Molly needed to move now. One missing guard was enough. Two would send red flags up all over the building.
Okay, let’s hoist Ethan up. Brace him against the wall.
Wait.
That was all wrong. Anybody coming in through that door would see Ethan’s reddened eyes, the throat wound.
Turn him around. Support his weight. Think of something.
Could the people watching the scene through her eyeglasses tell that, for the first time this morning, she was panicked? Was her face shaking?
She leaned forward quickly and whispered, “Play along,” in Ethan’s ear. She said it as a confidence booster. To let the men watching know that she had this under control.
Even though she didn’t.
Another factor: the sarin. If Ethan had been dosed with it, there was still a risk of inhaling it. Her throat would close up.
There was only one option.
Molly sucked in enough air to inflate her lungs, but not to the point of bursting. Then she picked Ethan up from the concrete landing. He did not protest, even as she heaved him over her right shoulder.
Then she did the same with the unconscious guard, only over her left this time.
A three-way.
Paul would have found this kind of thing kinky, were he still alive.
She moved to the side and planted a foot on the first step going down.
Vincent opened the door and looked down the stairs.
Nothing. No sign of Rickards.
Wait.
Scratch that.
There was a sign. On the landing. And not a good sign.
A sign like blood.
Vincent opened his mouth, then thought better of it. What if Rickards were in trouble? Calling out his name wouldn’t do any good. It might embolden the creep who had a gun to his head.
Listen to him. Gun to the head. Vincent didn’t know what was going on, and already he was assuming the worst. That blood on the landing was probably from the guy with the pen in his neck. Most likely, Rickards hadn’t wanted to wait. Maybe the guy was seizing. Maybe he carried the guy down to the fifteenth floor, caught an elevator there to head to the lobby, get the guy help.
So why hadn’t he radioed him to say that? Rickards knew he was on his way.
Because he had a gun to his head, that’s why.
Stop it.
Vincent reached for the two-way strapped to his belt. Unsnapped it.
Molly was five steps down when she heard the snap. And a footstep on concrete.
What was the snap?
Not a gun being unholstered. A nightstick being removed from a belt? Guards at 1919 didn’t carry them.
Then it bumped against her cheek. It had been hanging from the unconscious guard’s belt.
The radio.
Which came alive in a burst of static.
Thirty-five hundred miles away, McCoy tried to do some math.
“Number three’s a big guy, probably close to two hundred pounds. And that guard looked like he was at least that. Jesus, Keene—she’s hoisting over four hundred pounds of
“Apparently not. Look.”
The view from the glasses froze in place. Then, Ethan Goins—number three—came into view. He was being placed on a concrete step. He looked confused.
“What’s she doing?” McCoy asked.
“I don’t think number three knows, either.”
Vincent heard the return squawk of Rickards’s two-way. It was directly below him.
“Andy!” he shouted, then started down the staircase, wrenching the lead sap from his duty belt. 1919 Market didn’t arm their guards. It freaked the suits out too much. They didn’t like the idea of working in a police state.
All he had was a sap. The weakest kind, too: flat sap with lead shot and no spring in the shank.
No match for somebody, say, with a gun to Andy Rickards’s head.
Molly handed Ethan the radio, hoping he’d understand. She held up an index finger. One minute. I’ll be back for you in one minute. Maybe she could get this guard stashed.
Ethan nodded.
Above, someone shouted, “Andy!”
Molly continued up, guard still slung over her shoulder. She had a decision to make. It was coming down to her mother’s life, or these security guards.
Of course, there was another way.
It would be violating her orders. It would be putting the operation at risk—somewhat. Early on, when she had first contacted Boyfriend, she asked about operational priorities. They were given: sanctions first, experimentation second. By continuing to pursue the experimentation, she was putting the sanctions at risk.
If they were really watching—Boyfriend and his minders—then they’d have to understand why. And they’d have to approve.
Molly stopped midstep, then bench-pressed the guard off her shoulders and flung him down to the next landing. Her back cried out in relief. She wanted to collapse to the staircase and hoped the spasms would go away.
But there was no time for that now. She walked back down a few steps and knelt next to Ethan, who was looking at her with wide-eyed wonder. He was probably wondering what she was doing. Wasn’t she supposed to be stashing the guard somewhere while he distracted the other guard?
“Ethan,” she whispered. “I want you to know something.” She gently placed her hands on the sides of his head.
Maybe she could salvage part of the experiment, after all.
Maybe that would count as extra credit.
A voice behind her said, “Miss, step away from that man.”
The flat sap in his hand was useless, Vincent realized.
Not because he was squaring off against a gun. But because it was a girl.
A young girl.
In a skirt and long hair and bare feet, she didn’t look more than twenty-one. Hell, Vincent’s son would be dating girls like this in a few years.
Here she was, doting on her fallen man—and yeah, Rickards was right. The guy did have a pen sticking out of his neck. What was that about?
But in an instant, Vincent had a pretty clear picture of what was going on. The shattered glass, Rickards’s message, these two kids, this fire tower … all of it. It was a low-budget office burglary gone wrong. Plain and simple. She probably worked here, in an office on the thirty-first floor or higher. Just a secretary, or an assistant or
