Fire and Ice Read Online Free

worked for some lesser-known companies, all of which he had ruthlessly whipped into the Fortune 500. Nitko wasn’t quite there yet, but Simmonds had been with them for only two years. He’d frozen cost-of-living raises and merit raises, and he’d lowered the shift differentials by thirty percent. The company used to match 401(k) contributions dollar for dollar, and now it did only half that, fifty cents for every dollar.
    The production employees quietly referred to Simmonds as the Old Bastard. They hated him. He was as tight as a tightwad could be, but he was also extremely paranoid. He knew the workers hated him, and for that reason he kept a personal bodyguard nearby whenever he was out and about. Maybe he was paranoid enough to have a version of the Batphone in his office, a direct line to the police. Matt hoped so.
    He tried the knob, but the door was locked. Hell with it. He reared back and kicked the Old Bastard’s door right the fuck in. The jamb splintered and pieces of the brass lockset tinkled to the marble floor. Matt hoped the killer wasn’t close enough to hear the noise he’d made.
    The office was huge and windowless. There was a bank of television screens in front of a cherry desk you could have done the tango on. The screens were black. Matt figured the Old Bastard could monitor every inch of Nitko, inside and out, right here from his office. If Simmonds had been here, the authorities would have been alerted at the first sign of trouble. Simmonds, of course, wouldn’t have stuck around to see the outcome. His private helicopter would have taken him from the roof to a place of safety. No way the Old Bastard would have gone down with the ship. He loved himself too much.
    Matt searched for a switch to turn on the monitors. There was an electronic keypad mounted on the right side of the desk, and Matt figured the pad controlled everything. He pushed the button that said MONITORS, but nothing happened. The keypad must have been password protected, and Matt had no idea what the password was. So much for that.
    There was a multiline telephone next to the keypad. Matt lifted the receiver from its cradle and put it to his ear. He tried every line but couldn’t get a dial tone. He was about to try another office, hoping one of the VPs had left a cell phone on a charger or something, when the lights went out.

8:17 a.m.
     
    Drew Long was on topic number five when everything went black. Shelly stayed glued to her chair, thinking the backup generators would kick in any second. They did not, which was very strange. Even stranger was the sound of the loading-dock doors closing and locking automatically, as if a ghost had thrown the switch.
    “What the hell’s going on?” Hal Miller said.
    “Everybody stay calm,” Drew said. “I’m sure it’s just a glitch.”
    In the event of a catastrophic spill—say, one of the fifty-five-hundred-gallon tanks rupturing or something—all the doors in the plant could be closed by a central switch in the main power closet. The doors had strips of rubber on their bottoms that created an airtight seal, thereby containing the spill until a hazardous-materials crew could come in and clean it up. In theory, everyone in the production area was to be evacuated before the doors went down. Once the doors were closed, there was no way in or out until the hazmat team declared an all clear.
    Shelly heard Drew fumbling around at his desk. He pulled a flashlight out of a drawer and switched it on. He picked up the telephone receiver and started punching in numbers and then said, “Shit.”
    “The phone’s not working?” Shelly said.
    “It’s not,” Drew said. “Listen, I want you all to stay here while I go up front to see what’s going on.”
    “How about we all go up front to see what’s going on?” Fred Philips said.
    “No, there’s no point in all of us stumbling around in the dark. I’ll be back in two shakes. Promise. I only have the one flashlight, but I’ll leave