It took fewer than thirty minutes to get there, and the electronic gates opened as the car approached. Astrid hid in the space between the front and back seats, dressed all in black to blend into the shadows. She’d found the shirt and jacket in Jim Moore’s wardrobe. She ran her fingers across the leather, feeling she had a part of the Detective with her.
Rosie drove into the grounds and whispered to her.
‘I’m inside and heading towards the warehouse.’
‘Do you remember what to do next?’
‘Yes. Park outside the front, then go to my room and lock the door behind me.’
‘And don’t leave unless I come for you or get a message to you.’
Astrid twisted her body to fit into the gap, flexing her fingers as the car trundled across the ground. Rosie provided a running commentary.
‘The lights are on in the grounds. People will see you if you go in through the front.’
She parked between the mansion and the warehouse.
‘Is there any security outside?’ Astrid prepared to slip out of the vehicle.
‘There’s two in front of the mansion carrying rifles. They’re looking at me.’
‘Good. Go over and distract them.’
Astrid heard Rosie get out and listened as she plodded over the gravel. Tiny stones crunched under her feet as she raised her voice.
‘Is my brother home?’
Astrid didn’t hear the reply as she slipped from the back and fell into the shadows between the buildings. In the illumination splashed across the ground, Rosie wobbled on her high heels, and her ankle turned. She yelled as the guard reached down to catch her, and Astrid sneaked around to the rear of the warehouse.
She crept into the gloom, pushing against the building. To her right was the back of the mansion and with fewer lights than out front. Security patrolled that area, but they didn’t look where she was. She moved along the edge of the wall and hunted for the unlocked door Rosie had promised would be there.
And she was right. Astrid pushed it open. Gloom engulfed the inside: just how she wanted it. She scanned the place, searching for the spot from her previous visit. She found the office and headed for it, making sure there was no one in the warehouse.
When she reached the door, she breathed a sigh of relief. What she hoped would be there, what she’d seen when she was frogmarched inside the building, was still there: rows of oil drums. She unscrewed the top from the closest and tilted it on to its side. A trail of dark liquid dribbled from the barrel as she moved away. The overpowering aroma grasped at her lungs as she delved into her pocket and removed the silver lighter she’d taken from Jim’s apartment. She stared at the inscription on the back of it.
To the greatest love of my life. From Lisa to Jim.
She checked the time on her phone: it was one minute to four. She waited until the digital hands ticked around: 4am. Witching Hour for interrogations, night abductions, and sneak attacks all over the world.
The flame from the lighter flickered in her hand as thick metal crashed into the back of her leg. Her body shook as if plugged into an electric socket as she crumbled and toppled to the floor. She missed the encroaching oil slick by inches and dropped the lighter to the side of it. Somehow a spark hissed its way from the top of the metal, and the dark liquid slithered towards it. Astrid reached for it, but instinct told her to roll away and through the oil. As it stuck to her clothes, the pipe struck the ground where she’d lain, and sparks exploded from the concrete. She watched them illuminate a murky patch of air as she turned to see her attacker.
One of the Jones boys grinned at her. He spoke through crooked teeth.
‘I’m going to enjoy this.’ He slapped the metal against his palm.
The pain continued to surge through her as she got to her feet.
‘Are you Chuck or Buck? It’s hard to tell with you Dunce Brothers.’
His grin vanished into the darkness as the thick oil crawled towards the misfiring lighter. He didn’t appear to have noticed their impending doom, but she was well aware of it. He was between her and escape, so she’d have to go through him.
He pointed the metal at her.
‘Chuck’s in the hospital with Jimmy. We know what you did to him. You’re evil, lady.’
‘If you don’t move out of the way, Buck, I’ll do the same to you.’
She kept one eye on him and the other on the encroaching fireball. She guessed they had less than a minute to get out of the warehouse.
‘How could you do those things to Jimmy? You’re a monster, and I’m going to punish you.’
Astrid ignored the stabbing pain in her guts. ‘Just like you punished Caitlin Cruz and her children? You made those kids watch their mother die a horrible death, and then did the same to them. There’s only one monster here, Buck, and that’s you.’
She watched the briefest flicker of guilt behind his eyes as he lowered the pipe. That was the prompt she needed. She threw herself across the ground, cold concrete cutting into her legs as it ripped through her trousers, before pushing the sole of her shoe into his shin. The crack of bone snapped through the building as she jumped up and sprinted for the door. His scream rang out as the sparks from the lighter kissed the oil and lit the flame. The blaze erupted instantaneously, the heat hunting her down as smoke engulfed the building like a vast smothering carpet.
Astrid staggered from the warehouse as the flames reached for her, fighting back the cough threatening to choke her lungs. She shook the lead from her legs and crept to the rear of the mansion as the fire rushed towards its inevitable conclusion. The barking of dogs was on the other side of the grounds, leaving her free to reach her destination.
She leant against the wall, catching a breath as she peered at her target. Astrid gripped on to the metal and dug her fingers into the sides. She was halfway up the drainpipe when the explosion ripped open the warehouse. As a kid, she’d climbed up every structure where she lived, including clambering over spiked fences and along the narrowest of ledges, so a set of skinny pipes at the back of the building was no challenge to her. She was across the rooftop and at the bottom of the second-floor pipe when the compound erupted into a volcano of exploding oil drums and vape machines.
Panicked security guards scrambled everywhere, but she knew those were only the grunts, the outside protectors. Those inside the mansion would be unmoving, refusing to shift from what they protected. She’d reached the second floor and the roof beneath the attic when a large explosion turned the sky into a fireworks display worthy of Pompeii.
The wind flicked at her face, the chill of the night making the hairs on the back of her neck jump up. There was no pipe up to the top and the attic, but a ledge and handholds in the bricks were there for her to climb. All she hoped was Rosie had unlocked the window.
She grabbed hold of a disused light fitting and lifted her leg onto the narrow ledge a foot above. Behind her were the combined noises of frantic shouting, howling dogs and roaring flames. The smell of burning plastic and unknown chemicals drifted over her. A clutch of fumes flew into her mouth, and she had to steady herself as she coughed them out. If anyone glanced up, it would seem as if a human spider was scaling the walls.
Astrid ignored the noise and the stink, peering up to the next indent in the wall. Scarred fingers reached up and found the gap, the tips of her feet perched on the thin lip of concrete supporting her. With her other hand, she grabbed onto the ledge and dragged herself up, getting both hands on to the shelf to roll her body along the length of it. She lay flat, her legs and torso barely staying on the ledge as her heart pounded against her ribs.
She needed to raise herself and pull the window open, but she didn’t move, gathering her thoughts and breath. Huge bursts of smoke drifted over from the blazing warehouse. It provided some cover, but the toxic gases also played havoc with her lungs. Astrid glanced to her right and peered through the gloom. From what she could see, the fire was too severe for anyone to get close to it, but she was surprised nobody had attacked it with water yet.
Perhaps the blaze will be enough to prevent the President’s entourage from coming here.
She couldn’t take that risk and had to rescue Eleanor. She grabbed the window and raised herself. The wind bit at her cheeks as she placed one foot in front of the other. She pressed her face against the glass, breathing a sigh of relief at the unlocked catch. The tips of her fingers were prising the window open when the explosion went off below her.
Whatever else was in that warehouse erupted like Krakatoa. The mansion shook and rattled, a great plume of smoke and heat devouring the night sky. The blast would have blown her from the ledge if she hadn’t got a hand and one leg inside as it exploded. The force threw her forward and into the attic, crashing her headfirst into a rocking horse and a bunch of discarded children’s toys.
Astrid rolled off a set of building blocks and on to the floor. She stared into the rafters and picked pieces of wood from the back of her jacket. She pressed her ear to the ground and listened: it was silent below. No matter the confusion she’d caused outside, the security wasn’t panicking inside the mansion. It was what she’d expected.
She got up and checked her pockets to make sure the presents she’d brought from Moore’s apartment were still there. Once she’d confirmed they were, she went to the door. Rosie had told her there was a set of stairs leading from the attic to the second floor, coming out in front of the suite where she expected to find Campbell.
Astrid inched open the door. There were three armed guards below, two peering away from the room and one staring towards it. They must have heard the commotion outside, but they were doing their best to ignore it. She was about to change all that.
She turned to the back of the attic, searching for what she’d found on the map online. If it weren’t there, she’d have to come up with an alternative plan. She thought that might be the case when all she discovered were boxes of books and more toys, but when she moved them away, she saw what she wanted: the opening for a service hatch.
Astrid wiped the dust from the front and slid it open. It seemed it was a long time since it had been used to move goods between the floors, but she hoped the wire and pulley system still worked. She turned her phone torch on and peered into the square shape. The cables were on her right; apart from that, it was empty.
She’d discovered similar transport systems in several stately homes and former Royal palaces during her European assignments. She understood how they worked, and she knew how noisy they could be. To reach the ground and the library, she’d have to go by the second-floor suite and the goons inside. Even with the racket outside the house, there was no way some security wouldn’t hear the mechanism descending as she pulled on those wires. So she needed to give them something else to think about.
Astrid returned to the attic door and peaked out again: the security was still there. She reached into her jacket and removed a box of matches and the firecrackers she’d taken from Moore’s apartment. She lit one and threw it at the two guards outside the door. She was leaping at the third guy when the firecracker blasted into their faces.
Bone cracked, and the goon’s nose exploded as her palm met his face. He fired instinctively, bringing the rifle round in an arc and spraying the corridor with bullets. She was crouching on the floor at that point, focused on the shooter and not his colleagues, who he’d just splattered against the suite. She took the knife from her boot and stuck it into his throat. It wasn’t enough to kill him as he slumped to one side, finger still pressed on the trigger firing into the door.
Astrid tossed more firecrackers on to the first floor before running into the attic and to the hatch. She climbed in and closed it behind her. It was a snug fit with her back tight against the panel. She pulled on the wires and hoped they still worked. Gunfire ricocheted through the mansion as she dropped, the wood creaking under the strain. As she passed the suite, she glimpsed through a gap in the wall what was happening inside. Everyone had moved from the door; their weapons pointed forward as they surrounded Campbell. There were at least a dozen men there.
She descended past the first level, which appeared empty, then reached the bottom and the ground-floor library. Thankfully, the service hatch was at the back, away from the only people she saw: two guards focused on the door. When she shifted her gaze through the gap, she observed Benedict Sawyer sitting at a desk without a care in the world.
How will I get out of here and across the room before they turn and shoot me?
Astrid reached into her pocket in search of another distraction, but she was out of firecrackers.