Unbreakable (Unraveling) (32 page)

“Ready,” I say, stepping to Barclay’s side. He nods and holds his quantum charger in front of him, pressing a button. That brief, high-pitched electronic sound hits my ears, and then the cool, empty air of the portal is in front of me.

My heart beats a little faster. This is it.

In an hour, this could be all over.

Or we could be dead.

I
t’s just Barclay and me now. Cecily and Ben are in a different position, planning to enter the building from a back entrance. They’re the backup plan. They have a zip drive with the files and if Barclay and I fail, they have to get the files into IA’s system.

I push my worry for them to the back of my mind. I can’t let that distract me.

Barclay and I have the more dangerous position. We’re standing in front of the only entrance into IA headquarters—for the second time. Now, the dozen concrete steps loom in front of us, and the oily glass skyscraper seems more sinister than it did only a few days ago.

“You agreed you’d take orders from me—you’ll remember that, right?”

I turn to Barclay. I don’t like that he’s bringing this up now. “I did agree to that, why?”

He looks at the doors, where there are no less than six armed guards who at worst could have a
shoot on sight
order for both of us. Our only hope is they’re caught by surprise, that no one expects us to walk in the front door. “If it looks like we’re going down, I want you to run.”

“You want me to leave you?” I don’t worry about how incredulous I sound.

“If I’m caught, they won’t execute me, at least not right away.”

I’m not sure either of us believes what he’s saying. He’s worse than me, after all. He’s the guy who was on their side, and is now committing treason with the enemy.

A traitor is always the worst thing someone can be.

But we don’t have time to argue about it now. I’ve made a lot of promises to people I care about. This one is no different. “I’ll follow your orders.”

“Good,” he says with a nod.

And we climb the stairs.

W
e go through the center glass doors side by side. This time I don’t pause to take note of the marble floors and the corporate business decor of the lobby. I don’t linger on the airport security–style body scans.

My eyes find the armed guards.

Of the six guards, four are focused on the people coming into the building, operating body scans and giving directions. One is about fifteen feet in front of us, in the direction we want to go—he’s standing by the elevators. The other is standing off to the side—the same guy we approached just a few days ago.

And lucky him, he has to deal with us today, too.

We’re just a few feet from him when he takes notice. His face is all business, like he’s about to regurgitate the company line, tell us we can’t enter this way, and go through the motions. Then his face changes. His lips part, and his eyes widen slightly, shifting from Barclay’s face to mine. The recognition is clear.

Everyone is looking for us.

When he reaches for his radio, I relax a little. The orders aren’t
shoot on sight
. They clearly still want to bring us in alive.

Everything happens so fast—it’s over in a split second—but I’m ready for it. I know what Barclay is going to do. I know what
I
have to do.

The guard has time to press the button on his radio, but no sound comes out because with one swift move, Barclay knocks him out with an elbow to the face. Before he hits the ground, we’ve both disarmed him. Barclay has the machine gun, and I’m pulling the sidearm from the guard’s hip.

Barclay turns the machine gun on the armed guards at the body scanners, and I raise the sidearm, pointing the barrel at the face of the guard by the elevator.

“Drop your weapon!” I yell, advancing on him. My grip is tight on the gun, and my arms burn from the tension. “Drop it or I’ll put a bullet between your eyes.” I won’t actually do it, because I’m too tense and too far to be that good a shot, but also because we don’t want to hurt anyone. I’m bluffing—and I’m bluffing big because I’m outgunned, and if he thinks too long about it, he’ll realize that.

His surprise and my threats outweigh any inclination to try to be a hero, and he lays his machine gun on the ground. My heartbeat kicks into overdrive, and I kick the gun farther away so he can’t make a lunge for it. “Hands up, behind your head.”

Behind me, I have a vague sense of Barclay going through the same motions. But more because I know the plan and less because I’m paying attention to him. I’ve put my trust in him and his ability to guard my back, but I know he’s yelling and making threats, telling the guards—and the people in line—to get rid of their weapons and lie flat on the ground.

With his hands over his head, the guard in front of me drops to his knees, and I relieve him of the sidearm and the backup gun at his ankle. I take both of them for my own and keep my gun trained on him the entire time.

“Facedown on the ground,” I say, taking a step back to give him room.

He does what I say, and I turn to Barclay. The room is remarkably quiet—no sobs, groans, or even gasps. It’s a creepy sort of silence, the kind that comes before a storm, and I hope that we’re ready for it.

Barclay has everyone on the ground, and he’s stripping the last two guards of their weapons, dismantling them easily, breaking the pieces apart, buying us just a little more time.

When he’s finished, he starts toward me. He still has the machine gun pointed at the guards and the crowd, and he reminds them, “Stay on the ground. Don’t make me shoot you!”

He continues backing up.

Someone from the crowd calls out right as Barclay is about to reach me. I can’t see who because he stays down. He says, “You don’t have to do this, Taylor. Whatever’s going on, there are people you can turn to.”

Barclay’s expression is stone-faced when he answers. “Tell that to Eric.”

W
hen Barclay reaches me, I run for the door to the stairs and pull it open. We need to get to the fifth floor, and taking the elevator is too dangerous. Barclay follows me.

But before he does, he pulls the fire alarm.

It blares around us as we run up the steps. It’s so loud that it drowns out the pounding of my heart and most of my thoughts. I’m on automatic, pushing myself up the stairs, following Barclay as closely as I can. We pass the second floor, then the third. People who think this is a drill start to flood the stairwells and pass us on their way down to the lobby. A lot of them are analysts or administrative staff and a lot of them either don’t know—or know of—Barclay or me. They’re too wrapped up in their own jobs or they don’t expect anyone to be crazy enough to break into IA headquarters.

Whatever it is, they don’t give us a second glance as we pass them.

But they still put me on edge. My legs quiver with each step, the burn spreading throughout my body from my hamstrings to my chest.

Barclay passes the fourth floor a few steps ahead of me, and in between us the door opens. I know the second I see his face that this guy coming through isn’t like the rest of them. He knows something is up, and when he sees me running toward him, his eyes narrow in recognition.

The air seems to freeze in front of me, and I can’t get a breath, but instead of going for me, he looks up the stairs at Barclay.

It takes me even less time to see what’s in his right hand.

“Gun!” The scream is automatic, and thankfully Barclay hears me over the fire alarm and reverses direction, heading straight for the guy.

But he’s going to be too late.

I do the only thing I can. It doesn’t take any thought. I just react. I throw myself up the remaining stairs and against this guy I don’t know, effectively ramming him into the wall.

His right arm is pinned momentarily before he gets over the surprise and knocks me off him.

The distraction is enough, though. Barclay is there, and the heel of his palm comes up directly into the guy’s nose. Blood rushes from his face, and Barclay brings down his gun on the back of the guy’s head, knocking him out.

I knew Barclay was good with hand-to-hand combat—he’d have to be. But even I’m impressed.

People are staring at us now. This whole incident, only seconds long, has managed to attract a lot of attention. Barclay grabs a passing guy—he’s skinny, his tie is crooked, and he looks young, little more than a kid. “Get him out of here,” he says, pointing to the unconscious body. The authority in his voice is unmistakable. This is a command, delivered with urgency, the kind people don’t question, not when there’s a fire alarm blasting in their ears. “When you’re outside, get him in restraints and have him detained.”

Skinny Kid nods, and as I head up the stairs after Barclay, a couple of people are helping him lift the unconscious guy up.

We keep going, to the fifth floor. Barclay grabs the door and holds it open for me.

The fifth floor is empty. Everyone has either cleared out or they haven’t reported in to the office yet to begin with. I follow Barclay as he makes his way through the floor, past the cubicles to the empty corner office. I don’t ask where he’s going. I know the plan.

The corner office belongs to Special Agent Ian Bachman, who is clearly someone important. And someone who works the night shift, so he’s not here right now. He’s also the guy with the gruff voice who broke into Barclay’s apartment. Or at least Barclay seems sure that it’s him.

We’re going to email the proof to everyone from Bachman’s computer.

I slide open his desk drawers, pulling out their contents, scattering his papers on the floor. I’m sure there’s nothing he’d keep here to imply that he’s in on the conspiracy, that he’s working for Meridian, and even if he did, we wouldn’t have the time to go through it all without getting caught, but we want to make him—and anyone else who’s involved—think we’re on to them. If they’re scared, they’ll be more likely to make mistakes.

While I’m destroying his desk, the zip drive is in the computer, uploading the files, and Barclay is prepping for our escape, with the one step that I don’t want to think about—despite how necessary it is.

He’s using a small, handheld heat laser to cut through the glass of the corner window.

There are only two exits in this building—the one we came through and the one Ben and Cecily used—and there’s no way we can get out of either now. Which means we have to make our own.

Breaking the window is something Barclay has assured me will register on IA’s building security system. It will bring security running to this floor—this office. Which should let Ben and Cecily get out easier the way they came.

Only it requires that we slide down a rope for five stories.

The cool air from the broken window flows through the room, rustling the papers I’ve littered across the floor.

Because, of course, a five-story drop from IA headquarters is actually a lot more than that. It’s five stories to the platformed walkways, then a hundred feet to the street of the underground. Which means we’re a lot farther off the ground than I’m comfortable with.

Barclay ties the rope to the desk. A desk he’s assured me is bolted in place.

I look at the computer. “It’s almost done,” I say.

Barclay pulls up the email program and addresses it to the “All IA” mailing list. He types a short note.

Eric Brandt was murdered. Because he uncovered this.

And then he attaches the files.

While we wait, he says into the com link, “We’re uploading now. Abort and get out of the building.”

I breathe a little easier, knowing Ben and Cecily will be able to follow the crowd of people evacuating the building because of the fire alarm.

From the hallway, I hear the elevators ding.

“
I
t’s going to be fine,” Barclay says as he wraps the rope around one of his hands and one of his feet.

Across the floor, I can hear the shouts and orders of some kind of task force coming for us. They’re fanning out, advancing on us so there’s no way back to the stairs.

I look at Barclay and the iridescent sky peeking through the window. The wind moves through my hair and chills travel down my spine.

“Tenner,” Barclay says, his voice calm. “We have to go.”

I know we do, but it’s like everything in my body is refusing to move forward. Climbing out a window this high off the ground—the real ground—just isn’t natural.

But I take Barclay’s outstretched hand, and he pulls me the few feet to him. From behind, I wrap my arms around his chest. I’m holding on to him, he’s holding on to the rope, and the rope is attached to the desk, which is bolted to the floor.

I tell myself Barclay knows what he’s doing, that he’s done something like this before.

“It’ll be over before you know it,” he says.

And we go down the side of the building.

T
he air is cold, and it burns as it whips past my face.

But worse is the feeling of gravity. The sensation of jumping only lasts a split second, and then I can
feel
gravity take over and begin pulling us down. My heart lurches in my chest at the lack of control, and my feet start to cramp from the fear.

My ears pop, something stings my shoulder, and I look down in time to see the white platform rushing toward us. I open my mouth to let loose a scream, but I don’t have time.

Barclay does something to the rope, and we lurch, not to a complete stop, but slow enough that the sounds of the world—people, traffic, general noise—come rushing back to my ears, and I can breathe again.

We’re about five feet off the platform when Barclay says, “You have to jump.”

Instead, I let go of him and just sort of fall to the ground. I keep my legs loose so that when I hit the concrete platform, my feet sting from the contact, but my knees bend, and I end up in a crouch with my hands on the ground to steady myself.

I don’t wait for Barclay, though I know he’s right behind me. I just start running. We have to get away from IA headquarters—as far away as the city will allow.