Blaine and Johnny leaped out of the back of the van as soon as Patty had put her foot on the brake.
“Wait five minutes and then drive the hell out of here,” he said when he had come around to the driver’s side window. Wareagle unloaded a pair of tanks from the van as Blaine gave Patty her instructions.
“Explaining to the guard—”
“That you left a tank back at your base. Just like we went over.”
“I’d rather wait for you.”
McCracken shook his head. “You know where you’ve got to be.”
“You sure you’ve got all this figured that perfectly, McCracken?”
“Close enough. Wish us luck.”
Before she could, Blaine and Johnny moved off, a walkie-talkie up against Blaine’s lips.
“Yo, Sal.”
“Got ya, McCrackenballs.”
“We’re in.”
“Okay, my watch is on. Eight minutes and counting, boss.”
“You’ll have my signal in three.”
“Ain’t we punctual.”
“Comes with the territory.”
Blaine accepted the tanks from Wareagle and stowed one under each armpit. They were about half the size and weight of a full scuba tank. He made his way to a door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, which was ten yards to the right, while Johnny moved to the door beyond which lay the Gap’s private entrance. McCracken picked the lock in twenty seconds, then stepped into a brightly lit, tiled corridor that wound its way to the air systems control bay that linked up with the central core.
“Who the fuck are you?” A thick voice assailed his ears when he was halfway there.
“Who does it look like?” Blaine shot back. The voice’s owner was a beefy man with olive skin who was chomping on a cigar.
“Some asshole in coveralls with a pair of tanks that don’t belong here.”
“Says who?”
“Building plant manager.”
“Oh.”
McCracken let the tanks drop. The resulting clamor took the building plant manager by surprise, and Blaine lunged at him. His first blow caught the man in the solar plexus and doubled him over. Blaine’s second cracked into the rear of his skull and the cigar went flying. The man crumpled, and McCracken caught him before he hit the ground. He dragged the unconscious form to the entrance of the air systems control room. He was returning to retrieve the tanks when he ran into Johnny Wareagle.
“That was fast, Indian.”
“Simple work, Blainey. The Gap entrance is sealed — the elevator leading to it rendered inoperative.”
“I ran into some complications.”
“No plan can account for everything, even when drawn by the spirits.”
“Well, this might turn out to be a blessing….”
Sure enough, Blaine found a set of keys in the manager’s pocket, which saved him the trouble of picking the lock to the much more secure door of the air systems room. He brought the tanks in with him while Johnny dragged the manager into the room.
McCracken had done plenty of work for the Gap over the years, but he’d never once been in this room. Somehow he was expecting it to be like the boiler room of an elementary school, yet he found himself looking at something that looked like it had come off of the starship Enterprise. Shiny silver and plain plastic tubing ran in neat rows from the walls and ceiling, linking up with a series of boxlike chrome devices that looked like home heating units.
“The main exchangers and pumps are built into the ground beneath us,” he said, remembering Sal’s words and starting to move toward one of those Belamo had indicated. “These are the filters that recirculate the building’s air. Highly efficient. Totally new air every thirty-seven minutes. Particles going out now will reach the whole building in two and a half.”
“We have under six left.”
McCracken found the first of the two filters and squeezed the walkie-talkie between his shoulder and ear while he went to work with his tank. Johnny looked his way to confirm he had found the second filter.
“The Indian and I are hooked in, Sal. Get ready to do your thing.”
“Tell the fuck-wads upstairs pleasant dreams for me.”
Blaine and Johnny turned their valves at the same time; instantly a potent form of knockout gas flew into the air pumps servicing floors ten through twenty. Though the Gap occupied only five floors within those ten, it was impossible to isolate them, so some innocent people had to be knocked out as well. McCracken checked his watch.
“Let’s go!”
They bolted from the room and rushed to the service elevator. The Gap could not be reached through any of the regular building elevators, but the single service elevator provided access to the fourteenth and lowest floor. Blaine and Johnny had already donned their gas masks by the time the elevator doors had slid closed again. Even though the effects of the gas were instantaneous, it would continue to pump for several minutes. Both masks had communicators built in, tuned to the same channel Sal Belamo was on. The service elevator reached the fourteenth floor, and Johnny squeezed his thumb against the Close Door button.
“We’re in position, Sal,” said McCracken. “Do your thing.”
Blaine knew he needed a final diversion to assure against unwanted entry or discovery of the sleeping workers on ten of the building’s floors. That diversion had been set through the empty building the preceding evening. Sal Belamo’s special smoke bombs would activate the fire alarms and a number of sprinkler systems. The elevators would automatically shut off, forcing the people inside the building to use the stairwells to reach the street. Even more importantly, no one would be permitted to enter.
When the alarms sounded, Johnny pulled his thumb from the button; the compartment doors slid open.
The Gap could have been a law or accounting office by the first look of it. Individual offices lined the corridor they stepped into, many with desks perched before them personed by now-sleeping secretaries. The five floors containing the Gap were entirely self-contained, linked together by open staircases joining one level to the next.
“Conference room’s three floors up,” Blaine announced as he started up the first staircase. “Maxie will be at the morning briefing.”
He and Johnny had to hurdle bodies several times during their rush upward. The Gap seemed to have simply frozen in place. Blaine saw spilled coffee in several places, imagined he could smell it in spite of his gas mask. The sound of his hard breathing echoed through his eardrums and added to the chaos generated by the constant wail of the activated fire alarm.
“In here,” Blaine said to Johnny finally, and they stepped into the conference room where the morning briefing would have been proceeding had its members not been gassed to sleep.
All the heads slumped over the table belonged to men.
“I don’t like this, Indian. She should have been here.”
“Late, perhaps.”
“Maxie’s never late. Let’s check her office. Next floor up.”
“I do not feel the Wakinyan, Blainey,” Johnny said on the way there.
“Good sign maybe.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Yo, boss,” Belamo called, and his voice reverberated through Blaine’s mask. “Fire trucks coming fast, lots of ’em. Time’s a-wasting.”
“We’ll pick up Maxie and follow the plan.”
The fifth floor up belonged entirely to her and the Gap’s senior staff. It was more isolated than any of the other floors to start with — and even more so now since several of its occupants were asleep in the conference room Blaine and Johnny had just left. McCracken stopped briefly at the door to Virginia Maxwell’s office.
“Morning, Maxie,” Blaine said to her shape, which was slumped over the big desk asleep. “Aren’t we looking chipper this morning!”