“One more day, Lukasha,” I promised, the whisper a bare breath of sound. “One more day.”
Chapter 9
The key had been the delivery truck—a cursory search going in and a more detailed one coming out, all made on the inexplicable assumption that the true threat was behind the walls. I didn’t know what lay at the core of that reasoning and I didn’t care. What I did care about was stretching that loophole to the screaming point and beyond.
The large dead tree limb lying haphazardly across the road was the beginning of the stretching. There were many dead or dying trees in this area, but we’d decided against an entire tree. The driver might have been tempted to call for help in moving it. But one branch too big to carry but light enough to be dragged off if he put his back into it—that should do the trick.
With twilight falling just before seven this far into the year, the headlights of the truck were already on as it rolled past our hiding place. It was one week after I’d first spotted it—one week and right on time. There was the gentle squeal of brakes and a less gentle cursing floating out the window as the driver spotted the obstruction. A blond guy with a beer belly and hairstyle best left in the sixties, he climbed out of the cab. By the time he, with hands on hips, was studying the branch, Saul and I were on the move.
Dressed in black shirts, pants, gloves, and silk masks similar to a balaclava, we ran unseen to the back of the truck and slithered underneath. Fist-sized powerful magnets equipped with handles let us cling to the undercarriage as our combat-booted feet dug for purchase. Saul had come up with most of the more esoteric equipment with a flash of a brief and bitter line of a smile. “Connections of an ex-military life. Don’t ask, don’t tell,” had been the beginning and end of his conversation on the subject.
As we silently hung there with arms straining, I could hear the driver puffing and swearing as he cleared the road. Then he was back in the truck and the asphalt began passing beneath us. The entire thing had taken less than five minutes, which was essential. If too much time passed, the guards would be suspicious and start to grill the driver, and that wouldn’t do. As it stood now, this event barely registered with our blond, not especially bright Elvis and wasn’t worth imprinting on an alcoholic brain cell, much less mentioning to the khaki crew.
The five miles passed and if we’d been walking rather than riding, it couldn’t have passed any more slowly. By the time we reached the compound’s gate, the muscles in my arms were howling in agony and I had a mild headache from the exhaust and the adrenaline. Turning my head, I could see the hyped glitter of Saul’s eyes through the narrow opening of his mask. We were both feeling the rush, although neither one of us seemed to be enjoying it. I felt the truck jerk as the driver put it in park. Several pairs of big feet in leather sneakers approached as I heard the driver’s side door being opened. This was it then.
“Open the back.”
The voice was dispassionately professional, just a man doing his job. I hoped he did it precisely the way it had been done last week; otherwise we were stuck outside the gate with a couple of dead guys in tan pants, which was not the sign of a well-executed plan. Suddenly the truck’s shifting on its tires as someone got a leg up on the bumper was followed by the sound of double doors in the back being opened. With a mouth dry and gritty as sandpaper, I waited for one of the inevitable thousand things that could go wrong. They could change their routine and look under the truck. Elvis could mention the unexpected stop a few miles back. There was no end to the shit that could befall us. Waiting was always the worst. Whether for ten seconds or ten years, it didn’t matter. Waiting could shrivel the soul.
But despite my dark expectations, everything went like clockwork. It made me wonder if someone was paying attention up there or if they weren’t and we’d slipped under the radar.
Within moments the rummaging was over, the doors were shut, and the feet were in retreat. I closed my eyes and forced the churning acid back down where it belonged, eating a hole in my stomach. Elvis settled back into his seat, lowering the chassy by several inches, shifted into drive, and we were inside—just like that. It couldn’t have gone more perfectly if it had been scripted by fate itself.
The truck moved on at barely fifteen miles an hour for a short space until it pulled up next to a building; I could see the concrete base of the wall, plain and spare, in a dingy yellow artificial light. With the damn thing finally parked, I was able to unclench my fingers and with trembling arms let myself down to the ground. Every muscle in my body had taken on the consistency of overly boiled cabbage. Rolling over onto my stomach, I slid along the gravel to the edge of the undercarriage. I caught a glimpse of Elvis standing in an open door chatting up this place’s version of the lunch lady. Improbably red hair, pear-shaped butt, and thick hose on thick legs, she didn’t float my boat, but apparently she did something for Elvis. I didn’t judge. I simply recognized the chance and took it.
Propelling myself on my elbows, I crept out from under the truck and lunged into the shadows. Saul was hard on my heels, so hard in fact that he nearly ran me over. With a healthy sense of self-survival combined with those cutting-edge fashion skills of his, Saul was a true Renaissance man. With the building wall gritty against my back, I moved fast until I took a corner and passed into a deeper darkness.
“And that, Smirnoff, is why I refuse to marry. Once the ring is on, the ass immediately triples in size.”
The disgusted hiss was a puff of air against my ear. His comment on the mating habits of food servers and ex-Kings of Rock and Roll couldn’t have been heard from more than five inches away, but it didn’t stop me from jabbing a warning elbow into Skoczinsky’s ribs. It had passed from full twilight into early night and we were fairly well concealed by it, but there was no need to press our luck. Moving on, we found a stairwell framed by straggling bushes and concrete. It was thick with grime and dirt, indicating it hadn’t been used for some time. Settling down into it, we prepared to wait four or five hours until the place was tucked in for the night. There might be a few khakis on patrol on the inside of the walls, but at least the other personnel, including the maligned lunch lady, would be asleep. It made the process of breaking and entering a little less dangerous for us.
The hours passed. And that’s about the best that could be said, that they did pass. After ten years, you’d think a few hours was something I could handle; that in comparison it would be nothing—less than nothing; a drop in an angry, churning ocean. But it wasn’t. It was ten years all over again.
Finally a hand on my shoulder brought me out of a reverie of nothingness. “Time to go.” With his voice tight and controlled, Saul was all business now. He moved to the metal door and went to work with a skill that had me whistling low under my breath. Whatever branch of the service Skoczinsky had served in, he hadn’t spent his time peeling potatoes. It took nearly forty minutes, but he got us in, bypassing an alarm system I doubt I would’ve detected and cutting the glass from the tiny window set high on the door. After that it was a simple matter to manipulate a dead bolt with a long wire, and then we were in.
Out of the night and straight down the rabbit hole
It looked like a hospital operating room. There was the glitter of metal everywhere in the form of needles and probes, clamps and gurneys. Monitors upon monitors and trays of instruments put the finishing touches on the theme. And if that had been all in the room, it could’ve passed as a medical facility. But that wasn’t all; that was only half the picture. Recessed security lighting showed computers on standby, softly humming in oddly comforting song. It wasn’t one or two either, but an entire bank of them lining the wall. Screen after screen filled with a slowly rotating DNA strand shed a sickly green glow onto the shiny linoleum floor. That kind of tan and white checkerboard-patterned tile was cheap and easy to clean—especially of blood. I’d seen that theory proven true firsthand in the basement of Konstantin’s bar. A bucket of a water and bleach mixture and a mop and it was as easy as that . . . except for the cracks.