Tick Tock

Chapter 72

STILL DRIPPING WATER FROM HIS WET HAIR, Carl Apt hung on in the shaft of the building's front elevator.

He had been hanging on for the past forty minutes on a vertical beam using a rock-climbing method known as laybacking. With the fingers of both hands and the soles of both bare feet gripping the cold metal, he hung sideways with the side of his butt and lower back pressed against the brick of the elevator's shaft.

Grabbing only the kit bag the moment after the authorities blew the door down, he was completely nude. Inside the duffel bag was everything he needed-a pistol, his ATM cards, five hundred Percocet, and a change of clothes. The bag dangled in the breeze along with the rest of him, eighteen stories above the hot, pitch-black pit of the elevator shaft.

Every once in a while, he had to shift his grip and foothold to avoid cramping, but he wasn't worried yet. One thing he knew was pain, and he wasn't even in the ballpark of his threshold yet.

What he needed now was a hole. A place to get inside of and stay until things cooled down enough for him to move again. Until dark at least. He knew just the place, too. He'd get to it in a few minutes. Despite the sudden turn of events, he was completely calm. He'd been planning everything in his mind, every contingency, for the past year.

A silver blue electric spark flashed down from above as the elevator motor clacked on, and the cables in front of him began to whir.

After a minute, the top of the elevator began to approach. It stopped ten feet below him, police radios squawking as the cops inside got off.

Now was his chance. He shimmied down the girder and onto the top of the elevator as silently as a cat. His toes squished in the cable grease. The now-empty elevator started heading down toward the lobby.

Now for the tricky part, he thought as the floors fell away.

When the elevator car got to three, he stood and stepped off the top of the elevator car onto the lip of the second floor's elevator door. He waited for the door of the elevator to open onto the lobby before he popped the release lever at the top of the second floor's door and stepped out onto the landing. As he let the door slide back, he wrapped his bag's handle on the shaft-side door release.

He waited on the furniture-filled landing of the second floor, staring at the two doors of the A and B apartments. Now was the bugger, he knew.

He would have to wait until the elevator went back upstairs in order to open the door and actually get underneath the elevator. It was the only way of getting into the basement undetected. That's where his hole was. His life now depended on getting down into the building's basement.

He glanced at the apartment doors, his hand on the suppressed 9-millimeter Smith amp; Wesson semiauto in his bag. If someone came out, he would kill them. On that note, if the police came to the second floor, he would also be forced to have it out right here, right now. He'd go for face shots at this close range, grab one of the automatic rifles, go down to the lobby, and go balls to the walls. Shoot his way out or die trying.

He smiled. It wasn't such a bad plan, definitely not a bad way to go. If he was anything, he was a warrior, and like all warriors, what he ultimately wanted was a good death.

One way or the other. It was up to the fates now. It was completely out of his hands.