Ocean Blue (Sea Lab Book 1)

CHAPTER 41

It was as if the hand of God had snatched Tony from certain death. He gasped for a breath and couldn't believe his eyes. With his feet hanging over the edge, he gazed back toward the center of the building and discovered what had stopped his progress. The parachute had wrapped around the square structure of the roof access like a sheet of plastic wrap.

Tony chuckled out loud. "Well, call me Santa Claus. The big man himself couldn't have wrapped that present any better."

The canopy blanketing the doorway would keep the security guards from getting to him. He unhooked from the chute and, for good measure, tied the cords together in a knot as tight as possible to keep the entrance blocked.

Time to get down to business. He removed the automated winch from the pack strapped to his chest and began fastening it to the edge of the rooftop. Using four six-inch screws and a battery-powered drill as big as his hand, he sunk the hardware into the concrete ledge. To convince himself the winch would hold his body weight, he jerked back and forth on it with as much force as possible. It didn't budge.

Tony didn't have an ounce of body fat. That may have been an overstatement, but a smidgen below a hundred and seventy pounds, his weight wouldn't stress the winch much. He slipped his arms through a harness and secured himself to the end of the steel cable, then stood on the edge and faced the building. He didn't want to look down. The last thing he needed to do was overthink the situation and let fear creep into his mind.

With gloves, Tony latched onto the cable and leaned back toward the ground.

He didn't like putting his faith in four screws.

With a firm grip with one hand, he used the other to pull a remote control from a pouch on his black jumpsuit. Then, with a toggle switch, Tony lowered himself down the side of the skyscraper.

The breeze ruffled his hair, but offered no resistance to his movements. Ten feet down, he stopped his descent and hung with his boots pressed against the glass. Nineteen floors below, the sidewalk itched at his nerves and beckoned like an unforgiving sledgehammer, ready to make mincemeat out of whatever came its way.

Tony was not about to give in to its call. He steadied his mind and stared into the darkened office of Roland Zanderthal. On the other side of the half-inch plated glass, his goal awaited him.

Inside, a lamp illuminated a desk with a dim glow.

Tony used a handheld computer to scan the room for the motion detectors in each corner. Once the system honed in on the signal from the four units, the device would deactivate the sensors simultaneously. Ocean Blue's mainframe computer would be delayed from displaying this action to the building's security team for ten minutes. After his stopwatch hit zero, the corporation's system would reset—a built in fail-safe, discovered by Cat—and overpower the remote and reactivate the motion detectors. If Tony was in the room when that happened, an alarm would sound and the night watchmen would be dispatched.

Twenty seconds into the process, the motion sensors deactivated. Tony started the countdown on his wristwatch.

He reached inside the pack attached to his chest and withdrew a glass cutter equipped with a powerful suction cup. A collapsible rod with titanium blades on each end rotated around a central axis. He extended the half-inch rod to make a hole big enough for him to fit through, and then stuck the suction mouth to the glass and started its near silent motor. The blades churned through the window, emitting a low grating noise like a diamond raking across a mirror. His hands were ready when he heard the final scrape. He cut off the motor and pushed the glass in.

Though Tony contributed little to the conversation earlier in the day, he didn't waste his time in Zanderthal's office. He scoped out the old world digs the chairman relished in like a Supreme Court judge. The mahogany desk and hardwood floors seemed to counter the modern image most corporate heads tried to portray.

Tony set the glass cut-out on the couch and stepped through the opening. He surveyed the office and confirmed his suspicions.

Yep, old school, he thought, focusing on the bookcases crammed to the top with leather-bound books.

Tony looked at his watch. Eight and a half minutes left on the digital readout. He had to get busy. Time was running out.