into the red brick—a rusting fire ladder running from a large third-floor window to five feet above the overgrown grass. It was a pre–World War II relic, from the days when the mill had employed a quarter of the town and occupational safety meant a straight three-story climb to the ground, if you could reach one of the windows before smoke or flames overcame you.
He jogged over to the ladder, reached up, and tugged on it with both hands. It creaked, but there was no shifting or shower of brick dust. He wrapped his hands around the lowest rung, chinned himself up, and pulled his legs to his chest, curling forward until his head was pointing toward the ground and he could get his knees over the iron bar. He balanced there for a moment, waiting to see if his two hundred pounds would shake the ladder, but the old bolts held true—for the moment anyway.
He climbed without looking down. The faded brick wall was punctuated by small granite-edged windows at the first-and second-story levels, oddly placed rectangles just big enough to let in some light and air. None of them were close enough to grab hold of if the rungs beneath his feet gave way or if the bricks holding the ladder’s bolts crumbled. He breathed evenly and looked up. The window above the iron ladder was wide open.
He had to go headfirst through the window, a horribly vulnerable position, which made him feel like a hunting trophy mounted on a wall. He wiggled forward and flipped himself gracelessly onto his feet, thudding loudly enough to cause him to freeze in a crouch below the window. He breathed through his mouth, noiselessly, as if that would make a difference.
He was on a sturdy wooden platform encircling a vast area below. Railed and banistered, it had two steep staircases descending to the work space. What light there was came from windows hidden from his view beneath the walkway. There was machinery down there, behemoths of black iron, and a forest of chains and block and tackle hanging from runners in the ceiling.
A noise from below froze him in place. A scrabbling sound. And a clank. Too loud for an animal. He closed his eyes for a moment, straining to hear. The air stirred with the scent of iron and dry rot and mouse droppings. He listened harder and dropped to his knees and then to his belly on the walkway floor. He crawled forward to the opening between the railings that signaled the nearest stairway.
It was steep, like the gangway on a ship, built to occupy the least amount of productive space. The workroom floor was cleared for several feet around the final step. Descending would make him a sitting duck vulnerable to potential gunfire. He scanned the rest of the platform. The only other way down he could see was another staircase, equally open, at the end opposite him. He thought he could make out doorways there, too, but he had no doubt that McKinley had headed down to get out. Which meant he would have to go down, as well.
He suddenly thought, for the first time in years, of an argument he had had with a lunatic second lieutenant while squatting in the brush below a heavily fortified hill. He couldn’t recall the hill’s number. All the hills in ’Nam had had numbers, never names. They were supposed to take the damn thing, and he had been telling the FNG that it was idiocy to charge upward through the open into enemy fire. “It’s not idiocy,” the lieutenant had said. “It’s our job.”
He reminded himself that he had picked this job over running a security firm in Phoenix. He wiggled himself around, slid his legs over the edge, found the first step with his foot, and took it, hands loose on the railings, barking his shins as he scrambled down the ladderlike steps—one, two, three, four—and then there was a loud crack and his foot gave way, the step splintering beneath him as he plunged, then caught himself on the railings with a dislocating jerk to his shoulders. He was spread open like a wishbone, one leg dangling in space and the other stretched painfully behind him. A swirling cloud of dry rot made him cough. He hauled against the railings and tried to gain a footing on the step below, feeling a gun sighting on him as if it were a pointer pressed against his spine, trailing up to the back of his head. He flopped between the steps, hair prickling and the cold sweat of fear under his uniform shirt, and heard another noise from somewhere among the silent machines below. He remembered now that the second lieutenant hadn’t lived very long. He let go of the railings, sagging still deeper through the broken stair tread, braced his hands atop the step in front of him, and pushed forward, just as he had done at the window outside, levering himself up, freeing the leg that had been trapped against the lower step. He didn’t stop to think. He let both legs hang through the stair, gripped the step he had been braced on, dropped his torso and shoulders through the last of the splintery remains, and let go.
He fell far enough to regret his impulsiveness, but he had been taught how to land from a fall when he was young, and his body remembered the lessons, even if, thirty years later, he lacked the natural bounce that had once enabled him to jump up and keep running. He didn’t spring up from the wooden floor where he had crumpled and rolled, but he did manage to keep rolling toward the nearest loom and tuck himself under its shadowed side.
“Elliott McKinley!” he yelled. “Police! Lay down your weapon and come out into the open with your hands raised!” The effort of shouting made his ribs hurt. Now he heard the clear sound of footsteps thudding, but he couldn’t orient himself enough to discover the direction the sound was coming from. He rolled away from the loom, staggered to his knees, and rose cautiously, easing the Glock out again. Nothing in sight but rows and ranks of antiquated machinery and chains and block and tackle that would never be used again. He walked forward lightly, rolling from his heels to the balls of his feet, trying to make as little noise as possible. He heard another scuffle and a clank—ahead of him. They had to be close to the river by now.
“McKinley!” He crouched again, making himself less of a target. “We’ve got squad cars sealing off the other entrances to the mill, and a boat on the water to pick up anyone who goes in. You understand me? You’re not getting out of here. Come on out and we’ll wrap this up and nobody gets hurt.”
Nothing. He stood up. There was a clank and a rattle, and he turned just in time to see an iron hook and a chain as thick as his wrist swinging straight at him, slithering through its pulley, sounding like the creak of the gates of hell opening. He lunged to the side, missing the hook, but the chain lashed across his shoulder and arm, hurtling his gun out of reach, knocking him off balance. He bounced off the nearest loom, staggered, then scrambled backward out of the way as the last of the chain tore through the pulley and fell over the iron machines and the wooden floor in a shattering clang that left him half-deaf. He looked around frantically for his gun, for McKinley, for another sign of movement among the chains and ropes hanging like malignant seaweed from the rafters. He caught a flash out of the corner of his eye. McKinley broke cover and bolted toward the far door, his head bobbing above the machinery in a weird, disembodied way.
Russ took off after him, any aches and pains wiped out for the moment in a surge of anger and adrenaline. He ran like a linebacker through an offensive field, dodging this way and that, trying to keep away from the machines. He could see the top of the door fling open, reached it on McKinley’s heels, and made a flying tackle. He hit McKinley square across his midsection and they both went down, skidding and twisting across the wooden floor. The younger man struggled, lashing out ineffectually with his hands and feet, but Russ had at least thirty pounds and several inches on him. He rolled McKinley beneath him, facedown, and straddled him, his elbow pressing hard into the nape of McKinley’s neck while he yanked at the pair of lightweight handcuffs snapped to his belt.
McKinley bucked, trying to throw him off. “Lie still or I’ll smash your head into this floor, you little scum sucker,” Russ roared. He hauled the young man’s wrists together and cuffed him, then sat straddling his still-flailing legs. He patted his waist, grateful to feel the radio still clipped to his belt. He didn’t relish the idea of wrestling McKinley out of the mill unaided. He keyed the mike. “Eric? Noble?”
“Chief? What’s up? Where are you?”
