CHAPTER 77

OVERNIGHT AND WELL INTO the next day, we were kept confined. Our food came on a tray handed to us by a guard we’d never seen before.

Ten a.m. came and went, and with it the twelve hours Malcomb had given us to decide whether to join Maestro. Bree and I had spent the time since waking up discussing the idea in positive terms in case they were listening to us.

Thirteen hours passed. Then fifteen. Then seventeen.

“You think something happened to Malcomb?” Bree asked.

“You mean like a medical crisis?”

“He didn’t look good last night.”

“No, he didn’t, he—”

A knock came at the door. Lucas Bean stood there, grim-faced, carrying a pistol with a suppressor on it. Katrina White carried a similar weapon and a laptop computer.

She put her eye to a retinal scan, and Sampson’s door slid back.

John appeared.

Bean said, “He wants to talk to you.”

White opened the laptop. Ryan Malcomb appeared, looking haggard.

“There’s been a change of plans,” Malcomb said. “After a great deal of reflection last night, I am rescinding my offers of membership in Maestro. I have not been feeling well of late and believe that I made an impulsive, misguided decision bringing you here.”

I glanced at Bree, saw the sudden unease in her eyes, and understood. He had to have known we would never put Maestro’s aims above all.

And now what choice did he have? They were going to kill us.

Malcomb went on, his lips tightening. “You should know that we had a vote, and by that vote, the three of you should die right now. But for the first time in a long time, I have overruled them. I wish you luck. If you make it out, you deserve to live.”

The screen went dark. White closed the laptop, looking unhappy, and our guard from that morning and two other people we’d never seen before appeared in the hallway, carrying our winter clothing and boots.

“Get dressed,” Bean said. “He’s letting you go.”

Surprised, I said, “Why?”

White said, “He wants to leave your fate to the elements.”

They’d given me back the winter clothes I’d brought with me and the heavy boots and gloves Fagan had lent me, but not the snowmobile parka and bibs or the helmet and visor.

“Wait,” I said. “He expects us to walk out of here. No sleds?”

“No sleds,” Bean said.

“It’s a death sentence.”

“Depends on your will to survive, I suppose. Now get dressed before Katrina and I decide to overrule M’s overruling and be done with you.”

Bree and I took the clothing and started to put it on. Her Gore-Tex parka looked solid. So did her heavy wool pants. But I kept looking at her rubber boots and leather gloves, wondering how insulated they were and how they’d function outside.

I wondered the same thing when we’d finished dressing and gone into the hallway where Sampson was pulling on his black wool watch cap. He was wearing his parka, rubber boots, and gloves. But his jeans struck me as marginal.

They marched us into the elevator. White used the retinal scan.

Bean leaned in, punched a button without a number, and stepped back. The doors closed, and we took off so fast we were all a little shaken when we rose up out of the concrete floor of the old mining building.

It was midafternoon. Weak sunshine shone through the high windows.

The elevator opened. Cold, but not frigid, air belted us as we stepped out.

The elevator closed and sank out of sight. A recessed steel plate slid over the shaft.

“What are we—” Bree began.

Sampson cut her off in a harsh whisper. “Outside.”

Bree nodded and looked around the interior as if searching for cameras as Sampson led us to the metal doors and pushed one open. When we stepped outside, the skies were turning leaden and threatening.

I figured the air temperatures were close to freezing, a big increase from the below-zero temperatures I’d experienced riding in with Fagan, and the top of the plateau had been scoured almost free of snow by the gales that had followed the storm.

“This helps,” I said, pointing at the thin snow cover. I set off quickly toward the northeast corner of the plateau. “We need to move as fast as we can now without working up a sweat. We’ve probably got two and a half hours of light left.”

“You know where you’re going?” Sampson asked, hurrying after me, surprised.

“I think I know how to get back to two rifles I stashed—”

“You’re going for rifles first?” Bree said, jogging up beside me.

“My pack’s there too, with food, a tent, and survival and medical gear. But my gut says if it looks like we’re going to be able to walk out of here, Malcomb will send his people to stop us. We need the guns.”

“I agree,” Sampson said. “I think this is all a game to him.”

“Except we’re the game,” Bree said.