by Dana Marton
He worked slowly, stopping frequently, trying to coincide with the wind brushing the branches of a couple of dogwoods against the siding below him. Once three screws were removed, he rotated the vent cover on the fourth, and just like that, it was out of his way, yet secured, not falling off, not making a sound. Since the bug screen—to keep out creepy crawlers—was glued to the back of the vent cover, that too went with it.
If the attic fan box were the standard twelve-inch residential size, he would have been shit out of luck. The industrial building, however, had an industrial-size fan, twenty-four by twenty-four inches. Not a particularly spacious fit, but not an unsurmountable challenge for Murph.
Since the hot days of summer were long gone, the fan wasn’t on—another piece of good luck. Murph unfastened it, then pushed in one side, enough so he could grab the plastic-coated wire, and then, using that, he quietly lowered the fan against the wall on the inside.
The roof’s edge pressed against his groin as he slipped a little lower. He ignored the discomfort. His focus was on finding Emma and Kate.
He stuck his head in the hole.
A man wearing blue overalls stood inside the front door, gun in hand.
Asael.
Murph’s fingers itched to put a bullet through the guy’s head then and there. There were at least two problems with that, however.
One: His backup weapon was a Glock G19, a nice compact 9mm with excellent accuracy up to fifty yards or so. Unfortunately, Asael stood at close to three times that distance, across the warehouse.
Two: Murph didn’t know where Kate and Emma were. He couldn’t kill Asael until he got the location out of the bastard.
The building was one open space, except for a small area portioned off with a Sheetrock wall in the back. Could be storage, could be stairs leading to a lower level. Maybe Emma and Kate were down there, maybe they weren’t. Taking Asael would have to wait until Murph had eyes on the women.
He twisted so his shoulders would fit through the opening, shoved, then pulled, working himself through silently, until he was lying facedown on the main support beam.
Shelves lined the walls, filled with boxes, most of which were taped shut. The few that were open held myriad spare parts, work overalls, and cans of varnish. Nothing that screamed possible weapon.
Murph measured up the nearest shelf to see if he could lower himself onto it, but it wasn’t tall enough. None of them were. He’d have to jump, and he’d make too much noise, possibly knock the whole shelf over. Asael might open fire. Then Murph would have to shoot back. And he might accidentally kill the bastard too soon.
Below, the hitman stepped up to the door, looked out, then moved back inside again.
Murph shoved his gun into the back of his waistband, then crawled toward his target. The spur-of-the-moment plan was to get right above Asael, drop down on him, take his weapon, then do what it took to make him give up the women’s location. Murph was prepared to get as creative as he had to be, had no qualms whatsoever.
When he switched to a cross beam and finally reached the right spot with Asael directly below him, Murph lowered himself until he hung from the beam by his arms. This was as far as he could go with stealth. Up to this point, his success had depended on silence. From here on, it would depend on speed and skill.
He let go, dropping, but Asael stepped toward the door again at the same time. Instead of landing on top of him, Murph landed right behind him. Instead of Asael breaking Murph’s fall, nothing took the shock of hitting the cement floor from thirty feet up.
Murph ended up on one foot and one knee, pain shooting through him. Then Asael’s gun was at his forehead.
Murph’s weapon—he had managed to pull it—was pointed at Asael’s groin—as high as he had time to raise it. “Standoff.”
“A standoff would indicate equal sides,” Asael said in a droll tone. “I have bargaining chips. You don’t.”
“Then let’s bargain.” Murph overcame the pain enough to stand and straighten, keeping his weapon pointed at Asael. The only reason his ankles weren’t broken was because he’d put on his old Army boots that morning. He gave thanks to whoever designed them to handle shock. “I want Emma and Kate.”
“You toss your weapon, come downstairs with me, and I promise I’ll let you see them.”
“Are they in the basement?” Say yes, and it’s game over.
“No. You can’t just shoot me and free them. They’re nowhere around here.”
“Where are they?”
“You go downstairs with me, and I’ll tell you. Then we negotiate.”
Play for time.
Murph had sent Cirelli the address ten minutes ago. FBI agents would be on their way by now.
“All right.” Murph had plenty of hand-to-hand combat training. Even without the gun, he’d be hardly defenseless.
He tossed his weapon as far as he could so Asael couldn’t just pick it up. The Glock landed halfway across the warehouse.
Asael pointed toward the door in the back. “After you.”
Murph strode ahead, then down the stairs. No Kate. No Emma. Asael hadn’t lied about that. Nothing down there but workbenches. And the one set up under the light in the middle made the short hairs stand up at the back of Murph’s neck.
“I have a client who is willing to pay generously for a live performance,” Asael said behind him.
Play for time.
“Like what?” Murph walked farther in.
The hitman stopped to his left, leaving plenty of room between them, so Murph couldn’t grab his gun. He was a murderous bastard, but he wasn’t an idiot. “Let’s call it an endurance test.”
He pulled what Murph recognized as a detonation device—with a dramatic red button in the middle—from his pocket. He put it away and pulled out his phone next, scrolled, then turned it toward Murph.
The image on the screen showed Kate, tied up and staring into the camera with wide-eyed terror, crammed into a narrow wooden space, surrounded by two-by-fours and plywood.
Ice spread through Murph, a deadly calm. Because hot fury wouldn’t be useful to Kate. “I’m going to kill you.”
“I don’t think you will.”
“Where is Emma?”
“They’re together. I wouldn’t separate sisters.”
That setup…the two-by-fours, the plywood… “They’re in a parade float.” Shit. “The captain got your picture. He figured it out.” Murph bluffed. “Broslin PD are already there. And so is the FBI. They got in earlier today.”
“There are two dozen floats. I have five devices, hidden where they can’t be seen without the whole structure being taken apart. Same with your girlfriend and her sister. Those floats were put together in the warehouse next door. I had access to them for half an hour when there was a small fire.” Asael’s smile was calm and confident. “How long before your friends start taking apart the floats and come across the float with Kate and Emma inside? An hour is my guess. You spent fifteen minutes driving here, then fifteen crawling in through the back.”
“What do you want?”
“You lie on that table and let me entertain my client. I will not push the red button for as long as you last. Hang in there for more than half an hour, and Broslin PD or the FBI will probably find the women. Grit your teeth and show me how tough you are. Buy their lives with your blood. That’s the deal.”
Murph had been a small-town cop and soldier with the Army Reserves. He was a simple guy at heart. Protect the weak. Eliminate the bad guys. He didn’t think in elaborate evil plans. He sure as hell hadn’t seen this coming.
The problem with fucking evil geniuses was that they were geniuses.
Bottom line: He would die to save Kate and Emma. That wasn’t even a question.
He walked to the workbench. The FBI is on their way. He lay down and put his feet and hands through the prepared restraints. The cold neon light above blinded him. He had to squint.
Asael came over and tightened the straps.
“Think of it as a chance to test yourself,” he said as he set up his phone to livestream, then shoved it into his chest pocket, the camera on top free and unobstructed. “Are you as tough as you think you are? In the next half an hour, you will have your answer.”
And then he put away his gun and picked up a box cutter.
Chapter Thirty-One
Kate
“No, no, no, no, no!” Kate’s protest came out as “Nnnnnnnn” because her mouth was taped shut.
She lay wedged tightly between sheets of plywood, in a dark space, paralyzed from the drug Asael had made her inject into her arm. It hadn’t been a sedative as he said. It was a paralytic.
Normally, she didn’t mind dark, tight places. When she was young, she used to hide from the monster’s beatings in the gap behind the washer. But this current hole reminded her a coffin. And if that wasn’t enough, Emma suddenly kicked her on the head.
“Mmmmmmmmmmm,” came from that direction.
Oh good. Maybe Emma’s shot was wearing off. It’d be nice if at least one of them had working muscles.
Then Kate felt a tingling in her limbs, and her control returned too, little by little. Of course, she still couldn’t crank her neck back far enough to check on her sister, and even if she could, there was precious little light to see by. Only a thin sliver filtered through a crack over her knee, just enough to make out the phobic dimensions of the space, and the red light blinking on a familiar black device at her feet.
Their deadly prison was moving. And outside, people cheered. After Asael had put them in the back of his van, once they lay in there unable to move or speak, he’d driven them over to the warehouse next door and stuffed them into the internal scaffolding of a parade float.
Death was his verdict, he’d said. But death was too fast. This, the anticipation—lying paralyzed for hours while Kate waited to be blown to pieces, knowing her sister was going to be blown up with her, along with friends who were there for the parade, knowing Murph was on the torture table in the basement—was the true punishment.
Kate didn’t have enough space to pull back either her hands or her feet to bang on the wood, to make a sound loud enough to be heard over the roar of the souped-up engine of the truck that pulled the float, over the cacophony of the parade. So she banged her head on the wood under her. The volume was pitiful and not worth the pain.
Emma kept squirming, then there was a ripping kind of sound, then Emma said, “Brush the side of your cheek against your shoulder like you’re trying to wipe it until you curl up the edge of the tape.”
“Mmmmmm.”
Minutes passed before Kate succeeded, then more time before she rolled the tape off enough to speak. “Are you all right?”
Instead of responding, Emma shouted, “Help!”
Kate joined her sister. “Help!”
Nobody responded. Nobody heard them over the marching band that burst into music nearby.
Emma kept wiggling and kicked Kate in the head again. “Sorry.”
“I’m going to turn over. Let me see if I can untie your feet with my teeth.” They had to shout now, just to hear each other.
“Okay.”
Kate banged the crap out of her shoulders doing that, but then she was in position and tore at what felt like plastic clothesline. “I’m going to lose some teeth.”
“Keep going,” Emma said. “Murph will love you even toothless.”
Kate didn’t pause to comment on that. She didn’t know how much time they had left. The damn device didn’t have those convenient little countdown numbers like in the movies.
By sheer dumb luck, she yanked the right spot, and the rope gave. Then she pulled back so Emma could shuck off the restraints.
“Kick up,” she told her sister. “As hard as you can.”
Emma did.
Crack.
“Again.”
Emma didn’t have to be told twice.
And then something popped, and the top busted. More dark space opened up above them, with a few more slivers of light. Kate pushed with her tied feet and hands. Until she was able to sit up at last, just as the float stopped moving and a loud murmur went through the crowd outside.
Emma was tearing at the rope around her wrists with her teeth, but paused long enough to ask, “What is it?”
“I don’t know.” Kate attacked her own restraints.
Emma finished first, then helped.
They were at the core of the float, inside the platform, a forest of two-by-fours and plywood around them, forming chimneys above. That seemed like the easiest way out.
“Up. Move.” Kate nudged Emma toward one rabbit hole while she wedged herself into another.
It was a tight fit, but Kate wiggled up until she saw something above that was thin enough to let light through. Hope hammered at her heart. Papier mâché.
She braced her feet, then burst through headfirst and found herself in another enclosed structure for a second, this one yellow and sparkly. Then that fell away in sections, and she was out in the open. People were clapping.
She’d come through a giant daffodil—probably the Longwood Gardens float—and sat there for a second in the middle of the yellow petals like a demented ninja fairy while people cheered, thinking her part of the spectacle.
Then Emma broke through in a tulip next to her, and people cheered louder.
Kate gulped the fresh air, leaning closer to Emma so she could shout into her sister’s ear. “Find the police! Tell them about the devices. Then find Mom and Dad and make sure they’re safe.”
She was already sliding to the ground when Emma called after her. “Where are you going?”
“Back to the warehouse to warn Murph.”
Kate dove into the confused crowd and yelled, “Bomb! Run!”
A panicked wave of people carried her forward, everybody shouting. A sign of the times that nobody for a second thought it was a prank. Which, actually, was damn lucky.
Kate separated from the mob at the first alley, darted through, then ran like the crow flies, through front lawns and back gardens. If she were at the Olympics, they would have given her a gold medal in hurdle jumping.
She didn’t stop until she was at the industrial park, dozens of hangars and warehouses occupying several acres.
She ran around, desperate.
Then she caught sight of an old sign on the side of a building in the distance to the left, a logo with a colonial-style sideboard and faded letters above it. Nowak’s Antiques.
Heart banging, lungs fighting for air, she took off toward that.
* * *
Murph
“I wouldn’t mind a coffee break.” Murph stretched the restraint that held his right hand to the table. The progress was maddeningly slow, one millimeter at a time, but it was progress. Asael only half paid him attention. He was discussing with his client what they should do to their torture victim next.
He’d started by cutting off Murph’s clothes and made such a theatrical performance out of it, it took at least three or four minutes. Fine with Murph. But then the rest was rougher. Asael had tried every tool he had on Murph’s skin for sharpness, slashing at least two dozen cuts of various depths. And that still wasn’t anything serious, just a test before they got going.
The distant client had an obsession with pliers. So far, Murph was missing a thumbnail and one of his bottom teeth. Both had been extracted with excruciating slowness, as if Asael couldn’t bear rushing the performance. Both had been saved in a jar so they could be mailed to the client later as keepsakes.
Murph focused on his breathing to block the pain. His body was brimming with adrenaline, so that helped. He turned his head sideways and spat blood on the floor. He was lying flat on his back and didn’t want to choke.
The client made up his mind. “Cut off his balls.”
Asael looked at Murph.
Murph said, “Let’s not be rash.”
Where the hell is the FBI?
Probably at the parad
e, and Murph couldn’t blame Cirelli. The lives of thousands of people were at stake. All hands were needed there. He hoped they’d found Emma and Kate.
Asael picked through his instruments of torture and lifted a carving knife with a smile. “How is this?”
“Better find something bigger.” Murph slurred a little because his mouth was swollen. “Match the size of the tool to the size of the job.”
“I didn’t think this would be so entertaining.” Asael sounded genuinely pleased. “I might do it again. Of course, I might not find another one like you.”
The hitman had started out with sneering arrogance and cold-blooded assholery, but the more Murph endured, the more the guy had warmed to him.
The most surreal part was how much he seemed like just a regular guy, going about an average job. The way the FBI had talked about him, Murph had expected more of a TV villain, a flamboyant psychopath.
If they’d run into each other at the Broslin Diner, Murph wouldn’t have looked at the guy twice. Maybe that was how it worked. Why he’d never been caught.
Asael picked up an antique screwdriver and held out the wooden handle toward Murph. “Want something for biting down?”
“Your carotid artery.”
Asael laughed. He set the tool down. “I guess then just relax. I don’t know if that makes it hurt less or not, but that’s what the doctors always say.”
Every muscle in Murph’s body clenched tight, then tighter yet when Kate stole soundlessly down the stairs, stopping a dozen feet behind the unsuspecting hitman. She had Murph’s backup weapon in her hand.
Oh hell, love. You shouldn’t be here.
Murph hadn’t broken down through the whole torture, but he almost did at the sight of her. And not just because her right eye was purple and nearly swollen shut. Although, somebody was going to die for that.
Don’t hesitate.
Like I showed you. Feet apart. Both hands on the weapon. There you go, honey. Aim for center mass. Don’t give the fucker time to turn around.
That was the key. Except, civilians always hesitated. Killing another human being went against instinct. Most decent people needed a few seconds to override their lifelong beliefs.