Once finished, he stood up and stepped back, admiring his handiwork.
There’s no way in hell this is going to work.
But since the prospect of waiting around to burst into a virulent rash, along with grotesque nodules, was even less appealing than this, he muttered, “Fuck it,” then chucked the free end of the rope out the window, letting it droop almost fully to the ground.
Turning around with his back to the glass, he knelt on all fours, then backed up to the open casement. Slowly, carefully, he lowered himself past the sill, dropping his feet down the exterior wall. Once he’d gone out far enough to be off-balance, he caught the sheet rope in his hands, grimacing at the sound of cheap thread counts snapping with his sudden weight.
Back in his college years, he’d rappelled pretty frequently, one of many outdoor activities he’d enjoyed. While by no means an expert, and of late, fairly rusty at the art, he still felt fairly confident that he could get down from the window. If the line holds, he thought, not possessing this same faith in his rope-making ability.
As he slowly lowered himself down, he tried to balance his weight between his arms, which quickly began to feel the brunt of the strain, and his feet, which he planted against the wall so he could walk, of a sort, down the outside façade. The parking lot below was quiet and still, draped in alternating patches of stark glow and shadows from security lights, and Andrew felt very exposed and vulnerable as he dangled in perfectly plain sight of anyone who might happen to pass by. Once he reached the ground, he managed a shaky, astonished laugh.
Holy shit, I made it!
Then he realized there was no way to hide, disguise or remove the rope from the side of the building. The bright white cotton sheets looked damn near aglow in the proscenium of nearby lights, like a neon sign, a big fat arrow pointing down, declaring, HE WENT THAT-A-WAY.
Shit.
But there was nothing to be done about it, unless he wanted to climb back up the way he’d gone down and somehow try to re-rig a line that would be both secure enough to get him to the ground, but loose enough to come undone once he got there.
Not going to happen.
Sticking to the shadows, he crept to the entrance of the compound building and ducked beneath the concrete overhang. He glanced across the parking lot to the garage, wondering briefly if he should go and get Alice.
No. He shook his head. She’s locked in that closet. No one can get in, so she’s safe for the time being. It’s Dani I need to worry about.
Hunched over the entry key pad, he punched in his pass code, then frowned when the light remained red, the front doors locked.
“Shit,” he said. They’d locked him out of everything. After a moment’s consideration, he laughed. I know Moore’s code.
Feeling triumphantly smug, he punched in one-zero, one-zero.
Nothing happened.
“What the hell?” he said, typing in the numbers again, moving slowly, making sure he pressed each key on the pad firmly inward.
Still no luck. Either Moore had figured out that Andrew was clued in on his personal code, or he’d changed it after discovering that Alice knew it, too. With a groan, he stepped back, shoved his hand through his hair.
Now what? He weighed his options. Alice could crack the door code. She’d figured out her father’s easily enough. But if I get her, then she’s vulnerable again. If she’s with me, she could get caught.
He frowned, studying the key pad.
Daddy always chooses binary numbers, using only zeroes or ones, Alice had told him. He says they’re easier to remember.
She’d said that meant Moore had only eight possible four-digit code combinations to choose from. He’d already found out that the one she’d been using—one-zero, one-zero—no longer worked. Which means there are only seven choices left, Andrew realized.
Standing at the key pad again, he frowned. I can do this, he thought. I’ve got a Master’s degree, for Christ’s sake. I can guess seven goddamn numbers.
His finger hovered uncertainly over the zero, then he began to type. Okay, he told himself. The decimal system is a base-ten, meaning there are ten possible digits that can be combined, zero through nine. Binary’s a base-two system, meaning every single number can be expressed only with the numerals one or zero. When counting with decimals, when you get to nine, you move up to the next place value and start all over again at zero. In binary, you do the same, except it happens when you get to one.
How long ago had he learned this shit? Five years ago? Seven? Ten? He had no idea and struggled to recall. When you get to one, you add a place value in. So zero in decimal is zero in binary. One in decimal is one in binary. Two in decimal is one-zero in binary. Three in decimal is one-one in binary. Four is one-one-zero. Which means…
Which meant there weren’t any four-digit binary numbers until you counted to eight, which in base-two was one-zero, zero-zero.
Andrew punched this into the key pad. The light remained red.
Okay. No problem. Let’s try nine. Which would be… He paused, frowning, trying to remember. One-zero, zero-one.
He typed this in. The light stayed red. The door stayed locked.
“Shit,” he muttered. This is taking too long. Any minute now, someone’s going to walk through the foyer and see me.
Binary ten had been Moore’s previous code—one-zero, one-zero—so Andrew skipped it now and moved on to eleven: one-zero, one-one.
Still no luck.
“Shit!” It was cold outside and he was wearing nothing but a T-shirt and sweat pants. Goosebumps had raised all along his arms and he shivered, his breath huffing out in a thin, moist haze around his head.
Twelve, then, he thought. Let’s try twelve. If eleven is one-oh, one-one, that means you move up a value, so it’s…
He struggled to think, then jammed his finger into the key pad. One-one, zero-zero.
So convinced that this sequence, too, wouldn’t work, he didn’t even realize at first that it had, that the light had turned green and the snact! he heard was actually the door unlocking. After a moment of bewildered surprise, it sank in and with an incredulous laugh, he grabbed the door handle, swinging it open wide.
He didn’t get more than three steps past the threshold, however, before an alarm claxon began to sound. Shrill and pulsating, it ripped through the interior of the barracks and sent Andrew scrambling for cover, hands clapped to his ears. “Shit!”
He could hear the heavy patter of footsteps, combat boots rushing toward him and down the stairs from the second floor. Shit!
He thought of ducking back outside, then decided against it, running instead down the nearest corridor. The footsteps behind him drew closer now, and panicked, he skidded to a stop at the first door he happened upon. It was locked and he tugged frantically, futilely on the handle for a moment before remembering he’d cracked Moore’s access code.
Managing a bark of humorless laughter at his own stupidity, he hurriedly punched the four digits into the key pad, jerked the door open wide and darted inside. There was a small rectangular window near the top of the door, level with his view, and when a group of soldiers suddenly rushed past, responding to the alarm, Andrew shrank back. He hit something behind him, something heavy, solid and apparently on wheels, because he slapped it with his hand then felt it roll away, sending him staggering backwards, off-balance.