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"I see," Ramirez said stiffly. "Thank you, sir. I'll see about getting you those tech teams." Spi
For a moment Bailey watched him go. Then, turning the opposite direction, he headed for the door Poirot had disappeared through a few minutes earlier. Let Ramirez be a
Because it had suddenly occurred to him that there might be a way to prove once and for all who was telling the truth about this alleged Aegis Mountain weapons cache. True, none of the prisoners up in the interrogation rooms had mentioned anything about either the mountain or the weapons.
But then, not all of the prisoners were in the interrogation rooms.
He took the elevator up to the garage, where a handful of Security men and drivers were standing around talking quietly together beside the line of parked vehicles. "Yes, sir?" the duty sergeant said, breaking from the group and stepping over as Bailey came in.
"I need a car," Bailey said tersely, striding past him toward the nearest car.
"Yes, sir." The sergeant gestured, and one of the other men moved hastily to Bailey's target vehicle and opened the back door.
"I'll be driving myself," Bailey said, closing the door as he passed it and opening the driver's side.
"Yes, sir," the sergeant said, sounding a little uncertain. "Ah ... your destination, Colonel?"
"I'll be back when I'm back," Bailey said, ignoring the question. "If there's an emergency, I'll have my comm on cha
The other might have said something else, but the slamming of the car door cut it off. Starting the engine, Bailey pulled away and out into the Athena traffic.
Smiling tightly to himself, he headed for the hospital.
CHAPTER 12
It was late afternoon, and Fly
Lying on the bed across the room, Jensen stirred. "Sounds like a patrol boat," he said, starting to get up.
"I'll check," Fly
He was two steps from the door when Toby appeared in the doorway, moving as fast as his limp would allow. "Security," he puffed. "Get up—get up."
"Where are they?" Jensen asked. He was already sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling on his boots.
"Looks like they're heading into town," Toby said, hobbling toward the corner that held the sink and toilet. "But I'm guessing they'll be up here soon enough."
"I don't suppose this mountain has a back door," Fly
"As a matter of fact, it does," Toby said. Getting a grip on the edges of the box the toilet seat was mounted on, he gave it a tug.
And to Fly
He stepped over for a closer look. It was a large and very deep hole, he saw as he gazed down into the fissure that Toby had called his natural latrine. Narrow and steep-sided, it extended a good two hundred meters straight down. "Don't worry, I'm not expecting you to fly," Toby grunted, rummaging beneath the firewood in the bin built into the side wall. "Here—catch," he said, pulling out a coil of rope and tossing it to Fly
"Where'd you get this?" Fly
"The tooth fairy," Toby said tartly. "Here's Jensen's."
Fly
"Do it like this," Jensen said, shaking out the rope and finding one end. With deft movements, he wove the rope around his waist and thighs and chest in a deceptively simple pattern that left him securely trussed up. "Where does the other end go?" he asked Toby.
"There are a couple of pulleys under the floor on opposite sides of the hole," Toby told him, pointing toward the latrine as he resettled the wood in the bin. "Better make a knot in the end once it's through, just in case."
"Right." Carefully, Jensen lay down on his stomach by the hole and turned his head to look under the floor. "Got it," he said, reaching under the boards with his rope and fiddling with something out of Fly
"Almost ready," Fly
"No, but the beams the pulleys are actually attached to do," Jensen assured him as he put Fly
"Come on, come on," Toby said urgently. "I think I see someone coming."
"Working on it," Jensen grunted, pulling industriously on his rope as he ran the slack through the pulley.
He made it to the end and fed the knotted end through two of the ropes in his harness, again pulling the slack rapidly through and letting the end drop down through the hole. "Fly
"As ready as I'm going to be," Fly
"Just do as I do," Jensen said. Gripping the rope, he slid his legs over the edge of the hole and disappeared through it.
Fly
"Wait a second," Toby said, hobbling toward him.
Fly
Before he could even reach for his shuriken pouch, though, the old man reversed the weapon, offering him the grip. "They might search the cabin," the other explained. "Don't drop it."
"I won't," Fly
"Now get moving," Toby ordered, leaning down and getting his fingers under the edge of the box. "I'll close up behind you."
Taking a deep breath, Fly
For a moment he hung there, fighting back a sudden flood of vertigo and a terrible sense of vulnerability. Hang gliders, even malfunctioning ones, were no big deal to him. But dangling at the end of a rope, with Security above and shattering death below, was a very discomfiting sensation.
Above him, the diffuse light abruptly shut off as Toby swung the box back into place. Grimacing, Fly
To his mild surprise, once he was actually in motion most of the discomfort evaporated. The harness design held him securely, and Jensen's method of threading the rope through it provided enough friction to take most of his weight. It wasn't really any worse than rappelling, he decided as he picked up his pace, with the extra bonus of not having to worry about twisting his ankle as he bounced his way down a building or cliff face.
Jensen was waiting for him as far down as he could go without actually letting go of the rope. "Good," the blackcollar said as Fly