THIRTY-FIVE

Pierce was at the basement level of the building, still looking for how Caitlyn and Razor had found a way out.

He’d pictured Caitlyn and Razor, inside the fridge, door cracked open for air, riding the elevator down while the stairs were jammed with people leaving the building during the fire alarm.

Both would know the building exits would be guarded, so once they stepped off the elevator, they’d leave the fridge behind, hit a different button, and let it go to a different level. Make it more difficult to guess which level they’d actually used to escape the elevator.

But they hadn’t gone out the top or the sides of the building. They weren’t in the building. Jeremy and Holly were confirming that one more time. So the only conclusion was they’d gone out the bottom.

Which sounded like an impossible conclusion. So Pierce had gone down to the room in the original footage, where Razor and Caitlyn had been trapped by the wheelchair guy.

Ignoring a couple of operatives in the basement hallway, Pierce gave the small room a quick glance first, getting the spartan feel. Murphy bed folded up in place on the wall. Bare of decorations. Shelving above a small fridge and office chair. Definitely a hiding hole. Kid had a luxury place to stay upstairs. Didn’t need much here. Big question was why a cubby hole?

All Pierce could think of was that rich kid Razor liked slumming it among Illegals. Pretending he was one of them. So if he ever had to show them where he lived, he could give them this instead of the penthouse.

Pierce gave the closet a slow study. He stared at the high ceiling, trying to figure out how Caitlyn had been hidden up there, but couldn’t come up with an answer.

Next he stepped into the hallway. There was the outer bolt he’d seen in the video footage. It had bothered him then, and it bothered him now.

Pierce stood still, patiently exploring that gut feeling.

Bed inside. So Razor either used it or intended to use it for longer stays.

Pierce imagined himself on the bed. Imagined whether it would feel safe. Only if it were locked.

Pierce stepped inside, closed the door. Bolts on the inside too. A degree of safety then.

But the outer bolt still bothered him.

He pulled down the bed from the wall. It creaked slightly as he stretched his body across it. In his mind, he closed the door.

That was it. What if he were inside and someone slid the bolt shut on the outside? Now the hiding hole had become a trap. No way out. Razor wasn’t stupid enough to allow for that possibility.

So there had to be a way out.

Easy enough to determine. Thermal radar. Scan the room; look for differences in wall temperature.

Pierce slid off the bed, folded it back up into place, stepped into the hallway, and barked for someone to get the thermal radar.

Two minutes later, they found the escape. A portion of the back wall with a large round aura of blue. Pierce didn’t waste any niceties looking for a way to slide back a panel.

He kicked through. Yes, he could have had a couple of the operatives behind him do the work, but this was why Pierce liked being in the field. Discovery. Hunt.

He pulled aside the debris. Cool air washed over his face.

There was a steel ladder attached to the wall of a tunnel going straight down.

Pierce would confirm with a map later, but he guessed this fed into one of the ancient subways.

Chances were, this was how they escaped.

Except going into world beneath the city was certain suicide. Illegals in shantytowns were one thing. But the Illegals below had lived there generations already. Like primitive tribes. Pierce doubted he’d get the authorization to send agents down there. Last time the subway had been breached, the city had been shut down for a week, and it had cost twenty lives.

Didn’t a rich kid like Razor understand what he faced down there?