Quick Sands: A Theo Ramage Thriller (Book 1)

by Edward J. McFadden III

  He turned to face the door and took a deep breath. The keypad glowed white, numbers one through nine in a tight square, the swinging-single zero at the bottom. Ramage typed in the code Splice had given him. The red light atop the panel turned green, the door lock disengaged, and Ramage stepped through, closing the door behind him.

  Out front in the guardhouse a man who was ready to go home dropped his sandwich on its waxed paper and picked up his phone. A popup box flashed on his computer screen.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The room was filled with an immense machine that looked like a giant jet engine powered by a wood stove. All kinds of wires, tubes, circuits, and fans protruded from the thing, and at one end there was a steel blast door with huge hinges and a swinging lever handle. The place smelled like coal, smoke, and chemicals. Shelves lined the western wall filled with white containers that had black labels. The kind of stuff you saw behind a pharmacist’s counter. Ramage glanced at the labels, but he was no chemist. Rhenium, sulfur, xylene. He had no idea what these things did, or how they did it, or what the stuff had to do with oil.

  There was a large stainless-steel bowl mounted on the machine. Like a colander. It was coated with dark oil on the inside and it drained down through a clear tube stained brown that disappeared into the machine. The steel door was cool to the touch, so Ramage opened it. Coal residue inside, the scent of fire. There was a temperature gauge that went from zero to two thousand degrees next to the door. That was hot. Didn’t need to be a scientist to know that.

  He moved around the machine, gripping the Glock, sweat dripping down his back. The clock was ticking, and he felt the seconds slipping away.

  The east wall had pegs with oil stained leather aprons, lab coats, and disposable bio suits hanging from them. The floor was littered with leather and plastic gloves, and those funny things you pull over your shoes. At the room’s far end a series of canisters, like something you’d connect to a barbeque, were stacked neatly in ordered rows. Some were unlabeled, others had plastic ties holding their release valves closed and labels that read benzene. One of the canisters was inserted into a sleeve on the machine where it mated with a pressurized hose that snaked to a coil, then disappeared into the guts of the device. Next to the machine, mounted in stainless-steel clamps, was a tall canister of hydrogen, and it was connected to the machine via a silver hose.

  Ramage had found an elusive puzzle piece. The Sandman was using heat and chemicals to extract benzene from crude oil. Another piece, but still no completed puzzle, and he was no chemist.

  There was a door on the northern wall, so he put an ear to it. The metal door was cold, and Ramage heard nothing on the other side. Air moved gently through a vent overhead, the metal warehouse creaked as it was sandblasted by the wind. There was no lock on this door. He was already behind their firewall. Ramage turned the knob, threw open the door, and stepped back and flattened himself to the wall, listening. A clock ticked. Steam released from a pressure valve.

  He leapt into the open doorway, Glock out before him in a double handed grip. The room was dark, save for the glow of dull track lighting mounted beneath reagent shelves all along the lab benches. Chemistry supplies lined the walls; glass beakers, pipets, test tubes, stoppers, clamps, tubing, and alcohol lamp burners. It was a full-blown research lab, equipped with a glass washer, centrifuge, and walk-in environmental chamber.

  He let the Glock fall to his side as he stepped in. Two rows of benches lined the room. They were setup like an assembly line, and Ramage saw a stack of boxes at the far end. He headed for the boxes, then froze. One of the warehouse’s main doors rolled up, popping and pinging. Men yelled and screams echoed through the building. Ramage figured the Sandman had arrived. No sand left in his hourglass.

  Moving with new urgency, he walked briskly across the room, and what he found in the stacked boxes stoked a rage he hadn’t felt since he’d emptied his gun into a group of terrorists.

  The boxes were filled with the plastic pill bottles he’d seen, except these had labels and contained red pills. He plucked one from a box. The word Ride in a fancy typeface was printed above a faceless person surfing a cloud. The tagline below read “Take the ride of your life.”

  He sighed. Drugs. Why did it always come down to that? He slipped the bottle into his pocket and broke out his cell phone. There was no window opening out onto the warehouse—not everyone was permitted to see what happened in this room—so Ramage briefly turned on the lights and shot some video. There was a desk with papers stacked on it and Ramage took a fistful, headed for the exit, and turned the lights off.

  There was more screaming. Footfalls clanged on the metal steps.

  Ramage turned the lights back on and faded back into the first room. If they saw light leaking from under the lab’s door, they might check there first, but he couldn’t count on that. He dropped to his knees, gun in hand, and crawled beneath the massive machine, working his way through a tangle of hoses, and around a metal box that was hot to the touch and smelled of sulfur. He lay on his side, so he had a view of the door. Ramage put the muzzle of the Glock on a metal pipe to steady it, lined up the sight with the door, and waited.

  Harsh whispers, shuffling feet, the buzz of the electronic lock disengaging, and the door swung open. Ramage reeled and hit his head on a pipe and it boomed like a cymbal crash.

  Anna stood in the open doorway. An arm covered in red fabric held a gun to her head.

  A voice he recognized said, “Don’t try anything stupid, Mr. Ramage.” The gun jerked as Piranha pushed the pistol into the side of Anna’s head. “Remember where you are.”

  “Ramage?” Anna said.

  His mind raced as he ran through his options, which were basically nil.

  He could surrender. That looked to be the easiest and most logical thing to do. Don’t put Anna in anymore danger. But surrendering meant nothing to this crew. As soon as they were done questioning them, they’d be killed and left for the coyotes.

  Second option was fire. The wall Piranha hid behind was two pieces of thin sheetrock tacked to metal studs. Ramage could put a hole through it with his pinky, but if the bullet hit a metal stud it could ricochet. He could shoot Piranha’s arm and hope he dropped the gun, but that wouldn’t work. There were reinforcements outside and shooting the gun would just delay the inevitable.

  He could run. But to where? And what would happen to Anna?

  He had no options except surrender and hope they could stay alive long enough for Rex and the cavalry to arrive. He started spinning a story.

  “Coming out with my hands up.” He inched backward, bumped into the hydrogen canister, and had a revelation. Piranha couldn’t fire in this room. If one of the pressurized canisters was hit it would cause an explosion that would destroy the lab. Maybe the entire building.

  Free of the machine, he knelt, peering through wires and tubes toward the door. Anna still stood there, shaking like a leaf, the gun and inch from her head.

  “Listen up, Guppy, because I don’t think you’re very smart, and you need to learn some basic science before you blow us all sky high,” Ramage said.

  Running feet on the metal gantry. Some of the guys were moving to the other door and they’d come at him through the lab.

  “Pressurized gas canisters don’t like being hit with things. Especially metal projectiles traveling at one thousand feet per second. I hope you’re a good shot and nothing ricochets.”

  Piranha lashed out with the pistol and cracked Anna on the side of the head. “Do the canisters mind if I kick the shit out of your girl?”

  “I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you. You piece of shit. I’m…”

  “Not gonna do shit.” It was a new voice. More controlled. Refined. He knew it also. Carl, Sr., AKA the Sandman, who it turns out wasn’t a sandman at all. “Come on Ramage. You blow the lab and we all die.”

  “I’m ready. What about you?” Ramage lifted one of the smaller barbeque-type containers and put it by his side. A plan was form
ing.

  “Doesn’t have to be like this. Let’s go talk. Work this shit out,” Carl Sr. said.

  The door leading to the lab burst open and a man came through covered by another.

  One of the guy’s excessive cologne made Ramage sneeze, and Piranha laughed.

  Ramage swung around and placed the barrel of the Glock against a gas canister. “Easy boys. That is unless you’d like to meet your god of choice. You hope.”

  Carl Sr. moved into the open doorway.

  Ramage swung his gun around and sighted the Sandman, who stood with his hands at his sides. No weapon.

  “Go ahead. Shoot me. You’d be dead a heartbeat later, and Anna. You think my son will kill her quick? I told you he can be kind of an asshole.”

  The two goons stood five feet away with their guns pointed at Ramage’s head.

  In situations where you have no control, patience and calm are your friend. His survivalist instructor had taught him that. When shit seems to be at its worst, and you can’t see a way out, breathe, count to ten, and figure the shit out.

  “OK,” Ramage said. He lifted his arms and displayed the Glock. He bent and carefully laid it on the floor, and straightened, hands in the air.

  The thugs were on him in an instant, pulling his arms behind his back, stripping him of the pill bottle, his phone, the paperwork he’d stolen, his gun, night scope, a spare clip, and a garage door opener. One of the men held the garage remote up to the light like it was a diamond.

  Piranha stepped into the room and snatched it from the man. “What’s this stupid shit?” He looked better than he had when they’d met, though he walked with a limp.

  “Nice track suit. I disturb your workout?” Ramage said. Piranha’s red sweatsuit looked new, but his white sneakers were smudged with dirt and sand.

  Piranha placed the tip of his gun to Ramage’s head.

  Ramage said nothing.

  Carl Sr. took the remote from his son and turned it over in his hand. “What’s this for?”

  Ramage didn’t answer. He looked at Anna and shook his head.

  “OK.” Carl Sr. said. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly and ran fingers through his thinning gray hair. “You believe this shit?”

  The Sandman’s guys, even Carl Jr., were smart enough to keep their mouths shut.

  Carl Sr. sighed and rubbed his eyes. “You’re right about one thing. No bullets in this room, so let’s go someplace where bullets aren’t so detrimental to my overall health and financial stability.”

  “Screw you,” Ramage said.

  Two guards pulled him to his feet. Ramage kept his eyes on Anna, whose tough expression had fled. The dark bags under her eyes looked drawn on with coal, and tears slid down her face. This was his fault. He never should have let her come.

  “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way,” Piranha said.

  “How original,” Ramage said.

  Piranha lashed out with a rabbit punch that caught Ramage on the side of the face. Anna screamed, and Carl Sr. shook his head.

  “Son?” Carl Sr. said. “We pay people to do that.”

  “But I—”

  “But you’re an idiot. Take them to the conference room. Tie them up, then maybe we’ll get some battery acid,” Carl Sr. said.

  Piranha smiled.

  The Sandman came forward and bent over before Ramage until the two men were nose-to-nose. “I need to know what you’ve done. Who you’ve told what.”

  Ramage spit in his face.

  Piranha cracked him on the side of the head. Blackness crept in around the edges of Ramage’s vision, and the Sandman’s harsh laughter faded.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Piranha and a helper bee carried Ramage out onto the gantry walkway and threw him down the metal steps. He gripped the railing, stopping his fall, but Piranha was on him, pushing him the rest of the way down. Back on ground level Ramage staggered to his feet, blood running into his eyes from the gash on his forehead Chiclet had given him. Anger welled in him, but when he saw Anna coming down the stairs, he remembered her wellbeing was now his only concern.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” Piranha said.

  “You’d know, wouldn’t you,” Ramage said.

  Piranha punched Ramage in the jaw.

  “That all you got?” Ramage spit blood.

  “I told you, we have people to do that,” Carl Sr. said. He glided down the steps like a specter. “Why don’t you have any respect for me, my only son? I tell you shit, and it goes in one ear and out the other.” The Sandman’s voice was ice.

  Piranha gawked at his father, slack jawed, unsure what to say.

  Ramage sighed as loud as he could. “Don’t mean to break up the Mensa meeting, but can we move this along?”

  Piranha looked to his father, who shook his head no.

  “I need a coffee,” said the Sandman.

  “Me too,” said Carl Jr..

  “Did I ask you what you needed?” Carl Sr. said.

  “No, I just—”

  “You just what?”

  Piranha said nothing.

  “Get them to the conference room and tie them up. If I have to say it again, it ain’t gonna be a good day for you ‘all. Savvy?”

  Nodding heads and murmurs of “yes, sir.”

  The Sandman disappeared between two trucks.

  Piranha and his men hauled Anna and Ramage to the second-floor conference room where they were searched again and secured to cheap chairs with duct-tape.

  “I need to pee,” Ramage said. Worked before. Might work again.

  Piranha and his partner ignored him and left the room.

  “Do you really need to go?” Anna asked when they were gone.

  “No.”

  “I do,” she said. Then she started crying again. “What the hell are we going to do, Ramage? These guys are hardcore. I’m afraid they’ll…”

  Ramage didn’t know what to say. Carl Sr. had eluded to what Piranha might do, but now wasn’t the time to scare the woman. He needed to think.

  “How long before Gypsy—”

  “Ssssh,” he said. “They could be listening.”

  Anna looked over her shoulder as if expecting to find a giant electronic bug behind her.

  “We need to sit tight. Gypsy and Cecil know we’re here,” Ramage said.

  The door to the conference room fell back on its hinges and smacked against the wall. Carl Sr., son Piranha, and the guy Ramage had seen earlier and pegged as the compound’s manager entered and took seats around the table. Each man had coffee. None was offered to Ramage or Anna.

  Carl Sr. leaned back and took a deep breath. “OK, so everyone has calmed down, yeah?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Good. That’s good. So what the hell were you going to do with these?” The Sandman tossed the papers Ramage had stolen on the table.

  Ramage said nothing.

  “OK. What about this?” He tossed the garage door opener on of the papers.

  Ramage lifted his shoulders and mock yawned.

  “Are we boring you?” The Sandman glanced at the unnamed man.

  The manager guy threw a punch at Ramage, who leaned back in his chair and avoided the blow.

  “Look. I don’t have all day. You want to live? Huh? What about her life?” Carl Sr. said. He stuck his index finger into Anna’s cheek and rage burned Ramage’s stomach.

  Piranha tossed the pill bottle he’d stolen on the table. “So you’re a thief? Huh?”

  “Takes one to know one,” Ramage said.

  Piranha said, “I’m rubber, you’re glue, whatever—”

  “Shut it! And stop messing around,” Carl Sr. said.

  Piranha held up Ramage’s phone. “What about this? You care about this?”

  “Piss off,” Ramage said.

  Piranha dropped the phone and stomped on it with his boot heel. “No help that way. Guess you’re—”

  The Sandman cuffed his son on the back of the head. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Carl Sr.
said. He put his hand to his forehead and shook his head.

  “What? I—”

  “I swear sometimes I wonder whose kid you are. Do I need to explain everything to you?”

  Piranha said nothing.

  Manager man stepped in. “We could’ve had the phone checked and we might’ve been able to figure out who these guys were talking to.”

  “See that, son?” said the Sandman. “Everybody is smarter than you. How’s that make you feel? That this big bald dumbass knows better than you? What does that say?”

  Piranha bent and picked up the phone and turned it over in his hand. Its screen was shattered, but otherwise the phone was intact. Carl Jr. held the broken phone out to his father. “Maybe we can still do something with it.”

  Carl Sr.’s hand shot out and knocked the phone from his son’s hand. “Get your head out of your ass and start paying attention.”

  Ramage laughed.

  “You think that’s funny, huh?” Piranha punched Ramage. A vicious uppercut that snapped his head back and sent a geyser of blood spouting from his nose.

  Anna screamed. “Leave him alone!”

  “Isn’t that cute,” Piranha said.

  “I need to know what this is. Now.” Carl Sr. pushed the garage opener in Ramage’s direction.

  “Why don’t you press the button and find out?”

  The Sandman casually backhanded Anna across the face. Blood splattered onto the conference table as she sagged and moaned.

  “I’m gonna kill you. Watch you bleed out.” Ramage didn’t yell. He was smooth as silk.

  “Yeah? Like you did to that little girl?” Carl Sr. said. “What was her name, son?”

  “Sandy Islmal.”

  “Yeah. Her. You remember her, right Ramage? She was what, six?”

  “Four,” Ramage said. He was back there. Darkness sucking him into the abyss. Gunfire. Smoke. Blood.

  “I see I hit a nerve,” Carl Sr. said.