Dark Time: Mortal Path (36 page)

Her 5X binoculars revealed chains crisscrossed over the top of the vent covers to lock them in place.

Loops of razor wire rimmed the edges of the roof, except for small openings where the sniper could take up a position. Brighter lights pointed up the sides of the building, so that anyone trying to climb up would be doing so in a spotlight.

The security chief, no doubt having had his ass chewed out about the break in, had stiffened physical 120 z 138

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security. The problem for him was that he’d done so in a reactive way, by examining what Maliha had done and setting up direct counters to it.

That assumed she’d do the same thing over again. Maliha had more ways of storming the castle than one.

Of major concern was the fact that there were a dozen limos pulled up close to the front entrance.

Their drivers stood outside, smoking and talking. Greg was having a late-night meeting, and the attendees all were a) rich, b) security conscious, or c) both. Seeing the gathering of limos tweaked her anxious feeling that she was running out of time.

“I’ll be dropping near that barn over there beyond the woods, three o’clock, about two hundred and fifty yards from the fence. You see it?”

“Yeah.”

Glass took the copter for a run down nearby I–88 while Maliha picked out her gear from the bag she’d brought. She used a carabiner to lock her half-inch braided nylon rappel rope to an anchor in the floor. Tucking her hair inside her black killing suit, she put on the head covering that concealed her face, but didn’t bother to put on one of the safety helmets lying nearby in the copter. She slipped on a harness, stuffed her gear in a belly bag and fastened it to the harness, and then rigged her descender. Finally, she put on leather gloves.

“I’m good to go.”

The copter turned and headed back to the ShaleTech compound and the barn.

“When I’m down, find a way to notify the police about that sick shooter I left in the park. He’s tied to a tree near the flying field. He’ll need an ambulance, if he’s still alive. I’ll leave it to you to decide how long you want to leave him there.”

“That would be until somebody spots his corpse tomorrow.”

“His loss, the world’s gain.” It occurred to Maliha that Glass might be useful in the future. In spite of her nickname, she seemed to be made of steel. “Have you known Hound long?”

Glass looked over her shoulder and made eye contact. “We met before I was born. Our moms used to share a park bench. Hound says he touched my mom’s pregnant belly when he was a kid, so I guess that counts as a meet.”

“You aren’t by any chance Mrs. Hound, are you?”

“Hell, no. Who’d wanna marry that freak?” She said it straight, but Maliha could see the look on her face in the dim light from the dials and switches of the copter’s controls.

“Uh-huh. And is your daughter…?”

“Not sure, but I think so. He damn well acts like Hannah’s his. Kid came out normal, considering she grew up around Hound and me.”

So Hound not only does classified government work, he also has an actual life. He’s been holding
out on me. No, that’s not fair. I’ve never asked.

They each settled into their own thoughts about Hound.

Sitting in the cabin, she felt Yanmeng’s touch on her shoulder. She stretched out her fist and made an
L
shape with her index finger and thumb. It was the agreed-upon signal for Yanmeng to withdraw. A few seconds later he touched her again:
Are you sure?

She made the signal again, and felt nothing more from him.

Maliha double-checked the rappelling equipment and waited until the black copter, shielded in the mist, hovered near the barn. She tossed her rappel rope out the door, letting it slip through her gloved hands. She felt it hit the ground.

“Rope’s down. I’m out of here.”

She got a thumbs-up in response. Easing out the door of the copter, she rappelled down about a hundred feet, landed outside the barn and disengaged from the rope. Ordinarily a spotter in the helicopter, watching her descent, would disconnect her rope and drop it down after her, but she didn’t have a spotter.

Maliha ran over to the side of the barn as Glass took the copter up, trailing the rope like an umbilical cord.

As soon as the copter was clear of the immediate area, Glass would leave her seat just long enough to pull up the rope. Trailing that line was an invitation to disaster, if it should catch in a tree or elsewhere.

Inside the barn, Maliha unfastened her belly bag and loaded up on weapons. She had the urge to pack on everything she’d brought, but she also had to stay quick, so she had to be selective. The whip sword went around her waist; throwing knives were strapped to both calves and thighs; an axe and a small 121 z 138

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crossbow were slung on her back; a strap was tightened across her chest with small knives, spikes, and crossbow darts. A whole pack of throwing stars rested on one hip, their weight reassuring, and a bag with tools and explosives rode on the other hip. She didn’t need to carry any guns. Guards had guns, and she could always obtain one that way.

She left some weapons in the bag and hid it under straw that was there to make the barn look authentic.

Standing just inside the door, she paced off six paces on a forty-five degree angle, swiveled ninety degrees counterclockwise, and measured another four paces, the directions she’d gotten from Yolanda.

She should be standing right on top of the secret door. Brushing aside some straw, Maliha examined the dirt underfoot. It was packed tightly from the McLaren rolling over it. She reached behind her back for her throwing axe, a sinuous one-piece streak of metal. Using the axe, she pried at the dirt until she located the edges of a hatch. She’d been off by a couple of feet because a pace is such a subjective measurement.

Clearing away the dirt, she found she’d uncovered a hatch about three feet wide and five feet long.

Tugging the recessed handle of the hatch, she lifted it into a vertical position and it clicked into place there. She squatted, reached inside, and pressed a button right below the lip of the hatch. A dim light came on, enough for her to see a round shaft with a ladder going down about twelve feet. The whole arrangement looked like a sewer access, but based on Maliha’s experience, it smelled a lot better.

She shined a flashlight down to the bottom of the ladder and then inspected the sides of the drop.

Yolanda had said there were no surprises in the walls of the shaft itself, but that was ten years ago. The sides were gleaming and smooth, and Maliha would just have to hope there was no trap, like a blade that would swing out and slice a climber in half.

She focused the flashlight on the third rung of the ladder, and could just make out the thin line that perforated it.
Put your weight on it
, Yolanda had said,
and it’ll give way and let you fall to the bottom
and an alarm will show up on a special console in security central
. The console would give no indication of where the intrusion had taken place. All the regular staff could do was report it to the chief security officer. Shale hadn’t wanted anyone to know about his private escape route, but it turned out that for his best protection, the chief of security had to know.

Maliha descended the ladder, skipping the third step.

At the bottom, in an area barely big enough to turn around in, was a steel door with a combination lock. If Maliha couldn’t get through that door, it was going to be a very short mission. She couldn’t blow it. Yolanda had assured her that even a shaped charge aimed at the door would create enough of a shock wave in the confined area of the shaft to break the third step and sound the alarm.

Her first step was using the fluorescing powder and the ALS, but the keypad revealed no fingerprints on the numbers of the combination. It must have been tested years ago, wiped clean, and left that way.

Hoping that Greg was a creature of habit, she tried the same combination as she’d used on the safe in his office: 38248. No luck. She rearranged the numbers a couple of times and still there was no response. She was afraid the keypad would lock her out for having too many tries. Somewhere, in some computer’s belly, her attempts were being recorded.

Maliha reached into her waist pack for C4. She was going to have to take a chance on blowing the door. If an alarm was sounded right away, that would make things a whole lot harder but not impossible.

She had her hand on the plastic explosive when she thought of something new to try.

The lock had been in place, untampered with, since the tunnel was built. Greg wasn’t thirty-eight years old then. He was twenty-eight.

28248. She keyed it in, and the door rose to reveal a dark space that didn’t stay dark for long. Light tubes were clicking on, beginning at the far end of the tunnel and moving toward her. There was a streak of light down the top of the tunnel and curved tubes running halfway down the sides. It looked like staring down a shiny, gigantic spinal column, with the lights as the spinal cord and branching ribs.

She stepped into the tunnel. It was seven feet high at its highest point, and about six feet wide. The tracks ran straight down the middle, taking up most of the room, but there was a maintenance walkway along one side. The tracks, Yolanda had said, were electrified, as the power source for speeding the escape pod along.

Her path was narrow. She had to walk sideways, her back against the wall. It was a weak position for an attack, no doubt intentional. She built up some speed, but it still took a long time to pass underneath the woods and the two fences and reach the place where the capsule was parked.

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The capsule was streamlined, futuristic-looking, and bullet shaped. Peering in the windshield, she could see that it was made for only one person. Greg intended to save his own ass and no one else’s if the shit hit the fan.

Beyond the capsule was a platform, a control console for the pod, and an elevator door. The elevator had a button to push that said UP. It seemed too easy, but she pressed it. There was a whirring sound as the elevator car came down from a higher floor, and then the door opened. Just like that. She checked the control panel by leaning a little bit into the elevator car. The controls were covered by a locked door. She could pick that lock, but…

She examined the UP button again. Concealed among the dark letters were small holes that looked like they might be a microphone. It must be voice activated, in addition to pressing it. Greg didn’t want any riffraff coming up through the back door and surprising him. The elevator was keyed to his voice.

Maliha looked around for something expendable. There was a small fire extinguisher fastened to the side of the console that controlled the capsule. She unhooked it and brought it to the elevator. Without stepping in, she dropped the extinguisher from shoulder height onto the spot where she’d have to stand to pick the lock.

The floor dropped open and the extinguisher disappeared from sight into a black hole underneath it.

If I can take the Tablet of the Overlord from its location over a sucking sand pool, I can handle a
trapdoor elevator car.

She used her crossbow to shoot a special dart into the ceiling of the elevator. Once it penetrated the ceiling, the tip burst open into a miniature grappling hook. She planted another hook about two feet away from it. The cords dangled down like a rope ladder with no rungs. Maliha held a lock pick in her mouth and then reached in and wound one cord around each arm. She did an aerial somersault that brought her face-to-face with the lock, twisting gracefully on the cords like a circus acrobat. She was upside down.

She extended her legs to the ceiling to steady herself. She unwound the cord from her right arm, ending up standing on the ceiling, held up there by her left arm.

With her free hand, she picked the lock. The panel door opened to reveal another UP button, this one with no microphone. She pressed it and the car began moving upward. She didn’t want to trust the floor, so she remained in position. She counted the seconds of upward travel: eight.

The door opened. Maliha swung out into a brightly lit space, landing with a knife in her hand. She was in a small room that appeared to have no way out.

Until she looked up.

The ceiling was at least twelve feet high. There was an outline of an opening in the ceiling, about two feet square. There was no handle, at least not on her side of the door. She had one grappling hook dart left for the crossbow. There seemed to be no option but to use it. Maybe if she pulled hard enough, the hatch would open. Or maybe not, and she’d be stymied.

Wait! Think about it. Greg wouldn’t use a method like that. He’s not a crossbow kind of guy. There
has to be something….

The elevator door had closed behind her. There was nothing but a DOWN button on the wall, no holes for a microphone. She pressed it and the elevator door slid open. At the back wall, along the floor, was a small rocker switch. She hadn’t seen it because she’d been hanging from the ceiling, facing in the opposite direction of the rocker switch. It was out of reach, and the trapdoor floor was still active.

Her cords dangled from the ceiling of the elevator. She wrapped her arms again and swung in. She lowered herself until her feet almost grazed the floor, and then began moving back and forth. After several tries, she hit the rocker switch with her foot. There was a mechanical noise from the room outside. She swung out through the door backward and released the cords, putting herself in the room as the hatch slid sideways above her. A rope ladder, a real one with actual rungs, fell down within easy reach. She climbed it, entering the dark area above the hatch. A string brushed her face. She pulled it, and a bare bulb illuminated the space.

She was in a storage closet. The smell of damp mops and furniture polish and pine cleaners filled the air. She put her hand on the door handle, turned out the bulb so that light wouldn’t spill out of the room, and cracked open the door. She was in the middle of a long, dimly lit hallway. There were no cameras that she could see. Whatever was going on, Greg didn’t want it on film.