I couldn’t be too careful. What if the instant I poked my head over the wall, a searchlight nailed me and volleys of machine gun bullets clawed my body to pieces?
I raised my head and looked.
Jolie sat on the prone bodies of the guards piled on top of each other. “Hey there. In another minute I was about to do my nails.” Her aura glowed with triumph. “It’s showtime.” She stood, her lean body clothed in a trim black jogging outfit. She showed me her cell phone and tucked it back into a pocket. “Antoine’s on the way. We got a half hour.”
We surveyed the grounds. Sprinklers on the fairway to the right whooshed. Something heavy splashed in one of the ponds, probably an alligator lunging for its prey. A minute later, the sprinklers to the right fell quiet and the sprinklers on the left whooshed on. The red auras of tiny, nervous animals flitted underneath the brush.
Jolie and I walked across the roof toward the corner overlooking the annex. We levitated so that our feet barely scraped across the surface.
A video camera was fixed to the corner and swiveled to pan the annex and surrounding area.
“This has to go.” Jolie knelt behind the camera. She grasped the cable and yanked it from the camera housing.
We waited for a moment, to see what happened. The gate to the annex enclosure opened. A golf cart with two guards rolled through.
“That’s your cue,” I whispered. “They will be going through the basement entrance.”
Jolie stepped to the edge of the wall. She dropped and glided down, silent as an owl.
She landed on the grass between the hotel and the annex, where the guards couldn’t see her.
The cart rumbled toward the access ramp. As they turned to drive down the ramp, Jolie bolted around the corner and jumped into the cart behind the guards.
The cart disappeared from view. The door rattled open, then rattled again to close. Jolie was inside. My turn.
The annex roof had two lattice microwave antennas, five dishes pointed upward, and half a dozen whips arranged around a circular dish mounted flush with the roof. This dish sat right over the pedestal in the floor below. What was the purpose of this dish? It didn’t look like a hatch. Was it an antenna? Did it have something to do with the cylinders inside?
I spotted a large square hatch. From its position along the center of the northern wall I knew it lay over the freight elevator that connected the lab to the lower floors. This was my way inside.
I flexed my legs and leaped for the annex. I spun my arms to keep the momentum. As I approached the roof, I summoned my powers of levitation so that I landed on the roof as softly as a pair of women’s silk panties falling against a carpet.
I continued to levitate, and my feet barely touched the roof as I walked to the hatch.
It was made of steel, with two big hinges and a simple handle. No lock was visible. The hatch must be secured from the inside and rigged to the alarm. I knew the moment I pried the hatch open the circus would start.
Voices carried across the hotel roof. A guard called out: “Tom? Jerry? Why aren’t you guys answering the radio?”
Tom and Jerry? Who else was up there? Woody Woodpecker?
From this angle I couldn’t see the guard, but I could hear his boots creep across the roof.
I grasped the handle of the hatch.
He whispered, “Uh-oh.” Then he shouted, “Command Group, two guards down on the roof. Code 116.”
An electronic horn sounded and red lights flashed throughout the compound.
They know we’re here.
I gave the hatch a mighty tug. The handle bent. I pulled again. Something inside snapped and the hatch swung open.
A red light flashed in my face. The alarm shrieked. The hatch opened to a shaft that dropped to the basement four stories below. A wire dangled from inside the hatch. The guards would know I had come through here.
I floated down the shaft and landed on the edge of the elevator door to the third floor, to plan my next move.
I looked across the shaft and stared into the lens of a video camera. The elevator doors opened behind me. A hand emerged and dropped a grenade.