They set off at a jog through the trees until they reached the point where the wall ended and the chain-link fence began. Marcus plucked a leaf from a tree and dropped it on the fence, relieved when there was no fizzle. He pulled the bolt cutters from the pack and cut a section of fence, three feet wide by five feet tall. The fence curled away, leaving an opening large enough for them to dive through. Even if the power came back on, they had a quick escape route.
Kate disappeared to the left, into the trees in the direction of the two small sheds that she’d seen. Scarlett had already run to the chain-link gate set into the back wall and was cutting away a portion of the gate similar in size to that which Marcus had cut in the fence itself.
She handed him the bolt cutters and he slid them back into the pack. She crawled through the hole she’d cut, fearless but careful. Marcus was right behind her.
Hold on a little longer, Gayle, he thought. I’m coming for you.
Cincinnati, Ohio
Wednesday 5 August, 11.15 P.M.
Special Agent Kate Coppola looked over her shoulder to see Marcus and Scarlett disappearing behind the wall of the compound. She silently wished them luck, starkly aware that they’d taken the more dangerous search. Back here in the forested area, there was cover galore should she need to hide, but inside the compound there was a house, its attached garage and a lot of wide-open space.
Marcus O’Bannion was here to save Gayle first and to stop Sweeney second. Scarlett’s priorities mirrored his, but Kate’s were reversed. Kate was here to arrest the traffickers the Bureau had been following for three years now. Her secondary priority was to make contact with – and to extract, if required – their agent who’d gone deep undercover. They hadn’t heard from the agent in weeks. That wasn’t too unusual. What was more worrisome was that they hadn’t heard from the undercover’s handler in several days. The handler was long overdue for his check-in.
She moved through the forest as soundlessly as possible, headed for the larger shed because it was the closer of the two. The structure was about as large as a high-school gymnasium, the walls made of corrugated metal. The roof was a big canopy that rose to a peak in the middle, like that of a circus tent. There was no foundation that she could see and the walls were of the prefabricated type that could be quickly put together and taken apart.
A temporary structure? Probably. But what were they using it for?
She heard the loud crack of a twig and ducked back into the trees. A man was approaching from the large shed, but it wasn’t Sweeney. Sweeney was in his forties, with dark hair. The man walking toward her was blond and fucking huge. Nearly as big as Marcus’s friend Diesel. She didn’t want to have to shoot him and alarm anyone in the house, but she also didn’t want to have to tangle with him hand-to-hand unless she got the drop on him.
Sliding her rifle over her back, Kate grabbed the limb of the nearest tree, swung herself up onto it, then climbed a few limbs higher until she was certain the man wouldn’t see her.
She waited until he’d gotten a few body lengths away from the tree before dropping from the limb to land nearly soundlessly in a crouch. She shoved the barrel of her rifle into his back.
‘Hands in the air.’ Slowly he complied. ‘Higher.’ She dug the rifle barrel a bit deeper into his back. ‘Higher, I said. On the ground, face down, Blondie. Do it,’ she hissed, and he dropped to his knees, flattening his body on the ground. ‘Arms spread, palms down, fingers straight.’
Once again he complied, and she snapped cuffs on while he put up relatively little resistance. ‘Where’s your boss?’ she asked.
‘Depends. Who are you?’
She gave the rifle another shove between his shoulder blades. ‘I will shoot your fucking head off, make no mistake. Boss. Where?’
‘Inside the house, I think. At least he was a few minutes ago. Don’t shoot.’ He turned his face to the side so that he could look up at her from the corner of his eye. His very blue eye. ‘Who are you? Please.’
Her rifle was steady in her hands. ‘Special Agent Coppola, FBI. Who are you?’
He let out a breath. ‘Finally. You need to send a message to your SAC ASAP. Tell him “Pineapple under the sea”.’
‘“Pineapple under the sea”?’ Startled, Kate went down on one knee to study his face more closely. It could be him under all that grime. Carefully she pushed up his pants leg to his knee and checked for the identifying scar. It was a match. Quickly she unlocked his cuffs. ‘Well I’ll be damned. Special Agent Davenport, we’ve been looking for you.’
Cincinnati, Ohio
Wednesday 5 August, 11.15 P.M.
Scarlett and Marcus ran from the back gate toward the garage attached to the house. There were six bay doors, with one open. Hopefully that meant that Sweeney hadn’t left yet.
She figured the bastard would bring Gayle to the meet, just to get Marcus to come close enough to be grabbed or shot. Once Sweeney had gotten Marcus, Scarlett had no doubt that he’d kill Gayle next, then anyone who happened to be in his way. He’d already sprayed bullets throughout the Ledger building. He was an indiscriminate killer.
But if he hadn’t left yet, they still had a chance to grab Gayle and avoid walking into what might be a trap. Although leaving his garage door conveniently open was probably a trap, too. It couldn’t matter. Marcus was right. Based on the look of the cage in the video, Gayle was in the basement. They had to go in.
The house itself was simply massive. Built in the Tudor revival style so popular in Cincinnati pre-World War II, it was easily twice the size of Scarlett’s house. Partly brick, partly half-timber, it had six windows across the top floor and . . . Scarlett frowned.
There was a large picture window along the back wall whose glass had been shattered. Shards of glass littered the grass, and the opening was now covered with plywood. The window had been broken from the inside out, the broken area visible against the plywood as no one had finished removing the remaining glass. The hole was large. Body-sized.
A strangled gasp caught her attention, and she turned to find Marcus staring at the corner of the driveway closest to the open garage door. Blood stained the concrete in a wide swath, as if someone had dragged a body through the open door.
Marcus’s face had grown pale in the growing moonlight. ‘Not Gayle,’ he whispered. ‘It can’t have been Gayle.’
‘No,’ she agreed softly. ‘They won’t kill her until they get you. So let’s find her before that happens.’ She drew her weapon and started for the door, keeping her back to the wall, but Marcus hadn’t moved.
He frowned. ‘This feels too damn convenient,’ he said, his whisper almost silent. ‘The power going off just when we need to get through the fence? Leaving the door open for us?’
She’d thought the same thing. ‘He doesn’t know we know about this place.’
‘Or he didn’t. He could have seen Kate doing her perimeter check. Hell, he could have seen us approach on the main road.’
She blew out a breath, trying hard not to be exasperated. ‘Entirely possible. This could totally be a trap.’
‘I’ll go in,’ he whispered. ‘You stay here.’
Ah. He was protecting her. I don’t think so. ‘No. You go high, I’ll go low. Now.’
He closed his eyes for a second, and when he opened them, she saw utter focus and concentration. Gun in his hand, he eased around the garage corner and through the open door.
Soundlessly he crept through the enormous garage, following the bloodstain that stretched from the corner of the driveway to the middle of one of the empty bays. In the bay was a pool of drying blood. Clearly a body had been moved from the garage. The forensic guys would have to determine where it went after being dragged off the driveway.