Desperately, he swiped it through the reader, and the doors opened.

He could hear running bootsteps.

He pulled Dodge off Kiwi and thrust him through the doors, like some oversized puppet.

A hand pulled on his shoulder, and he swung around instinctively, his fist connecting with Kiwi's face.

Kiwi jolted backward, blood spurting from his nose.

Sam ran through the doors and grabbed hold of Dodge. Like an automaton, Dodge had walked across to the far side of the corridor and simply stopped, waiting for the next command to execute.

Tyler ran across the atrium at the head of his men.

"Hurry it up," he shouted, and sprinted for the stairway. He took the steps two at a time.

There was a small landing between each floor, which made four flights of stairs in all, but he was barely sweating when he reached the top.

He snapped his keycard off his belt and flicked it at the reader in a casual, cool gesture, like a cardsharp spinning a card from the deck.

The keycard caught the edge of the reader and flipped out of his hand into the stairwell below.

"Keycard, now." Tyler raised his hand and snapped his fingers. There was a brief pause; then a card was thrust into his hand.

The bootsteps were on the landing at the top of the stairwell now. Behind Sam, the doors to the control center started to close automatically.

He turned Dodge in the opposite direction and steered him around the corner at the end of the pa.s.sageway just as the stairwell door opened.

In this part of the corridor was a service elevator that n.o.body used.

Sam stabbed at the b.u.t.tons frantically. The elevator was on the lower level, and there was a whir as the motors turned and it started to rise.

The double gla.s.s doors to the control center opened, and Tyler ran inside to a scene of chaos.

Kiwi lay on the ground in front of him, blood pouring from his nose. The others were spread around the room in various stages of shock.

Dodge's and Sam's desks were empty.

"Which way?" Tyler shouted. Several people shrugged their shoulders.

Tyler thought quickly.

The door to the left led to the stairwell, and, past that, the washrooms and rest area. That was a dead end. To the right lay...the service elevator!

"On me!" he yelled, and raced back to the doors. They had closed, and he lost half a second swiping the keycard through them.

Tyler made the end of the corridor in three lunging footsteps and turned in time to see the doors of the elevator starting to close.

He dived forward at full stretch.

His fingers impacted on solid metal.

The elevator began to descend.

Tyler picked himself up and returned to the corridor, racing for the stairs. Kiwi stood in the doorway of the control center, highly agitated.

"They've got my keycard," Kiwi shouted, gesturing at his belt. "They got my keycard!"

"They've got Kiwi's keycard," Tyler echoed back to his command post. "Lock it down now."

Sam bundled Dodge out of the elevator in the bas.e.m.e.nt. He put his shoulder under Dodge's arm again and tried to run. Dodge ran with him, somehow responding to the physical stimulus, although his face was blank and he did not speak.

They emerged in the entrance lobby, the stairwell to their left. In front of them was the air lock-the secure area, packed with sniffer and scanning equipment. Sam swiped Kiwi's keycard and the door opened. He pushed Dodge through, and somehow they stumbled across to the outer door. He slid the keycard into that reader. The light changed to green, but before the door could open, it quickly snapped back to red.

He swiped the card again, but this time the light stayed resolutely red. Again he swiped it with the same result. From the corridor behind him, he heard the sound of boots.

31

VIENNA

The door slid open, and Vienna was there, her keycard in her hand, a look of surprise and concern growing on her face as she saw Dodge.

"What's wrong with him?" she asked.

Vienna stared. Sam stared back, unsure what to say.

The air-lock door began to slide closed between them. Sam stepped forward, blocking the door with his foot. The inner door behind him would not open until the outer door was shut.

"We've been attacked again," he said.

"What? When?"

"Just now. Someone hacked into the building and attacked Swamp Witch, wiped her brain like the terrorists in Chicago, then tried to do the same to Dodge."

There was a hammering from the door behind them.

"What the h.e.l.l is going on?" Vienna asked. She took a few steps backward, retreating into the parking area.

"Have you been on a neuro-connection today?" Sam asked.

"No," she said. "Why?"

"Dodge is in trouble," Sam said. "He's hurt and we need to get him to a hospital."

"No," Vienna said, regaining a little composure. "I don't know what you've done, but let's talk to Jaggard and sort it-"

"Listen to me, Vienna," Sam hissed. "The hackers have got inside the firewalls, and they've got through the neuro-firewalls. They've done...something; I don't know what. They're manipulating Kiwi and Socks and Tactical and G.o.d knows who else. Help me get Dodge out of here, and I'll tell you everything I know."

"Sam-"

"Vienna, Dodge is going to die unless you help me get him out of here now."

She started to say something to that but stopped and stared at him intently for a moment.

Finally, she grabbed one of Dodge's arms. "Let's get him into one of the vans."

"You take him," Sam said.

The hammering from the inner door was getting louder, but it was supposed to be bulletproof, and he knew it wouldn't open until the outer door shut. He ripped off his jacket and rolled it into a ball, wedging it into the doorway as the outer door began to shut. Unable to close properly, it slid open again.

Vienna was already pushing Dodge into the van. He was compliant, malleable, but said nothing. Sam ran to the van.

"I'll drive," Vienna shouted. "You get in the back with Dodge."

Vienna raced to the driver's side. "Put his seat belt on," she added. "Yours too. Where are we going?"

"Right now, anywhere out of here."

Vienna hit the gas as Sam was still buckling Dodge's seat belt. The van lurched forward with a squeal, and through the back windows, he could see a cloud of black rubber smoke.

The sharp acceleration slammed him into the seat next to Dodge, and he grasped wildly for his own seat belt, nearly falling out of his seat as the van careered around a concrete column toward the exit ramp.

Sam cried out, "They've shut the blast gates!"

Heavy metal, bombproof gates were trundling across the top of the ramp, shutting off the late-afternoon sunshine.

"Not yet they haven't," Vienna said, and floored the gas pedal. The black and yellow barrier arm at the exit crumpled like paper, and Vienna veered to the right, toward the rapidly closing gap. The edge of the gate sc.r.a.ped paint from the side of the van as they burst through into the sweet daylight outside.

"Where are we going?" she shouted. "We don't have long before they shut us down."

All government vehicles were fitted with the LoJack system that allowed them to be tracked by satellite and remotely shut down if they were stolen.

Vienna spun out onto San Carlos Street, just about collecting a trio of middle-aged women in a BMW sedan. There were thuds and crashes from underneath as she bounced the vehicle over the light-rail tracks in the center of the road, and the van leaned-surely on two wheels, Sam thought-as they twisted left onto the roadway heading east.

"Take the freeway," Sam said, getting an idea. "Head for the Great Mall. Maybe we can lose ourselves in the crowds."

In the CDD lobby, Tyler raged at the closed interior door of the air lock.

"Tyler, it's Control."

"Go ahead, Control," he neuroed the response.

"Van four just left the car park at speed."

"Copy that. I need you to open the inner air-lock doors and override the security system."

"Can't be done, sir. It's a mechanical system, not electronic. When one door is open, it breaks the circuit."

Tyler grabbed the radio off his belt and keyed the mike.

"McTurck, it's Tyler, come in."

A voice responded almost immediately. "McTurck."

"Are you still on duty in the hotel lobby?"

"Yes, sir."

"Come over to the CDD underground car park right now; we have a situation."

"On my way."

Tyler neuroed back to the command center. "Get the blast doors back open so McTurck can get in. And locate van four on the LoJack, but don't shut it down yet. Wait till we get to it; otherwise they'll abscond on foot. And get an alert out to the police. Tell them we have two fugitives, one who appears to be semiconscious. Give them a description of Dodge and Sam. Tell them not to apprehend them if spotted. I'd rather keep this in-house."

"Copy that," the confirmation came back from control.

"Where do you think they are headed?" one of his men asked.

"I don't know," Tyler replied. "And probably neither do they." A thought struck him, and he mentally hit the Neuro-communication b.u.t.ton again. "Stay off the radio; use only neuro or cell phones. They'll be monitoring the radio in the van."

"There's a neuro-headset in the van too," Control pointed out. "They could be monitoring our neuro too."

"They won't be," Tyler said firmly, not even really sure how he knew that.

A sudden image intruded on his vision. A security cam feed from the parking garage. It was Vienna, helping Dodge into the van. Who had fed him the image, he could not tell.

"We are looking for three fugitives," he neuroed. "Vienna Smith is a.s.sisting them."

But where had that image come from?

Dodge's head had lolled forward, but when Sam lifted it, it stayed up.

"How long has it been?" Vienna shouted back without looking around.

"What?"

"Since we left CDD, you egg!"

Sam checked his watch. What time had they left? "At least five, maybe ten minutes," he guessed.

"Then why haven't they shut us down?" Vienna wondered. "It takes five minutes max to locate a vehicle on the LoJack and kill the engine. We've got to get off the freeway! Hang on!"