She changed the subject. “Should we check the office to see if anyone’s still here?”
He shook his head and smiled. “At this hour?”
She laughed. He’d long encouraged the true civilian employees to maintain strict and moderate working hours to enable the underground workers time to come and go without risk of detection. At an hour such as this, they’d have scant odds of finding a living human being in the office.
They rolled the crate over the thick carpeting, crushing the piling beneath the weight with a faint crunching sound. Once they’d rolled over the threshold of his office door, she moved ahead to summon the elevator before helping the general slide the box inside the car. She watched him, trying to understand what he knew about this weapon, and why he was trying to protect her. Was it knowledge of the weapon?
Or knowledge about him?
The chime sounded, and they rolled the crate from the elevator. In the empty space, the slamming of the wheels upon the tiled marble floor echoed like a gunshot. She jumped. They pushed the cart for the parking garage elevator on the opposite side of the atrium. The wheels squeaked. Jamison glanced around, wondering if the sounds carried far enough for someone—
“What are you doing?”
They whirled.
Jocelyn Whitfield stood before them, purse on one shoulder and a large bag strapped across the other. Her eyes turned cold as she recognized Sheila… but warmed notably as they spotted Jamison.
She gritted her teeth. The woman had flirted with him since joining Jamison & Associates, making clear her interest and willingness to engage in any manner of non-work activities, even when others were present. He’d told Sheila that he’d caught Jocelyn staying well past her shift before, hoping to get his attention as he departed.
And now she’d caught them here, well past nightfall.
Sheila nodded at the woman. “Mr. Jamison has decided that the artwork belongs in his home. We’re taking it there now. Please excuse us.”
Jocelyn’s eyes tightened in understanding. She knew exactly what those words meant, knew that the pair weren’t simply transporting a large box. She’d been defeated for Jamison’s attention and favor by the man’s personal assistant. But she’d not give up. “Mr. Jamison, I can help. I have training in displaying artwork—” her eyes flicked in a sneering manner toward the untrained Sheila Clarke “—and can assist with proper lighting techniques. What type of work is inside the box? Paintings? Sculptures?”
Jamison sighed. “Jocelyn, I appreciate the offer, but there’s no need. Mrs. Clarke and I have to discuss a tricky point related to the financial records for the Stevens account, and this works well.”
“Let me get the elevator for you, then, before I… go home.” Jocelyn’s eager tone conveyed far too much meaning, an interest in wriggling her way into that car. Preferably, in Sheila’s place. But they couldn’t risk her seeing where they’d go next. Jocelyn didn’t know the accounting firm employing her services was nothing more than a front for the real work she and Jamison did each day.
“Go on ahead, Jocelyn. We’ve got this. In fact… Sheila, I think we left the folder back on my desk.”
She nodded, understanding. She’d leave, he’d wait, and Jocelyn would have no choice but to leave before them. “I’ll go get it, sir.” She turned around and marched back toward the office elevator they’d just left.
“I’ll wait here then,” he replied, as Sheila’s shoes slapped against the marble tile. With Jocelyn there, the impact didn’t seem as loud. They’d already been discovered.
Sheila rounded the bend into the elevator hallway before grabbing her phone and running the audio enhancement app. The conversation would let her know when it was safe to return. She absentmindedly hit the elevator call button. The doors opened immediately.
“—work, sir.” Jocelyn’s voice was a sultry whisper. “You finally got rid of her. Let’s get this down to your car, and—”
Jamison’s voice, stern, bordering on anger. “Jocelyn, go home. I have no idea why you refuse to do as I ask, but let me make it clear. If you do not vacate the premises in the next thirty seconds, you will not have a job here in the morning.”
Sheila pumped her fist as the elevator doors closed behind her.
Jocelyn’s voice, now… excited? “I think she heard you. Let’s go. We can display that art or… something else.”
Sheila nearly vomited. The woman had no clue, could not grasp that Jamison had no interest in her. Or Sheila. And now she threatened their efforts, possibly putting lives at risk. She thought quickly, then reached in her boot, where she kept the small tranquilizer gun. She wasn’t permitted to carry a personal gun, but she had no interest in walking the streets of the cityplex without some form of protection.
She emerged from the elevator hallway, sighted the back of Jocelyn’s neck, and pulled the trigger.
The woman collapsed to the ground.
Sheila moved forward, eyes full of fury, holding the tranquilizer gun before her. “That was getting awkward, sir.”
Jamison stared at her. “Nice shot, Clarke.” He glanced down at Jocelyn. “Perhaps a bit excessive, though?” He frowned. “She’s going to remember this, Sheila.”
She stared down at the woman passed out on the floor, and an idea sprang to mind. “I don’t think it will matter, sir. She got hit with a serum designed to provide a full eight hours of sleep. When she wakes up… nobody will believe a word she says.”
Twenty minutes later, Jocelyn Whitfield sat behind the wheel of her car, held in place by her safety belt. A half dozen empty, smashed beer cans rested on the seat of the car next to her. Her breath smelled heavily of alcohol. The car remained in its original space on the second floor of the parking garage.
Sheila looked upon her handiwork and turned to Jamison, trying to keep her voice and expression grave. “Sir, I’d suggest that Ms. Whitfield may need some time off to deal with her drinking problem. If she can’t distinguish between her home and the parking garage at her place of employment, she needs help.”
Jamison gazed at her. “Remind me to never let you get angry at me, Clarke.”
They rolled the crate to its resting place without further interruption, pausing only to pick up a specific access key card Jamison kept hidden in a false bottom to his desk drawer. The card provided access to a portion of their true office that Sheila hadn’t seen before, hadn’t known existed, until that evening. They returned to his office without the crate, and Jamison replaced the card in precisely the same location.
She felt the fear that had built throughout the day at long last in the form of a shiver. He’d spent the day making clear that whatever had cleared that building from existence resided now in a slick metal box hidden within her primary work facility. She’d trusted his judgment on the wisdom of the move without question.
Until now.
“Sir, are you absolutely certain it’s safe for that box to remain open in there?”
He nodded. “I’m absolutely certain it’s safe in there.”
She wasn’t sure what bothered her more. The fact that they’d opened something he’d identified as so deadly and dangerous inside their office. Or the fact that he was so certain that whatever that weapon might be, the place they’d stored it was unquestionably safe.
How would he know?
She made her way back to the parking garage and her own ground car and began the drive home, wondering what additional secrets her boss kept hidden… and how many of those secrets were buried just a few feet from her office desk.
ten
Deirdre Silver-Light
…that while general prosperity grew, so did the gap between rich and poor, leading to inevitable increases in theft and violent crime… being outside alone or after dark became inadvisable at best…
The History of the Western Alliance, page 911
Her eyes snapped open, taking in the faint light of the stars and the crescent moon shining in through their oversized bedroom window. She to
ok a gentle, deep breath, and then remained silent.
She heard the sound of Roddy’s steady breathing beside her, and resisted the urge to exhale in a sigh of relief.
He’d taught her the technique, the way to set a mental alarm to awake at a desired time without the need of a clock. Like many of his routines, it had been part of the intense training he’d suffered through as part of the Special Forces, the elite unit of the Western Alliance military. He’d told her little about his time in the military, but she’d been awakened on many occasions as he’d cried out in his restless sleep at some horrific memory.
She wondered what dreams he’d experience in the future. The hell she’d helped spawn was days—no, hours—away from bursting forth upon an unsuspecting planet.
She wondered if he would ever forgive her.
She slid from the covers while he slept, repeating something he did every morning. She paused by the window and looked down to the darkness below. The undercurrent was there, and Roddy noticed. He noticed everything about everyone. His fears of imminent violence on the street were justified, an outbreak likely in mere months.
All part of the master plan.
She slid into her closet, taking care to place her feet gently upon the thick carpeting, masking any sound of her movement. She donned her jogging outfit, laced up her shoes, and snagged a hair band, which she snaked through her hair to form a ponytail. With the lights still out, she exited the bathroom and closet space before gliding silently across the thick carpeting into the hallway. Without the light of the moon and stars, she was presented a space without light. She knew the space well, but let her fingertips graze the smooth surface of the wall to prevent any collisions or stumbling. Roddy’s senses remained heightened after years in which he’d periodically find himself in war zones, wakened from a dead sleep by sudden attacks. A stumble, a mild oath, a collision with a wall… any of those could rouse her husband to full alertness.
She snagged a water bottle she’d left in the refrigerator before going to bed, then crept toward the apartment door. She turned the handle slowly, listening to the gentle grinding noise, and then pulled the door open. She stepped out of the apartment into the hallway and turned the handle once more, pulling the door softly closed before turning the handle to the closed position. She waited thirty seconds, taking deep breaths, waiting, expecting Roddy to open the door and burst from the apartment at any second. Surely she’d made too much noise and woken him.
But he didn’t appear.
She turned before her courage disintegrated, moving to the elevator and pressing the call button. She had a job to do, and she’d do it. Oswald had been right about one thing. She couldn’t stop everything. Her stubborn refusal to perform this final step in her part of the plan wouldn’t stop the horror yet to come. For that reason, she’d resist the idea of a pointless stand. What her thinking had uncovered was the chance to alter the decision about who they’d save just a small bit. And if she could save him, she’d do just that.
She rode the elevator to the lobby in a mental fog, barely noticing the indoor fountain with the dancing water, swaying and pulsing to a quiet musical number. She approached the door to the outside, to the darkness that awaited, a darkness largely of her own creation. In many ways, justice would see her struck down by those experiencing feelings of hopelessness.
The doorman, an elderly man whose name she couldn’t recall, beamed as he approached. He’d flirted with her without shame since he’d started the job, and his pupils widened as he took in her figure, one he’d openly imagined as she moved through the lobby to the outer door or the inner elevator leading to the parking garage. She normally wore conservative business attire; her tight jogging shorts and low-cut, midriff-baring top would distract him from showing too much open concern for her safety as she departed the building in the middle of the night.
He bowed a bit, pausing longer at the bottom than necessary, and she felt his eyes linger on her exposed flesh. “Bit early for a jog, isn’t it, Mrs. Light?”
She nodded, trying to make her face light up at his concern, uncertain if she’d pulled off the look. “It’s going to be a long day at work, so I wanted to get my run in when I could.” Spurred by an overwhelming need to apologize to this man for what was to come, she reached out and squeezed his arm. “Thanks for your concern.” She forced a dazzling smile at him.
He actually blushed. “Um… of course. Ma’am. Mrs. Light.” He pushed the door open, and she walked into the dark night.
She felt no fear. Despite her knowledge of the instability in the city, despite her knowledge that she might be seized or chased or shot at any moment, she moved into the night air with confidence. Or perhaps not confidence, but a belief that if some horror were to befall her, she’d earned it. She stretched a bit as she stood on the sidewalk, fully aware that the doorman watched every move with deep interest, and then moved easily into a jogging pace, vanishing into the darkness.
At the first corner, she turned left and pulled open the dimly lit door to the parking garage. She jogged down the steps, passing floor after floor, until she reached the bottom. She frowned.
Where was everything? There should be a partial flight of stairs still moving down from this spot. Her eyes roamed the garage, noting the downward slope of the pavement, and she realized her mistake. She’d used the incorrect stairwell. With a sigh, she stepped out of the stairwell and walked briskly toward the opposite side of the garage, ignoring the faint aroma of tar on the ground. She wondered, idly, why the hydrogen used to fuel the ground cars bore no aroma, and wondered if those living in the Golden Ages used a different fuel, perhaps something that smelled like lavender or vanilla, in order to cover the smell of driving surfaces.
She saw two things as she approached the far stairwell: a set of stairs going down… and a man lying asleep on the landing, dressed in clothing emitting a foul odor that overwhelmed the other smells. She took one more step and noted a detail correction.
He wasn’t asleep.
His eyes followed her, appraising her as her approach slowed. She saw no malicious intent in that gaze. With no one else around, though, it seemed far more invasive, far more sinister, than the visual ogling the doorman had given her moments ago. Was it the location or the familiarity of the man driving her angst?
She kept her eyes on the stairwell, calculating how she might divert him from this space. She had to complete her mission. Or else.
She didn’t know what the “or else” might mean.
“Pretty lady, can you spare a credit?” His voice was rough, raspy, the victim of too many years of hard drinking. Or was it? If he’d lived here, perhaps the hydrogen fumes had damaged his lungs and vocal cords. She didn’t know. Why did she assume drinking?
She felt her muscles tense and tried to relax. “I didn’t bring any money with me, sir. Sorry.” She tried to hide the fear in her voice.
“A…” He coughed. “A pity.” There was no malice in his tone, and yet she felt a shiver of terror down her spine. She could outrun him. Right?
She looked at him more closely. He looked young when she’d thought him old. Fit when she’d assumed he was unhealthy. Why was he here? What would make a healthy young man sleep in a parking garage stairwell?
She saw his eyes, the deep sadness there, and realized the truth. He’d been hurt. Deeply and powerfully. Probably in the recent past, the wounds still festering in him, the despair turning life into a challenge and lowering his self-worth where he could do nothing but what he did now.
Her compassion overwhelmed her.
She pulled out the water bottle. “I don’t know if you’re thirsty, sir, but I just filled this with cool water. You’re welcome to have it.”
His eyes lit up as he watched the bottle move in his direction. He reached out his hand, his huge, grimy hand, and took the bottle from her. His hand touched hers as he did so, and she used every bit of mental strength to keep from crying out in revulsion as she looked down at that physical conta
ct.
When she looked up at his face, she saw tears sliding down his cheeks, carving a river through the dirt. “Thank you.” To some degree, she’d restored his faith in humanity, his belief that there was goodness out there, and people who wouldn’t destroy your emotional core.
He drank deeply of the cool water as his benefactor moved down the stairs to complete a task that would see him dead in mere hours.
“There’s nothing down there!” he shouted. His voice was stronger already.
She froze, and though she didn’t owe him an explanation, she offered one anyway. “I need to run as many flights of stairs as possible. This helps.”
“The other stairwell has more flights,” he said.
“I’ll do that one next if I’m not too worn out.”
He stayed silent. She let her foot down and moved to the bottom of the stairwell.
The landing here was a storage area for the garage. Sealed buckets of paint for parking lanes, bags of cement mix used to repair damage to the concrete barricades, even bags of blacktop mix to repair potholes. Most of those supplies weren’t used, though she could detect the odor of plastic and some mold in the confined space. The lack of use made it a perfect spot for planting the materials here a week or two earlier. She wasn’t sure why she needed to activate it manually, why they couldn’t put a remote on it, or just program the start time in. She shook her head at the memory of her conversation with her father earlier. He’d been suspicious of her commitment since the start, and doubtless the other major participant shared that distrust. This setup was a test for her, a test of her loyalty, of her ability to see something through all the way to the end. They’d know the second she activated the device, and know if she failed to do so. Punishment—in the form of death—would arrive quickly. But they wouldn’t kill her for it.
They’d kill Roddy.
She swallowed, wishing she had the bottle of water, and looked, frowning at the stack of concrete bags. Upon closer examination, she realized it wasn’t a stack of bags. The clever paint job, combined with the dim lighting, masked the solid rectangular box. She leaned forward, cringing as a spider web grazed her exposed skin, and reached over to touch the box. She didn’t touch wood, but a plastic slip covering. Clever. She slid her hand down the side to lift the cover off the box, hoping nothing lived in the dark crevice but the spider that spun the web.
Activate The Ravagers Ep1v2 Page 5