Elena guided George forward, turned him sideways, and tried to force him through an opening apparently being held on each side by the men. He didn"t fit. "Give me another couple of inches,"
she said, and they grunted louder. She pushed George through.
"Hold on now," Aristotle said. "I don"t want him found cuffed and blindfolded."
Hands reached in and unlocked the cuffs. "Toss me the blindfold,"
Elena said.
George slipped it off and saw he was inside a dark elevator.
Elena had a weapon pointed at him. Good thing for them, George thought, because Plato and Aristotle were totally occupied holding the doors open. Elena took the blindfold, shoved it in a pocket, and pulled a bottle of water from another. She tossed it in and said, "Cheers," as the doors slammed shut.
George let the bottle bounce on the floor and tried to get his fingers between the doors. Just when he had found purchase he heard the key slide into its hole again and the throwing of the lock. He heard water sloshing and felt around in the dark for the bottle. He uprighted it and decided to save what was left for as long as he could
With his arms spread, George could touch the walls on each side, and as he made a quarter turn, he realized the enclosure was square. It didn"t surprise him that the b.u.t.tons on a panel were not working, but he could tell from the pattern that he was in a four story building. The ceiling was less than a foot above his head.
George felt for loose panels, missing screws, anything.
Everything felt secure. A thin, plastic panel had to be the cover for the light. He removed that and felt a small, circular double fluorescent tube. Next to that was a mesh panel. He pushed up hard on the side until it gave way, then ripped it down. Now he could feel the fan blades, dusty, oily.
His body was already heating, and his breath was short. Were these people crazy? A malfunctioning elevator might make a perfect prison cell, but did they want him to suffocate? George shed his sweater and boots and socks and sat down, his back against the door. He found a boot and began swinging it backward over his shoulder against the door.
"Knock it off or I"ll put you out of your misery," Elena called out. o they had left her alone to guard him. He wanted to tell her that if they didn"t want a dead hostage to show to the bra.s.s, they"d better at least get the fan running. But he was committed not to speak. Not a word. And so he kept banging. Chang had a bad feeling. Since the day he had been left as the only mole at the GC Palace, he had never felt so helpless. Was it possible Stefanich was playacting? They seemed to have him intimidated, eager to please. Even if he had checked on Mac, Chang had everything in place to make Howie Johnson look legit.
He was certain Stefanich was embarra.s.sed to find he had doubted this high level Johnson character and should now be trying to cover that he had ever doubted him.
Chang was desperate to find out hove vulnerable Mac and Chloe and Hannah were. Could they be walking into an ambush? Time was against him, but it might be wrong to just tell Mac to abort.
Maybe they could hotwire the car at the shack and get back to the airport, but Chang knew Mac wouldn"t abandon Sebastian. What if he was already dead? If Mac had been exposed, there was no reason for the GC to keep him alive.
Chang slapped his forehead with both palms.
Think! I f they"re onto Mac, why are they? I f you can find the connection, maybe you can figure out what they might do.
Chang started a global search, asking David Ha.s.sid"s superpowered engine to match anyone at high levels in the palace with the GC at Ptolemais. He even keyed in code breakers, in case the contact person feared someone within the palace was monitoring them. With the computer whirring away, darting through thousands of files in hundreds of locations, Chang fell to his knees.
"G.o.d, I have never asked you to override a piece of equipment. But you know a servant of yours designed this, and I want to serve you too. Help me think. Speed the process. Please let me protect these brothers and sisters. I know from what happened at Petra today that nothing is beyond you. We have lost so much to the enemy, and I know we will lose more before your ultimate victory. But don"t let the Greek believers suffer more.
Not tonight. Protect the Co op. And help me get Mac and Chloe and Hannah and George out of there."
Mac liked a clear mission, a black and white a.s.signment. This one was infiltrate, then storm the gates, free your man, and hit the road. Now there was the underground complication. He wouldn"t leave Greece without his man, and now he couldn"t leave without defending the believers.
The original plan didn"t figure he and his people would be outnumbered. There were four hostage takers. Mac, his two team members, and George made four good guys. Those odds he could live with. But to walk Hannah down the road to Chloe and six GC, knowing there were at least two dozen more in the area, well, that didn"t make sense.
"Hold up," he told Hannah. "You know how to hotwire a car?"
"Do I admit it or not?"
"Just say so. Time is not on our side." "Yes "
"Do it."
While she trotted to Sebastian"s car, Mac radioed Chloe. "Johnson to Irene."
"Irene, go."
"Unforeseen delay here. Need your a.s.sistance."
"Ten four. Should I bring help?"
"Negative. Let them go on. We"ll catch up."
"You heard the boss, gentlemen," Chloe said. "We"ll see you at the destination."
"We"d love to help the senior commander, ma"am."
"Thank you, no."
"Can we meet him later?"
"I"ll see to it." And as she said it, Chloe was overwhelmed with a deep impression, and she had to express herself. "If you do me a favor."
"Anything, ma"am."
"Senior Commander Johnson"s presence tonight is a surprise for Commander Stefanich. He"s going to be compensated for some of his recent actions. So . . ."
"Don"t let on he"s coming?"
"Exactly. "
"You got it, ma"am. And you know what? We didn"t know Commander Stefanich was going to be here. Fact is, we don"t know what we"re doing here."
Chloe blanched. What if Stefanich wasn"t there? "It"s all part of the surprise, boys." Chang knew G.o.d had protected him, probably more j
than he realized. But he had no reason to think G.o.d
owed him anything or was obligated to act in this
instance, just because Chang had asked. With zero con
fidence that his pleas had done any good, Chang wearily
returned to his chair before the computer.
The screen was alive with red flashes. The search engine had reached secure files at the highest levels and was matching, comparing, translating languages, turning spoken word into written. A small box in the upper right hand corner showed six matches already between some element of the GC operation in Ptolemais with top bra.s.s at the palace. Top.
Chang feared mult.i.tasking would slow the search, but he had to take the chance. Mac and the two women were in danger, outnumbered, without any idea what they faced.
He checked the first three matches and found they were routine interactions of Ptolemais administration reporting statistics to GC command. But the fourth was different. It was highest security interaction, a series of e mails between TB and CST, plus mare than one phone call, also between the same two, being reduced to typed transcription.
Chang keyed in, "Match logic?"
The response was immediate. "Meets broad, simple criteria: initials one letter removed from key personnel in GC Greece and GC Palace."
Chang squinted. That"s what he had asked for: any con nection based on standard search sequences and codes. TB was one letter away from SA. OT was one letter away from NS. Chang shot from his chair and stood hunched over the keyboard. He typed in, "Show interaction," and as the files cascaded onto the screen, he called Mac.
Mac heard the car running and footsteps jogging toward him from the north and the east. "Ladies?" he said.