Richard stared at him.
“What are you doing?”
“Thinking,” the man said.
Richard’s face flushed.
“Then stop.”
The second guard looked at the first.
The entire balance of the room changed without anyone taking a step.
01:42.
Richard knew it.
He rushed for the laptop.
I moved first and slammed the lid halfway down, catching his hand away from the keyboard without striking him.
He stumbled back.
One of my men crossed to Eleanor and began cutting the rope from the beam while another kept his attention on Richard’s guards.
“Touch her and I shoot,” Richard said.
The nearest guard looked at him.
“No, you don’t.”
Richard turned slowly.
The guard lowered his weapon completely.
The second followed.
Richard’s mouth opened.
For the first time since I had entered the warehouse, he was standing alone.
My man lowered Eleanor carefully until her feet touched the floor.
Her knees buckled.
I caught her.
She was shaking violently, more from exhaustion than fear now.
I peeled the silver tape from her mouth as gently as I could.
She took one painful breath.
Then another.
Richard looked at the timer.
01:11.
“Arthur,” Eleanor whispered.
“I know.”
I guided her to the rusted desk.
She inserted the security key into the laptop.
The screen changed.
Richard charged toward us.
One of my men intercepted him and forced him back against the desk without throwing a punch.
“Get off me!” Richard shouted.
“That is my computer.
Those are my records.”
Eleanor looked up at him.
It was the first time I had heard her voice directed at her husband that night.
“No,” she said.
“They’re mine.”
Richard froze.
She placed her injured hand beside the biometric reader, then stopped.
The cut across her palm was too slick with blood.
00:48.
Richard saw the hesitation and laughed.
There was his arrogance again, crawling back the second he smelled uncertainty.
“You can’t authenticate.”
Eleanor wiped her fingertip carefully against the clean inside edge of my removed glove.
Richard’s laugh stopped.
She pressed her finger to the reader.
The laptop rejected it.
00:36.
