“Release the nanos in the elevator wells,” the tall man ordered. “Include the . . . what do you call them . . . blue-collar elevators?”
“Service elevators,” someone answered.
“Turn loose nanos in all of them. She may not be riding one of them, but there are ladders in those shafts. They could be climbing.”
“Nanos released in all the elevator wells,” came back.
Half a minute later, they got their answer. “Sir. It can’t be, but one of the elevators is moving.”
“Turn off its power,” the tall man snapped.
“It is off, sir,” a worker bee said, hitting a button on his desk over and over again. “My board says there is no power to any of the elevators, but the nanos show elevator F-3 moving. It’s a service elevator covering the upper floors, sir.”
“Nelly’s doing, I’ll bet you,” Leslie Chu whispered from beside Foile.
The tall man in the black uniform left the command desk and walked aside for a few steps, signaling Foile to join him.
“She may be brilliant, and her computer may be able to let her walk on water, but that damn princess is going to get herself killed.”
“How?” Foile asked.
“When we lost power, Alexander Longknife lifted off the penthouse in an armed helicopter. He is no longer in the building, so if this young woman wants to talk to him, she came to the wrong place.”
“Oh,” said Foile. So the princess had failed. That still didn’t kill her.
“When he abandoned the penthouse, the third, fourth, and fifth floors below him were flooded with Sarin gas. Is that princess of yours equipped for that?”
“She is not my princess, but, no, I doubt she is.” Foile also wanted to know what exception to the laws of war and civil matters gave Al Longknife access to such gas. That question would have to wait.
“I must talk to the Longknife princess,” Senior Chief Agent in Charge Foile said bluntly.
“Christian, do we have anything like a public-address system left to us?” the tall man asked the tall woman.
“We are supposed to, Karl, but nothing is working according to specs tonight.”
Both of them looked out over the work floor, and their eyes came to rest on the young woman who’d first insisted on their fallibility.
“My board says it’s available. I won’t know for sure until someone uses it.”
Karl handed Foile a mike. “Press the button on the side to talk. If you don’t want everyone in the building to hear what you’re saying, let up on the button.”
“Lets hope a certain determined young woman can hear what I’m saying.”
Foile took a deep breath and punched the button.
“Princess Kristine, I need to talk to you. This is Taylor Foile, I’m with the Wardhaven Bureau of Investigation, and if you and your friends want to be alive five minutes from now, you need to listen to what I have to say.”
36
Kris eyed Jack. “Do you know any Taylor Foile of the WBI?��� she asked him.
“Nope. Do you?” he asked Penny.
“Never heard of him.”
“Well, he seems to know me,” Kris said. “Nelly, how are you getting this? I thought you were off net.”
“I am, except for stuff I make myself or where I’m so close to a poor little brain that I can overpower it. This is coming in on a 911 channel. It’s open to everyone.”
“Do we want to talk to him?” Kris asked.
“It will give away our location,” Jack, Penny, and Nelly said, all at once.
“So, we wait to see if he goes on,” Kris concluded.
About that time, Taylor Foile must have gotten tired of waiting and went on. “Princess Kristine, your father asked me to find you before anyone got hurt. Specifically, before you got killed. I see that you are using the sleepy darts my assistant, Agent Leslie Chu, by the way, a major fan of yours, pried out of the wood beam you shot them into.”
“Fans everywhere,” Penny said with a sigh. “I hope she didn’t help.”
“Of course she did,” Jack said. “It’s her job.”
“Shush,” Kris said.
“None of the people you shot are in any danger,” the voice from Nelly went on. “The worse charges that might be placed against you are use of a false identity and being a public nuisance. A major public nuisance and a real pain in my rear end.”
“I don’t think he likes me,” Kris said.
“Would you like you if you’d been one step behind us since we landed?” Penny pointed out.
Kris nodded agreement.
“I’ve been one step behind you since you landed,” the WBI man admitted. “But you have got to stop running. Stop right now.”
“What does he know that we don’t?” Jack asked.
Kris frowned. What could Grampa Al have up his sleeve?
“You made a mistake turning off the lights, Princess Kristine,” the voice said. “When the building lost power, your grandfather had a helicopter lift him off from his penthouse. If my guess is right, and this entire affair is your effort to talk with your grandfather, it’s not going to happen.”
Jack started to punch STOP, but Kris stopped him.
“What is it about you Longknifes?” Penny drawled. “You’ll order anyone around, but a simple family talk, not so much.”
“Honey,” Jack whispered softly, “if he’s flown the coop, there’s no reason for us to keep going.”
“I’m not sure I believe him,” Kris snapped, and again pushed Jack’s hand away from the STOP button.
“Worst for you and your friends,” the voice went on, “when he left, he flooded three of the five floors below his penthouse with Sarin gas.”
Kris hit the STOP button. Jack and Penny’s hands slapped down on top of hers a fraction of a second later.
The elevator rumbled to a halt at floor 183.
“What’s your granddad doing throwing Sarin gas around in a public building?” Penny demanded.
“It’s a Longknife thing,” Jack scowled.
“I didn’t know anything about Sarin,” Kris said defensively. “I was prepared for tear gas, and even that stuff that makes you vomit.” She was. Among all their fake flab were breather hoods. They were wearing gloves. They were prepared for a lot. Just not a gas that killed you if a single drop got onto your skin.
“Princess Kristine,” the WBI man continued, “you’ve gotten through a lot. But it only means you now have to come down through even more. Everyone is ready for you. There are a lot of guns down here, and unlike yours, none of them shoot sleepy darts.” He paused to give that time to seep in.
“Please, for your father’s and mother’s sake, surrender yourselves. I have a warrant for your arrest. The judge must have owed your father quite a favor to sign something so unbelievably vague, but I do have a warrant. If you surrender to me, I can get you out of here, and very likely there’ll be a judge waiting for you. You can be released on your own recognizance and be having breakfast tomorrow, make that this morning, with your Grampa Trouble. I had a most unenlightening talk with the old guy. He told me nothing, except that he was pretty sure no one was going to kill you. I didn’t know about the Sarin gas then. I wonder what he’d say now.”
“He’d say no one should have any Sarin,” Jack snarled.
Kris took a deep breath. She’d never been face-to-face with defeat like this. Every brick wall she’d met before she’d managed go over, around, under, or turn to rubble.
This brick wall looked pretty solidly in her face.
Dejected like never before, she turned to Jack. “I wonder,” she said, “do you think they’d let us share a cell?”
“I don’t think it will matter,” Jack said with one of his lopsided grins. “I don’t perform well on camera, and I doubt they’ll ever let the three of us go anywhere where there weren’t two, no three people, watching us on security screens every second for the rest of our lives.”
“Face it, Kris,” Penny said, “unless you have some way for us to fly out of here, we’ve trapped ourselves.”