Shadows of the Dead--A Special Tracking Unit Novel

by Spencer Kope

  Leaning in, I hook the wisp with my finger.

  “It’s fishing line,” I say as I give the invisible string a gentle upward pull. My breath catches in my throat as the plastic floor of the freezer begins to tip up. “Jimmy,” I hiss, though I needn’t have bothered. He’s watching my every move.

  A moment later, the nearly weightless piece of plastic comes free and I lift it higher before pulling it out of the freezer and setting it against the wall.

  The bottom of the freezer is gone.

  In its place is a black hole large enough to pass a steamer trunk through. The smell that rises up to greet us is unexpected. It’s not the earthy stink of a cellar or crawl space, or the rot and mildew one might expect from a hole in the ground. Instead, it smells … sterile. Like my parents’ house after Mom gets carried away with the Pine-Sol.

  “Danny!” Jimmy shouts, cupping his hands to project the call down the hall. His voice carries an urgency I rarely hear, and it’s not lost on the others. We hear the rush of booted feet heading our way as half the SWAT team bears down on us.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  The trapdoor is genius.

  Without the benefit of shine, one would have been hard-pressed to find it. The removable plastic base appears to have been made by a large 3-D printer, and even the color is a near-perfect match to the off-white interior of the freezer.

  I play the discovery off as dumb luck for the benefit of Danny and his team. They’d already looked inside the freezer two or three times during their search of the residence, and it doesn’t sit well that they missed it.

  SWAT guys don’t like it when they miss things.

  After moving everyone back, Danny takes his flashlight in one hand and his Glock in the other and lights up the hole. By this time I’ve been shuffled back behind three layers of tactically clad bodies, so I don’t immediately see what greets the others.

  I learn soon enough.

  The hatch, as it turns out, opens onto a metal ladder that plunges down an eight-foot shaft onto a small concrete slab enclosed by cinder-block walls. It appears unoccupied.

  Leading the way, Danny descends the ladder and quickly probes the walls and floor with his flashlight. The area is smaller than most bathrooms, barely four-by-six, and its main purpose seems to be to provide a transition from the ladder to a more substantial flight of industrial steel stairs that start their descent at the north edge of the room.

  “There’s an overhead light,” Danny calls up. “See if you can find a switch.”

  They do. It’s recessed into the wall next to the ladder and painted to match its surroundings, almost as if it were camouflaged. As the switch is activated, the room below lights up in the yellow glow of a single incandescent bulb, something at the lower end of the Kelvin scale.

  Danny motions his guys down, and they descend quickly, only to then disappear one by one through the opening in the north wall. A minute passes and I notice that the blackness that swallowed them has suddenly given way to a lighter gloom. Probably another light switch farther in, I think, maybe at the bottom of the stairs.

  Two minutes tick by slowly, and then we hear the return approach of boots on steel. Danny appears at the top of the stairs and waves us down. “This section is clear,” he calls up. “Come on down.”

  This section?

  The words give me pause. I mean, seriously, how many sections could there be? We’re crawling down a ladder through a hollowed-out freezer. Whatever they discovered can’t be much bigger than the room below. Such an excavation takes equipment, lights, and dirt removal; lots of dirt removal.

  Jimmy is already halfway down the ladder when Nate turns to me and makes a gracious sweeping motion with his arm, saying, “After you.”

  “No, I insist,” I reply, stepping aside to make room for him. “I always defer to people with better aim.”

  He chuckles and starts down. Jason follows, and I bring up the rear.

  A minute later we’re down the ladder, down the substantial flight of stairs, and standing in a twenty-by-thirty-foot room that’s deep in the ground. It reminds me of a bunker, which, I suppose, is what it is. The walls are lined with shelves, and the shelves are lined with boxes and bags and cans of every size and configuration. The walls are painted and the floor is spotless. A dozen fluorescent bulbs hum overhead.

  The room has one peculiar feature, and that’s the dark hall leading again to the north. It ends abruptly thirty feet away, where a reinforced steel door stands blocking the way. The hair rises on the back of my neck as I realize the door has a small viewing hatch at eye level.

  “Nothing creepy about that,” I mutter to no one in particular.

  Beside the door is a small table and on the table is a tray of uneaten food.

  After moving in for a closer look, Jimmy touches the food with the back of his index finger and announces, “It’s still a bit warm.”

  The tray is beautifully arranged, something you’d expect from a five-star restaurant. It contains a generous pile of green beans, some type of vegan-looking soup, a slice of bread—sourdough, by the look of it—a baked potato with real butter, sour cream, and chives, a banana, and a glass of white wine. A vintage silver knife, fork, and spoon rest on an expensive linen napkin and even the wine is served in a glass appropriate for its type.

  Danny lifts the metal lever holding the viewing port in place and pulls it open. Sweeping the beam of his flashlight through the space beyond, he scans from right to left—and freezes. Cursing with an almost primal force, Danny leaps back and looks for a way in.

  There’s no lock on our side, and as he turns the handle and gives a brisk push, the door flies open and slams into the opposite wall, the force of it echoing in the chamber beyond. As he steps across the threshold, Danny searches the walls for the switch that he knows must be there. Finding it an instant later, he flicks it up.

  Lights fill the room … and oh, what they reveal.

  * * *

  We’re greeted by the surreal.

  Our eyes are first drawn to the north as the tunnel continues once more into darkness. To the immediate left, the concrete wall opens up into a cell that’s eight feet deep and twelve feet long. The floor is carpeted from end to end, the walls are painted, and the collection of furnishings within would leave one with the impression that it was a spare bedroom in Anyhouse, America.

  The steel bars dispel this illusion.

  They run the length of the opening from floor to ceiling, presenting an impossible barrier to all but the most robust of prying and cutting tools. At first glance they look like the bars you might find in any jail or prison, but closer inspection shows that they are homemade. The welds don’t have the factory precision one would expect, and some of the cuts are not uniform. Despite these minor imperfections, they’re effective and terrifying.

  “What’s with the wall mural?” Nate asks. They’re the first words anyone has spoken since stepping through the door.

  We all saw it, of course, the giant mural of a forest drifting off into the distance, the mist among the trees. We saw it, registered it, and turned our attention to the more horrifying aspects of our discovery. Now, as the entirety of the room settles upon us, several heads turn and take in the forest scene. It reminds me of a bone-and-tooth-littered spot where a fifty-five-gallon barrel stands ready to do its duty.

  I shiver at the recollection.

  * * *

  Melinda was just here.

  I know this because there are eight shines in the cell that I recognize, and one that I don’t, the same one from the freezer. Her footprints are all over the interior of the cell, and then they lead off to the north, farther down the tunnel, her shine so fresh I can almost feel it. Lorcan Child was at her side, no doubt rushing her along as SWAT hunted for him in the house above.

  Jimmy is inside the cell with Nate, Jason, and three of the SWAT members. He’s so completely mesmerized by the discovery that no amount of arm-waving on my part is going to get his attenti
on, so I walk up to the bars, reach in, and tap him on the shoulder.

  I have to tap a second time.

  When he finally looks my way, I lift my chin toward the north. After almost six years together, we’re like an old married couple. He understands immediately.

  “Come on,” he says, “we can’t be far behind them.” He leads the way north, into the narrow and dark tunnel beyond, and no one questions him. Soon the clean walls and smooth floor give way to a rougher version of themselves, a work in progress. A hundred feet into the tunnel, the concrete walls cease altogether, and timber framing takes their place. The floor is now hard-packed dirt, but it’s sloping upward at a slight angle, which is a good sign that we’re nearing the end.

  We continue on into unimaginable darkness, broken only by the beams of several flashlights against the shadows of timber and earth. If Lorcan is waiting ahead to ambush us, he won’t have much trouble; we’re lined up like tin soldiers. The unwelcome thought is terrifying. I push it aside, telling myself that he came this way to escape, not to shoot it out with the cops … though the thought of him escaping provides no comfort.

  * * *

  Jimmy and Danny are seven bodies ahead of me as we march single file through the narrowing tunnel. A few minutes pass and then the column comes to an abrupt stop. My first fear is that Lorcan has somehow blocked the tunnel ahead. When I hear the soft rasp of hushed words ahead—none of them decipherable—this fear begins to take root.

  Shuffling left as far as the tunnel will allow, I peer around the men in front of me, trying for a better vantage point. I find nothing but disappointment. Even when I slip my glasses off, all that greets me is a line of shining bodies and darkness.

  Then I hear it; the sound of boots on metal.

  Danny is climbing a ladder.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  When it’s my turn to climb out of the tunnel, I find myself emerging through the floor of a filthy boxlike room that’s maybe twenty or twenty-five feet on each side. Storage bins and cardboard containers are stacked in one corner, and the walls show open studs. It reminds me of an unfinished garage … and then I notice the roll-up door.

  It is a garage.

  Exiting the man-door on the north wall of the building, we find ourselves standing in the backyard of Lorcan’s rental. It doesn’t take long to find the fresh tire tracks exiting the garage and turning north up the alley. And since both the rental and its detached garage are beyond the containment area, there was nothing to stop the Onion King from simply driving away.

  Danny and Jimmy knock on the front door, which is answered almost immediately by Mr. Hatanaka—who insists that they call him Stu. Normally in such a situation, they’d ask if they could search the house to make sure Lorcan isn’t hiding someplace inside or holding the family under duress. The fresh snow eliminates this necessity, however, since the only tracks leading away from the garage are those of the car, and they run up the alley and away from the Moors.

  Stu confirms what we suspect: He has no access to the garage. It was one of the conditions of the rental agreement, and one they didn’t mind because the rent was four hundred dollars under market average. Lorcan told them he needed someplace to store business supplies.

  “There are tire tracks…?” Jimmy says, letting the statement settle into a question.

  “He kept his Honda inside.”

  “A silver Honda?”

  “Yeah,” Stu replies, “an Accord. I had one in college.”

  * * *

  We already have the license plate number of Lorcan’s Honda, so after thanking Mr. Hatanaka we make our way back to the SWAT van, where Danny issues a statewide Watch-For. Border crossings are alerted, the ferry system is notified, and those few places with license plate readers are fed the plate number in the remote chance that Lorcan passes their way.

  The ugly truth is that finding the silver Honda Accord is going to be like looking for a specific penny in a massive wishing well. Pennies, pennies everywhere, just not the one you’re looking for.

  While Jimmy brainstorms with Danny, Nate, and Jason, I call Diane. It’s after midnight, but she picks up on the first ring. It’s disheartening to say the words aloud, but I fill her in on our failure. The fact that Lorcan slipped past us and took Melinda with him is almost beyond bearing.

  “If we don’t find her soon…,” I say, letting the rest of the sentence wither and die.

  “You’ll find her,” Diane says. “You’ll find her because you must. You’ve done it before, you’ll do it again.”

  I wish I had her faith, but the clock is ticking. We have twenty-four hours, if we’re lucky. After that, the odds of finding Melinda Gaines alive begin to drop precipitously.

  “There’s another shell company,” Diane tells me. “I’m not sure if it’ll give us anything useful, but I’ll call once I get done sifting through the records. In the meantime, you need to focus on what you do best.” She promises to redouble her efforts and is downright comforting by the time I disconnect the call.

  Her soothing tone scares me more than anything.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Wednesday, December 24

  Sometimes it’s good police work; sometimes you just get lucky.

  This might be a little of both.

  The Watch-For was issued around midnight, and just twenty minutes later, Jimmy gets a call from Gig Harbor police officer Triston Mendoza. At around ten-thirty this evening, he’d responded to the Gig Harbor marina for a reported assault. According to Triston, the unknown assailant arrived at the marina in Lorcan’s silver Honda. The altercation began when he pulled a bound woman roughly from the backseat of the car and then strong-armed her down the pier. The victim, who lives aboard his boat at the marina, saw this and decided to intervene in what he assumed was a domestic issue. Without a word, Lorcan punched him three times in the face with an SAP glove—a leather glove with steel shot sewn into the knuckles—and knocked him out. When he woke, Lorcan was throwing off the mooring lines to a boat parked in a nearby berth.

  The only other information Triston can provide is that the boat was last seen heading north. This is no great revelation, however, since Gig Harbor lies at the south end of Puget Sound and any other direction quickly leads to a dead end.

  Still, north could mean Seattle or Everett, or one of the hundreds of islands in the sound. It could even mean Bellingham … or Canada, which would be very bad.

  We’re three hours behind him; time is not on our side.

  Before disconnecting the call, Triston tells Jimmy that he knows the marina manager, and despite the hour, he has no doubt that she’ll rush down and dig up the hull number and description of the boat. He promises to call back in fifteen minutes.

  We have two choices: Gig Harbor offered up their marine patrol boat, which can be quickly manned and is capable of eighty knots in calm seas. The problem is that it’s late December and the sound is rarely calm in winter. Depending on the waves and the wind, we might be lucky to match the speed of Lorcan’s boat, which means we lose.

  Our other option is an air intercept. Betsy is parked at Boeing Field with Marty and Les, but she’s designed for speed, not aerial reconnaissance. A Cessna or something similar would be more suited for what I have in mind.

  I dial Les and he picks up on the first ring. After explaining the situation, I ask him if he has any ideas. Low voices on the other end shoot back and forth as he and Marty confer, though I can’t make out what they’re saying.

  When he comes back on the line, Les has a slight chuckle in his voice. “What’s your location?” he asks.

  “Lakewood,” Jimmy replies, and then gives him the name of the nearby school. “Haiden can drop us wherever you want,” he adds. “We just need to know where to meet you.”

  “Don’t worry, we’re coming to you,” Les says in his usual reserved manner. Before Jimmy has time to reply or ask for clarification, the line goes dead.

  * * *

  Triston calls back twent
y minutes later with an update. The boat that Lorcan either owns or stole is a Sea Ray 260 Sundancer registered to LC Limited in Las Vegas, Nevada. It’s a two-hundred-thousand-dollar boat that, according to the company’s website, has a top speed of thirty-seven knots, or roughly forty-two miles per hour.

  In this weather it’ll be lucky to do twenty.

  Once again, my first call is to Diane. I pass on the info about LC Limited, suspecting that it’s another one of Lorcan’s shell companies simply from the initials. For a presumed genius, the guy is surprisingly unimaginative.

  I hear Diane’s fingers begin to fly on the keyboard, and she says nothing for the better part of a minute. Then I lose her completely; not because of reception, but because she absently mumbles something that sounds vaguely like, “Call you back,” and disconnects the call.

  We’re back to waiting.

  Waiting for Les and Marty to tell us where to meet them; waiting for Diane to link LC Limited to a condo in Seattle, or a vehicle registration on the Olympic Peninsula; waiting for justice for nine women who, despite bad choices or bad luck, were still worthy of life and dignity.

  Shortly after one A.M., Diane calls back, her voice strained but pleased. “I think I know where he’s going,” she says. “LC Limited owns a chunk of land on Vancouver Island. It’s about halfway up the island and right on the water. The property records list it as undeveloped, but Google Earth shows a short pier and what might be a cabin.”

  “That’s it,” Jimmy says, as certain as snow on a mountain. Turning his mouth away from the phone, he yells at Danny, “We have a destination,” and then turns his attention back to Diane. “Can you send the coordinates to my phone—and if you captured any images from Google, forward those as well so we know what we’re walking into.”