A Treasure Deep

by Alton Gansky

  “Then, we play it by ear. Let’s go page by page through this. Memorize what you can. We’ll improvise once we are there.”

  “Shouldn’t we notify the police?” Jack asked. “They’re better equipped for this than we are.”

  “In any other situation I would,” Perry agreed, “but we have some special circumstances here. The police are going to have as much trouble getting in as we are. They would also need enough proof to get a warrant. We have no proof. I’ve seen a picture of Claire and Joseph in an empty lab, but that’s it. Calling the police would take too much time. We’re on our own for the moment. You up for this?”

  “You have to ask?”

  Perry smiled at his friend and hoped he wasn’t leading the man to his death.

  KAREN’S MERCURY COUGAR sped easily along the dark streets of downtown Seattle. Perry was at the wheel, Jack in the passenger seat. A gentle drizzle peppered the windshield.

  Perry found it ironic that it was here that he interrupted the attack on Dr. Henri that had changed his life. Perry didn’t believe in coincidence. He had come upon Dr. Henri after leaving a very late meeting. Had he not called for that meeting, had he left fifteen minutes earlier or later, everything would have been different. But that didn’t happen. He left at just the right time, made just the right turn, saw just the right thing. There was no doubt in Perry’s mind that Providence was at work. He comforted himself with the thought that God was still on the job.

  “The stairs,” Perry blurted as he parked the car a block from the RS BioDynamics building.

  “What about the stairs?” Jack asked.

  “We can take the stairs up,” Perry said. “Fire codes require sealed exit stairways.”

  “No good, buddy,” Jack said. “True, there will be at least two stairways, but I doubt that the doors will open into the upper offices. They’re exit doors and have to open in, but they’re allowed to be locked on the stair side. That way, panicked people don’t exit on the wrong floor. Only those doors that lead outside will open.”

  “And the one to the roof,” Perry said. “I’m not suggesting that we can get access to the offices on the upper floors from the stairway. I’m suggesting we go to the roof. Exit stairways must exit to the roof as well as the ground floor.”

  “What do we do once we get there?”

  “You’ll come up with something,” Perry said. He exited the car, popped the trunk, and removed two plastic toolboxes, handed one to Jack, and then started down the street toward their destination.

  The stairway door was open as expected. Perry and Jack had entered the lobby separately. To the right of the lobby was the restaurant they’d seen on the plans. Since it was well after nine in the evening, the place was nearly empty. To his left was a smaller office that was home to a travel agency.

  Perry was sure that video cameras were trained on the lobby. He had no way of knowing if anyone was paying attention to them as they entered. When he first approached the building, he noticed lights burning on almost every floor. People moving in and out of the structure would be normal. Dressed in work clothes and carrying toolboxes, he hoped they’d look as if they belonged.

  The air in the stairway was stale, lacking the ventilation the rest of the building enjoyed. Perry started up. According to the architectural plans, the steel frame building consisted of nineteen habitable floors and one additional floor for equipment. Above that was the roof and Perry’s destination.

  He didn’t run. Exhausting himself on the stairs could only be counterproductive. His mind and body had already been strained beyond anything he’d experienced, so he took his time despite the constant nagging of fear in the back of his mind. He kept his head down, partly in thought but also to keep any cameras that might be trained on him from seeing his face. His hope, his prayer, was that he and Jack would be taken for maintenance workers. They were certainly dressed for it.

  They came to the twentieth floor and found a steel door with a plastic sign attached: “Equipment Room—Authorized Personnel Only.” Perry tried the door. It was locked. No surprise there.

  One flight later Perry stood in front of a metal fire door. This one had a panic bar across it as was required of all exit doors. He paused.

  “Do you suppose it’s alarmed?” Jack asked.

  “I don’t see any obvious sign of it, but it would make sense. If we open this, we may be inviting company.”

  “Maybe. Let’s do it.”

  Perry pushed the bar, and the door opened freely. He steeled himself for the piercing shriek of an alarm but heard nothing. Of course, an alarm could be ringing in some security office on the premises or at a remote site. It didn’t matter now. The deed was done.

  Damp air greeted the two as they left the stairwell. Before them was a wide expanse of treated concrete that, with the metal decking below, formed the roof of the building. The stainless steel boxes that housed HVAC fans, cooling coils, and more were scattered along the open surface. Several satellite dishes were anchored near one edge. The still night air was filled with the droning of equipment that breathed air into the building. Near the center was a ten-foot-high structure that looked like a wide shed.

  “Elevator overrun,” Jack said.

  Perry agreed, setting his toolbox down and opening it. He removed a flashlight and closed the box. In buildings this tall, elevators were moved by cable. Smaller buildings could get by with hydraulic elevators, but such devices were too slow and too difficult to make work in mid- and high-rise buildings. Cable elevators required a room above the shaft to house the drive equipment and pulleys.

  Suddenly Perry had an idea. He moved swiftly to the elevator structure and found the door. He tried the doorknob but found it as he expected, locked.

  “We need a way in,” Perry said.

  “That’s not going to be easy,” Jack said. “The door is designed for security. It’s steel-cased. It swings inward. That means the hinges are on the inside and out of our reach.”

  “There’s machinery in there, it has to be vented somewhere. Look for a vent.” Jack did and found it moments later. Perry rounded the corner to find his friend chuckling. “What’s so funny?”

  “I just caught myself praying for God’s help to illegally break into a building. Seemed like an unusual prayer.”

  “It’s one for the theologians. What did you find?”

  Jack pointed with his light. “It’s a typical louvered vent with a wire mesh insect screen. It looks to be about eighteen inches wide and four feet long. We can fit through that, although it’ll be a tight squeeze for me.”

  “It’s our best option,” Perry said with determination. “Let’s open her up.”

  Perry rifled through his tool case. He had told Karen to fill the boxes with an assortment of hand tools, and she had taken the request to heart. Between the two boxes was a range of tools including a hammer, chisels, screw drivers, wrenches, and more. The vent cover was painted aluminum and attached to the wall with large lag bolts.

  “I’ve got it,” Jack said, pulling a ratchet and socket set from the box. “That gal thought of everything.”

  “Her father was a mechanic. She once told me she cut her teeth on a Craftsman box wrench.”

  “Yuck,” Jack said as he set about removing the bolts. There were eight bolts in total and some were welded by years of exposure to sun and rain. Jack brought his great strength and weight to the task. Perry was sure that he would strip the heads off a couple of them. His fear was unfounded. The vent came free.

  As Jack set the metal vent to the side, Perry poked his head in the opening and saw a room filled with large motors. He crawled through the opening. The room smelled of heavy oil and electronics. Mounted to one wall was an electrical panel. Just to his right sat a large-gear drive drum and cables. The cables were called ropes even though they were made of woven metal strands. The ropes disappeared down the shaft. Perry moved the light around the room, playing its beam on the floor.

  “Cozy,” Jack said as he s
queezed his bulk through the opening.

  “We’re in luck,” Perry said. “Each shaft has an access panel. We’ll be able move through the shaft.”

  “And you call that lucky?”

  “Come on, big guy. Adventure is your middle name.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” Jack said. “I almost forgot.”

  “Sarcasm is ugly on one so educated as you.” Perry stepped to the access panel in the floor, found the recessed ring-shaped handle, and gave a twist and pull. The panel opened easily. Despite the easy banter between the two men, Perry knew that Jack was as tense as he. But he couldn’t allow that to matter. What had to be done would be done.

  He shone the light down the shaft, found the safety ladder that ran along the back wall, stuffed his flashlight in his pocket, and began his descent.

  Elevator engineers were a cautious bunch, and elevators were fantastic inventions. A metal ladder ran the length of the shaft to allow workers to conduct maintenance and repairs. Unlike the movies, there was little chance of Perry getting squashed like a bug by the moving car, should it begin to ascend—at least in principle. That knowledge gave him little comfort. A fall, however, could be deadly.

  The ladder was located near the front of the shaft, the door to the various floors were to Perry’s right. As he descended, he could hear the heavy, booted footsteps of Jack on the ladder.

  That reminded Perry of another problem: He didn’t know where Claire and Joseph were confined.

  He tried to picture in his mind the photo he’d been shown back at the site. Claire and Joseph were in a small, windowless room. Windowless meant the room most likely didn’t adjoin an exterior wall. Perhaps there were a series of such rooms off a corridor with larger labs around the perimeter of the building? That was likely but not a certainty. The room was devoid of equipment, so it must not be presently in use.

  There was also the problem of which floor. Generally, executive offices were on the highest floor. The plans he had committed to memory bore that out. There were four floors of laboratories and small offices. Most of the laboratories were larger than what he’d seen in the photo. What was it Karen had said about magazine covers? “They love to show him in his wheelchair.”

  Thoughts began to percolate in Perry’s mind. Wheelchair . . . ALS . . . empty lab. Could the lab be a private one associated with Straight’s office? Since his condition hindered his mobility, he would no longer be able to work in a lab made for a person who could stand and walk. Perhaps he abandoned it? It made sense and was a place to start.

  After descending a few more feet into the darkness, Perry stopped, removed his flashlight, and directed the beam toward the front wall. He was at a set of doors. Since he had only taken a few steps down the ladder he knew that he was looking at the doors that opened to the machine room. He extinguished the light and returned it to his pocket. In the dark, he had to feel for each rung below him in a slow, methodical process.

  He estimated that he had traveled another twelve feet. That should put me near the next set of doors, he thought. Once again he reached for and switched on his light. He had estimated correctly. Another pair of stainless steel doors reflected his light.

  “We’re going in here, Jack,” Perry whispered. “Shine your light down here. See the doors?”

  A light beam from over Perry’s head pierced the black. “Yeah, I see them.”

  “I’m going to pull them open. As soon as I do, I’m going in. Feel free to follow.”

  “I was hoping you’d invite me.”

  Perry secured his light, tightened his grip on the ladder with his left hand, and stretched his right arm to the side, feeling along the cool, smooth metal. He found the juncture of the two doors and pressed his fingers in there, slowly parting them. Elevators were designed to allow forced opening in case of prolonged power outages.

  Just as he started to pull, the shaft was filled with a clanking and whirring noise. Perry snapped his hand back. The elevator was moving. He waited, his lungs holding in breath as tightly as his fingers gripped the rungs of the service ladder. He could hear the metal cables rattling and the heavy counter balance sliding in its track.

  Then it stopped.

  “I can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying this, Perry,” Jack said in a barely audible voice.

  “Only the best for you, friend,” Perry retorted.

  “You always did know how to make people feel special,” Jack said.

  “I’m going to try this again.”

  Once more, Perry reached to his side, found the joint caused by the edge of the sliding doors, pushed and pressed until his fingers found enough surface to grip, and pulled. Nothing. His ribs protested hotly. He pulled again and the door budged an inch. Mustering as much strength as he could, he pulled and leaned away, pulling the door with him. The opposite door, connected by the gears and motor device above them, moved as well.

  Perry wasted no time. With his hand still clutching the door, he extended his right leg until it touched the metal sill, then pulled himself through the opening and dropped to a crouch. He was in the elevator lobby of the nineteenth floor, and he was alone—for the moment. Glancing at the ceiling, he saw what he feared: video cameras.

  Perry stood and took a step to the side. Jack lumbered through the doors a moment later. Perry pointed at the ceiling-mounted cameras. Jack looked straight at them, smiled, and waved.

  Chapter 24

  ARE YOU CERTAIN, Dr. Carmack?” Rutherford Straight asked. “I want to move along as quickly as possible.”

  Dr. Benton Carmack shook his head vigorously. “No assistants. They get in the way. There are too many distractions already. You should all leave.”

  Rutherford looked at Julia, then Alex. Alex started to say something to the researcher, but Rutherford called him off. “It’s the price of genius,” he said.

  Rutherford, Alex, and Julia sat in a side room adjacent to the laboratory. A glass partition separated them from Carmack, who moved around the lab in a sterile, white body suit. A loose-fitting non-permeable material and faceplate formed a hood over Carmack’s head. He looked something like an astronaut.

  Rutherford spoke to him through an intercom system. “Your desire to work alone is legendary, Doctor, but I stay. Alex and Julia are necessary because of my special needs. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “Of course, of course,” Carmack said. He was looking at an unusually shaped set of linens that rested on one of the large worktables. His eighteenth-floor lab was directly below Rutherford’s office and was the largest facility in the building. “I didn’t mean you had to leave. Of course you can stay. It’s your place. Of course you can stay. Now, where did you get this?”

  “That doesn’t matter now. I want to know if you think it will work.”

  “Maybe . . . possibly . . . it should. Maybe.” He lowered his face and squinted. “This dark spot—is that blood?”

  “I assume it to be so. It’s old . . . very old,” Rutherford said.

  Carmack walked around and stared into the cavity of the chrysalis, studied it for a moment, then pulled a magnifying glass from a drawer in the worktable. He began to scrutinize the inside of the body-shaped shell. “Hair. There is hair here. Body hair stuck between some of the layers of the wrappings.”

  Rutherford’s heart quickened. Blood and hair was a good sign. What he hoped to achieve would require the DNA, and those were two good sources.

  “Extraction will need to be done delicately,” Carmack said more to himself than to the others. He was known to carry on long conversations while sitting alone. Rutherford worked with some of the finest and most innovative scientific minds in the bio-industry; many had quirks. He had learned to live with them.

  “Sample the bloody linen,” Rutherford said. “I want to determine the extent of degradation. We should be able to type the blood and do some genetic profiling.”

  “I will start with the hair,” Carmack said flatly.

  “Dr. Carmack, I would prefer—�
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  “The hair! I will start with the hair!”

  “All right, Doctor.”

  A ringing filled the observation room. Alex snapped his cell phone to his ear. “Olek,” he said. He paused, and his face tightened. “When . . . where?” Another pause. “No, I’ll take care of it.” He hung up.

  “We have visitors,” Alex announced. “Nineteenth floor. Security picked them up on surveillance cameras.”

  “Who are they, and how did they get in?” Rutherford snapped.

  “They came through an elevator shaft. As to who it is, I won’t know until I find them, but the description I just received makes me think of Perry Sachs and Jack Dyson.”

  “Go,” Rutherford asked. “Take care of them. Better yet, bring them to me. Take Julia with you.”

  “I can handle this.”

  “Take her with you. We’re too close to my dream to take any chances.”

  “Very well,” Alex said. He exited the room in long strides. Julia followed.

  CLAIRE WATCHED JOSEPH with a mixture of fear and amazement that made her ache with worry. He sat at the bench, paper stretched before him, crayons scattered in an arch around his drawing. He was sketching so fast that Claire could hear the crayon scraping the paper. Joseph always drew slowly, never in the manic fashion she was witnessing.

  “Joseph? Honey?”

  He ignored her. The crayon broke in his hand, but Joseph seemed not to notice. He kept moving, kept drawing with the stub of crayon.

  He stopped suddenly, sitting up straight. Then he slipped from his stool, walked to the locked door, stood before it, then leaned forward, resting his forehead on its wood surface.

  “Uhh . . . uhh . . .”

  Claire moved to the bench and gazed at what her son had been drawing. Again he had constructed an image far out of character for him. This one included people—and it included an amazing likeness of himself standing at the door just as he was now.

  Stranger still, he’d drawn the scene in section showing not only the room they were in and the door, but a hallway outside. A man stood in the hallway, just on the other side of the doorway. He was looking down at the floor. Claire recognized the man. It was Perry Sachs.