Fatal (17 page)

The first grenade exploded beneath the van. A yellow fireball lifted the van a foot off the ground and sent molten scraps of metal and shrapnel ricocheting off the walls. A man was screaming his lungs out before another blast ripped through the loading area.
 

Neil peeked around the doorway. Three bloodied bodies were scattered throughout the room, another guy was crawling away, his legs missing.

Neil squeezed Alexa’s hand and pulled her along behind him. Voelkner followed, covering the rear. Neil crouched on the rolling bay and fired to his right. Alexa took out a thug in the corner to their left. She followed Neil towards the basement door, guns blazing.
 

Neil ripped the door open and motioned to Alexa and Voelkner to enter. He noticed a movement from the corner of his eye and saw the cop take aim.

Alexa is never going to make it, she’s too slow.
 

He bolted to her and pulled her into his arms, turning his back on the shooter. A bullet slammed into his shoulder, sending them sprawling onto the floor. Voelkner returned fire and dragged Neil and Alexa into the room by their collars as a salvo of bullets exploded into the wall above them.

Alexa slammed the door shut and bolted it. She pulled Neil down the runway and rested him against the wall at the bottom. He held his hand to his shoulder. Blood was oozing from the wound, gathering in a puddle beneath his feet. Neil grimaced, his face contorted in pain.

Alexa called to Voelkner. “See if you can find an exit.”
 

Voelkner nodded and ran down the runway. He entered the fridge through heavy, transparent plastic strips that covered the entrance to the unit. Seconds ticked away, becoming minutes. He was taking too long, making Alexa edgy.
 

She whispered urgently, “Voelkner, what’s keeping you?”
 

A moment before she decided to go look for him, Voelkner emerged and trudged back up to the landing. He stood for a moment with his back to the wall and then slouched to the ground.

“Voelkner, what’s wrong?”
 

Voelkner wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He seemed rattled.

“What? What was down there?”
 

Alexa turned to go see for herself, but Voelkner grabbed her hand. “Captain, don’t. It’s . . . it’s not . . . nice.”

Alexa swallowed hard. She had never seen Voelkner so shaken up. She pulled her arm free and grabbed the flashlight in Voelkner’s hand. She hobbled down to the fridge and pushed the plastic strips aside. Condiments of all kinds were neatly stacked in boxes on the floor or on shelves, gallons of milk, tomatoes, cheese, eggs, and vacuum-packed fillet steaks. There was another door deeper into the unit.
 

It had a red sticker on the front. “Caution. Freezer Unit. Avoid Prolonged Exposure.”

She flicked on the wide-beam LED flashlight then grabbed the handle and pulled at it, the door sucking against the rubber seals. Alexa gave it a tug and it swung open. She panned left and right, up and down with the flashlight, a disjointed garble of images her which her brain refused to comprehend. Slowly she pieced it together, like a jigsaw puzzle from hell.
 

On the floor lay the severed head of a young woman. The last moments of her life were etched on her face: her eyes were rolled back in their sockets, and her mouth was open in a silent scream. A hacked off leg lay next to the head. Seven more bodies were sprawled in a jumbled tangle, heaped one on top of the other. Some had amputated arms or legs, but all had died by a gunshot to the head from a close distance, execution style. Alexa recognized the girls that they had picked up at the harbor.

They were all naked. Six were Asian, one was European, and another African. She knelt next to the head; she couldn’t have been older than seventeen. Lesions were visible on their wrists and ankles; they must have been bound before they were killed.

She stood up and slowly walked out of the frozen morgue, closed the door, and walked to where Neil and Voelkner were waiting for her. Voelkner had his arms wrapped around his legs and was resting his chin on his knees. Neil stared at her. Voelkner glanced at Alexa but said nothing.

Alexa blinked and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Let’s finish what we’re here to do.”

Voelkner nodded and hoisted himself up. He looked tired.

“What is it?” Neil asked.

“The girls, all dead,” Alexa said as she unbuttoned Neil’s jacket and slit his T-shirt open.
 

The bullet had gone straight through his shoulder. Voelkner handed her his backpack, and she ripped off the first aid kit that had been velcroed to the side. She opened a bottle of water and splashed the wound clean, then she took out a can and sprayed the wound with an anti-inflammatory second skin.
 

Neil grimaced in pain. She patted the wound dry with Neil’s T-shirt and sprayed on another layer of second skin. Finally, she put a sheet of transparent, sticky plaster over his shoulder, covering the wound.

“OK, the bones in your shoulder are shattered, so keep your arm still. The spray has a coagulating agent which will stop the bleeding. Pop these in your mouth and suck on them. Don’t chew or swallow, it’ll knock you out. It’s a combination of ketamine and antibiotics. This is the best we can do until we get you to a hospital.” Alexa handed Neil two pink pills.

“Thanks.” He studied her face, trying to read her emotions.

Alexa tore her pants open where the bullet had penetrated her leg and inspected the damage. The blood had already clotted. She felt for an exit wound at the back of her leg, but there was none. The slug was still inside her leg. She bandaged the wound and popped a pill into her mouth. She stood up, put some weight on her leg, and grimaced.

She glanced at Voelkner, who was sitting with his back to the wall, eyes closed, breathing deeply. “C’mon, we have to get out of here.”
 

Alexa led them up the runway and opened the door an inch. A flurry of bullets exploded against the metal door. She shut it quickly.

“Shit, now what?” she asked Neil.

A security camera above them whirred into life, and a metallic voice sounded over the intercom system.

“Guerra and Allen. What a nice couple you two make. Are you in pain, Mr. Allen? I sincerely hope so. It’s going to hurt much more once I am done with the three of you. I’ll squash you like sewer rats. And Alexa, my dear child, do I have a surprise waiting for you. You’re going to be the star in my new movie. I think I’ll call it
Grinding Miss Guerra
. You’ll be famous.”

Alexa shot the camera to smithereens. “Ha, screw you, Metcalfe. You come get us if you dare. Typical politician, getting others to do his dirty work.”

All the lights went out and they were engulfed in darkness, then the metal door locked with a clank.
 

Voelkner tried to force it open. “He locked it remotely.”

“There, there now. Nice and dark, exactly like sewer rats like it,” the metallic voice boomed.

Alexa felt for Neil in the gloom. “We have to get out of here.”

The metallic voice chuckled. “Oh, but my dear girl, there is no way out.”
 

Alexa fumbled with her cell phone and looked at the screen. “Shit, I don’t have any reception down here,” she whispered. “Think, dammit, think,” she muttered to herself.
 

She flicked on her flashlight and panned around the room. “Voelkner, watch the door. Neil, follow me.”

She hobbled to the refrigeration unit and shone her light along its edges. She found a service panel at the back.

She motioned to Neil and whispered, “Do you have a screwdriver in that box of tricks of yours?”

Neil switched on his flashlight and removed a Swiss army knife from a pocket in his backpack. He slid it across the floor towards Alexa. “Here, use the bottle opener. Works just as well.”

Alexa caught the knife and opened the tool. She unscrewed the panel from the fridge. She removed it and shone the beam on the inside of the panel. A service schedule was stuck to it. She skimmed the service history.

“Aha. Eight years ago the compressor motor was refilled,” she whispered.

Neil knelt next to her. “So what?” he asked softly.

“It was filled with isobutene.”
 

“But isn’t that stuff flammable? Is that legal?”
 

“Not anymore. They banned it a couple of years ago, but it was widely used in commercial refrigeration units such as these. And yes, isobutene is highly flammable, enough of the stuff could cause a massive explosion,” she whispered.

“And I guess you wouldn’t mind a massive explosion? With us in the same room?” Neil asked sarcastically.

“Since when have you been afraid of a tiny explosion? We’ll hide in the fridge. That thing will withstand a nuclear blast.”
 

“I hope you’re right. You know shit about kitchen appliances,” he said. “What about the bodies?”

“If we don’t get hurt, they should be OK. Let’s move them from the freezer to the fridge. We’ll come fetch them later.”
 

She called to Voelkner, and they busied themselves with the gruesome task of moving the bodies from the freezer.

Alexa hobbled to the back of the fridge and tried to pull the feeding pipe from the compressor motor. It fit tightly. She then tried to loosen the O-ring screw that attached it to the motor, but the blade kept slipping out of the groove.

“Here, let me help,” Neil offered.

“But you’re injured,” she said, pushing his hand away.

“Let me try. Why do you want to loosen that ring?” he asked, crawling closer.

“To let the gas escape, I guess,” she said.

“OK, let me try.”

Neil opened the cutting blade and proceeded to slash the rubber pipe. After three strokes it was severed, and gas hissed from the pipe.

Alexa rolled her eyes. “Clever boy.”

Neil nodded. “OK, what’s next?”

“Do you have any grenades left?”

Neil handed Alexa a grenade and she pulled out the arming pin.

“Ready?” she asked.

Neil and Voelkner nodded. They didn’t look ready.
 

She placed the grenade on top of the compressor, and they ran into the front of the refrigerator unit.

“Shit, I hope this works,” she said.

“And you tell me this now, because—” Neil said before a deafening explosion ripped through the room.
 

The blast sent them crashing into the shelves at the side of the unit. Eggs and milk were dripping from the ceiling. The refrigerator door was ripped clean off its hinges, and smoke filled the room. Metcalfe’s neat lawn, now strewn with rubble, was visible through a hole in the fridge and the wall.

She hobbled out and looked behind the destroyed compressor unit of the fridge. Chunks of concrete had been dislodged, but the gap was still too narrow to fit through. She kicked at the edges of the hole with her heel, managing to open it up. Neil and Voelkner helped, and they widened it more. Alexa crouched and managed to squeeze her way through. Voelkner followed, squirming and wiggling his way to freedom.

She gestured for Neil to follow.

“There’s no way that I’ll fit through that,” Neil said.

“C’mon Neil, try; put your good arm through first.”

Neil put his arm through and wiggled into the hole. He tried to move his shoulder, but it was too painful. The more he squirmed, the more jammed-in he got. Sweat dripped from his forehead.

“Damn, I’m stuck, Miss Smarty-Pants. I’m not skin and bones like you starved Legionnaires,” Neil grumbled.

Alexa and Voelkner tried to pull him out, to no avail. She looked around. Some guards had noticed them and were firing at them. She returned fire and glanced at Neil.

“Neil?” she said.
 

“What?” he barked, an irritated look on his face.
 

“I’m sorry,” Alexa said.

Neil’s eyes widened as Alexa’s boot flew towards his face. She connected on his chin and his body went limp. They grabbed him by his collar and free arm and pulled him out.

By the time Neil came to, he was sitting propped against the wall, a gun balanced on his knees.

“Shoot, Neil! Help us out here,” Alexa shouted at him.

He ducked as bullets exploded beside his head. He fell to the ground and aimed several shots towards where the enemy fire was coming from.

Alexa was frantically punching numbers into her phone. Voelkner provided cover fire.
 

She looked up at Neil. “It’s dead. I think it was damaged in the explosion.”

Neil shrugged, not giving a shit.

“Cover me,” she shouted at them, then she bolted towards the loading bay door and locked it. She ran back to Neil. “That should keep them inside for a while.”

Neil ducked as a massive blast shook the wall in front of them, concrete and broken chunks of brick flying everywhere. The wall disintegrated, and an entire section fell to the ground.