“The freight elevator,” Jack said.
Together they rushed toward the open cage, Jack hopping a bit with his prosthesis. Once inside, Jack hauled the gate closed and punched the button for the sixth floor. The second from the top.
“They’ll have the main floor guarded. We’ll head up. Seek a fire escape…a telephone…or just find a place to hole up.”
He pulled Harriet to the elevator’s back corner as the cage climbed past the main floor. Shouts reached them. Flashlights bobbled through the darkness. At least twenty men. Jack was right. They’d have to find another way out or some way to call for help. Failing that, they would have to hide.
The elevator continued to climb.
Jack held her.
She clung to him. “Jack…how…you were so—?”
“Gorked?” Jack shook his head. “Jesus, Harriet, do you think I’m really that bad off yet? I know I had an episode at the hotel. I’m sorry I hit you.”
His voice cracked a bit at the last.
She clutched to him, accepting his apology. “When they zapped you with the Taser, I thought something had gone worse neurologically.” She squeezed him again. “Thank God.”
“Stung like a son of a bitch. But later, when I realized you were only pretending to give me those damn pills, I figured you were trying to tell me to act up, to fake being worse off than I was, so they’d let their guard down.”
She glanced up. “So you were faking all along?”
“Well, I really did piss myself,” he said angrily. “But they wouldn’t take me to the goddamn can.”
The elevator stopped.
Jack opened the gates, waved her out, then closed them again. He reached through the slats of the wooden gate and pressed the basement button, sending the cage back down.
“Don’t want them to know which floor we got off on,” he explained.
Together they headed off into the gloom of the warehouse. It was full of old equipment. “An old canning plant, from the looks of it,” Jack said. “There should be plenty of places to hide.”
Somewhere far below, a new noise rose up.
Barking…agitated, excited.
“They have dogs,” Harriet whispered.
15
Demons in the Deep
IT HAD TAKEN too long to cross the island’s net.
While Monk and his army crept over the roof of the world, the storm’s eye had passed over the island and was headed back out to sea. To the east, the typhoon rose like a mighty wave, ready to crash again onto the island.
The winds were already kicking up.
Monk clung to the bridge’s slats as the net rattled. Thunder boomed like cannon fire, and lightning crackled in shattering displays across the black skies. As the clouds opened up, rain slashed down with whipping snaps.
Clinging white-knuckled, Monk stared below.
The
Ropes slithered from the net’s underside and snaked down to the helipad atop the sun deck. Monk wished the helicopters were still here, but the birds had flown the coop before the ship had entered the island’s lagoon.
That left only Ryder’s boat.
More ropes dropped, making an even dozen, swaying in the wind.
Ahead, Jessie yelled out orders in Malay. The young nurse was only thirty yards away, but the winds tore most of his words away. Jessie sat on the net, his legs wrapped tight. He motioned and waved down.
The closest tribesmen ducked headfirst through the net, dropping away, like diving pelicans into the sea. Monk spied under the net. The trio reappeared, clinging to ropes. They slid with practiced skill as more ropes were mounted.
Slowly the army began to crawl again, flowing toward the rigged lines and down. Monk followed along the bridge. He reached Jessie as Ryder grabbed a rope and leaped through the net. The billionaire did not hesitate.
Monk understood his hurry.
Lightning slammed into the net’s far side. Thunder clapped, deafening. Blue energies shot outward along the canopy’s skeleton, but it faded before it reached them. The smell of ozone hung in the air.
“Keep off anything metal!” Monk screamed.
Jessie nodded, repeating his warning in Malay.
In another minute, Monk had joined Jessie. “Get below!” he ordered, and pointed down.
Jessie nodded. As he rolled off the bridge, the storm crested the island and blew with a sudden and sharp gale, roaring like a freight train. Jessie, caught in midreach, unanchored, was shoved bodily off the slatted bridge. He rolled out onto the looser camouflaged netting. His weight tore through it.
Monk lunged and grabbed his ankle. His prosthetic hand clamped hard as Jessie fell away. Monk’s shoulder wrenched with fire as he caught Jessie’s weight. The young nurse hung upside down below him, screaming a string of Hindu curses…or maybe it was prayers.
“The rope!” Monk yelled down to him.
One of the rigged lines hung ten feet away.
Monk began swinging the man. Jessie understood, his arms out, hand clawing for the rope. It was still too far. But only by a foot.
“I’m going to throw you!”
“What? No!”
He had no choice.
Monk’s shoulder burned as he swung Jessie one last time. “Here we go!” Monk tossed the nurse underhanded toward the line.
Jessie tangled into the rope, scrabbling for the wet line. His body began falling, sliding, kicking. Then he hooked a leg and found a grip. He braked and halted his plunge. He clung to the rope, his cheek against it. His lips moved in a silent prayer of thanks — or maybe a curse aimed at Monk.
With the boy safe, Monk rolled back atop the bridge and crawled with caution. The winds pounded him, but he reached the nest of rigged ropes.
Another lightning strike blasted behind him.
Monk flattened as thunder deafened. He stared back over a shoulder as the net jolted like a trampoline. The rear of the bridge shattered upward from the strike, the wooden slats on fire. One of the tribesmen flew high in the air, arms pinwheeling, while electric-blue current crackled through the netting to either side — but the acrobat landed safely among his brethren.
Lucky man, but there was no going back now.
Only one way to go.
Monk grabbed the nearest rope and dropped through the net.
He slid down toward the rain-swept helipad and landed cleanly.
The rest of the army followed.
Ducked low, Monk hurried to where the others had gathered near the staircase that led down from the helipad. Jessie was already directing the tribesmen, pointing toward Monk, toward Ryder. They would split up from here. Monk would go after Lisa. Ryder and Jessie would head down, clearing a path and readying the boat.
