Elliot took a deep breath and tried to think what to do. He knew that a wrong answer could mean the lives of the prisoners, Lorimer, Phillip, Chin …himself. He knew that at any moment knockout gas or a concussion grenade could be used on him by the guards.
He wished his father were here to advise him.
“You’ve got five seconds to answer me,” the guard said. “Five
…four …three—”
“All right, okay,” Elliot stopped him. “I’m from the Revolutionary Agorist Cadre.”
“How many of you are here? Where are the rest?”
They were still seeing taped replays on their monitors, still blind to what Lorimer was up to in the vestibule. Stall, Chin had said.
“There’s no one else,” Elliot replied. “Only us two.”
“You’re lying.”
The guard waited until it became apparent that Elliot would not answer, then said, “Boy, you just made the worst mistake of your life.” He turned to the other guard. “Implement Sequence Prime.” He started to hang up.
“Wait!” Elliot shouted, panic triggering an idea.
“Make it quick,” the guard said.
“A straight offer,” Elliot said. “You can both walk out of here rich men.” Elliot started spinning out words quickly, extemporizing. “I have twelve Mexican fifty-peso gold pieces for each of you. That’s about forty-six hundred eurofrancs apiece. With the blues not being accepted by EUCOMTO anymore, gold will be the only money around. It’ll be the only thing, practically, that people will accept.”
The guard maintained a cold silence as Elliot wondered whether his on-the-spot economics lesson had hit home.
“What’s the matter?” Elliot asked. “You don’t believe me? I have the gold right here, in my belt.”
Alongside Night
227
“Yeah,” the guard said. “I suppose I believe you. I know you brownies are loaded.”
“Then you’ll do business?”
“Nah,” said the guard. “The chief wouldn’t like that.”
“The chief?” Elliot said. “Your chief doesn’t care whether you live or die. There’s something about the setup here they never told you. If you kill the prisoners, you’re dead, too. Sequence Prime destroys this entire complex. Powers doesn’t want any witnesses.”
“Don’t you think we already know that?” the FBI man said softly.
“Then why kill yourself? Is Powers holding your families somewhere? Are you serving a life sentence?”
“You still don’t understand, do you?” the guard said. “The chief would be in this booth himself, if he had the choice. Loyalty works both ways, kid. It works both ways.”
The guard named Mike turned to the first guard and said,
“We’re cut off. The Command Shack is out, and so is the alarm.”
The guard pondered this a moment, then smiled at Elliot.
“Listen, boy, this place is going up in about two minutes, and there’s nothing you can do about it. But you can do me a favor and be a real hero at the same time.”
Perhaps this was the stall he had been looking for, Elliot considered. “What is it?”
“There are three babies inside the compound. Cute little tykes, remind me of my own at that age. I’ll feel a whole lot better if you take them out with you. And don’t try blackmailing me. If you don’t take them out with you, they’ll die too.”
Elliot thought then, and would always think, that this twisted attempt at humanitarianism was the final, logical result of all he had seen in the past few days. A man—trapped in an execution chamber by virtue of loyalty to a false idol—was willing to kill himself and two hundred others for what he believed. His willingness to protect the future only underscored 228
Alongside Night
his ghastly mistake.
But he would have to open the door. “I’ll take them,” Elliot said.
“Okay, I’ll wake the parents.”
“No, don’t do that,” Elliot said. “You’ll panic them.”
He had reached a decision. His own loyalty was demanding a payment.
“You have a prisoner in there named Phillip Gross, right?”
After a moment, the guard replied. “I’ll get him.”
Elliot returned to the Monitor Room door and found Lorimer stroking Chin’s forehead. “He’s unconscious?”
“He’s dead,” Lorimer said.
Elliot knelt down, checking Chin’s neck for a pulse. There was none. Elliot felt cold and sick. He tried pulling himself together. “Did you get anywhere on the door?”
Lorimer shook her head. “It has to be in a certain pattern or it won’t work. He died before he could tell me.”