Edge

I carry.
    I opened it with a soft click. The man stirred. I pointed to the gag and held up two fingers. Terrifying the man even more, Pogue applied a second.
    I bent close and said, “Is Loving here?”
    A hesitation. Pogue gripped one of the man’s hands and I scraped the blade across the top of a nail. Painless but persuasive; even with the gag, you could hear the terrified scream.
    A yes nod.
    “How many people inside, total?” I began to count. At four, he bobbed his head up and down vigorously.
    “And the man who hired Loving? We know he’s on his way. When will he get here? Blink—each blink is five minutes.”
    I tallied them up. It came to a half hour.
    “Who is he?”
    A series of desperate nos. I believed he didn’t know the primary’s identity.
    “Inside, those four . . . are they all with the girl?”
    A shrug but a terrified one and I suspected he didn’t know.
    “Where?” I began running through variousdirections, at which he either nodded or shook his head. Once or twice he shrugged.
    Apparently they were in the back of the facility, straight down the main corridor, though he didn’t know or couldn’t remember if it was upstairs or down. While just one story here at the entrance, farther inside the hill there were multiple floors, duBois had learned.
    I nodded to Pogue and closed my eyes and tilted my head briefly. The man extracted a heavy-duty hypodermic syringe. The guard stirred violently, probably thinking we were going to kill him, but Pogue got the needle into a vein skillfully and a moment later he was asleep. “How long?” I whispered.
    “Two hours, give or take.”
    I ripped the gag off, fearful that the guard might vomit again and choke to death. Pogue looked at me questioningly, as if he didn’t care what happened to the man, but said nothing.
    At the front door I spit on the hinges to keep them from squealing and we eased it silently open. I expected to find battery-powered lamps but the overhead lights were working. Pogue shrugged at what could be deduced from the functioning power: Perhaps the facility had been taken over by Henry Loving. A place of business—to ply his trade as a lifter. It was intimidating; subjects would be terrified to be brought here. Also, the walls were thick enough to withstand a Russian assault—which meant that any locals passing nearby couldn’t hear the screams from inside.
    The linoleum-floored corridor, stained from water seepage, extended straight to the back of thefacility. I looked for cameras or other security systems and found none.
    I returned the silenced Beretta to Pogue and drew my Glock. We started down the hundred-foot-long hallway, keeping to the shadows. Pogue was in front and I watched the rear regularly. He tried doorknobs occasionally but the doors were locked. Apparently there was only this one main way in and out of the facility, though there would have to be some fire exits.
    Escape would come later, though. First, I had to find the principal that I’d lost.
    Where the corridor ended there were stairs leading both down and up.
    Which way?
    I played another game. I mentally flipped a coin.
    Up won.

Chapter 62
    PAUSING TO LISTEN, on the second-floor landing.
    Faint noises, the source impossible to guess, came from unknown directions. Taps, clicks, water dripping? The air here was raw with the scent of mold and very chill. I knew that interrogators regularly use underheated interview rooms.
    The door to the second floor was locked and we continued to the third floor, the top. At the far end of this corridor we could see illumination, about fifty feet ahead. We moved quickly along the shabby linoleum to the doorway from which the light filtered. We paused outside and glanced in. The door opened onto a wide balcony overlooking the second floor, a very large room, seventy-five by a hundred feet or so. The place was a control room of some sort, filled with gray desks, partitions and metal electronics consoles from which the guts had been removed. The smell of musty paper joined that of the mold. The overhead lights were off but at the far end, on the other side of high partitions, were pools of illumination.
    I pointed and, with Pogue now covering me, we went in the direction of the light, crouching, practically on our knees. We came to a stairwell headingdown to the main floor but stayed on the balcony. Soon we could hear voices rising and falling softly from the far end of the room, in the direction in which we were