Fatal Error, page 9
The door tumbled to one side. She saw it flip over. Silently. Or at least, the clamor was lost below the engine noise and the insulating layers of steel.
The MRAP’s headlights revealed a massive dark space, in size, much like the building they had used for observation, but filled with heavy machines and cars in various states of disrepair.
Graza’s head whipped back and forth, peering from the vertical side windows and checking the monitors. Jess fired off a burst of shots with her phone as they drove into the loading area, pushing a line of cabinets out of the way.
She strained to look into the far end of the warehouse. She saw no movement, but there was no electricity and no light. A lot could be hidden in the darkness.
Graza spoke excitedly into his microphone, encouraging the team to enter the building.
She looked at the rear-view camera, like watching a movie with the sound muted. The white sedans raced around the rear of the MRAP, hurtling through the gap between the doors and the rear of the vehicle.
The unmarked sedans lurched to a stop at her side. The ROS teams sprung from them. She saw Nicci among them, behaving as expertly as the rest. Separating. Diving for cover. Guns first. Arms waving instructions and acknowledgments.
She recognized Morris with one of the teams, working his way along a wall, heading to the far side of the building.
Jess pressed her phone against the MRAP’s flat glass to take pictures.
Graza watched over everything in view, and shouted occasional instructions into his headset.
She sensed the MRAPs headlights illuminated less than a quarter of the warehouse. From her elevated position, she saw drilling machines as large as a room. They had enormous levers and handles that protruded.
What looked like a lathe stood at the edge of the headlights’ range, a kitchen table lying sideways across its mechanism. The machines were separated by wide pathways that must have once been used to move whatever heavy engineering took place in the building.
Toward the middle of the building were two dark cubes. In the gloom she couldn’t tell if they were windowless storage rooms or, perhaps offices for the one-time management. Trash covered the floor. Papers, boxes, broken furniture. A large teddy bear holding a wrench had been tied to a pillar.
She saw no sign of movement. From the moment the MRAP had burst into the building through the arrival of the heavily armed carabinieri, Jess’s privileged view revealed nothing but an abandoned factory. Nothing at all.
The ROS were beyond the range of the MRAP headlights now, working through the paths between the heavy duty equipment. She’d lost Morris.
Jess tapped Graza on the arm, and motioned to open the door. He shook his head. She pointed to herself, and gestured out of the window. He shook his head. She raised her hands questioningly. He shook his head again.
She looked over the bank of switches in the middle of the vehicle. The markings were Italian. Graza had pressed one to open the door, but the words she could read didn’t identify the right switch.
She glanced through the windshield.
A few seconds later, Morris returned, walking straight toward the MRAP. Jess tapped the driver with her fist, and pointed to Morris. Morris waved his arm.
Graza reached for a switch, flipped up the red cover, and pressed it without looking. Jess’s door buzzed open.
She thumped the release button in the center of her four-point harness, and climbed down the steps to the ground. As she stepped away, the door closed, sealing the driver in his protective cocoon.
“Nothing,” Morris said.
“But the blue luggage is here, right?”
“Dunno.” He gestured around the building. “Somewhere. Maybe. Vanelli ordered some lights rigged up for a thorough search.”
She walked to one of the big machines. The ground was slick, a mixture of oil and dust. The machine was the same. She wiped a finger over the surface of a handle. The dust was thick.
“Been like this for years,” Morris said. “They probably just brought the suitcases here to open them, and moved on.”
She nodded. “Not exactly the sort of place you want to kick off your shoes and stay awhile.”
His smile was flat. A radio hanging on his bulletproof vest chirped. Vanelli’s voice rasped out. Jess only caught a few words, but heard Vanelli call off the search until the lights were arranged.
The MRAP’s deafening engine stopped. Jess felt her muscles relax, and she wondered how people worked around such noise all the time. She craved silence. The vehicle’s lights dimmed a fraction.
She turned on the flashlight on her phone. The beam illuminated her feet. She waved it around the machines. The range was pitiful, but it would stop her from tripping over obstacles in the dark.
She walked along one of the pathways through the old machinery, stepping over the debris. She studied a notice board. The most recent date she found on the papers was ten years ago. Whatever had happened to this place, it seemed a shame it had been reduced to a derelict wreck.
Light flashed over the top of the odd office cubes alone in the middle of the factory. She saw the outlines of a roof atop the cubes, wires snaking upward. She headed in that direction.
A man shouted from the far end of the building. His voice echoed. She picked up her pace. Beyond the office cubes flashlight beams flickered and danced, sweeping over walls, searching the pathways. She glimpsed a lone silver car caught in flashlight beams.
More shouting. Evening light spilled into the building near the car from one of the grimy windows.
She spun around. A car might mean someone was inside the building. The carabinieri’s shouts stopped. The same thought must have occurred to them.
She turned off her phone’s light, moved close to one of the drilling machines, and listened.
The building creaked. A breeze groaned over the metal roof high overhead. Something hummed and buzzed. Footsteps sounded all around her.
She looked over the top of the drilling machine. Light flickered behind the office cubes. She waited a moment. The light flickered again. Brief. Exciting her retinas, and leaving them struggling for night vision.
Then, no flicker.
A flashlight, maybe? She blinked to adjust her eyes to the near darkness.
The wires trailing up from the office cubes to the ceiling rocked gently. A breeze from the doors the carabinieri had opened, perhaps?
She watched the wires moving, and held her hand up. No breeze. She licked her fingers and held them up. Nothing. Was there a breeze higher in the building?
She walked around the drilling machine, and onto a pathway that led to the office cubes. Morris stepped out from between two machines and walked beside her.
“Did you see it?” she said.
He frowned. “What?”
“The light. Just flickered.” She pointed above the cubes. “And those wires are moving.”
Morris watched then held his radio close to his mouth. He whispered, “Vanelli. The wires above the offices in the center are moving.”
“On our way,” Vanelli said, his voice distorted through the radio’s tinny speaker.
Jess walked around one of the cubes. There were two doors, on opposite sides. The walls were smooth sheetrock. There were no windows.
She put her ear to the door nearest Morris, and lurched away.
Morris cocked his head.
She gestured for him to stand still, and placed her ear back against the door. She heard crashing, crunching noises. Like heavy boots on a gravel driveway, but erratic, ill-timed paces. She waved him forward.
Morris placed his ear to the door.
The crashing continued.
He placed a finger across his lips, and walked away behind a machine, raising his radio close to his mouth. Whatever he said to Vanelli, Jess was unable to hear.
One last crunch reverberated against the door. There were other noises. Popping and ringing, and something like a freeway in the distance.
Morris reappeared, and put his finger across his lips again. He gestured for her to step away. She backed up to where he stood, ten feet from the door.
Vanelli jogged down the pathway, several carabinieri behind him. Two of them held a large metal frame that looked like a bar stool with a thick seat, a battering ram. From the way they moved, it was heavy.
Vanelli waved his men to take positions on either side of the door. They readied guns, and nodded.
The men with the battering ram lined up in a straight path to the door.
Vanelli pointed a finger.
Two carabinieri ran forward, swinging the broad end of the battering ram against the door. The wood splintered. The door shook, but held.
They jogged back, and ran again, swinging for the other side of the door. Another crash. More wood splintered off.
The door lurched sideways. Chunks of wood spun away.
One of the hinges tumbled to the floor.
The carabinieri with the ram stepped aside.
The carabinieri on each side charged forward. One man hefted a giant boot, kicking hard in the center of the door with all his weight behind the move.
The door pitched into the cube and light burst out.
Jess squinted and raised her hand in front of her eyes to block the assault on her retinas.
The carabinieri disappeared into the blinding light.
Morris followed Vanelli into the office.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jess waited a moment. Her nostrils twitched. The air smelled of noxious smoke. As her eyes adjusted, she could see wisps trailing around the doorframe.
Shouts from inside the cube.
Jess moved closer to the door, holding her phone out and taking pictures.
Inside the walls, the cube looked like a busy modern office. Computer monitors on six desks laid in a row. Fluorescent lights ran in lines across the ceiling. The floor was covered with dirty carpet squares. Wheeled office chairs were strewn around the room.
At the rear of the room was another door. Smoke poured around its edges. It took her a moment to realize this was an interior door. It couldn’t be the one she had seen when she walked around the exterior of the cube.
This office they stood in was only half the total size of the cube.
The office was crowded now. Chaos reigned for a moment. When a bit of space cleared, she stepped inside with the others.
Half of Vanelli’s men must have moved into the second room, to tackle whatever was burning.
Morris pulled desk drawers straight out, piling them up on top of the desks. “Empty. Everything’s empty.”
Jess walked around one of the desks. The computer monitor cables dangled lifelessly. She picked up the plug, and frowned.
Morris gestured to the smoky opening. “They were burning the contents of these drawers in there.”
Jess peered into the second room. The fires hadn’t been burning very long. Vanelli’s men had already extinguished the flames.
Carabinieri were carefully lifting and separating charred and melted gray plastic boxes with computer brand names stamped on them.
“They were in here the whole time,” Jess said.
Vanelli glanced at her. “Yes.”
“I heard noise. Movement.”
“When?”
“When Morris called you the first time.”
Vanelli nodded. “Nice work.”
Jess turned back to study the first office. The crunching noises she’d heard had probably been the computers being piled up and set on fire.
Which meant someone had been standing right there. Moments before Vanelli’s men broke down the door.
Where were they now?
She scanned the bare, modern desks. Flat panels and steel legs. She saw nowhere even one person could possibly be hiding.
She walked around the edge of the room, rapping her knuckles on the sheetrock. It sounded as solid as sheetrock ever did. Certainly nothing out of the ordinary, like a place to hide behind the walls.
The sound of wood splintering came from the second room. Vanelli’s men were breaking through the far door on the opposite side of the cube. Had Ficarra escaped through that door? Possible. But it didn’t feel like the right answer.
She looked back at the desks again. Six desks. Exactly the same. Nothing charming or unusual about them. They could have been purchased from a discount furniture catalogue.
Four of the desks boasted a computer monitor. Two monitors rested atop desk number five. The surface of the last desk, number six, was bare of all computer equipment.
Jess inspected desk six. A cable dangled down its back. She poked at the wire. It swung back and forth, hitting the metal panel on the rear of the desk with a resounding chime.
She swung the cable again and the chiming noise repeated, every time.
She had heard the sound when she was waiting for Vanelli outside the closed door.
She looked around the room. Someone had definitely been here a few minutes ago. No question.
She looked back at the empty desktop again. Number six. She knelt down to inspect the floor. “Morris!”
“Yeah?” He popped his head through the doorway from the second office.
She pointed to the floor under desk number six. A square section of carpet tiles protruded a fraction above the others surrounding it. She pressed on one of the protruding tiles. The section moved as one. “Trapdoor.”
Morris reached her position in three steps. He ripped the desk aside. “Vanelli!”
Jess lifted the steel loop and jerked it up. The edge of the heavy trapdoor separated briefly from the floor.
Morris helped her lift the door up and away.
They flipped it over, exposing a three-foot wide square shaft under the floor.
Jess braced her feet and bent to look into the shaft. A ladder attached to the side ran straight down into the gloom.
A sharp boom rang out, reverberating up the shaft. Jess felt the air move around her.
She lurched back reflexively
Chunks of the ceiling immediately above where her head had been rained down.
Gunfire. Shot upward, from near the bottom of the ladder. Someone was down there. Someone who intended to escape.
A second boom rang out. The second bullet dislodged more of the ceiling not two feet beyond her head
Morris pulled her away from the shaft and the line of fire.
“A man,” she said, pointing toward the ladder.
Vanelli peered over the edge of the shaft. He drew his gun and shouted.
Another shot came up from below.
Vanelli returned fire.
One of his carabinieri officers produced a small green grenade. Vanelli nodded.
Morris pulled Jess farther away from the shaft’s opening. He turned toward the wall, ducked and covered his head with his forearms. She did the same.
Vanelli’s officer withdrew a pin, and dropped the grenade.
A long, breath-stopping moment later, a flash of light preceded a body-shaking explosion.
Jess felt the percussive wave smack into her across the distance. Her ears rang. She stepped back. The shaft had focused the explosive energy. Expelling it out of the shaft.
The man on the ladder must have been injured or killed. Was it Enzo Ficarra?
Vanelli’s man looked over the edge of the shaft. They spoke in rapid Italian. Vanelli slung the strap of his gun over his shoulder. Secure but available for action.
He flipped on a flashlight, and dropped into the shaft. Six of his men followed in rapid succession.
“Wait here,” Morris said to Jess.
“Fat chance. If that’s Enzo Ficarra down there, I’m going to be with you when you catch him. Or kill him. I really don’t care which at this point.” She gestured to the opening and grinned. “You first. If I fall, you can catch me.”
Morris scowled, and set off down the ladder.
Jess followed.
Morris was quick but Vanelli’s men had been even quicker. She glimpsed the last of them disappear out of the bottom of the tube.
Twenty-feet down the shaft the stun grenade had left charred marks on the walls.
Morris stopped at the bottom, standing on a platform of some type. She heard rapidly exchanged Italian. Morris replied, “Sì.”
When she caught up with him, he waved a rope. “Long drop from here. The others climbed down this rope. Can you do that?”
“Yeah. Is he down there?”
Morris nodded. “Must have continued on after the flashbang.”
“Tough guy.” She heard the admiring tone in her own still-ringing ears.
“Or he wasn’t in the shaft when the grenade went off. He could have been farther along already.” Morris lowered himself and worked his way down the rope ahead of Jess.
She climbed down as quickly as she could. She looked over her shoulder, but Morris and the others had disappeared into the blackness.
She turned on the light on her phone, and wedged it in her belt. The rope was rough and frayed. Not nylon, a natural material.
“Come straight down.” Below her, another flashlight clicked on. Morris called up to her. “It’s an underground train line. Don’t touch the rails. They’re probably hot. You’ll get electrocuted.”
“Electricity kills.” She grunted. “Vital safety tip.”
She worked her way down the rope, gripping tightly with her hands and her knees. Shifting her weight. Before she reached the bottom of the rope, she’d exited the shaft.
The noises changed here. The close, intimate sounds of the confined space inside the shaft became deep, echoing reverberation. Morris held the rope to stop it swinging, but he couldn’t stop it rotating.
She saw bouncing lights heading away in both directions. Vanelli’s men were covering both options. Which meant they hadn’t seen the shooter and didn’t know where he’d gone.
Their flashlights glinted off the bright steel of the rails. The walls were a dirty gray with a texture like the ceilings in her apartment, rough to the touch.
She finally reached Morris and he helped her down the last few feet. To Jess’s surprise, the tunnel floor was smooth.
