The Road to Hell (12 page)
Authors: Peter Cawdron
Tags: #science fiction dark, #detective, #cyber punk, #thriller action, #detective crime, #sci fi drama, #political adventure fiction book, #science fiction adventure, #cyberpunk books, #science fiction action adventure, #sci fi thriller, #science fiction time travel, #cyberpunk, #sci fi action, #sci fi, #science fiction action, #futuristic action thriller, #sci fi action adventure, #political authority, #political conspiracy
“
I don’t understand.”
“
Neither do I,” replied Harrison. “And that’s good. That tells me we’re getting somewhere. In my line of work, a lack of understanding is a trigger point, a flag to dig deeper until I do understand.”
“
It could be a reflection,” said Susan, looking at the picture again.
Harrison took the picture back from her and walked into the corner of the kitchen. He was looking for something on the wall. After a few seconds, pacing back and forth, running his fingers along the edge of the drop ceiling, he stopped and turned.
“
The camera was here.”
Harrison held the image out in front of him, matching it up with what he could see in the kitchen. He handed the image to Susan and said, “OK, you’re the camera, you stand here and watch me as I move through the kitchen.”
With pains to observe everything around him, Harrison walked slowly over to the external fire exit and said, “All right, I’m Artemis. I know this is a trap. I know I’m being set up, baited. I’ve seen the heat outside and I’m expecting the worst. I come in here and…”
He paced forward between the bench tops, following the shortest route between the fire exit and the swinging door leading into the lobby.
“
And you’re holding something,” said Susan. “What are you holding?”
“
Something small,” replied Harrison looking down at his empty hand, trying to imagine what Artemis was thinking, what he was doing at that point. “It’s something valuable, valuable to me, at least. It must be valuable to the police as well because I don’t want them to get hold of it.”
“
Why? Why are you holding it? Why don’t you put it in your pocket?”
“
Because I don’t want to get caught with it.”
“
Why don’t you want to get caught with it?”
“
Because… because it’s too important. I can’t afford to let them get it. If I get caught I might lose my life, but if they get this…”
“
They get everything,” said Susan, somewhat curious at the role playing, trying to see where Harrison was going with this. “So he's trying to protect something or someone?”
“
Yeah... I can’t risk this. It’s just too important,” replied Harrison, immersed in the role, still lost in thought, a whirlwind of concepts swirling in his mind. “It's more important than me.”
“
Why? What is it?”
“
Something small. Some sort of memory card, perhaps. A data cube, maybe.”
Harrison paused at the point where the photo had been taken.
“
What do you see?” he asked.
“
I see you,” replied Susan, “I see a kitchen, ovens, benches, refrigerators, mixing bowls.”
“
He knows,” mumbled Harrison. “He knows he’s being watched.”
Slowly, he stepped forward, continuing to walk toward the door.
“
What can’t you see?” he asked.
“
Ah,” replied Susan, thinking about it a little more, trying to describe what she could and could not see as accurately as possible, realising the importance of the scenario they were walking through.
“
I can’t see your legs. They’re obscured by the counter top. And I can’t see you clearly when you pass behind the rack of pots and pans. And I’m not going to be able to see you in the final few feet before the door.”
Harrison reached the door and turned around, looking intently at the path he’d just trodden.
“
What are you thinking?” asked Susan.
“
He hid it,” replied Harrison.
“
Hid what?”
“
I don’t know, but I’ll bet it's still here. I bet things were worse in room 412 than he expected. I’ll bet he didn’t have time to come back for it or didn’t dare come back for it. If he hasn’t already picked it up, I’ll bet he’s watching, waiting for an opportunity. Or he's relying on the fact no one knows it's here so he can take his time, let the heat die down.”
Harrison was down on his back, looking up beneath the stainless steel bench top, running his hands in the grooves hidden from sight.
Nothing.
He rolled over, looking beneath the floor-to-ceiling refrigeration units. A cockroach scurried into the shadows. Slowly, he ran his fingers under the edge of the cold stainless steel splash guard below the refrigerator doors until they touched something foreign, something that didn't fit.
Harrison pulled out a small silver cube, a quantum storage block; the kind capable of storing the sum total of all of mankind’s accumulated knowledge on a single slab. The storage block, itself, wasn’t that unusual. They were a dime a dozen, and generally came preloaded with all sorts of information. But this, this was different. There had to be a reason Artemis had hid this.
Susan stood over him, looking down at the small silver cube in his hand as he lay there on his back, holding it up and watching it glisten in the soft light. Strands of colour rippled across the surface of the cube. To the untrained eye, it looked like the cube was covered in an oily substance, refracting the colours of the rainbow, and yet it was completely dry to touch. Susan took it from him, examining it closely.
“
What do you think's on it?”
“
I don’t know,” replied Harrison getting to his feet. “Perhaps everything. The easiest way to hide data is to bury it inside a mountain of information, leaving us with a billion dead-ends to trawl through. But there's something on here, that's for sure, something your buddy Artemis didn't want to fall into the wrong hands.”
Susan was impressed. Harrison was good.
Harrison took the cube back from her, saying, “We’re going to have to find somewhere quiet we can take a good look at this. Whatever’s on it, it’s probably encrypted. And you can be damn sure Artemis will be back for it. So now it’s our turn. Now we bait him. Force him to make a move and contact us.”
Harrison pulled out a pen and scribbled a phone number on a scrap of paper before bending down and shoving it up under the refrigerator in roughly the same position he’d found the cube.
“
What now?” asked Susan handing back the cube.
“
Now, we look upstairs.”
Harrison handed the key card to Susan, holding one finger up to his lips has he pulled out his shotgun. Standing to one side, he motioned for Susan to swipe the card and stand back. Deep inside the door, an electronic lock clicked. With his boot, Harrison eased open the door, staying behind the edge of the doorframe, slowly seeing more and more of the room beyond.
Inside, a thin layer of white powder coated everything, the floors, the walls and the bed, along with an overturned dresser. Harrison put away his shotgun, clipping it back onto the shoulder harness hidden beneath his trench coat. He pulled out a small flashlight and a switch blade and stepped cautiously into the room.
Old habits die hard, he thought, realising he was holding the flashlight in the classic manner of a cop, inverted in a tightly clenched fist so that if his arm hung by his side the light would have shone backwards. As much as he tried to bury it, his past would never leave him, it was always there, showing through in the routines of life. Holding his arm up by his head, he shone the light quickly around the room to get an idea of the layout. A red neon light flickered outside lighting up the room in soft amber and Harrison found himself wondering if the vacancies sign would ever get switched off in a dump like this. Opening the switch blade, he walked around into the room gingerly as though he were walking through a minefield.
It wasn’t what he’d expected. The photos showed an entirely different view, telling him a different story. This, he thought, had gone wrong, horribly wrong. Large quantities of dried blood marred the rotten carpet on the floor, marking those that had fallen in violence.
Harrison slipped on his spectrum specs. Looking around the room, he shifted the visible range from infrared through to ultra-violet and beyond, taking in all the fine details, the blood splatter patterns, the explosive residue and the damage to the walls.
“
Watch where you step,” he said, turning to Susan. “As much as possible, follow close behind me. Walk where I walk.”
Slowly, he stepped over to the far wall, carefully observing the hole blown in the wall, the blood stains on the carpet, the stains on the bed, the crumpled clothing on the floor.
The overturned dresser was empty, as was the open cupboard in the bathroom. Crouching down, he used his knife to pick up a dress by the collar. It was pretty, either some kind of silk or a close synthetic. The story was all here, he reminded himself, every detail spoke volumes, all he had to do was listen and observe. Harrison knew this was like putting a jigsaw puzzle together; the answer was there right in front of him. Now it was just a case of arranging the facts, slowly and methodically, putting all the pieces in order.
Stopping at the curtain, he was distracted by the abandoned factory across the alley. The shadows seemed to move, but it wasn't important, just his mind playing tricks on him.
“
What are you thinking?” asked Susan quietly, bringing him mentally back into the room.
“
We’ve got two, maybe three crime scenes here,” he explained, turning to face her. “There’s a lot of cross contamination. It’s hard to separate.”
Harrison picked up a stiletto shoe with the tip of his knife, carefully raising it by placing the blade under one of the slender straps. He should have known better. You never go into a crime scene with preconceived notions, he reminded himself, as they will always send you off the trail. The grainy pictures had blurred his thinking. He thought he had it all figured out, but now this, this was chaos, nothing like what he imagined. Harrison was back at square one.
The shoe size was an eight. One of the straps was broken, other than that, the shoes looked new, or at least clean and unscratched.
“
What do you think happened?” asked Susan, desperately wanting to hear the machinations of his mind. She could read his eyes, see them darting back and forth, a visual indicator of the rapid array of thoughts crossing his mind.
“
Well, the most recent event was that,” replied Harrison softly, shining his light on the hole in the wall. “It looks like the cops had this place pretty well staked out. Our photo came from up there. Must have been taken just before they blew the wall. The whole thing’s a sting, a set up. It’s got to be. Only it went wrong at some point. It didn't work out as they'd hoped. A lot of people died here.”
It bothered him that a forensic team hadn't been detached to review the evidence and clean things up. This had happened a couple of days ago, but other than removing the bodies, nobody else had been in here. Why? He wondered. What was he missing?
Turning his head from one side to another, he lined up the torn hole in the wall with a series of small marks on the far wall.
“
Looks like they were trying to take Artemis alive.”
“
What makes you say that?”
With the tip of his knife, Harrison dug a small metal prong from the wall and watched it drop into his gloved hand. Passing it to Susan, he said, “Stun charges. They were firing non-lethal 50,000 volt charges. I’m guessing they blew the wall too soon and he took them down. Looks like there was at least three, if not more. But it’s strange.”
“
What?”
Harrison was shining his light into the corner of the ceiling, looking at a small hole barely an eighth of an inch wide.
“
They’ve wired this place covertly. That's where your photos came from. It means they’ve been planning this for months, setting up cameras around the hotel, wiring the place with explosives. But how did they know she'd come to this room? You don’t pull off this level of intrusion without someone noticing something, unless, that is, you’re prepared to be patient and take your time. Move at a snail's pace. You move too quickly and people start talking.”
“
So?”
“
So why go to all the effort of setting up a major sting only to let your perp walk?”
“
I don’t get it?”
Harrison walked back around the bed, his flashlight shining at the blood stains on the carpet.
“
Why only four or five assault troopers?” he said, thinking out loud, pointing the flashlight back up at the ceiling. “Why didn’t the boys upstairs join the raid? Why wasn’t there a backup team or an outer perimeter set as a cordon?”
He shined the light through the hole in the wall, looking at the adjacent room. In the ultra violet, through his glasses he could see splatters of blood on the floor and walls, clumsy footprints stepping in the blood as the bodies were later removed. A plasma rifle lay up against one wall. It was more of an amateur effort than he expected of Kane. He must have been working with a green crew, Harrison thought, still wet behind the ears.
“
Why go to all this effort only to let him slip through your fingers?” said Harrison, handing Susan the glasses so she could have a look.
“
Maybe they didn’t want to scare him off,” said Susan. She twisted the nob on the side of the spectrum specs, moving through the various wavelengths, but the various marks didn't mean anything to her. “If there were too many people, he may have smelt a trap. Maybe it had to seem open or he would have never walked into it. I don’t know.”
“
Neither do I,” added Harrison, his flashlight flickering from one side of the room to the other, desperately looking for answers. “It must have been like trying to snare a tiger.”
A cockroach scurried across the floor.
Harrison crouched down, looking at the dress again. Years of experience had taught him, when he ran into a brick wall he had to backtrack, to look at the evidence again. It’s all here, he reminded himself, every piece of the puzzle. It just needs someone to put it together.
Cinderella, he thought, the dress and the shoe, they were screaming at him, yelling at him, telling him everything he needed to know.
Why a summer dress, he thought, no sleeves, just a couple of thin straps. A little cool for this time of year. Pretty flower pattern, but a little too formal. Too nice to be casual. She was going somewhere, to an event, a party maybe, some kind of celebration, somewhere she wanted to look nice and glamorous, somewhere warm. Not here, not in this hotel. She was out of place here, just stopping off.
Moving the dress a little, he saw the back of it was covered in blood, with a small tear near the zip.
“
She was killed by someone she trusted,” he said softly.
“
But I thought you said Kane killed her,” replied Susan.
“
No. I doubt whether Kane was even in the room. Perhaps after she died, but not before. No, your sister was lured here by someone she knew. She didn’t stay here and she had no intention of staying. This was a drop point, a meeting place, nothing more. She was simply passing through.”
Rain blew in the open window. Outside, a police siren sounded, fading into the distance.
Susan crouched down beside him, taking off the spectrum glasses and slipping them into her pocket.
“
How do you know that?”
Harrison ignored her. Not deliberately, his mind was working overtime, processing every piece of information he could gather, trying to make sense out of the carnage, looking again at the broken strap on the size eight shoe, a sure sign of a quick, violent struggle.
“
She was stabbed in the back by a woman,” he said with clinical precision, switching his flashlight to lantern mode so it shone out around the room. He set it down on the overturned dresser so the light flooded the room in a ghostly yellow glow, casting soft shadows on the walls.
“
A woman?” Susan was stunned. “But, how?”
Standing up, Harrison walked back toward the door, turned and said, “Someone was waiting for her, here in the room. Someone she knew. Someone she trusted.”
He walked away from the door, like he was tracing her footsteps, walking the path that had been trodden by Olivia just a few days earlier.
“
She probably greeted her friend cordially, but they wouldn’t have talked for long, just a few seconds, maybe a minute. Then something caught her eye, something she didn’t expect, something over by the window.”
He was looking at the grainy photo again, trying to make out the features in the soft light, trying to line up the details with the carnage around him. Susan turned to look at the window somewhat lost in thought, trying to imagine the events that had unfolded with the clarity Harrison could see.
“
She was killed with a single thrust,” said Harrison, slipping the photo into his pocket.
Susan still had her back to him, staring out the window, looking for something outside, wondering what her sister had been looking at, listening intently to his every word. The abandoned factory across the alley looked gloomy. With broken windows, smashed doors, paint peeling off the signs, it hadn't been used for years, perhaps since the war. The night was quiet as few flyers came out this far, they were outside the main air lanes.
With one hand, Harrison reached around and put his fingers over Susan’s mouth, with the other he pushed the blade of his knife up against her back, just below her shoulder, the blade touching between her ribs. The sharp tip cut through her shirt, its tip pressing hard against her skin.
Susan jumped.
Her eyes went wide with fear.
Harrison released her.
He hadn’t really held her that tight, just enough to play out the role.
“
What the hell are you doing?” she cried.
“
I had to know,” he said. “I had to know if you knew.”
“
Knew what?” Susan demanded.
“
I had to know if you knew how your sister died. I had to know if you were here, if you killed her.”
With that, Susan slapped him. The flat palm of her left hand connected with his cheekbone, sending his head reeling to one side. Harrison had had his fair share of slaps from a variety of women for more reasons than he cared to remember, but this one stung. It was delivered with a vengeance. Southpaw, he thought, noting Susan preferred a left hook.
