Joseph Finder - Power Play

When Pablo was finished, he handed the knife back to me awkwardly, blade out. He didn't know how to use it. He watched as I pulled back on the charging lever to retract the blade.

I looped some lamp cord around Buck's wrists, and we used it to pull him upright. Then we shoved him against the iron grate and secured him, spread-eagled, in a standing position. Pablo wrapped cord around his ankles while I searched the dusty floor and finally found an oil-stained rag in a corner, stiff and covered with dirt, and stuffed it into Buck's mouth, in case he came to again soon.

"I need to go back upstairs," I said. "To the manager's office."

"But is not safe to go up there."

"I don't have much choice. Is there any other way upstairs besides the way we came in?"

"No."

"Not a bulkhead?"

Pablo didn't know what the word meant, and I didn't know the Spanish. "A delivery entrance?"

He looked blank.

"La entrada de servicio," I said. "Ya sabes, el бrea dondese carga y descarga, por donde se meten las cosas al hotel. "

"Ah." He nodded, thought for a moment. "Yes, but not to upstairs."

"So there is another way out?"

"To the water only."

I didn't understand.

He went over to the iron bars, pointed out the gate in the center that I'd noticed earlier. Mounted on the gate's frame just to the left of Buck's lolling head was an old push-button mechanical combination lock. He punched in three numbers, turned a knob. Then he slowly pulled the gate open. It looked heavy, though it was surely a lot heavier with Buck lashed to it.

"In here," he said.

I followed him into the wine cellar. He pointed to an arched section of the brick wall that had no wine rack in front of it. "The old delivery entrance."

The arched entrance had obviously been bricked in a long time ago. "That doesn't really help us," I said.

"No, no, look. Is where Mr. Paul hides the very expensive wines and things."

He reached behind a wine rack and pulled out a long metal rod, then poked it into a crack in the mortar between two bricks.

A clunking sound, and the entire arched wall jutted forward.

Not a wall: a brick-and-mortar door.

"What the hell-?"

Behind the brick-paved door was a small room. A few wooden wine racks, randomly placed, held maybe a few dozen dusty bottles. A small stack of plastic file boxes, probably Paul's private records.

And a second iron gate. This chamber was actually, I saw, the mouth of a long tunnel.

"This goes right down to the dock, doesn't it?" I said. "Under the dock, in fact."

Pablo nodded. "When they built the lodge a long time ago, all the deliveries came by sea. They used to bring all the things in through this tunnel. But not for a long time. The old owners, before Mr. Paul, they closed it off."

And they'd taken advantage of the renovation to build a hidden wine cellar for the good stuff. Or a hidden storage nook. "Is this gate locked?"

"No more."

"Everyone who works here knows about this?"

"No, just…" He was suddenly uncomfortable. "Josй and I-sometimes we smoke, you know, the mota."

"Weed."

He nodded. "Mr. Paul, he fire us if he know. So Josй found this place under the dock."

"I'm going to try to get upstairs to the office. I want you to go down to the water," I said. "And look for a boat."

"Which?"

"Any one that has a key in the engine. Or a rowboat, if you have to. You know how to use a boat?"

"Yes, of course."

"When you get out there, move slowly and quietly, and don't start up the motor until the last possible minute. Take the boat to the nearest lodge and wake them up. Get help. The police, anyone. Tell them what's going on. Okay?"

"Okay." He seemed to hesitate.

"You're worried about the noise from the boat's engine, aren't you?"

"They have guns. They shoot."

"But you'll be far from the lodge."

A sudden static burst came from Buck's two-way radio: "Buck, come in."

The voice echoed in the low-ceilinged chamber. I couldn't identify it.

I returned to the outer gate, pulled the radio from Buck's belt: a Motorola Handie-Talkie.

"Buck, it's Verne," the voice said again. "Where the hell are you?"

"Maybe they look for you now," Pablo said. "Is not safe for you up there."

It all depended, of course, on what Ali and the other hostages told them. I switched off the HT. "You go," I said. "Get help. Don't you worry about me."

At the top of the stairs, I switched off the light, stood in absolute darkness.

Quiet.

Then again, the cellar door was two inches thick, and then there was the kitchen door: a lot of wood between me and anyone who might be searching for me. I turned the knob, pushed the cellar door open slowly. The hinges squeaked no matter how slowly I opened it.

A few steps into the dark hallway, I stopped again to listen.

Voices now.

From the great room. I sank to my knees, out of sight, and listened.

Two voices, hushed and urgent. One was Verne's, manic, rising and falling, speedy and loud. The other was Wayne's oddly high alto. The tattooed ex-con conferring with the crew-cut blond lunk.

Scraps of argument, some words and phrases more distinct than others.

"…heard him saying he was going to bolt." That was Verne.

"To who?" Wayne, now.

"-said he changed his mind. Got spooked after Russell killed those guys. Didn't want to go to jail for the rest of his life."

"He told you that?"

"…the chick said."

"What chick?"

"I don't know, whatever her name. Paris Hilton, how the hell do I know? The babe."

Something I couldn't hear, and then Verne saying, "I'll take his cut." A sniggering laugh.

Something else, then Wayne: "Where the hell's he gonna go?"

"Out there somewhere. Russell wants you to get your ass out there and look for him."

"The hell's he gonna go? Not the Zodiac-"

"They got other boats down there."

"…cut the spark-plug wires, so what's he gonna do, swim to Vancouver?"

Wayne said something else I couldn't quite make out, and then Verne said, "Christ's sake, then look in the woods."

"Can't go more than twenty yards in that forest without getting stuck. You saw that."

"You saw the guy in the jungle in Panama-he's an animal."

"And if I find him?"

"Waste him, Russell says. Can't trust him anymore."

"I'm not going to waste Bucky for taking off. That's whacked, man."

"You don't do it, buddy, Russell's gonna grease you. You know he will. He's not taking any chances. Not when we're this close to the big score."

The jungle in Panama. Special Forces, then. Military, anyway. At least these guys and Buck, probably Russell, too.

So I'd learned a couple of other things as well. The cover story about Buck had worked. They weren't looking for an unconscious comrade but a defector. They weren't looking for me, either; they hadn't yet realized I was missing.

That meant they'd search outside, not inside. I could hide here until they were gone and get to the office without being spotted.

Other, crazier ideas came to me. Fire a few rounds at those two, right through the door. The.44 Magnum rounds would penetrate the hardwood, no problem. But without accuracy: I didn't know their position. Not without looking through the round window-which would expose my location.

Sure, I might get lucky. But the odds were that I'd hit neither. Maybe wound one of them. They'd grab their weapons, and it would be two against one. And as soon as Russell and his brother heard the shots, it would be four against one.

Trying to shoot these two was insanity. Yet until they moved, I couldn't get to the manager's office.

By then, Pablo was on his way to the water. Maybe, depending on how easy it was to move through the old tunnel, he was already outside, under the dock. Even at the kidnappers' Zodiac.