Panic

She remembered that the pain would stop when the kind man came in. The man with the silver eyes was afraid of him. The kind man had told her everything would be all right and had given her something to make the pain go away.

She forced her lazy eyes to focus and she saw the knife again. Cutting her flesh. Sliding the skin and muscle apart like butter. Christina smiled. All just a dream, floating through her mind like a wayward cloud.

The kind man would close up the wounds with silk, and he would smile when she didn’t make a sound. She liked making him happy. He kept the man with silver eyes away when he was happy.

When he wasn’t happy, she didn’t get to dream anymore.

Chapter 22

Jerome caught Leopold’s attention and motioned toward the small, dark silhouette approaching from the distance across South Lawn. As the figure grew closer Leopold could make out a short man dressed in crumpled clothes with unkempt and curly hair, a nervous and worried expression on his face. The man glanced about him and pulled up the collar on his jacket to obscure the bottom half of his face. The shabby figure approached and held out his hand.

“You the ones who called?” he said, his voice low.

“Who are you?” asked Jerome, ignoring the hand stretched out in front of him.

“Renard, of course. You can call me Albert.”

“So now we know exactly who you are and why you’re here. Rookie move. How do you know what we’d do with that information?” demanded the bodyguard.

Albert looked away sheepishly and thrust his hands into his pockets.

“Look,” he said, “I’m a busy guy. What do you guys need?”

“We want a tour of the tu

“What’s so special about Pupin?”

“We’re history nuts,” the consultant lied. “Pupin used to be the headquarters for some top-secret weapons research during the second world war. We heard there might be some of the original equipment sealed in the basement and we want to go take a look. Your name came up as a guy who might be able to help.”

“No chance you’re getting into Pupin,” said Albert. “The lower floors were locked up years ago. No one gets in.”

“So I guess you won’t be wanting the two thousand dollars, then?” Leopold pulled a roll of hundred dollar bills out of his pocket and held them up.

Albert paused for a few moments, then glanced quickly from side to side and took the roll of notes.

“Okay, okay,” he sighed, “there might be a way in. Only hypothetical, mind you. I still keep in touch with some of the students here that continue the work I started before I got kicked out. There was talk of a possible way through, but it’s not something I’ve had chance to check out. It could be a dead end.”

“We’ll risk it,” said Leopold. “Where do we start?”

“The easiest access point is inside here.” Their tour guide pointed toward Uris Hall. “As long as we can get into the building, we should be able to access the tu

“Why can’t we just go in through Pupin Hall?” asked Mary. “I’m not totally sold on the idea of crawling through a bunch of tu

“It wouldn’t work,” said Albert. “The first five stories of Pupin are actually underneath where we’re standing now, and they sealed off all the internal routes down to the lower levels years ago. Believe me, I tried to get in that way.”

“You’ve tried to get in before?” asked Mary.

“Yeah, of course. I actually came close once, but I was caught before I got a chance to finish mapping the tu

“Okay, fine, but if these shoes get ruined I’m coming after you,” said the police sergeant, eying Leopold.

The consultant gri

“Getting in is surprisingly easy,” said the tour guide eagerly, “when they forget to erase your pass card from the security systems.”

Albert swiped his card across the magnetic reader and the lock disengaged. He held the door open and Jerome, Leopold, and Mary stepped through into the lobby. The interior of the building was pristine, with polished floors stretching out in all directions before branching into corridors that snaked out into the distance. The walls were largely bare, with a few photographs of notable alumni hanging at sparse intervals along the width of the atrium. Other than the four intruders, the building appeared to be entirely deserted.

“We’ve got about twenty minutes before the next set of classes begin and everyone moves out into the corridors,” said Albert. “Which should be just enough time to get down to the tu

The tour guide took the lead and motioned for the others to follow him toward one of the corridors. The four of them passed through a series of double doors and several other deserted corridors before finding themselves an open area that contained a few easy chairs, a vending machine and a large poster board covered in sign-up sheets, advertisements and lists of classrooms. To the rear was a door that read Private: University Staff Only.

“That door leads through to the lower levels and the basement, where the tu

He reached for the door handle and pulled, but the door didn’t budge. He rattled the door several times before giving up.

“Shit!” cursed Albert, under his breath. “The only other way through is at the other side of the building, and there’s currently a packed lecture hall in the way.”

“Okay, so we just wait until the class finishes and slip in through the crowd,” said Mary.

“That’s not go

“Well, it’s not like we can force our way in,” said Leopold. “The noise would give us away.”

“Relax,” said Jerome, patting his employer on the shoulder with a heavy palm. “You’re all acting as though this is my first covert mission.”

The bodyguard strode across to the other side of the room, stopping next to the fire alarm. Without saying a word he slammed his fist against the thin glass, filling the building with the piercing sound of alarm bells. Within seconds, Leopold could hear chairs scraping against the floor and doors being flung open as hundreds of students abandoned their classes and made their way to the fire exits.

Without wasting any time, Jerome charged, using the noise and distraction to mask the sound of the door breaking as his body collided with it. He focused the impact on the area near the handle, causing the lock to break but ensuring that the door didn’t come off its hinges. Jerome hurried the others through and quickly closed the door behind them, just as the first of many students rounded the corner.

Albert breathed a sigh of relief and then turned to face Leopold, a quizzical look on his face. “You guys aren’t tourists, are you?”

Chapter 23