It was ridiculous to stand and wait for a rescue that very probably would never arrive. The bomb squad would be focused on their task. It would be risky to bring in a rescue team with less than ten minutes to detonation, but certainly it should be attempted. Becca hadn’t a clue about the protocol for something like this in Germany.
“What are we going to do?” Clinging to the iron railing that wrapped the staircase, Uther pleaded with Becca. “What did your caller say?”
She patted her jacket pocket where the cell phone rested. Should she tell him they were sitting on a bomb? A lie would keep Uther calm. But he was a big boy. He deserved to know he might be dead in ten minutes.
Drawing a deep breath and exhaling in her most yogic manner, Becca worked for a gentle beginning, then announced, “That was my friend Aston. There’s been a bomb threat.”
The man chuffed out a breath and pushed his fingers through his hair. He pounded a fist against the transparent wall of the elevator. “No!”
Drawing in a shaky breath, Becca summoned her resolve. Reinhardt Whitmore had not raised a whiner or a complainer. He’d raised a daughter who could do anything she set her mind to. And the Gotham Roses had trained a woman who could think on her feet.
“A bomb squad has been sent in,” she explained. “But we’re not going to stand around waiting for rescue. We need to do something.”
“Like what?” Uther shrieked. “They’re going to kill me!”
“No one is going to kill you, Uther.” Becca kept her tone from rising too high, and drawing a breath, she spoke calmly. “Think about it. Why would anyone who wants what you’ve got kill you? How would they get the information after that?”
“If I’m dead all they need to do is get the diamonds with my research in them.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Becca said evenly. “Just stay there and…chill. I’ve had a look around. I can figure something out.”
A silly thought entered her head. What would Batman do? He’d find a way out. And he wouldn’t panic. And should Robin be at his side? Batman would surely involve him in the process.
“On second thought, if you’re doing something, you won’t have time to be nervous.” She shrugged off her coat and let it drop. “Give me a boost, will you? I want to check the ceiling. There’s got to be an escape hatch, some means to access the elevator for repairs. Whoever is after you, he’s not going to win. Let’s do this.”
Uther bent to offer clasped hands. Becca stepped onto them and, using the curved wall for balance, was lifted to touch the ceiling. Pressing her palms and fingers along the cool acrylic surface, she found a latch. Yes! A release switch for a door opening into the elevator shaft.
“Found something. I think we can crawl out.”
“To where?” Uther shrieked. “We’re stuck on the…the sixth floor. We can’t crawl up two stories!”
“Yes, we can,” Becca stated. She leaped down from Uther’s grasp and placed a hand on his shoulder. “There’s an access ladder concealed by a fake coral reef that climbs the length of the elevator shaft. Primitive, but serviceable. You can do this.”
“No.”
“Uther!”
A morbid resolve tightened his gaping mouth. “And why can you do it? You’re so calm. And tough. Shouldn’t you be crying or wailing for Daddy?”
“Uther, please.” Slapping his shoulder, she nodded confidently. “I’m used to working under pressure. You know my father—he’s a stickler for perfection. Can’t be seen onstage until it’s all worked through, all the angles and tangents have been planned for and the sweat has been sweated. You must have an idea of what working under pressure is like.”
“I do. Yeah.” He swallowed. Becca could feel him relax.
“Say it,” she coached. “I can do this.”
He gave her a nod, a surety that indeed he would give it a go. “I can do this.”
“So let’s do it together.” She wasn’t about to mention how time was quickly dwindling. That would only make him shake all the more. “You go first.”
“How will you get up?”
“You can reach back down and pull me up. Can you do that?”
He nodded and stepped onto Becca’s knee, then, reluctantly, into her clasped hands. Uther managed to climb to the top of the elevator with minimal grunts.
“There is a ladder,” he called down, “but it’s so narrow. The steps are wide enough for—”
“One foot,” Becca agreed, as she bent to shuffle through her coat for her cell phone, slipping it into the pocket in the front of her slacks. “Be careful. Take your time.” But not too much time, she thought to herself. “First pull me up!”
Uther’s head and arm popped back into the elevator. Becca jumped and clasped his sweaty hand—and slipped down again.
“Oh man,” she muttered, then shouted up, “Wipe your hand on your pants, Uther.”
“Sorry, I’m like a slimy fish. When I get nervous I sweat—”
“Just do it!” she commanded.
The hand reached down again. This time it was clammy but not as slick. Uther had a good grip, and there were muscles somewhere beneath all that saggy clothing. Becca dangled from the opening as he pulled her through.
Her cell phone rang as she crouched on top of the elevator in the eerie, watery shaft. Not separated by two layers of plastic now. Just one. And why did that frighten her more than the potential of a bomb obliterating her world?
“Go.” She gestured for Uther to begin the climb, while she clicked on her phone. “What?”
“Becca,” Dane said, “you should know the hotel determines it’ll be another ten minutes before they can get the backup generator working, and the lift back in order.”
“Not a problem. Just tell me the guests have been evacuated.”
“All of them. But you—”
“Have taken matters into hand. We’re climbing out of here. See you in less than ten minutes.”
“Great. Er… Becca?”
She did not like the tone of his voice.
“Tell me, Dane. I don’t even have ten minutes, do I?” She glanced up. Uther had reached the top of the access ladder inside the elevator shaft and was beating against the door that opened to the observation deck, and a steel catwalk that connected the aquarium to the ninth floor.
“Just hurry, love.”
“More or less than five?” She had to know.
“Becca, I—”
“Dane!”
“Three. Hurry.”
Uther managed to open the observation deck door and crawl onto the catwalk. He peered down at her and the ground floor below, and shouted, “I don’t see a bomb squad—”
His shout was abruptly cut off. Becca searched for him through the thick layers of acrylic. Gripping the steel stairs inside the shaft, she started to climb, but stopped when she heard a voice. It wasn’t Uther. It was… Russian.
“No. Way!” she muttered.
Mounting the steel rungs as quickly as she could, she still took a good thirty seconds to reach the top. She pulled herself onto the catwalk.
At the other side of the steel landing stood Dimitri, with his arm locked around Uther’s neck. “Ten seconds left. You’ll never make it!” He blew her a kiss, then wrestled Uther upright and started running toward the ninth-floor stairway entrance.
Dimitri had the wrong person. Becca was the one with the diamonds in her pocket.
Ten seconds?
The sudden pulse below her feet moved her to action. Clinging to the steel railing, she heard a dull thumping noise beneath her. The sharp cutting slice of cracking acrylic came next. She looked down and actually saw an ice-blue zigzagging crack race up the side of the aquarium. Fish dodged and disappeared from the perimeter of the tank.
Another pulse vibrated beneath her feet like a giant belch. Air had entered the aquarium.
Was that it? Had the bomb gone off? Had the explosives merely cracked—
“Whoa!” Vibrations shook the catwalk. Becca gripped the railing and raced toward the ninth-floor landing. The heavy vinyl-wrapped cable threaded through the posts of the railing quivered like a plucked guitar string.
A loud splintering noise behind her clued Becca that the tank had broken. Acrylic groaned as it separated in jagged panels and fell to the floor below. A huge wave of water gushed, sloshing and tearing at everything in its path.
She turned her head to see the entire side of the aquarium slide like a wall of ice severed from an iceberg. Beside her, the support cable threaded through the railing zinged through the poles, unraveling like a loose thread in a sweater. The catwalk twisted and she slid backward. Grasping the railing became slippery work as the walkway bent downward.
Despite her slick grip, she worked her way up the sloping pathway. Slapping her palm onto the carpeted floor of the ninth level, she struggled for purchase with her fingers.
She couldn’t grab hold. With one hand gripping the railing, she dangled nine stories above ground. One shoe slipped from her foot and landed in the ocean below.
At least the structure of the building remained sound. So far.
Trying again, Becca managed to grip the railing post bolted onto the ninth floor. But no matter how desperately she tried, she couldn’t work herself up onto the carpeted floor. Light as she was, her body weight hung heavily from her arms. Her right shoulder hurt like a mother, but even the searing pain couldn’t prevent her from trying to save herself.
Not like this.
The snap of steel bit at her shoulder. The looped end of the support cable wrapped in clear vinyl swooshed through the twisted railing and landed on the floor before her. Becca grabbed for it.
With the cable still attached to the railing post, the steel catwalk frame snapped from the ninth floor. A heavy steel bolt zinged past Becca’s face. The force of the detachment sent her flying backward. Her body swung out wide, like Tarzan grabbing a rubber band vine instead of a real one, and then soared back toward the interior rooms.
Clinging desperately to the looped cable, Becca braced herself for impact against the concrete wall. But instead of crashing into it, she was suddenly falling, the cable dropping her quickly.
With a snap, she stopped, dangling six stories from the lobby floor.
Becca clung to the cable with both hands. She managed to lift her legs to avoid the slice of a massive piece of acrylic that sailed past.
The steel railing groaned. And bent. Her body dropped another story or two.
Looking up, Becca saw that the catwalk railing had gotten hooked on the top of the now-exposed elevator shaft. It was still moving, the topmost end bending downward. The cable she clung to was attached to the railing. With each creak of steel Becca felt herself drop lower.
The entire structure would fall soon.
She had to risk it. If she waited for the catwalk to snap free she’d be crushed. Or sliced open by a big shard of acrylic.
Another downward plunge happened so quickly she felt her heart leap to her throat. She’d dropped another few stories. Becca swayed, feeling like a fish on a hook, about to join the hundreds of colored fish flopping about in puddles and pools on the slick white lobby floor.
Counting to three, she swung toward the far wall. The cable loosened. She descended.
And leaped.