Mackey said, ‘That’s why, when they want to get through it, they use a jackhammer.’
Williams stopped looking up. With a shrug, he said, ‘That’s the only idea I had.’
Parker said, ‘We’ll go back the way we came, see what we find.’
The other two got rid of their plastic bags of jewelry, and they left the tunnel, went back through the mostly abandoned storage room, and into the green-tinged parking area, where Mackey said, ‘Maybe it would be easier to get out down here. There’s more garage space past this, for people who live in this place.’
They walked over to the exit, which was covered by a heavy metal mesh gate that lowered from a drum overhead. Through the mesh, they could see the ramp extend upward toward the street, and a bit of the dark night up there.
But there was no way through or under or around the mesh. The barrier was seriously alarmed, firmly seated into deep metal tracks on both sides, and flanked by concrete block walls two layers thick. Above, the walls met a massive ceiling that was part of the original parade field inside the Armory, capable of bearing the weight of a company of horses, or tanks.
‘We don’t get out down here,’ Parker decided, and they went back upstairs, through the door Marcantoni had opened and Kolaski had unalarmed. Just inside that door, they stopped to look around. Halls extended away ahead of them, toward the display area where they’d been, and to both left and right.
Mackey said, ‘I think we gotta explore all these doors along here.’
Williams said, ‘They won’t lead out.’
‘Maybe we’ll find something we can use,’ Mackey told him, and gestured to the hall on the right. ‘I’ll take a look down there.’
Williams said, ‘Parker?’ Pointing at the two halls, he said, ‘You want this one, or that one?’
‘I’ll do the one straight ahead.’
They separated, and Parker went forward to the first door on the right, which was closed. Opening it, he felt a wave of warm air come out, and when he found the light switch beside the door he saw that this was where the company’s on-line operation was kept. The room was mostly empty, with free-standing metal shelves along both side walls like the ones fronting the tunnel door back in the library. On the shelves were bulky dark metal boxes that ran the wholesaler’s Web site, displaying the wares and making the deals with customers anywhere in the world.
The machines also gave off heat, which was drawn away by a fan inside a metal grid high on the opposite wall. Mackey still had the flashlight, so Parker went down the hall until he found an open door with an ordinary office inside, took a gooseneck lamp from there, and carried it back to the Web site room. The outlet he found in there gave him just enough cord so he could aim the lamp through the grid to see what was inside.
A powerful-looking fan, attached to a solid iron A-frame, was mounted in the middle of a rectangular galvanized duct, about thirty inches wide and fifteen inches high. Using the lamp, he couldn’t see very far into the duct, but it did go upward at a fairly steep angle, straight back from the grid.
It had to exit the building. It would angle up until it got above the ceiling of the other rooms back here, then run straight to an outer wall. Some sort of screen would have to be set up at that far end. With bars on the outside? Some sort of protection, anyway.
It would be a very tight fit, and it might have some impossible corners in it, and it could end at an opening it would be impossible to get through. There had to be something better than this.
Parker left the lamp on the floor in there and tried the door across the hall. The mail room, plus copier and fax. Nothing of interest.
The other four rooms along this hall also offered nothing of use. One near the front was where the staff took its breaks, with a refrigerator, coffeemaker, sofas, and chairs. The refrigerator contained some snack foods, which they might get to later on.
But not much later on; they couldn’t afford to stay in this building a whole lot longer. They’d started this operation a little after six, and it was nearly eleven now. If they were still in this place after five in the morning they were in deep trouble.
The other three rooms were offices of various kinds; accountant, manager, and personnel, it looked like. Parker went through all the desks, but found nothing that looked like a control to open the garage exit downstairs, which would have been a simple way out. But nothing.
He was coming out of the last room, the manager’s office, when Mackey came down the hall, saying, ‘You know what you’ve got down there to the right, you’ve got an apartment.’
Parker said, ‘Somebody lives here?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Mackey said. ‘Not usually. It looks like the owner, a guy named Jerome Freedman from what it said in there, things I looked at, he keeps the place for any time he might want to stay over in town, or maybe when they do inventory here, or whatever. But it’s a complete one-bedroom apartment with a full kitchen. Looks as though nobody’s used it for a while.’
Parker said, ‘Anything useful in it?’
Mackey grinned. ‘You mean, like a buzzer to open the garage gate? I looked, believe me.’
‘And I looked around here,’ Parker said, as Williams came down the hall.
Mackey turned to him, saying, ‘I’ve got the owners’ apartment, what’ve you got?’
‘Storage rooms,’ Williams said, ‘and down at the end, a gym, with exercise machines. Nothing to give us a damn bit of help.’
Parker told them about the duct in the Web site room, but neither of them wanted to explore that route. ‘It’s the big room we want,’ Mackey said.
So they went back to the room with the display cases, many of them now with shattered glass, making jagged reflections in the small lights. Without discussion, they moved out into the dim room, each studying the place on his
