Chapter Twenty-Four #2
He didn’t have to worry, she wasn’t taking her eyes off that corridor. If anything moved, she was drawing her weapon.
She did have to glance McBride’s way a couple of times when it sounded as if he were wrecking the elevator doors. When he got the first set pried apart, he studied the shaft before announcing, “Car’s down on the first floor.”
She nodded her understanding. Dead end. Dammit. Her stomach threatened to embarrass her. She swallowed, took a few deep breaths. Worth had to be here. They had to find him. Soon.
McBride moved to the second elevator. Pried, pulled, and pried some more until the doors slid apart. The elevator car waited as if they had summoned it for a ride down.
McBride stepped inside for a look while she kept up her surveillance on the corridor, though what she really wanted to do was take a look for herself.
“Looks like the engineer has been at work.” McBride motioned for her to join him. “Check this out.”
The control panel had been removed from the wall and a black box had taken its place. On the black box was a timer, counting down from fifty-six minutes.
Their gazes collided. Oh Jesus. She suddenly understood what that timer meant. “The only reason he would have a timer on this elevator—”
“Was if he wanted it to blow up or to start moving at a certain time,” McBride finished. “We need to go down one floor.”
He carried the pry bar, but she snagged the backpack he’d forgotten as they rushed for the stairwell again.
Every step down she reminded herself that they had time to get the job done.
No need to worry yet. But the idea that the elevator could jolt into action in advance of the specified time had her stomach twisting into knots.
McBride had told her how the timer on the Trenton explosive had reacted to his movements.
And though the C-4 hadn’t been real, there had been danger all the same.
On four, McBride began the same process of prying the doors apart. She served as lookout.
Her pulse started that frantic rhythm she had come to recognize as her ready-for-action mode.
They had to find Worth. Had to get him to safety.
And then the scary part would finally be over.
Then they could focus on getting the bad guy.
Considering what they had found in his house, he would most likely be spending the rest of his life in an institution.
When the sound of straining metal signaled that the doors were opening, she abandoned her lookout post and moved in next to McBride.
The doors parted and there was Worth, his face pale.
Like the other victims, he appeared asleep, sedated probably.
The word haughty was written in black marker across his forehead.
A harness had been secured around his upper torso, then attached to a line that hung from a pulley secured to the underside of the elevator, leaving him suspended in midair four stories—four and one half counting the mezzanine—above the lobby level.
Instinct had her reaching for him.
McBride held her back. “He’s too far away from the door to reach. You could lose your balance and fall.”
She stared into the deep, dark elevator shaft. Definitely a bad way to go.
“We have to call Pierce,” she urged, her mouth going so dry her tongue would hardly push out the syllables. “We need help.”
“If anyone else comes close to this building, he might remotely set the elevator in motion. We can’t take that risk.”
Worth would be squashed. She shuddered.
Vivian put her trembling hand over her mouth to hold back the sound that rose in her throat.
McBride was right. What the hell were they going to do?
That damned line holding Worth looked too flimsy.
He hung out of their reach. Fincher had evidently secured Worth in this manner while the elevator was stopped on the second floor.
Attaching the cable would have been simple from the first floor with the use of a ladder.
Then, one press of a button and Worth was hoisted upward.
A shudder rocked through her. She was suddenly glad that Worth was unconscious.
If he was awake he would only be trying to get loose, moving, fighting his bindings, and that would make matters worse.
Other cables and wires dangled around him from the underside of the car.
If there was only an access from the floor of the elevator car . . . but there wasn’t—only from the top.
“Let me update Pierce before he does something we’ll all regret.”
McBride gave her a nod. She made the call, and it went exactly as she’d known it would. Pierce wanted to act, but she convinced him to stay put for now.
When she’d ended the call, McBride said, “Here are our options.”
Did they have any? She searched his face, hoped he had a plan that would work. Even he couldn’t do magic. Or fly.
“Since we can’t risk trying to override the control, one of us will have to climb around to the back side of the shaft.
” He gestured to the various points around the inner walls where a foot or hand could find support.
More cables lined the walls, offering something—however precarious—to hang on to.
“Once on that ladder”—he pointed to the back wall of the shaft where narrow metal rungs were attached about two feet apart in a path that appeared to go all the way down and all the way up—“Worth would be well within arm’s reach.
Whoever goes that route will give him a push, swinging him in this direction so the person on this side can grab hold and cut him loose. ”
Vivian wasn’t an idiot. She understood that she couldn’t possibly hope to grab Worth and hold him in position long enough to cut him loose and then drag him to safety. They would both end up swinging back out over the open shaft.
She would have to be the one to climb around to the ladder. No question about it.
“Or we could try to find a rope or something long enough for the person on the ladder to loop around him. Then one end could be tossed to the person over here or hung on to during the climb back around to this side,” he suggested.
“The building is empty except for a few pieces of ancient equipment.” She stated the obvious, mostly to let him know she understood there was no other way to do this. “There’s nothing to use except the stuff we brought with us.”
“So, which side do you want?”
“Like I have an option.” Since when had McBride turned into such a gentleman? Maybe he was afraid she was going to fall, and he wanted to be nice for a change.
She kicked off her pumps and peeled off her burgundy jacket. As an afterthought she shouldered out of her holster and passed her weapon to him.
“Listen to me, Grace.”
“I know, I know,” she mumbled. “You’ve been waiting all this time to have me strip in front of you.”
He grabbed her chin and forced her to look him in the eye. That usual wicked gleam was missing, replaced by an intensity that made her heart stumble. “Hang on tight with your fingers and your toes. And whatever you do, don’t look down.”
“Okay.” She wet her dry lips. “No problem.”
With one last bracing indrawn breath, she reached for the closest extrusion inside the shaft, settled one foot on the narrow concrete ledge that went all the way around to the ladder on both sides, and prepared to push off.
Keep your attention on Worth. You’re his only chance.
“Wait, Grace.”
She froze.
“Your legs are shaking.”
Well, duh. She was scared shitless.
“Take a breath,” he ordered. “Try to relax your muscles.”
Easy for him to say.
“Do it, Grace!”
“Okay, okay.” Vivian closed her eyes and focused on relaxing her muscles, calming her nerves. Concentrate. One muscle at a time . . . relax.
“Good,” McBride praised. “Just take it slow and easy. We’re not out of time yet.”
But the truth hit her: If they ran out of time, she and Worth would both be killed.
No more wasting time. Get moving!
Slow but steady, she inched away from the safety of the door . . . of McBride.
The dust settled in her nostrils and she sneezed. The cables she grabbed on to felt greasy. But she kept moving. Along the side wall, then across the back.
When she got within reach of the vertical row of rungs, she scrubbed her palm on her skirt and then grabbed hold of one. She swung her left foot onto a lower rung, then the right. Thank God. She made it. Hanging on to the rungs was a whole lot easier.
“Hook your left arm around a rung so you’ll have a better hold,” McBride suggested. “Then push Worth this way with your right hand.”
Easier said than done. She had to turn her body facing the opening where McBride stood. No wonder he wanted her to hook her left arm around the rung. Though she had wiped her hand, her fingers still felt slippery.
With some precarious maneuvering, she got into position.
Worth was still out cold. “Sorry about this, SAC,” she muttered as she grabbed the harness and drew his limp body toward her, preparing to push.
The line went abruptly slack . . . Worth dropped . . . Vivian didn’t let go.
His weight snapped to a stop as the line tightened and her feet slipped.
She fell . . . dangled in the air . . . barely holding on to the rung with one hand and Worth’s harness with the other.
The unconscious man’s body weight was pulling her away from the rung . . . her fingers were slipping. Her heart stalled.
“Don’t you let go of that rung, Grace!” McBride shouted. He was moving around the shaft, trying to get closer.
“I . . . can’t . . . hang . . . on . . .”
Her hand fell away from the rung.
Her stomach rushed into her throat.
Her grip on the harness was all that separated her from a high-speed encounter with the ground floor.
The horrified scream echoing in the shaft as she looked down was her own.
She grappled for something else to hang on to. Worth’s jacket. Her fingers wadded into the fabric. “God, oh God!”
Her face was plastered against his back. Her right leg stretched back toward the ladder, but she couldn’t reach it.