the central corridor among the aisles of shelves, listening for the ring. Halfway down the third aisle he found the source in a box of envelopes. He dumped the envelopes onto the floor and quickly located the phone inside an envelope addressed to Biff Copling. He tore open the envelope, removed the phone, and found the message.
"Monique, lock the door. TJ, brace it with the large metal bar behind the I-beam.”
"That won't hold them for long," TJ complained.
"We don’t need long.”
He found three more packages addressed to Biff, ran back to the central corridor and headed to the back of the store room. From the first package he extracted a belt that he fastened around a pole leading up to the ceiling. The women joined him.
"Rachel, this is a lineman’s belt. Step into it, and climb with your feet against the wall. When you get to the top…”
He paused and looked up to make sure that the ventilation duct was really there.
"When you get to the top, open the grate."
He ripped open the second package and pulled out a rope ladder.
"Secure this to the opening,” he continued, "then climb inside. We’ll be right behind you.”
Rachel nodded and started up the wall. He opened the third package and slipped its contents into his pocket. Then he tossed the envelopes into nearby trashcan.
"As soon as Rachel is in the duct, follow her up the ladder," he instructed Monique and TJ.
Running back to the second aisle, he quickly picked up the scattered packages and returned them to the box on the shelf. Returning to the back of the store room, he saw Monique climbed to the opening into the ventilation duct. TJ waited on the ladder just behind her.
He found the wrench on the rear workbench. He took careful aim and sent it sailing through one of the large windows along the wall four meters above the floor. Then he followed the women up the ladder, hoisted himself through the opening into the duct, pulled up the ladder, and closed the grate.
"Don't move," he whispered.
He heard a crash below, and excited voices filled the room. One of the thugs ran to the rear wall and spotted the broken window. He shouted something to his companions, and they all ran from the room. Dave took a moment to complete the final instruction, setting the phone to vibrate.
"I'd say that was a pretty good plan," he grinned. "What do you think, TJ?"
"What do we do now?" Rachel asked.
He stretched out in the duct and put his hands behind his head. "Wait for another brilliant message."
Going for Broke
Friday 1:00 a.m.
"You and your team must be ready to take off as soon as the plane lands," he instructed the suicide crew’s pilot.
"Trouble?" the young man asked suspiciously.
Max smiled confidently. "Just being careful."
"We must not fail," the pilot emphasized
Max wondered what the young man was concerned about. Either way, it would end poorly for him. Maybe he thought Max was trying to cheat him out of the chance to blow himself to kingdom come. He wondered briefly what these men thought about as they prepared to martyr themselves, but then, as long as they made him fabulously wealthy, he really didn't care.
He walked briskly from the hangar and entered the main office where he found Mitch and two of his own technicians staring intently at half-dozen computer screens and a rack of scanners.
"Is our cover blown?" he demanded.
Mitch turned slowly, and paused an insolent moment before replying. "I haven't seen any traffic that would indicate we’re compromised."
The other technicians nodded in agreement.
Max paced the room. "What's their game?"
"They're waiting until they know where the bomb is," Mitch offered.
Max frowned. "But why allow themselves to be captured and then escape without knowing where the bomb is? They've only alerted us to the danger."
"Sunrise Air here, understood," one of the technicians spoken to his headset. He turned to Max. "The plane is 15 minutes out, sir. Shall they proceed?"
"Have them delay for 10 minutes," he replied.
His phone rang, the display showing the caller as ‘BOOM.’
"Max here."
"Max, Dave Richards. I'm here with Monique and several other of your admirers. Sorry we couldn't stay around long enough to talk face-to-face."
"What do you want?"
"Very perceptive of you, Max. I knew our admiration wasn't misplaced. I am calling because we do want something."
"Go on."
We know you're about to make an enormous amount of money, Max. Or you will if we don't blow the whistle."
"So you want a cut."
"I like to think of it as a gatekeeper's fee. We let you make billions and collect a small enabler's fee of 500 million. What do you say, Max?"
He hesitated only a moment. "I agree."
"Good choice, Max. I'll send you instructions for transferring the options. It's been a pleasure doing business with you."
Max stared at his phone, then smiled.
"Tell them to bring the plane in," he instructed the technician.
Taking the Bomb
Friday 1:30 a.m.
“That's not a plan, that's treason," Rachel whispered sharply.
"That, my dear Rachel," Dave replied coolly," is getting the plane to land."
"So what do we do now," TJ asked.
"Crawl," he replied, "quietly."
Rachel led the way. Progress was slow, but they were quiet. After what seemed like an interminable time, she came to the junction.
Turning back, she whispered. "Which way?"
TJ turned and whispered. After a few moments she turned back with the answer. "Go right, then take the first left."
She continued on down the right-hand duct, occasionally passing grates where she caught glimpses of frantic activity below. As she turned into the first left duck, she looked back to make sure Dave was still with them.
Can I trust him?
After another interminable crawl, she reached a large grate. Peering through, she saw that they were 10 meters over the wing a large corporate jet. She moved gingerly to the other side of the grate and waited for the others.
How are we going to pull this off?
She counted at least 10 men with automatic weapons below. Dave crawled up, peered through the grate, and nodded confidently. He pulled a small stack of aluminum backpackers’ cups from his pocket and handed half to Rachel.
"When the engine starts, we toss these in front of the engine. They get sucked in and shred the engine, grounding the plane. Then we call the cavalry who capture the bomb, and finish our celebration."
She stared at him, and slowly smiled.
This could work.
And not only would they stop the bombers, but they would make sure that the bomb was captured so that it couldn't be used again. "I'm sorry I doubted you, or Dave 2," she whispered.
Coherence
Friday 1:15 a.m.
The monitor in Dave's trading room displayed the image from the video camera in the hanger. It was the only place in the feed was being displayed. All record of the existence of the camera had been erased from CIA databases as soon as the order was given to deliver it to TJ.
A window opened and FTPed to a CIA mainframe, issuing a command to a military satellite passing over the Caribbean, and the image panned up, zooming in on the ventilation duct grate above the airplane’s starboard engine. It detected movement.
Another command was sent and the image panned down, zooming out to a wide-angle view of the hanger. On the right of the image, Mitch could be seen entering the hanger from the office and walking along the rear wall. When he was almost directly below the camera, a third command was sent through the satellite, and a shaped charge inside the camera detonated, killing Mitch instantly and cutting cleanly through the hanger’s central I-beam.
Stealing the Bomb
> Friday, 1:30 a.m.
The explosion was deafening, and then the ventilation duct fell slowly away. Monique found herself sliding until Dave caught her hand and held on.
"Brace yourselves," he shouted.
She put her back against the wall of the duct, placing her feet against the opposite side. Looking up, she saw Dave similarly positioned and holding TJ, while Rachel clung to the grate above him.
"Can I let go," he asked.
She nodded. "What happened?"
He released her hand and pulled the phone from his pocket. He read calmly for what seemed like a long time, while below them all hell broke loose. Someone shouted, and then a shot rang out, followed by more gunfire.
"Ok," he began skeptically. "Apparently this is all part of the plan. We just climb down the duct and get on the plane."
Below shots rang out across the hanger. She looked at Dave incredulously, and shook her head. Then she heard a metallic moan as the duct twisted to the left. She scrambled quickly to the bottom where an open end the duct now rested against the floor.
Peering cautiously around the end, she saw three men in flight suits crouched behind a tractor. A flight suited man stood and fired off a burst at one of Max's thugs as he came in the side door. The thug jerked and fell to the floor. Then someplace quite close another shot was fired and another of the men behind a tractor pitched forward. The flight suited man turned and fired a burst in her direction. Several of the bullets torn through the duct, barely missing her, and then she heard a weapon clatter to the ground.
"What's happening," Dave whispered from above her.
"They're fighting each other."
Dave thought for a moment, then whispered. "Don't move. Wait for a message."
But Monique didn't wait. She had already received her message, ‘When you have a clear shot, drop them