Page 49 of Better off Dead

“What kind of building is this?”

“I guess it’s a school, from the way it looks. Was a school. There are no kids here now. I don’t know much else. This is my first time here. I was never allowed through the tunnel before.”

“What does Dendoncker use it for?”

“Like, a warehouse, I think. For his merchandise. The stuff he takes on the planes. I saw the containers. I think there’s a workshop here, too. Maybe an office.”

“What gets made in the workshop?”

The guy looked away. He didn’t answer. I started sawing the plaster again.

“Dendoncker had someone working there. That’s all I know.”

I paused with the knife. “Making bombs?”

“Maybe. Probably. Look, I made sure not to find out. Some things, it’s better not to know.”

“OK. How many people are here?”

“There’s Dendoncker. There are three guys with him. At least. A bunch of locals. Maybe half a dozen. I don’t know them. Haven’t seen them before. I don’t think Dendoncker trusts them all the way. They just do the cooking and the fetching and carrying. Plus the three guys who went to the town. We’re still waiting for them to get back.”

“No need to wait.” I folded the knife and put it back in my pocket. “They won’t be coming.”

I let go of the guy’s leg. He managed to stop his ankle crashing into the ground, but only just. Then he rolled onto all fours and struggled up onto his good foot.

“What happened to them?” The guy hopped around for a minute while he retrieved his crutches.

I shrugged. “Your friends are an accident-prone bunch.”

The guy made a move around the corner. He acted like he was heading back to the desk. Then he spun around. He raised the crutch in his right hand and lunged. He was trying to spear me in the gut. I moved six inches to the side. Grabbed hold midway between the rubber tip and the handle. Stepped forward. And punched him. An uppercut. It lifted the guy right off his feet. His remaining crutch clattered to the ground. His body followed, completely inert. He landed on his back, neatly between the rails. I flipped him over. Secured his wrists with a zip tie. Took his pistol from his waistband. A 1911. It was old, but well maintained. I bent his good leg at the knee. Used another zip tie to fasten it to the belt loop at the back of his pants. Picked him up. Tossed him in the rail truck. And threw his crutches in after him.

Chapter38

The desk the guy hadbeen using was at the side of a boiler room. It was a giant place. There were four huge furnaces in a line along one wall. Four huge water tanks opposite them. The ceiling was hidden by a tangle of massive pipes. Some were lagged. Some were painted. They snaked away in every direction. There was a door in the far corner. It was the only way out I could see, apart from the tunnel. I crossed the room and opened it.

The door led to a staircase. It was made of wood. It had originally been painted white but patches of bare timber were peeking out from the center of each tread. I guess Dendoncker’s operation generated more traffic than the architect originally anticipated. I climbed up. Slowly. I kept my feet near the sides to avoid creaking. There was another door at the top. I stopped. Listened. And heard nothing.

I tried the handle. It wasn’t locked. It swung open easily and let me out in the corner of a kitchen. It was a huge industrial-scale place, all stainless steel and white tile. There were stoves. Ovens. Microwaves. Preparation areas. A line of giant fridges along one sidewall. A line of cupboards along the other. I picked one at random. It was full of cans of baked beans. There were hundreds of them. They were tiny. Single servings, maybe, for children with no appetite. It seemed like a weird choice, given the scale of the equipment.

The kitchen was separated from the dining hall by a serving counter. It was low. A suitable height for kids, I guess. It ran the full width of the room. A section at the left was hinged. It was folded back, so I went through. The rest of the space was dim. It felt cavernous. The ceiling was high. Maybe twenty feet. Only one bulb was working, roughly in the center. I could barely make out my surroundings. The floor was made of rectangular wooden blocks. They were fitted together like herringbones. There was just one table. It was round. Made of white plastic. There were six plastic chairs in a scruffy circle around it. They seemed lost. The place looked like it was designed for long, solid refectory tables, lined up in neat parallel rows. Not cheap garden furniture. There was a set of double doors to the right. They were closed. And they were solid, so I couldn’t see where they led. The rest of the wall was glass. Narrow metal frames divided the panes. They stretched from floor to ceiling. Harsh white light was spilling out from somewhere nearby. I moved forward to see what was causing it. Then I stopped dead in my tracks.

It was the lack of light in the dining hall that saved my bacon. It prevented the two guys from spotting me. The guys in suits who had accompanied Dendoncker to the morgue. They were at the far end of the corridor that led away from the other side of the double doors. They were sitting on stools in front of another, identical set of doors. The corridor was eight feet wide. It was twenty feet long. It had glass walls and a glass ceiling. Three raised vents, evenly spaced. And a double line of fluorescent tubes. They ran the whole length. They were powerful. And bright. The human eye can’t see from a brightly lit area into a much dimmer one. Which was fortunate for me. Because the guys were each holding a gun. An Uzi. An interesting choice of weapon. Not the lightest. Not the fastest cyclic rate. Not the greatest amount of rifling inside the barrel. There are better options out there. Any of the Heckler & Koch MP5 derivatives, for example. That’s what I’d have picked, in their shoes. But in mine? Alone? Against two Uzis? I wouldn’t have liked my chances.

It looked like the glass corridor led to a mirror image of the part of the building I was in. On the outside, anyway. Inside it most likely had a different setup. I couldn’t see why a school would need two kitchens and two dining halls. Given the guards with the Uzis, it seemed like a safe bet this would be what the guy with the broken ankle had calledDendoncker’s half. It would be suicide to approach it along the corridor. I needed to find another entrance. I would have to loop around the exterior. Which meant finding a way out.

Ahead, at the end of the dining hall farthest from the kitchen, there were two doors. The one on the right had a sign that saidEl Maestro Principal. The one on the left,El Diputado Maestro Principal. I checked them both. They were both empty. There was no furniture. Nothing on the walls. No closets or storage areas. And neither had an external door.

There were three sets of doors in the wall opposite the windows. I tried the closest. It opened into another large space. It was equally badly lit. It was the same width, but longer because it had no kitchen. To the right, adjacent to the offices, there was a raised area like a stage. On the far side there was another expanse of floor-to-ceiling windows. There was a pair of doors in the center, leading outside. The other two walls were covered with climbing bars. Three ropes were suspended from a central ceiling joist. They were coiled up, ten feet from the ground. I guessed the place was a combined assembly hall/performance space/gymnasium. Originally. Now it was a storage area. For Dendoncker’s aluminum containers.

The containers came in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Some had wheels. Some had none. Most were jumbled up at the far end of the hall. A few were lined up in some taped-off sections of floor. There were four rectangles. Each was labeled with a word made out of white duct tape. The first saidOut. Then there wasPrep. ThenIn. ThenOnward.

TheOutarea was empty. There was one container inPrep.Inwas empty. And there were two containers inOnward. I opened the container inPrep. It had wheels. It was six feet long by three deep and four high. And it was empty. I moved along toOnward. These containers were smaller. They were both four-by-three-by-one. And they were both sealed.

There were little metal tags attached to wires that looped through their catches. I broke open the nearer one. I lifted the lid. It was crammed full of cash. Bundles of twenty-dollar bills. They were used. They smelled sweet and sharp, which made me think they were real. The second container was lined with blue foam, shaped into protective peaks. It was also full. Of cardboard boxes. All the same size. All the same shape. They were plain beige. There were no markings of any kind. I picked a box at random and looked inside. It was full of plastic bottles. Thirty-two of them. White, with child-safe lids. I took one out. There was a label stuck to its side. Printed in black and purple ink. There were logos and symbols and bar codes. And some text:Dilaudid (Hydromorphone) Instant Release, 8mg, 100 tablets.

There was nothing I could use so I crossed to the doors in the glass wall and headed outside. Orange light was spilling around the side of the building. Ahead was a parking lot. There were spaces for forty vehicles but only two were taken. By a pair of SUVs. Cadillac Escalades. They were black and dusty and kitted out with dark glass. They were sitting low on their suspension. But evenly, front to back, which probably meant they were armored to some degree. Beyond them was a fence. It was twenty feet high. Made of stout chain link. There was another one, running parallel, the same height, the same material, twenty-five feet farther out. That meant twice the amount of cutting for anyone looking to break in. Twice the time. Twice the exposure.

I checked for cameras. There was one on every other fence post. They were all facing out. None were moving so I followed around the building. I went to my left. When I was near the corner I heard a sound. Someone was running. More than one person. But not continuously. They were starting and stopping and sprinting and turning. And there was another noise. A hollow thumping. I crouched down and peered around. I saw where the weird light was coming from. There was a pair of floodlights on tripods, like you see at construction sites. They were mainly illuminating a long rectangular patch of dirt. It stretched along the side of the building, all the way past the gap that was filled by the glass corridor. There were four guys on it. Playing soccer. They were probably in their mid-twenties. They had bare feet, baggy shorts, and no shirts. I took out my gun, held it behind my thigh, and stepped into the light.

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