disappearing behind a large black void above his head.
Imperceptibly, Vail moved his head upward slightly to determine exactly what was above him. It was not a void at all, but a huge steel plate hanging ten feet over his head. His mason’s eye estimated it to be approximately sixteen feet square, and he was at its dead center. Printed in large chalked letters on its underside was a note:
VAIL—
EM wired to pressure release and motion sensor.
Good-bye.
Vic
That’s what the hum was, an electromagnetic crane used to move stock around. And it was double primed. Two systems to make sure he couldn’t move. Either the sensor or the pressure-release switch he was standing on would shut it off and drop the steel on him. He couldn’t see how thick the plate was, but the thinnest he was aware of was three-sixteenths of an inch. A sixteen-square-foot piece of that thickness had to be close to two thousand pounds.
An urge to laugh at his own insolence started to rise up in him. He would gladly have given in to it to relieve some of the tension if he hadn’t feared it would set off the motion detector. His contempt for anything meant to control him, even if it was concocted by Radek, was about to take his life. Insolence had always been a trusted, if expensive, ally, but never this costly.
His self-recrimination was interrupted by another burst from the wooden box, now only twenty feet away. It reminded him that more than his life was at stake. He had to find a way out. Trying to gauge the speed needed, he doubted that he could make it beyond the edge of the steel plate before it crushed him. However, it would be close. The eight feet to the edge looked like a hundred.
Then he remembered that he was still holding the Halligan tool in his left hand, a possible solution to the ton of impending death hanging over him. The pry bar was three and a half feet long and the shaft was one-inch-thick steel alloy. Primarily it was manufactured for fire departments, so its strength had to be exceptional.
Running and diving straight forward was the best chance, since turning in any other direction would add an additional split second. Once he took that first step, he would have to flatten out as horizontally as possible and at the same time move the bar behind him, turning it vertical with the claw downward. That way, if he didn’t make it to the edge in time, the Halligan would stick upright in the wooden floor and absorb the initial blow of the steel. He hoped. If he ever needed to take a deep breath it was now, but that pinpoint of red light reminded him that if he did, it would probably be his last.
He closed his eyes and could feel his heartbeat pounding against his eyelids. He forced himself to slow his breathing. Inside his head, he visualized what he had to do: flatten out and at the same time move the bar into position and behind him. He waited until he could no longer hear his heart. One more time he closed his eyes and watched himself perform the intricacies of the long eight-foot dash.
He exploded forward. At the exact same instant, the hum of the electromagnet crane above him stopped. Everything became slow motion, and the last thing Vail remembered was the first gray light of dawn coming in the small, slotted window.
THIRTY
AS KATE BANNON RODE UP IN THE ELEVATOR, SHE TOOK A SIP OF HER coffee. It was too hot but she took a mouthful anyway, hoping the sting might bring her to life a little more quickly than just waiting for her system to metabolize the caffeine. Again she had not slept much, if at all. The night balanced at the tipping point between suspected sleep and dreamlike wakefulness.
She was the only person in the elevator and tried to distract herself by listing out loud the things she had to do today. After a few items, her thoughts returned to Vail and how awful their dinner had been last night. The night at the Italian restaurant had been the most fun she had had in years, until the call from Tye Delson. She had been wrong to let it come between them. Even though she had apologized to Vail, he seemed to understand her behavior better than she did and accepted it as the only way things could be