“I’ll check for a fire escape. Call 911,” he said.
Vail ran to the side of the building he hadn’t seen before breaking in. When he came back, Kate was giving the address to the emergency operator. She looked at him anxiously. He said, “There are no fire escapes.”
8
The tall, slender man with the splayed nose sat behind the wheel and watched as one of his men lowered himself carefully down a rope that hung from the roof of the burning building. A second man came from around the back of the building and stood underneath until the first man was safely on the ground. Once he was, the two of them looked up before casually walking back to the waiting black SUV. They got into the backseat without saying a word. One of them smelled of gasoline and smoke. Sitting next to the driver was the big man with the eyes that barely moved. “Was either of them shot?” he asked in a heavy accent.
“I’m not sure. Possibly,” answered the man who had come down the rope.
“Which means they weren’t,” the driver said, his voice both apologetic and angry.
The passenger shifted himself in the seat and watched the top of the building as smoke continued to pour out of it. “It will be more entertaining this way.”
“Then how did the guy we chased get off the roof?” Kate asked.
Vail saw what looked like a cable hanging over the side of the building. They both went over and examined it. It was about thirty feet long but was tied to a much longer rope. Both together were long enough to reach to within ten feet of the ground. “That’s how.” The end of the cable was anchored in a nearby water drain. Vail pulled on it, testing his weight against it. “Think you can make it?”
She looked back at the smoke billowing out of the door they had forced open. “You mean there’re other choices?”
Holding on to the cable, she was starting to climb over the low wall when he said, “Hang on a minute.” He went back and closed the door. The smoke started streaming out of the cracks around it and from the lock hole. He picked up the now-broken board that had been snapped in half when he and Kate forced open the door. It was a length of two-by-two that had been jammed against a short section of two-by-four nailed to the roof. The two-by-four had a notch cut into it to hold one end of the two-by-two in place. The other end had been notched also and jammed up under the door handle. “If they’d used a two-by-four, we’d still be in there.”
“Maybe they didn’t have any.”
“Two-by-fours are a lot easier to find than two-by-twos.”
“At the risk of sounding like I’m giving you an order, can we discuss this on the ground?”
Vail walked back to the braided cable and examined it more closely. He took out his lockback knife and opened it. “Are you still carrying that thing?” she asked.
Carefully, he cut into one of the strands and sniffed it. He looked at her soberly. “It’s det cord.”
“Det cord as in detonation cord?”
“I’ve seen it on demolition jobs. When it’s ignited at one end, it explodes so fast you can’t tell which end was set off.”
“Why would they use that?”
“That’s something we have to figure out before we go any further.” He got down on his knees next to the drain that the end of the cable disappeared into. “Let me have that flashlight.” He tried to pull the drain cover off. When it wouldn’t budge, he said, “It’s been spot-welded.” He got closer and used the light to peer down into the small crack surrounding the cable. After a few seconds, he stood up and snapped the light off with finality.
“What is it?”
Vail didn’t answer right away but instead looked over the side of the building and tugged easily on the braided cord.
“What is it?”
“There’s a device connected to the end. Det cord is set off with a blasting cap. There’s one of those in there, too. There’s also a battery and a large, heavy-duty spring. What happens is when there’s enough weight on the cable and rope, the metal spring lengthens and makes contact, closing the circuit between the battery and the blasting cap, which in turn sets off the det cord. If we’re both hanging on it ten stories up—poof. It’s gone, and so are we.”
“But whoever was shooting at us used it.”
“We never got a look at him. We don’t know how much he weighed. He could have been a hundred and thirty pounds for all we know.”
“How much do you weigh?” she asked.
“One-ninety. What are you, about one-eighty?”
“One-thirty-five, Vail.”
He got down on his knees again and turned on the flashlight. He took a few extra seconds looking into the thin opening before getting up. “You should be all right.”
“What about you?”
“They had to build some tolerance into it. I’m guessing that to open that spring up fully and set it off, both of us would have to be on it together. You go first. Once you’re down, I’ll get on it.”
In the distance Kate could hear the sirens now. “Maybe we should wait for the fire department.”
“They haven’t got anything that can reach ten floors.” He squatted down and put his hand flat on the deck. “It’s getting hot. We don’t have that much time.”
Kate went over to the side and grabbed the cable. Vail could see the uncertainty in her eyes. “I could be wrong about how much weight
