by Jana Oliver
‘Eight.’ Which told her Beck may not be able to read words very well, but numbers weren’t a problem for him.
‘Don’t crowd them,’ she warned. ‘They’ll see us.’
‘I know what I’m doin’, girl.’
They didn’t have to follow the truck for long when it turned into a side street and eventually lumbered to a halt in front of a run-down warehouse in yet another industrial district. As if on cue, the building’s overhead door began to rise at a crawl. To avoid being spotted, Beck pulled over and parked on the street a half block away from the structure, then turned off the truck.
Beck called Stewart with the news. ‘Understood,’ he said, then put the phone in his pocket.
‘What are we going to do?’ Riley asked, nerves taut. They were so close now.
‘Nothin’ until Stewart gets here,’ he said.
This was a new side to Beck. She’d expected him to single-handedly charge into the place like a rampaging action hero, but instead he was taking orders like a good soldier. He respects Stewart so he listens to him. That wasn’t a bad thing. The old Scotsman would keep him out of trouble, like her father had.
Once the bottles were inside the plant, the overhead door went down.
Beck shot her a look. ‘Just tell me who summoned Paul, will ya? I gotta know. Was it that bastard Ozymandias?’
Riley couldn’t go there. If she did, Beck would realize her father had sold his soul and that would crush him. He didn’t have many men he looked up to.
She shook her head. ‘Talk to Dad.’
‘Why don’t ya just tell me? This have somethin’ to do with that damned angel?’
‘Yes.’
He went back to his coffee.
When the trappers arrived, Riley and Beck walked to the end of the street to meet them. It was a small team: Masters Stewart and Harper, along with Journeymen Trappers Remmers and Jackson. The last member of the team was a surprise: her ex-boyfriend Simon. That had to be their master’s doing, probably Harper’s way of getting ‘Saint’ back in action after his horrific injury at the Tabernacle.
Beck did all the talking, bringing the trappers up to speed. While she listened, Riley couldn’t help but notice that Simon kept watching her. She ignored him as best she could, but it wasn’t easy. Their history wasn’t the best, though it’d started out really good – they’d been dating, maybe even falling in love – and then he’d almost died at the hands of a demon. From that moment on he’d changed into a bitter, paranoid guy.
Stop staring at me!
Riley shuffled her feet to deal with the cold, her breath and that of her companions clouding white in the night air. As the trappers talked among themselves, a man wandered up to the group, one of the countless homeless dudes in the city. He was clad in numerous layers of second-hand clothes with a ragged red-and-black checked blanket on the top. His stocking cap proclaimed he was an Iowa Hawkeyes fan, or at least a fan of warm outerwear. Riley didn’t want to imagine what it was like to live on the streets when it was this cold.
‘You folks got any spare change?’ the man asked, his eyes a piercing blue despite his unshaven face. The guy wasn’t as smelly as most of the transients and that suggested he found a spot at a shelter every now and then.
Simon dug in his pocket and handed over a few dollars. Jackson added a five to the donation. Riley had a dollar in her pocket and she gave it to him. Then Beck waved the man over.
‘Hang around here a lot?’ Beck asked, and got a nod in return. ‘That buildin’,’ he said, pointing down the street. ‘Any idea of how many work there?’
‘Five or six.’
‘What happens in there?’
The fellow cocked his head in thought. ‘Bottles in and bottles out. I ask them to help me out, but they don’t pay any attention to me. I’m just another street ghost to them.’
Beck extracted a ten from his billfold and put in the dude’s hand. ‘Thanks. Have breakfast on me.’
‘God bless you,’ the fellow replied. Then he smiled, his teeth surprisingly healthy. ‘Keep looking up, man. That’s where the truth is. Always look up.’ He shuffled off.
‘Another crazy,’ Remmers said, shaking his head. ‘They’re everywhere now.’
‘Probably a vet. There’s a lot of them on the streets now,’ Jackson said. ‘But then you’d know about that, wouldn’t you Den?’
‘Yeah. Just the thanks of a grateful nation . . .’ Beck muttered.
Beck waved Riley to the side and dropped his keys in her hands. ‘Wait in the truck with the doors locked,’ he ordered. ‘If this goes down wrong, call the cops and get out of here fast.’
‘You be careful,’ she cautioned.
‘I will,’ was the curt reply.
In the past Riley would have been pissed Beck was treating her like a fragile flower, but not tonight. She was bone tired and the cramps were still torturing her. Once she’d settled into the pickup, she dug out her bottle of water. After downing a couple of Advil, she leaned back in the seat to watch the action.
The trappers quickly made their way to the plant, then fanned out. Beck tried the service door and it swung open. He gave a thumbs up and the trappers entered the building.
Wish you were here to see this, Dad. In his own methodical, teacher sort of way, he’d laid out the groundwork for this raid. By morning the Holy Water scam would be history, and, if they were lucky, no one would have got hurt.
The first room the trappers entered was nearly empty, only a few wooden pallets and someone’s motorcycle parked in a corner. The soda machine along one wall seemed on its last legs, its lights blinking erratically.
Beck cautiously crossed the open area, following the sound of voices from the next room. Flattening himself against the wall near the door, he took a quick check of the space beyond. He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was: it was almost all bottles, rows and rows of them. A rudimentary assembly line was in force where two guys traded off filling the jugs with water from a garden hose and then another poured something white into the liquid. Salt.
That’s smart. If the liquid touched an open wound it would sting, making the user believe it was real stuff. A fourth man capped the bottle then set it near a card table where a guy with blond dreadlocks printed the new label. Once the label was in place, the bogus Holy Water went on to a pallet, ready to be sold to the clueless public.
Beck had to admire the operation: simple, efficient and dirt cheap to run.
He slipped back to the other trappers. ‘Five guys,’ he whispered. ‘No weapons that I can see. Looks doable.’
‘Then let’s take it down,’ Harper ordered.
Beck went first, quietly entering the work room then moving to the right, Jackson behind him. Harper, Stewart and Remmers went left, leaving Simon to guard the door.
One of the workers glanced up and froze. A second fell on his knees, babbling in a language Beck had never heard before. We must look badass.
The dreadlocked man at the desk rose. ‘Who the hell are you? How did you get in here?’
‘Demon Trappers Guild,’ Harper said, slapping his steel pipe into his palm. The master was grinning now, and with the tortuous scar on his face it wasn’t the kind of sight you wanted to see a second time. ‘You shouldn’t leave your front door open, you know?’
Then there was a brief scuffle as Dreadlocks made a break for it. Instead of running towards freedom, he fled into a nearby restroom, locking himself in.
‘Ah, hell, I’ll get him,’ Beck said, aggravated at the hassle. He pounded on the door. ‘Get yer ass out here!’ No reply.
‘Kick it in,’ Harper ordered.
That’s more like it. Beck put all his frustration in the kick and the door flew open and landed on the floor in a shriek of mangled hinges and the groan of abused wood. The guy inside the restroom gasped in shock, then ditched his cellphone into the toilet. With a quick flush it vanished into the sewer system.
Beck manhandled him back to Harper and reported what
had happened.
‘Who the hell were you calling?’ the master asked.
‘I don’t know,’ the fellow replied, shaking in terror, his face as pale as his braids. ‘I was to call if something went wrong.’
‘What did you say?’
‘That trappers were here. The guy said that everything would be good, that we should stay here until he showed up.’
‘Why ya toss the phone in the can?’ Beck asked.
‘He told me to.’
‘Sounds like someone’s going to pull some strings and make this problem go away,’ Harper replied, frowning.
‘Can’t make it all go away if we have the evidence,’ Stewart said, but he was frowning too.
A twitch rolled across Beck’s shoulders. They were missing something.
‘This doesn’t feel right.’ He gestured at the endless rows of plastic containers. ‘Look at all these damned bottles. There’s at least, what, eighty or ninety thousand dollars worth of fake Holy Water here, and no one’s guardin’ the place but one dude with a cellphone?’
Harper nodded his agreement. ‘Beck’s got a point. Let’s clear out until we know what’s up. Jackson? Get photos of this on that fancy phone of yours, will you?’
‘Sure,’ was the swift reply.
While the journeyman clicked away, Beck studied the layout. Why hadn’t they used the whole warehouse? Sure, it was the portion that had the overhead door, but why crowd it all in this one section?
Another twitch skittered across his shoulders. He’d learned to trust it when he was in the Army, especially when he was on patrol.
Always look up. That’s where the truth is.
The homeless dude’s voice was so strong Beck swore he was standing next to him. So he did look up, feeling like a total fool for doing it. Nothing stared back, only the roof and the wooden beams. What’s that? He stepped a few paces to the left, his attention caught by the junction between one of the beams and the roof supports. There was something up there. His eyes danced to the next beam. Nothing. There was something attached to the second beam over and two more over from that.
Beck kept inching sideways until he could see the main beam more clearly. Now that he had time to study it closely, he realized that a dark green electrical cord snaked down from the rafters and plugged into another cord that led to a small item nestled inside a bundle taped in place. The bundle contained a cellphone. The last time he’d seen something like that was in the war. He and his team had been patrolling near a village market and . . .
‘Bomb!’ he shouted. ‘Get out of here!’ The other trappers gaped at him in disbelief. ‘Go!’ he bellowed, waving them away.
The message got through and they took off at a run. Jackson clicked one last picture, and then sprinted for the door that led into the other part of the building. He skidded to a halt when he realized Beck wasn’t with him.
‘Come on, man!’ he shouted.
Beck waved him off. If he was right, they needed more evidence than a few cellphone pictures. He hammered his palm against the button on the wall that opened the overhead door, then hurried to the desk. Grabbing files and sheets of paper, he jammed them under his jacket.
Behind him the door continued its painfully slow ascent.
The computer. He ripped the cords out of the laptop, and slid it down the front of his jacket, zipping the garment tight to keep it in place. Glancing up, he zeroed in on the dial of the cellphone in the rafters. It was dark. As long as it stayed that way, it was all good. Once the dial lit up and the phone rang, the detonator would trigger the package of explosives, then the other packages on the nearby beams.
If he was still inside . . .
‘Come on, ya damned slow piece of crap!’ Beck complained, pacing back and forth as the door’s chain drive rattled like dried bones. Still not high enough. His eyes flicked back to the cellphone and froze in place. The dial lit up, bright orange as the call came through.
‘Oh, sweet Jesus.’
Chapter Fourteen
Beck didn’t dare roll under the door, not with the computer, so he ducked and scrambled out into the night. Feet pumping, breath coming in short bursts, he sprinted across the open ground as fast as his feet could move. In the distance was a knot of trappers. Some were laughing, pointing at him, thinking this was a joke.
‘Down!’ he shouted, waving. ‘Get down!’
The first explosion’s shock wave lifted him into the air until gravity kicked in. He twisted at the last moment to protect the laptop and that meant his left shoulder took the full impact on the concrete, driving the air out of him and sending a searing stab of agony coursing through his side. A second explosion rent the air. He covered his head and tried to make love to the concrete.
There were shouts and the sound of someone running towards him. Beck pulled himself up, crying out in pain. He looked up into terrified blue eyes.
‘Beck?’ Riley called out. ‘Oh my God, are you OK?’
He nodded, though it was a lie. When he gingerly moved his left arm, something popped in the joint. The pain was so intense he had to bite back a scream. Then the agony eased.
Not broken. That was good news.
‘Beck?’ Riley said, gently touching his face. ‘Are you OK?’
She really cares. Or maybe it was because if he died she wouldn’t get her father’s money. How could he tell with her?
His head kept spinning and it took Jackson and Riley to help him to his feet. After he’d staggered to a kerb and hunkered down, a low rumble brought his attention back to the building. The rumble was the roof collapsing, crushing everything underneath. Spot fires danced where electrical wires had been severed. With all that plastic and wood as fuel, there would nothing worth salvaging.
That homeless guy saved my butt. If he’d still be around, Beck would have given him every dollar in his wallet.
His eyes drifted to the other trappers. They all wore grim expressions, glaring at the guys from inside the building. The workers were too scared to move, fearing retaliation. One of them was crying.
‘What the hell was that?’ Jackson asked, his brows furrowed.
‘An IED,’ Beck said, cautiously moving his injured shoulder. It was stiffening already. ‘They wire a cellphone to explosives, then they call the number and. . . .’ Soldiers die. Or in this case it would have been trappers. ‘Probably been there since the first day they opened for business, knowin’ they could take it down any time.’ No witnesses. No evidence. Whoever was behind this was a cold-blooded bastard.
Remmers snarled and grabbed the dreadlocked dude. ‘You almost got us killed.’ The man frantically shook his head, clawing at the thickly muscled arm encircling his neck.
‘Ease up, Remmers. Let him talk,’ Harper said. With an oath, the trapper reluctantly complied.
‘I swear to God I didn’t know it was up there!’ Dreads squeaked. ‘I would have bought it too!’
‘Talk,’ Harper ordered. ‘We want to hear it all.’
‘OK, OK,’ the man said, raising his hands in surrender. ‘I’ve only met the dude who runs this gig a few times. He’s really creepy. Gave me the shakes being around him.’
‘What did this asshole look like?’
‘He wore a suit.’
‘Hair colour? Height?’
If someone could be totally lost, it was Dreadlocks. He opened and closed his mouth a couple times. ‘I really can’t remember him that well.’
‘How were you paid?’
‘Cash. Every Friday.’
‘How did you get in touch with the guy?’
‘I didn’t. He came to us. Every morning a truck picks up the bottles and delivers them . . . wherever,’ he said, vaguely waving a hand.
Stewart looked over at the other men they’d rousted from the building. ‘What about the rest of ya?’
‘Just some suit,’ one man said.
‘That’s all ya can remember?’ Nods all around.
‘We’ve got six guys who know diddle shit and a burn
ing building full of evidence. The Guild is going to take the blame for this,’ Harper complained.
Beck tugged on Riley’s coat and when she leaned closer he whispered into her ear. He watched as she processed what he’d told her.
‘You’re full of awesome, you know that?’ she said, grinning.
For a second, he believed her.
Riley crossed to Stewart and passed on the message in a whisper. Then she did the same with Harper. The two masters traded looks. With a quick order from Harper, the workers were herded down the street and made to sit on the kerb in a tidy row, guarded by Remmers and Jackson.
‘Go on, Saint, earn your keep,’ Harper said.
As he passed Riley, Simon murmured to her something to her that Beck didn’t catch. A second later, she was in her ex’s face, shoving the apprentice away in fury.
‘Don’t you dare say that,’ she hissed. ‘I had nothing to do with it.’
‘Then why is Hell always one step ahead of us?’ he countered.
‘Stand down, the pair of you,’ Harper bellowed. Riley jerked away, her chest heaving in anger, fists clenched.
The young apprentice gave Riley a final scathing glare, then headed up the street to watch over their prisoners.
With Riley’s help, Beck made it to his ride. Leaning against the passenger side door, out of sight of the plant workers and the other trappers, he had her unzip his jacket. She carefully tugged out the computer and the paperwork, then displayed them to the two older men.
Stewart’s eyes lit up like fireworks. ‘That’s why ya stayed in there so long.’
‘Hell, boy, you might have saved our asses,’ Harper said, grinning.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
Stewart pointed at the evidence. ‘Take this stuff to my place. I’ll have Jackson come over later and go through the computer. We’ll need back-ups of everythin’. Same with the paperwork. I want copies. Spread them around.’
‘You think we’re going to get stonewalled, Angus?’ Harper asked.
Stewart nodded. ‘I’m countin’ on it.’
It took considerable effort on Riley’s part to help Beck into his pickup. He was so sore she had to buckle his seatbelt for him, ignoring how close that put them and how she had to reach across him to get the thing latched.
