"I'll do it for him," Johnny Coombs rumbled.
Tom nodded toward the open grill. "The only thing I don't see is how you knew I was back there."
Johnny grinned. "We were busy taking down the grill when you came along. We'd found three microphones in this place, and figured they might have one behind the grill. And then we heard somebody breathing back there ... we thought they'd posted a guard back there, just to snoop us."
"Well, I'm glad you didn't hit him any harder...."
Johnny started to say something, then stopped, cocked his head toward the door. There were footsteps in the corridor outside; they came closer, stopped by the door. "Quick," Johnny hissed, "back inside!"
There was no time to look for other concealment. Tom leaped across the room, jumped up into the shaft again, and Greg slammed the grate up into place just as the hatchway door swung open.
Merrill Tawney walked into the room, with two burly guards behind him.
For the first few seconds, Greg was certain that they were lost. He stood with his back to the ventilator grill, frozen in his tracks as the fat little company man came in the room. He tried to keep his face blank, but he knew he wasn't succeeding. He saw the puzzled frown form on Tawney's face.
The company man motioned the guards into the room, peered suspiciously at Greg and Johnny. "Am I interrupting something, by any chance?"