Split Second (32 page)

54

Knight seemed completely
untroubled by the presence of a cadaver slumped over in a chair nearby, and the
sickening amount of blood she had left on the wood floor below her feet.

“You see how this works,” he
said to Jenna. “You can’t win. I can make a copy of you and then torture you to
death. If you won’t help me, I’ll try something else with the copy. Eventually,
I’ll find the key.”

Knight gestured to Nathan
Wexler. The physicist’s face was now as tear streaked as Jenna’s and he looked
like he had been hit by a train. “In fact, why don’t I start the festivities by
torturing this man, this new widower, while you watch. The man you love more
than life itself. The man you thought you lost forever. Then I can fetch
another copy of him and try again.” He smiled. “Isn’t time travel fun?”

Jenna’s tears had stopped,
almost as though she had run out, and she looked as emotionally spent as
Wexler. “I’ll help you,” she said. “I will. But under one condition: you let Aaron
Blake and this version of Nathan go. Once they call me and tell me they’ve made
it to safety, I’ll give you what you want.”

Knight shook his head in
disappointment. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen. Sorry. I’m willing to bet you’ll
break sooner rather than later using the other methods I just mentioned. But
isn’t it interesting how irrational you’ve become. You’re convinced I’m a
monster and will destroy the world. And yet you’re suddenly willing to sell out
all of humanity in exchange for just two men. You’d never catch me doing that.”

“Yeah, you’re a real hero,” growled
Jenna through clenched teeth.

She paused for several long
seconds, taking deep breaths to calm herself. “I’m not willing to sell out
humanity,” she added finally. “But part of me thinks your actions may be as
necessary as you say. That without a psychopath like you running the show, the
world will self-destruct. Saddam Hussein was a psychopath, too, but at least he
maintained order in the most volatile region on Earth. So I
am
doing the math. I have to admit, my
love for Nathan Wexler does factor in heavily, but maybe you really are the
answer, God forbid.”

Her face hardened. “So I’ll make
one last offer,” she said. “Remove their restraints and let them exit this
building. Then give them a thirty-minute head start. You can have dozens of men
guarding this room so they can’t circle back. But give them thirty minutes. After
that they’re fair game, in the truest sense of the word
game
.”

“Your proposal is for me to hunt
them like animals, and you think
I’m
the one who’s sick?”

“I have confidence in Aaron
Blake’s skills. Do you have confidence in your security? And you get to win
twice. You get your holy grail without having to spill more blood on your office
floor. And you get to test your security arrangements. You seem to be a big fan
of survival of the fittest. This would pit one unarmed man against hundreds.
Thousands. Surely your people can stop a single ex-Army Ranger and an egghead
physicist from leaving your little lake, right?”

“Just so you know,” said Knight,
“they won’t be able to get a message out to your allies, if that’s your plan. I
have some of the most brilliant minds in history here, many of whom no doubt
want to escape. So I hired consultants to block all communication off the
island, from landlines, cells, or computers. Cells can’t get voice, text,
e-mail, or Internet.”

From Knight’s bearing, it was
obvious he was quite proud of this accomplishment. “Ninety-nine percent of the
people here have no knowledge of our activities,” he continued, “so I’ve maintained
the fiction that the island never did get coverage. It’s a hardship for
employees here, and they know the cover story is bullshit, but they’re paid too
much to complain. So if anyone who is here against their will ever does manage
to steal a phone, they can’t call for help.

“And Internet is incoming only,”
continued Knight. “Brain Trust scientists, and others on this island, can enter
terms into a Google search bar, but that’s the only way they can interact with
the outside world. The results of their searches can be opened and downloaded,
but it’s one-way traffic only.” He smiled. “None of this was easy to do, but it
is quite foolproof.”

Knight paused. “But don’t you
worry, Jenna. I know you’ll have to enter codes to retrieve the file I need.
But on this floor and the one below—both the most heavily guarded real estate
on the island—Internet and phone communications are unrestricted, so you won’t
have any trouble.”

“Thanks for clearing that up,”
said Jenna, rolling her eyes. “But I couldn’t care any less. So let me repeat
my offer. Give them a thirty-minute head start,” she continued, gesturing
toward Blake and Wexler. “In exchange, I’ll give you the breakthrough you want.
The work of the second coming of James Clerk Maxwell.”

“Fifteen minutes.”

Jenna was silent for several
seconds. “It has to be a fair head start.”

“Of course. Other than this
floor and the one below, I’ll have security in this building stand down for the
full fifteen minutes, unless they’re attacked. Not only won’t my men here go
after them, they won’t alert the security apparatus on the rest of the island.”
He shrugged. “Not that they’ll need to.”

Jenna paused in thought once
again. Finally, she nodded. “Agreed.”

“Why would you do this?” said
Knight.

“Were you not listening? I told
you, there is a chance what you’re planning to do is a necessary evil. Giving
you this information might actually save the world. And I have confidence in Aaron
Blake. He’ll find a way to get Nathan out of here to safety.”

“You are suffering from some
pretty severe delusions,” said Knight. “But why not? I’m truly looking forward
to identifying any weaknesses in my security. The farther Blake gets, the more
he’ll be helping me.”

He smiled. “You have yourself a
deal.”

55

Knight issued commands to his
PDA and soon various members of his organization snapped into action. Within
minutes the lifeless body of Jenna’s doppelganger was removed from the office
and what seemed like gallons of blood cleaned up with very little trace.

Two heavily armed men led Nathan
Wexler and Aaron Blake from the room. Once they had left, two additional guards
were stationed by the twenty-second-floor elevators, and four more just outside
the entrance to Knight’s suite.

Knight instructed these men not
to interrupt him under any circumstances, and he explained to Jenna that the
inner walls of the penthouse floor were reinforced and virtually impregnable,
so she shouldn’t expect any heroic rescues from Blake.

The office area of the suite was
ringed with eight plasma screens, each larger than the last, and one of them
was on the wall over Jenna, who was still strapped to the steel chair. Knight
had his PDA display video feeds on it, two views of the twenty-second floor,
just in case: the bank of four elevators and the entrance to his lair.

On a different screen, one that
he and Jenna could both see clearly, he had his PDA display the progress of Aaron
Blake and Nathan Wexler as they were led to the ground floor and escorted
outside.

“Okay, Jenna,” said Knight.
“You’re getting your wish. None of my men in this building will molest them for
fifteen minutes, unless
they
initiate.
Security elsewhere on the island has not been alerted in any way. I’ll leave it
to them to figure out that these men are on the loose and do something about
it.”

“Aaron Blake is going to beat
your security and survive,” said Jenna confidently.

Knight laughed. “Aaron Blake and
a small army couldn’t get off this island alive,” he countered. “But I believe
we had an agreement. I’ve held up my part.” He gestured toward her expectantly.
“Now it’s
your
turn.”

She studied the monitor as Blake
and Wexler disappeared around the edge of the building.

“Okay, get to a computer and
I’ll tell you what to do,” said Jenna. “But not until the full fifteen minutes
have gone by. It’s not that I don’t trust you to give them their full head
start,” she added, “it’s just that I don’t trust you to do
anything
you say.”

Knight smiled, unoffended. “Fair
enough,” he said, moving to a computer ten feet away. “You have just over thirteen
minutes.”

* *
*

“Purse your lips,” Blake
instructed Wexler the moment they were left alone at the foot of Knight’s
building.

The physicist looked confused.

“Are they pursed?” said Blake
impatiently, and got a nod in the affirmative.

Blake reached up and ripped the
tape from Wexler’s mouth with considerable force and speed.

The physicist let out a squeal
of terror and discomfort but then blew out a long breath in relief as he
realized his lips were still intact, thanks, no doubt, to his companion’s
advice.

His eyes reflected a deep
anguish, and not just due to their current circumstances. He had seen the woman
he loved killed in front of him. Knowing there was still a Jenna Morrison alive
was some consolation, but the woman who was shot was the one he had spent the
past three months with on Knight’s island.

“We need to get back inside,”
said Blake, pointing toward the building they had just left. He shoved the
piece of duct tape he had removed into his pocket. “Come on! Quickly!”

“Why?” said Wexler.

“They’ll expect us to move as
far away from here as we can, as fast as we can. But we’re sitting ducks
outside. I’m sure we’re on camera right now. But once inside we can raid a
bathroom, storage closet, or lab and get a broom or plunger or something else
we can use to knock out the cameras on as many floors as possible before our
fifteen-minute head start is up. Once we do that, there are lots of rooms in
which to hide and plan. They’ll have to do a floor-by-floor search.”

“Why bother?” said Wexler as
they reentered the first floor of the building and Blake hit the button for the
fifth. “I’m glad Jenna made this arrangement, since Knight would have gotten
what he wanted anyway, and now at least she won’t be tortured. I love her even
more for trying to protect us. But I’ve been here three months and have a taste
of the kind of security this madman has in place. Believe me, escape is
impossible.”

They arrived at their floor and
Blake looked up and down the long corridor, ringed with office doors and what
looked like labs. The coast was clear. “Come on,” he whispered, stepping from
the elevator.

“Didn’t you just hear what I
said? Knight is going to win. We should just surrender. What’s the point of
this?”

“I’ll tell you the point,” said
Blake. “But listen well and fast, because I don’t have time to repeat myself.”

* *
*

The fifteen minutes had ended
three minutes earlier, making Blake and Wexler fair game, but Knight continued
to stare at his monitors. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “He’s as impressive as you
say. They’ve reentered this building, and he’s managed to blind us on the first,
fifth, seventh, and ninth floors already. Not to mention all four elevators.
Nice.”

Knight finally turned from the
monitor, which showed various members of building security cautiously making
their way through the stairwells toward the floors in play. Just before he
completed his turn, a red warning light appeared once again, indicating they
had lost video feed on the eleventh floor as well.

“As interesting as this manhunt
is,” said Knight, “It’s time to see that file. Time to learn how to extend my
reach.” He frowned. “I wish the universe would allow for time travel of a
minute or two—which would open up some truly staggering possibilities—but I
guess beggars can’t be choosers. I’ll have to settle for the nearly half-second
that Dr. Wexler will make possible.”

Jenna provided instructions for
how to access the file in the cloud, and how to get it open. It was a lengthy
process, and she walked Knight through it step by painstaking step.

* *
*

Nathan Wexler was in awe of his
companion’s resourcefulness and speed of decision making. The man hadn’t had
time to give his background. Wexler only knew that he was working for someone named
Lee Cargill and a group dedicated to bringing Knight down.

Blake had listened with rapt
attention as Wexler told him everything he knew about the layout of the
twenty-two-story structure.

Blake ushered the physicist into
yet another elevator and pressed the button for the nineteenth floor.

“They’ve had plenty of time to
mobilize,” said Wexler. “So why are we using the elevator and going to a floor
that still has video?”

“Even though I knocked out video
in the elevators,” Blake explained as they began their ascent, “they’ll expect
us to be taking the stairs. And they’ll think what you just thought. That we’ll
be sticking to the floors that are blind.”

“So why not go directly to the first
floor? I told you that’s where we need to be.”

“You also described the security
there. We have to improve our situation first. And I have something else I need
to do beforehand. You’re sure nineteen is the medical wing?”

“Positive.”

The elevator door opened and no
one was in sight.

“If anyone is even watching this
floor now,” whispered Blake, “which is doubtful, they’ll be looking for two men
together. So we need to split up. I’ll go first. Wait about a minute and
follow. Don’t look up at any cameras and move slowly, like you have all the
time in the world. Find the suite of doctor’s offices. I’ll be in one of them.
Look for duct tape on the door and you’ll know which one.”

Without waiting for a
confirmation, Blake sauntered down the hall, staring down at his hands, which
he held together near his chest as if he were holding a phone and studying the
screen.

Wexler waited a minute, his
heart racing, and followed. He passed two random strangers in the hall as he
did, nodding hello, before coming to a hall with three offices belonging to
doctors in Knight’s employ.

Even though three doctors served
the medical needs of the island, only one was usually on duty, and this person often
had little to do. The piece of gray duct tape that Blake had removed from
Wexler’s mouth was hanging near the bottom of the door to the far left, which a
nameplate indicated was the office of a Dr. Martin P. Fricke.

Wexler took a deep breath and
entered. The room was empty except for Blake, who had no doubt forced his way
in. Blake put a finger to his lips to motion for quiet. His other hand was
clutching a scalpel with a two-inch blade that tapered to a lethal, stainless
steel point, which he must have stolen from a storage closet.

Blake set the scalpel on the
desk and hastily began rifling through every drawer in Fricke’s office, his scowl
indicating he wasn’t finding what he was looking for.

“Wait here,” he whispered,
lifting the scalpel once again. “There’s another empty doctor’s office down the
hall. I’ll break in and mark it again with tape. Leave here in one minute and
join me.”

Wexler waited the full minute
and then located Blake once again, this time in the office of a Dr. Allene
Rohrer. Once again he was tearing through her drawers, on a mission. His eyes
lit up when he came upon a flash drive, which probably hadn’t been used in
months, if ever.

He shoved it into Rohrer’s computer
and accessed the Internet.

“Knight wasn’t lying,” whispered
Wexler. “You can type inside a Google search bar, and download files, but can’t
send anything else through cyberspace, including passwords.”

“Won’t need to,” whispered
Blake. “Two doors down is the office of a Dr. Susan Schlesinger. I heard her in
there with some guy doing a check-up. Sounded like it was almost done. While
I’m finding and downloading what I need, open the door a crack and watch for
him to leave.”

Wexler nodded and did as he was
asked. Only two minutes later he reported that the patient had left and the
doctor had returned to her office. Blake hurriedly finished up, shoved the
flash drive into his pocket, and exited, with Wexler in tow.

He moved quickly to Dr.
Schlesinger’s door and rapped twice. The woman opened the door halfway and
looked troubled when she didn’t recognize either of her unexpected visitors.
“Can I help you?” she said.

“Sorry to bother you, Dr. Schlesinger,”
said Blake pleasantly, “but we’re with security here. We have reason to believe
someone was searching through your office earlier today. Can we come in and
take a look?”

She opened the door wider, an
anxious look on her face. “Why would someone do that?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” said Blake,
entering the room.

Once inside his friendly
demeanor turned distinctly menacing. “I need you to stay very quiet,” he said,
lifting his right arm from behind his back to reveal the scalpel he was holding.
“If you scream or make any loud noise, I’ll kill you where you stand.”

“What’s this all about?” she
whispered, barely managing to croak out the words.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” said
Blake. “But I need you to do something for me.”

She nodded, not trusting herself
to speak.

“Call security,” he said. “Tell
them you saw two men who looked suspicious near your office five minutes ago.
Give them our descriptions. Tell them they both exited to the stairs, but you
think they were using your computer.”

“And you won’t hurt me?”
whispered Schlesinger, trying not to panic.

“I can’t tell you how much I
don’t want to hurt you,” said Blake earnestly. “So just pull yourself together,
do this, and we’ll be out of your hair.”

She lifted her phone while Blake
repeated what she needed to say.

“Deep breaths,” said Blake,
trying to calm her down.

The doctor took a few deep
breaths, as instructed, and then dialed zero, asking for security. Her voice
was shaky, but she was calling to report possible intruders so it wouldn’t be unreasonable
for her to be a little rattled.

When the call had been
transferred to security she gave her report as instructed, listened for several
seconds, thanked the man at the other end, and hung up.

“What was his reaction?” said
Blake. “Did he sound excited or bored?”

“Excited,” said Susan
Schlesinger. “He promised to find the men I reported.”

“That’s all?” said Blake.

She nodded.

“You sure he didn’t also say he
would send someone to check on your computer?” asked Blake. “After all, you did
report we used it.”

“Positive,” she whispered.

Blake sighed. “Look, who could
blame you for withholding something like this? I’ve given you reason to be
afraid for your life. I get that. But I still promise I won’t hurt you if you
cooperate. So I’ll ask one last time, are they sending a man here now?”

“Yes,” she said, fighting back
tears. “Yes, you’re right.”

“Thank you,” said Blake,
sounding almost relieved.

Wexler continued to marvel at his
companion’s skills. Blake had spread the building’s security forces thin checking
every nook and cranny for them on a number of blind floors, and after the
doctor’s report they would be scrambling to check the floors above and below
the nineteenth.

But Wexler realized Blake had
wanted
security to send a man to
Schlesinger’s office. This is what he had been after all along. Wexler decided
that if the stakes weren’t what they were, this Aaron Blake would have been fun
to watch operate.

“When the man knocks,” Blake
said to the doctor, “don’t make a sound. You’re almost at the finish line,” he
added, “so hang in there.”