“What’s he doing?” Moira whispered as she watched Marc walk down the hall toward the elevator. They hadn’t answered when he’d pounded on the door.

“Keep him on camera. He’s bound to make a mistake.” Walker’s optimism wasn’t totally wishful. Marc wasn’t a trained killer. Walker could tell because he’d made too many stupid errors, and he was making another big one right now. Walker would have blown the lock off the door. Four women with dummy bullets was no threat to a man with an assault weapon. And then he would have used the closed-circuit system to track anyone left in the building.

“He’s ringing for the elevator!” Ellen watched him with disbelief. “Why?”

Grace sighed. “I forgot to tell you, it works now. Count the times the arrow flickers and we’ll know where he went.”

“I’ve got him.” Moira switched cameras. “He’s down in the garage.”

Sitting up in bed, fully dressed except for her shoes, Betty looked much more alert. She’d played the part of the cornered rabbit again, hardly daring to breathe while her secret friend was here, but now he was gone and she knew she had to help the nice man with the dark skin. “Eyes and ears.”

“Right.” Walker turned to Betty in surprise. “He’ll cut off the monitor. Better find a flashlight.”

Betty reached into the drawer by the bed and handed Walker a flashlight. Then she swung her feet out of the bed and pushed them into her fur-lined slippers. “Ready.”

“Good.” Walker nodded. “Grab hands and stand at the door. Grace first with this flashlight. Unlock it and get ready to go. Moira? Right behind her. Then Ellen. Think you can take this rifle?

Walker smiled at her as Ellen grabbed the rifle and took her place in line. Then he lifted Betty in his arms. “We’re going straight up to the spa, and we’re going now, while we’ve still got light. If the power goes out, don’t turn on the flashlight. Just slide your hands along the railing and keep on going.”

“Movies!” Betty reached out and pulled five tapes from the shelf. “For evidence.”

“You recorded the killings?” Betty nodded and Walker began to grin. “Okay, Grace, let’s move it!”

They were all the way up to the ninth-floor landing before the lights went out.

“Quietly now,” Walker whispered. “Hold onto the railing and keep climbing.”

They climbed in silence until they reached the door to the spa. Grace pushed it open and blinked in the bright glow of the moonlight shining down through the dome.

“What now?” Ellen helped Betty to a chair while Walker secured the door to the stairwell.

“Now we wait.” Walker sighed. “He doesn’t expect us to come up here, so we’ve bought ourselves some time. Spread out at the windows and watch for anything moving outside. I think he’ll try to get us out of the building somehow. It’s the only way he can pick us off.”

They waited at the windows for what seemed like an eternity. Then Ellen gave a low cry. “There he is!”

Walker rushed to her side and looked over to see Marc moving toward the big pine tree on the south side of the building.

“I see him.” Grace peered out into the darkness. “He’s still got that gun.”

“It’s an assault rifle, Grace, probably with a night scope.”

“But aren’t they illegal?”

“I don’t think he cares about that. The balconies are all on that side of the building, aren’t they?”

“That’s right,” Moira confirmed. “Paul wanted a southern exposure.”

“Smoke!” Betty exulted as the word came easily to her lips. She pointed toward the air-conditioner vent and said it again. “Smell the smoke. Building on fire?”

“Nope.” Walker shook his head. “I kept an eye on the monitor while you were lining up at the door and I saw Marc doing something to the furnace. He must have backed it up to smoke us out. Probably plans on picking us off when we stick our heads out for air.”

Grace began to smile. “At least he can’t come into the building again, not until the smoke clears.”

“That’s true,” Ellen agreed. “But there’s no way for us to get any fresh air, either. The whole dome’s sealed off.”

“Washer.” They turned to look at Betty. “We can open the window-washer.”

“You’re right!” Moira exclaimed, leaning over to give her a big hug. “There’s a panel that lifts out for the window-washing equipment. Over on the other side of the swimming pool.”

“Okay, everyone over here.” Walker motioned for them to join him. “Now, don’t make a sound. We’ll lift out the panel and then I’ll go down the side of the building on the scaffolding.”

Moira frowned. “But how? The equipment’s electrical.”

“See that handle?” Walker pointed to a hand crank mounted on the wall beneath the panel. “It’s a safety device and there’s another crank mounted on the side of the scaffolding. I’ll crank myself down as fast as I can and the moment I’m on the ground, crank the scaffolding back up again. Got it?”

Ellen grabbed his arm. “Don’t do it, Walker. He’ll shoot you before you get close enough to use that bayonet.”

“You’re forgetting that he’s positioned himself to concentrate on the balconies and the front door. He’ll never expect anyone to come down this side and circle around.”

“But we’ve got fresh air now. Why can’t we just wait until Jayne and Paul bring the police?”

Walker pulled her over to the side where no one else could hear them. “Look, Ellen, we can’t count on them to bail us out in time. I didn’t want to say anything in front of the others, but after Marc finished with the furnace, he went over to inspect the gas lines. If smoking us out doesn’t work, I figure he’ll blow up the building with us in it.”

Ellen shuddered and Walker pulled her into his arms. He kissed her and reached out to cradle her cheek. “I know what I’m doing, Ellen. It’s our best shot. Watch from the windows and if I can’t take him out, get everyone down on the scaffolding and head for the woods.”

“But if we go down on the scaffolding, we can’t crank it back up.”

“It won’t matter then. He’ll already know that I used it to get down and he’ll figure the rest of you are still up there. We have to do it this way, Ellen. We don’t have any other options.”

Tears came to Ellen’s eyes. Walker was right. But as she watched Walker crank himself down and she brought the empty scaffolding back up, she was working on her own backup plan.

Sergeant Dennis Rawley sighed. She’d been crying for the past ten minutes and nothing made him feel more helpless than a woman’s tears. A veteran officer only a year from retirement, he’d been shot five times, once nearly fatally, and had lost three partners. Two of them had been killed in the line of duty and one had eaten the barrel of his own gun. He’d seen every kind of abuse that humans could dish out and had been on the receiving end more than once, but the sight of a woman with silent tears rolling down her cheeks still turned his insides into jelly.

“It’s all right, Ma’am. They’re loading up right now and they’ll be there in less than twenty minutes. That’s guaranteed.” Tears were still streaming down her cheeks and he reached out to pat her hand. “How about coming up to the roof and watching them take off? It’s against regulations, but I can swing it.”

“Oh, yes. Thank you!” She gave him a blinding smile and Dennis felt ten feet tall as he led her up the stairs and showed her where it was safe to stand. Her husband was going in with the SWAT team, to give them the layout. Dennis watched the men pile in, carrying rifles and equipment. They looked like an invasion team and that’s really what they were. He didn’t envy them the dangerous assignment.

In the harsh glare from the lights he could see she was still half-frozen from the exposure. Dennis had called in the Doc. A patch of white skin on her left cheek looked like frostbite, a rare sight under the blazing Vegas sun.