The Prisoner - Carlos J. Cortes [155]
“Jame—Barandus?”
He smiled. “The one and only.”
They shuffled toward the rear of the truck to face a vast circular door with a hinge on one side, secured around its perimeter with a score of sturdy bolts fitted with handles.
“Cleaning trucks,” Tyler explained, “cannot be pumped empty. The contents of a septic pit decants to a thick slurry. When the trucks reach the treatment plants, operators free the bolts at the rear and tilt the tank to slide the contents out.”
Laurel backed up a step when Henry and Barandus worked the bolts to open the tank—a sudden premonition too horrible to contemplate forming at the edge of her mind.
When the ponderous door rotated on its hinges, a waft of dank moisture billowed out, bringing with it barely forgotten memories. Laurel cringed. Light spilled into the bowels of the tank to reveal a cavernous cylindrical space and three two-hundred-gallon drums lying on their sides in line, bolted to the bottom of the tank and spaced three feet apart. To the side, wedged between the drums and the inner curved wall of the tank, rested several panels of quarter-inch plate peppered with two-inch holes. Laurel dug her fingers into Floyd’s arm.
“You must be out of your mind.” Laurel intended to sound outraged, but her voice came out as a croak.
Lukas blanched. “In those?”
“Wonderful stuff.” Henry climbed up to the gaping tank, bent over the first drum, and yanked its quick-release rim fastener. The interior of the drum was padded with two-inch foam. On its floor, like fat wasps, were two seventy-two-cubic-foot scuba cylinders. “We tested it last night after fixing the drums. After a two-hour runaround with the tank filled to the brim with water, not a drop seeped into the drums.”
“Then why the scuba tanks?”
“The air inside the drums wouldn’t last five minutes.”
“You’re going to drive around with us inside the drums?”
“That’s about it.”
“In a tank full of water?”
“Nah, shit. We’ll fill her halfway up with shit.”
Tyler neared the open tank. “Washington is sealed. Vehicles entering or leaving the city are being searched. A tank will certainly be stopped and checked.”
“But what about the company?”
“Company?”
Laurel pointed to the block capitals stretched over the tank’s side—O’MALLEY CLEANING Services, 24/7—and a phone number.
“It’s a real setup—a small family business with six vehicles like this and twenty employees, established almost forty years ago. We bought it yesterday.”
“We?” Laurel asked.
“Antonio, Barandus, and me,” Tyler answered. “Could be a good business.”
“If a patrol checks who owns it, won’t it look suspicious that the company just changed hands?” Lukas asked.
“Good point, but it hasn’t,” Tyler said. “This is a small, unlisted firm. Although the sale was executed yesterday, it won’t be filed until tomorrow. By then there shouldn’t be any heat.”
Laurel shivered at Tyler’s choice of words. Hibernation tanks were a hairbreadth above freezing. She scanned the others. Behind their somber faces, she could almost see the thoughts—the chances of an accident and death by suffocation in sewage.
“How long will they have to be locked up there?” Floyd asked.
Tyler’s left eyebrow shot up. “They? No way. Russo, his attending physician, and Antonio will go in the tanks. That will do nicely. You’re his doctor, and Antonio can help you carry him when we get there.”
“But—” Floyd had paled.
“I will ride up front with him,” he said, glancing toward Henry. “Raul, Lukas, Laurel, and Barandus will make the sham run toward the TV studios in the van. Barandus will lie on the stretcher with Laurel attending him. Raul will drive, with Lukas up front. The DHS will snatch photographs along the way to identify not just Russo but you. In fact, they can’t identify Russo; they’ll just assume it’s him when they identify the rest.”
Something didn’t