“Did they poison you? Drug you?” I ask Charlene urgently.
“They gave me something.” She’s coherent at least, not out of it. At least not yet. Her eyes go to her arm where I assume they must have injected her. “I don’t know what.”
This isn’t happening, this can’t be happening!
“It’s going to be okay,” I tell her, using the phrase that will give Xavier the signal to come in alone. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
My friend would hear that through the radio.
They might have some surprises on their side, but we have at least one on ours.
Xavier was waiting at the base of the escalator, phone ready to call the police, when he heard Jevin’s words through the radio receiver assuring Charlene that she would be alright.
That meant he was to come in alone.
The door in front of him was locked.
But Jevin wasn’t the only one who knew how to pick a lock.
I face Akinsanya. “What did you mean, the codes for the antidote? What did you give her?”
He’s still in the dark. I can’t see his face.
“Dalpotol, for what it’s worth. She’s a slim woman. Based on her body size and the dosage, I’d say she has maybe four minutes left, maybe less. Now, tell me what I want to know.”
You need to get that antidote.
If you tell him the codes, any number of people might die!
But if I say nothing, Charlene will.
The stage lights come on and I see a man sitting on the scuba divers’ platform. Short-cropped, dark hair. Stocky. Late fifties. He’s holding a syringe. Akinsanya. “You don’t have a lot of time to deliberate this decision. Don’t make a choice you’re going to regret.”
The drones are armed.
Charlene’s life.
Or handing over a drone to a terrorist.
Suddenly I wish I hadn’t memorized that code, then I wouldn’t have to decide.
But I had.
And I remember it.
“How do I know that’s really the antidote?”
“It is. That’s one thing I wouldn’t deceive you about.”
I’m about to reply when Xavier’s voice comes from the shadows behind the cop who wheeled Charlene onto the stage. “Nobody move. I have a crossbow aimed at this man’s back.”
Plunge
“They drugged her, Xavier,” I call to him.
“I heard.”
“We need—”
The sound of a gunshot rips through the auditorium, another rifle shot from the lighting booth.
The cop Xavier is aiming the crossbow at jerks backward as the back of his head blows apart in a ferocious red spray from the bullet’s exit wound.
His body drops limply to the stage.
Charlene cries out and Xavier stares dumbfounded at the corpse.
“Put down the crossbow,” Akinsanya says calmly. “I didn’t need him. I need you even less.”
A second cop appears from behind the curtain and pulls a gun on Xavier. “He told you to set down the crossbow.”
Xavier looks my direction and I nod for him to comply.
He lowers it to the stage, bolt still in it, and kicks it toward the curtain.
As I’m trying to sort out what just happened, Charlene gasps and starts convulsing.
“No!” I rush to her side.
“That’s not a good sign,” Akinsanya tells me. “You have maybe three minutes. But I wouldn’t guarantee—”
“Alright. I’ll tell ’em to you. Give me the antidote.” I put my hand behind Charlene’s neck to support her. Her breathing is strained, her fingers clenched.
“First the launch codes.”
You can’t give him the codes!
You have to!
The officer signals with his gun for Xavier to move toward center stage, and they walk past me.
Charlene’s eyes roll back in her head and she begins to make harsh gasping sounds.
“I’ll do it!” I whip around and face Akinsanya. “Write this down!”
He has his cell phone out. “Take it slowly. I don’t want to make a mistake and have to reenter this. That would take time. And time is the one thing you don’t have.”
Concentrating, focusing, trying not to let my concern for Charlene distract me, I tell him the thirty-five-digit alphanumeric code that was written in Dr. Turnisen’s notebook.
Fred Anders stood at the security checkpoint trying to explain what had happened to his walkie-talkie when he heard the harsh swish of the UAV rush past overhead.
A drone had taken off.
The test flight had begun.
“Now, the antidote,” I shout. “Give it to me.”
Akinsanya holds a syringe above the tank. “Happy swimming.”
“No!”
He drops it in, and as I race toward the steps that lead up to the platform where he’s standing, I track the movement of the syringe.
I have no idea if it’ll float or not. Syringes are hollow, but if it’s full enough it might sink. And that would be very bad, because I’d inevitably kick up sand going in after it and finding it then might take too long to save Charlene.
Akinsanya sets down the iPad and the phone, then stands at the top of the platform waiting for me.
It looks like before I can get to the needle I’ll need to get through him.
Alright then.
Let’s do this.
As I rush past Xavier and the second police officer, I hear the man say, “My partner’s dead and I’m holding you responsible. Please, give me an excuse to shoot you.”
“Does this count?”
Out of the corner of my eye I see Xavier whip out Betty.
As I reach the spiral stairs that lead up to the platform, I hear a gunshot and the sizzle of the Taser go off almost simultaneously.
A glance back tells me Xavier is still on his feet.
There’s still someone in the back of the room. Someone with the rifle.
But at the moment I’m not as worried about that as I am about getting the antidote for Charlene.
I take the stairs two at a time, and when I reach the top, Akinsanya is waiting for me.
I go at him with a crescent kick, which he effortlessly blocks. He lands a crippling punch to my side and I almost stumble backward off the platform. It’s nearly a fifteen-foot drop to the floor.
I take a swing at him, an uppercut, which he also deflects. The needle dips and tilts downward. “It’s getting interesting now, isn’t it, Mr. Banks?”
“What happened to your lip?”
“I had a feisty woman slap me at dinner.”
I have an idea and punch him, going for the lip and connecting with his nose, but he brings an elbow down hard on the back of my neck, sending me sprawling to the platform.
“I don’t think you can beat me, Jevin. It looks like this time you lose.”
Beyond him the needle is beginning to sink into the water. Piranhas are circling it curiously.
No. You can’t let it go down!
Blood is pouring from his nose. I might have broken it. “I don’t have to beat you. Your face is bleeding.”
“A little blood never hurt anyone.”
“You haven’t been in a piranha tank recently, have you?”
Climbing to my feet and rushing forward, I grab him and both of us hurtle off the platform and into the water.
He fights fiercely to get free, but I hold him under long enough for the fish to find his face. With my other hand I go for the syringe, but it’s bobbing and floating awkwardly in the water and I can’t get ahold of it while I’m fighting with Akinsanya.