Free Dana Marton by 72 Hours (html) Page A

okay?” he whispered.

    They were still too scared of him to talk to him. But Katja whispered something to Kate.
     
    “She has to go to the bathroom,” she said.

    He tried to think when the last time was he’d seen one. Damn. Not anywhere nearby. He took in the kid’s scrunched-up face. “Okay.”

    They found a bathroom without any problems. But then they spent an hour jammed into the same stall, balancing on top of each other as rebels came in and out. The girls kept as quiet as mice. He was simmering with impatience by the time they got out. Time, they’d only lost time, he reminded himself. They could have lost much more.

    He moved ahead and glanced around the corner. All clear. He signaled them to follow. The elevator he’d been heading for stood a little over twenty feet away and was unguarded as he’d hoped. He’d figured nobody would care much about it since it was out of commission. Perfect for his purposes.
     
    He walked up to the stainless-steel doors and pried them open with the knife he had gotten away from the first rebel he’d taken out. He pushed the panels aside enough for his head to fit in and looked around. The elevator car was stuck on the ground floor below them.

    “Come on,” he said as he stepped back and forced the door open another few inches, enough so he could fit in sideways. “We’ll be going up through here.”

    Kate looked in and up at the metal ladder, holding the kids even closer. “Can they do this?”

    He thought back to his own childhood. “Are you kidding? Kids climb like monkeys. Right?” He grinned at the girls and Katja smiled back shyly. She had a dusting of freckles across her nose and a very direct gaze that looked a lot like Kate’s.
     
    He lifted Elena first and placed her on the nearest rung of the ladder, wouldn’t let go until she had a secure hold on the metal bar and started moving up. Kate went next so she could help the girl if needed. Then he helped Katja up and stepped in behind her, closed the elevator doors when they were all in, enclosing them in darkness. It lasted only a split second. Kate’s flashlight came in handy.

    He kept his attention on the three people in front of him as he climbed, careful not to rush them, although the pace was excruciatingly slow. But he didn’t say anything, letting them pay attention to each handhold, each step. The drop to the top of the elevator was about twenty feet—probably not fatal, but enough to break a bone or two, injuries they could not afford. He watched them, all three, ready to catch whoever needed his help.
     
    An old memory floated up from the dark recesses of his mind. His father teaching him how to climb a tree in the park. He couldn’t have been more than four at the time. It’d been well after midnight. Then the picture switched to the last time he’d seen his father. He hadn’t thought about his old man in a while, hadn’t had that nightmare in a decade or more. He pushed those thoughts away.

    When they reached the door that led to the second floor, he motioned for them to go a little higher until he was level with it. He pressed his ear against the metal panels. No sounds came from outside. He eased them open an inch, looked out, but couldn’t see anyone. He opened the doors wider, stuck his head out first then his body. Luck was still with them. He helped the others out.
     
    “Which way?” Kate asked once the doors were closed behind them.

    The girls didn’t look too shaken by the climb. They were more excited than anything else at this point, actually, and he was grateful for the short attention span of kids that age.
     
    “We’re going to sneak around a little,” he told them.

    “Like Super Spy Girls on the Cartoon Channel?” Elena’s face was glowing.
     
    He had no idea what she was talking about. “Exactly,” he said.

    He shut his eyes for a second and pictured the hallways they had taken on the floor below. Where did that put them in relation to the gym?