“Open the door, Wilhelm,” said Max, pulling off her mask.
“Ha! Forget it, kid,” Wilhelm snarled. He jabbed the muzzle of his weapon into Hana’s ribs.
Hana was sobbing. “I’m so sorry, you guys,” she blubbered.
“As you should be,” said Leo, who’d also taken off his mask. “Wilhelm, have you forgotten that your hostage betrayed us? Why should we want to protect, save, or rescue her?”
Wilhelm paused to think about that. He even lowered his weapon slightly.
But it was enough.
It gave Leo a clean shot.
The door in his chest flew open and out sprang the twin barbed probes of a laser-guided Taser stun gun. Wilhelm’s limbs spasmed as the electric pulse convulsed him. He dropped his weapon, which clattered on the stony floor. He toppled to his knees. Quivering from the electric jolt, he flopped sideways and scooted around the dusty floor in kicking circles.
“What’s the door code?” screamed Hana. “We need to get out of here.”
In the distance, alarm sirens started whoop-whooping.
“Evacuate the facility,” purred a way-too-calm prerecorded voice. “Evacuate the facility.”
“Release Hana!” came the voice of Dr. Zimm over the loudspeakers. He coughed some. Gagged, too. “Open this door, Max! Open this door immediately!”
“Guess the stink bomb must’ve done its thing,” said Max.
“What is that stench?” asked Hana, sniffing the air. “Rotten eggs?”
“Hydrogen sulfide gas,” said Max, trying not to breathe through her nose. The smell had worked its way into the air filling the tunnel, too.
She scooped up some dust from the floor and blew it across the keypad controlling the sliding stone wall entrance. “You see it, Leo?”
“Indeed I do. And, might I say, that is a very clever trick.”
“Thanks. We’d better hurry. Wilhelm isn’t going to stay incapacitated for much longer.”
“Indeed. Allow me to do the honors.”
Leo scanned the dusted keypad, deciphered the code by following the fingerprint pattern, and punched in the correct sequence of numbers. The solid rock wall slowly slid open.
“Now open the boardroom door,” Max told the bot.
“Boardroom door is now open,” reported Leo.
Hana ran out into the sunshine as soon as the gap between the moving door and the stone wall was large enough.
“Hello, Hana,” said Charl, waiting on the other side.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“Yes, you did,” said Isabl. “Keeto? Take her to our vehicle. Lock her in.”
Keeto led Hana away.
Max stepped out of the mouth of the Cave and smiled because the craggy courtyard between the entrance to the Corp’s cavernous headquarters and their guardhouse was filled with people. The whole CMI team, of course. Mr. Carleigh and a bunch of his farmer friends. Folks from the network of church food banks. Several police officers (who had the guardhouse attendant in the caged back seat of one of their cruisers). And, most important, TV crews from CNN, Fox News, MSNBC—every news outlet there was.
“How’d Leo do?” asked Klaus.
“Fantastic!”
Klaus clapped Leo on the back. “Atta boy!”
“And the remote control was a brilliant touch,” said Max, tapping her robot lapel pin. “Came in handy.”
“He was an excellent tracking device, too,” said Charl. “Well done, Klaus.”
Klaus shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a genius. Then again, we’re all geniuses! Everybody on the team. Well, except Hana. She’s smart but dumb, know what I mean?”
Max laughed. “Yes, I do.” She turned to the waiting press corps. “Cameras up, guys. The stars of our show should be coming out any minute.”
Hacking, coughing, covering their noses with fancy handkerchiefs, the seven bleary-eyed members of the Corp’s board came stumbling out of the cave, gasping for fresh air.
Dr. Zimm was the first one out.
And the first one captured on the footage that aired on every news channel that night.