7
Northern Virginia
Ricardo didn't immediately head out for Terrence Long's home after leaving Hoffman. He was probably looking at about thirty miles of travel to reach Long's place, but it wasn't the distance that intimidated him. It was what he might encounter over those miles of travel.
He spent the rest of the day in his shipping container home, thoroughly studying the satellite maps stored on his laptop. He reluctantly decided he'd need to make the trip on foot. After the miles he'd so easily covered on the Cervelo, returning to foot travel was somewhat depressing. Now, instead of a quick day trip on the bike, this would turn it into a multi-day operation where he'd live out of a pack and camp wherever he could find a safe spot to hole up for the night.
Roughing it wasn't ideal for Ricardo. He didn't relish field work. In some ways, he was a simple man but he also enjoyed his luxuries. He dressed well and lived well without accumulating a burdensome amount of personal possessions. He liked showers, though, and clean clothes. He liked comfortable beds and warm meals.
Despite that, he never had a moment where he considered not making the trip. The attack on him and his organization was a very personal matter and it was now his singular focus. Someone had struck a hard, nearly crippling blow to him and he'd make certain they paid. As long as he was still alive, he'd do everything within his power to take revenge.
Ricardo decided to stick with his jeans, button-down shirt, and cardigan for the trip. He'd also wear the long wool coat. It wasn't optimal for fighting or climbing obstacles, but it did nicely conceal his body armor and the P90. He dug a backpack out of the gear in the storage container and packed it with MREs, energy bars, and some sports gels. The gels contained caffeine, electrolytes, and carbs in a food that resembled pudding. You could tear a gel open and squeeze the entire packet into your mouth for a burst of energy. They were a favorite of endurance athletes and road cyclists.
He packed some bottled water, along with a compact water filter and a sillcock key that would allow him to open the handle-less outside faucets on commercial buildings. If there was water remaining in the pipes it might be an easy way to refill his bottles. He didn't take a tent but packed a lightweight backpacking tarp and a down sleeping bag. He also carried a few basic survival items, a headlamp, and spare batteries. He went light on gear to keep his pack weight down, but he'd need to carry a lot of food since he could be gone a week or more.
His body armor added considerable weight to his loadout but he didn't want to skip it. He'd also have his handgun and the P90, as well as two knives, and a few other goodies that could serve to equalize any physical confrontations he encountered. While he couldn't carry his laptop with him, he did take his most important satellite phones and a paper street map of the DC area. Once he'd packed, his intention was to bank some calories, get a good night's sleep, and then get an early start the next morning. He was restless, though, and anxious to get on the road. With a couple of hours of daylight remaining he decided to set out.
Mt. Vernon was southeast of his hideout near Manassas but Ricardo didn't stick to a direct path. For as much as he could, he took advantage of the natural concealment available to him. He walked through public parks, little league fields, golf courses, and wooded lots. He traipsed through construction sites and quiet suburban neighborhoods that seemed all but abandoned. The few people he encountered were not confrontational, nor did they seem as organized as those who'd erected the road block at both ends of their neighborhood.
Instead, everyone he spotted scurried away at his appearance like roaches when the lights were flipped on. They ducked into buildings, retreated into houses, or hid behind cars. Everyone was suspicious and guarded. Rather than using violence and aggression to drive interlopers from their neighborhoods, these people acted beaten. They'd chosen to withdraw into an underworld where they lurked as ghosts, shadows of who they'd once been.
Ricardo started to run out of daylight as he neared George Mason University. He emerged from the Country Club of Fairfax's overgrown and littered golf course to head north toward the university campus. He had an idea that the university might present a high concentration of unoccupied buildings. If he could find the right one, he might be able to locate a space he could lock himself into for the night.
There was a shopping center to his right with a bank, a Starbucks, and a liquor store. Every building had been looted but for some reason this area didn't have the same level of vandalism he'd seen in some places. The doors of most businesses stood open and trash littered the parking lots but there were fewer broken windows.
The university campus was large but dense with buildings, parking lots, and public spaces. Ricardo wondered what had happened here in the last year. Had the students managed to get home? In their absence, had the surrounding community surged in to take what resources they could from the empty university? He had no way of knowing.
He entered the campus through a wooded lot, emerging into a vast parking lot empty of vehicles. He scanned his surroundings as he continued across the open lot, feeling more exposed and vulnerable than he had at any point in the afternoon's trek. At the far corner of the parking lot, he spotted a pond and took a walking trail through a cluster of trees, emerging near the Center for the Arts.
Leaning against the granite base of a bronze statue, he studied the building. There were certainly plenty of buildings to choose from but he'd lose light before he could study them all. The smart move was probably to go with the first suitable building he came across and not waste his time exploring all the options. He took it as a good sign that the glass front of the building hadn't been vandalized.
Deciding to try the obvious method of entry first, he walked right up to the glass storefront and tugged on the multiple entry doors. All were locked and had no exposed keyways on the outside, only pull handles.
Walking to the north side of the building yielded better results. There was a loading dock for supplies and equipment with a dumpster nearby. This was an intentionally hidden part of the building, obscured from public view so that no one would have to look upon the unsightly area. While every door into this part of the building was still locked, the hardware showed promise. Because these doors didn't see the same level of use as the public entrances, which might have thousands of openings per day, the architects had specified a slightly lesser grade of door hardware. This was something he could work with.
In the dim recesses of the loading dock, Ricardo slid off his pack and removed a thin pouch from his back pocket. The lock was a six-pin Corbin-Russwin. Not as simple to pick as a five-pin residential lock but not particularly difficult either. He crouched by the lock, then extracted a diamond pick and tension wrench from the leather pouch. He slid the pick into the cylinder and pushed up the individual pins, getting a feel for the strength of the springs pushing down on those pins. He used the tension wrench to apply a slight degree of pressure to the cylinder while he pushed up on each pin, trying to get a feel for where the shear line was. When he hit the shear line on each pin, the lock would open just like he was using a key.
It required a delicate touch. A couple of times he thought he had it, only to have all the pins fall back into place as he struggled with one particularly uncooperative pin. Then, when it opened, there was always a moment of surprise, of satisfaction. The tension wrench moved as the cylinder freed and Ricardo twisted the handle to open the door. He pulled it open several inches, jamming his foot inside so the closer wouldn't pull it shut again. He stashed the picks in his pocket and tugged his pack on. Seeing that it was dark inside, he triggered the weapon light on the P90.
He entered the loading dock, a cavernous open space with a forklift, pallet jacks, and several wrapped pallets staged near a roll-up door. He played the harsh LED light around the room and saw that the walls were lined with heavy-steel racks full of various kinds of performance gear. There were racks of lights, microphone stands, music stands, different types of podiums, and folded canvas drop
-clothes. Everything looked in order. There were no signs that anyone had been back here scavenging, plundering, or vandalizing.
This would have been a perfectly acceptable place for bedding down for the night but he wanted to take a look through the rest of the building before committing to it. He didn't want any surprises or unexpected visitors. There were no windows in the room and the only light came from the cracks around the roll-up doors. Ricardo shone the light around the room and caught sight of a set of heavy double doors further back on the dock.
Stepping in that direction, he carefully twisted the knob but found the door locked from the other side. The double doors didn't require picking. The gap where the doors met, perhaps no more than an eighth of an inch, was plenty enough for getting a tool in there. Ricardo hooked the back of the bolt plunger and patiently manipulated it back from the strike. Shortly, he pulled the door toward him and step through.
He found himself in a wide, sparse hallway that appeared to be part of the private spaces in the building. There was no art on the walls and the paint was scuffed, likely from the movement of equipment to and from the loading dock. Hearing nothing ahead of him, Ricardo moved forward, the rubber soles of his hiking books occasionally squeaking on the waxed vinyl tile.
He encountered another set of double doors on his right. A sign on the wall alongside them informed him that these led backstage. He paused there for a moment, deciding his next step. If there were people living in this building, could they resist using the stage? Wouldn't six months of boredom push them to sing, dance, or perform there just to break up the monotony? Something pushed at him, urging him forward.
He clicked off his weapon light and the world went black around him in the windowless hall. He reached forward, finding the lever handle from memory, and twisting it. It yielded. Finally, a door that wasn't locked. Ricardo pulled on the lever and the door swung toward him, groaning loudly as it opened and making him cringe. So much for stealth.
The space ahead of him was just as dark as what lay behind him. There would be no moving forward without using his light again. Stepping off the high edge of a stage with no medical care could mean the end of everything. A man with a broken leg might have no choice but to lay there and die a miserable death. He shouldered the P90 and hit the pressure switch again, flooding the oak floor ahead of him with harsh white light.
Ricardo hesitated before going through the door. He had nerves of steel, rarely getting excited, rarely breaking a sweat. Intense negotiations, conflict, and outright hostility were things he dealt with on a regular basis. There was something about the backstage area that felt ominous though. It was almost as if he could feel the vastness of it even beyond what he could see. The high ceiling; the enormous stage and even larger backstage area; the cavernous auditorium space.
At the fringes of his light, he could see that layers of tall black curtains hung suspended from overhead tracks. There was no way he could move forward without creeping through those layers of dark velvet. At the same time, he fully understood that there could be an army of people hidden in those curtains and he wouldn’t be able to see them.
Don't be an idiot, he told himself. What would the Mad Mick think if he could see you now?
Ricardo let out a huff and pushed on. Using his right arm to hold the stubby P90 to his shoulder, he parted the curtains with his left. It reminded him of a jungle in some ways, creeping through dense foliage. Unfamiliar with how the curtains were hung and where they parted, he pushed around blindly, trying to find his way through the mass of heavy fabric. He forced himself to keep his cool, realizing it would be easy to panic in that situation.
Finally, his hand was free, slipping through a gap in the wall of fabric. Ricardo practically leaped forward, desperate to escape the suffocating clutch of the curtains. He was on the stage now but the scene was not what he expected. He'd imagined the stage mostly empty, with perhaps a podium or a grand piano taking up a small amount of space. Instead, he found himself in a dense theatrical set.
There were stairs leading to a landing that looked like something out of a Shakespearean play. The only thing it was missing was an actor in tights delivering a monologue while waving his hand about dramatically. There was an elaborate tree, perhaps made of papier mâché with a latticework of steps behind it that would allow a person to climb the limbs. Hundreds, if not thousands, of stars were cut from a highly reflective material and hung from fishing line, turning the overhead space into a twinkling universe.
There were various other props scattered around the stage with no theme to it all. Ricardo wasn't exactly a patron of the theatre but this felt wrong, like an acting teacher had thrown a bunch of props onstage to fuel an improv session. Ricardo moved his light around them as he backed toward the front of the stage, still searching for a rhyme or reason to the set but finding none.
Standing at the front edge of the stage, his back to the immense darkness of the auditorium, he suddenly felt like he wasn't alone. He spun in a panic and played his light around the thousands of seats. His heart raced as he jerked the P90 from side to side, guided only by the instinct that a stranger's eyes were boring into him.
Then he spotted the figure.
It was seated slightly to the right of center. His brain categorized it as an "it" because he couldn't tell if it was male or female due to the black hooded robe. The hood hung so far forward that even the direct beam of his light didn't reveal a face. He kept the figure pinned in the bright circle, waiting for movement but seeing none.
Was it even a person? Could it be a prop?
When it failed to move after several minutes of scrutiny, Ricardo decided he had to get closer. As much as he hated to pull the light off of the figure, he needed both hands to slide over the high edge at the front of the stage. He quickly let the rifle hang from the sling, sat down on the lip of the stage, and used both hands to lower himself to the ground. As soon as both feet hit the carpeted floor, he threw his weapon up again and put the light back exactly where he'd had it.
The figure was gone.
"Shit!" Ricardo spat, launching himself up the inclined aisle toward the spot where he'd last seen the figure.
He ran, pivoting from side to side, throwing light on empty rows. It was a balance between trying to cover distance and trying to thoroughly search the spaces he passed. He was doing neither well. The black-robed figure could be anywhere. He reached the spot where he'd last seen it and turned a slow circle, finding nothing.
Then he saw a flicker of movement, a ripple of black in the greater blackness of the dark room. He directed his light toward it and saw the figure again, standing an aisle away and closer toward the stage.
"Don't move!" Ricardo barked, twisting his body sideways to move through the narrow row of theatre seats, trying to reach the aisle where the figure stood.
His awkward sidestepping made the light jerk around too much and the figure was gone before he'd closed half the distance.
"Fuck!"
He kept moving, trying to get himself to the last position where it had been. When he finally got there, he attempted the same scanning movement he'd done before, a slow rotation where he played the light fully around him. By the time he'd completed the three hundred and sixty degree movement, he'd found nothing.
He was beginning to question his sanity. Was he chasing shadows? Was his mind playing tricks on him? Had he even seen a figure at all?
He shone his light onto the stage one more time and decided he was wasting his time here. Maybe it was better to move on to another building, one that didn't play tricks with his mind. He lowered the P90 until the beam was illuminating the floor in front of him, then turned to leave.
He flinched, nearly crying out when the light hit the robed figure standing just feet from him. Wherever the damned thing had been hiding, it had crept up on him without making a sound. Ricardo jerked his weapon up and leveled it on the figure, fighting the panic that urged him to pull the trigger.
"What the
fuck!" he sputtered. "Who are you?"
8
George Mason University
Fairfax, Virginia
The robed figure slowly raised both hands and lowered the hood. The first thing Ricardo noticed was the tangle of blue dreadlocks projecting in all directions. Then he noticed the mask. It was clear and pressed tightly against the person's face, mashing and distorting their features.
"Are you real?" the figure asked. It was a female voice, young, perhaps even scared. There was a vulnerability in her tone, a hint of indecision and uncertainty.
"Take off that mask," Ricardo demanded. His request wasn't so much about revealing the girl's identity but because the thing was creeping him out. The entire scene really—the robe, the mask, the way she'd moved so quietly in the darkness. He still hadn’t lowered his rifle and wasn't prepared to until he knew just what was going on.
With a peculiar formality, she did as he asked, pulling the mask away from her face with both hands and letting it hang around her neck. She swept a hand through her hair to disentangle the elastic band that had held the mask on. Revealing her features confirmed just how young she was. Eighteen or nineteen maybe but certainly not any older.
"Are you real?" she repeated.
Ricardo slightly averted his weapon, keeping the light on her but directing the barrel off to her side. He nodded in response to her question, his eyes nervous, unsettled by what was taking place. He'd imagined running into a lot of things but this wasn't one of them. "I'm real. Are you alone?"
She gestured around her, to the vast darkness that surrounded them. "Yes. This place is empty. I've had this entire building to myself for months. It's almost like it's invisible and like I'm invisible too when I'm inside it."
Ultraviolent: Book Six in The Mad Mick Series Page 8