Deep Black

42

Dean threw himself against the cement bricks of the building wall, his pulse thumping in his throat. The night glasses blurred so badly all he could see was one dark shadow around him.

“Up, up,” said Karr in his ear.

Easy for him to say. Dean put his hand out and moved to the left, fishing for the nylon rope Karr had left for him. He found it finally, took a breath, and started pulling himself upward.

“Jeez, Louise, what’s taking you?” hissed Karr. “I had to get up without a rope, and I gotta weigh about fifty pounds more than you.”

“The fucking guard just about saw me.”

“Relax. I would’ve nailed him.”

“Fucking Ruger’s bullets would’ve bounced off his head.”

“Only if his skull’s as thick as mine. Come on. I’m ready to go through the roof.”

Dean pulled himself over the low rise at the edge of the roof, then immediately began hauling up the rope. Karr had already taken out what he claimed was a silenced Makita portable saw and started cutting. It may in fact have been a Makita — it was blue — but it looked more a small wastepaper basket with a five-inch saw blade than a battery-operated skillsaw. It wasn’t completely silent, but Dean didn’t hear the high-pitched hum until he was about ten feet away.

“Here we go,” said Karr, standing up. He smacked his foot down against the cutout — and promptly fell through the hole.

Dean swung the A-2 forward as he leaped forward. After two steps he dropped knee-first into a slide and pushed the nose of the gun into the hole ahead of his face.

Karr lay sprawled on his back eight feet below.

“Don’t shoot me yet, baby-sitter,” he said, groaning and cursing as he rolled over and got to his feet. “Luckily, I landed on my head.”

Dean pushed his legs over the edge of the hole and jumped down, then crouched and scanned the unlit hallway. At the far end, Karr paused by a set of double doors made of glass. He put out his hand, signaling for Dean to stop. Then Karr took a large device that looked like the plunger head from a plumber’s helper from one of his vest pouches and put it against the glass. A wire ran from the device; he plugged it into his handheld.

“Ssshhh,” warned Karr as Dean crept toward him.

“That some sort of bug?”

Karr didn’t answer. The device used a set of microphones to pick up sounds, calculating distance in roughly the same way a submarine would use passive sonar. The closed stairwell and the glass were a perfect medium, though it could also work reasonably well through a single-layer wall.

“Clear now.” Karr stood and, while still looking at the handheld screen, dusted the door hinges with silicone. It may have helped, but the heavy door still creaked on its hinges.

They stopped at the bottom. Karr handed Dean his A-2, then took the pistol out.

“Two guards, coming toward us. Walking. I don’t think they know we’re here,” he said.

“You better hit them in the face.”

A smile poked up the corners of Karr’s mouth; then he was through the door. The bullets made a light popping sound as they came from the pistol — two bullets, two guards on the ground.

Square in the forehead, both shots.

“Good work,” said Dean.

“I may not be as good as you, baby-sitter, but I can hit what I’m aiming at every so often.”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t.”

“Basement door,” said Karr, pointing all the way down the hallway. A steel door sat next to the main entrance. He started moving toward it, then stopped as a set of headlights swung across the front of the building. When the lights faded, Karr trotted forward, then threw himself down and slid the last ten feet on his belly, possibly to keep from throwing a shadow that could be seen through the front glass, though Dean thought Karr might just have done it for fun. He put his plunger up again, fiddled with the handheld, and cursed.

“Door’s too thick. Doesn’t resonate enough.”

“Let’s search the rest of the place first,” suggested Dean.

“Nah. If I’m putting a jail in here, it’s going downstairs. Place looks like a lab or something, doesn’t it?”

Dean hadn’t seen inside of the rooms — they were all closed — so didn’t hazard a guess.

“You don’t have some X-ray machine that can see through the walls?” he said instead.

“Stinkin’ bean counters cut it out of the budget,” said Karr. He took a grenade from his belt, thumbed off the tape. Dean still held his gun. “Hopefully, we don’t need this.”

“Agreed.”

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

“Sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Sure you’re sure?”

“You gonna bust my chops all night or what?”

“Only as long as necessary, baby-sitter.” Karr jerked the door open, pushing himself across and into the opening. Dean waited until he started to retape the grenade, then slid over to follow.

The basement was a long low-ceilinged room crammed with machinery. Several tables were tarped; others had racks of what looked like oscilloscopes and discarded computer gear. They walked the length without seeing any sign that prisoners were kept here.

“Shit,” said Dean.

“Yeah, all right. Let’s check out the first floor.”

The doors to the rooms were locked by card-readers. Rather than fooling with the locks, Karr put his listening device up, scanning the room sonically.

“You sure that’s good enough?” Dean asked.

“As long as he’s breathing, we’ll hear him. These doors aren’t that thick.”

“What if he’s dead?”

Karr shrugged and moved on. At the last door he pulled down the gear and took out a small drill, punching through the screws that held the mechanism together. Dean tensed, his adrenaline once more starting to pump.

“There’s no one inside,” said Karr. “I just want to see what the hell they do here.”

With the cover of the lock off, he examined the circuit card, then reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a set of alligator clips. One of the LEDs on the reader mechanism flashed a few seconds after he began probing around, and the door lock clicked open. Dean started to push inside, but Karr held him back, nodding toward the floor. The goggles picked up two fuzzy IR beams. The room was filled with several dozen servers and storage devices, along with two workstations.

“They have the room alarmed but not the hallway?” said Dean.

“Pretty interesting, huh?” Karr took out a small digital camera and began taking pictures.

“What do you figure’s in those computers?”

“Could be porn.”

Dean wasn’t sure whether he was kidding or not. He followed Karr back upstairs, where a similar search revealed equally empty rooms, though no more computers.

“I was afraid of this,” Karr said. “Let’s go next door. Get on my back.”

“Huh?”

“I’m going to lift you out of the building,” he told Dean. “Unless you think you’re strong enough to pick me up and let me drop the rope to you.”

Dean scowled but said nothing, climbing up the bigger man’s back and then balancing precariously as he was lifted by the heels up through the hole in the roof. He felt a little shaky; fatigue was starting to get to him, and he was hungry besides. He managed to crawl out of the hole, then stopped a few feet away, resting for a moment before going for the rope. He was too old for this shit, too old.

“Dean!” said Karr in his headset.

“I’m moving as fast as I can,” answered Dean.

He looked up. Two guards stood five feet from him, the laser targeting dots from their AK-74s crisscrossed on his chest.