Then Milkdud called, saying he'd just returned from successfully rehacking the Hand Building. Jack thought that was great until Milkdud explained what Jack would have to do tomorrow…
MONDAY
1
"You rested and ready for this?" Milkdud said as he and Jack walked down Forty-fifth Street in their suits, carrying their briefcases.
"No."
As they neared the entrance to the Hand Building, Jack said, "You're sure there's no other way to do this?"
"If there is, I don't know it."
"I must be crazy."
Milkdud laughed. "Don't worry. You'll be fine."
Jack wished he was as sure about that.
They pushed through the revolving door into the lobby, looking like they belonged there, and breezed past the security counter where a pair of uniforms were sipping coffee and raptly checking out yesterday's football scores in the morning paper.
"Kind of gives you a new appreciation of the value of organized sports, doesn't it," Jack said as they approached the elevators.
"Especially football pools." Milkdud checked his watch. "Quarter to eight. The shifts are changing. That helps too."
"As does the lack of those dreadlocks you sported when I first met you."
He smiled. "I learned the hard way that dreads and hacking don't mix. They kept getting caught on things in tight spots. Besides, a big part of hacking is going unnoticed."
"Yeah. And I imagine that's kind of hard to do when you've got what looks like a hairy octopus hanging on your head."
A bell chimed to their left, and the center elevator opened its doors. Jack stepped toward it but Milkdud held him back.
"Uh-uh. We're taking the one over there on the left."
"What's the difference?"
"That's the one that's going to put you closest to where you want to go."
"I'm all for that," Jack said.
Milkdud reached inside the center cab and pressed a button, sending it back up.
Half a minute later, the doors to the left elevator opened.
"That's ours," Milkdud said.
As they started toward it, Jack spotted a red-haired woman rounding the corner. She headed their way.
"Move it, Dud," he whispered. "Company's coming."
They'd shown up early to ensure that they'd be able to ride an empty elevator car. This redheaded early bird was going to mess up their plans.
They scrambled through the doors. As soon as he got inside, Milkdud hit "7" and then leaned on the door close button.
"Hold it, please!" the woman called from outside.
"Sorreeee," Milkdud said softly as the doors slid closed and they started up. "But we need this one all to ourselves."
"Close," Jack said.
He could feel himself tensing up as the floor numbers climbed the display. He wasn't relishing the next few steps.
Milkdud squatted and opened his briefcase. He pulled out a curved piece of metal about the size of a coat hanger hook. A length of slender cord trailed from its end.
"All right. Here's your hook. You remember how to work it, right?"
"Yeah. I think so." I hope so.
"Just like we practiced last night." He handed Jack the hook and cord, then snapped his briefcase shut. "And you've got your change of clothes, flashlight, headlamp, and cell phone, right?"
"Right."
"Okay. Let's do it."
Jack swallowed. "Which floor?"
"Seven. A new tenant is renovating before moving in. The workmen probably don't arrive until eight, so—"
"Probably?"
Milkdud shrugged. "I did my thing here yesterday. They don't work on Sunday, so what can I say?"
"Okay. Let's assume they're not there yet."
"Right. Which is good. That way you won't be too rushed."
The car eased to a stop.
Milkdud gave him a thumbs-up. "Okay, Hacker Jack, go to it. I'll start back down—and don't let the alarm bell rattle you."
A bell is the least of my worries, he thought.
With the hook and cord in one hand and his briefcase in the other, Jack stepped through the open doors.
The seventh floor was indeed under construction, a clutter of lumber and wallboard, all coated with a fine layer of sawdust and plaster.
And no workers yet.
As soon as the elevator doors slid shut, Jack dropped his briefcase and began working the hook through the space between the metal lintel and the top of the elevator doors. He and Milkdud had practiced this a dozen times last night on the elevator in Milkdud's building. The top space here was narrower.
And then the elevator alarm bell started ringing as Milkdud hit the emergency button, stopping the cab between the sixth and seventh floors. Jack had been expecting this, but still he jumped.
He knew he had time, but the bell was a goad, pushing him to hurry. Finally the hook slipped through and dropped over on the other side of the door.
And kept dropping, taking the cord with it.
He'd forgot to wrap the damn cord around his wrist.
"Christ!"
Jack snatched at it and snagged the last foot of cord just before it disappeared into the void of the elevator shaft.
And all the while, that damn emergency bell kept up its steady, insistent ringing.
He let out a breath. The next step would be a little harder.
Jack reeled in the cord until he heard the hook clink against the other side of the door, then he worked it up and down, twisting the cord as he let it in and out.
Finally, he felt the hook catch, but just as it did, he heard another bell, a ding! He glanced around and saw the up arrow glowing above the far right elevator door. Someone was coming.
Jack yanked on the cord, praying it was hooked on the shaft side safety handle.
It was. The elevator doors parted a few inches. That was all Jack needed. He got his foot between them, then spread them wide with his hands.
The emergency bell was even louder now. He looked down.
Two feet below his feet the top of the elevator car waited.
Now came the hard part. The really hard part.
Jack hesitated—I've got to be out of my goddamned mind!—and would have loved to have hesitated longer if he'd had time, but the doors to that other elevator were sliding open. Wedging his doors open with his feet, he grabbed his briefcase and stepped down onto the roof of the elevator car. As the doors eased closed behind him, he found the switch for the light atop the elevator and flipped it, hoping the bulb hadn't burned out.
"Yes," he said as the incandescent lit within its cage.
He grabbed the hook off the safety handle and pulled the rest of the cord through. He banged the go-ahead signal to Milkdud on the roof of the car, then dropped into a crouch.
Abruptly the emergency bell stopped.
And for a few heartbeats, blessed silence.
Then the car started down with a lurch.
"Oh, shit!"
Going down wasn't the problem. The car was supposed to head down. That was in the plan. Milkdud had started it down before stopping between the floors, so it had to continue that way. Once he reached bottom, he'd start it back up… and take it all the way to the top.
The problem was that Jack's breakfast wanted to remain between the sixth and seventh floors. He gritted his teeth and forced the cherry cheese Danish and coffee to stay in his stomach. With his free hand, he clutched the heavy steel sling bar that ran across the top of the car. It looked like a piece of I-beam girder. Had to be strong—it anchored the hoist cables. To his left and right the roller guides rattled softly as they wheeled along in their shoes.
The car picked up speed.
"Oh, shit!"
He whispered the two words over and over in a scatological litany all the way down. He was scared. Not that he'd ever admit it to anyone, not even Gia—no way he'd even tell Gia about this—but he freely admitted to himself that at this moment, in this place, he was flat-out, all-
but-screaming terrified.
Not the height that bothered him, because he couldn't see the bottom; and being enclosed in a sealed concrete shaft wasn't all that bad, because the light atop the car let him see where he was.
It was the whole deal: Here he was dressed in a business suit and hanging onto a briefcase while riding an elevator on the wrong side of its ceiling. Sure, there had to be a first time for everything, but Jack swore this first time would also be the last time.
Because he liked to be in control of his gigs, and at the moment he was anything but in control.
And he didn't see any quick way out of here.
Plus he couldn't help worrying about what awaited him at his ultimate destination: the top of the shaft.
Finally, a faint ding! and the car slowed to a stop. He heard the doors open onto the main floor, then overheard Milkdud explaining to someone how the emergency stop was his fault, how the car had started to go down when he'd wanted to go up so he'd pressed the stop button by accident. Sorry. No harm done, right? Don't worry, he wouldn't make that mistake again.
Jack used the stop time to pocket the hook and cord, then unbuckle and rebuckle his pants belt around the handle of his briefcase. He heard bodies piling into the cab, heard the doors close, and then the car started up.
If the descent had been an oh-shit moment, the ascent was ten, twenty, a hundred times worse.
Sure, Milkdud had explained it all and drawn diagrams about how much space was around and above the main support beam up at the top of the shaft, but Jack kept seeing himself squashed like a bug against the inside of the roof up there.
The middle elevator zoomed past on its way down, and his own car's counterweight flashed past the rear of the car between one of the seven stops on the way up. If he'd had his hand out, he might have lost it. Taking the local usually drove Jack crazy when he was inside; but here on the outside, he didn't mind.
"Take your time," he whispered. "Take all the time you want."
But after the sixteenth floor—Jack had seen the number stenciled above the door—the car resumed its ascent and kept going.
As he shot toward the roof of the shaft, Jack crouched and peered into the shadows above, trying to make out the details. And then he spotted the main support beam running across the top of the shaft. It was aligned with the sling beam atop the car. As he got closer, Jack saw the multitrack wheel fixed in the center of the support beam, spinning wildly as it guided the racing hoist cables.
And then the car stopped. Twenty-sixth floor. End of the line.
Jack let out the breath he'd been holding. Milkdud hadn't been exaggerating about the extra space at the top. The car had stopped well short of the support beam and the roof. In fact, the shaft continued up a good twenty feet above him.
Jack knew Dud was leaning on the door open button to give him some extra time, but he couldn't hold it forever. Jack looked around and spotted a metal ladder embedded in the left wall of the shaft, running up to a door—just where Dud had said it would be.
He grabbed a rung, stepped off the top of the car, and climbed to the door. Dud had said it was unalarmed and that he'd left it unlocked, so Jack pushed through.
He shut the door behind him and stood a moment in the rumbling darkness, reveling in the feel of solid floor beneath his feet as his pounding heart slowed.
What a hell ride. Only a few minutes in real time, but a good aeon or two subjectively.
But he'd survived. The worst was over. He'd be more in control from here on in.
Until he had to get out.
He'd worry about that later.
He fumbled his hand along the wall and found the light switch. A row of naked fluorescents flickered to life overhead.
He was in what Milkdud called the HVAC area—heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning. Straight ahead sat the system's air filters, each the size of a panel truck. Eight-foot ducts ran to and from them.
Jack stepped over to the nearest and freed the briefcase from his belt. He opened it and removed a one-piece coverall—let Dud wear pantyhose; Jack preferred coveralls. He stripped off his suit jacket, pants, and tie, then stepped into the coverall and zipped it to his neck. He traded his wing tips for sneakers. He slipped the slim little cell phone into the inside breast pocket. He strapped the headlamp around his head and slipped its battery pack into his right hip pocket. He adjusted the headphones to his ears, then turned on the Walkman and dropped it into the left hip pocket.
Milkdud's voice spoke softly in his ears.
"Okay, Jack. If you're listening to this, I guess it means you're not lying in a broken heap at the bottom of the shaft." And then he chuckled.
"Ha ha," Jack said.
"Go to the big return that feeds into the left air filter and open the service door. We're using the return system because it'll have cooler air. Look close and you'll see I've marked it with my handle."
Jack stepped to the door and found the lever marked with Dud's little black spot within a circle. He pulled it open and looked inside. Dark. Very dark.
"Dark, isn't it. But not for long. To the right of the door is a light switch. Flip it."
Jack did, and an incandescent bulb lit the inside of the duct—a square galvanized metal shaft, eight foot on a side. A dozen feet to his left it made a right-angle downward turn.
"Don't stand there gawking, Jack. Get inside, close the door behind you, and start moving."
Jack did and inched to the edge of the down shaft. Just below the lip, a metal ladder trailed down the inner surface of the shaft; its rungs were swallowed by the darkness beyond the cone of light cast by the single bulb.
"Use the ladder to get to the twenty-first floor. Don't worry about the dark. We'll take care of that as we go."
"If you say so," Jack muttered.
He swung over the edge and started down. As he neared the darkness below…
"The engineers who renovated this system were unusually considerate. Not only are there no motion detectors or grates in the ducts—something I'd recommend if I was trying to keep out people like us—but they placed a light on every floor, same as in the elevator shaft. But these have to be turned on. Keep an eye out to the right of the ladder as you pass each major seam. You'll see a pair of light switches: One operates the bulb above you, and the other the bulb below."
"Love those considerate engineers," Jack said as he found the switches and hit the one that illuminated the section below.
"Conserve energy, Jack. Turn off the light in each section as you leave it."
"You do it your way, Dud. I'll do it mine. I like to see where I've been."
"Turn me off until you see my handle on the twenty-first floor."
Jack found the off switch and continued his descent without a running narrative. The only sounds were his soft, echoing footsteps and his breathing. Farther down he found a big "21" in red marker facing him through the rungs of the ladder. Dud's handle hovered under the curve of the "2" like a floating eye.
Jack turned on the Walkman.
"Okay, Jack. If you're at the twenty-first floor, it's time to leave the big vertical and enter the laterals via that opening on your left. These get smaller as we go, and unfortunately they're not lit for us, so you'll have to turn on the headlamp."
Jack swung off the ladder and into the smaller duct. It was perhaps half the width of the vertical. He adjusted the headlamp lens to the widest beam and began to crawl.
"At the first intersection you turn left. I've cleared the dust and left a little directional arrow. I've done that at each intersection—the black arrows for the way in, red arrows for the way out—just in case something goes wrong with the Walkman."
"What a comforting thought," Jack said. But he appreciated Milkdud's thoroughness.
He found the first pair of arrows—bracketing Dud's handle—and made the turn.
"And that's basically it, Jack. The arrows will lead you to the return that services Haffner's office. If you need any help, you've got the ce
ll phone. The thing is to move slowly and carefully, easing yourself along. Sudden moves that bang against the sides will send the noise far and wide. Most people ignore an occasional rattle or such from a register. But give them a series of noises moving along above their hung ceilings and they start making calls, asking what's going on. So take it easy, Jack. We've given you plenty of time. Good hacking, man. This is Milkdud, signing off."
Must think he's Walter Cronkite or something, Jack thought as he turned off the Walkman and continued his crawl.
As he slid through the dark ducts, following the wavering beam of light stretching before him, he came to appreciate the coveralls. Its button-free front surface allowed him to glide along smoothly and silently.
The ducts, as Dud had warned, did indeed get smaller. But Jack kept following the arrows. He was, he freely admitted, utterly lost. He knew he was on the twenty-first floor of the Hand Building, and that his body was horizontal, but any orientation beyond that was a guess. Was he facing east or west, uptown or downtown? He had no idea.
That Dud had managed to hack this place—doing the elevator thing, and finding his way through this labyrinth of ductwork—on his own was astonishing.
That anyone could call it fun was simply beyond Jack.
And then Jack came to a left-pointing arrow and saw—literally—a light at the end of the tunnel.
Slim bands of fluorescent glow angled up through the louvers of a register at the end of a small duct. Jack heard voices filtering through from the room beyond, but couldn't catch the words. And even if he could, hearing was not enough. He wanted to see who was in that room, wanted to know who was saying what.
And he couldn't do that from here.
He had to get closer, and that meant moving into this last duct. This small last duct.
Jack stared into the narrow confines of the six-foot length of steel… just the length of a coffin. But coffins probably were a lot roomier. What if he got stuck in there?
Milkdud had given him a few hints on how to maneuver in a tight spot. This might be the time to try them out.