The Doll (45 page)

M
UNROE DIDN
’
T HAVE
an address for the goldwork building, but on the drive out she’d gotten a feel for how the location related to the area. Knew what she was looking for and the general idea of where she wanted to go, and with a taxi driver doing the navigating, it wasn’t difficult to find her way back.

The sky, still dark when the driver deposited them one street over from their destination, had begun the shift from black to deep purple, and waiting for the dawn, Munroe walked the block, pacing lighted and quiet sidewalks that gave off a feeling of quaint and small-town safety.

Neeva, ever silent, kept beside her. No questions, no conversation, they continued in this way until Munroe came full circle and paused opposite the two jewelry storefronts to the sides of the archway in which Lumani had stood smirking in her rearview mirror.

She continued to the end of the block, found a nook within a doorway in which to wait for the sun, and when she sat, Neeva sat, too. “When I move,” Munroe said finally, “I won’t have time to explain. You either stay with me or you don’t, but if you’re left behind, you’re on your own.”

“I’ll be fine,” Neeva said, and Munroe, focused entirely on the Doll Maker’s building and the storefront windows, didn’t reply.

More than once in the drawn-out wait, the skin along the back of Munroe’s neck itched and tingled in the telltale sensation of being watched, but although her gaze sought out windows and rooftops
and down the streets for some visual evidence, she found nothing to confirm it. If this was Lumani, if he’d gotten free and made it here this quickly, if he spotted her now through his scope, she welcomed him to take the shot he hadn’t in Milan, welcomed him to end things forever. But time ticked on.

The sun had fully crested the horizon, had begun its ascent in the sky, when the first opportunity to breach the Doll Maker’s building arrived in the form of a wide-shouldered, middle-aged woman in sensible shoes. She was at first, by all appearances, just one of the ever-increasing number of pedestrians heading to work, but she slowed in front of the nearest jewelry store and reached inside her purse.

Munroe was up and off the steps before the woman’s hand had fully traveled back out, was across the street by the time the keys were in her hand. Was behind the woman when the key was inserted into the lock and had the Jericho to the woman’s head as soon as the door opened.

The woman with the keys and sensible shoes opened her mouth to scream, and in the gap of silence between shock and sound, Munroe’s other hand wrapped around the woman’s face. The shrieking came, and continued to come, but muted, while the woman chomped at Munroe’s fingers and clawed with her nails, and Munroe, once more amped up on adrenaline, struck with the gun—a hard crack against the woman’s head.

For a moment the woman stopped struggling, and Munroe, shifting so her back was to the interior and her eyes to the street, worked the woman into the store. Neeva crossed the single-lane road casually as if she owned it, caught the door before it fully shut, then followed them inside and, without Munroe asking, removed the keys, relocked the door, and pulled the second handgun from the satchel.

She waved the weapon in the woman’s face theatrically, and with the realization that there were two to her one, the wide-shouldered woman, like many people when confronted by stress and overwhelmed by fear, shut down in a form of self-preservation. Behind Munroe’s hand she blabbered incoherently and then lost bladder control.

Neeva stared at the puddle on the floor.

Munroe said, “See if you can find the key to the back door.”

Neeva jangled the keys and muttered, “Yes, she
can
be useful.”

Ignoring her, Munroe whispered in the woman’s ear, cycling through languages until she struck recognition with Hungarian. Because of the strange wiring inside her head and the recordings she’d been force-fed, she had extensive knowledge of the language but limited colloquial ability, and so communicated her lack of intent to harm as best as she could.

The woman nodded frantically, but Munroe couldn’t risk releasing her mouth and because of this, frustration set in. This woman, if Munroe meant to keep her alive, was going to be a problem.

From the back of the store Neeva said, “Found it.”

“Don’t open it,” Munroe said. “Come here and help me look for something to stuff in her mouth.”

“I thought you work alone,” Neeva said.

“Just shut up and do it,” Munroe said, and Neeva smiled a fake smile before stepping behind the counter and rummaging through shelving and several boxes on the floor.

Munroe motioned for the woman to go behind the other display counter and to sit.
“Nem akarlak bántani,”
she said, “and I want you to live.” This was true. She’d come to kill the Doll Maker, to cut off the head of the organization, and the arms, and possibly the feet. But this woman—she couldn’t know if this woman was a bystander like the many who worked with gold in the main room, possibly here through no choice of her own, or if she was a player in the game.

Neeva said, “I found some box-wrapping stuff and some newspaper.”

“Good enough.”

The woman sat as instructed. Munroe wadded paper and stuffed it into her mouth, then with a roll of twine worked a thick figure-eight around the woman’s wrists, leading the twine down to her ankles, where she repeated the procedure. Not struggle-proof, but the bonds would buy time, save the woman from raising an alarm, and prevent Munroe from having to kill unnecessarily.

Four minutes in and the shop was still quiet.

Munroe straightened and stepped out from behind the counter, then slipped beyond Neeva to the rear door. Checked along the frame for any sign of security, any alarm that might be triggered
by opening it, and finding nothing, turned the key. Inched the door inward, peered around the corner.

The large room was quiet, still empty of the worker bees who would, she expected, arrive soon for the daily grind. The lack of light filtering out from the Doll Maker’s lair was incongruous and surprising. Every time Munroe had passed through the main room, his light had been on, almost as if he lived in that doll-filled office like some esoteric hermit.

At the far back the large steel door stood open, and beside the door a guard sat on a metal folding chair, awake but only in the way of one who’d sat alone for far too long: eyes open but mind unengaged. Munroe motioned Neeva closer, then signaled that she should hold the door open.

Had there been no guard, Munroe would have taken Neeva inside, headed down to the prison for a quick look-see, and then returned to lie in wait in the Doll Maker’s office. But a guard indicated prisoners, and prisoners were innocent life with which evil would barter freedom or, worse, use as a control mechanism.

Munroe tucked the Jericho away and pulled the pocketknife from the largest of the cargo pockets. Metal on skin, release to anxiety, warm in her hands like blood fresh from the vein. She slipped inside, low to the ground, creeping between desks and the narrow hallways they formed. Paused occasionally to stretch a hand up in search of loose items and snagged prizes: pencil, ceramic cup, lump of wax. Collected them and moved on until she’d slunk fully across the expanse of the work floor, stopping behind a plywood wall that formed half a cubicle, close enough to the seated guard that even in the soft early light filtering through the windows, she could see the acne scars that marked his cheeks.

Munroe tossed the ball of wax across the empty aisle so that it tapped against the wall of one of the offices. The noise was soft and the guard took no notice of the muted thud that would have caused a more worthy man to look.

She tried again with the pencil. His head jerked up at the clack of wood against the wall, and his shoulders straightened. She willed him forward. Didn’t necessarily need him to pass her way, just wanted him off the chair and on his feet, away from the wall, so she wasn’t making the equivalent of an unarmed suicide lunge at a target with all of the advantage.

But the guard didn’t move and he was burning her time.

Munroe palmed the cup. If this didn’t pull the man forward, she’d be forced to shoot him and in the process draw the attention of whatever security was in the building—either upstairs in the apartments above or downstairs in the prison.

She rolled the mug, bowling style, down the concrete floor behind her, and at this, the guard finally stood. He tapped on the metal door, a signal, she supposed, to whoever remained down in the pit.

Weapon in hand, an HK USP .45 Tactical just as the rest of the Doll Maker’s men had carried, as if it were part of some de facto bad-guy standard issue, he proceeded forward in search of the noise source. Passed along the half-wall behind Munroe, and she remained crouched beneath a desk, gauging distance and time by his footsteps, his breathing.

Munroe kept count of his paces, waiting until he’d fully passed before shifting her crouch to face him. Focus, pure and feral, tamped down the weakness of compassion and the predator resurfaced. She closed her eyes. Pulled in air through slow long breaths, drew down to the primal nature that had for days begged to be released, allowed the instinct that built layer upon layer and night after night in the jungle to assume control.

The subtle tap of his boots against the floor marked his location on the map inside her head. Step by step, turn by turn, she tracked him.

The guard bent for the cup and his shooting hand extended carelessly toward the floor. Munroe slid from beneath the desk, and as silent as in times past, like the mamba, swiftest of snakes, she struck his wrist. Twisted and sliced, paring through skin, vein, and tendon.

His weapon fell.

The guard bellowed.

She reached for the gun.

He spun toward the attack.

She rose up and fired.

Double tap to the head, the weapon’s roar silenced by the suppressor like screams choked into whispers.

The man’s bellow halted before it had fully begun. He dropped.

She paused long enough to stare at open and lifeless eyes and body twisted and crumpled on the stone floor, discarded like a sack of garbage—garbage with two rosebuds seeping from a pale pink forehead, wrist bleeding into a puddle on the floor: an ugly replica of Noah’s death.

From below came a question in Albanian. Munroe dropped her voice an octave and, drawing on a language from long ago, yelled back,
“Minjtë!”
Too many words and the dialect and accent might be wrong. No answer and he would come hunting.

From below came a guffaw.

Close enough.

Carrying the dead man’s gun, Munroe worked backward toward Neeva, the weapon held two-handed and aimed toward the empty prison stairs.

When she was within whispering distance, Munroe hissed for Neeva’s attention, got her to block open the gold-shop door and follow her into the main room. Not because she owed Neeva anything, not because she wanted her help, but because she couldn’t afford to get cut off from her and have her used against her the way the prisoners downstairs might be.

For the third time in nearly twice as many minutes, Munroe crossed the wide floor space, this time quickly and without fear of being seen, to get to the stairs and down before the dead man’s counterpart got curious and headed up. Detoured around the body for Neeva’s benefit, reached the stairway, and there Neeva froze.

Munroe started down, paused at Neeva’s hesitation, and motioned her to follow. But the girl wouldn’t move. Color drained from her cheeks and she shook her head. Munroe fought back the anger.

Liability
.

There were times when all the bravery in the world couldn’t compensate for trauma and flashbacks.

Liability
.

It wouldn’t be easy walking down these stairs and returning to the smell of bleach and mold. Wouldn’t be easy to descend, knowing that once underground she was helpless against the metal door being locked in place, shutting her away forever. Munroe had to do it, even against her own foreboding, but Neeva didn’t.

Liability
.

Two fingers to her own eyes and then to the room at large, Munroe set Neeva to keep watch. Motioned to the weapon, then to the room again.

Shoot to protect.

Neeva nodded.

Munroe blocked out the frustration. The anger. Had to focus on the now. Headed down several stairs with quiet foot placement that wouldn’t alert the guard to her presence. Listened for pacing, breathing, clothes rustling, and keys clinking, but heard nothing. She didn’t need to peer around the corner to know where he was, she’d seen it a half-dozen times during her time in this hell. Didn’t need to worry about hitting an innocent with stray bullets, because whoever was being held captive in this dungeon was locked away behind stone and steel.

Munroe turned and did a quick double-check on Neeva, whose back was to her, Jericho two-fisted and pointed toward the floor. Drew a breath, ran down the remaining stairs, and skirted the corner, firing, counting rounds, moving steadily closer, until the clip in the .45 was empty. She drew the Jericho and charged the remaining distance.