The Darkness - Jason Pinter [119]
Swiss army knife that was attached to his key chain. Then
they took the whole key chain as well.
I was sweating terribly, my mind and heart racing. As I
stood back up, I was finally able to get a full glimpse of our
surroundings. Parked around the side of the warehouse
was the fish truck, the rear backed in to what looked like a
loading dock. And if there was a loading dock here, I had
no doubt that this was where they shipped the Darkness.
"Come on," Malloy said, "she's waiting for you."
"Who the hell is waiting for us?" Curt said. Then he
turned to Detective Makhoulian. "And you, you fucking
rat. If I don't leave here alive, I swear to God you're coming with me."
Makhoulian just stood there and said, "I'm sorry,
Curtis. You're a good man, but you're out of your league."
"What the hell does that mean? And who is this 'she'
you're talking about?"
"Eve Ramos," I said. "She was one of the survivors of
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the attack in Panama. She's the Fury." Curt looked at me,
confused, then his eyes widened as the totality of our situation sank in. "She's the one who wanted my brother killed."
"Henry," he said.
"I know."
Malloy said, "Follow me."
As if we'd had second thoughts, the two gunmen proceeded to follow us as Malloy led us up to the warehouse. He entered a code on a side door, opened it and
ushered us in.
We were in a long, narrow stairwell, painted a dull gray.
Cameras were positioned at several spots at every landing.
Malloy walked in front of us, taking us up two flights of
stairs before we stopped in front of a door with another
keypad. I counted three cameras, red lights glowing steadily.
"You come with me," Malloy said, looking at Curt.
"You're staying here."
"I'm not going anywhere," Curt said.
Malloy ripped the gun from his waistband and jammed
it under Curt's jaw, hard enough to make the man wince.
"You're going to come with me, right now. "
Malloy signaled to the two gunmen, and they kept
their muzzles trained on me as Malloy led Curt somewhere upstairs. When he was out of sight, one of the men
turned to me and said, "You're going to wait in here."
He jabbed a code in with a calloused finger, and when
the LED light turned green he pushed it open.
To my surprise, the door opened into a medium-sized
conference room, complete with varnished wood table
and comfortable leather chairs. There was even a speakerphone hooked up and sitting on the middle of the table,
like a cadre of suits was about to walk through the door
and talk shop while scarfing down bagels and coffee.
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"What the hell..." I was able to say before I was
pushed inside, the door slamming shut behind me.
The first thing I did when the door clicked shut was
run to the table and turn on the speakerphone. I wasn't
shocked to find that there was no dial tone.
"Shit!" I yelled at the top of my lungs. It wasn't quite
a substitute for "Help" but nobody could hear me anyway.
I walked around the room, looking for anything I could
use. There was nothing. I debated unscrewing one of the
wheels from the chairs to brandish as a weapon, but in a
warehouse filled with people armed to the gills it was
more apt to get me killed quicker.
They wanted me here for a reason, or they would have
killed me already. Besides, this room was too pretty to
commit murder in.
At least, that's what I thought until I saw the light red
stain on the carpet by the door I'd come in through. It had
clearly been scrubbed numerous times, but damned if
blood wasn't just too difficult a liquid to get out.
"His name was Jeremy Robertson," a voice said. "And
he didn't listen."
I whirled around to find a woman standing at the other
end of the room. From the lines and age in her face I made
her out to be in her early to mid-forties, but the tone and
muscle definition was striking beneath her black tank
top. She had long black hair that I could see spread out
behind her waist and her green eyes looked at me with a
strange kind of calmness that would have given me chills
if