THE PANlC BUTTON
“What the hell are you doing here?” Will whispered, genuinely baffled. He had jumped a foot in the air when Kim put his hand on Will’s shoulder.
“This is for Gaia, isn’t it?” Kim asked, glaring at Will. “You’re stealing information for her.”
“How the hell did—” Will started over. “How did you know where I was?”
“I followed you, obviously.”
“But how did you get into the building? You haven’t got—”
Kim wordlessly held up his own active duty pass. “I’ve got one of these now—remember? I waited outside the building, looking at the windows, and I never saw you arrive up on the fourth floor. You know you can see the window, right, and the ceiling lights coming on? Anyway, I looked around the lobby and I found your pencil.”
“Very clever.” Will sighed in defeat. “So you came here to stop me?”
“I think I came here to help you,” Kim said earnestly. “But I really think it’s time for you to tell me what you’re doing, partner. For the past two days you’ve been—”
“Wait a minute,” Will said, pointing at the computer screen. “What’s that mean?”
A new alert message had appeared:
LOG-IN ACCESS ERROR ACCOUNT IN USE ACCESS DENIED
“That’s weird,” Kim said.
“Listen,” Will began urgently. “Here’s the story. Catherine was kidnapped by a terrorist group called Socorro. They’re using her to help them with some kind of big terrorist incident that FBI intelligence indicates is going to happen tomorrow.”
“What do you—what kind of ‘incident’?”
“In Philadelphia. In the center of town. Gaia’s on her way there to stop them and save Catherine. She doesn’t know what they’re going to do.”
“But you do?”
“Yeah.” Will was drenched in sweat and losing patience. Kim wondered how sharp his faculties were at the moment. He seemed to be in control of his thoughts, but it was possible his reflexes were slowed from stress. “There’s a bomb!’
“Oh, no—”
“There’s a bomb, and there’s no way to stop it.”
Kim thought about it. It didn’t take him very long.
“You need my help,” Kim went on. “You need me to cover for you. You need me to take care of the lollipop case while you’re gone.”
On the screen the same message appeared again:
LOG-IN ACCESS ERROR ACCOUNT IN USE ACCESS DENIED
“Gone—?”
“You have to go to Philadelphia,” Kim continued patiently. “Right now.”
Another line appeared on the screen:
PASSWORD DENIED—POSSIBLE SECURITY COMPROMISE
Kim saw Will’s eyes widen in sudden, frightened comprehension as he stared at the screen.
“It’s Lyle,” Will said, grabbing Kim’s arm. “Damn it—I stole Lyle’s access card and password, but now Lyle—the real Lyle—must be trying to log onto the system.”
“That’s bad,” said Kim. “You realize what that means? We’ve got about two minutes before he hits the panic button, calls security, and reports a security alert.”
“And they’ll even be able to localize it,” Will confirmed, looking at the door.
Kim held out his hand. “Give me the access card.”
“What?”
“God, you’re dumb,” Kim said impatiently. “Weren’t you listening to what I just said? You’ve got to get moving.” Kim wiggled his hand. “Give me the card and go. If you hurry, I’ll bet you can make it out of the basement before they get here. But you’ve got to move now.”
Will returned Kim’s gaze, and then after a moment he nodded, handed over the card, and turned to hurry toward the door. Kim stayed where he was, listening to the sound of Will’s footsteps as he made his way back along the wall toward the stairwell, and then, as Kim heard the distant stairwell door click shut, he sat down at the computers, took a deep breath, and waited for the sirens to ring out and the stampede of armed guards to arrive.
LOST TIME
More time lost, driving.
Gaia was hopelessly caught in traffic.
“Goddamn it!” she hollered uselessly. It must have been the twentieth time she’d blurted out those words. She still couldn’t believe it. How could she have let herself fall asleep? How could she give in to the exhaustion now? She was furious with herself. And now she was losing time—pounding on her horn and jutting the car forward in futile spurts.
She’d done everything in her power to make up for lost time, but it was getting on the appallingly late hour of nine o’clock by the time she finally, finally saw the towers of downtown Philadelphia against the horizon ahead of her, protruding over the road like some kind of Emerald City.
The traffic was only growing worse as she drove. She had two maps spread out on the seat next to her. One was a folded gas station map of the city, showing the approaches that were available. Gaia had already taken a red pen and drawn in the quick route that she’d figured out before, the route that would get her to Decatur and Main, where the spot on Catherine’s map was marked.
And the other map was the one Catherine had printed—the one that showed the lines radiating out from that same street corner, the lines that Will had convinced her were water pipes.
And then what?
Gaia wasn’t sure. Maybe Catherine and her captors would be there—maybe, for the first time since this all began, she wouldn’t be one step behind.
The office towers were growing larger on the horizon against the darkening night sky. Philadelphia Civic Center 20, a green highway sign told her. Impatiently drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, Gaia willed the traffic to move faster. Her technique was ineffective. She and the six lanes of cars around her were stuck at the same lurching ten-mile-an-hour pace and, judging by the near stationary mass of cars ahead, would be for some time.
TO SERVE GAIA
“Agent Lau,” Agent Bishop said, her arms folded over her chest, “we don’t know what you were doing on the basement computers, but we strongly suspect that it has to do with the crusade Taylor’s been indulging in over the past twenty-four hours. Now, can’t you just make this easier for yourself and for us? Why throw away your career—your entire career, Kim—for something that has nothing to do with you?”
Kim was in Malloy’s office on the top floor of the administration building, standing in front of Malloy’s desk at full attention. Along with Special Agent Bishop, they had been joined by a field agent Kim had never seen before—a blond man called Kinney. The armed guards who had found Kim in the basement computer room had grabbed him by the upper arms and brought him to face the chief. He had to believe that Will had gotten away and was en route to save Gaia, but he had no way of knowing and no way of asking.
“I want to know where Taylor has gone,” Malloy insisted.
Kim took a deep breath, stared straight at the cloudless sky out the window, and then answered.
“As I told you already, I haven’t seen Will Taylor since yesterday. I have no idea where he is or what he’s up to. I illegally entered the administration building basement alone, without anyone’s help or knowledge, for my own reasons, which I do not care to discuss.”
“You’re protecting your friends,” Bishop said, “or trying to. But there’s a lot you don’t know.”
“For two days,” Agent Kinney said, “according to high-level chatter, Gaia Moore has unknowingly made personal contact with a major Socorro operative with a very high ranking. Two days, Lau—that’s how long she’s been in contact with Socorro.”
“You’re saying they’re in contact with her and she doesn’t know it?”
“She doesn’t know what’s going on,” Bishop insisted urgently. “She’s got it all wrong.”
Kim stood staring straight past Special Agent Malloy’s head at the window and the sky beyond.
He’ll get to her in time. Will will make it to Philly and he’ll find Gaia and they’ll save Catherine. I believe it.