“Steve, Mike. We’re stuck in the east elevator.”

“Say again?”

“We’re in here with the patient and the thing just stopped. We’re somewhere between the fourth and fifth floors. He’s not breathing. We’re on our way up to get the vent.”

“Hang on,” Calhoun’s voice said. “Let me check something.”

“Hurry up.”

“I’m the only one here, remember?” Calhoun sounded unmistakably agitated at being told what to do. “It’s going to take me a minute. Let me check the main generator.”

Walker gave Snow another breath, glanced up. “What’s he doing?”

“Checking the power,” Mike said, annoyed at Walker for getting him into this mess, but even more irritated at himself for agreeing to get onto the elevator instead of going after Sarah. Even as he said it, the lights flickered and the whole car dropped—not far, only a foot or two, but abruptly enough that Mike heard himself gasp out loud as he dropped the phone and gripped the stretcher to hold on. When the lights came back on, the cops looked badly jarred, the way Mike thought they might appear if shaken from a deep and unpleasant dream. Even Dr. Walker’s face reflected an element Mike had never seen before, the composed doctor actually caught off-guard, maybe for the first time ever.

On the stretcher, Snow’s chest shook and rattled. Mike could feel the cops drawing away from the litter with nowhere to go, squeezing back against the walls. Someone said, “I should’ve been home by now.” Someone else said, “Son of a bitch better not start puking.” Of the group, only Walker stood his ground, administering breaths and keeping two fingers on Snow’s throat to monitor his pulse.

Mike picked up the phone again. “Calhoun?”

There was a faint murmur, nothing he could make out. Sarah would’ve been able to hear it, but Mike’s ears weren’t that good.

“Steve?”

The line was dead. Slowly Mike placed the receiver back on its wall-mount with a hand that seemed to float like a balloon. Up until now he’d felt confusion, frustration, anger, regret, everything compacted into a kind of anguished lump of disbelief that all of these things could go wrong on his last night of work. But this was different. It wasn’t panic exactly, not yet, but…

On the stretcher, Snow’s head rolled sideways and he spat out the plastic shield Walker had placed over his lips. The shield hit Repko’s shirt and left a little spit stain in the shape of a perfect zero. From this angle it was impossible to say for sure, but Mike could have sworn he saw Snow grinning again.

The phone on the wall rang.

Jumping, Mike snatched it up, fumbling it back to his ear. “Steve?”

“Mike, listen,” Calhoun’s voice was faint and distracted, maybe a little slurry, “there’s nothing wrong with the generator. It must be a problem somewhere in the elevator.”

“How do we fix it?”

“Well, that’s the trouble, I can’t. I can make some phone calls, sure, but I don’t know anything about—”