Creepers

48

Balenger charged into the surveillance room. The others followed. On the bottom right monitor, tinted green by a night-vision camera, a tall, thin, plain-faced man waved at them, silently saying either hello or goodbye. Amanda began to weep.

At least, it seemed that he was plain-faced. Hard to be sure when the man's eyes were covered with what Balenger had feared he would have: night-vision goggles. Unlike the ones that dangled around Tod's neck, these were streamlined, almost elegant, the latest high-tech version.

He had a weak chin. His thin nose was a counterpart to his thin lips. The baby-soft look of his skin made the wrinkles on his brow and around his mouth seem painted on. His salt-and-pepper hair was receding. He wore a dark suit, a white shirt, and a conservative striped tie.

"He always dresses that way," Amanda said. "Never takes his coat off. Never loosens his tie."

"Never?" Vinnie asked. "But how did-"

"I recognize him," Balenger said.

"What?"

He turned toward Cora and Vinnie. "The professor described him for us. Remember? A blank-faced, bureaucratic type. In his fifties. No expression."

"The guy in charge of Carlisle's trust?" Vinnie looked startled.

"I spoke with him several times after my wife disappeared. The son of a bitch said Diane spent an hour in his office the day it happened. He showed me her name in his appointment book. Eleven in the morning. After their meeting, he said, he had a lunch appointment, and he had no idea where she went. But he doesn't call himself Ronnie. The name he uses is Walter Harrigan.''

"Not Walter Carlisle?" Cora asked. "So much for his claim that he's Carlisle's son."

"But why does he use different names?" Vinnie asked. "Who is he?"

On the monitor, Ronnie pointed toward something behind him. When he moved, Balenger saw that Ronnie was in the utility room, that the door to the tunnel was now shut. More than shut, Balenger realized.

"Jesus, what's he done to it?" Cora asked.

A metal bar seemed to hang in mid-air in front of the door. No, Balenger thought in dismay. Not in front of the door. On the door.

Ronnie pointed toward something next to it.

"What the hell is that?" Tod said.

A metal cylinder resembled the kind of tank that scuba divers used. The tank was on a cart. A slender hose was attached to the tank. A short pole with a handle was attached to the other end of the hose. A mask with thick glass was propped against the cart.

Balenger felt nauseous.

Vinnie answered, "Welder's tools. God help us, he welded a bar across the door. There's no way out."

Balenger stared down at the metal box in his hands. All the time he watched the monitor, he tugged fiercely at the lid, but the seal held firm. He feared that at any moment Ronnie would press a remote detonator, "Need to get rid of this."

He rushed to the trapdoor in the surveillance room. "Cora, free the bolt!"

Holding the belt with his left hand, he drew his pistol with his right. "Open the trapdoor. Maybe this is a trick. Maybe we're watching a video. Maybe Ronnie's actually waiting under this trapdoor." Balenger aimed. "If he is, I'll blow him to hell. Vinnie, shine your flashlight at the opening. Ready? Cora, do it. Open the trapdoor!"

Cora pulled it up. Vinnie's flashlight blazed into the darkness of another spiral staircase. Balenger reached under the curved hand-rail and dropped the belt and the box. They plummeted, clattering off metal.

Cora slammed the trapdoor shut. While she locked it and Balenger darted back, Tod said, "The bastard's doing something else."

Balenger whirled toward the monitor. There, Ronnie continued to display his neutral smile as he pointed toward something indistinct on a wall to the side.

"What's that on the floor?" Vinnie asked.

"It's moving," Tod said.

"Water from the storm," Cora realized.

Ronnie stepped sideways through the rippling water and reached the object on the wall. It was so far to the side that the camera hardly showed it. The object had a handle.

"No!" Amanda said, realizing what it was: an electrical transformer.

Looking surreal in his goggles, suit, and tie amid the water rippling in the utility room, Ronnie waved again, almost looking enthusiastic now, definitely communicating good-bye. He pulled down the lever.

The lights went out. The monitors became blank. The rain pounding the roof seemed to get louder as the group found itself for the first time in absolute darkness. Not even the skylight was available to show flashes from the storm. To Balenger, the darkness seemed to have density and weight, compressing around him, squeezing.

Cora gasped.

Fabric rustled, the sound of Vinnie's arm moving as he turned his headlamp on. So did Balenger and Cora, the beams darting around the surveillance room.

"Give me the flashlight," Tod told Vinnie.

It gleamed. For the previous four and a half hours, Balenger had been in semi-darkness. He had almost gotten used to it. By contrast, the bright lights of the penthouse had at first seemed unnatural, paining him. But how quickly he had adjusted to them. And now how quickly the semi-darkness was hateful.

"Amanda?" Cora asked.

"I'm okay. Fine." But she didn't sound fine at all. "I can handle this. I can handle this," she said unconvincingly.

Unseen lightning cracked.

"I've been through worse." She spoke rapidly. "Being in the vault was worse. Being alone was worse."

"Alone?" Vinnie said, puzzled. "But-"

"Now's our chance," Tod said.

"Chance?" Balenger asked. "What do you mean?"

"He's down in the basement. We can use one of these staircases to get to the ground floor."

"I hate to agree with this creep," Vinnie said, "but he's right. We've got seven staircases to choose from. Ronnie can be in only one at a time." -

"But which staircase?" Cora asked. "You said you couldn't find an exit down there."

"And he said"-Tod indicated Balenger-"there must be secret doors."

"Which staircase?" Cora repeated. "The one we already used is too obvious."

"Or maybe it's so obvious, Ronnie won't think of it," Tod said.

"I'm not going down that one." Vinnie pointed toward the trapdoor where Balenger had thrown the metal box. "All Ronnie needs to do is press a remote detonator and-"

"That sound. What is it?" Amanda said.

"Just the storm. It's bugging my nerves, too."

"Something else. From in there." Amanda pointed toward the bedroom.

"I hear it, too." Cora turned.

"Not the bedroom. The exercise room," Balenger said.

"The elevator!" Tod blurted.

Lights zigzagging, they ran toward the medical room, where they stared through the doorway into the exercise room. Despite the pounding of the rain, Balenger heard the whir of cables and gears. The whir got louder.

Behind the closed door, the elevator rose.