Goodman took a left and followed the fence around the service area. We rolled behind the maintenance shed and the Dumpsters and continued past the parking garage.
I’d come here to rescue Carmen and instead I was letting my enemies take me deeper into their lair. The guilt of failing to protect her weighed on me. My hidden ace was that Goodman assumed I was an alien and had no idea that I was a vampire. When the time came, I hoped my supernatural powers were enough to help me find and free Carmen and for both of us to escape.
Krandall and Peltier trailed behind us with three more carts and a Gator after them. Each of those carts carried three armed guards, the Gator four. To complete our little circus parade all we needed was a brass band and a bear riding a tricycle.
Our convoy went beyond the back of the hotel and halted at the gate in the chain-link fence around the enclosure of the annex building.
Two guards wearing sunglasses and cradling submachine guns waited for us. An electric motor retracted the gate.
Goodman drove the cart over the threshold and into the grassy enclosure the size of a baseball infield. A concrete pad with a yellow H occupied the middle of the enclosure. This was where I’d seen the military helicopter land before.
The annex, a featureless three-story box with the antenna farm on the roof, stood to our right.
The gate closed behind us. The guards and the other carts remained outside the enclosure. As far as I could tell, Goodman and I were alone, though I was sure we were being watched.
I didn’t notice an entrance into the annex until Goodman headed toward a concrete driveway that inclined into the ground under the wall. We proceeded down the incline. A metal door scrolled open and we entered an underground corridor.
My kundalini noir tightened with apprehension. I put my hand on Goodman’s leg above the knee and pressed my talons into his thigh. If this was an ambush, I’d pull him apart like a wishbone.
Goodman didn’t slow the golf cart as we drove onto the linoleum floor and under the fluorescent lights. The whine of the cart’s motor echoed in the hall. The corridor continued straight down a long tunnel that must connect the annex to the main hotel building. A second hallway opened to our right. Placards on the doors of wall compartments indicated access to power and water conduits. We made a right turn at this second hall and stopped at a set of elevator doors. They pinged open and waited for us. We were being watched, for sure.
Goodman halted in front of the doors. I locked my fingers around his arm. We got out of the cart and walked into the elevator. I turned Goodman toward the video camera in the upper left corner. I grasped his chin and lifted his face to the camera. I scratched his neck with a talon to make him wince. “There’s more of that, if your friends are not careful.”
The doors closed and the elevator rose. I got ready for anything and held Goodman by the back of his collar. If the floor dropped, I’d leap through the ceiling. If a flamethrower sprayed fire, I’d use Goodman for cover.
The elevator stopped on the second floor. In the moment before the door opened, I listened carefully. I detected no rustle of clothing, no muffled click of a weapon’s safety moved into the firing position, nothing that threatened me.
When the door opened, I pushed Goodman in front of me into a deserted foyer. A simple steel door stood across from us. A red light glowed above the access lever. The light went off and a green one lit up.
Goodman grasped the lever. He paused and glanced over his shoulder at me. Did his look telegraph a warning?
“Think twice before you try to surprise me, Goodman,” I warned.
“You’re going to be surprised all right, hero boy.”
The door swung open. We entered a large sitting room decorated with high-end wood furnishings. Pistachio-green floor mats, table linen, and tapestries accented the room. Fresh flowers-red alpinias and camellias, purple and white pansies, and yellow trumpet flowers-stood in crystal vases on a console table and a credenza. Despite the blossoms, the room smelled like a humidor.
A fabric screen of shiny green material partitioned the floor. Past the left side of the screen I could see the door of what looked like a freight elevator. What did that transport?
In front of the screen sat an emerald-green velvet love seat and a leather cigar chair. This place was right off the cover of Better Homes and Gardens.
Something stirred behind the partition. Mr. Big? My sixth sense tingled.