He reached into his pocket and pulled out a modified Swiss Army knife that would have got him arrested in places where possession of burglar tools is illegal. The standard attachments such as scissors, nail file, and can opener had been replaced with picks for the most common locks. On the fourth try he heard the latch click open. Behind the door another corridor slanted down. Unlike the first, this passage had several doors. All were locked except one that opened into a locker room.

The lockers were secure, and he could have opened them with his picks if he had time. He glanced at his watch. The tour would wind up soon. On the opposite wall were shelves piled with neatly folded white coats. He found one that fit and slipped it on. In a supply cabinet he discovered a clipboard. He stepped out into the corridor and continued on to yet a third door. This, too, was locked, but he managed to open it after a few tries.

The door opened onto an elevated platform that overlooked a big room. The platform led to a series of walkways that crossed through a web of linking horizontal and vertical pipes. The low hum of machinery seemed to come from everywhere, and he couldn't trace its source. He descended a set of stairs. The pipes came out of the floor, then disappeared at right angles into the wall. Plumbing for the tortilla factory, he surmised. At one end of the room was another door. It was unlocked. When he cautiously opened it, a cool ocean breeze hit him in the face.

He gasped with surprise. He was standing on a small platform perched high on the side of a cliff, facing out onto a lagoon about two hundred feet below him. It was a beautiful vista, and again he wondered why somebody hadn't built a hotel rather than a factory there. He assumed the factory was behind the edge of the cliff, but he couldn't see it from his angle. He looked down again. The water washed up against the jagged rocks along the shore in foamy ripples. The platform had a gate at one end that led to empty space with no steps going down or up. Odd. A few feet from the gate a metal rail ran down the side of the cliff and disappeared into the water.

He followed the rail down to the lagoon with his eye. A section of water appeared to be darker than that surrounding it. It might have been kelp and other seaweed washing against the rocks. As he watched, there was an intense bubbling at the base of the cliff, and a large, shiny, egg-shaped object suddenly appeared from the water and began its climb up the side of the cliff. Of course! The rail was for an elevator. The egg rose steadily up the track. It would be there within seconds. Zavala ducked back into the big room with the pipes, keeping the door open a crack.