I hurried back the way I had come and took the last short flight of stairs, scaling them quickly. At the top was a nondescript door. I grabbed the doorknob, twisted it clockwise and pushed. The door didn’t budge.
I jiggled the knob, lunged, and applied my shoulder to the door. Again. And again. It suddenly gave, hurling me headlong into the room beyond. I fell hard, sliding along the floor on my knees. My Naval Academy ID, which had been hanging around my neck on a chain, went flying, skittering along the floor and into the shadows.
With my palms smarting from the attempt to break my fall, I picked myself up and had the presence of mind to slam the door just as Dorothy began plodding up the staircase after me.
I found myself in a vast room, roughly the size of the auditorium I figured must be directly below. As my eyes grew accustomed to the dim light filtering in through several round windows placed at regular intervals even with the floor, I wondered if I had landed in a construction zone. Metal girders connected by bolts and studded with rivets crisscrossed the room, designed, I was sure, to support the weight of the enormous dome that dominated the room like an inverted salad bowl, its surface flocked with insulation resembling clumps of snow. Crude metal ladders led up into the rafters, and fat air-conditioning ducts snaked everywhere, wrapped with bright aluminum-covered insulation.
Behind me, the doorknob rattled. Then the pounding began, so loudly that I was certain Dorothy was using both fists. “You. Let. Me. In.”
No way! On my hands and knees, I crab-walked across the floor and crouched under one of the ducts, just as Dorothy burst through the door. She slammed it shut behind her and yelled, “Hannah! I know you’re in here!”
I sucked in my lower lip, concentrating on silencing my breathing. In spite of my efforts, it came in ragged gasps. The ice-cold air seared my throat, like a shot of whiskey taken neat.
I listened to Dorothy muttering as she explored her surroundings. I knew that if I stayed where I was, sooner or later she would find me. I prayed she would move away from the door so I could make a dash for it, but she must have figured that out because as she paced, she kept herself positioned between me and the exit.
I needed a distraction. As quietly as possible, I patted the floor, searching for something solid I could throw-like a nail or a screw-but the floor around me was surprisingly clean. I patted my clothing. Nothing. The pockets of my Juicy Couture velour hoodie and matching pants were still too new to have the usual paper clip, stick of gum, or the odd house key tucked into them.
Almost reluctantly, I fingered the jacket’s signature J zipper pull, slid it quietly down, then twisted it off the bottom of the zipper, thinking, There goes $88 plus tax. First a gash in the sleeve, now a ruined zipper. Some people were never meant to own designer clothing.
With a flick of my wrist, I tossed the zipper pull across the room, where it pinged anemically on the plywood floor.
Thankfully, Dorothy heard it and set off in that direction. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she singsonged.
Cautiously, I unfolded from my cramped position. Keeping the duct work between me and Dorothy, I crept toward the door, sprinting the last three yards. I tugged on the knob, but once again the door was jammed.
Dorothy spun around and came after me, moving slowly but confidently.
I backed away, easing my way warily along a rough brick wall. A few feet to my right, a short flight of stairs disappeared into an opening in the brickwork. I had no idea where they led, but at least it was out, so I scrambled up the steps, banging my head painfully on the jamb as I charged through the low opening.
I emerged into a passageway that appeared to run between the roof of Mahan and the base of the clock tower. Built crudely of firebrick, the rough mortar tore at what was left of my clothing as I careened down the short corridor and pushed through another door. I closed it behind me, noticed that it had a latch of sorts, and with fumbling fingers dropped the hook into the eye. The primitive latch might keep Dorothy at bay for the time it took me to figure out what to do next.
To my utter amazement, I found myself in the clock tower, surrounded on four sides by giant clock faces, their hands all pointing to IIX and IX. Was it 1:05 already? Then it dawned on my frazzled brain that I was seeing the faces from behind. It was only 11:55.
Directly before me was a room within a room, constructed of white clapboard, like a summer cabin, and decorated with the usual midshipmen graffiti: KATHY AND BEN,’02 and the perennial GO NAVY, BEAT ARMY. From the clicking and whirring emanating from inside the structure, I suspected it housed the clock mechanism.
It took only seconds to explore the room. There was no way out, except for the way I had come and whatever lay at the top of a spiral wrought-iron staircase. Another staircase. I groaned. How many staircases had I climbed that day? I’d run out of staircases soon, and then what would I do? Fly?
Dorothy began cursing and kicking at the door, so I had no choice. I scampered up the spiral staircase, round and round, until my head popped out in the bell tower itself. A single bell, larger than a washing machine but smaller than a Volkswagen, hung from a pyramid of stout wooden beams. I touched the bell, ran my hand over the cold metal.
Floor-to-ceiling windows were set into each wall, covered with chicken wire to keep the pigeons out. A door had been cut into one, presumably to provide access to the balcony. I opened the makeshift door and stepped through.
I was standing outside, on a balcony barely four feet wide that encircled the tower, approximately 120 feet above sea level.
Under ordinary circumstances, a person might have paused to enjoy the view-a spectacular panorama of Annapolis all the way from the Bay Bridge to the Maryland State House dome. But these were not ordinary circumstances. And I wasn’t crazy about heights.
On legs of rubber, I grasped the railing and looked down. Patchworks of grass, brick sidewalks, the copper roofs of nearby buildings swam into view. All I could think about was how badly I’d splat should I fall.
In the chamber below, the clock hummed and clanked. I circumnavigated the balcony, searching for a ladder or fire escape, but the only way out was the spiral staircase.
And Dorothy was now standing at the chicken wire door, smack dab in the way.
I reversed direction and ran around the balcony, my feet slipping on patches of ice. While turning a corner, I stumbled on a protruding drain and nearly fell. I managed to recover, but Dorothy gained a few feet on me.
“Hannah, I just want to talk,” she yelled.
“I don’t believe you,” I yelled back, but the wind ripped my words away.
Around and around we ran, slipping, stumbling, staggering as cold and exhaustion took their toll in a senseless chase that could only end badly. There was nothing I could do but confront her.
I whirled around, raised both arms and shouted, “Stop!”
Startled, Dorothy did as she was told. Hundreds of feet below, the winter wind whistled across the Severn River and climbed the sides of the clock tower, lifting the brim of her cap-my cap, I realized with a pang, one of the half dozen or so I had given her. Dorothy’s eyes narrowed and she tilted her head, as if wondering who the heck I was. The arm holding the box cutter hung limply at her side.
“Please, drop the knife, Dorothy.”
Her eyelids fluttered. She raised her hand. Puzzlement turned to surprise, as if she were noticing the weapon for the first time.
But my move backfired. Seeing the box cutter only seemed to remind her of exactly who I was and what she intended to do. “Kevin can’t be a pilot now,” she snarled. With the box cutter held high, she advanced.
“We don’t know that, Dorothy,” I soothed. “Kevin’s in the best of hands. The doctors at Bethesda really know their stuff.”