When Cavanaugh hurried into the dark reception room, he saw Jamie's silhouette crouched behind the desk, aiming her pistol toward the door. Next to him, Eddie drew his own gun, aiming. Cavanaugh noticed a slight shadow in the sliver of light that came through the bottom of the door. He heard the scrape of metal as someone worked to pick the lock.
Hearing it slide free, he tensed as he remembered that he hadn't reset the alarm. When the intruder opened the door and didn't hear the warning beep, it would be obvious that someone had entered and turned it off.
Imagining the intruder removing the lock picks and putting them away before turning the knob, Cavanaugh hurried across the reception room's carpet and pushed the alarm's "set" button. He got back to the desk as a different scrape of metal indicated that the knob was being turned. In the darkness, Jamie and Eddie kept aiming.
The door opened a few inches. From the hallway, a beam of light angled in. The warning beep began. Cavanaugh drew his pistol. A shadow obscured the beam of light.
How many are out there? he wondered. The door's too solid for them to shoot through it or for us to shoot at them. They'll need to show themselves.
"Faraday. Jerk," the parrot croaked.
The alarm kept beeping. In fifteen more seconds, it would wail, summoning security personnel. The intruders (it was foolish to believe there was only one) needed to make a decision-assume that the warning beep meant that no one had entered the office, or else take the chance of bursting in and shooting as the alarm went off, knowing that they had to finish the gunfight before the police who were already in the building hurried to this floor.
No, there was a third option, Cavanaugh realized. Maybe the plan was for the intruders to throw in flash-bang grenades, temporarily blinding and deafening anybody in the office. Then they could easily charge in and finish anyone inside, avoiding a prolonged gunfight, gaining time to get away before the police arrived.
With no time to try to protect his eyes or his ears, Cavanaugh tightened his grip on his pistol.
And frowned as an object hurtled through the gap in the door, thumping onto the carpeting.
Only one object. If the intruders were using flash-bang grenades, they'd have thrown several.
The door was slammed shut. In the corridor, footsteps raced along marble.
"Get back!" Cavanaugh shouted as the alarm blared.
He tugged Jamie from behind the desk. Eddie retreated with them.
The object detonated. But not with a roar and a flash. Instead it made a whumping sound that could barely be heard amid the alarm's wail. Even in the shadows, Cavanaugh saw a cloud burst from the object.
"Back! Back! Back!" he kept saying, tugging Jamie, almost tripping over Eddie. "Into William's office!"
They reached the corridor near the reception room. Looking over his shoulder, Cavanaugh saw the cloud obscure the murky furniture. Hissing pressure expanded it rapidly.
"Faraday," the parrot squawked. It didn't get a chance to add "Jerk" before it toppled to the floor of its cage, wings thrashing.
Jamie and Eddie ran into William's office. Cavanaugh followed and slammed the door.
"Poison gas!" His voice was barely audible amid the alarm as he recalled how much force the vapor had been under. "We can't stay here! It'll seep under the door!"
He pivoted toward a wall of shelves that had an array of imposing law books on them. After yanking down a book on the right of the middle shelf, he flipped a lever, then tugged at the entire section of shelves. The section was on rollers. It swung smoothly out, revealing a circular metal staircase that led down.
Jamie and Eddie looked surprised.
"William got so paranoid about his security, he insisted on another way to leave his office!" Cavanaugh flicked a switch that illuminated the stairs and motioned for Jamie and Eddie to hurry down.
About to follow, he balked and stared back at the closed office door. The gray haze was seeping under it.
Unable to subdue his protector's instincts, he lunged for the desk, grabbing the phone.
"What are you doing?" Eddie shouted from the staircase.
The building's security guards, Cavanaugh thought. The police. The explosions put them on heightened alert. The alarm will bring them to this office. They'll burst in.
They'll breathe the gas and die.
William's phone system had an emergency button that directed a call to the lobby's security desk.
"What?" a voice asked quickly, sounding harried.
Pressing the phone hard against his ear, holding a hand over his other ear, Cavanaugh thought he heard sirens and urgent voices in the background. "There's an alarm on the thirtieth floor!"
"We know! A team's going up there!"
Cavanaugh stared again at the crack beneath the closed door. More of the gray haze seeped under it. "Don't go into the office! It's filled with poison gas!"
He slammed down the phone and charged through the opening in the wall. The metal staircase echoed as he pulled at the section of shelves. Closing the barrier, he heard a latch click shut. Then he ran down the circular stairs, turning repeatedly, the echo rumbling.
Jamie and Eddie waited at the bottom.
A dead end.
"How do we-"
"That latch on the right!"
Eddie yanked it and pulled.
A section of the wall moved toward him. The light in the stairwell revealed a janitor's closet.
They closed the wall, unlocked the closet door, and peered out, checking the corridor.
After the dim light in the stairwell, the overhead fluorescents seemed bright when they emerged from the closet.
"The police will search the building," Jamie said.
"And emergency-response teams," Cavanaugh agreed. "Assuming they're all genuine."
He eased a stairwell door open. From below, footsteps and voices rumbled upward.
"We can't go that way."