Face of Fear by Dean Koontz Page B

of the contents would render useless all other routing boxes, switch-boards and backup systems, neither of the cabinets was locked. Each housed twenty-six small levers, circuit breakers in a fuse box. They were all inclined toward the “on” mark. Bollinger switched them off, one by one.
    He moved to a box labeled “Fire Emergency,” forced it open, and tinkered with the wires inside.
    That done, he went to the guards’ room across the hall. He stepped around the bodies and picked up one of the two telephones that stood in front of the closed-circuit television screens.
    No dial tone.
    He jiggled the cut-off spikes.
    Still no dial tone.
    He hung up, picked up the other phone: another dead line.
    Whistling softly, Bollinger entered the first elevator.
    There were two keyholes in the control panel. The top one opened the panel for repairs. The one at the bottom shut down the lift mechanism.
    He tried the keys that he had taken from the dead guard. The third one fit the bottom lock.
    He pushed the button for the fifth floor. The number didn’t light ; the doors didn’t close ; the elevator didn’t move.
    Whistling louder than before, he proceeded to shut down fourteen of the remaining fifteen elevators. He would use the last one to go to the sixteenth floor, where Ott and MacDonald were working, and later to the fortieth floor, where Harris and his woman were waiting.

19
    Although Graham hadn’t spoken, Connie knew that something was wrong. He was breathing heavily. She looked up from her book and saw that he had stopped working and was staring at empty air, his mouth slightly open, his eyes sort of glazed. “What’s the matter?”
    “Nothing.”
    “You’re pale.”
    “Just a headache.”
    “You’re shaking.”
    He said nothing.
    She got up, put down her book, went to him. She sat on the corner of his desk. “Graham?”
    “It’s okay. I’m fine now.”
    “No, you aren’t.”
    “I’m fine.”
    “There for a minute you weren’t.”
    “For a minute I wasn’t,” he agreed.
    She took his hand ; it was icy. “A vision?”
    “Yeah,” Graham said.
    “Of what?”
    “Me. Getting shot.”
    “That’s not the least bit funny.”
    “I’m not joking.”
    “You’ve never had a personal vision before. You’ve always said the clairvoyance works only when other people are involved.”
    “Not this time.”
    “Maybe you’re wrong.”
    “I doubt it. I felt as if I had been hit between the shoulders with a sledgehammer. The wind was knocked out of me. I saw myself falling.” His blue eyes grew wide. “There was blood. A great deal of blood.”
    She felt sick in her soul, in her heart. He had never been wrong, and now he was predicting he would be shot.
    He squeezed her hand tightly, as if he were trying to press strength from her into him.
    “Do you mean shot—and killed?”
    “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe killed or maybe just wounded. Shot in the back. That much is clear.”
    “Who did it—will do it?”
    “The Butcher, I think.”
    “You saw him?”
    “No. Just a strong impression.”
    “Where did it happen?”
    “Someplace I know well.”
    “Here?”
    “Maybe...”
    “At home?”
    “Maybe.”
    A fierce gust of wind boomed along the side of the highrise. The office windows vibrated behind the drapes.
    “When will it happen?” she asked.
    “Soon.”
    “Tonight?”
    “I can’t be sure.”
    “Tomorrow?”
    “Possibly.”
    “Sunday?”
    “Not as late as that.”
    “What are we going to do?”

20
    The lift stopped at the sixteenth floor.
    Bollinger used the key to shut off the elevator before he stepped out of it. The cab would remain where it was, doors open, until he needed it again.
    For the most part, the sixteenth floor was shrouded in darkness. An overhead fluorescent tube brightened the elevator alcove, but the only light in the corridor came from two dim red emergency exit bulbs, one at each end of the building.
    Bollinger had anticipated the darkness. He took a