Silhouetted against the rocks in the moonlight, Aiden laughed humorlessly. “Figures. Why not?”
He banged his palm on the roof of the car. When she looked again, he was gone.
Heart pounding, she drove up the hill toward the factory. She crested the rise and it came into sight. Dark, entirely, seemingly abandoned behind the chain-link fence. It looked like a ghostly prison.
The road ran straight the last half mile, directly at the gate. Her fears grew sharp barbs inside. The last time she’d been in that building, she’d been fourteen. It had smelled of chemicals and mossy water.
She turned on the high beams. The gate was open. Inside, the road continued straight ahead, fifty yards to a heavy garage door. On either side of the road, yards were fenced off and piled high with pallets and abandoned equipment. Jesus. Driving in there would be putting herself in a shooting gallery.
Harper stopped, well back. She set the parking brake and felt a dry heave trying to roll up her throat.
She could turn and run. So many people had insisted that Piper wasn’t here, wasn’t in trouble. Who was she to disagree? She could drive back to L.A. and wait for the cops to investigate the situation. She didn’t need to be here, in the last place she ever wanted to be: playing vigilante. Outside the law once again.
Screw that.
She put the car in neutral and took a breath. Phone in her back pocket. Swiss Army knife in her front. Heart jammed high in her throat. She climbed into the backseat, cracked the tailgate, and rolled out of the car to the ground. She silently shut the tailgate and ran across the desert slope toward the hill to the west, hoping Aiden had made it there ahead of her.
Aiden found Sorenstam and Oscar in the rocks on a knob of hillside at the back of the factory complex. They were taking cover behind a welter of boulders.
Erika eyed him in the dark, her hair catching the moonlight. She was chilly and intense. “Where’s Harper?”
“Figure ninety seconds behind me.”
He explained the plan to leave the car outside the gate.
Erika nodded. “Makes sense.”
“There’s worse to tell.”
He told them Piper’s wrist had been slit. Erika inhaled. Oscar shook his head. “That sucks.”
Aiden said, “Back door, we get inside, we find her, get her out.”
Erika said, “You strapped?”
He nodded.
“I have worse to tell, too,” she said. “Travis Maddox works for Spartan Security, under an alias. God knows what resources he has deployed down in that factory.”
“You gotta be freakin’ kidding me,” Aiden said.
“Not kidding at all. He’s been working in disguise.”
For a second, just a second, Erika looked wry. He ran the back of his hand across his forehead.
She said, “We wait for Harper, then we do it.” She pointed at Oscar. “You stay here. I mean it. You try to run, you’ll get nowhere. The coyotes will get you before you reach town. And by that, I mean Eddie Azerov and his canine companion. You made it once, and you should presume that used up your luck. I could cuff your right hand to your left ankle and leave you here. Or you could trust that I can track better than the bad guys, and when I find you, I’ll run you over. It’s dark. Oops.”
Aiden said, “Take her at her word. You don’t want to cross this woman.”
They waited until Oscar said, “Okay.”
Erika turned and peered between rocks at the darkened complex below. Aiden knew she was feeling the heat, but she had been overtaken by the urgency of Piper’s dire situation. She had decided she had to throw the dice on rescue.
He should never have doubted that she’d do so.
Aiden felt her nearness, and felt a swell of emotion. She didn’t have to be here. She was risking her career, risking herself, and largely because he had asked her to.
She hadn’t given up on him. He felt a catch in his chest and he shut his eyes, fixing her in his mind, letting that thought flow through him. Then he exhaled, opened his eyes, and caught her looking at him.
“You’re the best,” he said.
She smiled, cool as ever, a pearly presence in the moonlight. “Cheesy pep talk, Coach.”
A second later, they heard pebbles skitter across the ground. He and Erika both raised their weapons.
Harper appeared at the edge of the rocks. She brought herself up short.
“Jesus,” she said.
They lowered their guns. She stood breathing hard, hands at her sides, staring at them darkly. “Guess you’re ready. Remember, point the shooty end at the bad guys.”
Erika holstered her pistol. “Got it. Now I have bad news for you. Travis works for Spartan Security. Presume he has a significant surveillance capability and God knows what kind of booby traps inside that factory.”
Harper slowly went down on one knee, as though she’d deflated. She looked at Sorenstam, seemingly hoping it was a joke.
“Tell us everything you know about that factory,” Sorenstam said.
Harper crouched down. On the dirt, she drew a rough outline of the complex with her index finger. “Front gate here. If they have somebody watching, they should be able to see the road and the MINI . . .”
She stopped. Her phone was ringing.
Hunched over behind the rocks, down on one knee, Harper took the phone and answered it. “See me?”
“This isn’t Red Rover, Red Rover,” Travis said. “You don’t have to ask. Drive through the gate.”
Her head came up sharply. She gave a nervous thumbs-up. Travis apparently believed she was still in the car.
“Not going to do that,” she said. “Y’all come out.”
“Don’t be such a coward.”
“Don’t play dumb. Walk out the gate and meet my car.”
There was a pause on his end. She held Aiden’s gaze. She couldn’t believe Travis was actually stumped, or trying to figure out how to play things. But all she could do was hold her ground.
“Call me back when you’re ready to come out,” she said, and hung up.
Sorenstam and Aiden stood and checked their weapons. They gave each other a look and some connection fired up between them. Partners, sworn, ready to breach the building together.
Sorenstam said, “If the Kern County deputies get here, they get here. But Piper doesn’t have time for us to wait.”
Harper realized they were ready to leave her there behind the rocks with Oscar. That was Aiden’s plan to protect her: misdirection. Use the MINI as a distraction while he and Sorenstam went in the back.
Gratitude and sheer relief filled her. She put the back of her hand to her lips and reached for him, but he was already stepping out of reach, chambering a round in his HK.
He turned. “How many connecting hallways in the factory building? Stairs, blind spots? Everything you got, Harper. Quickly.”
They both eyed her tensely. She turned back to the square she had begun to scratch in the sand. “It’s . . .”
It was a rat’s nest of passageways and dead ends and crawl spaces.
“Piper sounded like she was in a small room, not the main factory floor. It could be . . .”
Staircases that doubled back, catwalks where a sniper could lie in wait.
Her breath caught harshly in her throat. “I have to go with you.”
There was no other way, no time to get in and out and reach Piper unless she herself led them inside.
Sorenstam said, “You’re not a sworn officer.”
“That’s right, I’m not,” Harper said. “I don’t know how to protect and defend. I know how to intercept and steal. So I’m going to steal Piper back.”
“Harper?” Aiden said.
“Quick, before I change my mind.” She started down the hill and gestured for them to follow.
There
was no going back now. Even if Travis did as she was asking, it would take only a few minutes for him to realize that he’d been duped. The clock was ticking. They quietly broke cover and began working their way down the slope to the fence on the back side of the factory.
By the time they reached the fence, Aiden was limping. He was running without complaint, but his stride was noticeably uneven. They crossed the last fifty yards across open ground, in the dark but still visible to anybody on the roof or spotters patrolling the perimeter.
A placard hung on the fence at eye level. PROTECTED BY SPARTAN SECURITY SYSTEMS. That answered that question, then.
Aiden paused and locked his fingers together in a stirrup. Harper looked at him briefly, saw the pain on his face, and said, “I’m okay.”
She stuck her toes between the diamond links in the fence and climbed. Sorenstam took Aiden’s offer and got a quick lift. She heard him exhale, hard, as he boosted her. Sorenstam slickly reached the top and rolled across like an old-school high jumper. She landed lightly. A moment later, she took the shotgun as Aiden passed it over the top of the fence. By the time Harper dropped to the ground, Sorenstam again had it in her hand. She waited while Aiden climbed over. He dropped, and tried to make it look as if it didn’t hurt when he landed.
The factory building ran for more than a hundred yards to the east, about ten yards inside the fence. The space was mostly bare. At a couple of places, fifty-five-gallon drums stood rusting on concrete pads.
There were only a few windows along the back wall. That reassured Harper. There had been, at one time, razor wire along the top of the chain-link fence, but it was long gone, rusted or stolen—at least along the section of the fence they had climbed. It was too dark for her to see whether there were cameras on the building, but it was certain when they landed that there weren’t motion-sensing lights. They remained in the dark. All she could hear was her own breathing, her own fear trying to leap out.
Aiden took the lead, hurrying to the wall, gun in his hand. Harper followed and pressed herself against the wall beside him. Sorenstam closed up behind her.
Sorenstam held the shotgun across her body, muzzle aimed at the concrete. Her pistol was holstered. Harper glanced at it, and Sorenstam gave her an excoriating look in return.
“No,” she said.
Harper grit her teeth. Sorenstam was not about to give up her service weapon. Sorenstam and Aiden exchanged quick hand gestures. Aiden moved out. Harper followed. In her hand, she held her Swiss Army knife.
They walked silently along the wall until they came to a door. Aiden tried the handle. Locked. Sorenstam whispered, “Window, twenty yards farther.”
Harper ducked low and ran to it. It was securely locked. She ran back, shaking her head. “Only way to get in is to break the glass. And what we need isn’t access. It’s surreptitious access.”
From his back pocket Aiden took a slim black case. He dropped—painfully—to one knee and withdrew two slim stainless-steel implements. They looked like they’d been liberated from a dentist’s office. He inserted their tips one after the other, carefully, into the lock. He manipulated them back and forth. Harper heard every scratch and click. She scanned the view, her skin practically throbbing with the sense that they were about to be discovered. Sorenstam watched. Aiden whispered, “Light,” and she cupped her hand around the display of her phone and directed it toward the door handle. He murmured, “Almost . . .”
This was taking too long. Harper said, “Let me.”
With reluctance, Aiden moved aside. His kit was a basic five-pick set, but the old factory had a basic lock. She inserted the tension wrench along the bottom of the lock. Then she slid in a rake. She felt it move along the pins inside the lock. She gently applied tension, sliding the rake back and forth. One by one, the pins fell into place along the shear line.
With a sharp click, the lock tripped. She turned the handle. Eased it open an inch. No alarm.
Pressing a hand to the wall for support, Aiden stood up. The burglar’s tools went quickly back in the case and into his pocket. He held the door, nodded, and silently counted to three.
If Sorenstam had any qualms about silent entry without a warrant outside her jurisdiction, she quashed them. First through the door, she disappeared inside. Aiden and Harper followed her, into the dark.
47
Inside, they paused. From the pocket of her fleece, Sorenstam took a roll of electrical tape. She tossed it to Aiden. He tore off a strip with his teeth and strapped it across the latch on the door. He silently pulled the door closed. With luck it would appear locked, should anybody come patrolling. They waited while their eyes adjusted to the darkness. It was almost no adjustment at all. Just dark.
Sorenstam clicked on a mini Maglite. The beam, pinpoint bright, illuminated the hallway.
It smelled of mildew. Closed doors, carpet chewed and bunched up in places. Drop-panel ceiling, with panels missing. Fluorescent light tubes above. On the walls, light switches, some pulled loose and hanging by the wires.
Aiden whispered, “Foragers have been here. Stealing the copper from the wiring, probably.”
So, poor security, as if Harper needed any confirmation. “Normally, I would hope the plant has a hard line to the security company, maybe we’d trip an alarm and get a response. But since it’s Spartan, I guess we don’t want that.”
Sorenstam said, “No way.”
They crept forward, stepping over the bunched carpet. Harper listened and heard nothing.
Aiden said, “The layout.”
“Offices along this side of the building. The factory floor takes up most of the ground level, with a high ceiling and ventilation windows at the top.”
“Basement access?” he said.
“Stairs on either end.”
They progressed along the hall. At each office, Sorenstam paused, opened the door, and checked the interior, barrel first, the shotgun a black glint under the Maglite. All were empty.
They wanted to work their way to the center of the vast building. That, they had agreed, was where Piper was most likely to be held if she was on this floor: farthest from any doors or windows that could be breached. As far as possible from the exits. She was either near the factory floor, or deep in the guts of the place.
Harper checked her watch. Two minutes, nineteen seconds since they’d left the cover of the rocks outside. Five minutes since she had left the car running. Her arms itched, her scalp, her nerves.
Where was Travis? Where was Zero? Out front, she hoped, staring at the idling MINI. But even if they were, the deception couldn’t last much longer.
Aiden paused at a corner and raised a hand, signaling stop. He put his back against the wall and inched out to glance around. After a second, he waved them on. Sorenstam snapped the Maglite into a mount atop the shotgun, and she carried it shoulder high, aimed down the hall, with the light tracking her path.
Halfway down the hall, Harper’s phone vibrated. She put a hand against Aiden’s shoulder. He did the same to Sorenstam. The three of them stopped short.
Harper checked all her nerves. If she answered too loudly, and Travis was nearby and heard her voice . . .
She pressed the key. “Where is she?”
They all held absolutely still. She had spoken quietly, with a note of menace.
Travis said, “This isn’t a negotiation. Drive through the gate.”
The demand in his voice was absolute. So was something else. Mockery, maybe.
“I can wait all night. I have a full tank. Piper comes out and then Oscar goes on his merry way.”
“Pull forward. Piper’s in no shape to walk eight hundred twelve meters.”
She felt a chill. To know that precise distance, he had to be looking at the MINI through range-finder binoculars. The high beams would keep him from seeing inside the car, but he was sending her a message.
&nbs
p; In the white glare from the Maglite, Aiden and Sorenstam looked ghostly. Harper pointed down the hall. Gestured for them to keep going. The three of them hurried, Harper with the phone to her ear, Sorenstam in the lead. Aiden glanced at Harper and made a circling gesture—keep talking.
“I need to see Piper. Right now,” Harper said.
The offices along the darkened hallway gave way to workshops and labs, some with interior windows, most with broken glass. Then there was a sense of sudden spaciousness. Sorenstam clicked off the Maglite. Aiden inched forward.
They were at the doorway to the vast factory floor. High up, above the catwalks and hoists on rails overhead, a row of windows leaked moonlight. A disused assembly line ran parallel to one wall of the room. Bizarrely, it reminded Harper of the bar at Xenon.
She listened closely and still didn’t hear Travis. “Send Piper out.”
“Where’s Oscar?”
She turned, thinking she heard his voice. Aiden and Sorenstam did likewise. Aiden pointed at the front of the building.
She waited, as silent as she could be. She tried to see in the dark.
Travis still didn’t put Piper on the phone. Harper had two thoughts, both of which tightened her stomach. One, Piper couldn’t come to the phone because she was unconscious or dead. Or two, Travis couldn’t put her on because he wasn’t with her. She was someplace apart from him in this complex.
She scanned the rafters, and stopped. A tiny red light glowed from a top corner of the building.
“Come out, Zannah, or I’ll bring Piper to you at the end of a chain being dragged behind my car,” he said.
It was a camera. She knew then: They were out of time.
She frantically scanned the factory floor. Across it she saw the stairs heading down to the basement. She saw that the staircase had pipes running overhead, and wiring, and conduit. She nodded at Aiden and Sorenstam, and ran out onto the factory floor, heading directly across, aiming for it.
Travis said, “It’s time to say good-bye.”
Phantom Instinct (9780698157132) Page 25