7:56 p.m.
Ralph was waiting for us in a neglected parking lot that sprawled between two abandoned warehouses.
“This is the address, but I don’t know which building it is,” he shouted as Lien-hua and I rushed out of the car. “I called SDPD; they’re sending some cars. But we’ve got less than five minutes, there’s no time to wait.” He scanned the buildings. “It could be either building, there’s no way to tell.”
“Yes, there is,” I said. “Remember the video? Natural light. Second-or third-story windows. Shadows appeared on Cassandra’s right side, so based on the sun’s position at the time of day-”
Ralph pointed. “That one’s only got first floor windows.” All three of us turned to the remaining warehouse, saw the rows of third-story windows, and began sprinting across the parking lot.
Ralph drew his gun. “Pat, you take the right side, Lien-hua, go left. I’ll take the front.”
We flared out. I ran along the west end of the building but found only one steel door, and that was chained shut. The graffiti-cov-ered building straddled nearly an entire city block, so there wasn’t time to backtrack. Rusted pipes and gray air ducts stuck out of the warehouse’s side at odd angles, and I had no idea what most of them would ever have been used for. All of the windows high above me were cracked and splintered and reminded me of great, bloodshot eyes.
Time, time, running out of time.
I glanced up at the windows again. They were maybe eight meters up. A few pipes snaked out of the building and then curled around the edge of the warehouse. I saw that one of the air ducts terminated within a meter and a half of the windowsill.
You got it, Pat. It’s the only way in.
I jumped up, snagged a handhold, and heaved myself up.
A small ledge to my left gave me just enough of a foothold so that I was able to stretch across the wall, slide my fingertips between two strips of metal, do an undercling with my left hand, and then swing myself over a thick vent. Hundreds of thousands of pull-ups paying off.
Handhold. Foothold.
Now halfway up to the window, I studied the wall above me, searching for fingerholds, finding my rhythm again. All the time smearing my shoes against the gritty exterior of the building and clinging to ridges in the wall with my fingertips. Smoothing out my moves. Finger jam. Feel the rhythm. Foothold. The vertical dance.
There.
The window.
I looked inside and caught sight of a catwalk that skirted the inside of the warehouse. Most of the window’s broken glass still clung to the frame like great serrated teeth. I punched out some of the knife-like projections, pulled out my SIG, and leapt onto the catwalk.
Looked at my watch.
8:00 p.m.
Apart from the smear of city lights seeping through the windows, the interior of the warehouse was only a dark pool stretching before me. I pulled out my Mini Maglite and swept the cavernous room.
My light didn’t reach the far wall, but it did reach a metal staircase about thirty meters away that descended into the black cavity of the warehouse.
In the video there was a concrete floor; the tank is on the first level. I raced toward the staircase, trying to keep my light steady as I ran.
At the top of the stairs my circle of light glanced across an industrial-sized light switch. We didn’t have any time left for sneaking around. We needed to find Cassandra now. I clicked on the lights as I clanged past the switch and then flew down the steps three at a time. A few stray fluorescent bulbs on the ceiling high above me flickered to life but then winked on and off, creating an eerie strobe-like effect.
Ground floor.
Dust-covered manufacturing machines, tools, and broken conveyer belts littered the main section of the warehouse. I didn’t hear either Lien-hua or Ralph. Maybe they were still outside the building.
Or maybe they’d found Cassandra.
“Hello?” I called. I checked my watch.