Fuchs was leading Nodon and Amarjagal cautiously up the main stairway, peering intently at the upper landing to see if any more security guards were up there. Suddenly he heard the heavy slamming of doors. A voice blared from speakers hidden in the ceiling:
“WE HAVE YOU ON CAMERA AND ARE AUTHORIZED TO USE LETHAL FORCE IF NECESSARY. THE HOUSE IS SEALED AND THERE IS NO WAY FOR YOU TO ESCAPE. DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND PUT YOUR HANDS ON TOP OF YOUR HEADS.”
Fuchs hesitated for barely a fraction of a second, then rushed up the stairs, the two others behind him. As they reached the landing, Sanja started up the steps behind them.
“The front doorway has been sealed with a metal slab!” he called.
The windows, too, were covered with heavy metal grillwork, Fuchs saw as he glanced around the upstairs hallway. The hall was lined with real wooden furniture: tables and chests and sideboards. Actual paintings hung along the walls.
They think we’re burglars or thieves, Fuchs thought. They’re trying to make certain we can’t get away. But I don’t want to get away, I want to find Humphries.
“Where are you, Humphries?” he shouted at the ceiling. “Show yourself, coward!”
Nodon, his eyes so wide that Fuchs could see white all around the pupils, said in a tight whisper, “They must be sending more guards. We’re trapped!”
All the lights went off, plunging them into almost total darkness. Within an instant, though, Nodon pulled a hand torch from his coverall pocket. Its feeble beam made the hallway look eerie, mysterious.
Fuchs rushed to a heavy walnut table against the wall. With one sweep of his arm he sent the flower vase and smaller porcelain pieces atop it crashing to the carpeted floor.
“Help me turn this thing over and drag it over to the top of the stairs. We can stop them from getting up here.”
Sanja and Amarjagal tipped the table over with a heavy thud, and the four of them pushed it to the head of the stairs and wedged it there between the wall and the staircase railing. Down below they heard the pounding of running feet and saw the shadowy figures of security guards coming along the downstairs hall. They must have been stationed in the basement, Fuchs thought, straining to make out how many of them there were. No more than six, he estimated.
He whispered to the two men, “Get the statues, the chairs, anything you can lift and bring them here. Amarjagal, go down the hallway a few meters so you can fire on them as they come up the stairs.”
If they think we’re going to surrender, they have a big surprise coming, Fuchs thought grimly. I’m not leaving this house until I see Humphries dead at my feet.
SHINING MOUNTAIN BASE
Pancho jogged up the rampway, long legs pumping easily as she made her way to the top level of the base. Trotting along the final section of ramp she could see the ribbed vaulting of the surface dome overhead. Almost there, she said to herself.
But she skidded to a halt when she spotted a quartet of men standing by the row of space suits that hung next to the airlock. They were all Japanese, their coveralls sky blue and bearing the white flying crane emblem of Yamagata Corporation. Each of them had an ugly-looking sidearm strapped to his waist.
They saw her, too. Two of them started to sprint toward her as Pancho reversed her course and started back down the ramp, back toward the noisy, bustling construction crews and the minitractors that were hauling loads of steel beams and drywall sheeting. She swung her legs over the ramp’s railing and jumped lightly to the dusty floor several meters below.
The noise was an advantage to her, she thought. Nobody’s going to hear those guards yelling, and these construction guys don’t have comm units in their ears. She loped alongside one of the electric-powered minitractors and hopped into the cart it was towing, landing with a plop amidst coils of wire and bouncing, flexing lengths of plastic piping.
She lay flat, hoping that the guards didn’t see her hitchhike maneuver. The minitractor trundled on for several minutes; all Pancho could see was the bare beams supporting the ceiling overhead.