twenty-seventh level.
He got up, hurried toward the elevator.
“Come on,” Graham said. “Let’s make a run for the stairs.
“No. We’ve got to go back up the shaft.”
Incredulity showed on his face, anguish in hi s eyes. “That’s crazy! ”
“He won’t be looking for us in the shaft. At least not for a couple of
minutes. We can go up two floors, then use the stairs when he comes
back to check the shaft.”
She opened the red door through which they’d come only seconds ago.
“I don’t know if I can do it again,” he said.
“Of course you can.”
“You said up the shaft?”
“That’s right.”
“We have to go down to escape.”
She shook her head; her hair formed a brief dark halo. “You remember
what I said about the night guards?
‘.”They might be dead.”
“If Bollinger killed them so he could have a free hand with us, wouldn’t
he also have sealed off the building?
What if we get to the lobby, with Bollinger hot on our heels, and we
find the doors are locked? Before we could break the glass and get
out, he’d have killed us.”
lee “But the guards might not be dead. He might have gotten past them
somehow.”
“Can we take that chance?”
He frowned. “I guess not.”
“I don’t want to get to the lobby until we’re certain of having a long
lead on Bollinger.”
“So we go up. How’s that better?”
“We can’t play cat and mouse with him for twenty-seven floors. The next
time he catches us in the shaft or on the stairs, he won’t make any
mistakes. But if he doesn’t realize we’re going up, we might be able to
alternate between the shaft and the stairs for thirteen floors, long
enough to get to your office.”
“Why there?”
“Because he won’t expect us to backtrack.”
Graham’s blue eyes were not as wide with fear as they had been; they had
narrowed with calculation. In spite of himself, the will to survive was
flowering in him; the first signs of the old Graham Harris were becoming
visible, pushing through his shell of fear.
He said, “Eventually, he’ll realize what we’ve done. It’ll buy us only
fifteen minutes or so.”
“Time to think of another way out,” she said. “Come on, Graham.
We’re wasting too much time. He’ll be on this floor any second now.”
Less reluctantly than the first time, but still without enthusiasm, he
followed her into the elevator shaft.
On the platform he said, “You go first. I’ll bring up the rear, so I
won’t knock you off the ladder if I fall.”
For the same reason, he had insisted on going first when they descended.
She put her arms around him, kissed him, then turned and started to
climb.
As soon as he got off the elevator on the twentyseventh floor, Bollinger
investigated the stairs at the north end of the building.
They were deserted ‘ He ran the length of the corridor and opened the
door to the south stairs. He stood on the landing for almost a minute,
listening intently for movement. He heard none.
In the corridor again, he searched for an unlocked office door until he
realized they might have gone back into the elevator shaft.
He located the maintenance supply room; the red door was ajar.
He approached it cautiously, as before. He was opening the door all the
way when the shaft beyond was filled with the sound of another door
closing on it.
On the platform, he bent over the railing. He stared down into the
vertiginous depths, wondering which one of the doors they had used.
How many floors had they gained on him?
Dammit!
Cursing aloud, overcoat flapping around his legs, Bollinger went back to
the south stairs to listen for them.
By the time they had climbed two flights on the north stairs, Graham was
wincing with each step. From sole to hip, pain coruscated through his
bad leg. In anticipation of each jolt, he tensed his stomach. Now his
entire abdomen ached. If he had continued to work out and climb after
his fall on Mount Everest, as the doctors had urged him to do, he would