No Man's Land

by Sara Driscoll

  Brian held out his fist and Smaill bumped it in camaraderie over the seatback. “Sure does. Lacey likes him, too.”

  Smaill held out his arms in an encompassing gesture. “What’s not to like?”

  “Exactly. We’re good.”

  “Perfect. Todd, you’re with me.” Meg turned to McCord. “Now . . . you.”

  “What about me?” McCord’s expression said he already knew what she was going to say.

  “I know Kate cleared you to be here. I also know you want to be able to finish this story off with every detail down to the smell of the salt breeze and the crumble of rust under your boots. But you’re not law enforcement. Or our expert guide. Or medical.”

  “No, but I can watch the dogs.”

  “Watch the . . . what?”

  “Look at this site. Most of the structure is in the air, and that’s where you think he’ll be. What if you can’t get Hawk up the stairs or ladders? Or the struts, if that’s your only way up? You’d never leave them alone where they might be in danger.”

  Meg opened her mouth to argue, and then realized McCord was absolutely right. “If that happens, you’re going to watch the dogs?”

  “Let me come with you. I know how to stay clear of a situation, you know that. I wouldn’t have survived Iraq without that sixth sense and the ability to run like the wind if needed. If you have to go vertical and can’t take the dogs with you, you can hand them off to me and do your job. You know I can keep myself and them safe. They know me now. They trust me.”

  Jaw tight, lips a thin line, she studied him. “Anything happens to you and I’m going to be murdered by my own sister.”

  “Who is a gem of a woman I’d lay down my life for, but nothing is going to happen. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  Meg glanced at Brian, who nodded his agreement. “Okay, fine. But you do everything Brian and I say.” She leveled an index finger at both Webb and Smaill. “That goes for you two as well. I know you’re trained, but not specifically for this. And you’re our responsibility.”

  “Tell us what you need us to do, and we’ll get it done,” Webb said.

  “We’re all set, then.” She glanced at her watch and then out the window. “We should be on the ground in about ten minutes. With a little luck, we’ll have Stevenson in handcuffs within the hour.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Tankcatting: Breaking into a site overcoming locks, obstructions, and decay.

  Wednesday, November 21, 1:24 PM

  New Castle Coal Dumper

  New Castle, Delaware

  They came in at a run through a miserable, stinging cold rain, down the narrow concrete walkway that hugged the train tracks. Meg led the way, with Hawk, unleashed, galloping at her side—then Webb, Smaill, Lacey beside Brian, and McCord bringing up the rear.

  They had parked their rented vehicles in the transportation lot near the shore, tucking them in between parked semis behind the transport company’s warehouse. Except for McCord, they’d each donned a pack—Brian and Meg their SAR packs; Webb his medical pack; and Smaill a rescue pack stuffed full of climbing cables, harnesses, and tools. Due to the nature of the site, and the degradation of the structure itself, Brian and Meg left their dogs unleashed. If one of them went down, they needed their dogs to be able to save themselves.

  On the way toward the shoreline, McCord had spotted the dark SUV through the pelting rain, similarly pulled out of sight between the trailers.

  He was here.

  Meg sprinted down the cracked and broken concrete pathway, alternately scanning the way ahead for obstacles and the structure above for any sign of movement. The hood on her jacket was tugged over her head, and she peered out from under it, squinting up at the dumper, partially obscured by weather.

  If we can’t see him, hopefully he can’t see us.

  To her left, the train tracks ran alongside, their wooden platform built above concrete footings that disappeared beneath the surface of the river. Puny trees and shrubs sprouted from between the rails, growing from a wooden base toward the sun around iron rails unused for decades.

  The blustery northwest wind drove the rain at a sharp slant over the railroad ties, sluicing water onto the concrete walkway. Meg glanced at Hawk, noting his head-up posture—he was alert but wasn’t focused on any specific scent. Without a victim-specific scent to search for, he’d be looking for the freshest scent, and the rain paired with the creosote-soaked railway ties, leaching their clingy, oily scent all over the concrete walkway, likely masked any human scent.

  Heavy, twisted ropes lay across the concrete walkway, trailing over the uneven surface to tumble into the water below, and thick wood crossbeams, blown or ripped from the railbed, lay tangled with the ropes. But Meg never paused, simply lengthening her stride to leap over the obstacles, Hawk mirroring her every move.

  As agreed, the group split partway down the pier, Meg, Hawk, Webb, and McCord taking advantage of a break in the railing to jump to the wooden railway platform before it rose above the engine room, and Brian, Lacey, and Smaill continuing on down the walkway as the railbed rose over their heads. They would make their way into the engine and winch room, ensuring it was empty before meeting the rest of the team on the upper level.

  They had to slow their pace as soon as they climbed onto the wooden platform. One quick look told Meg their footing was precarious, since many of the railway ties were shattered where they’d been pierced by spikes, and the weathered wood was splintered and cracked over its entire length. The wood groaned and occasionally cracked underfoot, so she slowed as much as she dared to minimize the force of every single step. To their advantage, the uneven surface provided traction over the soaked wood.

  They sprinted up the incline, staying close to the railing as it rose above the walkway below. As they neared the top, Brian ran directly underneath them to cross under the tracks and into the building below.

  They reached the top of the incline, and Meg slowed to a halt beneath the platform high overhead. Temporarily out of the rain, she pushed her hood back to be able to see and hear the site more clearly.

  The railroad ties here were in worse shape, with entire support beams missing and gaping holes showing the drop to the concrete platform below. In front of them, the track ran onto the steel loader, the long platform the length of the railcars that would have been rolled onto it for dumping. One side of the loader was solid steel, though badly rusted, and it was here that each car was raised and tipped. To their left, a narrow set of open metal stairs ran up to the spidery steel structure overhead. In the first flight, several steps were simply missing, the contact points having rusted and the stair treads fallen away.

  She bent down to Hawk, running her hand over his soaking fur. “Hawk, buddy, do you smell anything? Find, Hawk. Find.”

  As Hawk put his nose down and started to explore this level, Meg scanned the area for any sign of life. One quick glance told her that Stevenson and Mani Ramachandaran would not be easily found. Only twenty feet above the waterline, the wind whistled around them as it blew off the river, and the sound of rain striking metal was a constant drumbeat.

  Hawk had moved to the stairs and now started to rapidly climb up the rusted mesh treads. His trail stopped abruptly as he came to a gaping section missing three consecutive steps, and he sat down and turned to look at Meg.

  He’s alerting. Someone recently took those stairs.

  She turned to find McCord standing behind her, breathing hard, his blond hair plastered to his head and his glasses speckled with rain. He stood with his head tipped up, toward the levels overhead. She touched his arm, and when he looked toward her, she pointed up and he nodded.

  She swallowed, hard. No choice for it. Hawk is saying they’re up there, so that’s where we go. “Hawk, come.” Reaching into her navy FBI jacket pocket, she pulled out Hawk’s leash, coiled it, and jammed it into McCord’s hands as Hawk clambered back down to her. She squatted down in front of her dog, dropping her voice down to a bare whispe
r over the wind and rain. “Hawk. Stay with McCord. Stay.” She ran a quick hand over his head, taking comfort in the trust in his dark gaze, and then she stood and turned away from him. Meeting Webb’s eyes, she jerked her head toward the stairs.

  When he would have stepped in front of her to go first, she grabbed his arm, shaking her head. She met his gaze. FBI operation. You can’t go first. She knew he understood when he stepped back a pace, letting her precede him.

  She set her foot on the metal mesh step, testing its firmness, then trusting her weight to it. Climbing as quickly as she dared, she tested each tread, skipping any that seemed unstable. Halfway up the first flight, she came to the section of missing steps that signaled the end of Hawk’s search. Grasping both railings, feeling the chill and the roughness of the weathered metal beneath her palms, she stepped up onto the side supports of the staircase. She set her other boot on the far side, thankful for her nearly six feet of height that allowed her a stride wide enough to traverse the space, and used her arms to drag herself up. Once her boot slipped on the wet, slick metal, but she held on with both hands, pulling herself up until she gratefully stepped off onto the next intact stair tread and then the next. As Webb stepped back onto the staircase, she looked down to catch McCord’s encouraging nod. Hawk’s eyes stayed locked on her, his body looked tense as if he was ready to spring after her, but McCord had him leashed and held the shortened lead tightly.

  She turned away from her dog and continued up the stairs.

  At the top of the first flight of stairs, the bottom of one of the massive weights hung along a track down one of the rear struts of the complex. About twenty feet in length, it had to be at least several tons in weight, suspended by its original cables, and matched an identical weight on the far side of the structure.

  They climbed up another two flights of zigzagging stairs, pausing just below the landing for the turn that led to the control room jutting out from the side of the structure. Glancing down, Meg saw that McCord now stood with two dogs, and Brian and Smaill had cleared the open section of stairs and were following them. After pulling her Glock 19 from her hip holster, Meg held it low against her thigh as she waited for them.

  Brian took one look at her weapon and pulled his own, slipping into place behind her and giving her a nod. Ready.

  They moved quietly up the stairs, faces turned up directly into the rain, and she and Brian stepped onto the control room landing and quickly moved to either side of the open doorway, the door having been removed long ago.

  Meg pointed at Brian and then up; next, she pointed at herself and then down. Looking him in the eye, she mouthed One . . . two . . . three!

  They swept into the control room, Brian going high, Meg going low, guns extended in a double-fisted grip.

  The room was empty. It was lined with ancient consoles, and the remnants of the dumper controls lay scattered across the floor, but the room had mostly been picked clean. There was no sign of Stevenson or his hostage.

  The long, windowless back wall was covered with graffiti, and tucked into the corner nearest the door was the now-familiar blue trilobite.

  Five for five.

  Smaill had guessed right.

  They returned to the group and started upward again. Meg paused at the landing above the control room, holding out her free hand to stop the rest of the group as she froze to listen. Up this high, the wind rose to a scream, stabbing like chill fingers through her hair and driving raindrops against her exposed skin, painful like tiny knives.

  But there it was—a scrape from above. And what she swore was a muffled cry.

  She took off up the stairs, the rest of the group behind her. They came off the staircase onto the top platform, which opened out to a series of pulleys, thick, twisted metal cables, and crisscrossing catwalks.

  Two people huddled in the rain on the far side of the platform. No, not huddled, Meg realized. Struggled. Meg recognized Stevenson immediately, even drenched and without a covering of concrete dust, and the woman he was holding down had to be Mani Ramachandaran.

  Still alive.

  “FBI!” Meg bellowed.

  “Freeze!” Brian yelled.

  Stevenson’s head jerked in their direction, his pale face losing even more color at the sight of Meg and Brian, both armed and in FBI jackets. He pushed Mrs. Ramachandaran away and jumped to his feet, bolting for the far side of the platform, then ducking behind a giant iron wheel with a heavy cable looped over it to disappear from sight.

  “Stay with the victim!” Meg yelled over her shoulder to Webb and Smaill.

  She and Brian headed straight across the platform while Webb and Smaill tried to cut across it diagonally, heading straight for Mrs. Ramachandaran. A narrow metal mesh walkway rimmed the edge of the platform, but large sections of it were missing, leaving stories of empty space beneath. The wind howled around them, shaking the platform and driving the rain on a steep slant, seeming to set the entire dumper swaying.

  How stable is this structure?

  Meg grabbed for the railing, but her gaze fell on the water down so far, far below, the rain being blown over the surface in sheets. She pushed away the raw terror that rose in her throat, not only at the height but also the potential instability of any part of the structure.

  Focus.

  Where the mesh had rusted and rotted away, they were forced to cross on one side of the gap on the exposed I-beam, slowing their progress. It felt like an eternity to make it to the far side, though in reality it was only about twenty seconds; in that time, Stevenson was gone.

  “Where did he go?” Meg held her hand over her eyes to shield them from the rain as she scanned the platform, but it was as if he’d disappeared into thin air.

  “There was a ladder on the forward leg on this side.” Brian had to come close to yell over the wind. “Maybe there’s one on the back leg, too.”

  There was, but as Meg leaned out, she could see that he never would have taken it, as a large number of the rungs were rusted out and missing. She spun around to where Webb and Smaill were kneeling over the victim, Smaill talking to her as Webb dug furiously in his pack for something.

  Where did he go?

  Then a flash of movement caught her eye, and she turned with a gasp.

  Through the wind and the rain, Stevenson was climbing out on the support leg. About four feet wide, it was made of crisscrossing steel supports woven through a boxy square frame. The leg projected about ten feet out from the top platform, then ran directly down to the main concrete pad for the entire complex.

  If he makes it to the ground, we’ve lost him.

  “There!” She pointed after him. “He’s headed down. If he makes it all the way to the ground, he’ll even miss McCord on the track level. We need to split up. You take the stairs back down and cut him off from below.” She started after Stevenson.

  Brian grabbed her arm, jerking her to a halt. “Where are you going?”

  “After him. Someone needs to follow him. This structure has too many levels. If he jumps onto the engine room roof, he could get past you on the ground floor. If I follow him down, I’ll block his way back up here, and we need eyes on him at all times to see where he goes. Todd and Chuck are busy right now and can’t help us. Now go!” She jerked her arm free and ran after Stevenson as fast as she dared across the ruined platform. Meg didn’t look behind her to ensure Brian had followed her order but kept her eyes firmly on Stevenson. She knew she could hit him if she fired on him at this range, but that would likely mean certain death six stories below. Justice for what he’d done, for sure, but not her kind of justice. She’d let the courts deal with him and let him face the families he’d wronged.

  She jammed her Glock in its holster and hoisted herself up onto the frame to follow him. Crawling off the platform onto the wet and slippery steel supports, she hesitated. This isolated metal structure swayed even more in the merciless winds and was so high in the air, her brain tried to simply short-circuit, leaving her frozen. Below her,
what was left of the wooden pier that had once been part of the switchback stretched out into the river for sixty or eighty feet. There was less of the pier left than the dumper itself, and the mangled metal track, still attached to the remnants of the raised kickback, dangled over water studded with a forest of thick wooden support piles, weathered and exposed into jagged, knifelike edges.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, gathering herself. You can do this. Do not look down. Do not slip. One careful step at a time.

  She took a deep breath and opened her eyes straight ahead to take in nothing but the steel beams. She grasped the nearest crossbeam, hauling herself forward onto the strut. Take it one move at a time. Right foot and knee to a new position. Left hand. Breathe. Left knee. Right hand. Breathe.

  Slowly she crawled out over nothing but a deadly drop as the man in front of her and the wind combined to shake her very foundations.

  Three feet.

  Five feet.

  Breathe.

  Seven feet.

  Ten feet, to the vertical section, and she maneuvered herself from horizontal to vertical, from the inside of the support arm to the outside, where she could climb freely and her way wasn’t blocked by crossbeams every five feet. Now movement seemed easier, partly because she was now climbing to safety instead of away from it.

  She could see Stevenson in front of her. Was she gaining on him?

  “Brett Stevenson!” she yelled into the wind, hoping he could hear her. “FBI! You’re under arrest. Stop and you won’t be charged with evading arrest.”

  Stevenson didn’t slow. In fact, he moved faster, but whether he was aiming for the engine room roof or the ground, she couldn’t tell.

  “Goddamn it.”

  Meg had to cling tight to a beam during a particularly brutal gust of wind, ducking her head and screwing her eyes shut as rain pelted her and she held on for dear life while her body was buffeted. She let out the breath she’d been holding when the wind died down slightly and reached down with her left boot when she heard the scream of tearing metal and a cry of terror. Craning her head over her shoulder, she looked down.