Fasca’s excited voice brought me back. “I found something, it’s like a safety strap. I’ll try to get it around you.”
It looked like an oversized leash with a heavy clasp at one end. He quickly slung it around my arm, clipped it to itself, forming a lasso, and then lowered the loop to the middle of my chest.
“Put your left arm through it, so I can snug it up to your armpit.”
I did as he asked and felt the comforting bite of the strap against my body. Still looking up, I saw Fasca stand and straddle the hole, his legs braced for my weight, the strap snaking across the back of his neck and shoulders.
“Okay, now listen. When I tell you, let go with your right hand and lower that arm-fast. I don’t want this thing slipping off. Ready?”
I was, intellectually, but nothing happened with my hand. I could no longer feel it, much less control it. My whole body was given over to pain and exhaustion. I shut my eyes.
“Now.”
It worked, although I don’t recall how. There was a sudden drop, a great tightening around my chest. Fasca grunted once, loudly, as if he’d been hit by a branch, and I remember swaying, as I’d enjoyed doing as a child from high in a tree.
Fasca’s strangled voice barked out, “Grab on,” moments later, and I reopened my eyes to see the edge of the hole at eye level. My right arm throbbing, I hooked my left onto the grid and began hefting myself on board. Duncan stopped pulling on the strap and quickly grabbed the back of my belt. With a final heave, he dumped me like a duffel bag at his feet.
He collapsed sprawling onto the catwalk. “Jesus H. Christ. That was close.”
“Radio,” I whispered weakly.
He shook his head in anger. “Damn,” and grabbed a portable from his pocket. As soon as he turned it on, we heard Audrey saying, “He’s gone back in. Joe? Duncan? You there? Come in.”
Fasca keyed the mike. “Audrey. You see Lenny? He clobbered us and split.”
Still flexing my right hand, I turned on my own radio and added, “Call for backup. Aggravated assault of an officer. Is he still in the building?”
“Yeah,” Audrey answered. “He came barreling out the front door, saw me, and ducked back in.”
“Okay. Stay put ’til reinforcements come, then check out the lobby and foyer. Duncan and I’ll start working down from the grid.”
I directed Duncan to the nearby ladder running down to the stage below, while I returned the way we’d come, sweeping the area as I went with my penlight. By the time I reached the short ladder to the staircase, my arm, though painful, had regained its feeling and mobility.
I first checked out the control room at the top of the stairs, where I found people manning computers and lighting equipment, and from where the stage could be seen through a row of thick glass windows. No one there had seen Lenny go by.
Returning to the mezzanine, I quickly ran up the aisle alongside the deserted seats, looking for anybody who might be curled up on the floor. After finding myself alone, I used the radio again. “Audrey, it’s Joe.”
“Go ahead. The lobby and foyer are clear.”
“Same with the grid, the control room, and the mezzanine. Is the building sealed off?”
“People’re coming from all over. I have an idea, though. Meet me just inside the performance hall doors.”
I quickly descended the last flight of stairs and found her standing by a small hatch, much like the one we’d taken to the grid, mounted halfway up the wall.
“Where’s this lead?” I asked.
“It’s like the grid in reverse-they call it the plenum. It’s a crawl space between the floor and the dirt, used to circulate air-1930s ventilation technology. It’s got fans big enough to replace all the air in the building in three minutes.”
She pulled on the handle and swung it open. Immediately, I heard and felt the rush of a steady wind sucking by the door. “And it’s unlocked, which it shouldn’t be.”
She hopped up onto the threshold, reached inside and hit a light switch. Before me was an enormous concrete chamber, gray, featureless, and about four feet high, stretching away in a downward curve as far as I could see. The dirt floor, covered in thick plastic sheets, alternated between broad avenues leading in the direction of the stage, and six-foot-deep trenches that ran alongside.
“Those are for any water runoff,” Audrey explained, “in case of flood or whatever. I bet my butt he went through here. There’s a door connecting it to the fan room.”
I hesitated, although I liked the notion that I couldn’t fall any distance from here. “Are the two of us going to be enough?”
She was already swinging her legs inside. “Sure. It’s wide open and well lit.”
I climbed up beside her as she updated the others by radio. It was true that by simply walking the entire breadth of the building stooped over, we could check on the ditches just as I had the rows of seats in the mezzanine-and with similar results. The difference in environment, however, was considerable. Where the first had been lofty, dark, elegant, and filled with music, the plenum was claustrophobic, starkly lit, and energized by a dry, odorless, virtually soundless wind. I felt I’d stepped from an opulent prior century into the vision of a lifeless future.
Audrey eventually led the way downslope to the chamber’s back wall, and to another door next to a large wire-mesh window. Here the wind was at its most powerful, being sucked from around us in a steady, dull cyclone, lifting our hair and riffling our clothes, drawn through the opening by an enormous, ancient impeller fan that moved in a blur, but emitted no more sound than the element it was consuming.
Audrey drew open the door, ushered me through, and followed me into a bare cement room dominated by the fan. Over our heads, in place of a ceiling, was a louvered panel through which the air was pushed around the rest of the building. We left the room via a solid steel door and found ourselves standing, incongruously disheveled, in a brightly lit, silent, cement-walled hallway.
Audrey spoke in a whisper. “The way things stand now, the top, the bottom, and the front of the building have been checked. I’ve sent people in to clear the main hall and business offices. Duncan and Jonathon’re covering the area above and behind the stage. That leaves this area.” She gestured around us. “Three floors of hallways, dressing areas, utility rooms, and Christ knows what else, all tucked under the stage. We’re at the bottom now. I figure if we just head up floor by floor, room by room, we can squeeze him between us and the people up top.”
I merely nodded as she radioed the others, enjoying being a part of someone else’s attack plan. I assumed the pain in my shoulder would disappear in time, but I was happy to be one of the soldiers for once.
Audrey’s strategy worked well for the floor we were on. It had a single staircase heading up at the far end of the hallway, so we were able to cover one another during the room-to-room search. The next floor, however, proved another matter.
Reaching it, Audrey explained, “Two halls, two staircases, a shitload of rooms. This and the one above are where most of the action is when things are up and running. I’ll take the far end and work this way. You start from here and meet me. Keep your radio handy.”
I was too slow reacting. I didn’t like her proposal and knew it wasn’t necessary. If Lenny was stuck between us and the others, it meant time and patience were on our side. Flooding the next two floors with people as they became available was the prudent course. But fatigue had kicked in, creating a numbing submissiveness. I merely watched her trot down the hall and vanish through a fire door without saying a word.
Once she was gone, however, doubt became apprehension. All the standard protocols had been overwhelmed by spontaneity and a crisis mentality. I knew that with extra personnel already spreading throughout the building, calm would soon be restored, probably with the arrival of a senior officer. I’d been beaned by Lenny’s spotlight barely fifteen minutes ago, after all, not long in the life of an emergency. I could even hear the music still reverberating throughout the building.