The Terminals (10 page)

“Making an entrance,” he said.

“They need to know I'm for real,” I replied.

Pat wasn't a terminal and didn't know what we did aside from Army work. But he nodded as if he understood.

“Be back in under an hour,” he said and brought the helicopter down.

The helicopter settled onto its skids and I popped open the door, the cool night air removing the last vestiges of sleep.

No sooner had I cleared the blades then Pat took to the sky, quickly disappearing and leaving me to feel as though I'd appeared out of nowhere, unable to see past the glare of headlights that held the heavy dust in the air.

Chapter 15

I surveyed the mill, which
sported a rusted sign that stated:
Iowa Pipe, laying Iowa faster
. My instincts noted the best spots for a sniper, and it was with serious effort that I turned my back on them. In rusty fingers of wire and the great orifices of pipes and rolls of steel was something sinister, craven, and evil. My gut said that a serial killer could call this place sanctuary. Radio chatter broke my reverie and I pulled the lapels of my jacket tighter.

I strode past the perimeter of the headlights with my chin tilted up.

“Volt?” I asked the first cop. A woman of about thirty with her hair pulled into a tight bun pointed at shadows moving behind a black SUV. Easily a score of vehicles clustered in the parking lot and more still arriving.

Agent Volt was a short, efficient-looking man, clean-shaven and wearing standard issue FBI HRT armor and sidearm, the Springfield Armory's Professional FBI 1911 model. I tried to keep from drooling over the weapon; the custom grip would fit him like a handshake from an old friend. The second man I distrusted immediately. He had the sort of military-cut respectable on a soldier but when taken as a personal decision, it immediately marked him as a stubborn misogynist with little enough else in his life who needed to prove that a police career made it all worthwhile. I have no problem with such broad assumptions. I've seen it before. The difference between him and me was in knowing that service wasn't worth it. That for all his anal devotion to his country, he would be buried with a flag draped over him and his face forgotten as soon as the first shovel of dirt fell.

“But how the hell does she know they're here?” officer buzz-cut asked, loud enough that I knew he wanted me listening.

I stepped between them and turned my back on the officer, trying to keep from smiling. Out of the glare of lights, I could see a news van with the call letters TTV. I wondered if it was the Leica Takers the general had mentioned, but suspected a crazy freelancer wouldn't warrant a news van.

“Special Agent Volt, I'm Colonel Kurzow, we spoke on the phone.”

His grip was firm without trying to put me in my place. “This had better be good intel, Colonel. I've pulled a hundred officers off of a door-to-door search, and the governor's head is so far up my ass I can taste him.”

“From the description provided by our source, the children are in the pickling area at the rear of the building,” I replied, but Agent Volt wasn't listening.

“I've got three more months before I reach my twenty years and full pension. Don't fuck it up.”

I felt my lips disappear, but before I could tell him how little I cared for his retirement, officer buzzcut spoke out.

“I'm Lieutenant Gord Handso.” He held out his hand. “Lieutenant Colonel, isn't it? Not Colonel.” The tips of his moustache lifted. “Where did you learn the location of—?”

“Classified, Lieutenant,” I replied with the bite I'd reserved for Volt. I recognized Handso from the case file as Hillar's shooter. Though surprised Volt allowed him within a hundred yards of the case, I knew the Lieutenant was entitled to lead his own people. Some media reports had even praised him for shooting Hillar.

“Classified?” Handso fingered his furry lip.

I bet it was the closest thing to a pussy he'd touched in a long while.

Vehicles filled the mill parking lot, but when a blue sedan arrived, Volt raked his fingers through stubbly gray hair and swore. “Let me apologize in advance, Colonel.”

I frowned at the figure opening the rear door and stepping out. I knew Governor Kim from the video I'd played for Charlie.

“When you said the governor was up your ass, I didn't think you meant in person,” I said.

With the arrival of the governor, Handso dropped into the periphery shadows.

“He's the hands-on type,” Volt muttered, holding out his hand to the approaching man.

Jian Kim wore a suit that belied the late hour; crisp and neat, it hung tailored to his lean frame. By his height, I could deduce he was at least second or third generation immigrant. After greeting Volt, he turned to me.

“I hear this is some sort of privilege meeting you,” he said, but his tone suggested he was underwhelmed. “The president wouldn't give anything up.”

“Pleasure is mine, sir.” I took his hand and he gripped it in challenge. “Sorry to hear about your daughter.”

“I get it, fine. A secret.” He looked away and down as he spoke. He hadn't released my hand, and I was growing annoyed. “But I want to know who holds my daughter's life in their hands.”

“The children are my first responsibility, Governor,” I said. “Which is why I'd appreciate it if you would let go and let me do my job.” I kept my eyes steady, and his hold relaxed.

“Of course, I'm sorry,” he said, and I could now see the strain he fought to mask behind his neat attire.

Volt brought his radio to his mouth.

“We move in sixty seconds,” he stated. “Rear units, maintain a perimeter. Do not enter.” He removed the radio. “I don't want shots fired at our own shadows.”

Doors slammed, and I caught the sound of safeties flicking off; lights screwed onto the bottom of gun barrels flared and trained on the building.

“Sure you don't want any armor, Colonel?” Volt asked.

“Intel suggests that a bad case of tetanus is in there, Agent. Along with some sick kids.” I cast a look in Handso's direction. “Last I heard, the target was prematurely terminated.”

Volt snorted and started forward as dawn bled over the horizon. A team of agents stormed the office door, the ram breaking the lock. Others held ground at three truck bays. Lights zigzagged across the inside of grime-filmed windows as they searched the offices, and then shouted
clear
.

I stepped through the threshold, not bothering to draw my weapon. Handso's eyes widened, and he was quiet. Volt muttered hushed commands into his radio as they bypassed an office filled with desks, drafting tables, and scattered Styrofoam cups. Rusted rectangles on carpet left traces of where filing cabinets had once rested.

I felt light and carefree, like I had stepped off the cliff, and although I still had to hit bottom, the decision was made and nothing I could do would change the outcome. Going into battle was being part of something larger. Truth be told, it was its own religious experience.

No one tried the lights; instead the group funneled onto the factory floor. Antique behemoth machines hunched in three rows. The alleys between were crowded with massive steel shavings curled like a child's hair ribbon. Gobs of shiny grease drooled from joints onto the concrete.
Big Bertha
was stenciled across the side of one extruder. A giant pipe, half-made, jutted from one end, a hollow, steel blank the other. How could a machine shape a hunk of metal? Volt nudged my elbow, pointing with the light attached to his gun barrel at the cow-patty of grease before my boot.

“What?” I whispered, “You going to throw your cloak across it, too?” There was a twinkle in his eye that made me like him despite the retirement-track thinking. Come to think of it, I was on a retirement track as well, and just as eager to arrive.

I acknowledged Volt's wry grin and lifted my flashlight to trace the length of the chains. Overhead gantries ran across the warehouse ceiling, from which the heavy-link chains drooped down. Above the cranes, light struggled through a line of vents, but did little to illuminate the vast chamber. Beams flashed between the machines as the police scanned the area. Finally, a group of twenty gathered at a set of sliding aluminum doors. The older warehouse had been placed right next to the newer one, whose shiny siding reflected their flashlight beams. Volt ordered two men to take each door and slide it open. The other officers stood weapons drawn and tense, forming a half circle. My heart thumped in my throat, fingers dipping to my holster.

The left-hand door slid with a high screech and opened a black hole into the warehouse. My nose hairs curled and several of the officers stepped back at the acrid smell billowing out. I breathed the fumes and covered my mouth with my sleeve. The lack of children's cries was disheartening. I grew heavier, as though my boots were mired in globs of grease.

My burn began to itch and then smolder. The pain flared, forcing me to turn away and grip my face. I gave a small, inadvertent cry. Handso cocked his head at me, but Volt was too focused on the mission to notice.

Lights crosshatched the entry, and Volt gave the order to enter, following quickly after. The two men tasked with opening the right-hand door still shoved and jostled it back and forth, either intent on completing their orders, or happy to have the excuse not to enter.

I took several steps to follow Volt but agony raced across my injury. The pain of my burn was overwhelming, and I couldn't move deeper.

“Stuck,” one officer said, and the other man bunched his shoulders, cracked his neck, and looked at the door as if it were a tackle dummy and he were trying out for a pro football team.

I caught the gasps and swearing of the men inside, but the cause eluded me. I could only approach on an angle outside the doorway, my view impeded by the narrow opening and the darkness beyond it.

A light ran across a tank.
Sulfuric Acid
. The beam played over pipes leading from the tank into a concrete basin.

“Jesus, Mary, Peter and Paul,” Handso said. He stood halfway between the doors and the basin, which I couldn't see into and he turned to me. “It's too late.”

The police officer continued to rattle and shake the door, trying to free it and I cast him a look of annoyance, about to give an order when I froze.

A single skeletal hand reached out over the rim of the pool, like a drowning swimmer, hoping for help. In that brief moment, I had my first real proof that Attila had somehow gleaned information from a dead man.

“No, look at the hand,” Volt replied, coughing between words. “That was an adult.”

“It's safe to come in now, Lieutenant Colonel,” Handso said.

My mind whirled and I was back in the sands paralyzed by the same indecision that had struck then. Something was wrong and it was at the edge of my consciousness. If the children were not here, why had Hillar sent us?

The officer tasked with opening the door charged it and collided with a great crack. For a moment, the door appeared to hold, but then it bumped over whatever stone or blockage had jammed it and ran smoothly on its rail.

“No!” I gasped, realization of the trap dawning an instant too late.

“There!” The officer grinned, dusting off his gloved hands. The door reached the end of the rail.

A flash of light erupted from the centre of the basin, sending a wave of acid and bones over those surrounding it.

Even at a distance, the heat sent clouds of vapor over me, and I took a single singeing breath as I dove. I landed blind and hard, rolling against the metal wall so hard it rattled with the impact. Training kicked in and I bounced to my hands and knees. With my eyes clenched shut and unable or unwilling to try for another breath, I could only crawl toward the boiling screams of the men. Acid sloshed and ran in rivulets across the concrete floor. My mouth puckered involuntarily at the sour taste.

Officers and agents shouted about their eyes or to their gods. I braved opening mine. They ran blurry with tears. With the sting of the vapor on my face and the itching on my hands and knees where the acid had soaked through, panic for water surged in me so powerfully that it was impossible to think of anything else.

Another lesser explosion cracked the concrete tank, and its contents streamed around my boots. The shrieking reached ever-higher pitches. My face burned aflame. I felt my contact lenses begin to adhere to my corneas. Cries for help and desperate radio calls propelled me to action.

Every facility with acid would have a shower facility, and through my distorted vision I scanned the interior of the warehouse, my boots splashing through puddles, barely able to draw even short breaths in the fumes. My nose hairs curled and I doubted I'd ever smell again. The spray and cloud had even penetrated my clothes and everywhere itched.

Just when panic took firm root in my mind, I caught sight of a calcium-encrusted showerhead beyond a stack of blue barrels. I shambled to it, the screams and moans of the officers were white noise. If I listened to them, I'd succumb to a memory of a day one month prior, when the sun was high and the air unmoving and laden with pain. To listen would drive me mad.

“Shower,” I called. “There's a shower here!”

The shower chugged when I pulled the release, counting several interminable seconds before producing water. I buried my face in the gush, the rattle of the pipes and insulating water as much a balm as the cleansing spray.

After flushing my face in the cold water, and removing my contact lenses, I pulled off my soaked jacket, stripped to my undershirt, and held my gear over my mouth as I sought out the injured. Thrashing in a puddle of acid, a female officer arched her spine impossibly backward. Her face reddened as it blistered, her hands spreading acid even as she tried to wipe it away.

“I'm going to help you,” I said and knelt. But when I touched her wrist she recoiled and rolled further into the acid over top of a ribcage that cracked beneath her weight.

“Don't touch me!” She fought, and I swatted at her helplessly, attempting to pacify her. Finally, I gave up, wrenched her arm behind her back and lifted her from the puddle. My hands and knees once again seared with acid, but there was nothing to be done. I ran her headlong into the shower. Once under the spray, the woman calmed, and I eased off on my grip. The officer sank to her knees and threaded her fingers behind her head as she sobbed.

“It's okay,” I told her and knew I was lying.

Agent Volt struggled with a man who writhed on the ground, feet kicking out and head whipsawing against Volt's hold. I ran to him.