She inched further forward. Conveniently the arc light was shining directly through the area from which the tarpaulin had fallen away, so she could see clearly into what remained of the interior.
There was nothing inside at all. Nothing except a pile of ash and twisted rubble. It was horrible. Eerie. Jones might have expected little else. But she was shocked to the core. She could smell the acrid stench of burning. And she thought she could smell the stench of burned flesh. She knew she was probably imagining it, but it still made her want to retch.
As she fought against the urge, she heard a sound directly behind her. The sound of movement. A crunching noise, possibly from gravel or loose soil, or maybe rubble from the blast, beneath an approaching foot. Startled, she turned right around, 180 degrees, and found herself staring almost directly into the glare of the arc lights. For a few seconds she could see nothing. Then she became aware of an approaching human shadow. She could see no features, just a dark shape.
Overcome by fear, she swung around in the other direction, away from where she felt the immediate danger lay, and began to run.
She didn’t get far. The front of her right shin hit an immobile object, a piece of debris from the blast. The pain shot through her leg as her upper body carried on moving whilst the lower part remained locked solid. She catapulted over whatever it was that had tripped her up and crashed heavily to the ground, falling flat on her face.
If her presence had gone unnoticed before, there was no longer any chance of that.
A man’s voice shouted something. Then a second voice joined in. She thought she heard the word ‘stop’, but beyond that had no idea what they were saying.
Heavy footsteps approached. She had fallen just outside the area illuminated by the arc lights. She was aware of being caught in the beam of a torch. She struggled to rise to her feet. Then she heard a gunshot. For a second she froze. There was a second gun shot. Was she being fired at? She had no idea. She reacted instinctively. She tried to run again.
A heavy body cannoned into her. Jones fell to the ground once more, with a bone-crunching thud. The heavy body descended upon her, pinioning her down. Jones kept struggling. But it was hopeless.
She heard swearing, then a burst of some kind of liquid hit her full in the face. The pain was instant. As if her eyes were on fire. Instantly they began to stream water. And it hurt like hell. She realized she must have been sprayed with something highly unpleasant and injurious, possibly toxic. Oh my God, she thought, involuntarily squeezing her eyes shut. Could it have been acid? She continued to struggle and was rewarded with another face-full of noxious spray. She collapsed in agony, desperately trying to get her hands to her face, to wipe her burning eyes.
But a second assailant had now joined the first. Jones’s arms were pulled roughly behind her back and handcuffed together at the wrist. Probing fingers were all over her body, rough and intrusive, presumably searching for a weapon. Then a torch was shone right into her damaged face, and her hood pulled back.
‘It’s a goddammed woman,’ she heard a gruff male voice mutter.
However, the revelation of her gender did not appear to make things any easier for her. Not this time. A knee was pressed into the small of her back, and an arm wrapped around her neck almost choking her. There was no longer a chance of Jones moving or resisting in any way, even if she’d had the slightest intention of so doing. Which she didn’t. Not anymore. Her entire face felt as if it was burning, and the wind had been knocked out of her. She couldn’t see. She could barely breathe. She had been afraid before. Now she was plain terrified.
Then the pressure was abruptly released. Strong hands grabbed her upper body and strong arms hauled her upright.
She felt so weak she could hardly stand. She seemed to have no control over her body at all. She feared that she was about to wet herself.
‘Stand still with your legs apart!’
The order was barked at her. Jones, her breath coming in short sharp gasps, obeyed at once to the best of her ability. Squinting through swollen eyelids, she tried to get a glimpse of the faces of the men holding her. They wore shiny black helmets and goggles, which concealed most of their features, a bit like the headgear she’d seen riot police wear in England. Jones wondered what on earth they were expecting to confront on the campus.
Their appearance alone was quite terrifying. So much so that Jones wondered again if they really were police — or indeed any other security force. Perhaps they were terrorists. She just couldn’t think straight.
Suddenly, and none too gently, a pair of leg irons were fastened around her ankles.
‘Right. Walk. Now. Straight ahead!’
She did her best to comply. But the hard unforgiving metal of the irons bit into the already bruised flesh of her ankles and lower legs, grating against the bone.
Involuntarily she cried out. The only response from her captors was a rough push forwards. She could only shuffle awkwardly in the irons, and would have fallen again were she not still being more or less held upright.
Jones was frightened out of her wits. She had absolutely no idea what she’d thought she was doing wandering around the scene of a major crime at such an hour in the morning. And, as, coughing and spluttering, she was half dragged along the ground by what appeared to be a small regiment of black-clad men, armed to the teeth, she could only hope that she would be allowed to live to regret it.
Seven
They manhandled her towards a parked van and told her to climb in the back. Even without the leg irons she wouldn’t have had the strength, so they more or less picked her up and threw her in.
The doors slammed shut, and the van set off almost at once at considerable speed.
With her hands still cuffed behind her back and her legs still in irons, she lay spread-eagled on the bare metal floor unable to use her arms to raise herself into a sitting or even a kneeling position.
Every time the van swung around a corner, or its speed increased or decreased, she was flung from one extreme of the rear compartment to the other, causing her already bruised and battered body even more damage. To make matters worse her eyes, nose and mouth still burned. And she couldn’t stop coughing.
There were bench seats along each side of the van’s otherwise empty rear compartment. During one particularly violent movement Jones found herself lifted in the air. She smashed into one of the benches with considerable force, the side of her face colliding with the edge.
It felt as if her cheekbone had been crushed. She could taste a salty wetness on her skin. Blood. She was bleeding.
What the hell had she got herself into?
The van suddenly lurched to a halt. Jones gratefully released the tension in her legs. Then she heard the handle which fastened the van’s double doors turn.
She still didn’t know who her captors were. They could well be the people who had caused the dreadful explosion.
The van doors swung open. Jones could feel her bladder involuntarily opening again, and only just managed to restrain it.
Outside the van two of the men, still with their balaclavas pulled down over their faces, were standing to one side. And, framed in the rear doorway, illuminated by bright lights from the building behind them, were two more men, each wearing, without any doubt at all, the uniform of the New Jersey State Police.
Big double gates closed with a loud metallic clunk. Jones looked around. At first she had no idea where she was, except that she, and the vehicle she had travelled in, had now been shut in some kind of enclosed yard. Then she spotted a sign by the door leading into the building. ‘Booking Office Entrance. Princeton Borough Police Station’.