Ayurvedic, he adopted it as his own. No questions asked. Now, isn't that something? Later on, after the first group lost so much weight, I suggested that Singh ask your ex-lover to be the spokesman for the whole thing in exchange for a modest share of the profits. And Ettinger bit hook, line, and sinker. Why shouldn't he, though, right? It was alternative medicine, and he loved that. And it was going to make him rich, and he loved that even more. Do I know human nature or what?'
He kicked open another door, shined his light into the room, and snapped Sarah's head around, making her look inside. 'Here's the little suite where my late virologist lived while he was putting together our product,' he went on. 'Home, home in the hospital, and no one ever knew he was here. Now isn't that just something?'
'Where's Matt?'
'All in good time.'
'Attention, attention please. This building will be demolished by explosion in seventy-five minutes. No one should be inside the structure or within the blue protective barriers. Repeat…'
'Right on time,' Blankenship said. 'That asshole Paris runs a tight ship.'
In spite of herself, Sarah began to cry.
'You bastard. You crazy bastard,' she whimpered.
'Now just shut up,' he rasped, his voice reverberating down the corridor. 'If you don't have the decency to listen and appreciate what I've been able to accomplish, then just keep your mouth shut. I've already helped half a million people lose weight, live longer, and feel better about themselves, and I've banked almost twenty-one million dollars in just eight months. If you're not impressed, then you're not listening.'
'Where's Matt?'
'Oh, I am just sick and tired of you,' he said. 'I expected more from a woman of your breadth and worldliness.' He dragged her a few more feet down the corridor. 'I give you your knight in shining armor,' he announced. 'Unfortunately, he is at this moment a tad the worse for wear.'
He cast his light down at Matt, who was seated on the floor, a broad adhesive tape gag across his mouth. His hands were secured behind him to a vertical sewage pipe, and his face showed the ravages of a fearsome beating. But he was alive.
'He's been waiting here patiently just in case my clean-up campaign hit any last-minute snags. But except for your unfortunate recovery from your suicide attempt the other night, there really haven't been any.'
Blankenship loosened his hold on her. Sarah rushed to Matt and gently peeled off the tape. He breathed in the stale, dusty air hungrily. She stroked his face and kissed the dark swelling about his eyes.
'Matt, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry' was all she could say.
'I love you,' he managed. 'I was praying he wouldn't hurt you any more.'
'They'll find us, Eli,' Sarah said angrily. 'They'll dig this place out, they'll find us, and they'll get you. You're really not as smart as you think. There are too many loose ends.'
'There are none,' he said. 'At least none that I can't deal with, especially with Peter Ettinger around to absorb the blame for absolutely anything. The dupe from heaven, that's what I call him. In jail and absolutely clueless. Now, if you'll be so kind as to put your hands together behind your back, I have just enough wire left over.'
Sarah stayed where she was, her arms around Matt's shoulders. Blankenship was reaching again for her when Matt lashed his feet out. In one motion, he knocked the light free and continued upward until he made solid contact with Blankenship's chin.
'Run, Sarah!' he shouted as Blankenship reeled several steps backward. 'Run!'
Matt cried out as Blankenship hit him. But Sarah was already through the doorway. The subbasement corridor was pitch-black. She slammed into the wall, stumbled momentarily, and then dragged her hand along it, moving as fast as she could in the direction away from the tunnel and the locked security gates. The windows and doors from the first floor on up were boarded over. If she could somehow get to one of those and kick the boards out, there was a chance. Behind her, she heard Blankenship laugh.
'What a flashlight,' he said. 'First chance I get, I'm writing a letter of endorsement to the manufacturer. Sarah, give it up!'
Sarah continued working her way along the wall as the powerful flashlight beam began sweeping the corridor, searching her out. At the moment it found her, she glimpsed the stairs, just a few feet ahead and to her left. She raced upward as fast as she could, hitting the wall at the landing, bouncing off it, and then sprinting upward to the basement level. Behind her she could see the bobbing light and hear Blankenship's heavy footsteps. The debris was a problem now. Huge pieces of concrete and planking tripped her once, and then again, as she picked her way up to the first floor.
'Give it up, Sarah,' Blankenship called out once more.
If she could only put some distance between them, Sarah thought-just find a place to hide until he had to leave the building-she had a chance. Every story meant more possibilities Blankenship had to consider before he could confidently move on. Every turn that presented her with new options presented him with new problems. She fell again but scrambled up and, as quietly as she could manage, worked her way to the second floor. This was where she would stop, she decided. This was where she would hide.
She dragged her hand along the wall as she made her way over the rubble and through the oppressive darkness, searching for a room of some sort. Up ahead, through what she felt must be a boarded window, she saw the faintest sliver of light. Behind her, Blankenship's footsteps and labored breathing were getting closer. Suddenly the floor beneath her left foot vanished. At almost the same instant her left hand slipped from the wall into nothingness. She felt herself falling. Reflexively she pushed off her right foot and dove forward. She fell heavily to the floor, pieces of concrete gashing her chin and knee. Then, helplessly, she toppled off into what she realized at that instant was the elevator shaft. She was beginning to free-fall when first her right hand, then her left, found the edge of something metal. Her fingers closed on it. Her arms snapped to full extension, but her grips held. And suddenly she was dangling over a black abyss.
Desperately she tried to comprehend her situation. She was clinging to the metal frame that had once held the elevator doors. The concrete had broken away from the frame, leaving a gap several inches wide between it and the remaining floor. Through the darkness, she could hear Blankenship leave the first floor, following the sound of her fall to the second. The metal was cutting into her fingers. She had only seconds to make a decision. She either had to try and haul herself up… or drop. Three stories to the subbasement, she figured. Twenty-five feet, maybe. Would she have any chance at all dropping through the impenetrable blackness to a concrete floor? The answer was clear.
Planting the sole of her sneaker against the wall of the shaft and pulling with strength she would never have believed she possessed, she kicked one foot up to the doorway and over the metal frame. The gap beyond the frame was quite wide, actually-eight or nine inches. With her heel set in the space, she had just enough purchase to haul herself up.
'Attention. Attention, please. This building will be demolished by explosion in sixty minutes…'
Shielded by the noise of the loudspeaker's warning, Sarah scrambled on her hands and knees across the corridor. She was cowering against the wall, in a small alcove opposite the shaft, when Blankenship's light knifed through the darkness from the stairway landing.
'Come on, Sarah,' he called, inching his way along. 'We'll talk… Maybe work out a deal… I'm not leaving until there's only a minute or two left… You don't have a prayer without me. Neither does Daniels. He's hurt, you know… Hurt pretty bad. You can help him…'
There was one chance, Sarah realized as he approached. Only one. She braced herself against the wall. If he spotted her before he reached the open shaft, it was over for her. But if not…
Ten feet away… five… still the beam had not found her. Three… One more step, she urged. Just one, and-
At the moment the light hit her, she sprang forward, hurling her body against Blankenship's chest with all her strength. It was as if she had leapt against a slab of granite. Before she even realized how totally she had failed, the man's arms were around her, crushing her.
'Not a chance,' he said, laughing out loud and intensifying his grip. 'Not a-'
Sarah felt his bulk suddenly shift and his hold on her lessen. He had taken a single step backward. She knew that. But then something had happened. He was off balance, falling backward and to his left… falling into the shaft. Still clutching Sarah too tightly for her to break away, Blankenship began to scream.
