718, but none of them worked. But just as I was about to give up and turn to my nonexistent plan B, I heard the doorknob turn from the other side.
I stepped back to allow the door to open. The handle turned and into the hall walked another man. He was big, with a gleaming bald head, numerous tattoos running down his arms. And, oh yeah, he was also holding a big, black assault rifle.
I was hidden between the door and the wall, my gun held out in defense, but the man didn’t see me as he raced down the stairs. When he’d gone down several steps, I spun around the closing door, stuck the gun muzzle into the crack, threw it open and pulled the door shut behind me just as I heard a startled “Hey!” from below.
Turning around, I found myself in a narrow hallway.
It was painted stark white. There were two doors at the other end, and I could see an LED light blinking red on the farthest one.
Curt.
I ran as fast as I could to the other end and banged on the door.
“Curt!” I shouted. “You in there?”
It took a moment, but then I heard someone say,
“Henry?”
“Yeah! How do I open this thing?”
“Four eight two one nine,” he said. “I saw the guy enter it when he put me in here.”
I pressed the numbers on the keypad, and the light turned green.
I yanked the handle and pulled the door open, just as the door as the other end flew open, revealing the guy with the rifle. He yelled some sort of curse, but I dove inside Curt’s room and pulled the door closed just as a spatter of bullets hit the metal. I held my foot against the door, keeping it open just slightly to make sure we didn’t get locked inside.
“Holy shit,” Curt said, “you okay?”
“Yeah, fine,” I said, noticing a trickle of blood on my arm where glass had cut me. “No big deal.”
“How the hell did you get away?”
“No time. Here,” I said, handing Curt the gun. “You’re probably better with this than I am.”
Another round of gunfire hit the door, and we parted on either side. Dimples punched out on our side of the door every time a round hit it.
“That’s an M16,” Curt said. “A4, I believe. Thirty round magazine. And he’s fired twenty-three of them.”
Another burst of gunfire shelled the door. Curt looked at the dimples, said, “Seven. Get your shit together, Curt turned the handle and kicked the door open, training the gun on the rifleman just as he was popping out the old magazine.
“You move and I take your head off,” Curt said. The man stood there, unsure of what to do, the magazine clattering to the ground. “Take your hand out of your pocket.”
He did so, holding a fresh mag.
“Drop it,” Curt said. The bald man looked at him, trying to size Curt up. Then, instead of putting down the magazine, he snapped it into place and raised it to fire.
Three loud reports exploded in the hallway, and the rifleman was driven backward, three fresh holes in his chest. As he fell he looked at Curt, surprised that he’d actually pulled the trigger.
Without a moment of hesitation, Curt went over to the fallen gunman and picked up the rifle. He checked the new magazine, then came back over to me and held out the gun, butt first.
“You’ve used one of these before, right?”
“Um, not on purpose.”
“It’s easy. Safety’s already off. Aim with two hands and squeeze. None of this holding the gun sideways or upside down or any of that stupid gangster, Angelina
Jolie crap in the movies. You hold it straight, two hands, squeeze hard for each round and take kickback into account. Aim for the chest. Think you can handle that?”
“If I say no will it matter?”
“Not really, but we don’t have a choice. Come on,
Parker.”
Curt led the way, rifle snug against his shoulder, as we crouched outside the door to the opposite stairwell from where I’d come from. This was where they’d brought him from, and somewhere below was the way out. And we had to get out fast, because the gunfire from both sides was turning this place into Swiss cheese.
We stood on either side of the door, both of our guns at the ready. Curt reached over and pulled it open, and as he did I swung the gun into the opening, ready for anything.
It was empty.
Curt joined me, using the rifle as a sight to confirm that we were the only people there. I could hear Curt breathing hard, but his eyes were focused. He nodded down.
I’d lead, he’d cover me.
He mouthed age before beauty. I gave him the finger, and slowly crept into the stairwell.
If I remembered correctly, the entrance was three flights below us. But looking down, I saw that the stairwell continued below that one to a basement. Four levels in total.
The noise in the stairwell was deafening, the gunfire echoing all around us. I made my way down the stairs, sensing Curt’s muzzle right above me.
The landing below us was empty. Curt stood one step above me, then flicked the muzzle once. Two more flights.
My heart pounding, the gun shaking ever so slightly in my hands, I moved down to the next level, the third floor. Nobody there. One more to go.
Between the blood roaring in my veins and the deafening noise surrounding us, even if there was someone below us hiding, we wouldn’t know. Only one way to find out.
No time for creeping around. I leaped down the next flight, to the second floor, recognizing the same door they’d brought us through, the same cameras recording everything. Curt stepped onto the landing as well, the rifle still aimed forward. He nodded at the door. I reached for it, turned the knob. Felt it go. One step from freedom.
But then I looked below me, saw the landing of the next floor below us, and knew there was one more thing to do. To know.
Below us, on the basement landing, was a small pile of black rocks. It was Darkness, the drug, the cherry bomb Ramos was using to tear down the city. And I knew what that basement was used for, and that I couldn’t leave without knowing for sure.
I nodded to Curt. He rolled his eyes, said, “Come on.”
And he was on board to see what lay below us. To see what kind of evil Eve Ramos had been waiting to unleash upon this city.
51
The door below us opened with the same combination as Curt’s holding cell. And as soon as that smell hit our nostrils, we knew what we’d found. It was only when we entered the room that we saw the extent of it.
The basement of the warehouse was nearly the length of a football field, and nearly every inch of it was piled high with pills, rocks and powders of different sizes and concentrations. There were bags of powder stacked fifteen feet high, piles of black rocks that you could literally dive into.
I lowered my gun, the blood draining from my face.
“Holy shit,” Curt said beside me. “Are they supplying the whole country?”
“That’s the idea,” I said. “First New York, then anywhere that needs a fix. And I don’t see any mixing agents or supplies here, so my guess is it’s brought in across our borders somehow.
“This is incredible,” I said. “But we can’t let it survive this.”
“What do you mean?”
“Makhoulian,” I said. “Who knows if he’s the only cop in on it? We let this stuff go into evidence, what are the odds it leaks out? Seventy-five? Ninety?”
“So what do we do?” Curt said.
“I don’t know, but this place has to burn.”
As I said that, a hail of gunfire drilled the wall behind us, sending us running for cover. It had come from inside somewhere.
“I know you’re in here, asshole,” the voice yelled. It was Rex Malloy. “Let’s make this easy.”
Another round let loose, this time grinding up a pile of black rocks beside me, the dark soot raining into the air, burning my eyes. I sure as hell hoped Curt was counting this guy’s rounds, too.
Curt was crouched behind a steel beam. He tried to lean out to look, but gunfire drove him back behind it.