Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15

Garrison

As Ghita and I stared from an alley across the street at the construction site that D'Angelo Bianchi had mentioned, I withheld the urge to sigh again. Of all the missions I'd ever been on, this had to be the most disorganized of them all. I couldn't even call it a plan. It was more like a really ambitious hope masquerading as a plan.

We left the safety of the car and approached the construction site, sticking to the shadows as much as possible. It was late into the night, but there were plenty of spotlights around the entrance.

To avoid being seen, the two of us circled around the side of the area where a chain link fence stood hidden in the dark. Climbing it would make too much noise, especially since we had no way of knowing exactly how many people were inside. Instead, we would have to cut our way through.

Before coming here, we'd first raided the home of Ghita's informant for supplies. The man would eventually wake up in bed, missing a pair of bolt cutters, a package of water bottles, and several bathroom cleaners, but he would find a stack of cash in their place.

From the bag now slung over her shoulder, Ghita pulled out the bolt cutters and handed them to me. I cut a hole in the chain link fence just big enough for us to slip through. Once we were inside, I then rolled the damaged part of the fence back into place to hide the hole as much as possible.

"Now where?" h I asked Ghita as I handed her back the bolt cutters.

She stored them back in the bag and consulted the phone that the Bianchi leader had given them.

"I'm not exactly sure where the van stopped, but based on the security footage, I think it was headed somewhere beyond that building."

The building in question showed only the skeleton of architecture, with no walls or doors to speak of. Tools and equipment lay scattered around like they'd just been left one day and forgotten.

"All right, we'll head over there and keep an eye open for the van. Look for fresh tire tracks, or anything that's been recently disturbed."

We tried inching toward the left side of the construction site, but as we approached it became harder and harder to remain unseen. Unlike the front of the site, which was quiet as the dead, this area had plenty of life.

I couldn't get a good enough look to count the exact number of people, but it was too many to sneak past. I pressed Ghita behind a tractor and peered around the corner as I considered what to do.

The nearest person stood about a dozen yards away, with several spotlights illuminating the area. There was no way for me to cover the distance without being spotted. Even if I managed to knock that one out, I'd be gunned down by the other people nearby.

For the same reason, I couldn't just shoot the person. Until I knew how many enemies we faced, I couldn't risk bringing down an army on us.

A soft tug on my sleeve caught my attention. Looking back at Ghita, I found her pointing at something above us.

The scaffolding.

There was a low spot nearby where we could climb up. Then we could get a better look at our surroundings and the enemies we faced.

Between Ghita's short height and my bad knee, climbing the scaffolding proved challenging. It was a multi-step process. First, I would climb up, with Ghita supporting me. Then, she would hand me our bag of supplies before I pulled her up behind me.

It took us about twenty minutes to reach the building's second floor. It still didn't provide as much cover as I would prefer, but it was at least easier to walk around.

The layout of the building formed a ‘U' around a central courtyard. The two of us followed this shape around the edge of the courtyard until we found an area where plywood had been nailed into a makeshift wall. It wouldn't stop a bullet, but it would at least block us from sight if any of our enemies happened to look up.

From here, I counted a dozen people scattered around the open courtyard. It wasn't an army, but it was more than Ghita and I could fight on our own.

"Over there." Ghita pointed at a bulldozer sitting almost directly below us. "The ground looks disturbed. Like someone was running."

She was right. Fresh footprints marked the dirt, with a pattern that suggested frantic movement. Even more odd, they disappeared right under the bulldozer.

"Stay here," I told her as I searched for a better way to climb down. "I'm going to go take a look."

I found a discarded ladder that looked like it hadn't been touched in months. Old wood and rusted joints creaked as I lowered it to the ground, the structure threatening to collapse under my weight.

My knee protested each time I stepped down another rung and I made sure to keep both hands securely on the ladder at all times.

As soon as my feet hit dirt, a spotlight spun in my direction. I ducked behind the wheel of the bulldozer and held my breath. There was no way to avoid making noise on such a rickety ladder, but I'd been hoping it would be mistaken for ambient city sounds.

"You hear something?" someone said from just out of sight. Footsteps plodded across the ground, each one a little closer.

I crawled under the bulldozer just before someone stepped into sight. I pressed up against the back of the tire, hoping the equipment's shadow would be enough to conceal me.

Two people walked by, one of them absently pointing a flashlight into the darkest shadows of the night.

"Nah, I didn't hear anything. You're being paranoid."

"But I could have sworn I heard—"

"It's fine. We're almost done here. There's only about a half hour left before the bastard runs out of air. Then we can leave."

Runs out of air?

My heart rate doubled. There was no context where those words could mean anything good.

As the two people turned around to head back, the flashlight's beam reached under the bulldozer. I curled tighter against the large wheel to stay out of sight, but as I did so, I noticed the light glint off something silver half-buried in the dirt.

It looked vaguely familiar.

As soon as the people with the flashlight left, I unearthed the silver object. A little silver ring sat innocently in my palm.

I had seen this ring before, hooked through Alex's eyebrow piercing.

Closing my hand into a fist around the ring, I bit my lip to keep from making a sound. Part of me had hoped they were wrong. That Alex was actually somewhere safe and this whole thing was a misunderstanding.

Now I knew for a fact that Alex was there and in danger.

Taking out my phone, I dialed Ghita's number. She answered before the first ring finished.

"Anything?"

I gave her a quick, whispered summary of what I'd found, including Alex's eyebrow ring.

She was silent for a moment with only the sound of her harsh breathing to let me know the call was still connected.

When she finally spoke, her words trembled but her voice held strong.

"Right. So, we're on the right track. We just need to find him. I've been reviewing the security footage again. In one of the cameras, if you zoom in on the bottom corner, you can just see a taillight. I think it's the same one as the van. It's not far."

"Wait," I said quickly before she could hang up.

"What? If Alex is running out of air , then we need to move."

"Not yet. Finding him won't matter if we can't get him out. This is a good place for our plan. Let's take these guys out, then go find Alex."

I could hear her grinding her teeth against the need to argue.

"Fine," she snapped. "It'll take me a minute, so hold on. Do you have what you need?"

I searched my pockets and found the medical mask I'd procured earlier. One of the benefits of the recent pandemic, everyone had a few of those lying around.

"Got it."

"All right. In an open area like this, it won't be enough to knock anyone out. Just disorient them."

With the mask secured over my mouth and nose, I flexed my hands and listened to the knuckles crack.

"That's all I need."

A minute passed. Then two. I kept an eye focused on the second floor and waited.

Impatience throbbed under my skin. I wanted to run off and find Alex just as much as Ghita did, but logic won out. This was the best course of action, no matter how badly it chaffed.

Finally, Ghita's silhouette peeked over the edge of the second floor. She tossed something into the air, which landed in the middle of the courtyard.

Several people shouted in surprise as they turned to see a water bottle rolling across the ground.

"What the hell?" someone said, tapping the bottle with their toe.

The liquid inside churned, and the bottle exploded. A thick gas billowed into the air, causing everyone in a ten-foot radius to gag and stumble around.

Several more water bottles rained down on the courtyard. Each one exploded upon impact, adding more gas to the air.

Apparently, one could make a rough chemical bomb by mixing the right substances together in a small container, like a water bottle, and sealing the top. Then just shake and throw.

I had dealt with homemade bombs before during my years of service, but never one this crude. It was barely ranked above a high school science project, but it worked. Everyone around the courtyard hacked and coughed, and those closest to the water bottles fell to their knees, disoriented.

Diving out from under the bulldozer, I ran for the nearest enemy. The medical mask helped, but it couldn't keep all the gas out of my lungs. Each breath burned, so I tried not to inhale too much. Fortunately, the construction site's open air diluted the gas enough so it wouldn't harm me.

Unfortunately, I had no way to cover my eyes. My vision started watering the moment the first water bottle exploded. I needed to end it and get out of the contaminated area as quickly as possible.

I moved between the gas clouds, darting from one person to the next and knocking them out with precise blows. A few people managed to fight back, swinging wild haymakers at me, or reaching for whatever weapon they could find. Those people I was less gentle with, slamming the butt of my gun into their temples to leave them slumped on the ground.

In just a few minutes, every enemy lay unconscious as the gas dissipated into the wind.

Ghita waved both her arms to get my attention from the second-floor scaffolding. "Great job," she shouted down. "Now, come on. The van is over this way."

We found the van parked at the edge of the construction site, on the opposite side from where we'd broken in. It sat behind a brick wall, almost completely hidden from view, with its back doors thrown wide open.

There was nothing else in the area except for a set of stairs leading down to a basement. I led the way down the stairs, gun at the ready in case we'd missed any enemies with our water bottle assault.

The room at the bottom of the stairs turned out to be a large storage area. It would probably become part of the building's foundation once construction was finished, but for now it was being used to hold spare supplies and bits of broken equipment.

It was also empty.

"No." Ghita pushed past me into the room, frantically looking around. "He has to be here."

I stashed my gun back in its holster. "Maybe he was here earlier. They could have moved him since then."

"But we're running out of time. Is there any clue where they might have taken him?"

She started searching through spare equipment, dumping bags on the ground and knocking over a stack of metal poles. Her shoe slid in a patch of wet cement, and she shouted in disgust. "What? Ugh. Why is the ground wet?"

"It's not wet." Kneeling near Ghita's feet, I touched his fingers to the cement. "It's freshly poured."

A thought occurred to me. Small at first, like a whisper in the back of my mind, it quickly took hold. An empty horror opened in the pit of my stomach and my hands trembled.

"Ghita, do you remember what D'Angelo Bianchi said? That Alex would end up six feet under, one way or another ?"

I saw the moment she realized what I meant. Her eyes widened until the whites were visible all the way around the iris.

"No, they couldn't..." But she didn't even bother to finish that statement.

Yes, their enemies very well could.

I grabbed a pole from the pile Ghita had knocked over and stabbed the end down into the wet concrete. The pit was deeper than it seemed. The pole was taller than me, and half of it disappeared under the surface of the concrete before it hit the bottom.

Moving the pole around, I knocked against something hard. By tapping the pole like a blind man's cane, I felt out the shape of the object. It was some sort of square container, easily big enough to hold a person.

"Get more poles," I ordered Ghita as I wedged the one in my hand under the container.

The concrete pit was significantly bigger than the container, providing enough room to slide the poles underneath. The container tipped and rolled as I used the poles to leverage one end off the bottom. Then, I repeated the process with the other side.

Inch by inch, we managed to raise the container higher until finally one end was completely uncovered. Heavy chains wrapped around the container, sealing it closed. As much as I hated the sight of them, I was also grateful. The chains were much easier to grip than the container would have been on its own. My back and knee screamed as I hauled the heavy metal container free from the pit, but I barely noticed. I was too busy desperately looking for any sign of life inside.

Together Ghita and I freed the chains with the bolt cutters and threw open the lid.

Alex lay inside, with his eyes tightly closed and his arms pinned down against his sides.

At first, the man didn't move. Despair gripped my heart when it seemed we'd come too late.

Then Alex's eyes shot open, and he sucked in big gulps of air. His chest heaved as he frantically looked around before his eyes met mine and our gazes locked together.

In a flurry of graceless limbs, Alex shot out of the container and threw himself at me.

The man's arms and legs wrapped around my torso, pinning me in place before Alex slammed our mouths together.

It was the most graceless kiss I had ever known, and also the most welcome.