She hoped she wasn’t about to.
Quietly taking the cordless phone from its cradle on her study desk, she stepped inside the bathroom and closed the door. In the silence, she stifled her own thoughts and focused on Sam’s. The message from the flashing light on the Willis Tower, visible to him even now as it pulsed on the walls of her bedroom, ran unbroken in the background of his mind.
COME - TO - GAULS - PEOPLE - AT - WILLIS - TOWER - SECURITY - OFFICE - OR - CALL - THEM - 062-585-0184 - HIS - PEOPLE - WILL - NOT - KILL - YOU
The message was for Sam, and no one else. Her, they would kill. No question of that.
She stared at her dark reflection above the vanity. “Whoever you are,” she whispered, “you’re not coming back.”
She pressed the TALK button, and the phone’s keypad lit up. This was the only solution. It offered at least some chance Sam would live, and all but guaranteed Audrey and Sandra would die.
Rachel dialed the number. A man answered on the first ring. She set the phone on the counter with the line open, and slid down the door to sit on the cold stone tiles.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Dryden waited for it to happen, whatever it might be. There was no reason to even wonder what Rachel was doing—in fact, there was every reason not to.
The bathroom door opened, and she emerged, having been inside for perhaps three minutes. She came to him and for a moment said nothing.
“I won’t ask,” Dryden said.
“It won’t be much longer.”
Her tone chilled him like a night breeze in a cemetery.
*
Gaul finished pulling on his shirt as he entered his den. The telepresence screens were already up and running, showing him the computer room at his office in Santa Monica. The techs there were too busy to sit; they darted like bees among the workstations, configuring them for incoming data. The Mirandas were tasked and running feeds of Chicago, with the software drawing on street cameras to fill in the gaps—the deep steel canyons among the towers, where satellites couldn’t see.
The master frame was five miles wide, rendering the city as a thermal spiderweb against the cool span of Lake Michigan. Gaul could see both of the AH-6 Little Bird helicopters that had been staged on rooftops. The first had just lifted off, and the second, white hot on its pad, would rise any moment.
Lowry paced along the computer room’s south wall, near the heavy-gauge plastic sheet that had been stretched in place of the old window. Through his headset he fed instructions to both chopper pilots.
“The highest row of windows is the hundredth floor,” Lowry said. “Count down from there to the eighty-third. You’re weapons-free to engage any warm body on that entire level.”
*
“Thank you,” Rachel said.
She took Dryden’s hand, and he felt hers tremble in the moment before she tightened her hold.
“For what?”
“You love me,” she said. “It’s all you think, when you think about me. Even right now, you’re thinking how it’ll be okay if you can get me out of here, even if you die. You just … love me. Thank you.”
Against all instinct Dryden took his attention from the bedroom door. He turned to meet her eyes. He saw fear in them, but alongside it was something worse: resignation.
“Honey, what is it?” he asked. “What did you do?”
“I’m so sorry.” She put her arms around him and held on.
Over her shoulder, Dryden saw the lights of an aircraft cresting the skyline less than a mile to the south, coming in fast. Just audible, the blade rate faded in, familiar to him as an old ringtone. It was an AH-6 or a close variant; Dryden could picture the snipers belted in above its skids as easily as if the chopper were just outside the windows. Which it would be in forty seconds.
Through the open bathroom door he saw the cordless phone, its display glowing green, and understood.
*
Audrey’s fingers halted on the final clasp of the tandem parachute harness. She locked eyes with Sandra, who had also gone still, picking up the same thought from Dryden.
“She couldn’t,” Sandra said.
“She did,” Audrey said. “Watch the door.” She grabbed the rifle, threw it to Sandra, and left at a dead run.
Past Rachel’s bedroom she took the hallway corner and crossed the sitting room to the southern windows, slamming to a stop with her palms against the glass.
The helicopter was already north of the river, following a line up Michigan Avenue. Behind it, a second chopper lifted off from the rooftop of the RMC Plaza.
A soft ding announced the arrival of the elevator car, no doubt full of security and police. Beyond blocking the easy way out, they were meaningless; they could no more open the heavy door than they could morph through it.
The helicopters, however, would have to be dealt with. Audrey ran to the nearest closet, opened it, and pushed hard on the shelving unit inside, swinging it inward to reveal the cavity beyond the closet’s back wall.