He had often written about fear, and he had known profound fear in his life, but he had never experienced or imagined terror as raw as this, his gut alternately clenching tight and fluttering, acid refluxing into his throat—swallow it, keep it down—his sweat cold and his breath hot. His scalp prickled as if acrawl with pin-legged ants, and he strained to hear more than the booming of his heart that made of him a one-man cortege.

His eyes were wider than they had ever been, the sullen rose-colored light layering a sameness on the maze, increasingly like a fog that obscured rather than illuminated.

He had to guard against recklessness. Boldness was essential, but the situation was not one of mortal urgency.

Ulrich wouldn’t be killing her, not immediately after bringing her here, and he wouldn’t already be engaged in rape, either. For him, this was about sex, yes, transgressive sex, but it was foremost about power, as it had been for Ronny Jessup, as it always was for such men. For a while, Ulrich would want to savor his authority, his control of her, his absolute dominion.

David needed to get to her in a timely manner, spare her from as many indignities as possible, but not at too great a risk of her life and his. Firefighters found their way around the flames to those entrapped; they didn’t forge through the fire to be ignited.

Doorway after doorway, corner by corner, turn by turn, past the upper mummification room where the door remained closed . . .

He was so high on adrenaline, blood flooding brain and muscles in the fight-or-flight response, that the walls appeared at times to buckle, becoming concave or convex, and the ceiling seemed to swoon.

His claustrophobia intensified, and a demon of doubt spoke of calamity, warning him that he would never see the sky again or feel the sun on his face or breathe air untainted by mold.

He persevered and came to the room that Ulrich had furnished with armchair, bed, TV, fridge. He stood with his back against the wall, to the left of the arched and doorless opening. Listening. No voices. A rattling-clinking. And a sob of frustration.

She was in there.

But what of Ulrich?

In his mind’s eye, David saw that face: the high brow unlined by a habit of contemplation, the gray eyes as cold as dirty ice, the slit of a mouth, the lantern jaw that made the man appear as though he regarded everyone and everything with teeth-clenched contempt.

Do it. Do it now. Do it while he still might have the element of surprise on his side. Across the threshold, into the room, the large chef’s knife at his side, his arm drawn back, ready to thrust or slash, all squeamishness having evaporated in this mortal moment.