The BearCat slowed and the driver extinguished its lights. Mason couldn’t see a blasted thing inside the truck, let alone through the slit windows. He fitted his mask over his mouth and nose and lowered his night-vision apparatus. The others reappeared in shades of green and gray, the triangular stocks of their AR-15s to their shoulders, their barrels directed at the ground between their feet.
The smooth buzz of pavement gave way to the grumble of gravel. The truck shook crossing the uneven ground.
Mason readjusted his grip on the Glock in his right hand and reached for the handle on the door with his left.
The BearCat shuddered to a halt.
Trapp and Mason each threw open a side and bounded out into the night. They covered the other men as they piled out and jogged around the side of the old cargo warehouse. Two men—Rojas and Telford—sprinted to either side and disappeared into the tall weeds, from the anonymity of which their sight lines would be clear all the way to the administration building.
A skeletal structure rose from the dark horizon, tattered plastic drop cloths flapping over the gaps where entire sections of the external walls had been removed. The building was dark, save for a weak glow emanating from the top level. The sedan and Suburban sat silent and lifeless in the overgrown parking lot to the south of what had once been the main entrance.
Despite the tumbleweeds snarled in the chain-link fence, Mason identified a loose section and lifted it for the others to crawl under. He followed them into a mud lot spotted with heaps of construction materials covered with tarps. They split up as planned. He caught a glimpse of the officers—Rivers and Willis—streaking around either side of the building as he ducked beneath a plastic tarp and entered the main level, with Porter on his heels. Trapp and Rasmussen fanned out to his right.
Despite their best attempts at stealth, their wet soles squelched and echoed all around them. Water plinked into puddles on the concrete. The plastic drop cloths snapped in the gusting wind, which pattered them with raindrops that sounded like buckshot. Sporadic flashes of lightning limned concrete support posts, bare girders, and dangling cables with an ethereal blue glow. There were stacks of lumber and drywall near the exposed iron staircase to Mason’s left, which Porter ascended, his rifle raised toward the landing. He couldn’t see Trapp or Rasmussen climbing the matching staircase to his right, but he heard the hollow ting of one of their boots hitting the bottom stair a second after his did.
Mason held his Glock in a two-handed grip and pointed it upward as he climbed. He passed Porter on the landing and continued upward. Crouched beside the doorway to the second level. Waited for Porter to assume position on the other side.
The second level still had the majority of its framework, although giant holes had been punched through the plaster where thieves had stolen all of the copper. He detected movement in the shadows at the far end of the hallway. Even with the night vision, he could barely see Rivers peering out from the stairwell at the far end of the hall.
No sign of movement.
Mason gave the signal and they headed up the stairs again. As before, Porter cleared the first landing and Mason made sure no surprises awaited them at the top, where the stairs terminated at a concrete landing. They pressed their backs to the walls at either side of the doorway.
Time slowed to a crawl.
Mason tuned out the rushing of his pulse in his ears and concentrated on regulating his breathing. Listened for any sound to betray the presence of his prey. It had taken him a year to find anything resembling a lead on the men who had massacred the strike force in Arizona. A single mistake and he might never find them again. He couldn’t let that happen. He needed to end this.
Right here and now.
He eased the trigger into the sweet spot and stepped out into the open. The whole upper level had been scoured to the bare girders, save for the webs of electrical work woven between them. The wind had torn the plastic sheeting attached to the southern wall, making it snap and flare inward. Rainwater dribbled through the roof. Entire sections of the floor were missing. He could see down into rooms filled with scraps of wood and Sheetrock that had been tossed down from this level.
A small chamber had been erected in the center of the open area. A room roughly the size of an office cubicle. Each of the four walls consisted of opaque plastic sheeting stretched tightly from the floor to the ceiling. A faint glow radiated through it.
Mason felt more than saw Trapp and Rasmussen exit the darkened stairwell to his right as he advanced, sighting the dimly lit chamber down the barrel of his pistol. Rivers and Willis emerged from the stairwells on the opposite side of the building. Together, they converged on the plastic square.
Something wasn’t right.
Mason raised his night-vision apparatus. The light was messing with its optics. He glanced from the corner of his eye at Trapp, who advanced in a shooter’s stance, focused solely on the taut drop cloths.
He couldn’t put his finger on it. All he knew was that his instincts were screaming for him to pay attention to a message he couldn’t consciously decipher.
Trapp hung back. He must have sensed the same thing.
Porter and Rasmussen passed them and approached the makeshift chamber at the same pace as their teammates.
Again, dim light. No movement.
The plastic couldn’t have been drawn any tighter. All straight lines and corners. No entrance. No exit. There was something wrong with it, too. Fluid beaded on the inside.
Perspiration.
The four officers reached the cubicle.
“We’re too late,” Rivers said through speakers in their helmets.
Mason stopped and watched one of the droplets of condensation swell and then dribble down the plastic. He followed it with his eyes all the way to where it ran into a dark shape near the ground, leaning against the drop cloth. It almost looked like a body—
Porter grabbed the plastic and pulled it away.
The dim light flickered.
“No!” Mason shouted.
He whirled and sprinted in the opposite direction. Watched Trapp drop out of sight.
The floor opened up beneath Mason and he plummeted toward a heap of rubble. A wall of heat struck him from behind and sent him cartwheeling a heartbeat before the air filled with flames.