Infernal Cries: An Echo Team Urban Fantasy Novel Page 14

  Their fugitive hadn’t tripped the alarm codes, the thieves had when they’d been deactivating them!

  “Damn it!” Riley swore and kicked the door of the nearest cabinet closed with one booted foot.

  While Riley was casing an abandoned safe house in Norwalk, Connecticut, Cade sat in his rental car at a local restaurant down the street from the commandery in Bristol, Rhode Island, making sure he had his story straight before making his move. His session with Stone had been informative, to say the least, and now he had to put what he learned to use.

  He’d wracked his brain during the drive north, trying to come up with some way to penetrate the security surrounding the commandery without having to involve anyone else and he quite simply couldn’t come up with one. He’d personally designed the complex’s security systems and had covered every angle he could think of at the time. Nothing new had occurred to him in the months since. If there was a way inside the commandery without being seen, Cade didn’t know it.

  With no other option available to him, he decided a little subterfuge would be necessary to get inside and he put on the black uniform of the parish priest that had worked so well in France.

  He picked up his cell phone and dialed a number from memory. The phone rang several times and then went straight to voicemail. Cade cursed, thought for a moment, and then tried another number.

  After three rings a gruff voice answered, “Yeah?”

  “Lyons?”

  There was a pause and then, “Knight Commander?”

  Lyons had been the sergeant in charge of Echo’s Fourth Squad under Cade’s command for almost two years. The Chiang Shih incident had left him with a permanent limp and he’d been reassigned to a position as weapon's master, teaching the initiates how to shoot on the commandery range. He and Lyons hadn’t been tight, not like he and Riley were, but Cade was certain Lyons would do him a favor if asked.

  Provided the alarm hadn’t been raised yet.

  “Yeah, it’s me.” The two men chatted for a few moments without Cade getting the sense that anything was wrong, so he got to the point of his call.

  “Listen, I drove down to do some research in the library and got all the way here before I realized I’d forgotten my credentials. I’m parked at Charlie’s down the street. Think you could pop over and vouch for me at the gate?”

  “Sure. Give me ten minutes to get this current class out of here and I’ll be right over.”

  “Thanks.”

  Cade hung up the phone, got out of the car, and walked over to the convenience store that shared the parking lot with Charlie’s Restaurant. He went inside and stood by the magazine rack, pretending to leaf through an issue of Popular Science while keeping his eye on the parking lot.

  If Lyons was a better actor than he gave him credit for and arranged for a team to try and take Cade into custody, Cade would be able to see them coming with enough time to slip out the back and make a getaway. He couldn’t be caught, not yet; Gabrielle’s life, and quite possibly her very soul, depended upon it.

  Cade’s worry turned out to be unnecessary. He watched as Lyons’ pickup truck rolled into the lot a few minutes later with only Lyons inside it. No other vehicles came swooping in behind it, so Cade was confident the flag had yet to go up. Soon, maybe, but for now it seemed he still had room to maneuver.

  As Lyons got out of his vehicle, no doubt intending to go inside, Cade stepped out of the convenience store and called his name.

  Lyons didn’t recognize him at first, not with his hair brushed differently and the dark-framed glasses Cade had on. Lyons was further surprised to find Cade wearing the black “uniform” of a Catholic priest and carrying a leather attache case in one hand. “You already missed Halloween, Commander,” he joked, as they climbed inside his truck.

  He stiffened when Cade took the pistol out of his attaché case and pointed it at him, saying, “I know, but you should probably just think of this as a trick-or-treat gag anyway, okay?”

  Lyons' already light complexion went paler still.

  “What the hell, Cade?” he asked, the anger in his voice evident.

  “Sorry, old friend, but I need to get inside the Commandery and you’re going to help me do it.”

  “Fuck you! I’m not going anywhere. I know you; you aren’t going to shoot me.”

  Cade took off his fake glasses and stared Lyons hard in the face without saying anything.

  After a moment, Lyons reached out and started the truck.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked, in a resigned voice.

  That’s right, Cade thought. You do know me. And you know I’ll stop at nothing to get what I need when my back is against the wall.

  “Just drive,” Cade said, “and I’ll explain what’s going to happen.”

  Five minutes later they pulled up the commandery gates. Cade’s hand was inside the attache case in his lap, the muzzle pointed at Lyons. He’d shoot if he had to; that was the one thing keeping Lyons in line at the moment, the recognition that Cade was desperate.

  Lyons handed over his credentials, along with Cade’s fake passport.

  Recognizing Lyons, the guard asked, “Who do you have with you, Sergeant?”

  “Monsignor Evans, visiting from the Vatican.”

  The guard glanced first at the passport, then at Cade, before turning the documentation back over to Lyons. “Enjoy the rest of the afternoon, Sergeant.”

  Lyons laughed. “I’ll do my best.”

  Cade didn’t relax until they were inside the gates and headed down into the underground parking structure beneath the main manor house.

  Like many of the other commanderies across the country, this one extended below ground for several levels. It was here that much of the community’s actual work took place; monitoring world events, training weaponry and tactics, teaching the initiates the history and philosophy that were the cornerstone of Templar belief. Here, hidden from view, lay the true work of the Order. The underground levels contained classrooms, laboratories, gymnasium facilities, a shooting range, and even a full-scale replica of a two-bedroom house used for live-fire exercises tucked away in a large cavern on the third level below the surface.

  Beneath all of that, was the reliquary.

  To get there, they had to pass through several highly trafficked areas and Cade was worried Lyons might use the opportunity to cause trouble. At this point the Templar sergeant was resigned to his role, however, and he led Cade deeper into the complex.

  Eventually, they came to an elevator and rode that down to the lowest floor. When the door opened, Cade reached out and pushed the Fire Call button three times in quick succession. The doors slid shut and the car began to descend again.

  Lyons was surprised; apparently he hadn’t known about the additional levels. “What the…?”

  He was starting to sound like a broken record and Cade had had enough. He slipped his hand into his attaché case and found what he was looking for. When the elevator chimed, indicating they’d reached the lowest level, Cade popped off the cap with his finger and stepped closer to Lyons.

  “Sorry, man,” he said and jabbed him in the upper arm with the syringe in his hand, the one that he’d taken from the safe house's interrogation supplies. Inside was a mixture of Ativan and Haldol, designed to put a grown man down in seconds. Lyons barely had time to mutter a surprised, “What did you do that for?” before he slipped into unconsciousness.

  Cade caught him as he collapsed, then waited for the doors to open. When they did, he glanced out, saw the hallway was empty, and decided to take a chance. Rather than leave Lyons in the elevator where he might be found, he dragged the other man down the hall to a set of offices.

  Using the door to help support Lyons’ weight, Cade took his old keycard out of his pocket and slipped it the reader, hoping it still worked.

  An agonizing ten seconds passed before the lock clicked and the door opened, spilling Lyons unconscious body into the room and nearly dragging Cade down as well.
Cade stepped inside, grabbed one of Lyons’ arms and pulled him the rest of the way across the threshold, then shut the door.

  The room was arranged like any office, with a desk, chairs, even a coffee maker, but given the level of dust on everything it was clear that no one had used the room in a while.

  Cade dragged Lyons around behind one of the desks, out of sight of anyone peering into the room, and laid him flat on his back. He checked to be sure the man was breathing okay and then arranged the chairs to hide Lyons' body.

  On to the reliquary, Cade thought.

  He left the attaché case behind since he would no longer need it and stepped back into the hallway, gun in hand. He closed the door behind him and walked down the hall to the last office on the left. Like the others, this one had a card reader bolted next to the door, but it also had hand scanner and a keypad.

  Now came the tricky part. If the system had been changed since Stone was in charge, if the failsafe he’d had built into the system had been discovered and disabled, Cade’s little adventure was going to end right here.

  If it did work, he was going to have the pleasure of dealing with the armed men in the command center on the other side of the door the moment he stepped inside. There would be four to six of them. Not good odds any way you looked at it.

  Momentarily slipping the gun into the waistband of his pants at the small of his back so he would have his hands free, Cade stepped up to the hand scanner. He placed his right palm against the device, and then, using his left hand, he simultaneously pressed the buttons in all four corners of the keypad as the scanner checked his palm print.

  The door in front of him unlocked with a click that seemed to echo in the empty hallway.

  Cade took a deep breath, drew his gun, and pushed the door open.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  After the debacle that was the raid on the safe house in Norwalk, the Echo command unit returned to the Ravensgate commandery and debriefed. Riley passed on word about the theft to the Facilities Commander and was told the safe house would be cleaned, restocked, and the alarm system given an upgrade. Riley spent some time cleaning and storing his gear and was on his way to his office to write up his after-action report when a messenger intercepted him in the hallway, informing him that he was wanted in the Preceptor’s office forthwith.

  Reversing direction, Riley went to answer the summons.

  When he arrived, he found the Preceptor storming around his office, shouting at his personal assistant and waving his hands in the air. His face was red with anger. The minute Riley entered the room, the Preceptor speared him with angry eyes.

  “What the hell are you doing out there, Captain?!”

  Riley wondered what the Preceptor was talking about.

  “I told you to track down Commander Williams and bring him in for questioning! Why the hell hasn’t that happened yet?!”

  Reacting to the tone of the man's voice, Riley snapped to attention and stared straight ahead as he said, “We’ve been having difficulty locating Commander Williams.”

  The Preceptor stopped moving about and focused all of his attention on Riley.

  “You don’t know where he is?”

  “No, sir, I don’t.”

  “Really? Not even a little clue?”

  “No, sir.”

  What the hell? If one of his guys leaked something to the Preceptor then he'd just damned himself with that last denial, but there was no way he was giving up his friend until he understood what was going on.

  “Well, then I’ll tell you where that sonofabitch is, Captain! He’s right here, in your own backyard! While you are out gallivanting around chasing ghosts he’s breaking into the reliquary and stealing a precious artifact!”

  The Preceptor stalked over to his desk and snatched up the remote. He pointed it at the flat screen on the wall and stabbed at the power button. The screen flashed to life. The image was black and white and had that strange, stretched look that you get from shooting through a wide angle lens.

  The video was of a particular door at the end of a long corridor. Because Riley had been there before, to witness the death of this man’s predecessor no less, Riley recognized it as the corridor outside the reliquary at the commandery in Rhode Island.

  The reliquary…

  Oh, shit!

  A man entered the video frame from the section of the hallway not covered by the camera. He was dressed in dark clothing and he carried a pistol in his right hand. He walked directly to the end of the hall and stopped in front of the security devices controlling entrance to the reliquary. He put the gun in the back of his waistband for a moment, pulled a key card out of his pocket, and swiped it through the reader. The light on the reader changed indicating the card had been accepted. The intruder then pressed one hand against the scanner while he did something to the number pad with his other hand.

  To Riley’s surprise, the door opened.

  Still, Riley didn’t see how any of this involved Cade. The intruder in the video might be him, it might not. It was impossible to tell when all you could see what the back of the man’s head. The man in the video could be anyone.

  Riley was about to say as much to Johannson when the man in the video did a strange thing. As he reached out to push open the door to the reliquary, the intruder turned and looked back in the direction of the camera.

  The angle wasn’t perfect and the image was degraded by the lighting in the hallway, but that didn’t matter too much.

  There was no mistaking that the man in the video was Cade.

  “There!” Johannson said, freezing the image so that Cade’s face filled the screen. “Right there! Do you see that cocky son-of-a-bitch?! He’s doing it on purpose. Daring us to try and stop him!”

  “I’m not sure that’s…”

  Riley didn’t get any further. The Preceptor rounded on him like a bloodhound that had caught a scent.

  “You’re not sure?” he asked. “Of course you’re not sure! You haven’t been sure of a single damned thing since I put you in charge of this investigation!”

  The Preceptor stalked over the flat screen and pointed at Cade’s image. “I’ll tell you what you can be sure of,” he told Riley, a savage gleam in his eye. “This son-of-a-bitch is finished!”

  Johannson turned to his assistant and said, “I want arrest orders issued for Williams immediately. If he so much as lifts a finger toward another Templar they are free to use deadly force to be certain that he doesn’t escape again.”

  “On what grounds?” Riley protested.

  The Preceptor turned to him and there was a definite sense of glee in the man’s tone as he said, “Aiding and abetting the enemy. Otherwise known as treason.”

  Riley stared at him and thought, God help us. He’s actually serious.

  One thing was for certain, this was not going to end well.

  The object of Riley’s concern was at that moment less than twenty miles away, standing in an all-but-empty bus station and staring at the row of lockers in front of him. He was still dressed like a priest but he had left the sword and gun behind in the rental car.

  Wouldn’t want to draw attention to myself, he thought with wry amusement while holding the four-thousand-year old staff of a long dead court magician in one hand.

  He could feel the power radiating from the staff like the touch of some foul creature on his skin and wanted nothing more than to be rid of it, but he was struggling with the implications of letting it out of his sight.

  In the Egyptian pantheon Anubis had been the jackal-headed funerary god, the guardian and protector of the dead. He held the scales of judgment and determined the fate of the soul as it sought access to the afterlife. Unsurprisingly, the staff’s primary use was as a tool for controlling the dead and by turning it over to the Necromancer, Cade knew that he would be increasing his enemy’s strength and abilities tenfold.

  On the other hand, he really didn’t see what choice he had.

  He'd been surprised to find only
two guards on duty when he’d entered the reliquary. He’d been able to subdue one of them before they were aware of his presence and had held the other at gunpoint while making him handcuff himself to a nearby equipment console. After that it had been a simple matter to access the inventory on the guard’s computer, determine what case the Staff of Anubis had been stored in, and take it into his custody.

  All that was left at that point was to figure out a way out of the complex before the guards were discovered and a nearby fire alarm had taken care of that issue quite nicely. In the subsequent confusion he made his way back to the parking garage, stolen a Suburban from the motor pool, and drove out of the commandery with no one the wiser.

  He stopped at a nearby McDonalds to make the necessary call in regard to turning over the staff to Simon Logan and received instructions by text ten minutes later.

  Take the staff to the bus station and leave it in the locker, they said.

  Which was all well and good until Cade realized that he hadn’t been told which locker and was then unable to reach Logan a second time to ask. Now he was standing in the dimly lit station just after 11 p.m. staring at row after row of storage lockers and wondering just which one was the right one.

  Figuring the Necromancer must have marked the locker in some way that he’d be able to recognize, Cade triggered his Sight.

  The version of the bus station that existed in the Beyond was nearly swallowed in a thick miasma of loneliness, fear and pain, of dreams broken and crushed beneath the heel of the harsh reality of life. It threatened to overwhelm Cade’s senses and send him wandering the real world in a fit of debilitating depression. He fought against it, refusing to fall back into the self-destruction and self-loathing that he had first experienced after his wife’s passing, and after a moment was able to reject the dismal atmosphere of the Beyond for the alien thing it was.

  With the emotional influence of the Beyond now under control, he was able to look around at the bus station’s darker half and suddenly he had his answer. One of the lockers stood out from the rest, marked as it was with a glowing red pentacle, or upward facing five pointed star, that was a common symbol of the black arts.