“We wait,” I told Martin.
“Like fat lambs in a slaughter pen?” he demanded. He sounded as though he didn’t care for the idea.
“Like beaver in an aspen forest,” I tried to sooth him. “Until they search the building and satisfy themselves there’s nothing wrong. There never was an alarm system in the world that didn’t kick itself off accidentally at some time or other, and eventually the security guards and the police will conclude that’s what happened now.”
Martin shook his head dubiously. More voices could be heard outside the vault. They seemed to be shouting at each other. Some were close to the vault door, and some sounded as though they were reaching us through the hole in the wall of the elevator shaft. This was confirmed when the elevator started upward suddenly with a grinding noise.
When it was a floor above us, I leaned out through the hole in the vault’s steel liner and aimed my light downward into the shaft. The debris at the bottom didn’t appear at all unusual. There’s often a lot of construction rubble at the base of such shafts, and this one had obviously had quite a bit before we added our contribution. Bricks, boards, mortar, and miscellaneous waste surrounded the large shock absorber in the pit.
Excited voices aboard the elevator harangued each other in biting tones. “They’re going to search every floor,” Martin translated for me. The elevator rose still higher, and we could hear a jumble of voices rising and falling as the order was carried out.
Martin was listening intently as the voices from the shaft called back and forth to each other. “How long is this damned commotion going to last?” he asked irritably.
“Not much longer,” I said confidently. “They’ll get tired of playing hide-and-seek. We’ll have plenty of time before the regular staff turns up for duty in the morning.” I beamed my light around the corners of the vault until I located a steel-strapped box that looked like a money chest. I sat down on it and rested my back gratefully against a wall patterned with wooden as well as metal four-drawer files. The contents of each drawer was identified by a tab on its front.
Time has no measurement in total darkness. I don’t know how long we waited in silence before the sound of voices diminished outside the vault. It didn’t matter; we weren’t going anywhere until they were gone. Martin’s groping hand found my knee in the dark. “I’m curious,” he said softly. “What alternate plan do you have if something goes wrong and we don’t get out of this vault before the building opens in the morning and the elevators start running, pinning us in here?”
“Simple,” I assured him. “I’ll jam the vault’s timing mechanism from inside here. I’ll jimmy it so badly that it’ll take technicians a couple of days to open that ten-ton door. If the door can’t be opened, no one will know we’re here. If it comes to that, we’ll go out over the roof again after the building closes tonight, even if someone is working on the other side of the door. Our transportation will be standing by at the rendezvous point once every twenty-four hours of the next two days. It’s supposed to hold in place for a maximum of two hours each time. We’ll just have to hustle a bit more to meet that schedule if we get tied up an extra day.”
“My God,” gasped Martin. “I forgot. Willow—?”
“Don’t worry. She was off the roof and away at the sound of the very first alarm. She won’t be back until all these snoopers have gone. We’re depending on her giving us the ‘all clear’ to come back up to the roof when we’re ready to go.”
Martin rapped my leg. “Sounds pretty quiet now.”
I agreed. I knew the active search was over when the three elevators were returned to the basement level so that part of the alarm system triggered by their movement could be reset. That had occurred some time ago.
I turned on the penlight and stood up. With Martin looking over my shoulder, I examined the file drawer labels. The contents’ description was written in both Vietnamese and French.
I wished we had brought a truck. The drawers were loaded with classified intelligence data. Finding the American POW list was almost anticlimactic for me; it was a highly emotional experience for Martin. His visibly trembling fingers held it like it was the original Holy Grail. The file folder contained 20 pages listing nearly 800 names of MIAs. The closely typed lines bearing U.S. servicemen’s identity and disposition were held in reverence by the wet-eyed, tight-lipped general. “Let’s go,” he said softly.
“Not yet,” I countermanded. I reached into the satchel for a waterproof plastic bag and began stuffing it with hastily extracted documents from the file drawers. I had to be selective, taking only what I recognized as extremely unique material. The CIA couldn’t reap this kind of intelligence harvest in Hanoi with a hundred trained agents working at it all year. When I had packed as much as could safely be carried and concealed, I handed the bag to Martin.
I then returned to the entrance hole we had made in the back of the vault carrying a heavy twelve-inch screwdriver taken from the remaining tool bag. The magnets holding the elevator’s loosened back wall panel were too strong for me to pull away with my hands. I pried them free with the long screwdriver, shoving the panel out of the way.
I stepped into the cab. Martin followed right behind. I pushed open the emergency door in the cab’s roof and pulled myself up through the opening with Martin assisting me from below. I helped him up in turn by first relieving him of the document-filled sack, then giving him a hand so he could join me on the elevator roof.
The long climb up the steel ladder to the top of the shaft was like scaling Mount Everest. When I reached the top, I tapped lightly on the removable metal panel and waited for a response.
None came. I rapped again, a bit harder. Still no reply from Willow.
Using the long screwdriver, I eased out the single screw I’d left to hold the loosened inspection panel in place, then pushed aside the square of metal. I stuck the upper part of my body through the opening with my feet still on the ladder rungs. No sight of Willow. I leaned forward and gently cracked open the outer door of the small structure housing the elevator mechanism.
It was still dark outside, but not the total blackness of several hours ago. A tinge of gray in the eastern sky marked the coming dawn. Everything seemed quiet on the rooftop. I took a relieved breath and raised a foot to the next ladder rung.
And then through the crack I saw a dim figure at the farthest perimeter of the roof.
It wasn’t Willow.
The heavy, dark face of an armed soldier in uniform appeared in the quick glow of a lighted cigarette being inhaled while held in a cupped hand.
Twenty
The face leaning into the lighted match bent lower and lower until it crashed into the roof. Willow stood over the crumpled soldier, waiting for some sign of life. With her knife shoved up to its hilt so its blade severed the man’s left carotid artery and sliced through his trachea, he was dead before his knees had folded under him.
“I had to do it,” she said regretfully. “There was no other way.”
I knew what she meant. The mess we had left behind the vault would not be discovered for some time. The roof guard, however, would soon be missed. “Just leave him,” I said. “Every second counts now.”
Martin kneeled down next to the body. He extracted the knife, wiped the blade on the dead man’s tunic, then pocketed it. He lifted a limp arm and pulled loose the soldier’s Russian AX-47 rapid-fire automatic and slung it over his shoulder. “How did you get behind him?” he asked Willow. “He was standing at the edge of the roof.”
She pointed over the edge. Four feet down was a five inch ledge that ran the length of the building. No one said anything.