Elena Rostova did not hesitate.
The moment the heavy gray figure struck the linoleum floor, Elena’s hand drove the ten-thousand-volt dielectric hook forward like a harpoon.
The yellow fiberglass shaft hummed, its curved insulated hook catching the lead-lined lapel of the stiff trench coat with a sharp mechanical thud.
“Lin Mei!” Elena shouted over her shoulder toward the studio threshold.
“Drop the inner sound-lock bar! Now!”
On the console desk, the Motorola walkie-talkie crackled as Marcus “Mac” Cole’s gravelly dockworker voice boomed from the cab of Coach Four-Zero-Four out on the breakwater road. His prosthetic ticket-punch clicked twice against the mic casing--snick-snick.
“Keep that inner door braced, Doc!” Mac bellowed over the radio speaker. “The gale out here on the pier is hitting sixty knots!”
“We’ve got Coach Four-Zero-Four chained to the slipway bollards outside, and the tide is coming over the stone seawall! Doctor Corvo is reading a massive hundred-kilohertz magnetic spike on the roof telemetry--what in hell just dropped down your ventilation shaft?”
