Shadow of Betrayal

According to the map, there were two elevator cars running side by side in a shaft that went from the lowest level up to the surface. If he could somehow get into the shaft, he could make his way down without being seen. Except the only way in would be through the elevator doors. That meant taking the hallway on the other side of the main east-west corridor.

He swore under his breath, counted to three in his head, then reentered the Yellowhammer labyrinth.

The sentry at the guardhouse reported that there had been no further activity outside the gate. Good news for sure, Tucker thought. It was just further confirmation that Furuta had come alone.

Tucker guessed that the man had been an advance scout, probably had received a tip and had been checking it out first before calling in a whole team. Intelligence gathering, the stiffs at the Agency would have called it. Even if Furuta had somehow gotten word back to his people—which Tucker was confident he hadn’t—they wouldn’t be able to mount any kind of response before Tucker’s team evacuated in a few hours.

The radio on his desk beeped, then the voice of one of his men came on. “Tucker?”

“Go for Tucker,” Tucker said.

“Mr. Rose is asking for you.”

“Tell Mr. Rose I’ll be there in just a bit.”

“Said you should be here supervising us.”

Tucker tensed. “Tell him I’ll be there in just a bit.”

“Sure. Got it.”

Tucker felt like throwing the radio across the room. What did Mr. Rose want him to do? Take care of security? Or babysit a bunch of grown men who could handle a packing job just fine on their own?

Whatever, he thought. Mr. Rose was the one paying the bills. If he wanted Tucker to come down to the lab to help, fine.

He radioed the guardhouse one last time just to make sure nothing had changed. All was still quiet. He switched to channel four.

“This is Tucker,” he said into the mic. “Everybody up.”

He waited for a moment, then repeated the message.

A sleepy voice came over the speaker. “What time is it?”

“We’ll be loading the helicopters in a couple hours.”

“A couple hours? Hell, I’m going back to sleep.”

“Get up,” Tucker said. “And wake the others. I don’t need any of you still groggy when you fly us out of here.”

There was a pause. “We’ll be fine.”

“Get up or you won’t be paid.”

“Goddammit,” the pilot said.

“Check in with me after you eat.”

Tucker slipped the radio into the holder on his belt, knowing the pilot would get his flight teams moving. Maybe he’d stop in the kitchen and get a bite himself before heading down to the lab.

Anything to delay being near the cargo.

Quinn wished he had a wrecking bar. He would have only needed the small, foot-long version. It would have made things a hell of a lot easier. What he did have was a nine-inch flat blade screwdriver.

He worked it between the sliding doors of the elevator on the left. There was a rubber lining inside, so he had to be careful not to rip it. Once the screwdriver shaft was all the way in, he pushed sideways, trying to create an opening between the doors.

There was resistance at first, the doors holding their position as he applied pressure. Then the right half gave an inch. He jammed the fingers of his right hand in, holding the door in place, then dropped the screwdriver on the floor at his feet and used his left hand to grab the other half.

As he pushed his hands away from each other, the doors began to part. A few inches, then six, then a foot. But at twenty-four inches they stopped, some now-ancient security device kicking in.

He leaned through the opening. It was dark and he could see neither the bottom nor the top of the shaft. At least the elevator car wasn’t there.

He scanned the walls just inside, looking for something to anchor his rope. There were several pipes to the right, but he wasn’t quite sure how he would reach them. The most promising thing he found was above the opening—a steel bolt sticking out of the wall several inches. It was nowhere near a perfect solution, but Quinn thought he could use it to maneuver over to the pipes.

He positioned his leg in the gap so that his knee pushed against one side of the door, and his foot against the other. He then worked his backpack off and removed the rope from inside. As he was trying to zip the bag back up, it slipped out of his hands and fell to the ground, hitting the handle of the screwdriver. The tool rolled away from the bag, under Quinn’s foot, and into the gap.

He whipped his head back inside, but could see nothing. Then, a few seconds later, there was the crash of the screwdriver hitting bottom.

Quinn froze.

Had anyone on the lower level heard? He waited, expecting to see a flood of light as someone below opened the elevator doors to investigate. But the shaft remained dark.

He was just beginning to relax when he heard the footsteps.

They were coming down the hallway toward the elevator.

Quinn grabbed his bag off the floor and moved it into the shaft, hanging it off the bolt he was going to tie the rope to.