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.“Thanks.That’s a good idea.”He lingered, both of us wanting to say more.Neither having any idea what to say.I fished out my keys.“You’ll call me if you hear anything?”I didn’t say “please,” but I knew he heard it.“Of course.”“Take care of Ozzie.”“I will.”Wanting to linger but running out of reasons, I risked touching his arm.“You’ll find her.I know you will.”He looked away, didn’t seem as certain.Just like me in the ER—never making promises I couldn’t keep.CHAPTER NINETEENRyder joined the men at the back of the fire lieutenant’s SUV.Figured it was better to hold off on showing his face to any higher-ups, hoping the brass and media would get tired and go away, let him work in peace.When in doubt, regroup, recon, reacquire the target.He now had victims scattered over four crime scenes; seven of them with families to locate, notify, and interview; one still a Jane Doe; and one of them a critical missing juvenile—which took priority over everything.Despite all this, or maybe as a respite to it, his skin tingled with the memory of Rossi’s touch.It’d been a long time since any woman had had that effect on him.He was a little scared to think about it too much, even more frightened to actually acknowledge any feelings other than simple attraction.Remaining comfortably numb was a far safer strategy.“What’re you smiling about?” the fire LT snapped, sluicing rain water from his Tyvek maps with the side of his hand.“Just enjoying a good clusterfuck.” Ryder gestured to the chaos behind them.“Got that right.” He reached down to pat Ozzie on the head.“Nice dog.”“Where we at?”“Good news is that Gator Guy came through.” He nodded to a man sitting in the backseat wearing a DOC jumpsuit and sipping coffee from between manacled hands.Ryder nodded back to him and the guard beside him.“Thanks for joining the party.”“No problem,” the guard grunted, looking bored.Gator Guy—the name on his jumpsuit was Jessup—squirmed around in his seat so he faced Ryder and the LT.“You tell him about the power, right? You guys can’t turn the juice on, not unless you want to see it all blown sky-high.”“What’s he talking about?”“The electricity.” The LT sighed.“The tunnels were originally wired in the fifties—”“1952,” Jessup put in.“Good, solid work.Not like that cheap ’70’s shit that came later.”“When they built the Tower,” Ryder said.“Right.” Jessup talked like he owned the Tower instead of Daniel Kingston.“But that chickenshit wiring over at the Tower needed patched and repaired, cobbled together basically.So finally they hooked into the tunnel’s infrastructure.”“But then folks like Jessup came along and jumped onto the grid on their own,” the LT chimed in.“Hey, man, my plants needed their sunshine, ya know?”“You grew pot down there?” Ryder asked.“Back in the day.Before I got chased out by the gangbangers and the rich guy’s security goons.” Jessup shook his head, half-reminiscing, half-regret.“You wouldn’t believe the shit I saw down there.Sometimes I wasn’t even high.”“That why you got an alligator when you moved your operation?”“Hell yeah.Lizzie was the best security money could buy.Until she got peckish for a midnight snack and burned down my place.Of course,” he brightened, “any evidence of hydroponic activity got burned as well, so all’s I got is a Class D, easy time.”“Tell me about exits from the tunnels.” Ryder wanted to calculate where he should be searching for Esme, which direction her abductor might have taken.“That’s the bad news,” the LT said.“Not only can we not turn on the lights down there—”“Not without ka-boom.” Jessup raised his hands with a whoosh that made his coffee jump.“Jessup also gave us intel on five unofficial exits not on the map.” He gestured with his pen.“Here, here, and here.The other two are the church basement and the sewer line that runs right under this street.”Ryder followed on the map.“Access the sewers, and you can go anywhere in the city.”“Bingo.”Which meant it was too late.Whoever had taken Esme could be free of the tunnels and on the other side of the city by now.The SWAT team leader ambled over, coffee sandwiched between hands encased in Nomex shooting gloves.Ryder looked at it longingly.“Ryder, you made it back in one piece.Might not last long.Deputy chief’s looking for you.”The brass could wait.“How much ground have you guys covered?”“Now that Tyree is back and cooperating, the uniforms are progressing with the door-to-door in the Tower.”Ryder grunted.He’d bet the Major Crimes guys were happy about that.Made working their homicides easier, but he was certain Esme wouldn’t be found in the Tower.The knot in his stomach writhed, a tangled nest of vipers baring their fangs.He’d lost her.Failure tensed his shoulder blades.“How’s it going in the tunnels? Tyree give you what you need?”The SWAT guy nodded.“Intel on his IEDs.But his group wasn’t the only one using the tunnels.Besides that room where you found those kids, we found more evidence of some kind of satanic voodoo cult or something.I’m telling you, there’s some freaky shit down there.”Ryder thought of the children’s prison, covered in crucifixes and mirrors.“Tell me about it.”“It’s slow-going.We were only able to clear your new crime scene and the area immediately surrounding it before we got pulled.”“Pulled? Who pulled you? Why?” Any trace of Esme was growing colder by the minute.“Are you kidding me? I did.We’re not equipped.No lights, shit everywhere.Place is a fucking death trap.And with those damn catwalks, we have to create a perimeter, clear them of any possible snipers, secure the high ground.Only then can we start to clear the rooms below.And once those are secured, we have to leave men behind on the catwalks to guard our flanks.You got an extra hundred men hiding in your back pocket?”Ryder glanced across the crowd.The deputy chief stood beneath a hastily erected awning, safe from the rain.Beside him was Daniel Kingston.Both men wore tuxedos, were chatting, obviously comfortable with each other.“You gave the order? Not Kingston?”“Kingston? What’s he got to do with anything? I gave the chief my tactical assessment, and he agreed.Orders are to wait until morning when we can team up with the county bomb squad and the staties, get the dogs down there sniffing.Even with their help, we’ll be going inch by inch.Might have the place cleared by Christmas if we’re lucky.”“What about using thermal imaging? At least make sure there’s no one else trapped down there.” His stomach twisted at the thought of finding another room with little kids imprisoned in it.“Way ahead of you,” the fire guy answered.“We tried both our units and yours.Nothing works.That place was built to literally withstand a nuclear holocaust.No way our gear is getting through those walls.”Ryder rubbed his temples, trying to ease the headache squeezing his brain.Esme was long gone.Still, he couldn’t help but hope.It was his greatest weakness.Probably would get him killed someday if he wasn’t careful, but he just couldn’t help it.Extinguish that tiny flicker of hope that kept him warm enough to sleep at night, and he’d be no different from the walking dead he’d seen during the war [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]