Invisible Armies

Chapter 33

Keiran tries to imagine a plausible escape route. None is obvious. The parking garage's interior is laid out in a giant helix, like New York's Guggenheim museum. Elevators and stairs descend from the northeast and southwest corners of the building. Both corners will surely both be watched. Mulligan's car is parked on the western edge of the roof. Keiran can probably hotwire it, but he cannot drive it well enough to escape the police. The garage is much taller than any other buildings around them, ruling out any escape to a connecting rooftop. The street lights of Santa Monica wink red and green seven sheer stories below, and there is nothing above them but the night sky. Keiran shakes his head, as if he might dislodge a moment of genius. Think outside the box. There must be some hack, some unexpected action, some lateral leap of logic that can save them. But nothing comes to mind. They are boxed in.

"We could call backup," his hiptop says. "Seal the place, have them arrested."

"I want that bonus," the other voice says, his voice muffled but decipherable. "Stay here and watch the exits. Show your badge, get the attendants to help. I'll go top and work down. If they get past us, then we call it in. They won't get far, Santa Monica's crawling with squad cars."

"Shit," Danielle said. "Shit shit shit."

"Come on," Keiran says. He doesn't know how to get out, but he knows if they stay where they are, they'll be captured immediately.

"The stairs."

"They'll see us."

"We're not descending all the way. Give me that." He takes the hiptop from her as they begin to descend, and switches off the speakerphone.

They have gone down only one level when they hear the elevator ding on the roof above them. They freeze for a moment. If their pursuer takes the stairs immediately, they are caught. But they hear his boots moving away. Obviously he plans to walk the garage's helix from top to bottom, checking under cars and other hiding spots, hoping to flush them out to the ground floor where his partner waits. He is unaware that his prey know they are being hunted.

"We can just go back up top in a moment," Danielle whispers, as Keiran leads them out onto the third floor.

"No," Keiran says. "Then they call backup and we're not murdered but we're definitely arrested. We have to get out before they give up on finding us. Except I have no idea how."

"The lights," Jayalitha suggests. "If there is a wire we can find and sever. In darkness they will never see us."

Keiran stops in mid-step and turns to stare at Jayalitha. "That's brilliant. The lights. Of course."

"How? Find the fuse box? It'll be locked," Danielle says.

"The rather large fuse box." Smiling now, he takes out the Virgin Mobile phone again and punches a long series of numbers into it, establishing a secure connection to Mulligan's mobile phone.

"Yo," Mulligan answers.

Keiran says, "We got hacked and tracked. We need darkness and we need it ten seconds ago." He hangs up immediately.

"What do we do now?" Jayalitha asks.

"Same thing we've been doing all night. Pray that Mulligan's as good as I think he is."

The seconds ease by, much slower than Keiran would like. The elevator they stand next to dings, and the shock causes him to nearly swallow his own tongue, but it contains only a young couple, who give them curious looks before returning to their car and driving off.

Keiran still has his hiptop to his ear. A few seconds after the couple's car disappears down the helix, he stiffens; the other officer, the one who stayed on ground level, has told the attendants to start asking outgoing drivers if they had seen a white couple and an Indian woman.