A third voice said, “Open the gate.”
The guy at the gate punched in the numbers. After its programmed delay, the lock clicked open. The panel swung back. Four guys stepped through. Guns out, cautious, up on their toes. The others stayed out, watching through the wire.
The elevator rumbled.
The car arrived, with a hiss of air.
The doors opened, smooth and swish.
Same guy on the floor. Black suit and tie. Hogtied the same, gagged the same, squirming, thrashing, pleading with his eyes, nodding desperately, beckoning, flopping around.
The four guys inside rushed forward, ready to lend a hand.
But it wasn’t the same guy. It was Vantresca. Average build. He fit the suit. He wasn’t hogtied. He was holding his hands behind his back, hiding two Glock 17s. Which he brought out and fired, four times, fast, aimed, deliberate.
At which point the right-hand elevator opened up, and Reacher stepped out, with Hogan, and Barton, and Abby. Four handguns. Hogan fired first. Must-win targets are any opponents within command and control distance of the gate had been Reacher’s briefing. Three rounds did the job. Meanwhile Reacher himself was clearing the fence, firing into the backs or half-backs of all those standing mesmerized by the sight of Vantresca shooting their buddies from the floor of his elevator car. Barton was covering one end of the lobby, and Abby was covering the other.
It was over fast. Hard not to be. As an exercise it was easy. The attackers had surprise on their side, and after that commanded a dense concentration of fire from the narrow corner of a rectangular battle space. The only friendly within the field of fire was inside a bulletproof concrete shaft all his own, and from there was able to provide effective enfilade fire. All of which made the victory routine. The prize was the gate. It was still standing open. Some kind of complicated lock, not currently engaged. Maybe electronic. There was a keypad on the post.
Reacher stepped through the gate, into the secret space beyond, followed by Hogan, and Abby, and Barton, with Vantresca bringing up the rear, in the borrowed suit, dusting it off after his showmanship on the elevator floor.
Chapter 49
The back part of Reacher’s brain was clattering away on some kind of a complicated computation, which involved dividing the total square footage of the nineteenth floor by the total number of KIA in its elevator lobby, which surely meant, after realistically allowing for officer-class accommodations for the important nerds, and densely-packed barracks-class accommodations for the enlisted ranks, that the herd was already substantially thinned. Had to be. There couldn’t be many more guys available. Not unless they had been sleeping three to a bed, or stacked on the floor. Simple math.
The front part of Reacher’s brain said nevermind. If I fail today, it’s my own fault. He pressed up face-first against a corridor wall, and peered one-eyed around a corner. He saw another corridor. Same width. Doors left and right. Offices, maybe. Or bedrooms. Bathrooms across the hall. Or storerooms. Or laboratories, or nerve centers, or hives or nests or burrows.
He moved on. Hogan followed. Then Abby. Then Barton and Vantresca. The first room on the left was some kind of a security post. Empty. Abandoned. A desk and a chair, unoccupied. Two flat screen televisions on the desk, one labeled Lobby, which was blacked out with paint, and one marked 19th Floor, which showed the view from a camera evidently mounted high on the wall opposite the elevator bank. The angle was downward. The view was of a lot of dead bodies on the floor. More than a dozen.
Told you so, said the back part of his brain.
He moved on. The first room on the right was also empty. It had a floor to ceiling window, facing north. The city lay spread out below. In the room were four armchairs, a buzzing refrigerator, and a coffee machine on a table. A ready room. Or a crew room. Convenient. Close to the elevators.
They moved on. They saw nothing. No people. No kind of technical equipment. Reacher had no real idea what it would look like. He was hung up on Abby’s original description. Like in the movies. The mad scientist in his lab, full of lit-up machines and crackling energy. To him a server was someone playing tennis, or bringing a drink. Vantresca figured the whole installation might be nothing more than half a dozen laptops. Cloud based, he called it. Hogan predicted a low room full of white laminate and chilly air.
They crept onward.
Saw nothing.
“Wait,” Reacher whispered. “We’re wasting time. This is not business as usual. I think they’ve gone straight to the endgame. I think the headless horseman brought every spare guy to the elevator cage. Only people working that exact minute stayed behind and survived. So now they’re hunkered down. It’s Custer’s Last Stand for them.”
“How many?” Hogan asked.
“I don’t care,” Reacher said. “As long as Trulenko is one of them.”
Abby said, “If it’s six laptops, it could be just a couple of guys.”
“Plus guards,” Reacher said. “As many as Moscow decreed should be in the room at all times. Or at least those of them who maintained discipline. Which might be a different number.”
Vantresca said, “Moscow would decree an entire Guards regiment, if it could.”
“I guess it depends how big the room is.”
Hogan said, “If it’s six laptops, it could be a broom closet. Could be anywhere. Could be a secret door in back of a broom closet.”
“No, Trulenko wants windows,” Abby said. “Especially these windows. I bet he loves the view. I bet he loves standing there, looking out through the glass, lording it over the earthlings below. Even though he’s actually a failure and practically a prisoner. I bet it makes him feel better.”
“Wait,” Reacher said again. He looked at Barton. “You said on the fourth floor you could walk all around the building’s core. It was blank on three sides. But on the fifth floor you couldn’t get all the way around. Because of bigger suites in back. Inside of which the long blank face of the core would become a wall inside a room.”
“Yes,” Barton said.
“It’s a pretty good wall to have,” Reacher said. “Isn’t it? It’s as close as you can get to all the risers and the services running up and down behind the elevators.” He looked at Vantresca. “Back in the day, if you had to lay wired communications, how long would you want your wires to be?”
“As short as humanly possible,” Vantresca said.
“Because?”
“Wires are vulnerable.”
Reacher nodded.
“Not mechanically robust,” he said. “Plus that wall gets first call on the power and the water, and whatever the generator kicks out in an emergency. I bet that’s the wall Moscow wanted.” He said the word. A hive or a nest or a burrow, full of something that hummed or buzzed or thrashed around. He said, “They built it out from the back of the elevator core, all the way to the windows opposite. Because Moscow wanted the wall, and guys like Trulenko wanted the view. What else could they do?”
Vantresca said, “That’s a big room.”
Reacher nodded.
“Same size and shape as the lobby downstairs,” he said. “Same space exactly, except flipped around 180.”
“Big enough for a Guards regiment.”
“Couple of rifle companies at the most.”
“Maybe nobody,” Abby said. “Because of human nature. These guys are from Ukraine. Moscow is like a patronizing big brother. They’ll make up their own rules. What does it matter if they’re actually in the room? They have the cage. Everywhere is equally safe. Maybe Trulenko doesn’t even want them in the room anyway, watching over his shoulder. That’s human nature, too.”
“Situation C,” Hogan said. “Got to be someone.”
“Maybe not anymore,” Abby said. “They’ve been cut off two hours. I think the instinct would be to come out and fight on the barricades. At the wire. I think it would be irresistible. Because of human nature. You wouldn’t want to hide in a corridor, waiting for the inevitable.”