“Yes, but they have room,” he told her.“I heardthat Joe Flanagan tried to have club heads produced by the same manufacturer as Titleist, but they didn’t have the capacity.”
“How about the original equipment manufacturer Taylormade uses in Vietnam? Taylormade’s specs are never leaked.”
“They don’t have room for another client, either. If we want additional inventory this year, it’s Dali or nothing.”
She frowned like a frustrated bunny. “Surely, some OEM has to have room for?—”
From somewhere outside Nicole’s office, a buzz sounded, and then athump.
“Oh, no,”she gasped.
Kingston looked around again. No fire alarms. No more thumping or buzzing. “What?”
Nicole covered her mouth with one hand while she looked at the clock on the wall, which read six-oh-one.“No!”
10
Stuck together in the building
NICOLE LAMB
Thump.
The building had locked down.
The digital clock on Nicole’s desk read 6:01pm in glowing red letters.
Nicole’s Apple watch slipped on her wrist as she flipped over her arm, praying that the clock was wrong, and read 6:01pm on her watch, too, which meant Sidewinder’s stupid impregnable security systemhad locked down the building.
Nicole grabbed her purse from her desk and ran out of her office.“We have to get out!”
Behind her, Kingston’s heavier footfalls chased her. “What’s the matter?”
Nicole slapped her dangling mask over her face as she sprinted through the lab. Then, not bothering to take off her paper coveralls, she rushed through the anteroom to the stairs. She flung open the stairwell door and trotted down the stairs, hitting most of the steps but jumping the last few of each flight, and then she raced flat out for the building’s front doors.
The hallways were empty. The receptionist’s desk was empty. The whole building wasempty.
She slammed against the glass doors, flailing her whole body as she yanked the door handles, but the doors did not budge.
They didn’t even rattle.
“No!”she yelled at the darned ceiling.
Kingston jogged up beside her. “What’s wrong?”
“We’re locked in!”
Kingston unzipped his Tyvek coveralls and rummaged inside his trouser pockets, finding his phone. “So we’ll call the security company to let us out.”
“They can’t get us out!”she shrieked, yanking on the immobile doors like a toddler dragging on her mother’s leg. Jeez, she needed to regain her composure, but they were trapped.
“Who can’t get us out?” he asked.
“The security company!Joe Flanagan made them set a timer so thatno one,not even the security company,can disable it!”
“What?Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know! Industrial spies or people wanting to be paid for overtime? How should I know?”
