by Tom Abrahams
***
“The feed’s dead,” says Corkscrew. “I’m guessing from the blackness in the apartments across from me that the power went out. That last lightning bolt was a direct hit. I can’t see you and I have no access to anything.”
I’m huddled next to Bella, having made my way to her side with the flashlight on my cell phone. She has her flashlight app trained on the unconscious Jenkins. He’s started moaning. He’ll wake up any second now.
“Are you hearing her? We’re flying blind,” Bella says, tapping her earpiece. “And the battery on my cell is dead.”
“We can figure this out. Jenkins might be helpful. He probably knows exactly where Aleksey Diozegi works. He can lead us to the right place.”
“Maybe,” Bella says with uncertainty
“There’s a backup generator,” says Corkscrew. “It takes five minutes without power for it to kick on.”
“Five minutes,” Bella whispers, holding up the fingers on her left hand. “We’ve got five minutes.”
“I’ll be right back,” I say and walk quickly to the cabinets next to the coffee maker. Above the sink are stacks of napkins. They’re bound with large plastic ties, which I grab and take over to Jenkins. He’s lying on his side, so I roll him onto his stomach and, using three of the ties, manufacture some crude binds around his wrists. He mumbles something unintelligible as I shove him back onto his side, drool slobbering down the side of his face. Then I take the handcuffs from the sleeve on his belt and close one cuff around each ankle.
I run the flashlight from the blueish-yellow bruise on his forehead along his body, checking for any other weapons he may be carrying. Nothing. But he did piss himself.
Poor guy.
“Will those hold?” Bella asks, her flashlight dimming to nothing.
“Probably.”
I stand over Jenkins and look back toward the door. My eyes have adjusted to the darkness. It’s quiet except for the thumping of raindrops on the roof and the grumble of thunder distancing itself from Brookhaven.
“You’ve got maybe a minute,” Corkscrew interrupts the silence. “Then the generator will kick on. It’ll be a couple of minutes before the security system resets itself. Then I have to regain access. I won’t be able to see you until after that.”
No sooner has she finished speaking when there’s the sound of a diesel generator roaring to life and the fluorescents flicker, washing the room in light that seems brighter than before. The numeric control panel at the door is still off.
“What happened?” groans Jenkins. “Wait! What…my hands…I…Who the…” He struggles against the ties on his wrists, flopping on the floor like a beetle on its back.
I kneel down, close to his face, speaking softly and evenly, “Jenkins, keep calm. We’re not going to hurt you.”
“I kinda did already,” Bella interjects. “Sorry about that.”
Jenkins snarls, finally able to wrestle himself into a sitting position. His face is crimson, camouflaging the bruise.
“We’re going to need your help,” I tell him. “Understood?”
“I’m not helping you,” he spits. “Who are you? You realize the amount of trouble you’re in right now? Do you have any clue?” He winces, squeezing his eyes together as if he’s making a wish on a lamp. “My head…”
“Yeah, when my friend tased you, you fell and hit your head. You have a nasty bruise and maybe a concussion. You were out cold for a couple of minutes.”
The pulse of his headache must have calmed him. He’s looking at me with less malice. The snarl relaxes into a frown. “Who are you?”
“We’re here looking for some information a coworker of ours may have shared with a scientist at Brookhaven,” Bella says.
“What scientist?” His chest is heaving with each breath. He’s wriggling against the ties, but I must have done a pretty good job. They’re holding.
“Aleksey Diozegi,” I say. “You know him?”
Jenkins nods, squeezing his eyes shut again.
“Do you know which of the R&D offices is his?” Bella asks, peeking around his back to check on the ties. “We need to know where he keeps his paper files.”
“His office is in another wing, a few hundred feet from here.” His chin drops to his chest. “I need something for my head. I can’t open my eyes without pain.”
“You show us where to go, don’t give us any trouble, and you’ll be getting the help you need pretty quick. I promise.”
He doesn’t acknowledge me. He’s puffing like a Lamaze instructor.
“Understood?”
“Understood,” he clenches his teeth and a look of recognition washes across his face. “You know this is gonna end badly for you.”
“Yeah.” I help him to his feet just as the coded panel at the door resets and powers up. “It probably will.”
***
Aleksey Diozegi’s office is a study in chaos. It’s like a paper factory exploded inside its four walls.
“Good luck,” Jenkins grumbles. I’ve sat him in a chair in the corner of the room after clearing it of a stack of academic journals. “You’re going to run out of time.”
“I’ve got nothing for you,” says our helpful hacker. “I’ll keep an eye on the cameras, though and give you a heads up if you get more company.”
“That’s helpful,” Bella mumbles, standing in front of a bookshelf, arms crossed in front her.
“I know who you are,” says Jenkins. “I thought I recognized both of you. Now I’m positive.”
Neither Bella nor I say anything. She’s stopped admiring the bookshelf and is digging through vertical file folders looking for anything remotely familiar. I’m at the desk, picking through the debris.
“You’re the two killers on the run. I saw you on the news. You killed that reporter in Texas and then crashed a plane in Maryland.”
It’s tempting to correct him, but I don’t.
“Then you killed two people on a subway in D.C. I know it’s you. I recognize you.”
Bella’s scanning through the files, thumbing past page after page. She’s shaking her head, biting her lower lip. That’s not a look of confidence.
“There’s no way you’re getting away with this.” Jenkins is struggling against the plastic ties, but they’re not loosening. “Your run ends here.”
Pulling Diozegi’s chair from under his desk, I plop down into the seat, trying to organize my thoughts. Aside from the piles of papers, a couple of framed family photos, and an empty Brookhaven coffee mug, the only other thing on his desk is a large Mac computer. It’s decorated with yellow and pink sticky notes. The words and numbers scribbled onto the notes mean nothing.
This is a fool’s errand.
“I found something!” Bella shrieks. “A safe.”
She’s kneeling in front of an open cabinet door at the bottom of the bookshelf. There’s a black safe with a combination lock and a key. The key is in the safe.
“It won’t turn,” she says. “I’ll need the combination.”
Jenkins is doing his best to see what Bella’s doing. But from his position, even with his necked craned, he can’t. “You can’t be doing this!” he yells at her. His struggling becomes more violent as I reach him in his corner seat. There’s an extra tie holding his binds to the chair behind his back. He spits at me, spraying my face. I wipe my face with my hand, then my hand on his shoulder.
“Keep your voice down,” I say with the six-shooter pressed into his protruding belly. “Is that clear?” The threat doesn’t seem to bother him at first.
“Help!!” he yells at the top of his lungs. “Help!!”
I pull the hammer on the gun and move the business end from his girth to the side of his head.
“If you know who I am then you know I won’t hesitate to use this. If I’d kill a friend of mine and a couple of s
trangers on a train, what makes you think I won’t add you to the list?”
Jenkins licks his lips and swallows.
“Are you going to be quiet?” I push the barrel into his temple.
He nods.
“I need some help,” Bella calls. “I can’t open the safe. We need a combination. Do you see anything?”
“No,” I say, then I remember the sticky notes. “Wait, maybe.”
Two of the dozen sticky notes have only numbers on them. One of them looks like a phone number; the other could be the combination.
“Try this. Ten to the left. Thirty-five to the right. Then eighteen to the left.”
Bella spins the lock and then tries the key. “No.”
Our earpieces crackle to life. “You guys are about to get some visitors,” Corkscrew says. “There are two security guards. Armed. You have maybe three minutes.”
Bella’s eyes widen and she runs her hands through her hair. She tries the combination again.
Nothing.
“There are three of them now,” Corkscrew says, her voice quavering. “They’re moving pretty fast. They’re checking every room and forcing entry. You’re running out of time.”
“Did you skip thirty-five the first time?’ I ask Bella, moving to her side.
“What?”
“Spin it all the way around. Haven’t you opened a safe before?”
“Not with this kind of lock. Always electronic or keyed.”
“Even on your high school locker?” I start working the combination.
“I went to a prep school,” she reminds me. “We didn’t have locks on our lockers.”
I finish the combination and turn the key.
Bingo.
Bella reaches into the safe and pulls out a stack of folders. One of them is labeled with Wolf’s name.
“This could be it!” Bella exclaims.
“They’re two doors down,” Corkscrew says. “I might be able to help you out if they all go into the room.” The clicks on her keyboard intensify. “Maybe…buy…you…a…few…”
The line goes silent and then, “There!!”
Bella moves to the door. She looks at the keypad then turns to Jenkins. “What’s the override code?”
He looks at her like she’s stepped off of Mars and says nothing. I march over to him, aiming the revolver at his face. “Is there a code?”
He stutters, “I-I-It’s-It’s—”
Corkscrew interrupts and I hold up a finger to silence Jenkins. “They’re locked inside the room two doors from you. There’s no camera in the room, so I don’t know if they’ve figured it out yet. They’re stuck until they figure out to input the override code. I’m trying to change it, but that’ll take some time. I may not be able to reprogram it.”
“What’s the code?” Bella asks.
“Speak,” I instruct our hostage. He’s staring at something on the desk behind me.
His radio is on the desk with his leather gun belt. The volume is low, but the audio indicator is flashing. Someone’s trying to talk with him!
“Jenkins?” calls a voice. “Ten-eighteen. Ten-twenty. Please advise. Over.” It repeats twice.
“Have they been trying contact him all along and we had no idea?” Bella asks.
“I didn’t think about it,” I admit through clenched teeth.
“I told you you’re done,” Jenkins sneers. “I told you this was the end of the road.”
“Jenkins?” the voice calls again, “Where are you? Are you okay? Please advise. Over.”
“What’s the code?” Bella says. “We need the override code.”
“I’m not giving it to you,” he says. “You can kill me. I’m not letting you out of here.”
“By the way,” the hacker updates us, “just so you know. You’re locked inside too. You won’t be able to get out until they do.”
“Start punching numbers,” I tell Bella. “We’ve got nothing to lose.”
She taps a combination into the keypad and the light flashes red. She types another. Same result.
“Uh oh,” Corkscrew delivers the news. “They’re punching in the override. They’re on their way. Only one more room before you.”
I look around the cluttered office. Bella’s punching the keypad with unbridled futility. There’s paper everywhere. The safe’s unlocked. Jenkins is smirking. Everything’s crashing down around us. I look up and see salvation.
“Sorry about this,” I say to Jenkins, ball my fist, and clock him as hard as I can across the cheek, knocking him unconscious.
***
“Did you have to hit him?” Bella whispers. “I feel bad we beat up on the guy so much.”
“Keep moving,” I tap her on the rear, encouraging her to push ahead without discussion. “We’ll talk about this later.”
“I don’t know how you’re doing this,” says Corkscrew, “but you’re moving right past them. I mean, it’s like you’re ghosts floating over them. Whatever you’re doing, you’re good. Keep heading that direction.”
I fight back a sneeze from the dust coating the inside of my nose and my eyes water. We’re in a large air duct between the ceiling and the roof. It’s just wide enough for us to move, on our stomachs toward an exterior vent.
There were two things that made me think of the air duct. First, an asbestos tile in the ceiling was loose. The metal bottom of the duct was visible in that space where the tile was dislodged. That reminded me of one of the diagrams we’d pulled from George’s townhouse. It was the HVAC blueprint from the building, detailing the entire ventilation system for the heating and cooling installed throughout the building. There was a single duct that ran the length of the building, emptying onto the backside of the facility, not far from where we parked.
Bella climbed onto the bookshelf and popped open a tile adjacent to the return vent. With my help, she climbed into the duct. I followed her, having just enough room to pull the ceiling tile back into place behind me.
“This is kinda funny,” Bella whispers, intent on giving away our location, inching along through the duct. “Didn’t they climb through an air vent in Mission Impossible?”
“Yes.”
“In the CIA headquarters, right?”
“Yes.”
“This is life imitating art.”
“I guess that makes me Tom Cruise.”
“Shhh!” she says. “You’re going to make me laugh.”
The air conditioning is on, and so, while it’s uncomfortable with the air blowing, it dampens the noise we’re making along our path to freedom. It’s a straight shot to the exit.
Or at least I thought it was.
“We’ve hit a dead end,” Bella says. “I can’t go any farther.”
“Are you sure?” I ask, trying to look past her. I can’t see around her body. The space is too and too dark.
“I’m positive,” she says. “It just ends. There’s no exit here.”
“We’re going to have to back up. We passed a split maybe twenty yards back. We’ll take the split.”
She inches backward, her feet hitting my face. There’s a slight rumble, a vibration in the metal and the air conditioning shuts off.
I’m using my elbows to retrace our path feet first, pushing against the metal floor of the duct.
Bella stops. “Shhh! I hear something.”
I stop, blinking sweat from my eyes. Without the air conditioning to blow it off my brow, gravity’s pulling it straight down my face. Holding myself as still as possible, I’m struck by the lack of room inside the duct, the stagnant air. If I were claustrophobic, this would be bad.
My mind flashes to the recurring dreams I suffered through for so many years…
Trapped in a school locker. Banging on the door. Screaming for help. Pushing against the walls closing in like a compactor
. A lack of air.
Banging. Screaming. Pushing. Pain. Panic…
“Did you hear that?” Bella whispers. “Jackson? Did you hear that?”
She shakes me back to the present, my heart thumping blood into my neck, pounding faster against my chest. Closing my eyes, I push away the dream and suck in a dust-laden breath, slowing the pulse of adrenaline.
There’s a strong vibration in the duct and it trembles. “Did you feel that?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
Another tremor. And voices.
“What do you think it is?” Bella asks. “What’s happening?” Another rattle. This one, stronger.
“I don’t know.” I’m afraid to tell her what might be happening. “We need to move and get to that split.” Looking over my shoulder, I start scooting back as quickly as I can. It’s dark, but as I slide back, my hand rubs against the wall of the duct.
Push. Slide. Push. Slide.
I’ll know when we hit the split. It opens to my left.
Push. Slide. Push. Slide.
Another tremble. This one lasts longer. It’s louder.
Push. Slide. Push. Slide.
“Are we close?”
“Yes.” I have no idea.
Push. Slide. Push. Slide.
“You’re moving back to where you came from,” Corkscrew says. Finally. “You’re going in the wrong direction. I saw the security dudes go into your room. They never came out. I don’t know where they are.”
Great.
Push. Slide. Pu—
Yes! The opening to the split.
“Bella! We’re here at the split. I’m going to keep sliding past it and let you go first. Once you’re in, I’ll follow you.”
I push past the opening, giving Bella enough room to move past it and then enter the split headfirst. She slides in, her feet disappearing into the split, just as a loud rumble shakes the duct.
Catching my breath, trying not to cough from the dust, I raise myself up on elbows and shift my weight to follow Bella toward what I hope is an exit.
There’s another rumble that sounds like metal pots clanging together.
Something grabs my ankles and pulls.
