"Maybe he won't run when he hears the bells. After all, we know his
name. He might hang on, kill us, sneak out past the firemen."
"He might," Graham agreed, unsettled by the thought of being stalked
through dark halls full of clanging, banging bells.
They stared through the glass at the steel alarm lever that glinted in
the red light.
He felt hope, like a muscle relaxant, relieve a fraction of the tension
in his shoulders, neck and face. For the first time all night, he began
to think they might escape.
Then he remembered the vision. The bullet. The blood. He was going to
be shot in the back.
She said, "The alarms will probably be so loud that we won't hear him if
he comes after us."
"But it works both ways," he said eagerly. "He won't be able to hear
us.
She pressed her fingertips to the cool plate of glass, hesitated, then
took her hand away. "Okay. But there's no little hammer to break the
glass." She held up the lag iL chain that was supposed to secure a
hammer to the side of the alarm. "What do we use instead?"
Smiling, he took the scissors from his pocket and held them up as if
they were a talisman.
"Applause, applause," she said, beginning to feel just enough hope to
allow herself a little joke.
"Thank you."
"Be careful," she said.
"Stand back."
She did.
Graham held the scissors by the closed blades. Using the heavy handles
as a hammer, he smashed the thin glass. A few pieces held stubbornly to
the frame. So as not to cut himself, he broke out the jagged splinters
before he put one hand into the shallow alarm box and jerked the steel
lever from green to red.
No noise.
No bells.
Silence.
Christ!
"Oh, no," she said.
Frantically, the flame of hope flickering in him, he pushed the lever
up, back to the green safety mark, then slammed it down again.
Still nothing.
Bollinger had been as thorough with the fire alarm as he had been with
the telephones.
The wipers swept back and forth, clearing the snow from the windshield.
The rhythmic thump-thumptbump was getting on his nerves.
Billy glanced over his shoulder, through the rear window, at the green
garage door, then at the other three doors.
The time was 10: 15.
Where in the hell was Dwight?
Graham and Connie went to the magazine's art department in search of a
knife and other sharp draftsmen's tools that would make better weapons
than the scissors. He found a pair of razor-edged scalpel-like
instruments in the center drawer of the art director's big metal desk.
When he looked up from the drawer, he saw that Connie was lost in
thought. She was standing just inside the door, staring at the floor in
front of a light blue photographic backdrop. Climbing equipment-coils
of rope, pitons, etriers, carabiners, klettershoes, nylon jackets lined
with down, and perhaps thirty other items-lay in a disordered heap
before the screen.
"See what I found?" he said. He held up the blades.
She wasn't interested. "What about this stuff?" she asked, pointing to
the climbing equipment.
Coming from behind the desk, he said, "This issue we're running a
buyer's guide. Each of those pieces wis photographed for the article.
Why'd you ask?" Then his face brightened. "Never mind. I see why."
He hunkered in front of the equipment, picked up an ice ax. "This makes
a better weapon than any draftsman's tool.
"Graham?"
He looked up.
Her expression was peculiar: a combination of puzzlement, fear and
amazement. Although she clearly had thought of something interesting
and important, her gray eyes gave no indication of what was going
through her mind. She said, "Let's not rush out to fight him. Can we
consider all of our options?"
"That's why we're here."
She stepped into the short, private hallway, cocked her head and
listened for Bollinger.
Graham stood up, prepared to use the ice ax.
When she was satisfied that there was nothing to listen for but more
silence, she came back into the room.
He lowered the ax. "I thought you heard something."
"Just being cautious." She glanced at the climbing equipment before she
sat down on the edge of the desk. "As I see it, there are five
different things we can do. Number one, we can make a stand, try to
fight Bollinger.
"With this," he said, hefting the ice ax.
"And with anything else we can find."
"We -can set a trap, surprise him."
"I see two problems with that approach."
"The gun."
"That's sure one."
"If we're clever enough, he won't have time to shoot.
"More important," she said, "neither of us is a killer.
"We could just knock him unconscious."
1 "If you hit him on the head with an ax like that, you're bound to
kill him."
"If it's kill or be killed, I suppose I could do it."
"Maybe. But if you hesitate at the last instant, we're dead." He didn't
resent the limits of her faith in him; he knew that he didn't deserve
her complete trust. "You said there were five things we could do."
"Number two, we can try to hide."
"Where?"
"I don't know. Maybe look for an office that someone forgot to lock, go
inside and lock it after us."
"No one forgot."
"Maybe we can continue to play cat and mouse with him."
"For how long?"
"Until a new shift of guards finds the dead ones."
"if he didn't kill the guards, then the new guards won't know what's
going on up here."
"That's right."
"Besides, I think maybe they work twelve-hour shifts, four days a week.
I know one of the night men. I've heard him curse the long shifts and
at the same time praise the eight hours of overtime he gets each week.
So if they come on duty at six, they won't be off until six in the
morning."
"Seven and a half hours."
"Too long to play cat and mouse in the elevator shaft and on the stairs.
Especially with this bum leg of mine.
"Number three," she said. "We could open one of your office windows and
shout for help."
"From the fortieth floor? Even in good weather, they probably couldn't
hear you on the sidewalk. With this wind, they wouldn't hear you even
two floors away."
"I know that. And on a night like this, there's not going to be anyone
out walking anyway."
"Then why'd you suggest it?"
"Number five is going to surprise you," she said. "When I get to it, I
want you to understand that I've thought of every other possible out."
"What's number five?"
"Number four first. We open the office window and throw furniture into
the street, try to catch the attention of anyone who's driving past on
Lexington."
"If anyone is driving in this weather."
"Someone will be. A taxi or two."
"But if we toss out a chair, we won't be able to calculate the effect of
the wind on it. We won't be able to gauge where it'll land.
What if it goes through the windshield of a car and kills someone?"
"I've thought of that."
"We can't do it."
"I know."
"What's number five?"
She slid off the desk and went to the pile of climbing equipment.
"We've got to get rigged out in this stuff."
"Rigged out?"
"Boots, jackets, gloves, ropes-the works."
He was perplexed. "Why?"
Her eyes were wide, like the eyes of a startled doe.
"For the climb down."
"Down what?"
"Down the outside of the building. All the way to the street.
part four FRIDAY 10:30 P.Mo SATURDAY 4:00 A.M.
Promptly at ten-thirty, Billy drove out of the service courtyard behind