“We are,” Frollo confirmed. “All of you get back up to the upper level, take shelter behind the red-painted concrete divider. It’s designed to be blast-proof. I’ll throw the rock.”
Hallie wanted to protest, but no one else questioned Frollo, so she headed back up the ramp and around the end of one of the concrete walls that she had assumed were there to divide up the car parking spaces. Looking more closely at the wall she saw the diagonal red lines painted on its surface. It stirred a memory. She’d seen that pattern somewhere recently.
Whatever was trying to work loose in her mind was interrupted by a dull thud that must have been Frollo throwing the fire extinguisher at the car. There was a short pause, then another thud.
“Does he actuallywantto get blown up?” Hallie muttered.
That prompted smothered laughter all around her.
“He does like testing the limits,” Griff said, sounding cheerful. “Which can be useful.”
“Except on the road,” Caerleon added, prompting another round of laughter.
“All clear.” Frollo’s voice snapped them out of the momentary lightness and back to work.
They went down the ramp to the lower level to find that Frollo had managed to create two impressive dents in the car - one onthe front and one on the side. The fire extinguisher - somehow still in one piece - had been set upright in front of the car. Frollo had moved around the side and opened the driver’s door.
“I hope it is Findo’s car, because otherwise we’re going to have to pay to get it fixed,” Hallie said, shaking her head at the damage.
“Definitely not Brade Watkins’ car,” Frollo said, straightening up. He was holding a folded sheaf of papers. “Car rental agreement. It has a different licence number on it.” He handed it across to Girard, who took one look and nodded, grim-faced.
“That’s the licence plate Quella gave us.” Girard moved to the front of the vehicle and crouched by the plate. “They must have switched it out, because this one is fixed solid.”
“So we’ve got Findo Trask and Russet Welliver’s vehicle inside the Conclave building,” Hallie said. “And that map, the one on the wall in the house? It had diagonal lines like the ones on that wall up there.” She pointed to where they’d just taken shelter.
“Mapping out the weak points and the baffle zones,” Frollo said, face tight. He reached for the radio at his shoulder and stopped the movement with a grimace. “Radio isn’t working. Caerleon, Dechtire, high-tail it upstairs and alert the commander as soon as you can get a call through. Rejoin us when you can. We’ll keep going.”
Caerleon and Dechtire were already moving before Frollo finished speaking, heading up the ramp at a sprint. Hallie saw them crossing the floor of the upper parking level, heading for the stairs that were likely the quickest way up into the building and to reach the commander.
Frollo turned to his people. “Abbott, Hallie, you stay at the back. Everyone else, on me. We’ve got searching to do.”
Frollo’s earlier wordsinto the dark we go,rang around Hallie’s mind, hair rising on her body as she followed the tac team, bristling with weapons, into possible danger.
Chapter twenty-five
Therewasnothingelsein the parking areas, but with every step more tension spread across Hallie’s shoulders and the knot in her stomach grew tighter and heavier. There was no good reason she could think of for Findo and Russet to be inside the Conclave building, and particularly not on the day when the Conclave’s next session of meetings was due to start. The two men each seemed to like hurting people. Findo on his own would have been concerning enough. Theveondkenloved violence, and she thought he might take great delight in inflicting pain upon the most powerful people in the world. But Findo seemed to prefer to see his victims, to have the violence be personal. From what little she knew, it seemed that Russet liked to blow things up and wasn’t too particular about whether he was there when it happened. Or how many people might be hurt. The thought of what the two of them might do was making her mouth dry and her heart thud in her throat.
Then Frollo led them through a secured door into the machinery section of the basement areas. The quiet, crackling tension Hallie had carried through the parking garage lifted momentarily, her senses overwhelmed by dark heat and humidity and noise. Air sticky against her skin. Whirring overhead, strange thumping noises. The lighting was poor, coming from sparse, orange-tinted bulbs on the walls. There was a high whining noise that sounded like some kind of machinery that Hallie could not begin to identify.
She kept up with the rest of them as they wound their way through corridors lined with a variety of pipes and wiring as thick as her wrist, pasted with the occasional warning signs.Danger - high voltage. Danger - risk of death. Danger - pressure.Hallie mentally added another warning of her own:Danger - lethalveondkenon the loose.
A blast of fetid air slapped her face and she grimaced.
Frollo had stopped a few paces in front of her and Girard, the remainder of his team spread around him. They were at some kind of an opening, looking up. When Hallie found a space alongside them, she saw that they were at the bottom of a very tall shaft that had no daylight at the top.
“Is this the bottom of the lifts?” she asked Girard. Although she hadn’t noticed any lifts on her brief visit to the main building, it made sense that there would be at least one. She was sure that some Conclave members would see it as beneath them to trot up and down multiple flights of stairs.
“Yes. There are four lifts on this side, and four on the other side of the building as well, which go down into the other engineering section,” he told her.
“Shouldn’t the access be secured somehow?” she asked, turning around. She hadn’t noticed any kind of door or barricade.
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Girard agreed. “But I’ve never heard of any unauthorised entry to the building before now, let alone getting this far.” From the tone of his voice, Hallie could tell he was frustrated and concerned.
She turned away from the lift with difficulty, remembering that she and Girard were supposed to be keeping watch at the rear of the group.
“There’s no movement up there,” Griff commented. “But I don’t think this access panel should be open.” He pointed with the end of his gun at the wall beside the lift shaft. It looked like some kind of control box. Probably for the lifts, Hallie guessed, given where they were.
“I think you’re right,” Frollo said and muttered a curse. He tried his radio again, but the tightening of his jaw let Hallie know he was still getting static. “Can anyone see what floor that lift car is on?”
