Nic operated the controls in his take-charge manner. Burke still wasn’t sure what to think of Officer Juliano. The big man had apologized, said all the right things to indicate friendship, connection, and acceptance of him, even going as far as calling him “little brother”—a gesture which seemed to demonstrate his acceptance of Burke as a fellow law enforcement professional and even a member of his team. But in his experience, people who seemed to go out of their way to make him feel at ease and part of their group, really only wanted something from him, and would toss him aside like the wrapper of a candy bar once they had what they really wanted. And what they wanted was not his companionship.

At the bottom of the shaft, a long tunnel dimly lit with red emergency lights descended at an almost forty-five-degree angle. The height and width of the tunnel indicated a design for people of a height less than six feet and for the escapees to exit single file. Nic had to hunch over to proceed, and the giant South African would have had to almost crawl on his hands and knees to traverse the passage.

Burke was just under six feet and was able to proceed with ease. Nic took point again with his flashlight and Sig Sauer pistol. As they walked, Burke’s mind pictured the landscape above and estimated their approximate location relative to the landmarks on the surface. As he kept the image of the tunnel in his mind’s eye, he added another view beside it of them walking along the surface.

They moved through the backyard, into the barren field of future expansion. The field was perhaps ten square acres by his rough estimates, but it was a rectangle and much longer than it was wide. Perhaps only two square acres wide, and there were 43,560 square feet in an acre with the average walking speed of an adult pedestrian being 4.95 feet per second. Assuming the two acres were square in size that would make them approximately 417.42 feet deep. So it should take them 84.3 seconds to cross that distance. Maybe a bit longer considering the forty-five-degree angle. Then it was a matter of estimating the distance to the facility and the precise location of the vault. Best guess, he figured it would take them between one minute and forty-five seconds and two minutes to traverse the tunnel.

All of the calculations were made before they’d traveled ten feet, and so Burke spent the rest of the time counting down the seconds to see if his estimates had been correct.

At the end of the concrete tunnel, they found a massive steel door, a curious amalgam between the vault door of a bank and the steel bulkhead door found on a naval vessel. Burke surmised that, under normal circumstances, this door would have been sealed from the inside, in the off chance that someone discovered the emergency exit. But today, the security door stood open.