“Another droid, shut down, now locked down,” Roarke said. “Closet in what I’d say is Pettigrew’s suite of rooms. So we’re clear on the third. I’m coming down.”
“Sweep the second on the way.”
“How about Baxter and Trueheart take that,” Feeney said as she and Peabody finally reached the kitchen. “We could use another e-man on these doors. I’ve seen fricking vaults with less cover.”
“Baxter, Trueheart, clear second level. Roarke, main level, rear. What’s with the door?” she asked Feeney.
“Scanned it,” he told her. “She’s got it locked down, alarmed, and with a couple of fail-safes to kick it off. We gotta take it in layers. If we try a straight bypass, try to take it down, you’re going to set off secondary alarms and seal it.”
“It’s the same deal with mine.” Both frustration and admiration tinged Callendar’s voice. “Maggest of the mag.”
“Shit, shit. McNab, secure the van and get in here. Work with Callendar. What can we do?”
“Give me room,” Feeney told her.
He ran a scanner over the door, tapped his shit-brown shoe, tapped a few commands. “Not that way,” he muttered. He glanced over as Roarke walked in.
“We got a trip lock, motion lock, both with internal alarms and panic lockdown.”
“Is that so?” Roarke’s smile read challenge accepted. “I’ve worked with those.”
“Yeah, me, too, but we’ve got a fail-safe running between the alarm and lockdown, and another threaded through a secondary seal.”
Feeney narrowed his eyes. “What do you look so smug about?”
“It’s one of my systems. I helped design it. It’s really quite good. But if one knows the ins and the outs …”
Feeney held out his scanner.
“Thanks, but I have my own.”
“Can you walk my boys through it?”
“We’ll see. A bit of room, Lieutenant,” he added as Eve breathed down his neck.
“There’s a man being tortured on the other side of that door.”
“I’m aware, but this is going to require some delicacy.”
Eve stepped back. “Maybe we can lure her out,” she said to Peabody. “Maybe we turn the third-floor monitors back on and—”
“And quiet,” Roarke snapped.
Eve hissed at him, but signaled Peabody out of the room. “If we can get her out.”
“We’re made if we turn on the main floor, and she could panic, kill Brinkman, like you said.”
“I know. I know.” Eve circled and paced. “There’s got to be a way. She’s going to check the monitors at some point, likely soon, and she’ll wonder. Maybe that would send her out, but … No.”
Frustrated, impatient, Eve raked her fingers through her hair. “She’d have some way to check, she knows this stuff. She’d cop to them being shut down.”
“Well, son of a bitch.”
She heard Feeney, so edged back closer.
“You got that, McNab?”
“We’re right with you—okay, maybe a step or two back, but we’re getting it. Super frosted goodness.”