Page 181 of King’s Ransom

God, it’d suck to run out of air so close to freedom.

Confronted by this second, more solid outer concrete wall, I grabbed my battery again, shunted it down my tunnel, and poured its sulfuric acid against the outer wall. Then I heated the acid with the jet-flame lighter.

It ate away at the exterior wall.

I resumed my chiselling.

Chip-chip-chip . . .

Two more hours of digging.

My twenty-two hours were almost up and I was gasping for air now, really feeling the diminished oxygen levels in my confined space, when my chisel unexpectedly punched through the outer wall—

—and a thin beam of light and a rush of air whooshed into my tunnel and washed over my face.

It was super cold but I didn’t care.

I inhaled it greedily.

Cool, glorious, oxygen-rich air.

I slumped with relief.

I’d done it.

It still took another thirty minutes—using my last drops of heated sulfuric acid—to cut through that outer wall, but I finally made a hole big enough and slid out through it, tumbling into the dirt trench outside.

It was 9:30 p.m. Nearly a whole day had passed since I’d been entombed.

I gazed up at the night sky. It had never looked so beautiful.

I was exhausted and hungry and covered from head to toe in concrete dust. It was under my fingernails, in my ears, in the corners of the lenses of my glasses. My fingers were filthy and bloody.

But I was alive.

And back in the game.

THE RESURRECTION OF SAMUEL J. SPEEDMAN

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognises genius.

– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Valley of Fear

If the Unperson had, at some point, left Uri or Vasha to make sure I didn’t resurface from the newly poured concrete, they were long gone now.

(I mean, I would’ve left, too. Who would imagine anyone tunnelling out of their concrete tomb for nearly twenty-two hours using a butane lighter, sulfuric acid and some rusted pieces of steel?)

I had no phone, no money, no nothing on my person.

I found a hose and washed my face and hands.

Then I hurried out of the construction site and hailed a cab.

The driver gave me an odd look. My clothes were still covered in dust.

‘Where to?’ he said.