The front of the distillery exploded with a series of fireballs and she winced, the heat blowing over her like a fiery wind. It took everything she had not to scream Matt’s name and run into the inferno, but instead she forced herself to stay dispassionate and continued to scan the area for threats, allowing the workers to run through the gates, away from the distillery.
Jet returned to the downed man and repeated her question as she eyed the flames belching from the building.
“Where’s Dante? If you want to be alive in five seconds, you’ll tell me.”
His eyes fluttered open, glazed with agony, and looked around wildly, unfocused.
“I…”
“Dante. Where?”
“In…the back…main…build…ing…”
“Today’s your lucky day,” Jet said. Two more gunshots sounded from near the pickup truck. She pirouetted, the Mac-10 at the ready. Paco appeared from behind the truck and approached her. She looked at him and motioned with her head at the pump shotgun. “That might do you more good where we’re going.”
Paco scooped up the shotgun. “I think that’s it for guards out here.” He took in the flames licking from the building. “I’m sorry about your friend.”
“Let’s get this over with. Follow me. Dante’s offices are in the back.”
They jogged toward the flames, which were already dying down, and then ran along the side of the warehouse. When they reached the rear, two armed men appeared from around the corner, both also clutching Mac-10s, and opened up at them. Jet allowed them to drain their weapons shooting at the wall she’d taken cover behind and when she heard the gun bolts snap open, she leaned around and cut them down with hers, the two-stage sound suppressor bucking in her hands as she fired. She estimated that she still had half the magazine left and whispered to Paco.
“There’s a door here. Cover me. I’m going in.”
Paco hurried to the door and stood with his shotgun as Jet approached it. She nodded, and he reached down with his left hand, gripping the shotgun with his right, and twisted the doorknob. It turned. He exchanged a glance with her and then pulled the door open.
Gunfire boomed from inside – another shotgun. Paco leaned around the doorjamb and returned fire, pumping the gun again and again as he laid down a devastating rain of death. When the gun was empty, he tossed it aside and freed his pistol. Jet threw herself through the door, rolling on the ground as she searched for a target. A dead man’s sightless eyes stared back at her from the floor, his shotgun still gripped in his hands.
Paco entered and moved to the corpse, picking up the scattergun as Jet swept the area with the Mac-10. To their right were offices and a two-story room. Jet nodded to the office door, and Paco moved toward it, wary of any further attacks. When he reached it, Jet followed and they framed the doorway. Paco repeated his move from outside and swung the door wide, but this time no shooting greeted them. After several beats he stepped across the threshold and turned down a long corridor.
They reached the end of the hall and found themselves facing another door. This one had a deadbolt on it. Paco tried the knob and shook his head. Jet made a hand gesture and he moved away. She pointed the Mac-10 at the lock and fired a burst at the deadbolt. The big slugs tore into the wood, shattering it. She kicked it in and Paco rolled into the room with the shotgun at the ready.
Dante stood at his window, a cigar smoldering in his hand. He turned to them and held up both hands.
“I’m unarmed.”
“Stay where you are,” Jet said.
He nodded. She cautiously approached him and patted him down. Dante smiled as she did so.
“Under different circumstances, I’d offer to buy you a drink or a Rolex or something.”
“Where’s Tara?” Jet asked, her tone flat.
“Who?”
“The American woman.”
“Ah. Maria. Tsk, tsk. So her real name’s Tara? How sad that she doesn’t confide the important things in me. I thought we had something there.”
“Last time I ask. Where is she?”
“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll tell you where she is and I’ll allow you to live. In return, you allow me to live. Your fight isn’t with me, I assure you.”
Paco spat. “Your assurances mean nothing.”
Dante eyed him as though seeing him for the first time. “I know where she is. Kill me and she escapes. Is that really what you want?”
“Where is she?” Jet demanded again, pressing the Mac-10 suppressor against Dante’s crotch.
“The police are on their way. Your finite time is even now running out. Do you want her, or do you want me? Choose. Because you can’t have both.” Dante’s voice was calm, reasoned, the words almost a purr, so velvety was his tone.
“Fine. You live. Where. Is. She?” Jet said.
“In the lab.”
“Where’s that?”
“Through that door, at the end of the hall.” He pointed to a metal doorway on the far side of the expansive suite of offices.
“Is there another exit?”
“No. That’s the only one.”
Jet looked at Paco. “Stay here. Watch him. If he’s telling the truth, we let him go.”
“But–”
“You heard me.”
Jet moved to the door and took a final look at Dante. “If you lied to me, I’ll shoot you myself. And I know how to do it to guarantee unspeakable agony for the few hours it will take you to die.”
Dante nodded. “You and…Tara…will get along famously. Birds of a feather, I daresay.”
“Is she armed?”
“Not that I know of. But you should assume she might be. Apparently she doesn’t tell me everything.”
Jet inched the door open and stared down a long hallway, at the end of which was another open doorway, and beyond that a large room with the harsh glare of fluorescent lighting shining down on lab tables. Jet crept down the hall, both the Glock and Mac-10 in her hands. When she reached the doorway, she paused and listened, every fiber of her being on alert. She stood like that for several seconds, but sensed nothing other than an empty room. She swept the visible areas with her weapons, but there was no Tara, just beakers and flasks and equipment.
Once inside, she methodically checked behind the large vats in each of the corners and beneath the tables. A door on the opposite end of the room was the only remaining spot Tara could be. She approached it and called out.
“I’ll give you three seconds and then I’m going to empty a full clip into that room. This is your only warning.”
Nothing.
Logic told her Tara had to be in there, but her instincts were telling her that it was empty. Still, Jet stepped back and fired a burst from the Mac-10 through the door.
Her ears rang from the sound of the shots in the small space. She reached out and twisted the knob and pulled the door wide. Inside was a storage area, fifteen feet square, with boxes and canisters and lab coats, some now with smoking holes in them. But no Tara.
Jet’s eyes rose to the air grids. It was a drop ceiling, but there was no evidence of any of the big squares having been pushed out of place so Tara could climb up. There would have been white dust on the floor below when she replaced them, and there was none. Jet studied the floor in the gloom and switched on the light. There, in the center, was a grid – a large drain.
She moved to it and kneeled down. The hole below the grid was large enough for someone to escape through. She inspected the corners of the drain and saw signs of scraping – recent, to her eye, on the edges of the rusty metal.
Jet heaved the grid up and set it to the side. She peered down into the darkness, where she could see a set of rungs embedded in the concrete leading into the nothingness below. Whether it was part of the drainage system or an emergency escape route didn’t matter to her. What mattered was that the grime on the rungs had been disturbed where hands and shoes had used them to descend. Follow those, and she would find Tara.
She returned to
the office, where Paco was holding his pistol on Dante, who looked as calm as if he were in church as he puffed at his cigar by the window.
“Ah, I trust that you settled your differences? I couldn’t help but overhear the shooting,” Dante said.
“Where does the drain in the storage room go?” Jet demanded.
“What? Oh. I see. It goes down a story and a half, into the sewer.”
“I don’t have to tell you that she wasn’t in there, so our deal is off.”
Dante stopped looking so assured. “She was there. If she isn’t anymore, it’s because she went down the drain, so to speak. That’s not my fault.”
“Unless you told her there was an escape route. Where does the sewer let out?”
“I…I mean, it’s been many years since I was down there, but there are some other shafts that go to manholes on some of the surrounding streets.”
“Give me a flashlight,” she said, her voice quiet.
“Certainly. May I?” Dante asked, glancing at Paco, who nodded. Dante moved to his desk and slid the center drawer open. He extracted a flashlight and closed the drawer and then sat down behind the desk. He flicked it on to verify it functioned and held it out to Jet. “Here you go. Seems to work.”
She tossed the Mac-10 on the chair beside Paco and took the light.
“If he so much as coughs, you have my permission to gut-shoot him.”
Paco gave her a humorless grin and considered Dante with hooded eyes.
“My pleasure.”
Chapter 31
Jet returned to the lab room and, after glancing around, made her way to the storage area and the shaft. She slid the penlight into the front pocket of her cargo pants and the Glock into her waistband and lowered herself into the gap, supporting herself with her arms until her feet found the first rung.
The shaft was a tight fit, no more than two and a half feet in diameter, but it had sufficient room for her to ease downward and she had no doubt that was how Tara had escaped the closed room. When she reached the bottom of the rungs, she switched on the flashlight and freed the pistol, holding the light in her left hand as she clutched the gun in her right.
She found herself in a dank brick tunnel barely four feet high, with calf-high suspect water streaming down its black length. The smell almost choked her and she gagged before switching to breathing through her mouth. While much of the fluid in the passageway was probably drainage, it was obvious from the stench that sewage was also a big contributor. She tried not to think about what she was walking through and instead shined the light in both directions, looking for any clue as to Tara’s passage.
After a pause, Jet turned left and began making her way slowly along the tunnel. Cockroaches scuttled in the darkness, startled by the beam, the unwelcome illumination glinting off their shiny brown carapaces as they raced for cover, preferring the dark crannies of the crumbling brickwork to the unexpected exposure.
A slick, furry form darted down one of the smaller tributaries, too small for a human to enter, from which mystery fluid trickled into the sludge underfoot. The rat paused to stare at Jet with curious red eyes, its nose twitching as it evaluated the intruder into its subterranean realm, and then it continued on its way, having decided Jet was too big to eat.
She rounded a bend and found herself at an old grid crafted from iron, barring any further progress. The padlock on the clasp looked relatively new, placed within the last several years, but the coating of grime on it told her that nobody had opened it in some time – certainly not within the last few minutes.
Jet retraced her steps, listening for any hint of where Tara could have gone, ears still ringing from the shooting. All she heard were faint droplets of water trickling from the overhead pipes that ran the length of the tunnel, and the splashing from the drainage ports that spewed from the sides into the river of filth she was wading through. She arrived back at the shaft and played her light down the tunnel, but saw more of the same, with an occasional recessed area along the walls, presumably for maintenance.
Fifty yards further along she came to a junction, where the passageway split into two. She peered down both branches before choosing the right, noting the increase in pipes and valves overhead, as well as along the sides. She moved carefully but with urgency, aware that Tara had a substantial lead on her and that her odds of catching the woman were decreasing with each passing minute. She was tempted to just give up, but discarded the idea, knowing that if Tara escaped, she would be back to hunt Matt down and kill him.
She continued down the branch, the Glock clenched unwaveringly in her hand as the beam of light played across the brick, and stopped when she heard a soft splash behind her. Like a rat landing in the water.
Or an ill-placed step.
She spun just in time to see Tara turning one of the big valve wheels mounted on the wall and was about to fire when the tunnel flooded with high-pressure water blasting from a two-foot-wide aperture. The surge rushed toward her, knocking her off her feet as it hit with the force of a fire hose. Her gun and flashlight tumbled away as she was carried along, unable to breathe, caught completely by surprise – and now in danger of drowning in a forgotten sewer.
~ ~ ~
Paco shifted on the sofa in front of Dante’s desk, hating the arrogant crime lord with every fiber of his being. The man was a murderer, a slaver, a miscreant of the worst sort, and he lived like medieval royalty while he operated his empire. In spite of his sins, he dined at the best restaurants, had the ear of half the members of the government, and was part of the cream of Buenos Aires society. He was responsible for more misery than anyone Paco had ever heard of, yet he seemed to go free time and time again while those around him suffered. Even now, with half his distillery destroyed, it looked like he was going to walk away from the episode unscathed and probably clip the insurance company for a fortune for the damage to his plant.
Dante took another puff of his cigar and smiled at Paco. He leaned forward and locked eyes with him. “You hate me, don’t you? Why is that, hmm?”
“I hate what you are, and what you’ve done.”
“Oh, really? How many men are dead outside because of you? You’re a killer. You butchered them to get to me. What makes you any better than me?”
“Because they weren’t innocents. They work for a monster. They had guns and were rushing to defend you. If you work for monsters, you can expect nothing better than they got.”
“Interesting bit of moral ambiguity. And here you sit, judge, jury, and executioner.”
“That’s right.”
“Your boss there told you I was to be released.”
“She’s not my boss,” Paco spat.
“I see. And I also see that you have no intention of letting me walk away from this, do you?”
Paco glared sullenly at Dante, but didn’t answer.
“Just as I thought. You plan to kill me.”
“I’d like to. I didn’t say I would.”
“You don’t have to say so. It’s written all over your face.”
“Shut up. I don’t want to hear your voice. You sicken me.”
“Have it your way.”
The unsilenced blast blew half the front of the desk apart, the shotgun mounted beneath it loud in the confines of the office. Paco’s chest exploded as buckshot tore into him. He dropped his gun on the marble floor as he looked at Dante uncomprehendingly. Dante rose and walked over to him as he choked, his shirt soaked with bright red blood, his gun arm ruined. He stood over him and ground his cigar into Paco’s wound.
“You dumb bastard. Don’t you know that you can never compete with someone like me? You’re fighting out of your weight class. You’re an insect, nothing more. Think about that as you die on my sofa. You’re nothing.”
“I…you…”
Dante sneered. “Sure thing, sport. I’ll see you in hell. Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to get out of here before the police arrive, which they should, any minute. I called my helicopter when I
first heard the shooting, and it will be here shortly. As to you, my friend, enjoy drowning in your own blood and think of me as you take your last breath.”
~ ~ ~
Tara watched the torrent shoot down the pipe with satisfaction. She’d had sufficient time to test the various valves and when she’d found one that could inflict the kind of damage she had in mind, she’d closed it and darted down the other passageway. When she’d heard Jet’s footsteps choose the other, she’d waited and then retraced her steps, her eyes now adjusted to the near pitch darkness and opened the valve that would flood the tunnel with river water – thousands of tons of it at the turn of a wheel.
The water rose to waist level, but she wasn’t worried. She would find another shaft along the other tunnel and climb to freedom, her pursuer drowned and carried to the sea. Tara didn’t have a gun, so she’d had to rely on her cunning to survive, and it had worked. Not the first time, nor would it be the last, she was sure.
She turned and took a step back the way she’d come and was shocked when something rammed into her back and knocked her face-forward with the force of a freight train. Jet had launched herself from below the surface and slammed her into the filthy water. The vile fluid flooded Tara’s mouth and nose as she flailed beneath the surface, her breath knocked out of her.
Jet waited for Tara to come up so she could finish her, unable to make out much in the gloom, the only faint light coming from a shaft near the junction – a drain from a street-level gutter. Tara burst from the water, gasping. Jet delivered a series of devastating strikes to her head and neck as she fought for air. Tara’s instinct kicked in and she landed several blows of her own, but the combination of being unable to breathe and Jet’s skill had left her exposed, and when Jet head-butted her forehead, she saw stars.
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