Knowing it carried a microphone, she began relaying details of the situation to whoever was controlling it.

"There are seven prisoners down here," she whispered. "No guards on this level, no cameras, either, but I've gone through every inch of this place and there are no exits except the elevator. Do you copy?"

The little spider pivoted up and down on its front legs, in a sort of nodding gesture.

Danielle looked around and then back at the device. "Are you on a surveillance run?"

The spider moved side to side.

"So this is a rescue attempt?"

The spider nodded yes. And then, after a pause, it continued nodding yes, bowing and rising repeatedly.

After three or four identical moves it stopped and Danielle looked at the thing dumbfounded. What the hell was the operator trying to tell her?

"I don't know what you want from me," she said, almost laughing at the absurdity of the situation.

The little spider nodded three more times and then stopped. She shrugged, and almost simultaneously, a thunderous explosion rang out.

The shock wave knocked her off her feet. A cloud of dust surged throughout the old brig.

Coughing, she looked up. Yuri had grabbed her arm and was pulling her. The others in the cell were awake and stunned and hacking on the dust just as she was.

"What happened?" the old man asked.

She heard the muted wail of some alarm high above. An earthquake or fire alarm, she guessed.

She got back to her feet just as a figure came in through the swirling dust.

"Are you all right?" the new arrival said.

The voice was strangely familiar, but in a distant way. And then as the person crouched beside her she recognized him.

"Hawker? My God, what are you doing here?"

"Getting you out of trouble," he said. "It's what I do best."

It was the dry sense of humor she remembered. After the way things had ended in Brazil, and especially after her own departure from the institute, she'd sadly guessed that she would never see him again. Certainly not in a situation like this.

He dropped down and began digging into his backpack.

"I was telling you to get down, before the explosion," he said.

"Suddenly it makes sense."

A new set of alarms began ringing and she guessed that the incursion had been detected.

"We need to get moving," she said.

The old man and the woman were standing around her; Yuri was tugging on her sleeve.

"Where do we get out?" the old man said.

"At the front of the room," Hawker said. "By the gunports. Go across the rocks and swim to the south; you'll have the current and the tide with you. But go now if you want to make it."

The two prisoners moved quickly and disappeared.

Hawker looked around. "I thought you said there were seven."

She pointed to the cell across the corridor. Zhou and the other man she'd beaten cowered there.

"What happened to them?"

"We had a little disagreement," she said. "They're kind of my bitches now."

"Someone's got to be king of the yard," he said. "I should have figured it would be you."

"Yeah," she said, glad to be talking with him, but thinking they could catch up later. "Can we get the hell out of here?"

"Not just yet." He looked at Yuri. "Grab the kid."

"You know about him?"

"He's part of the deal," Hawker said. "Sort of."

There was something in his voice that concerned her, but before she could say anything, Hawker moved to the gate that separated them from the elevator. He stuck a shaped charge of C-4 to the lock and stepped back.

Yuri began to yell. It was unintelligible wailing, but he covered one ear with a hand and pointed toward the elevator.

"Look out!" she shouted.

The elevator doors flew open and a wave of darts came streaking through the air, trailing wires back to some riflelike Taser device. Danielle ducked behind the wall but saw one hit Hawker and his body stiffen, and her immediate thought was, This can't be happening again This can't be happening again.

CHAPTER 18.

Hawker felt the sting of the dart hitting his body but he was already moving for cover and even as his muscles wrenched tight he fell behind the stone wall, his chest scraping against it and thus ripping the prong of the Taser out.

Spared the full burst of electricity, he still writhed in pain from the half second of shock.

He rolled over, angry at himself. He'd been waiting for security to come down in the elevator; in fact, he'd been counting on it. But the occupants of the car had doused any light inside it and the screaming Russian kid had distracted him.

He shook his head to clear it and looked around. Danielle was pulling the child into safety behind her with one hand and grabbing the carbine rifle he'd dropped. As she fired down the hall, a man screamed in agony at the far end.

"One down," Danielle shouted.

A second wave of darts came flying in, which Hawker deflected with his backpack.

He pressed the detonator switch and the C-4 on the gate exploded, flinging it open and taking out the second guard.

Before they could rejoice, a third guard opened fire.

Bullets ricocheted around the brig and Hawker pulled a grenade from inside his pack. While Danielle fired back, he tossed the grenade.

The concussion knocked the remaining attacker down and Hawker ran to the man's position, ripping the Taser-like weapon from his belt and using it on him. The five-second ride left the man writhing on the floor and Hawker guessed he would no longer be a problem.

He looked toward the elevator. A racket of the competing alarms poured down through the elevator shaft and in through the hole he'd blown in the wall. Out on the rocks, beams of light were playing through the smoke. Shouting could be heard.

It would take a minute or so for any guards to scale down from above, but exiting that way now would be suicide.

He shouted to Danielle. "Come on!"

Through the smoke he saw Danielle and the child trying to help another prisoner stand.

"Leave him," Hawker shouted.

"I can't," Danielle said.

"We don't have room. If this guy wants out he has to run for it ..."

Hawker's voice trailed off as realized the man had only bloodstained rags where his feet should have been.

"I'm not leaving him," Danielle said. But the man pushed her away and then fell back onto his stone ledge of a bunk.

"Go," he said in Russian. "Take him with you." He pointed to Yuri.

Hawker looked at Danielle. "We only have room for three."

Angry, she grabbed Yuri and tore him away from Petrov. The child began to scream.

"Give me a weapon," the man said.

Hawker handed him a fragmentation grenade, in case he didn't want to be a prisoner any longer. And then he turned and led Danielle and the child toward the open elevator doors.

"We're taking the elevator?" she asked.

"Right now they're cutting off the exits, surrounding the perimeter to try to keep us from escaping," he said. "We're going to head deeper inside."

They piled inside.

Danielle pointed to the guard's key still in the slot. "I'm guessing if we turn that, we go up."

"Gimme a second," Hawker said. He dropped down and pried open the control panel.

"What are you doing?"

"Overriding their computer," he said, pulling out an electronic interface that looked like a comb connected to a calculator.

He pulled the elevator's own mess of wires from the unit interface and jammed the comb side of his contraption into the same spot. He typed in 102 on the keypad and hit LOCK LOCK. The doors closed and the elevator began its express ride.

As it rose up, Yuri continued to cry. Danielle attempted to comfort him, holding him with one arm while gripping the assault rifle with the other. A modern woman.

Hawker checked his readout. They'd passed the twentieth floor and were accelerating. The device he'd plugged in had come direct from the manufacturer, via the NRI lab and Arnold Moore. Not only did it override the security protocols of the elevator's main computer but with NRI's reworking, it sent a signal to the tracking system, fooling it into thinking that the elevator was still in the subbasement of the brig.

While Kang's security forces were surrounding the fort, scaling down the walls outside, and frantically pressing the elevator call button in the lobby, Hawker, Danielle, and the kid were passing right by them, headed for the roof.

He only hoped that Saravich and his helicopter would be there.

He pulled out three harnesses, each connected to thin steel wires with carabiners on the end. One for him, one for Danielle, and one that would go to Yuri.

"Put these on," he said, stepping into his own.

Danielle slipped hers on, legs first and then arms. She helped Yuri into his. The crying had ceased, but his eyes remained red and swollen.

"How did you know I was here?" she asked.

"Moore sent me."

"How did he know?"

"McCarter called in, after you were taken."

"McCarter?" Her voice was suddenly filled with surprise and hope. "I thought he was ...," she stammered. "I thought I'd gotten him killed."

Hawker smiled at her. He liked being the bearer of good news for once. "Apparently he's tougher than you thought."

For the first time since he'd known her, she seemed to be overcome with emotion. He looked up at the rapidly increasing number on the elevator readout. "Ninety. We'll be at the top in fifteen seconds."

"And then?" Danielle asked.

"There should be a helicopter waiting."

"Why the harnesses?"

"There's nowhere for it to land."

The doors opened to a black night and an empty, wet roof.

"Where's the helicopter?" Danielle asked.

Hawker stepped out. It wasn't there.

The rain was still coming down at the same steady pace. Heavy gray clouds loomed close above them, lit by the city lights just as they had been on the night Hawker arrived. Perhaps it was the quarter-mile ascent to the roof, but the clouds seemed much lower to Hawker than they had when he'd stood on the tug in the harbor.