by Meg O'Brien
Quietly, they eased around the side of the building toward the front. There was a door there with the words Cartwright Shipping above it. The green paint on the door had peeled badly, and windows on either side were boarded up. A large sign in an empty lot across the street read, Future Site of the Pirate’s Booty Inn.
“I’ll be darned,” Jimmy said. “They’re gentrifying the area. These warehouses’ll probably be a parking lot once they get going. That, or a restaurant and shops.”
“One thing’s sure, it doesn’t look like there’s any building of bombs going on here,” Abby said. “Unless—” She thought a minute, then said, “Let’s go back.”
Pausing by the door at the rear of the building, she took one of the burglary tools from her back pocket and began to pick the lock.
“What the hell?” Jimmy said worriedly, at the same time moving into position beside her so that she couldn’t be seen from the street. “Do you always carry those around?”
“Pretend you don’t know,” Abby said. “They’ll go easier on you if we’re caught.”
“Oh, right,” Jimmy said. “I had no idea I was dating a common crook, officer. We were out for a nice quiet stroll along the waterfront, when all of a sudden—”
“Shh…I need to hear when the tumbler clicks.”
“You’re kidding. I thought they just said that in movies.”
Abby leaned her ear against the door and strained to hear as she moved the tool carefully inside the lock. After a couple of attempts accompanied by frustrated curses, she gave a satisfied sigh. “Aah…got it!”
She opened the door and pushed. It scraped along the cement floor as if it had warped from decades of damp air, and then stuck altogether about halfway.
“I don’t think anyone’s used this door in years,” Abby said, batting away a cobweb. Turning back, she saw that Jimmy was hesitating.
“Are you coming?”
“Do I have to?” he said warily. “I don’t know whether to be more scared of this place, or you.”
“Will you stop? This isn’t funny. This whole thing could be a setup, a cover. There could be a whole army in here of…I don’t know, someone, something….”
“Rats?” he offered helpfully.
“No, dammit, IRA!” She stared at him. “Oh, my God, don’t tell me you’re afraid of rats. You can leap tall buildings in a single bound, but you’re scared of rats?”
“Only in the dark,” he said. “I had one run up my pant leg once.”
“Oh. Sorry.” She frowned. “Did it, uh…bite anything important?”
“Do you mean, am I disabled in any meaningful way?” he asked, grinning. “I guess I’m kind of flattered that you want to know.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Abby said, holding back a smile. “Are you coming or not?”
“Of course I am. I just wanted to be a real man about it and admit my fear, first.” He pushed past her. “Stand back, woman. I’ll defend you to the last…” He came to a dead stop. “Oh, crap! Cobwebs!”
She couldn’t help laughing softly as he grabbed at the ones on his face and tried to clear the tensile strings from his hair. But as they stepped inside, a noise somewhere nearby made her grab his arm for attention, then plant her fingers against her lips.
They both stood motionless for what seemed to Abby like an eternity. There was a strong smell of mold in the warehouse, and her nose itched. She placed her index finger beneath it and pressed to hold back a sneeze.
Finally, when the sound didn’t repeat, she whispered, “Let’s see what’s up there.”
She pointed to a second-story room, the shape of which was becoming visible as her eyes grew accustomed to the dark. It was at the opposite end of what now appeared to be a completely empty warehouse, and windows across it looked down on the floor where they stood.
“If anyone’s up there, they know we’re here,” Jimmy said. “That lightbulb shining in from outside would have made us perfect targets when we came through that door.”
“Yet they aren’t showing themselves.”
“Which means they’re either hiding, hoping not to be found—”
“Or they’re setting a trap,” she said.
“Uh-huh. Tell you what, there are stairs leading up to that room. I’ll go up, see what’s what, and you stay down here. If it looks like I’m in trouble, you can run and call the cops.”
“No way,” Abby said. “I’ll go up and you stay down here. You can call for the cops.”
He sighed. “You are the most obstinate—”
“Yeah, I think you said that before. Now, stay here. I’ll be right back.”
She took off toward the stairs to the upper room. When she reached them, she looked back, but Jimmy wasn’t by the door where she’d left him.
Oh, for God’s sake.
As she moved silently up the stairs, the room on the second floor still seemed dark. But as she grew closer, she realized that a blackout material of some sort covered all the windows. Between the nails that held the material to the window frames, where the fabric hadn’t been drawn tightly enough, slits of light could be seen. And now that she was nearly at the top of the stairs, the faint rumble of a male voice could be heard.
My God, there’s someone in there! And these curtains explain why we weren’t seen coming in.
But wouldn’t they have a guard stationed somewhere, or some sort of alarm letting them know when a stranger came through that back door?
The thought had no sooner left her mind than she heard the sounds of a scuffle below—punches against flesh, and men’s voices grunting. A loud metallic crash resounded like a gong through the empty warehouse as something fell.
A moment later, the door to the second-floor room, only three steps above her now, flew open. “Leo? What the hell’s going on?” a man hollered.
He was around fifty, his black hair receding, with the stocky frame of someone who’d played football at one time, but who’d gone soft in the belly. As he waited for an answer, he looked down and saw Abby crouching just three steps below him.
In that moment, Abby sprang up the steps and launched herself against him, causing him to stagger backward on the small platform in front of the door. A metal railing surrounded the platform, and he nearly went over it. Abby grabbed him by his black knitted shirt and, using a Kenpo move, shoved him into the room by sheer force of momentum.
He fell, banging his head on the scarred wooden floor. For a moment he lay there, dazed.
Abby called back into the warehouse, “Jimmy! You okay?”
What had happened to him? Had he been injured? Worse? But Jimmy was already coming up the stairs, pushing a redheaded kid of about eighteen ahead of him. The kid looked sullen and embarrassed to have been taken down, but the fight had clearly gone out of him.
When they both were in the room, Abby looked back at the man she’d overcome and said, “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
He was on his feet by now, nursing a sore wrist. “That goes both ways,” he said angrily. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m a friend of Pat Devlin’s,” Abby said, not sure that was the right answer, but chancing it.
The man’s face cleared. “You’re Linda? Pat’s friend? You the one who’s supposed to get the package to us?”
The package. The bomb?
“I am,” Abby said. “Me and my friend here. Colin.”
He looked at Jimmy. “You’re Colin?” He frowned. “You don’t look much like the guy Devlin described.”
Oh, great, Abby thought. I pick a fake name and it’s gotta be one they know. Now what?
“Well, I am,” Jimmy said, falling easily into her scam. “And Devlin’s not gonna like hearing that your little schoolboy here attacked me.”
“You should’na snuck in like that,” the kid said sullenly. “I’d’a opened the door if you’d just knocked and gi’n me the password.” He seemed to grow bolder with every word. “Besides, I ain’t scared of old Devlin. He’s not even�
�”
“Leo, shut up!” the other man snapped. “Shut your stupid mouth and leave this to me.”
The kid shot him an angry glance, but did as he was told.
“So, where’s the package?” the man asked Abby.
“You need to identify yourself first,” she said firmly. “I don’t do business with strangers.”
“Hardy,” the man answered with an edge. “Hardy Boyd. Now, hand it over.”
Abby laughed. “I hardly carry it around in my pocket,” she said scornfully. “You’ll get it when the time comes.”
His face grew red. “Wait a minute. When the time comes? Lady, you have any idea how little time we have left?”
“I know exactly how little time we have left,” Abby said. “And we’ll get it to you. Just tell me where to deliver it.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “You telling me you don’t know?” he said suspiciously.
“No,” Abby said calmly, trying to hide the faux pas. “What I’m telling you is, I heard the plans had changed.”
“Well, I don’t know about no change in plans,” he said, moving back a few steps to a desk in the middle of the room. “And if you’re a friend of Pat Devlin’s, you don’t know about no change in plans, either.”
Before Abby realized what he was doing, he’d reached under a pile of papers on the desk and picked up a gun. He pointed it directly at her.
“Now, who the hell are you?” he said.
Jimmy stepped up and held his hands palms out, saying quickly, “All right, easy now! Clearly, there’s been some miscommunication. The point is, you’ll have the package. And you’ll have it on time. That’s what you want, isn’t it? After all, I doubt your friends will be very happy with the job you’ve done if you don’t come through for them.”
The man appeared to think about it. “You know what?” he said at last, swinging the pistol toward Jimmy. “Me mum always told me to beware of people with silver tongues. They’re either thieves or liars, that’s what me mum always said.”
Jimmy laughed. “So go ahead and shoot me,” he said. “Let’s see how much that impresses my friends in al-Qaeda.”
The man stared. “You’re not…nah. That’s another lie. You ain’t al-Qaeda.” He lifted the gun slightly so that it was on an even plane with Jimmy’s face.
Jimmy shrugged and said to Abby, “What do you think, Linda? Do I have friends in al-Qaeda? Friends with money? And are my friends keeping a lock on their bank accounts till I report back about the kind of job The Candlelights did with this package?”
“That’s what I hear,” Abby said. “And you know, it’d just be too damned bad if anything happened to you, and The Candlelights didn’t get that money after all.”
The man’s gun hand wavered. Abby could almost hear him trying to think his way out of making the wrong decision.
“Don’t risk it,” she said. “Twenty-four hours from now, this will all be over. The Candlelights will have a reputation for being worthy of al-Qaeda money, and you’ll be a hero with the IRA.”
She began to walk toward him. “So, why don’t you put down the gun. Let’s talk about where to deliver the goose that’s going to lay that golden egg.”
But Hardy had made his decision. He raised the pistol at Abby and began to squeeze the trigger. Before the hammer even connected, Abby flung herself aside in a lightning-quick move and dove for his lower torso, bringing him down. She was standing with her foot on his chest and the gun in her own hand within seconds.
“Who the hell are you?” the man said, dumb-founded. “Batwoman?”
Abby turned slightly to check on Jimmy and saw that he had grabbed Leo and shoved him face-first against the wall, his hands behind his back.
“More like Wonder Woman,” Jimmy said. “Watch out for that golden lariat.”
Abby steadied her breath and took a good look around the office for the first time. It was nearly empty, except for a few straight-back wooden chairs, a plain battered wooden desk, a bare overhead lightbulb and the papers that were scattered on the desk. There was a musty smell over everything, and even the chair at the desk looked as if it had been there since the 1940s.
“You okay with him for a minute?” she asked Jimmy.
“Sure, but I’ve got a better idea.” He bent down to disconnect a telephone cord from the wall. It was at least twenty feet long, and connected to a telephone under the piles of paper on the desk—the only piece of electronic equipment in the room.
“Toss me that other end, will you? I’ll tie our friends up so they won’t be any more trouble.”
“Wait a minute,” Abby said. “Leave it connected.”
When she was still out on the stairs, she’d heard a man’s voice inside here. That had to have been Hardy. But who had he been talking to, since Leo was downstairs?
She lifted the receiver and hit the redial button. The phone at the other end rang, and the person that Hardy had apparently been talking to came on the line.
“Who’s this?” a man said.
“Linda,” she answered in a low voice.
“Linda? That you? I can’t hardly hear you. You take that package over yet?”
“It’s not ready yet.”
The man cursed. “What’re we supposed to do with this kid? He’s a fuckin’ handful!”
Abby’s first reaction was confusion. Then her legs went weak. This kid.
Was it Danny? Did the man on the other line have Kris’s son?
“What are you—”
He cut her words off.
“Just tell the old man he’d better get that package to us, pronto. We need to get rid of this brat.”
The man hung up, and Abby just stood there a moment, feeling numb and unable to think.
“Hey. You okay?” Jimmy said.
She pulled herself back and hung up the phone. “I’m here. Catch.”
Pulling the cord from the phone, she tossed it over to him—but not before making note of the exact time and writing it down.
Jimmy had Leo lying on his stomach, and was sitting on him. He took a Swiss Army knife from his back pocket and cut the phone wire in four long pieces. While he tied Leo’s wrists and ankles, Abby continued to hold the gun on Hardy. When Jimmy was finished with Hardy, who was cursing steadily and loudly, she sat in the chair. As her mind slowly cleared, she began to go through the papers on the desk. Her fingers shook, and all she wanted to do was get out of here and call Kris. But there might be a clue here, something to lead her to Devlin, or the bomb, or even to Danny.
Most of the papers were shipping receipts and bills, and it didn’t take more than a glance at the dates to see that they were all from decades past. Props, she guessed, to make this look like a working office in case anyone stumbled in by accident and didn’t get to make a closer inspection.
Abby stared at them a moment and wondered where the real business was being done. At the other end of that phone, where Danny was possibly being held?
And what kind of “package” was Hardy waiting here for? This warehouse, which didn’t even have a loading ramp, seemed hardly the place to be delivering a bomb.
In addition, neither Hardy nor Leo seemed very bright. They must have had to write some things down, rather than depend on their memories.
On a hunch, Abby shoved the papers aside until she could see the old green ink blotter beneath them, like the ones they’d had in the ancient library in high school. Abby had often been caught doodling on them by Sister Helen. Most of the kids did that, in fact, which was why the school stopped buying desk pads made of ink blotters in the first place. That, and the fact that, as times changed, four-letter words started appearing on them.
The hunch paid off. There were all kinds of doodles on the ink pad, and in the lower left-hand corner was a ten-digit phone number with a Galveston area code. There was no indication as to whom the number belonged, but Abby wrote it down, anyway. It could be important.
She could ask Hardy about it, but she knew she wasn’t likely
to get an honest answer. Besides, she’d be giving up her own game, and it was too soon for that. In the event it would come in handy, she was hoping they still thought she was the “Linda” they’d been waiting for.
Abby jotted the number down on the back of one of the shipping receipts, then shoved it into her pocket and looked through the dusty drawers of the desk till she came across a roll of tape. It was only masking tape, and old, but enough layers of it would hold for at least a while.
“Here,” she said to Jimmy. “A little something for our friends.”
He grabbed it and taped over their mouths and around the backs of their necks, over and over till he had a thick layer. “There, that should hold them.”
“Yer a good mon, Colin,” she said in the best Irish accent she could remember from her aunt Maureen Sullivan.
“And yer an amazin’ wee one,” Colin/Jimmy replied.
She waited until they were outside to laugh. “You sounded like Johnny Depp in that pirate movie, for God’s sake.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, you sounded Jamaican. Mon?” He made a sound like a snort. “Gimme a break.”
The minute they were in the car, Abby used her cell phone to call Kris. She told her about the warehouse and the two men there, suggesting Kris have someone on her team pick them up—but not yet.
“Why not yet?”
“Well, I don’t want to get your hopes up, but I think I may have just talked to the man who’s got Danny.”
There was a small silence on the line.
“Kris?”
“Yeah, I’m here. You say you talked to this guy?”
“From that warehouse. I redialed a call this guy Hardy Boyd was on when I first showed up there. Told the man who answered that I was Linda—who, I take it, is supposed to be delivering the bomb, or some package, at least, to the warehouse. Then this guy Hardy was supposed to take it to this person on the phone.”
“You say you redialed him. So you don’t know what phone number he was at?”
“No, but I wrote down the exact time I talked to him, and if you can trace that call from the phone in the warehouse to this other one—”
“Got it. What’s the number of the phone in the warehouse?”
“That’s a problem. It wasn’t written on the phone, but I figured it has to be listed at that address with the telephone company—”