"You say that you think Ping is there," Ru said. "Why don't we scout the location, see what's there. The cult might have given you old information."
"It would be dangerous," Ukiah murmured into Atticus's shoulder.
"We are familiar with danger," Atticus said.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Waltham, Massachusetts
Thursday, September 23, 2004
Ukiah eyed the Ontongard den with faint dismay. It was a huge redbrick cube of an office building. Four floors tall, and equally wide, it sat behind a moat of access roads, a parking lot, and landscaping. Its tinted windows hid its secrets from anyone curious enough to cross the moat and try to spy in.
"We should be able to sense the Ontongard from here," Ukiah told Atticus as they studied the building. Their uneasy alliance was holding, although Atticus had driven from downtown to this beltway suburb with savage speed. Ukiah envied not only his skill at handling the sports car in the pounding traffic, but also the ease with which Atticus dealt with bewildering detours, unfamiliar road signage, and a toll road that required you to fling quarters into an open bin to pass. The DEA agents laid siege to the nest with practiced efficiency. After a cautious drive-by, Atticus pulled in near the front doors. Kyle parked across the parking lot in the Explorer, disassociated from the Jaguar, but connected by radio.
"I don't feel anything." Atticus's voice was flat with hostility.
"That's what I mean," Ukiah said. "Even if there were only one Get inside, at this distance, we should be able to tell."
"If no one's home, let's have a closer look." Still Ru waited for a slight nod from Atticus before getting out.
The foyer was a vast, two-story room with a bulky receptionist's desk. Two visitor's chairs sat close to the front doors, as if visitors were encouraged to leave.
The receptionist herself was another surprise: a pixie-small girl, thin and nearly sexless. Her hair was cut and styled into spikes, and dyed a vivid purple. A collection of gold loops dazzled in her ears, right eyebrow, and left nostril. She wore a silk tunic that matched her hair, black leggings, and cowboy boots.
Despite her outlandish appearance, when she answered the phone with "Good morning, Peter Caldwell and Associates," she sounded as smooth and polished as any receptionist Ukiah had ever heard.
"Is she one of them?" Ru whispered to Atticus.
"I don't think so," Atticus said. "My spider sense isn't tingling."
"She's human." Ukiah walked to the desk and his brother and Ru fell in beside him so that they made an impressive array as the receptionist finished taking a message and glanced up.
"May I help you?"
"I'm Agent Takahashi." Ru showed the girl his ID.
"Oh, shit," she said. "I knew this job was too good to be true."
"We have information that a kidnapped woman is being held here." Ru tucked his ID away before she could see that he was DEA, not FBI. "We need to search the premises for her."
"Don't you need a warrant for that?"
"Not in a kidnapping. Can you tell me how many people are currently in the building?"
"I'm not sure." She shrugged. "This is all of the building I usually see outside the john. People come and go—I'm not allowed to check ID or anything on them. They have new hires all the time, but after a few days they call in sick or . . . You know, this is a really creepy place to work. I knew something was wrong when they put meon front desk."
"What were you going to say about new hires?" Atticus asked.
"This is going to sound weird, but it's like attack of the pod people here. Bright and happy people turn into shuffling zombies in less than a week, or they just don't come back."
"You've never called the authorities?" Atticus sounded annoyed.
"Oh, yeah, like I'm a pillar of the community that the police are going to listen to about zombies from Mars."
"We're looking for this woman." Ukiah showed her Ping's photo.
"I haven't seen her." She eyed them. "Am I in trouble?"
"No, but we would like you to give us your name and address and then go home. Nor would it be wise for you to return. Your employers are dangerous men."
"Oh, I'd believe that of upper management. Most of Engineering and Accounting are okay. They're up on the second floor."
"No pod people?"
"Yeah, zombie-free zones. Just major geeks. Third floor is iffy. No one but pod people go up to the fourth floor. Past the elevator lobby, the doors are locked with card keys."
Her name was Sonya Barnes, and she gave her address in a town called Natick, which looked like Nat-ick to Ukiah but she pronounced it as Nay-ick and had to spell it for Atticus.
"I don't know if this means anything," Sonya said. "But there was a mass exodus a little while ago of the pod people."
"What time?"
"About two hours ago."
Had the cult attacked one of the dens, triggering the Ontongard to abandon the rest?
"If they're moving their . . ." Ukiah paused, as Ru and Atticus both glanced hard at Sonya to remind him that she was listening to their conversation. ". . . hideout, they might have taken Ping with them already."
"We'll see." Atticus frowned at the near slip.
The DEA agent walked Sonya to the door to prevent any other slips.
"Fourth floor?" Ukiah asked.
"Let's evacuate the civilians first." Atticus shook his head, his annoyance feeling like a coat of thorns. "Just in case we get in a shoot-out."
***
The elevator slid open to the scent of death and Ontongard. Ukiah growled softly as the familiar reek triggered generations of hate. He went to step off the elevator, but Atticus checked him.
"Wait," his brother commanded, pistol in hand. Ru held the door as Atticus cautiously checked the lobby beyond. "Okay. We're clear."
"Roger that," Kyle whispered from the nearly invisible earbud that Atticus was wearing.
There was a security door with a card-key lock.
"What's bugging you?" Atticus asked Ukiah as Ru produced a small electronic lock pick.
"There's something freshly dead up here." Ukiah wondered how Atticus could miss it.
Atticus sniffed deeply and then nodded slowly.
The door clunked open. Ukiah tracked death through the maze of offices and hallways. Atticus trailed behind, a bristling presence. In a small windowless supply room, they found Ping.
On the night of his rape, after Core had been called away, Ukiah had dragged himself off the sleeping Ping and showered away the drug's control. After tying up Ping, he fled the cult's commune, unaware that the Ontongard were zeroing in on it. The Gets must have found Ping as Ukiah had left her—bound and naked. They put the closest set of clothes on her: Core's black slacks and silk dress shirt, several sizes too large for her slight frame. To keep up her pants, the Gets had made the mistake of giving her a belt. One end of the belt was now tied to an overhead pipe, the buckle cinched tight around her slender neck. The slacks pooled on the floor under her dangling feet, while the shirt at least covered her body to her knees, preserving her dignity.
Ukiah stared at her, horrified, relieved, and ashamed of his relief. "Oh, God," he moaned; and stepped forward to take her down.
"No." Atticus caught him. "Don't disturb the crime scene."
"Poor thing," Ru whispered. "What do you think this mess on the wall means?"
After slicing her fingers on something sharp in her small prison, she had used the blood to paint her last message on the wall.