by Alan Gratz
THE DOOR HAD BARELY CLICKED SHUT BEHIND ME before I was running up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Twenty-two flights. All this time I’d been twenty-two levels underground! I’d had no idea.
I was huffing by sublevel 17. But I had to run. They had to know I’d made the stairwell. I’d set a microwave on fire just outside the exit door. Any second now, somebody would—
I heard a door burst open in the stairwell. Heard boots on stairs. Coming fast. But from which direction? The sound echoed up and down the stairwell. If they were coming up, I might be able to beat them to the ground floor. Might. If they were coming down, they’d catch me for sure. And there was nowhere to hide in here. It was just level after level of stairs and doors. There was only one thing to do: I had to get out of the stairwell.
I tried the door at sublevel 15. Locked! A digital keypad beside the door was the only way in. I ran up the next set of stairs to sublevel 14. It was locked, too, with another keypad beside it. I stopped, breathing hard, and made myself think. Had all the doors been like this? Yeah. I could see them: little keypads just like this one outside every door. If every one of those doors had one, sublevel 13 would, too. And 12 and 11 and 10 and 9 …
If I wanted out of this stairwell, I had to get through one of these locked doors.
Boots thundered. Another door opened and closed. More soldiers. I had to move. But I didn’t know the code! I punched in four random numbers on the keypad. A little red light came on. I tried another four. Another red light. The footsteps were getting closer. Come on come on come on, I told myself. Think. What’s the code? This was sublevel 14. I tried 1414. Red light. 4141. Red light. 1234. Red light. 4321. Red light. In frustration I mashed all the buttons with my fist.
The keypad hesitated for a second, and I held my breath—
The red light came on.
I cursed. The soldiers were almost on top of me! Wait—I still had the gun. I still wasn’t going to shoot any soldiers. I wasn’t even going to pretend to. But I could shoot the keypad! The soldiers would hear it, and they’d see what floor I was on from the bullet hole, but if it worked, if the door opened, I’d at least be out of the stairwell.
I aimed the gun at the keypad. Turned my head away. Slowly squeezed the trigger, waiting for the bang.
The door made a chunking sound, and a green light blinked on the keypad. The door had unlocked. But I hadn’t even fired the gun! What’d I do, scare the keypad into opening?
I didn’t have time to figure it out. I twisted the handle, pulled the door open, and slipped inside, gun at the ready.
BROWN-AND-RED-PATTERNED CARPET. GRAY CUBICLES. Fluorescent lights. A water cooler. A mail cart. The soft click of fingers typing on computer keyboards. Suddenly I wasn’t in a secret US government detention facility. I was in an office building. A US government office building, I was sure, but not another floor full of locked doors and interrogation rooms.
I heard footsteps behind me. Boots running in the stairwell, and I backed away from the door. The nearest cubicle was empty, and I slipped inside and hid under the desk. I waited for the door to fly open, for dozens of soldiers and security officers to come pouring through and catch me, but nothing happened. The door didn’t open. No soldiers came charging through. Of course! They wouldn’t have expected me to be able to get past the keypad security. They didn’t know I’d come through onto this floor. They had run on by, still expecting to find me somewhere in the stairwell.
I had time to catch my breath, but not too much time. Pretty soon now they’d figure out that I had to have made it through one of those doors, and they’d trip the alarm. Start searching all the other floors.
The alarm! I listened: there wasn’t an alarm going off on this floor, and you couldn’t hear the alarm from downstairs all the way up here. Maybe the people on this floor didn’t know there was a prisoner loose. Maybe the people on this floor didn’t even know there were prisoners in the building at all. That was a chilling thought.
I peeked up over the edge of my cubicle. There was a woman in the next cubicle with her back to me, typing away at her computer with headphones on. One whole wall of her cubicle was filled with pictures of a black-and-brown dog. A German shepherd maybe. On hikes. At the lake. On the couch. This lady loved her dog.
The cubicles stretched out across the room, interrupted every now and then by big white pillars. I saw somebody stand up in one of the cubicles, a man, and I ducked instinctively. He went the other direction, though, and I watched him walk to a copier on the far side of the room, near the elevators.
The elevators. I couldn’t go back in the stairwell. They’d be looking for me there. But the elevators—they were my ticket out of here.
But they were all the way across the room. And I didn’t exactly look like I worked here. The man and the woman were both wearing business suits. I was wearing jeans, sneakers, and one of my T-shirts that they’d brought to me from home when my stay as a “guest” became more like “semipermanent resident.” I didn’t look like a government agent. I looked more like the pizza delivery boy.
Delivery boy. I peeked around the cubicle door at the mail cart parked by the stairs. I might not look like I belonged in a cubicle, but maybe I would pass for a mail room delivery guy. Unless the mail room delivery guys in secret US government facilities wore suits, too. Or were soldiers or something. But it was worth a shot. I certainly couldn’t go back the way I came.
The mail cart was like a two-decker shopping cart, with a handle on one end and wire baskets on top and bottom. The top was filled with file folders with names on the labels. People who worked on this floor, I guessed. The folders were all empty—somebody had already delivered all the mail. That was good. I wasn’t going to be doing any real delivering.
The bottom part of the cart had a bunch of brown 9" x 12" envelopes in it, each one with three columns of spaces on each side where you could write in the name of the person inside the building you wanted the envelope to go to. Interoffice mail. These were empty, too.
An ID badge hanging off the top basket had a picture of a guy named Chad Dill, Position: Mail Clerk, on it. He didn’t look a thing like me.
What the heck. I buried my gun in the pile of envelopes, took a deep breath, picked out the elevators across the room, and started pushing.
I WANTED TO SPRINT, WANTED TO RUN WITH THE cart like I used to do in the parking lot of the grocery store, hop on, and zoom past all these cubicles. But I had to be cool. I had to walk slow enough so that when people saw me pass their cubicles they would barely even look at me. If any of these people were working on Darius’s case, if any of them recognized me, it was all over.
The mail cart wheels squeaked so loud I jumped. I tried it again, going easier this time, but it still squeaked loudly in the quiet office. It was like a bullhorn announcing my presence. “Here I am! Kamran Smith! Escaped fugitive! Come and get me!” But there was nothing else to do. The mail cart was my costume. My disguise. I needed people to see it, not me.
Well, one thing was for sure: they were going to hear it.
I squeaked past the dog-obsessed lady, but she didn’t even look up. I didn’t know if she couldn’t hear me with her headphones on, or if she was so used to the squeaky mail cart by now that she just ignored it. I pushed on, squeaking the whole way. The elevators looked impossibly far away.
Another woman came out of the cubicle right beside me, scaring me to death. I froze, and she squeezed on by without a second look. I breathed again. Okay. Test number one complete: I looked like the mail guy. Maybe not Chad Dill, but some mail guy. That’s all that mattered.
It was time to get moving again. That alarm might sound any second now, and then I wouldn’t be overlooked. I pushed on, a little faster this time, threading my way through the cubicles. At first I kept my head down, but when it looked like nobody even cared that I was there, I started peeking into the cubicles, watching people as I passed. It was night (at least I thought it was night), but there were still a l
ot of people at work. Maybe they worked in shifts, like at a factory. The Intelligence Factory. At the Intelligence Factory, your secrets are our business!
I couldn’t tell what people were doing exactly, besides typing on computers, watching videos, and reading newspapers in foreign languages. It all looked pretty boring. Nothing like Q’s secret gadget lab in James Bond. Where were the exploding pens and electromagnet watches?
“Hey there. Hold on,” a man called.
I put my head down and kept pushing, hoping he wasn’t talking to me.
“Hey, I said hold up,” the man said, closer now.
A hand grabbed my shoulder and spun me around.
I was busted.
I FROZE. I WAS MORE THAN HALFWAY TO THE ELEVATORS, but too far away to run for it. My eyes went immediately to the pile of envelopes in the bottom basket where my gun was hidden.
“Sorry,” the man said, letting me go. He came around in front of me, blocking my way. He was average height, youngish, white, with brown hair and a receding jaw. He wore gray pants, a white long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a red tie. He smiled. “You must not have heard me. Got your earbuds in?”
He still thought I was the mail clerk! “What? Ah, no. Sorry,” I said, trying to cover my unease. “I was just—my mind was somewhere else.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Totally get that. These late-night shifts, man. I didn’t think they ran mail overnight.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I shrugged. Luckily, the guy didn’t seem to really care. He was just making small talk.
“You got any of those interoffice envelopes?” he asked. He scanned my cart, spying the stack of them in the bottom basket.
The stack hiding my pistol.
“Here we go,” he said. He bent down to grab an envelope.
I dropped down with him. “I’ll get one for you!”
“I got it,” he said. He put his hand in and fished around. I glanced up at the top of the elevator across the room, calculating how fast I could get there.
“Huh. What’s this?” he said.
Run, I told myself. Just run.
The guy held up an envelope. “Here’s one with every line used up,” he said. “Never thought I’d see one! But I guess it has to happen sometime, right? Like Bigfoot sightings.”
“Yeah,” I said. Sure. Just please please please let me go.
“Here,” he said, giving me the envelope like there was some special ceremony for envelopes that had all the address lines used up. Then he put his hand back in the basket, looking for another envelope. Not again! I watched his hand, wishing it away from the gun I’d hidden in there. He grabbed an envelope, and I sighed with relief.
Until I saw the barrel of the gun sticking out from among the envelopes.
The guy stayed where he was, stuffing a piece of paper he’d brought with him into the envelope. I stared at the barrel of the gun the entire time, waiting for him to see it while he was writing the recipient’s name on the envelope. I had just decided to reach out and tug at one of the envelopes to cover the barrel when he finished and looked up at me.
“There we go,” he said, handing me the envelope. “You’re good to go.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Let me know if you run into Bigfoot, too,” he said, and he disappeared back into his cubicle.
I chucked the envelope he’d given me in the basket, covering the gun, and hustled for the elevators. I didn’t care if anybody saw me moving fast. I wanted out of there.
I got to the elevators without anybody else stopping to talk to me about Bigfoot and I slapped the up button. The elevator dinged as it arrived on sublevel 14. Luckily, there was no one else inside. The other elevator arrived beside it with a ding, and I hurried into mine before whoever was getting out of the other one could see me. I mashed the ground-floor button and punched the close-door button over and over again. The door slid closed just as another woman in a business suit walked past. I thought I saw her look inside, thought her eyes caught mine for a split second, but then the door was closed and the elevator was lifting me up to safety.
For now.
I WATCHED THE RED DIGITAL NUMBERS ON THE ELEVATOR tick by slowly. Excruciatingly slowly. Sublevel 13. Sublevel 12. Come on come on come on. This had to be the elevator I’d taken into the Department of Homeland Security building that first night, the one I could barely tell was moving. It was slower than watching a soccer game.
The World Cup. Hagan had been so sure the target was the Women’s World Cup. But it couldn’t be. Not the real target. I was sure of it. Darius was still in danger. The United States was still in danger.
And if they weren’t going to do anything about it, I was.
Sublevel 11. Sublevel 10.
The elevator dinged and stopped. No no no no no.
The doors opened, and an Asian man in dark business slacks, a white dress shirt, and a dark tie got on, his ID badge glinting where it hung on his belt. I stared down at the mail cart, trying to be invisible as he punched the button for the floor he wanted. Did he know who I was? Did he know there was a prisoner on the loose in the building? If he recognized me, would he call security? Try to grab me and drag me back to my cell?
My eyes went to the basket on the bottom of the cart. The gun was buried there. I wasn’t going to shoot anyone. I already knew that. But you didn’t have to shoot a gun to use it. Couldn’t I just threaten him with it? Hold him off until we got to the top floor, and then make a run for it when the doors opened? I could be out the front door before he even called security.
“How’s it going?” the man asked.
I jumped. He’d settled in beside me in the elevator, both of us facing the door, and we were already moving to sublevel 9.
He looked at me. I was taking too long to answer. I had to do something. Say something.
“Good,” I said at last, my voice croaking.
Smooth, Kamran. Real smooth. Stare at the floor like a five-year-old, wait so long to respond to somebody saying hey that you draw attention to yourself, then sound as awkward and guilty as possible. James Bond you’re not.
“Sorry,” I said. “Long day.”
The guy nodded sympathetically. “Yeah. Tell me about it.”
And that was it. Enough, at least, to get him to stare at the elevator door again and forget all about me. Just be cool, Kamran, I told myself. You’re the mail guy. You look the part. Now act it.
I’d never understood Julia’s love of drama club and acting. It wasn’t my thing. I mean, I went to all her plays and pretended to be interested, but before we’d dated, you couldn’t have paid me to go see a play. Whenever they’d brought the whole school into the auditorium to watch whatever play the drama club was putting on that semester, I’d hunkered down in my seat and closed my eyes, grateful for the afternoon away from classes but otherwise totally bored out of my mind. But now, suddenly, I had a real appreciation for what it took to get up onstage in front of other people and pretend to be someone you weren’t. I was scared speechless. I wouldn’t be surprised if my stinking, soaked armpits didn’t give me away.
Then on sublevel 8, the elevator dinged and the doors opened again.
A WHITE WOMAN IN A GRAY PANTSUIT GOT ON, NODDING to the other guy and me. She pushed a button. The elevator moved. I stared at my cart.
The elevator dinged and stopped again. Seriously? It was nighttime! How many people were working late?
Too many. A white guy in a suit got into the elevator, and I worked my way farther into the corner. At least now there were so many of us no one felt forced to talk. You know how it is: If there’s just two of you, it’s awkward not to say something. If the elevator’s full of people, you can just pretend you’re all alone, even if you’re squeezed in like a package of Peeps. Safety in numbers, isn’t that what they say? I was surrounded by people who might recognize me, might bust me any second, but in a weird way having more people in the elevator made me more invisible.
The first guy to get on the elevator with me got out at sublevel 3. Only three more floors to go! I took a deep breath and thought about what was going to come next. I’d wait for everybody else to get off the elevator on the ground floor, and then I’d follow them out. Ditch the mail cart around a corner somewhere. Slip outside. Make a run for it. I wouldn’t be in Arizona, I was sure of that. But hopefully I could find a way back. Catch a ride with someone. Beg money for a bus. I’d walk if I was close enough. But I couldn’t worry about that now. Right now I had to focus on just getting out the front door.
The elevator dinged, and the little red numbers said we were on the ground floor at last. I played the part of the courteous mail room guy, holding the door open as the more important people left.
That’s when I saw the main floor beyond the elevator.
Between me and the dark glass doors at the front of the building were perhaps a dozen people, most of them guards. Soldiers in black fatigues and helmets patrolled the lobby, automatic weapons in their hands. Video cameras hung in the corners. The only way into the building was past the guards working metal detectors and scanners, and the only way out was past another guard at a turnstile that only worked when you checked out with your ID card. This was no generic office building with an empty lobby and a single security guard watching basketball on his monitor. It was a heavily secured government facility. One I wasn’t walking out of.
I PULLED BACK INTO THE ELEVATOR AND SLUMPED into the corner. What was I thinking? Where did I think I was? Who did I think I was? I was a prisoner in a US government building. I was an idiot to think I could just run down the hall from my cell, bang open a door, and run off into the night. I was trapped. I had no way out. Maybe I should turn myself back in and beg for understanding.
The doors began to close like the stage curtain closing at the end of a play, and I watched in despair as my only way out disappeared.
