The Nature of the Beast (27 page)

An arm slipped around his waist and lifted him, kicking and screaming, from the roof-top.

__

On the north side, near the top of the building, a weather-faded sign read Sparkman Hotel. Rooms 25 Cents. Along the concrete below, a twelve-man tactical squad stood in single file along the sidewalk, backs plastered tight against the bricks, looking like a heavily armed dance troupe waiting to take the stage.

Audrey and Jackson Craig jogged up to the corner. A sergeant with a Chicago SWAT patch on his chest heard the sound of their shoes and turned their way.

“He was waving a Mac-10 around. Says he’s gonna kill the boy,” the cop said. “Said if we didn’t clear the street…”

“You did the right thing,” Jackson Craig assured him.

“He’s wearing body armor,” a nearby cop said.

Craig checked the nearest buildings. The sergeant read his mind. “I’ve got snipers working their way up to the rooftops but that one’s the tallest building in the area. We’ve got no kind of angle on him at all.”

Craig poked his head around the corner of the building, which would have been the third from the corner if the first two on the block were still standing. To make matters worse, the building had a false front, a series of flourishes designed to give a castle-like sense of permanence and stability. From this angle, it would be nearly impossible to get any sort of line of sight from which to take him out. As he turned back to the cop, his eyes rose to the green and white street sign. Corner of South Ashland Avenue and South Grant Street. He stifled a groan.

This was where they took Harry Joyce down. Same block. Harry’s buildings were at the other end of the block. He’d never approached from the west side before and hadn’t immediately recognized the setting.

“Protocol says to wait him out,” the sergeant said.

“No,” Craig answered without hesitation. “We’re never going to be this close to him again. If we’re going to save that boy, it’s now or never.”

The sergeant was shaking his head. “His line of fire…”

“When did you see him last?”

“Four…five minutes ago.”

“He won’t be on the roof any more,” Craig said. “The roof’s a trap. There’s nowhere to go from there. He’s too well-schooled in tactics to stay on the roof.”

The pair of cops exchanged a dubious look. “He put two into the helicopter,” the sergeant said. “Hit one of the rescue officers in the vest.”

“Hell of a shot from that distance,” another cop commented.

“The alley on the left of the building…” Craig pointed.

“Goes into the basement,” the sergeant finished.

“Public Works security door,” the second cop said. “Real stout. Keeps the creeps and winos out.”

Craig turned to the SWAT sergeant. “Can we break it down?”

The sergeant inclined his head toward the armored transport vehicle sitting in the middle of Grant street. “The BATT sure as hell will,” he said.

“We have to get in there. Now.”

The second cop began to bark orders.

50

In retrospect
,
twenty-eight thousand pounds of armored vehicle, powered by nothing more than gravity would have proved sufficient. When you added a pair of Caterpillar 7 diesels, producing six hundred-sixty horsepower apiece, the ensuing impact turned out to be a bit more emphatic than anyone had anticipated.

The BATT’s beefed up suspension barely took notice of the curb. Still accelerating, they see-sawed over the sidewalk and down the steep concrete ramp where they hit the door like a diesel powered missile. In a nano-moment, the steel screamed, the springs straightened and the whole door assembly buckled inward, pulling a hail of bricks and mortar along for the ride as the steel barrier disappeared like a punctured balloon.

“Whoa,” escaped the drivers mouth. He stood on the brakes and crimped the wheel hard to the left. Jackson Craig, Audrey Williams and eight SWAT officers sat on padded benches, staring straight ahead, strapped into safety harnesses along the sides of the transport compartment. The BATT growled and lurched on its springs. From the rear window, a rooster-tail of sparks attested to continuous contact with the bricks.

Audrey gritted her teeth as the solid rubber tires fought for a purchase on the greasy stone. And then…bang. They hit something solid. They ground to an abrupt stop, throwing everyone around inside their restraints like marionettes.

“Damn,” the driver said. “Where the hell did that come from?”

Although everyone wondered what it was they’d hit, they found themselves otherwise occupied making sure they were still in one piece.

The driver backed up and then shut down the engine. In the three seconds of silence that followed, the unmistakable hissing of hydraulics and the sound of glass tinkling to the ground reached their collective ears.

Before either Jackson Craig or Audrey Williams could extricate themselves from the complex web of straps and buckles, the CPD SWAT team had rolled back the door and was deploying with the grace and precision of a deadly dance troupe, spreading out along the walls, moving from shadow to shadow as they sought to control the area. “CLEAR,” Audrey heard a shout.

Audrey followed Jackson Craig’s lead. She exited the vehicle with her automatic up by her right ear, pointing at the ceiling. The minute she stepped around the front of the BATT the reason for the sudden stop became apparent. The steel V Bumper at the front of the armored vehicle had struck a white Toyota Celica, rolling it over onto its roof, spider-webbing every window, popping the trunk open and pushing it thirty feet or so across the uneven stone floor before crushing the car against the wall.

“Must be
his
car,” Audrey said.

Craig said nothing. He kicked a twisted piece of chrome from his path.

By the time they’d worked their way around the crushed Toyota , the SWAT sergeant had unlocked the storage compartment built into the side of the BATT and was swapping out weapons. The team was switching from their Standard AR-15 assault rifles to the more exotic FN P90. The P90 looked like a plastic squirt gun. Cut-out plastic stock, virtually no barrel. An ambidextrous little personal defense weapon whose smaller bore and increased muzzle velocity made it highly effective at penetrating body armor. The sergeant didn’t bother to ask. He handed each of the agents a P90 and a pair of plastic magazines, hundred rounds apiece.

In under a minute, everyone was locked and loaded. The sergeant flicked Jackson Craig’s Secret Service vest with his fingernails. “Don’t take any chances,” he said. “Those things aren’t going to stop that Mac-10 he’s carrying.”

Craig nodded and looked over at Audrey. She read the look and shook her head.

“I don’t suppose it would do any good…” he began.

“Wherever you’re going, I’m going,” she said.

Jackson Craig turned to the SWAT squad. “If you get a shot, take it. Don’t wait for confirmation. If there’s a problem with protocol, I’ll take the responsibility.” He went around the huddle, making eye contact with every member of the team. “Are we clear?” Satisfied they were all on the same page, he reiterated. “If the boy’s not in immediate peril and you get a shot, take it. Kill him.”

“Hollins,” the sergeant called.

SWAT’s communication tech quickly stepped forward. A small LCD screen hung from a mounting bracket on his armored breast plate. He made a keyboard entry and waited. The screen rolled and blinked. Then steadied.

He pointed to the tall arched corridor to the right. “Two-sixty north,” he said. “Thermal imaging’s giving me two separate heat signatures emanating from that general direction. One on the move. One stationary. Exterior telemetry confirms the location,” he said. “Seventy yards.”

The sergeant motioned the tactical squad forward.

They entered each new area behind ballistic shields, two men at a time, low, fast and prepared to return fire. The initial entry teams traded off, hoping to keep frayed nervous systems as fresh as possible. In the deepening gloom, only the muted clink of combat hardware and the rush of boots marked their careful progress.

Stress hung from the oak beams like Spanish moss. Audrey’s cheeks tingled with a mixture of fear and anticipation. Despite the permeating cold and damp, despite bringing up the rear, she found herself sweating profusely.

Three rooms into the search, the entry team waved the squad to a halt. Audrey could hear the rush of air in lungs and steady drip, drip, drip of water. Her nose twitched from the mold in the air. She covered it with her hand and swallowed a sneeze.

From her position, crouched in the darkness, she could make out why they’d stopped. A shifting, erratic shaft of light danced on the floor at the far end of the corridor. A far-away voice said something about Congress. She thought she heard fanfare music. Listened again and was certain. No doubt about it. Television.

The new entry-pair executed a crossing pattern into the room. The second team counted ten before following the first two inside. “Clear,” a voice rumbled.

The room was the factory’s big round central rotunda with corridors running off in several different directions. High on the north wall a series of narrow windows ran the length of the ceiling. The chamber was bisected by a stone canal. The languid water gleamed like black oil, nearly iridescent in the dirty light.

A black and white television stood on a metal stand in the middle of the room, audio cutting in and out. CNN. Wolf Blitzer droning on about bipartisan politics. A small metal table and two chairs. A new HP computer. An old broom leaning against a corner.

Hollins inclined his head toward the TV. “This is the stationary heat source,” he announced, reaching out and snapping the TV off.

“Where are we?” the sergeant demanded.

Hollins tapped some more. “Used to be on old foundry. Miller Bay Fabrication. Made parts for steam trains. Closed way back in forty-nine.” He looked over at the TV set. Tapped again. Waited and then turned a quarter circle. He used both arms to gesture. “That way,” he said. “The signal’s weak. But that direction for sure. Moving…” He squinted and stared down at the screen. Frowned. “Looks like it’s moving toward us, rather that away, but it’s hard to tell.”

“Night vision,” the sergeant barked.

In unison, each SWAT officer retrieved a pair of night vision goggles from his belt and put them on. Body armor. Helmets and night vision goggles. Looked like a Robocop sequel. Silence returned.

Using hand signals, the sergeant divided the squad. Two-man teams. Each team scouting one of the quartet of corridors on the left. He and Hollins would take the long central gallery. Radio silence until ordered otherwise.

“You two stay here,” he said to Jackson Craig and Audrey Williams.

Craig opened his mouth to refuse, but the sergeant wasn’t having any of it. He stopped Craig’s complaint with a rigid palm.

“No,” he said firmly. “Quarters are too close. There’s no margin of error here. You’re not trained for this. We are. Let us do our job.”

The sergeant didn’t give Craig the opportunity to argue the point. He made a circling motion with his hand. Within ten seconds, five pairs of SWAT officers disappeared from view.

Craig paced the room like a caged bear. On his third circuit, he stopped beside an open fifty-gallon drum and peered inside. He bent at the waist and reached in. Came out with a dirty piece of white bread pinched between his fingers. Cut into a triangle. He sniffed it. “Tuna salad,” he said. “The bread’s not stale.”

He tossed the bread and moved to his right. Toward the partitioned off area. To the wooden door. He looked down at the old-fashioned key protruding from the lock. He grabbed the knob and twisted. The door swung open. He stepped inside, moved around the narrow bed and stuck his head into the adjoining room. The shuffle of shoes told him Audrey wasn’t far behind.

“This must have been the old foundry office,” Audrey said.

Craig pointed the piles of unboxed munitions stacked haphazardly against the right hand wall. “There’s the hardware that was missing from Raven Street.”

“Probably started moving it down here as soon as he found out he was going to lose the lease at the end of the year.”

Craig nodded and looked around. Above their heads, ancient oak beams supported the floors above. The walls were streaked with rust and algae.

“I’ll bet Harry Joyce trained him down here,” Craig said. He swept his hand around the room. “All kinda little hide-and-seek surveillance games. Probably locked him in here when he had to leave town on a job.”

“Their own private playground,” Audrey mused and then immediately wished she hadn’t. The image of the two of them down here in this filthy dungeon, of things that must have transpired, caused Audrey an involuntary shudder.

“Harry could have left the kid down here by himself for a week,” Craig said. “Maybe more.” He took in the area with new eyes. “I mean…who was going to hear the kid screaming.” He gestured. “Fridge, sink, microwave, toilet…”

Audrey winced and looked away.

“But, “ Craig began. “We still haven’t found where he lives.” He gestured around the room. “Nobody’s been living in here and you sure as hell couldn’t live in that rat hole garage. So where in hell does he lay his head at night when he’s in the city?”

Craig took yet another lap of the room.

“What do you suppose Harry told him?” Audrey asked. “About the two of them.”

“God only knows,” Craig said bitterly.

“What would
you
tell him?”

“Me?”

Jackson Craig considered the question at some length. “Some variation of the old ‘parents killed in an airplane crash’ or something, I guess. I’m your long-lost Uncle Harry…here to save you from orphancy. Come along with me. Something along those lines, I suppose.”

“That story only works when he’s little,” Audrey pointed out. “Sooner or later the kid is bound to figure out that what was going on between him and old Uncle Harry isn’t exactly kosher. What then? What’s the rationale?”

“That’s your end of the business.”

“All I see is confusion. Role confusion. Gender confusion. Every kind of…”

Craig was too edgy to listen. Without willing it so, he’d gravitated in the direction of the SWAT teams, stalking across the arched entrances, peering angrily into the darkness, the machine gun swinging from his neck like a plastic albatross. “Where the hell are they,” he groused. “Somebody should have…”