Heath nodded his head.
"So I'd urge you guys to leave that one in your briefcase," Hixon said. "As far as getting Malavida out of jail is concerned, it is, at worst, a Class B felony. The way I see it, we cop to that and get some kind of suspended sentence. The other stuff is just ratshit, and you all know it. This looks to me like a personal vendetta by an IA investigator who's made more bogus charges than a credit card thief, and I intend to put that fact in evidence."
There was a deafening silence which lasted for almost thirty seconds. Kulack finally broke it. "I'm not withdrawing the complaint. In the meantime, he spends the night in jail."
The meeting ended and they all stood.
On his way out, Laurence Heath approached Lockwood. "If it means anything, John, I'm sorry. You were one of the best. You had good stuff."
They all left the room together and moved to the elevators. Bob Tilly went up the hall to the bathroom while Kulack pushed the Down button and they waited.
The Rat had shut off the five other elevators in the DOJ Administration Building. Once he had figured out the system, it had been amazingly simple. Under "Emergency Services," he had accessed "Public Safety." Contained in its sub-menu was a seismic activity sensor which shut down the elevators during any seismic event. Once the main computer received a seismic alarm, it automatically told the elevators to perform their pre-set emergency duties, which were to return to the lobby, their "Emergency Home Floor," and shut down.
The Rat had first put the sixth elevator on "Maintenance Setting." This effectively cut elevator six out of the system so it would continue to operate, but strictly by its own call buttons, at least for the time being. Then he had sent the system a phony seismic alarm which had deactivated five of the six elevators. The sixth elevator opened on nine and took in Lockwood, Laurence Heath, Vic Kulak, Carter Van Lendt, and Alex Hixon.
The Rat watched on his high-resolution monitor as elevator six passed the lobby level. Heath started to pound on the lobby button, but The Rat had reset the elevator's "Emergency Home Floor" from "Lobby Level" to "Sub-basement," then brought it back on-line. The seismic alarm, overriding the button system, caused it to go directly to the sub-basement. As soon as the door opened, The Rat shut the elevator off, leaving it stuck there and locked open. Then he shut down the ventilation system in the sub-basement. The five men walked into the file room that The Rat had selected the day before.
"The Wind Minstrel is coming," The Rat whispered in awe.
In the file room, Laurence Heath moved around looking for a fire door. He found one, but it had an electric lock and wouldn't open. He looked for a phone. There wasn't one.
"I've never been down here. Gotta be a way out," he said.
Lockwood picked up the emergency phone in the elevator and tried to dial out. He couldn't get a dial tone. "Is all this stuff on one central computer?" Lockwood asked, his heart rate beginning to climb.
"Yeah, this is a 'smart' building. They retooled it a few years ago. Systems are all on the main computer on the first floor," Carter Van Lendt said.
"Shit." Lockwood had already begun to suspect the worst. He looked up, saw a security camera, and wondered if The Rat was watching them. "Anybody got a cellphone?"
"Why?" Kulack said. "Let's just go find the fire stairs on the other side."
"They're gonna be locked. Gimme a cell."
Hixon popped open his briefcase and handed his to Lockwood. Lockwood dialed the DOJ building's switchboard.
"Department of Justice, one moment please," the operator said and immediately put him on hold. His heart was racing and he made a conscious effort to calm down. There was not much down here. How could The Rat attack them with a room full of files? Take it easy, he told himself.
"Whatta you doing? This is nuts," Kulack said, reaching for the phone.
Lockwood yanked the phone out of his reach. "What's down here?" he asked Van Lendt.
"Files."
"Not the files. What kinda systems?"
And then they heard a Klaxon horn from above and all of them looked up. Immediately a siren started to sound from the other end of the sub-basement.
"What the fuck is that?" Lockwood asked.
"I think it's the halon system. All the paper file rooms got 'em last year," Van Lendt answered.
"Halon? Doesn't that shit eat oxygen?" Lockwood said, as the switchboard finally took him off hold.
Then over the screaming Klaxon they heard vibrating coming from the vents above them. They looked up. A white gas was flowing from vents in the ceiling and cascading down off the file cabinets like dry ice vapor. It started to swirl and pool on the floor.
"Department of Justice," the operator chirped in his ear.
"This is a medical emergency. I'm with Customs DOAO Laurence Heath. We're trapped in the basement of this building. The door's jammed! He's had a heart attack! Get down here fast! Break the door and bring oxygen!"
"I'm sorry, sir… what?"
"Do what I said. Now! He's dying."
Lockwood had instantly decided not to try to explain to her what was really happening. He had read only one report on halon gas and it had stuck in his mind. A system in Denver had accidentally gone off and killed several people in less than three minutes. If the heavy fog-like substance continued to pour into the room, within minutes there would be no breathable air left in the sub-basement. Already Lockwood felt a shortness of breath… a ringing in his ears.
"Hold your breath," he said, "don't breathe this shit. If it gets in you, you're gonna lose oxygen."
They were all backing away from the halon, which was rolling toward them, flowing freely from the ceiling. The cloud of gas was expanding as it flowed into the elevator, where they had retreated. It began to fill the box. Even the air above them was dissipating. It began to climb rapidly in the enclosed space.
On the monitor The Rat watched the suffocation of Lockwood and the four strangers with rapt interest. He was rocking back and forth, his huge body causing the wooden chair to creak loudly.
He watched as the first death occurred. The narrow-shouldered man dropped his armload of folders and fell to his knees. He reached up and grabbed at his shirt collar, ripping at his tie. His mouth was open, his teeth protruding. The Rat remembered the cats he had strangled as a boy… They also died with their mouths wide open, their tongues curled and out. Then the narrow-shouldered man was clawing at his neck. Lockwood reached out to pull him up, but before he could get to him, the man fell sideways into the white fog. The Rat could barely see him in the mist. The man bucked once in a final convulsion, swirling the cloud of gas, then fell beneath its deadly blanket.
In the elevator, Lockwood was holding his breath. His lungs were aching, his nose and throat burning. The halon was now all around them. He tried to reach up and punch the top out of the elevator ceiling but, when he hit it, it rang solidly, sending a bolt of pain down his arm.
Heath was beginning to gag and foam at the mouth. "Can't breathe," he gasped. Then his barrel chest heaved five times as he sucked in huge lungfuls of nothing. He grabbed at his chest and, with his mouth wide open, fell forward on his face.
Kulack went down seconds later. Both of them disappeared under the heavy blanket of white gas. Lockwood and his lawyer, Alex, were the last ones standing. Both holding their breath, looking across and through the sea of halon with bulging eyes. Finally, Alex couldn't hold his breath any longer and took one gulp of the deadly lifeless atmosphere. He looked at Lockwood for a moment and then, in panic, took another gulp, and another. He convulsed while still standing. His wire glasses fell off his face. His brain was dying. He started to lose consciousness… falling slowly to one knee. He reached out to Lockwood, who grabbed his wrist to hold him upright. The gas was now chin high and the oxygen around them was dissipating. Then Hixon fell backwards, slipping from Lockwood's grasp, dropping from sight.