The Buried (36 page)

Quinn tentatively placed a hand on her shoulder. “Dani, you don’t want to do this.”

She shot him a quick look and then focused back on The Wolf. “Tell me one reason why she doesn’t deserve to die.”

He took a step forward and put a hand over the gun. “Even if there isn’t one, you’re not an executioner.”

He pulled gently on the barrel, her resistance holding it in place for another second before she relaxed.

The Wolf smiled. “I guess you’re not your father’s daughter after all.”

“That’s probably the nicest thing you could have said to her,” Orlando said, before she smacked the grip of her gun into The Wolf’s cheek.

__________

O
RBITS CAME TO
as they finished zip-tying him to one of the pipes running up the side of the silo.

“Are you going to leave me here to die?” he asked.

“I wish,” Ananke said.

“Then what’s going to happen to me?”

“That’ll be up to our client,” Quinn said.

“Your client? No, no, no. There’s no reason you can’t just let me go now. You’ve got The Wolf, man. Your client will be more than happy with her. And don’t worry about me. I’ll strike this place from my memory.”

Ananke looked at him as if he were a child. “Ricky, you auctioned off a human being.”

“Well, okay, sure, but ultimately I didn’t. In fact, if anyone should be in trouble for that, it should be The Wolf for stiffing me.”

“I’m sure she will be aptly punished,” Quinn said.

Looking less than satisfied with the answer, Orbits said, “That won’t get me my money, though, will it?”

After the two men Daeng had taken care of on the stairs had been carried into the room with The Wolf, Quinn had everyone gather back in the level-one storage area.

“So…what now?” Ananke said. “We call Helen and let her deal with everything?”

“Soon enough,” Quinn said. He looked at Dani. “We’re going to have to tell our client, you realize that, right?”

“What will she do with everything?”

“See that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”

“Who decides whose hands are right and whose are wrong?”

He paused for a moment, and then said, “I can only tell you that I trust her.”

Dani nodded. “I guess that’s the best I can hope for.”

“Can I ask a question?” he said.

Dani looked at him.

“When you were, um, talking to The Wolf, you mentioned your father. Who was he?”

She looked at Orlando and back at Quinn. “Charles Hayes. He was an arms dealer.”

Quinn had heard the name before but it had been years. “And The Wolf was his partner?”

“Yeah.”

“So all this,” Nate said, looking around, “was what? A shipment that didn’t get delivered?”

“Backup supply. He’d skim a bit off other jobs and deposit it here. He once told my sister it was his retirement plan.”

“You were trying to get here when Edmondson caught you, weren’t you?” Orlando asked.

A nod. “I thought…I thought there’d been enough time. I thought everyone would have forgotten.”

“What do you mean?” Nate asked.

“I’d stayed out of the country for ten years, living under a false name. For the first few years, people tried to find me. There were rumors, you know, about my father’s ‘treasure.’ After a while, they stopped searching. I promised myself I’d wait a full ten years. I guess it wasn’t enough.”

“But why come back at all?” he asked.

“Because I had to.”

No one said anything, all waiting for her to go on.

“My mom didn’t know what my dad really did until after my sister and I were born. When she found out, it scared her to death. She wanted to leave him, but she was afraid he’d take us from her. So she stayed, and secretly brought us up to hate everything he stood for. Marianne and I were scared of him, too, and it wasn’t hard hiding from him how we really felt.

“When Marianne turned sixteen, he said it was time to start showing her the business. I was ten then. The idea that he would expose Marianne to his world finally set off my mom. They argued for nearly two weeks, night and day. Then one morning Mom was gone. Our father said she was visiting a friend or something like that, I don’t remember exactly. But she never came back.”

“He killed her?” Nate said.

“There was never a body, but, yes, I’m sure he did. Marianne told me not to worry. That she would take care of me. She let our father teach her the business. He showed her everything, even this place. She acted interested but she became even more revolted by what he was. We would sit up nights and sometimes think of ways to destroy him, but it was all just wishful thinking.

“That was until I turned fifteen, and he said it was almost time for me to join the business. Marianne had no intention of letting that happen. She told me she had a plan. She laid it out and then taught me my part, going over and over every detail for months, including the backup plan in case things went wrong. Turned out the main part of the plan was just a smoke screen, and the emergency plan was what she’d intended for me to carry out all along. A month shy of my sixteenth birthday, she killed him in his office. Later that night she died in a one-car accident that wasn’t an accident at all. My father’s people were responsible.”

“The Wolf?” Orlando asked.

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Dani said. “I think Marianne knew she wasn’t going to get away with it. That’s why she worked so hard to prepare me. She’d even arranged it so that immediately following the funerals, I was sent to a boarding school in London. The day after I arrived in England, a friend of Marianne’s took me to France and helped me disappear.”

“There’s something I still don’t understand,” Quinn said. “The gear here has got to be worth hundreds of millions, but it’s older stuff. On top of that, getting it out of here without attracting attention won’t be easy, not to mention getting it out of the country. Transportation costs, bribes—even if we ignore The Wolf’s fifty-million-dollar bid for you, the next highest was in the upper forties. That’s too much for this.”

“That’s because everything you’ve seen is just the icing,” Dani said.

Without another word, she led them to the elevator. Even though the car was sitting there and the door was open, she stepped over to the call button and ran her fingers along the edge of its metal faceplate.

“Ah, there,” she said with a grin as the plate swung out.

In addition to the wires leading from the button, a key sat in a small space at the bottom.

“Who’s coming with me?” she asked as she stepped onto the elevator.

“Daeng, Ananke, if you don’t mind staying here and keeping an eye on things?” Quinn said.

“Of course,” Daeng said.

“You can stay,” Ananke said, “but I’m not going to miss this.”

Quinn was about to argue, but Daeng held up a hand. “It’s okay. I can handle things.”

As Orlando moved toward the elevator, Dani looked at her stomach.

“You should probably stay up here, too,” Dani said.

Orlando stopped. “Why?”

“Just a precaution.”

“A precaution from what?”

“It’s okay,” Quinn said. “Keep Daeng company. If I think it’s safe, I’ll come get you.”

Orlando did not look happy at all, but only said, “Don’t be long.”

“Nate, do you mind shutting the doors?” Dani asked.

While he did this, she stuck the key into the hole next to the orphaned button on the control panel. When she turned it, the button lit up and the elevator began descending.

The trip was a short one. Nate opened the inner gate when they stopped, only to find a set of closed doors on the other side, split down the middle top to bottom. Embedded in the door was a meter with a range from green to red, the needle resting comfortably in the former.

“What’s that for?” Nate asked.

“Just a safety precaution. Green is good,” Dani replied.

When she turned the key again, the doors slid apart and lights came on in the space beyond.

Though Quinn was sure the size of the room was no different than that of the levels above them, it appeared considerably larger since there were no stacks of crates filling it. The only unusual feature was a boxed-off room of some kind protruding from the wall on the other side. Quinn wasn’t surprised when Dani began walking toward it.

Halfway there, they passed another meter, this one mounted to a structural post. It, too, was registering in the green zone.

The walls of the separate room were unpainted concrete. Near the only door—also made of concrete—were two more meters, a monitor, and a control panel. The needle on one of the meters was in the green, but the other one was sitting a bit past the point where green started fading into yellow.

“What is this?” Quinn asked.

“You wanted to know why people were willing to spend so much?” Dani said. “This is it.”

She fiddled with the control panel until the monitor came to life, revealing a shot of what was presumably the room’s interior. Four trunks sat side by side, approximately two feet apart from each other. All were black with gold-colored metal trim and had what looked like thick leather handles. The feed could have easily been of a photograph because the image was completely still.

The back of Quinn’s neck began to tingle. A bunker full of weapons. An isolation room. Strategically placed meters. “Please tell me those aren’t what I think they are.”

“They are.”

Nate looked at Quinn and then the monitor again. “Nukes?”

“What?” Ananke said, moving several steps backward. “Are you saying those are nukes?”

Dani nodded. “According to Marianne, my father considered the trunks his greatest asset. But you don’t have to worry. The room has a thick lead lining and three feet of concrete on the outside.”

“Is that enough?” Ananke asked. She looked at the others. “Does anyone know? There could be a leak.”

“No leak,” Dani said. “The meters are all in the green.”

Ananke did not look convinced.

Quinn said, “Unless there’s something else, I think we should head back up.”

Ananke turned and headed for the elevator.

“There is one thing I need to get first,” Dani said. “Go on. I’ll be right there.”

Quinn eyed her for a moment. “You’re not planning on going inside there, are you?”

“What? No. I don’t have a death wish.”

“Don’t take too long,” he said. “I don’t think I can make Ananke stay down here much longer.”

__________

T
HE WALK TOWARD
the corner of the room felt unreal, as if Dani were watching it on a movie screen instead of making the journey herself. How many times had she thought about this? How many times had Marianne gone over the details so Dani wouldn’t forget?

Go to the corner left of the chamber.

Run a finger up the south wall and feel for the thin line cut into the surface.

Three inches up, push.

The concrete cracked under the pressure of her hand and fell in small chunks to the floor, revealing a black door no larger than a postcard. She slipped a finger into a depression and pulled the door open.

As she’d been told to expect, in the box was only one thing—a small Moleskine notebook. Though the other bidders would have been interested in the rumored bombs her father had hidden away, Dani knew this notebook was what The Wolf had really been after. She put it in her pocket, not bothering to open it. Either the information was there, or it wasn’t.

“All set?” Quinn asked as she entered the elevator.

“All set.” She turned the key and started their ascent.

“You going to tell us what that was all about?” Nate asked.

“No,” she said.

__________

T
HOUGH ORLANDO HAD
been less than pleased when Dani suggested she remain behind, it turned out to be a good thing. The others had not been gone for more than a few minutes when another round of contractions hit.

Daeng had gone off to check on the prisoners and by the time he returned, she was in control enough to hide her discomfort.

She had to get out of there soon, though. The interval between contractions was already down to ten minutes—probably a little less. With Garrett, labor had been a slow and steady process, but this time it felt like Orlando had suddenly caught a brakeless express train to Delivery City.

Several minutes later, the elevator motor kicked in and the car returned.

“Well?” Orlando asked as everyone piled out.

“Be thankful you stayed here,” Ananke said, looking unnerved.

“What happened?” Orlando asked Quinn.

Quinn told her about the four portable nukes, then said, “There’s no reason we need to hang around here any longer. I’ll call Helen. This place is her problem, not ours.” He glanced at Dani. “Unless you have any objections.”

She shook her head.

The discussion turned to whether or not they should leave the prisoners there, but Orlando heard only bits and pieces as her contractions ramped up once more.

“Helen should make that call,” Quinn said. “We’ll leave them down—” He looked at Orlando. “Are you okay?”

She gave up all attempts to conceal her pain and grabbed Daeng’s arm to keep from falling. “Not exactly,” she said, her fingers digging into her friend’s flesh.

Quinn rushed over and put an arm around her to help support her. “What’s wrong?”

She looked at him as if he were insane. “What do you think is wrong?”

Ananke, calm and clinical, asked, “How far apart are your contractions?”

Orlando blew out a breath. “I think about eight minutes that time.” She closed her eyes and clenched her teeth, riding out another wave of pain before continuing.

“She’s having the baby?” Nate asked. “Now? Here?”

“Just breathe, sweetie,” Quinn said. “Breathe.”

“What the hell do you think I’m doing?” Orlando said.

 “I-I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I didn’t mean—”

“I
know
you didn’t mean anything!” Orlando shouted.

“Maybe you should sit down,” Nate suggested. “Shouldn’t she sit down?”

“Do you want some water?” Dani asked. “I’m sure I can find some.”

Ananke slammed her palm against one of the nearby crates. “Hey, everyone. Eyes on me!”