Page 123 of Bad Enough

Quickly, quietly, and attentively, the four men crossed to the door and went through it. Steel, Loki, and Gilgamesh were just coming down the stairs from the private rooms.

“Everything’s clear upstairs. No one’s here.”

TB nodded to the door on the left side of the hallway. “That goes to the storage and utilities. You’ll be able to see where the dance floor is when you get down there. There are a series of box structures that hold lights in them that flash up into the club. She’s got to be right under there somewhere.”

Nemo took the flexi cam tubing and slid it gently under the door. After moving it gently as far left and right as he could, he looked to Waters.

“No one in sight,” their team leader said. “There’s a landing that’s about three feet wide and two feet deep once the door opens. Metal stairs, eighteen of them, to the floor. Metal rails on both sides.”

“Cool. A slide.” The smirk on Nemo’s face showed that despite the seriousness of the situation, he enjoyed the hunt.

“It’s all yours, Nemo. You have point,” Waters ordered.

The men’s weapons went into position. Nemo flattened himself against the wall to the left of the closed door, Waters was flattened to the wall to its right, his hand on the door knob. Loki and Gilgamesh were standing at the ready, in the high and low positions to protect Nemo.

Waters began the countdown on his fingers. When his hand went to a fist, he flung the door open. Nemo threw himself through the entryway, launched himself to a sitting position on the stair rails, and slid down to the bottom of the steps, his gun pointed in front of him.

Loki and Gilgamesh stepped through and positioned themselves over each rail at the top of the flight, their guns aimed to the left and right of the landing. Demon was flat on the landing, covering Nemo’s slide.

“Clear, bossman,” Nemo said.

With stealth and precision, the men went down the stairs and fanned out in all directions. It didn’t take more than a few seconds. The basement was wide open and there was nowhere to hide. There was also no sign of Flame’s phone on the floor of the basement where the GPS locator said it currently was.

“It should be right here,” TB stated the obvious.

“There has to be another level to the basement,” Waters surmised. “Everybody look around.”

It took only moments for the men to survey the walls and flooring, but there were no other doorways.

TB could feel his frustration bubbling to the surface. “She has to be here!”

“The entrance must be somewhere else,” Steel gathered. “A doorway elsewhere in the club. And they were snatched from the restrooms. Something over that direction maybe?”

“Midas, do you copy?”

“I read you loud and clear, boss. I just hacked into the city mainframe, and I’m looking at building specs. There are no permits or plans on file to build onto the building.”

“Fuck!” TB swore.

“Patience, my young padawan, you didn’t let me finish. There is a permit for the business next door to finish the original basement on that building, which happens to go down an additional sixty feet below this one. AND… they used to own this business as well until it was sold to the current owners of The Library—who, at that time, filled in the connecting sections of the two buildings and covered all the subflooring so that the two no longer shared the space twenty feet below you.”

“Awesome work, Midas,” Waters called out. “But now we need a way over there. Do we have to enter from the other building?”

“Nope. Believe it or not, there’s an unfinished space between the ladies’ room and the building next door. There must be an easy way to pop the wall in there.”

“The supply closet,” TB monotoned. “There’s a door by the toilets. I bet the entrance is somehow through there.”

As one, the group hustled back up the stairs and out into the main area of the club, then headed straight into the ladies’ room lounge. The supply closet was locked, so Nemo went to work with his lock picks. Within seconds the door was open, the overhead light was on… but all they were faced with were shelves.

“This is so bullshit,” Nemo fussed. “One of these walls moves, pure and simple.” He started pulling on the metal shelving, ripping it from its anchors on the wall, until finally there was a scraping noise, and he was able to pull an entire section of a wall loose to reveal a walkway between framed portions of the two buildings. Not only that, but it was on a gentle incline.

“Behold, gentlemen.”

Loki grunted. “Talk about a valley of death.”

“Yeah,” Waters agreed. “Suddenly I’m back in Afghanistan in a boxed-in convoy. Easy to get mowed down in here.”

“We go in twos,” Loki offered. “Ten seconds apart with a stop at any corner to clear the way. That way we have room to back up if need be. Gilgamesh and I will offer to go first.”

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