Marc rose from his crouch and, wielding the half-gallon bottle of Wild Turkey in his right hand, smashed the bottle across the man’s face. The man, caught by surprise, let out a yelp, then fell back over the railing and off the landing. Marc flipped on the outside light switch. The attacker was down on all fours in the parking lot. Blood was spewing from his mouth and nose. Another burst of gunfire from someplace in the parking lot caused Marc to duck back inside the condo.
There was the sound of a car’s engine starting, then revving up. Keeping low, Marc drew his sidearm and poked his head around the open door. The attacker that Marc had struck with the bottle was gone. Then, several flashes of light, followed by the sound of gunfire, came from a vehicle at the end of the parking lot. The outside light next to Marc’s head shattered, sending splinters of glass in all directions. He quickly recovered and saw a small dark-colored van exiting the parking lot. Marc watched as the van, its tires squealing, speed away in the direction of the city of Aiken.
“Are you hit?” Rebecca asked, still crouching on the condo floor.
“No, come on, we’re going after those bastards,” Marc yelled, shaking bits of glass off his shirt.
Fifteen seconds later, with Marc in the passenger seat, Rebecca was backing her SUV out of the parking space. A few porch lights had switched on. The gunfire had apparently awoken the neighborhood.
“Turn left!” Marc yelled when they got to the end of the parking lot. By the time Rebecca turned onto Whiskey Road, there were no vehicle taillights to be seen.
“Floor it! It was a small van. They can’t be far ahead!” Marc yelled over the noise of SUV’s powerful engine. Thirty seconds later, brake lights appeared in the darkness ahead. Marc figured, whoever it was, was driving by the light of the full moon with the headlights extinguished, but they couldn’t hide the brake lights. The brake lights came on again, this time making a right-hand turn.
A long fifteen seconds later, Rebecca turned right on the same road. Again, there was nothing but darkness ahead of them, but Marc knew the van was somewhere up ahead and Rebecca was a better than average driver.
“Marc, do you think they’re heading back to the Apex Irrigation plant?”
“Possibly, we’ll soon find out. Just keep doing what you’re doing. We’re gaining on them.”
Then, as if on cue, brake lights appeared again, this time turning left. They were indeed closing in.
“You’re doing great, but whoever it is, looks to be heading downtown,” Marc said.
Marc could see there were lights on in a few of the houses as they sped by. People were just getting out of bed to start their day.
Marc’s concentration on the vehicle’s tail lights was interrupted as a newspaper delivery person pulled out from a side street in front of their SUV, the carrier tossing folded editions of the daily newspaper out the window onto subscriber’s driveways. He noticed a street sign that read, “South Boundary.”
Rebecca braked, then swerved around the delivery vehicle in time to see the brake lights of the van up ahead. She pushed down hard on the accelerator. Giant live oak trees lining both sides of the road formed a thick canopy overhead, giving Marc the feeling they were speeding down a living tunnel. Ahead of them, in the darkness at the far end of the tunnel, a traffic light turned red, then the van’s brake lights illuminated again.
“Doesn’t look like they’re headed for the Apex building. Maybe, they’ve simply lost their way,” Marc said.
Marc caught the reflection of the van as it passed under the traffic light. A few seconds later, Rebecca slowed their vehicle as they approached the same intersection, the traffic light still red.
“Good on your right,” Marc said.
Rebecca made it through the intersection in time to see more brake lights, she had managed to gain valuable distance on the van as it made a right-hand turn two blocks in front of them.
“They’ve turned onto Laurens Street, that will take them right into downtown Aiken,” Rebecca said, her voice strained.
When she turned onto Laurens Street, Marc could see several cars up ahead of them. Although the street was well lit, there was no sign of the van.
Rebecca slowed as she concentrated on the road and the intersection up ahead. Just then, Marc heard a chorus of car horns that seemed to come from the intersection. It appeared that a vehicle had run a red light.
Looking beyond the intersection, Marc saw a set of brake lights veering to the left before disappearing behind a building.
When their SUV arrived at the intersection, the traffic light had turned green and the stopped vehicles had moved on, some turning left, some continuing straight. Rebecca slowed their vehicle. Marc looked for any movement. As they slowly passed through the intersection, he noticed a stately building that sat at the corner,
“That’s the Old Post Office building,” Rebecca said, motioning toward the structure.
Marc continued to concentrate on the street in front of them; however, other than a city refuse collection truck, the street was void of traffic. Then, off to his left, in the shadows behind the Post Office building, Marc caught a movement and the spark of a vehicle’s interior light just before its doors closed.
“Kill the headlights, take this next turn and park on the other side of the street,” Marc said.
Rebecca did as Marc instructed. “I think our visitors have parked their car behind the old post office,” Marc said.
“Curious,” Rebecca whispered.
“How so?” Marc asked.
“Just that I believe the building’s tenants may have a connection to the Site.”
“So why would they be trying to kill us?” Marc asked.
Before Rebecca could answer, a flash of light came from a window at the back of the building.
“Come on, let’s find out,” Marc said.
He opened his side door and slid out. Quietly, he clicked his door shut, then headed across the street, Rebecca following close behind. A black Ford Transit was parked at the back of the building.
Rebecca pointed to a white sticker on its rear window, “that’s the sticker that connects this vehicle to the photograph of the one we saw at the golf course and to the rental agency here in Aiken.”
They peered inside the van. With the first light of the early morning sun just breaking through the trees, Marc could see a dark stain on the passenger seat. He opened the door and felt the area of the stain. He knew what fresh blood felt like and what it smelled like. “There has to be at least two of them, and one is injured.”
“Marc, I think we should call the police.”
“Yeah, go ahead and make the call. Tell them what we got. I’m going to take a peek inside the building,” Marc said.
“Marc, be careful. They’re cornered and they probably know it. Desperate people are the most dangerous.”
Marc crossed the street. There was a railing along the side of the building that guarded a short flight of steps leading down below street level. A metallic sign, “Atomic City Tours and Travel,” was attached to the railing. The sign swung ever so slightly in the early morning breeze.
As he slowly descended the four steps, the light he had noticed coming from the travel agency’s window was suddenly extinguished. Thinking that possibly someone inside had seen him approaching; Marc stayed off to one side of the window.
As he waited, trying to decide what to do next, he heard a noise from somewhere inside. It was the sound of a door opening, or closing, he couldn’t tell. Someone was leaving the office space through another door. Ducking under the window, he tried the door. It was unlocked. Pushing it open, Marc called out, “Put down your gun! The police are on the way!” There was no response. He waited, then called out again, but still no response. Keeping low and with his handgun in front of him, he eased inside. With early morning light seeping through the window, he could see two chairs and a desk. There were several posters hanging on a wall, but in the near darkness, it was impossible to see what they displayed, pr
obably the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, or St. Mark’s Square, he figured. Behind the desk, he saw two doors. One was partially open.
Probably the one used by the terrorist attempting to escape.
Slowly, he approached the door. Using the tip of his handgun, Marc pushed the door open a little more, just enough to peer around it. There was nothing but darkness. Then, he heard the sound of another door closing somewhere at the far end of the hallway.
As he was about to enter the hallway, he heard a thumping sound, but it didn’t come from the hallway. He hesitated, trying to determine its source. The thumping continued. It seemed to come from behind him. He reversed course and backed into the tourist office. He stopped in front of the second door he had noticed before. There was more thumping, this time accompanied by a muffled groan. Marc, his handgun at the ready, carefully pulled the door open just a crack. Immediately, the groaning became louder, but in the darkness, he still couldn’t determine its source. Just inside the door, Marc felt a light switch along the wall. He flipped it on to see a woman bound to a chair with plastic zip ties, her mouth covered with packing tape. He immediately suspected the woman was the wife of the Savannah River Golf Links superintendent, Bill Goodspeed. She had been kidnapped the day before.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Marc secured the handgun in his waistband. When he went to remove the gag covering her face, however she became hysterical, apparently thinking Marc was part of the terrorist gang that had kidnapped her.
“Shhh,” he whispered, and put a finger to his lips in an attempt to calm her. “I’m a friend of your husband. I talked to him last evening; he told me you had been abducted. He couldn’t call the police because the people who kidnapped you warned him not to.”
This seemed to quiet her a bit, but by the frightened look in her eyes, Marc could see that she wasn’t convinced.
Marc went back to the window that faced the street. He could see Rebecca was on her cell phone. He tapped on the window to get her attention. Rebecca looked up. Marc heard a bit of the one-sided conversation. She was apparently giving the police her location. She ended the call and came to where Marc was standing.
Rebecca looked past the open closet door and saw the woman in the chair.
“She’s Bill Goodspeed’s wife,” Marc said. “The terrorists were holding her hostage so her husband wouldn’t contact the police. Help her with her bonds. The terrorists are here, somewhere in the building.”
“Marc, I’ve taken a tour of this place once. It’s a freaking maze of rooms. Maybe it would be better to wait and let the police look for them. The officer I spoke to said they’d be here in a few minutes.”
“The terrorists are probably more familiar with the place than the police are. Stay with her. She’ll need an ambulance,” Marc said.
Before Rebecca could protest any further, Marc turned and left through the open door that led back to the hallway. Feeling his way along the corridor, his hand touched another light switch on the wall. When he flipped it on, he saw that he was alone in the hallway. Up ahead he spotted an open door. Inside he could see a sink and a toilet.
Continuing past the toilet, he saw another door at the far end. It was closed. As he approached, he heard the shuffling of footsteps on the concrete floor. Standing off to one side of the doorway, he slowly pulled the door open. Inside however, there was only darkness. There were no windows. He stepped through the doorway. The sound of his footsteps echoed through the room. It seemed to be fairly large, but with no light, it was impossible to tell. As he advanced through the room, he saw a line of illumination leaking under another door on the opposite side of the room. Keeping along the wall, he found another light switch. He snapped it on. Several rows of florescent lights instantly buzzed to life. The room was large, filled with folding chairs and an oversized wooden desk along the wall next to yet another door. The ceiling was domed, a large concave rotunda in its center.
He hesitated. “What the fuck?” he whispered, awed by the room’s size and the dome in its center. Marc slowly made his way toward the desk. As he passed a metal folding chair, he noticed the back of the chair seemed to shine in the florescent lights. When he got closer, he saw what caused it to shine. Fresh blood. Marc stopped, then crouched down. With his gun aimed in the direction of the desk, he said, “Okay, show’s over. Put your hands in the air. Cops are all over the place. There’s no escape.”
Nothing. No sound. No movement. Marc repeated the command.
“Look, you’re hurt. You need a doctor. Give yourself up and I’ll make sure you get one.”
Slowly, a man’s bloody hand rose up from behind the desk, “Don’t shoot, please.”
The voice seemed rattled, like he was having a hard time speaking, like he had a mouthful of something.
“Stand up,” Marc ordered.
A few moments passed, then the other hand appeared and grasped the top of the desk. Whoever it was seemed to need the desktop for leverage to help him stand. Slowly, the man’s head appeared, his face bloodied. Finally, he was on his feet, but he still leaned on the desk for balance. He was a big guy, dark-complected and over six feet tall.
“Keep your hands flat on the desk.”
Marc quickly approached and went around the back of the desk. Using his foot, he kicked the man’s legs back, forcing him to lean over and put his weight on his hands. Marc secured his gun in his waistband then spotted a semi-automatic pistol in a holster on the man’s right-hand side. With his free hand, Marc pulled the gun from the man’s holster. The gun was a nine-millimeter Glock, the most popular handgun made. Marc shoved the Glock in the back of his waistband. Then from somewhere outside, he heard the faint sound of a police siren.
“There were two of you. Where’s your partner?” Marc asked. His voice had the strong tenor of a cop with over twenty years of experience locking up bad guys.
The man mumbled something unintelligible.
“What? What’d you say? Speak up!” Marc yelled.
“Don’t know where he’s at,” the man mumbled with a thick accent. Blood dripped from his mouth and formed a small puddle on the desktop. Blood also ran from the man’s nose and lips. He looked to have recently lost one of his front teeth.
“I bet you’re the fucker that tried to break into the condo. How’d you like that little taste of Wild Turkey Bourbon I gave you?”
The terrorist gave Marc a dazed look, “Fuck you,” he said, spitting out a mouthful of blood.
Grabbing a handful of the man’s hair, Marc pulled his head back, “Tell me, where’s that fuck-head that was with you in the car? Tell me or I’ll slam your face right into this desktop.” Marc pulled the man’s head back further.
“Kay, I tell,” the man managed. His words were impeded by his accent, blood filling his mouth, and the apparent loosening of a few teeth.
“Well?” Marc yelled.
With his injured hand, the man motioned toward the door next to the desk.
“What? He went that way, through the door?” Marc yelled.
The man gave a quick nod in the affirmative.
Marc had to go after the mastermind of this affair, but he couldn’t leave this guy free to warn whoever had been with him, whether he was handcuffed to the table or not. “Sorry, buddy,” Marc said, and with that he slammed the man’s face back onto the desktop. There was the sound of another tooth snapping, sending a bit of enamel skidding across the desk. The man’s legs collapsed. Marc let him slide to the floor where he immediately began snoring.
“Sweet dreams, asshole. I doubt you’ll need that tooth where you’re going anyway,” Marc whispered. He turned toward the door the man had nodded to, and carefully pulled it open. Poking his head around the corner, he saw another dark hallway that appeared to lead further back into the interior of the building.
“Rebecca was right. This place is a fucking maze.”
Marc listened for a long moment, then, above his hostage’s snoring, he heard the shuffling sound of someone climbing stairs
somewhere in the distance. Heading toward the sound, he located a short stairway. It was narrow and dark. Then he heard another door closing somewhere above. With his handgun at the ready, Marc slowly ascended the stairs and came to another door. He carefully pushed it open. Using the faint streaks of the early morning light coming through a set of tall, arched windows, he could see into a large open room with a row of desks and a counter. The twenty-foot-high ceiling had been formed into another rotunda. A carved sign above a door off to his left read “Postmaster.” When he silently closed the door behind him, there was the sound of footsteps climbing yet another flight of stairs.
This fucker’s got to be a mountain goat!
Following the shuffling footsteps, Marc located the staircase and, as quietly as he could, while taking two at a time, ascended the steps. Before reaching the top, he stopped and listened. From somewhere outside, he could hear the sound of police sirens. As he was about to continue the climb, he heard a muffled “thump.” It didn’t sound like a door closing, but whatever it was, it came from somewhere near the top of the stairway.
With the increasing morning’s sunlight trickling through the windows, he ascended another flight of steps. He reached the top and quickly scanned the area. There were more desks, two rows of them, and a huge bookcase that completely covered one wall. Marc scanned the area under the desks looking for the second terrorist, but there was no-one here, and there was not another door to be seen. He knew he wasn’t hearing things. Someone was up here, but where?
Thinking his quarry could be hiding beneath one of the desks, he started toward the first row then stopped. He noticed a section of the book shelves was uneven and appeared to have been swung outwards. When he pushed on the wall of books, the shelves rotated. Pushing further, he stepped past the opening made by the open wall of books, and stared. It appeared to be some kind of secret passage. Using his cell phone light, he could see he was in the building’s attic. Bare wooden ceiling joists were filled with a sea of blown-in insulation, and not far from where he was standing was yet another set of steps. Like he did while hunting deer in the Adirondack forest, he stood stock-still, and listened. Then, just overhead, he heard a creaking sound. Footsteps. Someone was on the roof.
Masters of Terror: A Marc LaRose Mystery Page 23
