“Novak. Kitchen to the left,” Caleb said in my earpiece.
I advanced across the space, stepping over the first body. A fourth man—Ball-Cap—barreled out from my left with a handgun, flailing, and shouting. I fired once, hitting him in the shoulder, and he fell to the floor, whimpering. I relieved him ofhis weapon and zip-tied him to the nearest radiator, taking off his ball cap and shoving it into his mouth.
“I have Ball-Cap,” I confirmed, “three security down. Where’s Skinny?”
“I can’t see him,” Caleb sounded frustrated. “No one left that place. Find him. Levi, Doc, watch your backs, we have a loose one.”
“We’re leaving,” Levi confirmed. “No sign of adults back here.”
“Caleb?” I asked, but he was silent on comms.
“I have nothing. He must have gotten away. Fuck!”
That was my cue. The house was mine now, the vermin inside exterminated, blood and bones ready to burn to nothing. I sprayed accelerant over the bodies, Ball-Cap staring at me with wide eyes. It didn’t matter that some splashed on him given I’d be cutting him loose for further interrogation before I burned the place down. Jamie had provided me with fancy shit that burned hot, and this place would be nothing but a shell when I was done.
Ball-Cap whimpered and pleaded, and I rolled my eyes. Pathetic.
I walked the space again, and only as I turned to get Ball-Cap and get the hell out did something make me stop. Some sound, or instinct. I don’t know.
I yanked the cap out of the tied-up man’s mouth. “Where’s your buddy?”
“Let me go! Please!”
I grabbed his face, shoved the gun to his neck. “Where is he?”
“Let me go.”
“Tell me and I might,” I lied.
Ball-Cap whimpered. “In the back corridor, past the kitchen! Let me go!”
“Someone is still here,” I said into comms as I shoved the cap back in his mouth. “Caleb? Heat signatures?”
“Fuck, I’ve got nothing.”
“You said the kids were in a room you couldn’t see into.”
“Correct. Thermal shielding on the west side.”
A sound came again, faint but distinct, traveling through the walls.
“There’s another space,” I said.
“That isn’t on the plans,” Caleb replied.
“The plans are wrong.”
“On my way,” he said, already moving, the sound of an engine starting followed by silence.
I tracked the metallic noise along the plumbing runs, following the vibration through the pipework until it terminated at a brick partition.
“Novak,” Caleb called, his voice echoing on coms—he’d driven the van here, and close by, and all too soon he was next to me, scanning the structure instead of a screen. “There’s a six-foot discrepancy between internal and external depth.”
He ran his hands along the mortar lines, checking for irregularities. I stepped in beside him, covering the upper reach. My fingers found a recessed catch six inches above his reach, disguised within the brickwork.
“Stand back,” I said.
I pulled the lever. The wall slid inward on a concealed track, revealing the narrow room beyond. Two boys. One man.
