinclair’s voice on the speakers in the command center. How could this be? They had searched the entire kitchen. And the butane canisters had not been overlooked. Each cylinder was attached underneath the burners of the flambé carts. The security team had disassembled the apparatus and had examined each one extensively.
But Sinclair had to be right. It must be some other system in the trolley. Something they didn’t notice. Another device, perhaps on automatic detonate, related to the butane burner? Once it had been lit, some kind of seal would melt and the bioweapon would be released. The mechanics of it eluded him, but the thought of it was awful.
The commanding officer got on the IFB microphone and spoke directly into the earpieces of the agents in the dining room.
“Do not light the butane lighters. Wheel the carts back into the kitchen immediately!”
The phalanx of waiters extinguished their lighters in unison and began pushing their trolleys back toward the kitchen.
An announcement came over the loudspeaker in a calm but authoritative voice.
“Ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately we have run late for the dinner program. Please excuse the interruption, but photos of the guests of honor must be taken at this time.”
A murmur of disappointment swept through the room.
“The gala dinner has concluded. Would everyone please exit the building in an orderly manner.”
The guests collected their belongings and began to move toward the exits. It would probably take at least twenty minutes for everyone to pass down the corridors and go out the front entrance. If an attack was imminent, it would be too late! Security personnel swarmed the dais and began to move the dignitaries quickly to the rear door.
Sinclair and Holly stood in the steel elevator on the way down to the subbasement.
“I hope to hell we’re right,” Sinclair worried. “We may have just caused an international incident for no reason.”
“John, that has to be it,” Holly assured him. “You saw his face. He was laughing. He was happy to be pulling it off.”
“It just seems somehow . . .” Sinclair wavered.
Just then the door opened onto the subterranean corridor. The passage toward the safe room was lined with security personnel. Sinclair walked out of the elevator, suddenly mobilized.
“They’re evacuating the dais!” he announced.
Each man stood at the ready, facing the steel elevator. There were at least ten male agents and one female, all dressed in blue blazers.
Sinclair moved rapidly down the corridor toward the safe room, Holly following behind.
“Hols, I just want to check inside one more time,” Sinclair said. “Come with me. I don’t want to leave you.”
Holly nodded tensely. The security personnel let them pass.
As they approached the door, Holly glanced at the lone female security agent. Nondescript in her somber suit, she was an ordinary-looking woman with a thick waist, pulled-back hair.
Then Holly saw the topaz eyes. They were open wide in anticipation. The eyes of a tiger. The color was unforgettable. It was Lady X!
“John, it’s her!” Holly said.
Sinclair grabbed Xandra by the arm in a lightning move, his reflexes honed by years of fencing. He spun her around. The agents turned and leveled their weapons at her.
“This woman is Moustaffa’s accomplice!” Sinclair shouted. “Get her out of here!”
Xandra stepped back against the wall with her hands up. Sinclair hesitated. There was something in her expression—a hint of smugness in the look. The expression didn’t seem right. He glanced at her eyes. They were triumphant. This was not a woman who had just been caught. Something was wrong.
Sinclair turned and looked inside the safe room. It was empty. There was only a conference table and twelve chairs. Silent. Ready. Yet he could feel a sinister vibe.
Sinclair stepped into the room and walked around to the other side of the table. There, taped to the leg of the chair, was what looked like a shiny silver fire extinguisher! Attached to the canister was a pressure gauge, a dial like those on Cordelia’s diving gear.
Holly came into the room and walked up behind him.
“John, what is it?”
Wordlessly, he pointed down at it.
“Please move out of the room,” a security agent called to them. “The elevator is coming down.”
“Oh, my God!” Holly said to Sinclair. “He’s put the weapon in here!”
Out in the corridor the elevator pinged, the steel doors opened, and twelve world leaders stood inside. The security team surged toward the elevator to flank the officials along the hallway. The drill had been practiced in advance. The dignitaries would move en masse down the passage, surrounded by armed guards.
Sinclair turned to Holly in horror.
“We have to do something!”
“Just tell them!” Holly urged.
The group of dignitaries and security men were coming toward them at a fast trot. The cadre of security men had their weapons drawn. They would reach the safe room in a matter of seconds!
Sinclair reacted fast, moving toward the door. There wouldn’t be time to explain! No one would listen. They didn’t realize they were rushing to their deaths!
Sinclair gripped the handle of the heavy steel door and pulled it. It was very cumbersome but started to swing toward him slowly.
“John, what are you doing!” Holly shouted behind him.
The door was nearly shut when the first securit
y officer fired at him. It hit the door with a ping.
“You’re going to lock them out!” Holly yelled.
The door slammed with a heavy clang. The last thing he saw was the shocked faces of the world leaders out in the corridor. Sinclair turned the swivel handle and punched the green button on the automatic lock. He and Holly were now sealed inside!
The chief of operations looked at the screen. The subterranean passage was cluttered with people milling about. It wasn’t supposed to work like this. By now, they should be in the safe room!
Agents had formed a ring around the world leaders, but some of the dignitaries were very agitated and started banging on the safe room door. It was locked. Nobody could open it! At least not for a half hour.
The security officer glanced at the monitor that revealed the interior of the vault. John Sinclair and Dr. Graham were inside, apparently having a heated argument. Just beyond he could see the outline of a cylinder, taped to a chair.
He picked up the mouse and zoomed the interior camera in on the object. Yes, it was a canister! Sinclair had closed the door to protect the others. Bravo! That was very fast thinking.
But right now the top priority was to get all the officials out of the corridor and into their motorcades. Sinclair was on his own.
“Oh, my God, John, you’ve just locked everyone out!”
Holly was shouting at him.
He squared off to face her, taking her by the shoulders.
“Holly, I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life.”
“But they won’t understand, John. They’ll think we are the terrorists. They just shot at you!”
“I don’t care what they think. We can’t let them in here. They will die!”
Sweat was pouring down his face. He couldn’t believe it had come to this.
“So we’re locked in?” she asked.
He looked over at the canister and didn’t reply.
“With that?” she asked, white-lipped.
“Yes.”
“Can they get in?” she asked.
“No, once the door locks, it can’t be opened for at least thirty minutes. And even then, only by the people inside the room. That’s how it’s designed.”
“We can’t get out!” Holly said.
“No,” he said.
“Can anyone help?”
“There’s a hotline. I’ll call upstairs.”
“But that canister could be on an automatic trigger,” Holly said, pointing to it. “It will kill us.”
“If it goes off, it will. And the timer is probably set to go off relatively quickly,” he added.
Holly shrank back against the door. Sinclair turned and approached the canister. The phone was on the table, the canister right below it, taped to the chair leg.
“John, please don’t go near it!”
“I have to. It’s our only chance.”
Paul Oakley looked at the monitor of the safe room camera. Sinclair and Holly were inside. Another camera in the hall showed a cluster of men on the other side of the door. The U.S. president and the prime minister of Japan were trying to open the door. Others were pounding on it. Shouting. Security teams surrounded the group with drawn weapons. But there was nothing they could do. The room had been sealed.
What had Sinclair done? He knew about the lock. There had to be a reason.
The phone on the console buzzed next to him. Oakley stared at it. It was the hotline to the safe room. Everyone else had left the command center. He was alone.
“Oakley here.”
“Paul, it’s Sinclair.”
“What’s going on?” Oakley asked, breathless.
“Are you near a monitor? Look at the chair in the corner,” Sinclair replied. “The canister is here.”
The MoonSonnet Motorsailer
CORDELIA, JIM GARDINER, Carter Wallace, and Ted VerPlanck were all standing around the wheelhouse of The MoonSonnet listening to the commotion. The ship-to-shore radio was squawking and breaking up into jumbled noise. From the sound of it, the command center at the conference hall was filled with shouting.
“It’s happening!” Carter blurted.
“They just said they’re evacuating the ballroom!” VerPlanck said with a gasp.
Cordelia sat down on the captain’s bench.
“I feel sick,” she said.
Ted VerPlanck came over and put his arm around her.
“Don’t worry, they have it under control,” he lied.
Sharm el-Sheikh Conference Center
SINCLAIR, DON’T TOUCH it!” Oakley said into the phone.
“What should I do?”
“Move away and stay near the ventilating shaft. If it goes off, at least the incoming air will blow the aerosol away from you.”
“OK, Paul, will do,” Sinclair’s voice came back. “There’s only one canister. Weren’t we expecting more?”
“Yes. We thought the attack would take place in the ballroom, but this room is much smaller.”
“Understood,” Sinclair said grimly. “I guess you are telling me one is enough.”
Oakley didn’t answer. He put his head in his hands. There was no way they would survive if the weapon had an automatic trigger. They were as good as dead.
“Paul, get the security team down here,” Sinclair was saying. “There has to be a way to override this door lock!”
“They’re on their way,” Oakley assured him.
With the twelve top leaders standing in a basement hallway, every security officer was already there.
Oakley saw the situation clearly. Sinclair was asking for help to open the door. That wouldn’t happen.
If there were any chance that the canister would fire off, the security team would not risk it. Nor would they listen to any pleas of desperation. Sinclair and Holly would be insignificant casualties. That door would stay closed.
“Holly,” Sinclair was saying, “get over into the corner. And stand directly under the air shaft!”
She moved quickly across the room and stood where the ventilation system blew fresh, cool air down on her. In the draft, wisps of hair stirred around her face.
Sinclair hung up the phone and went to join her. She looked absolutely white with fear. On impulse he leaned over and kissed the top of her head.
“We’ll be OK, Hols,” he said quietly.
“We will?” she asked, glancing up at him. Her eyes were enormous.
“Yes, Oakley says to stay here under the . . .” Sinclair stopped. His head snapped up to look at the wall next to the ceiling.
“What is it, John?”
He stared up at the grating of the ventilation shaft. The opening to the air duct was less than three feet wide, covered by a slatted aluminum grille.
“Do you think you could fit through that space?” he asked, pointing at it.
Holly’s eyes followed the direction of his finger. She considered.
“It looks big enough,” she concluded.
“Stay here,” he ordered.
He dragged a chair over from the conference table to the wall and jumped up on it. He could just reach the bottom of the vent. It was lucky he was so tall. He could probably yank the cover off. But how was it attached?
There was a quarter-inch gap between the grating and the surface of the wall. It was screwed on. And the construction was a solid concrete block. This was not going to be easy to remove.
He tried prying it off. His fingernails just fit under the lip of the metal. He pulled, nearly wrenching his nails out in the process. It hurt like the dickens, but he tried again.
“I can’t get it.” He grunted, trying one more time.
“Try this,” she said.
He looked down and she was handing him a large knife.
“Where in hell did you get that!” he gasped, staring at it in disbelief.
“I stole it from the kitchen. It was in my pocket, under my apron. I thought it might come in handy.”
Sinclair grinned down at her.
&nb
sp; “Hols, you’re a fantastic woman!” he said.
“John! Don’t talk! Just get us out of here!”
The knife was strong, used for cutting raw meat. He slid it in between the metal and the concrete and torqued it. He did it several times until the knife bent under the pressure of trying to pry off the grid. He got enough space between the grate and the wall to slide his fingers in and gave a tremendous pull.
Finally, with the sound of the screws tearing out of the cement block, the grate came loose. A shower of dust fell onto Holly’s hair. Sinclair handed down first the knife and then the metal frame.
“Get another chair and put it next to the one I am standing on.”
She dragged a chair over and positioned it.
“Climb up here, I’ll push you through the opening.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, craning her neck to look up at the gaping hole in the wall.
“It’s the only way. I don’t know where it goes, but keep sliding along that air shaft as far as you can. Don’t stop. Hopefully the ventilation flow will keep the aerosol spray away from you if this thing goes off.”
“I am not sure . . .”
“Just do it! Keep going. Maybe there is an exit. Now come here, I am going to boost you up.”
Sinclair reached down for her. Holly took his hands to balance and then stepped up on the seat of the adjacent chair. It was going to be tough to get her up there. The opening to the air shaft was at least four feet above her head.
Sinclair stooped down and linked his hands to form a stirrup.
“Kick off your shoes and put your foot here. Let me give you a lift.”
“Oh, my God, I can’t! It’s too high!”
“We can do it! I’ll count to three, then up you go. Just grab for the opening.”
“OK, I’ll try,” she said, wobbling on the chair.
“One, two . . . three!”
He pushed her up with all of his strength. She struggled against him to pull herself higher, and suddenly he felt her get a grip on the opening to the shaft. He locked his arms around her legs to lift her higher. Her elbows were in the air shaft now; he could feel her moving her upper body. Sinclair squatted down and placed her feet on his shoulders.
The Stolen Chalicel Page 30
