Come and Find Me A Novel of Suspense - By Hallie Ephron Page 0,84
as the person on the other side banged on it. Daniel strapped on the backpack and, without a moment’s hesitation, started up the wall, springing from rebar to rebar like a mountain goat.
Go, go, go. Diana watched him as she backed up against the door.
“Let me in!” It was Jake. Thank God Daniel hadn’t heard. Diana threw her weight against the door, slamming it shut and muting Jake’s voice.
Diana had turned back the system clocks, adjusted Daniel’s wristwatch, but she’d never expected Jake to arrive back at the mill two hours early. He must have caught an earlier flight home after what had been a routine meeting with Vault, hours ago, while Daniel was sound asleep and dead to the world.
“Hurry!” she shouted up to Daniel.
Halfway up, Daniel stopped and adjusted the backpack.
“What the hell is going on? Would you . . .”
Jake’s muffled voice continued speaking as Diana shouted over it, “Daniel, are you okay? Be careful up there. You could easily slip and—”
“Diana, stop it! I’ve done this a million times. I’m not going to slip.”
He climbed up to the hatch, reached over, and pulled it open.
With a mighty crash, the door was bashed in again, and in the silence that followed, Jake’s voice rang out, loud and clear. “Daniel! Are you in there? Open the goddamn door!”
Diana froze. She moved away from the door, pointing at it and looking up at Daniel.
Daniel sat astride the ledge to the outside, one leg out, one leg in. “Jake?” he shouted.
“What the hell is going on in there?” Jake called back. “Hey, would you open the door?”
“Think about it,” Diana said to Daniel, her voice a harsh whisper. “Ten minutes ago Jake was at a meeting in Bethesda. This can’t be him. Not unless—”
“Not unless the meeting was a sham,” Daniel said. “A setup. I knew it. But he couldn’t . . . He wouldn’t . . .”
“You said so yourself, his avatar was acting like Jake wasn’t even there.”
Daniel sat there for a moment, like he was trying to fit puzzle pieces together. Then he tossed the backpack outside and turned back to Diana. “Check camera seven. Now!”
It took her a moment to understand what he was asking her to do. She ran over to Daniel’s computer and toggled through the surveillance feeds until she got to the video feed from the ceiling-mounted camera overlooking the landing outside the silo door. The fish-eye lens exaggerated size of the top of Jake’s head.
“There’s Jake,” she said. “And there are two others. No, there are three of them.”
“For chrissakes, would you let me in?” Jake’s voice was barely audible.
“Who’s out there with him?” Daniel said.
“Who’s that out there with you?” Diana shouted through the door.
“What are you talking about? No one’s out here with me. Open the goddamned door!”
Daniel looked down at her. He had one leg out and one leg in, a picture of indecision—an emotion she could never remember witnessing in him before. All he needed was a little nudge.
“You saw for yourself,” Diana said. “At least six people entered the building. Now three of them are out in the hall with Jake.” She glanced at the screen. “They’re wearing dark jumpsuits and gloves. And they’ve got hoods pulled over their faces.”
BAM. The door trembled with the impact. The surveillance still showed Jake rearing back, about to bash the door again with an ancient copper fire extinguisher. BAM!
“Go! Get out here,” Diana cried up to Daniel. “They’ve got a battering ram. They’ll break through any minute.”
Diana cringed as the fire extinguisher crashed into the door again. The air inside the silo seemed to vibrate with the noise.
“Hurry!” she shouted. “This bolt’s not going to hold much longer.”
“Come with me,” Daniel said.
At first she couldn’t believe her ears. “What?”
“I said, come with me,” Daniel shouted.
This hadn’t been in the script either. “I can’t. I mustn’t. Daniel, you need me here to deal with these . . . these people.”
Daniel leaned down and extended his arm to her. “Come on. I’m not leaving without you.”
BAM. And a moment later, again. Soon the bolt would give and the door would fly open.
“Daniel, you have to go. Now. There’s no time. And besides, I can’t climb. It’s impossible.”
“That’s ridiculous. Of course you can climb.”
She took a step closer to the silo wall.
“Come on. Don’t overthink it, babe.”
She looked up, thirty feet overhead, to where Daniel was effortlessly perched.
“I’m not going,” he said. “Not unless you come with me.”