Conviction

7

Having punched a ragged, man-sized hole through the floor, Fisher found himself falling amid a cloud of dust and ash that obscured his vision save for a few jumbled glimpses of concrete, steel pipes, and moonlight glinting off water. Water. The canal. With no way of knowing how deep it was, he scrambled to right himself, twisting his torso and flailing his arms until his internal gyroscope told him he was right side up. He spread his limbs like a parachutist, sucked in a breath, and set his jaw.

The impact felt like someone had slapped him in the sternum with a twelve-inch plank. His world went dark and quiet. Despite being shielded from the sun, the water was surprisingly warm. His head broke the surface. He checked his waistband: The SC pistol was still there. He checked his wrist: The OPSAT was gone.

The stench of algae, mold, and animal decomposition filled his nostrils. The surface was covered in patches of greenish gray slime. Here and there he saw clumps of what looked like fur and feathers. This answered one of his earlier questions: This canal, wherever it began and ended, saw little freshwater circulation. Flanked on both sides by narrow concrete walkways and high walls interspersed with arched doorways, the canal was about thirty feet wide; whether it extended the length of the foundry proper, he couldn’t tell.

Through the hole in the floor/ceiling he saw the glimmer of approaching flashlights accompanied by the muffled plodding of multiple sets of feet. Fisher looked around. The canal walls were smooth, vertical concrete rising at least four feet off the water’s surface. Thirty yards away, on the right side of the canal, he could make out a set of steps rising from the water and, opposite them, an archway through which pale moonlight streamed. He’d never reach the steps in time, and with the team’s adrenaline and anger levels spiked, he had to assume at least one of the gun barrels about to be jammed through the ceiling hole would be spitting bullets. Above, powdery loam gushed through the hole as feet skidded to a stop at its edge.

Fisher blew out all the air in his lungs, refilled them, and ducked beneath the slime. Immediately, he realized his belly-flop entry had been the right move: The canal’s muddy bottom was only four feet down. His submersion had improved his situation only slightly. They would see the ripples he’d left behind. He was just rolling over, sweeping his arms and legs into a powerful, scissoring sidestroke, when he heard the first pfft strike the water behind him. Whether it was a bullet or an LTL projectile, he didn’t know, but the first shot was immediately followed by several more, then a dozen in rapid succession, punching into the water to his right, to the rear, and in front as the shooters tried to bracket him.

He arched his back into a left-hand turn, heading for the canal wall, hoping the combination of the acute angle and the hole’s jagged shape would make aiming more difficult. It did. The gunfire tapered off, then died away. Fisher kept stroking, gaining distance until he judged he was opposite the steps. Using his palms against the wall to control his ascent, he stopped a couple of inches below the surface. The murk made it impossible to see either the hole in the ceiling or any signs of light. He shifted his head a bit so he was centered under a plate-sized patch of slime, then let his eyes break the surface. He blinked rapidly to clear his vision. Now he could see the hole. Nothing moved. No light visible. Someone was there, if only to serve as overwatch as the rest of the team tried to find a way down to the basement. He couldn’t wait any longer.

Keeping his head still, he reached behind his back, drew the SC out of his waistband, brought it around, and shut off the LAM, or laser aiming module, with his thumb. No use advertising his intentions. He let the pistol slowly rise to the surface until just the barrel was exposed. The angle was difficult and he was shooting from the hip, and he was trying to miss — a contradiction at which the tactical part of his brain balked.

He fired. The bullet punched into the closer edge of the hole. Another equipment improvement: The SC’s noise suppressor was quieter still; the shot was no louder than a gloved hand clap. Fisher snapped off three more shots, then dove under, pushed sideways off the wall, and kicked to the steps. Five seconds later he was out of the water, through the arch, and crouched against the brick wall.

He was in a courtyard, roughly a hundred feet square, bordered on the left and right by window-lined wings of the main building; opposite him, a twelve-foot-high hedgerow leading… where? In the distance he heard the faint roar of a crowd and a tinny voice speaking through a loudspeaker. The soccer stadium. Fisher thought it over: It might work. First, he’d have to get there in one piece.

He heard the screeching of rusted steel. He looked up. On the wing’s fire escape, a door was being shoved open. A body appeared in the gap, trying to push its way out. Fisher glanced across at the hedgerow, then back at the emerging figure.

A voice shouted, “In the arch! Three o’clock low!”

That settled it. Fisher dashed back through the arch, turned right, and sprinted down the walkway. The basement was cavernous, at least the length of a football field. He reached the far wall, turned left onto a catwalk suspended over the canal, then left again onto the walkway, then a quick right into the next arch. He stopped, listened. In the courtyard the door gave one final shriek, then slammed open. Boots pounded the fire-escape stairs. He closed his eyes, trying to gauge how many sets of feet; it was impossible to tell.

Fisher clicked on his penlight. He was in a maintenance tunnel. Just a few inches wider than his shoulders and lined with yet more conduits, pipes, and wall-mounted ladders, it ran from south to north. He tried to place himself on the mental map he’d been keeping. He was somewhere beneath where he’d first entered the building. He turned off his penlight.

The pounding of boots stopped, and in his mind’s eye he could see figures racing across the courtyard.

Give them something to think about. Slow them down.

He ducked around the corner, took aim on the center of the canal, and fired three shots. All three rounds impacted within a half inch of one another. A second later a pair of figures — one on either side of the courtyard arch — peeked around the corner.

Fisher took off, sprinting on flat feet until he reached the first ladder. He started upward. After ten feet he found himself enclosed in a shaft; another twenty feet brought him to what, in the dim light, looked like a door. He clicked on his penlight, saw a rusted doorknob, clicked it off again. First floor, he assumed. He kept climbing, passing the second and third floors. The ladder came to an abrupt end. He groped above his head and traced out a square of sheet metal. A hatch. He found the handle and gave it a test push, expecting to feel resistance and hear the grating of steel on steel. Instead, the hatch opened smoothly, noiselessly. He froze. Someone had been here recently.

Probing with his index finger, he found one of the hinges; it was coated in oil. He brought his finger to his nose and sniffed. Then smiled. Bacon grease. This ruled out Hansen and company and ruled in urban explorers or, more likely, poor teenagers looking for a nocturnal adventure in their small Luxembourgian town.

Down the shaft he heard the scuff of a boot, followed by a pebble skittering across concrete. He eased the hatch shut and turned himself on the ladder so he was pressed against the wall. A flashlight beam appeared in the maintenance tunnel, widening and growing brighter as its owner approached. The flashlight went dark.

Then on again — this time pointing directly up the shaft. Half expecting this, Fisher had shielded his eyes with his palm. Still, he felt a deer-in-the-headlights moment of panic. He quashed the sensation. He was sixty feet off the ground. The flashlight beam was strong, but not strong enough to reach him. If, however, the person at the end of the beam decided to fire an exploratory shot… The cliché “fish in a barrel” came to mind.

The flashlight blinked off. Fisher took his hand away in time to see a figure move past the shaft opening and out of sight. Where’s your partner? Come on…

A second flashlight popped on, probed the shaft, then went out again.

Fisher waited a full minute, then eased open the hatch, lifted the prop-arm into place, then climbed out and shut the hatch behind him. The E-shaped flat roof was an expanse of patchy gravel, peeling tar paper, and exposed ceiling planks interspersed with skylights and squat brick chimneys. On the western side he could see the roofs of three of the complex’s watchtowers, for lack of a better term. He assumed they’d served as control booths from which foremen oversaw the foundry floor. To his east were upper (north) and lower (south) arms of the E — the two wings enclosing the courtyard. Overhanging the north wing’s roof, and silhouetted against the night sky like a massive ball of cotton, were the boughs of an oak tree.

Not the most noble of exits, Fisher thought, scrambling down a tree like a kid, but it would work all the same.

Taking careful steps and sticking to exposed wood, he picked his way across the roof to the north wing. Closer up, the oak was even more massive than he’d imagined, reaching nearly 120 feet into the sky. The smallest limb overhanging the roof was the size of his waist. He’d taken his first step onto the branch when he heard a female voice behind him say, “Don’t move a muscle.”

Fisher neither turned nor hesitated. He jumped.