The Ninth Dominion (The Jared Kimberlain Novels) Read Online Free PDF Page A

mentioned.”
    “Leaving?”
    “The MAX-SEC wing is totally self-contained. There are emergency exit doors at the end of each hall, yes, but the cobalt seals would have extended over them as well.”
    “But no one could swear they actually did. I mean from your vantage point, you only knew they were activated. Since the exit doors weren’t checked until after power was restored, you don’t know for sure that they worked.”
    “But we do know that the only other access door all the other doors lead to on the top MAX-SEC level was secured and manned by guards within one minute of the original power failure.”
    Kimberlain nodded his understanding. “Air conditioning ducts, chutes of any kind?”
    “None any wider man the width of a man’s arm.”
    Kimberlain thought for a moment. “What if the prisoners didn’t actually escape during the blackout? What if they waited until the doors were open afterward and got out somehow in the midst of all the chaos?”
    “I thought of that,” Vogelhut told him. “I had the guards search every potential hiding place, every corner and crevice, in MAX-SEC. And I resealed the doors before the search commenced in case they found something.”
    “Assume the prisoners somehow slipped by. What then?”
    “They’d still have to get off the island, and we made sure it was covered by guards and a trio of helicopters. This isn’t a single man we’re talking about here like it was with Peet. Eighty-four prisoners could never have gotten off the island without being seen.”
    “But you put a net over the entire Cape Stone area just in case.”
    “Along with a slightly less effective one around the bulk of Lake Ontario. They yielded nothing.”
    “Thorough searches of both The Locks and Bowman Island have been conducted?”
    “Ongoing even as we speak.”
    Kimberlain was grasping at straws now. He walked about the hallway and listened to the echoes of his own shoes. At last he approached one of the high-tech cells and focused on the door.
    “This slot here,” he said, feeling about a double-locked square cutout, waist level high and six-by-twelve inches in size. “For feeding the prisoners, I presume.”
    “Built to the exact specification of the trays, of course. The trays are composed of paper specially treated to be pliable, impossible to twist into edges.”
    “What time were the prisoners fed dinner the night of the escape?”
    “Between six and six-thirty as always.”
    “You’re sure?”
    “I checked.”
    “The power failure occurred just before eleven-thirty.”
    “Correct, yes.” Vogelhut tried to grasp Kimberlain’s train of thought and failed. “But the prisoners were in there when I made my rounds. I told you I saw them. What happened here is impossible. We’ve had two hundred investigators through MAX-SEC in the past two days, and not a single one has been able to convince me otherwise.”
    “You try dogs?”
    “MAX-SEC spooks them too much to focus. A few were ready to attack their masters when they were commanded to go in. Damn dumb animals.”
    “Maybe they’re smart.” Kimberlain ran his hand briefly along the wall. “I’d like to bring my own bloodhound in on this, someone who specializes in the impossible.”
    “Is he cleared?”
    “He doesn’t exist anymore, if you get my drift.”
    Vogelhut tapped his shoe nervously while considering the prospects. “I can buy him twenty-four hours. That’s about it.”
    “He works the impossible, not miracles.”
    “It’s the best I can do.”
    “Let’s hope he can do better.”
    Kimberlain had started back down the corridor on the first level of MAX-SEC when Vogelhut’s voice stopped him.
    “Can I ask you a question?”
    “Go ahead.”
    “Would you be doing this if Andrew Harrison Leeds wasn’t one of the escapees?”
    “We’ll never know, doctor, will we?”
    Andrew Harrison Leeds was the latest of the monsters the Ferryman had tracked down. He would say the last, just as he’d said about