Left Behind Series - The Remnant Part 30

"Max " "We're going to give it a go."

Elena was still on the phone, but George had to press his ear flat against the elevator door to hear, and unless she was shouting, he could barely make it out. "On the wall next to the elevator?" it seemed she was saying.

"Yeah. Gray door. Got it. There's dozens of them in here, man .... Well, like furnace, air, water heater yeah, they sound like downstairs stuff .... How should I know? About twenty of them look like that stuff. Okay, twenty one and further . . . okay, maybe this is first floor .... Alarm system, emergency lights, outside lights, stairwell lights, elevator .... Different one for vent, fan, or light? Doesn't look like it .... Yeah, all on one .

. . . But I have to. He's going to suffocate in there . . . . No!

Prop those open even an inch and I'd have to watch hint every second.

"What if I turned it on but kept the doors locked? . . . Every floor? So I lock them on every floor. Then there's nowhere for him to go, right? . . . I'll call you. "

George heard her leave the lobby and start up some stairs. He kept his ear against the door and could feel and hear her locking the outer elevator doors on the three floors above him. So she was going to flip on the circuit breaker for the elevator so the fan would run and he could get some ventilation. That wouldn't do. He had to somehow get her to open the doors.

She would be listening for the fan and for evidence of his being conscious. George reached up and felt the fan and the lights, pus.h.i.+ng firmly around the sides. The panels were screwed on tight, but housings were hooked to wiring above the car, so those had to be the weakest panels in the ceiling. He pulled the gloves on and pushed hard. The metal was too tough and sharp in some places, even with the gloves on. Elena had to be nearly all the way back down.

George quickly slipped on the socks and boots, bent low, and stood on his hands, quietly walking up the sides of the car until the soles pressed against the ceiling. He toed around until he was sure he was pus.h.i.+ng against light and fan, then stiffened his legs and pushed up from the floor with all his strength.

The fluorescents popped and fell; the fan blades bent and twisted and began to give way. His biceps shook and his chest ached, but he continued to push as if his life depended on it. He felt the panels tear away and the housing break away from the wires. The ceiling had to be a mess.

George tried to keep from gasping or making noise as he slowly brought his feet back down and lay panting on the floor, carefully brus.h.i.+ng the debris into a corner. He heard Elena hurry past toward the circuit breaker box and flip the breaker all the way off and then back on. The lights of the floor b.u.t.tons on the panel came on, and he heard a hum in the ceiling where the light and fan should have been.

Trying to regulate his breathing, George turned himself around, laced up the boots and, catlike, moved into position.

"Getting any air in there?" Elena called out. She slapped the door. "Hey! Better?"

George got on all fours and crept backward until his feet were flat against the back wall. He reared up onto his knees until his seat was planted on his calves. Then

he leaned forward and placed his palms on the floor, turned his face to the right, and lay his left cheek and ear flat on the floor. He fought to breathe deeply and slowly, preparing himself to hold his breath and appear dead.

Two more smacks on the door. "C'mon! That fan should be running.

Is it? Give me a knock if you're getting any air!"

George lay there, crouched back against the wall, looking for all the world as if he had collapsed onto his face.

"All right! I'm unlocking these doors, but if you try anything, you're a dead man."

Now she was up on the chair. Metal into metal. The click. George was tempted to hit the Open Door b.u.t.ton himself, but he knew she would be standing there with her weapon leveled at him. He blinked several times to moisten his eyes so he could lie there with them open, unblinking, hopefully able to see enough peripherally to know when to act.

"I'm opening the doors, so don't move! I'd rather the bra.s.s find you shot than dead by accident*"

He heard her push the b.u.t.ton, felt the car vibrate with the mechanism, and the doors began to separate. He wanted to drink in the cool, fresh air, but he dared not. In the faint light of the Exit signs and a light from down the hall, he saw her in his peripheral vision silhouetted before him, feet spread, both hands on the high powered weapon.

She swore. She took a step closer. She took her left hand off the gun and reached far his carotid artery. As soon as her fingers touched his skin, he knew she would know he was alive. That touch would be his cue to spring.

"I'll do whatever you say, Chloe," Hannah said, "but I've got a priority higher than our getting out of here alive."

"Mac

"of course."

"Me too. And George."

"I just can't imagine he's still alive, Chloe. What's in it for them to keep him around?"

"Don't think that way."

"Come on! We're not schoolkids anymore. Not thinking about it isn't going to change whether it's true."

"I'm just hoping they think they can still get something out of him."

"Well, I had limited contact with him, Chloe, but let me tell you something. He looked like the kind of a guy who was going to do what he was going to do, and n.o.body was going to make him do different. I'll bet he hasn't given them diddly."

"Pull over there."

"You're sure this will work?"

"Sure? I have to be sure?"

"Let's just not be too obvious."

"That's why you're stopping here and not at the front door, Hannah. When I head for the store, you stand outside the car, like you're watching for nosey nellies." "Nosey nellies ? "

"You know, GC or Morale Monitors nosing around."

"Nosey nellies ? "

"I didn't know that was s obscure. I forgot you grew up on a reservation."

"Well, I will be looking for GC or MMs. So what do I do if they show up?"

"They won't. They just want to raid whoever we're warning. "

"(fir at least there's a percent chance of that."

"Srxty. "

"So a percent chance they arrest us, or worse."

"You're carrying an Uzi. I've seen what you can do with a shotgun, and I can only imagine what you might do with a DEW."

"I'm just telling you, Chloe. If anybody comes, I'm jumping back in the car, honking the horn, and coning to get you."

"Well, I should hope so." At the first sensation of skin on skin, George Sebastian called on all his years of training, football, and lifting. As he pushed off the floor with his palms and drove his heels into the back of the elevator, the ma.s.sive quads and hamstrings in his thighs drove him up and into Elena, who had murdered her last believer.

George's pounds slammed into her so fast and hard that as he wrapped his arms around her waist he felt the top of his head push her stomach against her spine. She projectile regurgitated over him into the elevator before her face banged off his back and her boots. .h.i.t his knees.

He sailed four feet high and ten feet into the lobby with her body folded in two. When he landed, his chest pinned her legs, her torso whiplashed, and the back of her head was crushed flat on the marble floor. George pounced to his feet and ripped the weapon from her hand. He stuffed her phone and radio in his pockets, then grabbed her by the belt and slung her lifeless body into the elevator. He locked the doors and left the key on the chair she had used to reach the lock.

George laid a small rug from near the entry door over the gore where she had died and used the gloves to wipe up the blood trail to the elevator. He was about to charge out the back door to see if he could find a car to hot wire when he heard keys in the entry door and looked up to see an old man smiling and waving at him.

The man wore a mismatched custodial uniform and carried two mops.

As he entered, he said something in Greek.

"English?" George said, certain he was flushed and looked like an escaped hostage who had just killed his captor.