The Frenzy War (46 page)

In the dining room, Michael watched the footage he had shot of Cheryl and Rhonda on his laptop, with Angelo and Reddick beside him.

“No edits. Let them try to call this a fake, especially after they find their corpses.” Michael unhooked the camera's cable from the laptop and shut the computer down. “We'll blast the video across the web and watch it go viral. By this time tomorrow, the entire world will believe what Gomez said about the beasts. It will be a Cheryl Mace double feature.”

Angelo frowned.

“What?”

“We could have exposed them anytime we wanted, but we didn't.”

“We were never in danger of being shut down before. This way, Tudoro's backers will continue to fund the war. If they don't, others will pick up our cause.”

“I'm loyal to Tudoro,” Reddick said.

“You need to be loyal to the Brotherhood. In the end, Tudoro's just another bureaucrat. Go find Colum and execute the prisoners.”

“Why me?” Reddick said. “I don't really feel like killing two women.”

“Only one of them is a woman. The other is a beast. And you need to make your bones. The rest of us have already spilled plenty of blood.”

“We triggered your explosives as you ordered.”

“As far as we know, no wolves were killed in those explosions. Gabriel Domini's carcass hasn't been discovered yet.”

Sighing, Reddick crossed the dining room.

“Tell Valeria and Loreti to start on the ground floor.”

Reddick waved to him with the back of his hand and left.

“Maybe we shouldn't kill the newswoman,” Angelo said.

Michael raised his eyebrows.

“She's innocent as well as human. Her death will turn people against us.”

“She's seen our faces.”

“She has now, anyway.”

“We have only one course of action.” Michael closed the laptop and rose. “Do an idiot check and let's get out of here.” Nodding, Angelo left the room.

Michael looked around the space one last time. They had stripped everything they had used in the warehouse:
weapons, cameras, monitors, luxury items. He knew their fingerprints were everywhere, which was why he intended to burn the building on the way out. He packed his laptop into his shoulder bag, which he slung over one shoulder, and headed out.

With her Glock drawn, Norton preceded Shelly into the dark tunnel that led into the warehouse parking lot. The brick tunnel ran perhaps thirty feet in length and had a curved ceiling. They hurried through it, an SUV and a white cargo van coming into view in the square parking lot.

Norton took a step forward into the lot, then jumped back when a loading bay door opened and a woman with long black hair, streaked blonde, and a scruffy-looking man emerged from the building onto the concrete loading platform. They wore civilian clothes, not the combat fatigues Willy had described.

The woman hopped off the platform onto the asphalt, then walked to the van and climbed into the front seat. She started the engine and backed the vehicle up to the loading dock. The man opened the rear doors and started loading equipment cases and luggage into the van. The woman got out and trotted up the concrete steps and helped him.

“Looks like ordinance to me,” Shelly said.

“Looks like they're running for the hills to me,” Norton said.

Valeria closed the van doors, then she, Loreti, and Colum walked back inside the loading bay, and she closed the door. No sooner had they entered the adjacent corridor than they ran into Reddick.

“The video's good,” Reddick said. “Colum, we have to do the prisoners.”

“Now?” Colum said.

“That's what Michael says.”

“Okay, let's get it over with.”

“Valeria, Michael said for you and Loreti to start on the ground floor.”

“Right,” Valeria said.

Reddick and Colum moved in one direction and Valeria and Loreti in the other.

Mace watched Willy attempt to open the second-floor window closest to the fire escape. When it didn't budge, the lieutenant looked down and shook his head. Mace made a fist with one hand, and Willy nodded.

Norton's voice came over the speaker in his ear. “A man and a woman just loaded up a van and went back inside. We're guessing artillery and ammo in addition to luggage. We got here just in time. They're bugging out.”

“Sit on those vehicles,” Mace said. “We can't have them retrieving those weapons or making a run for it.”

“Copy that. If they come outside, we'll be ready for them.” Mace turned to Gabriel. “I heard,” he said.

Looking up, Mace saw Karol filling Willy in.

“Okay, let's take them,” Mace said.

Drawing his Glock, he kicked in the plywood over the basement window. Above, Willy used a flashlight to smash a windowpane, then reached inside, unlocked the window, and raised it. Mace took out his own flashlight, got down on his knees, and crawled backward through the window, dropping into darkness. He landed on a concrete floor, turned, and aimed his flashlight, its circle of light moving across old machinery. Gabriel landed behind him, and they made their way through the darkness.

Willy climbed through the window and hopped onto the hard tile floor, then helped Karol do the same. “Careful,” he said, turning on his flashlight.

“You be careful,” she said. “I don't need the light to see.”

“You go with your bad self.”

They moved between rows of old sewing machines.

“This place is like a museum,” Karol said.

“Let's just hope we don't become featured exhibits.”

Mace and Gabriel penetrated the gloomy interior of the basement, stepping on wet floors and passing junk piled to the ceiling.

“I bet you wish you had your shoes on now,” Mace said.

Gabriel touched his arm. “Hold it. I smell something.”

“No kidding. This place reeks of sewage and must.”

“No. I smell a Wolf. It must be Rhonda. She's alive!”

Mace's heart beat faster. Then Cheryl was alive too. “Which way?”

Gabriel sniffed the air. “I'm not sure. You're right about the odors in here. They're interfering with my sense of smell. And there's no ventilation.”

Come on; come on,
Mace thought.

“Up ahead. Keep moving.”

“Do you get the feeling we're purposefully being kept out of the action?” Shelly said. “Maybe,” Norton said.

“I don't like being sidelined, especially when I brought my big gun.”

“If anything happens in there, you'll get to use it.” She scanned the first-floor windows, all barred. “What do you make of Domini?”

“He sure looks human to me.”

“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.”

“It'll be a shame if we have to kill him.”

A
t the far end of the warehouse space, Valeria unscrewed the metal cap on the gasoline can and splashed the fuel on the floor and furniture. Loreti did the same twenty feet away from her. By the time Valeria saw Michael approaching them, the area reeked of gas. He carried a can of gasoline in each hand, and when he stopped before them, they each took one and resumed their work.

“It will be just another abandoned building blaze when the authorities arrive,” Michael said, “with no evidence that we were ever here, except for two charred corpses in the basement, which may never be discovered.”

“Where are we heading from here?” Valeria said.

“Kentucky. There's a small pack we can exterminate without drawing attention to ourselves.”

“And then?”

“Virginia. Or Florida. Maybe Arkansas.” Valeria closed her eyes for a moment. “It will never end, will it?”

“This war's lasted hundreds of years, and we've never been closer to success.”

Some success,
Valeria thought. Myles, Henri, and Eun were all dead, and the Brotherhood had run out of money. Somehow she had envisioned a different life for herself, but she continued to pour gasoline.