by Ethan Cross
The items Gabi found left her with a split-second decision to make. If she called for help on the radio, the blonde would hear her and immediately turn back to attack again. Even if she was able to get her message out and help came, she’d likely be dead by the time they arrived.
Her mind made up, she pulled the Taser from the dead officer’s belt, spun herself around, and dropped her butt to the floor.
The blonde turned from her bloody assault. Her catlike eyes locking onto Gabi and the weapon in her hand. Blood splatter soaked the blonde’s face, and she resembled a crazed animal full of bloodlust, like a wolverine Gabi had once seen attacking the barriers at a zoo.
The blonde charged forward. Gabi aimed the small weapon as best she could and squeezed the trigger.
The Taser bucked slightly as the barbs and wires rocketed out of the end of the weapon, heading straight for the blonde’s chest.
But then the blonde’s forward momentum caused Gabi’s shot to sail wide. She had been aiming for where the blonde was, not where she would be. Another step and her attacker was in range. The blonde kicked the Taser out of Gabi’s hands and drove her fist into the center of Gabi’s face.
She felt the cartilage and bone in her nose buckle and tasted copper in her throat. She coughed and gagged and hacked up blood onto the white tile.
The blonde circled her with feline grace and a small smirk. Then the woman typed onto her wrist, the speaker stating, “I have something special for you.”
Gabi spat blood at her tormentor and replied, “I hope you enjoy Naraka.”
The blonde typed, and the electronic voice said, “What’s that? The Hindu equivalent of Hell?”
“Yes, but when Yama, the god of death, judges you, your wretched soul will be thrown into Kakola—the bottomless pit, for those who are eternally condemned and have no chance of reincarnation.”
“That’s fine with me. I don’t want to be reincarnated. One life was enough.”
She grabbed Gabi by the hair and wrenched her onto her knees. The pain shooting through her broken leg was immense, almost unbearable, but she refused to make a sound. She shoved the scream deep down inside and mastered the pain, denying the blonde the satisfaction.
The blonde had the gun aimed at her, but she refused to look at the evil woman. She chose to stare straight ahead. She could see Deb’s body on the floor. Her chest wasn’t rising, and her face was an unrecognizable mess of blood and torn flesh.
In her peripheral vision, Gabi saw the blonde raise the gun again like a hammer. Her head was swirling, and all of her limbs felt as if they were tied down with cinder blocks. She watched the blonde pull back her makeshift hammer, trying to time the blow. Gabi knew that if she could drop beneath the strike, then maybe she could—
She felt the impact before she saw it coming. A strike to the back of her neck that made her feel as though her whole body had been hit at once, like she’d been run over by train.
But then all the pain was gone, and she had no control over any of her body. She fell face forward against the tile. She couldn’t move her arms or legs. She had no feeling below her neck.
The blonde rolled her over, but all she could do was stare up at the perforated tiles of the suspended ceiling. The hum of the fluorescent lights seemed to grow louder, like the buzzing of a great swarm of flies.
She fought for breath, her lungs begging for air, but she could do nothing to quench their thirst.
The electronic voice said, “I just broke your C3 vertebrae. It holds the phrenic nerve, which controls your diaphragm. That’s why you can’t breathe. You’re completely paralyzed and are going to slowly suffocate. It may take ten to fifteen minutes for your brain to completely die, but don’t worry, my guess is that, in your diminished state, you’ll lose consciousness in under two minutes.”
Gabi felt tears roll down her temples and into her hair. She’d never hear her father’s soothing voice again, she’d never see home, never marry or have children. At least, not in this life. She just wished she believed in her religion as much as she let on, but it had simply been what she was raised to believe, she wasn’t sure that she believed it herself. There always seemed to be more time for such things, such thoughts. Always so much more time.
The blonde got down on her hands and knees and crawled into Gabi’s field of vision. The beautiful face and platinum-blonde hair made the woman look like an angel, but the strange tilt of her head and glimmer in her eye made her seem like a demon wearing some poor woman’s skin.
The blonde sat down on the tile and cradled Gabi’s head between her thighs, stroking Gabi’s hair and wiping away the tears. Then she typed, “I love to watch people die. My family were missionaries in Mozambique. In one of the villages, a man with certain appetites saw me as a prize. He killed my parents and used my six-year-old body as his personal amusement park. One night, I snuck the knife from his boot and slit his throat. I watched him choke on his own blood in silence. I watched the life leave him. He was my first but far from my last. The people of the village used to call me hahabu shetani—which means golden devil in Swahili. So you see princess, I’ve looked into enough eyes to see that there is no Yama passing judgment. No coming back. There’s only being here and then gone.”
As Gabi stared up at the ceiling, she knew that the blonde was wrong. Even then she could feel a sense of warmth and peace, but maybe that was just the euphoria from her brain slowly dying.
She found it funny that a part of her had always believed she would die at the hands of a grotesque man forcing himself upon her and choking the life from her body, throwing her away like a piece of used garbage. She had never considered that she may die at the hands of a woman, especially a victim of the same kind of pain, another little girl whose innocence had been stolen.
The warmth passed over her like the midday sun, and she imagined herself splashing through the waves with her father and running on Mumbai beach, the sand between her toes. She held onto the joy of that moment and forgot everything else. No more pain. No more tears. Just the warmth of the sun and the joy of her father’s love.
PART THREE
Chapter 69
Burke listened as Carter spoke to the FBI director and said a lot of Yes, ma’ams and I understands into his phone. When he ended the call, Carter said, “Come on boys. Let’s go bark up another tree.”
Nic looked like his head was about to explode. Burke’s mind flashed to an image of the old comedian Gallagher smashing a watermelon. He wondered if that’s what Nic’s head would look like. During the whole conversation, he had been edging away from the men with the guns and black body armor toward the door. He knew this wasn’t a battle they could win, but more importantly, it wasn’t a battle they needed to fight.
Nic took another step toward Yoshida, but Burke said, “Nic, I think it’s time we go. Please.”
Balling his fists and gritting his teeth, the big Italian-American cop headed for the door with Carter and Burke following on his heels. The men in the tactical gear were telling the technicians that they needed to vacate the premises as well.
Once they were in the parking lot, Nic yelled, “You just rolled over in there, Carter!”
“What exactly did you expect me to do? Go Jackie Chan on the CIA and tell the head of the FBI to stick it?”
“I don’t know. You’re the diplomatic negotiator guy. You could have worked out a deal with them.”
Burke tried to interject. “Guys, it doesn’t—”
Carter said, “And how was I supposed to be diplomatic after you had just gotten up in Yoshida’s face like a big gorilla trying to establish dominance. I’m surprised you didn’t piss on the vault room door to mark your territory.”
“At least I did something. People are dying and—”
“Shut your stupid mouths and stop arguing like a couple of horny pheasants!”
Both of them turned toward Burke with strange expressions. “Horny pheasants?” Nic said.
“I couldn’t remember what R
omeo said earlier when we were arguing. It was peacocks, wasn’t it? Doesn’t matter. The vault room is not where we want to be.”
“Then where do we want to be, son?” Carter said.
Burke growled. He didn’t have time to explain every obvious little detail to them. “Nic, your team has parabolic microphones pointed at the building, correct?”
“Yeah, but they’re not sensitive enough to hear what Yoshida and his men are—”
“Don’t tell me what I’m thinking. Just answer my questions.”
“Yes, we have microphones on the building to pick up screams or muffled gunshots. Why?”
“And the feeds from the microphones are recorded and probably sent back to the comm center?”
“Yeah, but—”
Burke ignored them both and headed for the Henderson PD’s fancy RV. He didn’t have time to coddle his partners and hold their hands as he walked them through every detail. He was seeing ten steps ahead now, and if they didn’t hurry, they’d never find out what was buried beneath the GoBox facility, and what could have been worth mass murder.
Once inside the comm center, Burke dropped into a swivel desk chair resting in front of one of the many computer workstations. The seat was several inches too short for him and made him feel like a child sitting at the adult table. He tried to adjust it, but the hydraulics didn’t work. Ignoring the inconvenience, he pulled up the log-in screen.
Nic and Carter entered the comm center and looked over his shoulder. Nic said, “You’ll need my username to … Okay, never mind. You’re already in.”
“Quiet,” Burke said as his fingers flew over the keys. He could already barely concentrate with the hum of the comm center’s air conditioner, which was leaking and dripping down the vehicle’s fiberglass sides. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed like a swarm of angry hornets, and the keyboard smelled like someone had deep fried it at a McDonald’s. He closed his eyes and exhaled deeply out of his mouth. Then he set to the task at hand, his fingers crawling over the keys and down the digital rabbit hole.
First, he located the recordings for the parabolic microphones and opened them up. He played one of the files and listened for a moment, adjusting the volume of the computer’s speakers.
“What are you trying to find?” Carter asked.
“It would take forever to listen to all of those for one specific sound,” Nic added.
Burke shook his head and sighed. “Duh, wave forms and timestamps. I’m just checking the audio quality of the speakers. Let me work.”
He found a program on the system for audio manipulation. It wasn’t the ideal application, but it should serve his purposes. Dropping the wav files into the program, he used shortcut keys and clicked his way around until he had cut out the time frame from each file corresponding to fifteen minutes before the SWAT team breached and thirty minutes after. Then he zoomed in on each wave form, looking for the peaks. Ignoring the sounds from the actual breach and the commotion that followed, he checked for smaller disturbances that the powerful microphones may have registered. The first two files had nothing, probably pointed in the wrong direction. The third one registered what could have been the proper vibration, but it was too indistinct. But on the fourth file, he hit pay dirt.
Isolating the few seconds of audio, he cranked the speakers and pressed the play button.
The three of them listened, and there it was. Burke smiled and played it again to be sure. He heard the small thwump and rattle and then a sound like static, all very quiet, recorded as part of the ambient noise in the far distance.
“Okay, microphone number 4. Where was that one positioned?”
Nic didn’t answer. Burke swiveled his chair around and snapped his fingers at the confused-looking SWAT officer. “Work with me here, people.”
“Uh, let me check.” He walked into another room and grabbed a map describing the placements of emergency response teams, snipers, and microphones.
“That one was on the South side of the building, pointed at the front windows,” he said.
“Okay, great,” Burke said as he brought up an internet browser and an aerial view of the property and the shopping center. The origin point of the sound had to have been behind the building. He scrolled up to find a large open field of grass there, probably a spot being prepared for further expansion of the strip mall. But behind that was a tiny subdivision of older homes. Burke could only see the terra-cotta tiles of their roofs from the overhead view. In his mind, he visualized a three-dimensional image of the front of the building. Then he imagined the view of the building from behind the microphone. Playing the wav file again, he listened for the direction of the sound and factored that with the data from the aerial view.
He had an approximate location, but they would need to investigate further on the ground.
Pushing the chair back and bumping into Nic, Burke headed toward the comm center’s exit. Carter grabbed his arm, and Burke reflexively slapped it away.
Carter raised his hands. “Sorry, but we mere mortals are a bit confused by what’s going on and don’t understand wave forms or what noise you’re even looking for.”
Burke rolled his eyes as he continued on toward the exit. “I’ll explain in the car.”
Chapter 70
August Burke slid behind the wheel of his ’67 Firebird, leaving Nic and Carter to fight over their seats.
“I can’t cram my legs back there,” Nic said.
“I’m old. I may break a hip crawling out of this thing. It’s all fun and games until someone breaks a hip.”
“Let’s move!” Burke said, feeling the urgency of time slipping away from them.
Nic reluctantly slid into the backseat, and taking his place up front, Carter said, “What were you listening for back there?”
“An explosion,” Burke replied.
“I think one of the cops on scene would have heard an explosion. And that didn’t sound like one. It barely even registered. Sounded like a tree falling or something,” Nic said.
“Shaped charges. Blowing the sealed escape tunnel.”
“Our hostage-takers wouldn’t have had time to dig a tunnel.”
“They didn’t dig the tunnel. Okay, let me start at the beginning. The CIA is preparing to enter whatever secure facility that the false front of GoBox is hiding. There was no point in fighting with them over control of the vault room because we would need the pass-codes, the thumbprints, and the retinal scans in order to get in. Just like what our thieves needed.”
“Right, but maybe you could have—” Carter started to say.
“I’m not nearly that good, but thanks for the vote of confidence. The point is that we don’t need the entrance to the secure facility. We need its exit.”
“Wait,” Nic said. “Why go to all the trouble of having a super-secure entrance when there’s another way in? Why would you have two ways to get at whatever secrets you’re keeping?”
“No engineer would design a facility without an emergency exit. What if something broke, there was a fire, a tornado destroyed the GoBox building, name your unforeseeable circumstance. If something like that happened, all of the people inside the lab or whatever is down there would be trapped. There’s always an emergency exit.”
“But the emergency exit doesn’t have to be accessible or even visible,” Carter said. “Hence, the shaped charges. The exit was actually covered over and sealed with concrete somewhere and could only be opened once, in case of an emergency. Like fire alarms where you have to break the glass to pull them.”
“Right. Our bad guys weren’t just going to sit down in some underground room and wait for the CIA or whoever built the room to come root them out. And they obviously couldn’t come back up through a GoBox building that was crawling with cops.”
“Do you think they could still be there?” Nic asked.
Burke shrugged as he turned onto the street he had been viewing on the computer from an aerial perspective. “Unlikely. But if we hurry, we may be able to bac
ktrack our way down into the hidden facility before the CIA can send in their response team.”
The ’67 Firebird came to a stop in front of the house Burke felt to be the most likely candidate for the escape tunnel. All the houses on the block were single-family ranch styles with stucco walls and terra-cotta roofs. All pretty much the same. Built at the same time by the same builder, not expensive homes, but affordable middle-class living.
Burke noticed that one of the houses differed slightly from the others. They all had garages and driveways and landscaping and neatly trimmed yards. But the house he had singled out was lacking several other elements. There were no swing sets or grills in the back yard. No garden hoses. No children’s toys. No decorative signs displaying a family name or pennants supporting a favorite sports team. All of the other houses had some small detail showing that a family actually lived there, but this one had none.
It was nothing conclusive, but Burke knew that the sound he had heard had come from one of the homes in this area, and this one was as good a place to start as any.
He exited the vehicle and walked toward the squat, sandstone-colored structure. Behind him, Nic complained about his knees as Carter pushed the seat forward to release the big man from the back seat.
The house possessed an arched entryway with the front door sunken in a few feet from the front steps. There were windows on both sides of the door. Burke looked inside as best he could. There was furniture present, but no clutter, still no telltale signs of life. He rang the doorbell.
“If our terrorists are in there, they’re not going to answer the door,” Nic said. “And we’ll have to get a search warrant to enter the premises.”
“We don’t have time for that,” Burke said and walked back out toward the front steps. He reached down and retrieved a landscaping brick used as an edger around a mass of red rocks and small prickly shrubs. He headed back to the entrance and threw the brick straight through one of the small windows beside the door.
