Schofield had tugged at his restraints until his wrists were chafed and bleeding. But he hadn’t made any headway with brute force and had ultimately given up. He would have to trust Marcus to save his family. The man definitely seemed capable.
And a part of Schofield was glad. He wanted to be the hero for his family, to stand up against the Prophet and save them. But he also feared that confrontation. He felt powerless and hollow. His head fell against the window, and he wept against the glass, the cold surface at least making him feel something other than pain and regret.
Opening his eyes, he wiped the tears on the sleeve of his blue coveralls and then looked across the road at Daley Plaza. He had always found the design of the red and brown building strange because its support pylons were on its exterior.
As he examined the building’s facade, he squinted through the snow into a protected recess in front of the center’s lobby. There was someone standing there. He looked closer, and he felt his stomach climb into his throat.
The man was looking up expectantly at the Chicago Temple Building. Schofield could just barely see the bandages covering the man’s face. It could only have been one person. The Prophet.
The man who had destroyed his life—the man who might have been his real father—was just across the courtyard. And Schofield knew what he had to do. Maybe he’d get to be the hero after all.
But he was still restrained and powerless.
Schofield tried to calculate the variables. If he couldn’t break free by force, maybe he could by other means. Examining the yellow plastic cuffs, he noted their similarity to zip ties. They operated using the same roller-locking mechanism. He had once seen his wife unlock a zip tie using a straight pin. He examined the retention block of the cuffs. It looked like there would be just enough room to fit something small between the roller lock and the straps. That would block the roller lock from contacting the teeth on the straps and allow him to pull slack into the restraints and slide his hands free.
But he would need something small to slide between the straps and the lock.
He checked the time on the Yukon’s dashboard. Less than three minutes until three a.m.—the devil’s hour.