Devil's Due

"Yeah. It is." He glanced out the back windows of the van. "You armed?"

"Always."

"Good. Not that I figure we'll need it, but I don't want to get caught with my tool belt down, if you know what I mean. Your source was right, by the way. These guys are ordering in big amounts of sodium cyanide, and their next-door neighbors are shipping in hydrochloric acid. I can see why you're not fond of the combination. It'd make a hell of a nice hydrogen cyanide cloud. In an enclosed space, it could kill hundreds, maybe thousands. Arrowhead Stadium's right down the street. The volume of gas we're talking about, you set it off in a place like that, you could count on major results."

"God," she whispered reverently. "How easy would it be—?"

"The stadium? Not very. I mean, we're talking about a lot of chemicals here, very high profile, and chemicals are bulky to move around. But you look at some of the high-rise buildings in the city? Pump some of this into the air handlers, and you're talking big numbers of bodies." Cole considered it, his light brown eyes distant as he rubbed his chin. "Unless they're making a hell of a lot of gold chains and pimping up the hubcaps of half of the country, I can't see how they could be using everything they've ordered."

"So we take a look."

"Wrong," he said. "I take a look. You watch my ride. Looking like you do, I don't think anybody's going to believe you're apprenticing as a cable puller, so you'd better keep out of sight."

He wasn't being judgmental, just practical. She nodded and settled herself in the grimy seat. It occurred to her that she should call Jazz, but truthfully, she didn't want to. She knew she was pushing her luck. Fresh from the hospital and already taking risks? Jazz wouldn't approve. Loudly. At length.

As if she'd conjured up a co

Wind noise.

No, jet noise. Someone was calling her from a plane. "Hello?" She couldn't hear a damn thing. The co

The answer, if there was one, was lost in the dull thump of the van's tires going over railroad tracks. There was a line of vehicles passing through the SubTropolis gates, most of them 18-wheelers. Cole slowed the van to a crawl.

She listened for another few seconds, but the co

"Anything important?" he asked.

"Couldn't tell," she said. She checked the caller ID, but as she'd expected, it was an air phone. "I hope not."

They edged forward slowly. When they got to the guard station, Cole presented ID that Lucia didn't doubt was absolutely authentic. The guard waved him on, and they passed into a tu

She'd expected it to be dark, but SubTropolis was surprisingly bright. The tu

"These guys have got some balls, setting up something down here. This place has everything. Post offices, restaurants, hell, they keep film reels somewhere. A few billion in inventory stored down here, at least. Not exactly low-profile."

"Maybe that's the point," she said. "Hiding in plain sight." She leaned over to look past the front seat at the empty, seemingly endless stretch of tu

"Long ways," Cole said, which was not reassuring. "We make a right up ahead at Huspuckney Road, then a left on 8800."

She was starting to seriously regret suggesting this, not so much for the potential danger ahead but for the uncomfortable feeling of claustrophobia that she was battling. Stupid. She was in a van, which should have been much more claustrophobic than the spacious tu

"You okay?" Cole was watching her. She nodded and forced a smile. "You'll let me know if you plan to freak out, okay?"

"Remember who you're talking to," she said. "I don't have a reputation for freaking out."

"Yeah. Those are the ones you have to worry about." Mercifully, he left her alone. She found that closing her eyes didn't help, so she finally resorted to clinging tight-lipped to the seat, fingernails digging in to the bending point. They slowed. "All right. It's up ahead. Here's the drill. I'm going to get out and scout around, you stay in the van and monitor. I'll keep my walkie cha

"Yes," she muttered. "Fine. Absolutely." He gave her one last assessing look as he pulled into a parking spot off the road, next to a rough-textured limestone pillar, and jammed the van into Park. "We good?"

"Fine," she repeated. "I'll be okay. You go." He shook his head, clearly not believing her—smart man—and climbed out of the passenger seat and into the murky dimness of the windowless back, where even someone staring in the window would have trouble spotting her. He nodded, locked up and sauntered toward a big industrial building that looked oddly lost in the cavernous open spaces. This was just so weird. She caught herself breathing too fast, and deliberately slowed down. Biofeedback. She'd survived traumas and tortures; she could survive a short visit underground.

Cole even walked like a working man—as if tired, in no particular hurry. He picked something overhead and traced it with a stare as he walked, clearly intent on his own business. She could hear the crunch of his work boots on rock as he walked to the back dock of the warehouse. It was labeled J&J Electroplating—Warehouse and Distribution Center. No trucks were lined up just now. Cole climbed the steps and opened an unmarked door. It closed behind him.

"Hey!" Not Cole's voice, someone else's. It came from the walkie-talkie she was holding. He'd already been challenged. "What are you doing in here?"

"You guys having trouble with the plugs?" Cole asked. "We have a fault report."

"No, we don't have trouble. Try someplace else."

"You sure you don't want me to check it out? You got a faulty plug, you could get a fire." Cole knew just how to work it, she thought; he sounded conscientious but not concerned. The subtext was his body language—he'd be ready to move to the door, convincing the subject that he wasn't at all eager to be on their property. "Hey, your call. I can write up the report, but buddy, your insurance company could nail your ass to the wall, you don't check out a fault report."

"Where you gotta go?"

"In there." Cole might be choosing at random, or he might have seen something. "Line goes right in, see? Up there?" He'd be pointing at something nobody could possibly see or understand. She suppressed a grin. Beautiful. "Wait here."

Footsteps faded away. Cole didn't say anything, but she heard him moving around. It seemed like a long time, but as she watched the sweep of the second hand on her watch, she realized that he'd been inside only two minutes, going on three. Probably not enough time to— "Hey, I told you to wait!" The voice was startlingly loud.

“I’ve got to get through twelve buildings. You know how big this place is."

"We checked it out. Everything's fine."

"Okay then. I'll write it up. Anything goes wrong, though, you—"

"Yeah, insurance, whatever. We're closing up."