Where are you, dammit?
He grabbed the coatrack rod and twisted it. He felt a solid click but nothing happened.
Forty.
He thought for a moment and then looked back. “Everyone in, quick!”
There was more than enough room inside for all of them, giving Ash confidence his hunch was right.
Chloe entered last.
“Close the door,” he told her.
Fifty.
As she shut it, the closet plunged into darkness. Ash turned the rod again. This time, when it clicked into place, the back wall slid to the side, revealing a stairway.
“Down, down, down,” he yelled as he sprinted toward the basement.
The door to the auxiliary tunnel stood at the other end of the empty room. As Ash ran up to it, he knew their promised minute had passed and hoped Caleb had been able to extend the time.
He punched the code Mahajan had provided into the pad next to the door. There was a slight pause when he finished before the lock disengaged and the door swung open.
He let the others in first, then entered, and pulled the door shut.
He called Caleb. “Well?”
“Kicked us out at eighty-two.”
That was dangerously close to the time Ash had counted. “Was it enough?”
“With six seconds to spare.”
Was it possible? Celeste wondered. Were things finally calming down?
She was reluctant to let herself believe that, but several bases were reporting they were no longer under attack. Granted, some facilities had not checked in yet, but she was unwilling to add them to the lost list at this point.
And, of course, the best news was that Dream Sky appeared to be intact and in the Project’s hands again.
Perhaps they had weathered the storm.
Her hand began to shake. She moved it onto her lap and held it down with the other. Her system was just a bit out of whack, that’s all. She’d be fine once things were fully back to normal and she could get some rest.
Which, she told herself, would be anytime now.
The tunnel led to a subbasement below the high rise housing NB016.
It was a ten-foot-square concrete box with only two ways in or out — the tunnel they had just used and the elevator on the opposite wall. Before entering, Ash and those who had an electronic disrupter turned it on, disabling any cameras.
The Project, Mahajan had said, controlled the top seven floors of the twenty-two-story building. The most important floor was at the very top. It was not only the nerve center of the base but also of the Project itself, and was where Ash and his team would find Director Johnson. By design, though, the elevator in front of them would take them only up to sixteen, the Project’s lowest level.
There was no button to call the elevator, just a thumbprint scanner. Caleb had been unable to insert Ash’s print into the Project’s system, but he was able to change Wicks’s ID from DECEASED to ACTIVE.
A white strip of light passed down the screen as soon as Wicks put his thumb on the pad. Barely a second passed before they heard the soft hum of a motor, and then the sound of the elevator nearing.
Security control was located on floor eighteen. Like its counterparts at most Project bases, the dominant feature was a wall of monitors.
Glendon and Evra, both level-three security officers, sat in the chairs, watching the screens. The two main monitors rotated through feeds from cameras located throughout the interior of the base. Other, less important feeds filled smaller monitors off to either side.
The only thing unusual they’d seen that morning was the heightened activity up on twenty-two. They were curious as to what was up, but knew they’d likely never be told and would have to rely on rumors.
Evra noted a change in one of the monitors he was responsible for, and frowned. The image had turned into static. “Camera down,” he said.
Glendon glanced over. “Which one?”
“Subbasement elevator.”
Evra turned to his computer and used it to remotely reboot the camera, but the static remained. He checked the elevator’s electrical system, thinking there might be a short. Instead, he found the elevator in use.
“Did someone get clearance to go down there?” he asked.
Glendon shook his head. “Nothing came through me.”
“Well, either it’s moving on its own or someone’s in it.”
Glendon wheeled his chair over so he could see Evra’s monitor. The display showed the car nearing the top of its run.
Evra brought up the feed from the sixteenth-floor camera trained on the elevator door. But as the door began to open, the feed suddenly filled with the same static as the camera inside the elevator.
Evra leaned forward. “What the hell?”
“Play it back,” Glendon said. “Slow.”
Evra reversed the footage to just before it cut out, and then played it at quarter speed. As the doors split, a black circle about the size of a half dollar flipped through the opening. The moment it cleared the door, the feed stopped.
Glendon reached across the counter but before he could slam his palm down on the alarm, more cameras on sixteen began winking out.
The Resistance team was already out of the elevator and moving down the hall when the alarm began to wail.
It was expected, so no one even flinched when the noise started.
Caleb had reported that the facility’s plans showed five ways up from sixteen — a set of elevators on the opposite side of the floor, and stairwells in each of the four corners.
The alarm eliminated the already unlikely option of using the elevators. The team hurried toward the nearest stairwell. The alarm also brought people out of rooms and into the hall. When several of them noticed Ash’s team heading their way, their initial confusion turned to panic. Most ran in the other direction, while others pressed against the walls as if doing so would make them disappear.
Ash and the others granted their wish and rushed by them with barely a glance. Upon reaching the stairway door, Ash threw it open and stood to the side while Omar and Chloe made a visual check.
“Clear,” Chloe said.
“Clear,” Omar agreed.
Bwaamp. Bwaamp. Bwaamp.
Celeste sprang from her chair. “Why is that going off? Who set that off?”
“I’m not sure,” Dalton said, troubled. “Checking.”
Celeste tried to call Kleinman, head of security, but the line was busy. As she slammed the phone down in frustration, she had to force herself not to cover her ears to block out the alarm.
“Will someone shut that goddamn thing off?”
Evra tried to find a shot of those who’d exited the elevator, but the cameras kept going haywire, one after another, then coming back on only after the next one in line went out.
“We’re not sure,” Glendon was saying into the phone. Supervisor Kleinman had called and demanded answers within seconds of the alarms going off. Glendon looked over at Evra. “Have you found a shot of them yet?”
“No,” Evra said. “The cameras are—”
Suddenly the last static feed switched back to normal, revealing an empty portion of the corridor.
Where’d they go?
Evra switched from feed to feed to feed, but no one was in any of the shots. He rechecked the path the affected cameras had traced. The last to go out had been the farthest from the elevators.
Oh, crap.
“They’re in the west fire stairwell!”
The team went up the stairs side by side, weapons drawn, Ash and Chloe in the lead.