Freefall Read online

  “Just one minute,” Ash told her. “Parker, what the hell are you waiting for? I said, get me Reeves.”

  Parker shook his head and shuffled out of the room.

  “And tell him to pick me up some clothes,” Ash yelled after him.

  “And I thought I was a ball breaker,” the nurse observed with a wry smile as she resumed winding the bandage around Ash’s lacerated neck.

  Doctor Hernandez was on her way out of the room when Reeves arrived. She had spent ten minutes with Ash explaining the nature of her injuries. As bad as it looked, Ash was lucky to have only suffered surface tissue damage. The wire had not cut into her windpipe or any of her arteries or tendons. As Hernandez’s calm words soothed her, Ash had fought the urge to cry with relief, the memory of how close she’d come to death threatening to overwhelm her. Feeling her head being slowly severed had truly terrified her. Hernandez had told Ash that she was free to leave as long as she promised not to do anything strenuous and to return in three days to have her wound checked and her dressing changed. The doctor had concluded by echoing Parker, telling Ash that over time, and with some cosmetic work, the scar would not be very noticeable.

  Ash brightened as Reeves strode into the room. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and tried to stand.

  “You did good,” he said. “Real good. Thank you.”

  She fought the urge to cry with relief at the thought that all four of them had escaped with their lives.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked. “You look better than yesterday. Me, Miller, Romero, even Harrell came by. But you were out cold.”

  “Feel pretty good,” Ash replied, her hoarse voice rattling around her throat. “Sound terrible.”

  “I got you some clothes.” Reeves held up a Gap bag. “Miller took the stuff you were wearing.”

  “How is he?” Ash asked, taking the bag.

  “OK. Cuts, bruises, wounded pride, nothing more,” Reeves replied. “Here.” He produced Ash’s cell phone from his jacket pocket.

  “Thanks.”

  “Your piece has been taken into evidence,” Reeves told her.

  “What about Price?”

  “He’s pretty bad, but he’ll live,” Reeves replied. “None of us would be here if you hadn’t—”

  “Don’t go getting all soft on me, Deon,” Ash interrupted jokingly. “Not right now,” she added earnestly. “I don’t think I could take it.”

  There was an awkward silence for a moment.

  “What do we know?” Ash asked, finally suppressing the lump in her throat.

  “Charles Haig, engineer for Hidyne Systems. They manufacture state-of-the-art camera drones and stabilizer gimbals. Forensics have started analyzing his devices. He was using the same high-powered servo motors they use in the drones to pull the wire. Connected it to a heat coil. We found a bunch of tools and equipment from Hidyne at his warehouse. I’m guessing he wanted somewhere near his work to make it easy to transfer stuff to and fro.”

  “What about the suit?”

  “Exact replica of Pendulum’s,” Reeves replied. “We haven’t found a link yet. Harrell wants us working on the theory that Haig was a copycat and a fan.”

  “I think he might be right,” Ash revealed, aware that her response surprised Reeves. He knew all about her theory that there was at least one other conspirator. “Haig revered Pendulum, the kind of reverence you have when you’re not part of something. He was also loud and attention-grabbing. Pendulum would never have been found out if it hadn’t been for John Wallace, and if I’m right, and there is another conspirator, he or she is too smart to get involved with someone as unhinged as Haig.”

  Reeves nodded.

  “If Haig didn’t know Pendulum,” Ash continued, “we have to figure out how he got hold of that suit. Did he have it made, or did he find it? And there was a photo, a picture of Wallace in his apartment that must have been taken before the attempt on his life. Haig might not have known Pendulum, but he’s had access to things we haven’t been able to find.”

  “His base?” Reeves asked.

  Ash nodded. Her conspiracy theory was easily refuted, but even Harrell was troubled by the fact that they’d never located Pendulum’s base of operations.

  “I think Haig found it.”

  Ash stood beside Price’s bed. His head was bandaged, his right forearm in a cast. His other injuries were hidden beneath a sheet that was suspended over a frame to prevent direct contact with his body. His head injuries had resulted in a brain hemorrhage and he’d been placed in an induced coma until the swelling came down. After she’d put on the jeans, black T-shirt, and sneakers that Reeves had bought her, Ash had insisted on seeing Price on their way out of the hospital. Reeves had detailed his injuries—it seemed that Haig had used some new contraption to flay the skin off Price’s limbs. The wounded man was going to need multiple grafts.

  Guilt washed down Ash’s face, each tear provoking yet more remorse. If she’d called for backup, if she’d gone with Miller, if they’d played it any other way, then Price would not be facing months of difficult and painful recovery and the almost inevitable end of his career with the Bureau. Once again, she’d made the wrong call. She’d tried to control things that were beyond her. She cursed her father for robbing her of the ability to trust others.

  Reeves had been in to see Price the previous evening so he waited outside and gave Ash privacy during her visit. She could tell from his expression that Reeves had been deeply moved by the sight of his colleague, and she was glad he wasn’t in the room. Together, the two of them would only have fed each other’s sorrow.

  She took a moment to compose herself and wiped away her tears. She wanted to say something to Price, but the words wouldn’t come. She knew he couldn’t hear her, so she simply nodded her sympathy and turned for the door. Reeves was leaning against the wall opposite Price’s room. He stood when he saw Ash stagger out, but said nothing as he fell in beside her, and they headed toward the elevators in silence.

  Word had spread. Ash could tell by the way the cop looked at her as she and Reeves approached the warehouse. Bored with guarding the entrance, the NYPD uniform was mooching around, kicking his heels until he saw them pull into the parking lot. He stood straight and Ash could see him eyeing the bandage around her neck as she got out of the car, its presence clearly confirming the rumors he’d heard. If the on-site uniform knew what had happened, then the story would be all over New York City.

  Reeves swung by the Bureau forensics truck which was parked beside two unmarked vehicles at the far end of the lot. He opened the door and reached inside, before emerging a moment later with a folded newspaper. “We made the Post,” he explained, handing the tabloid to Ash.

  She unfurled the well-read paper and saw a photo of Charles Haig under the headline “Babylon Falls!”

  “Details?” she asked.

  “Harrell persuaded them to keep it pretty vague. Said the investigation was ongoing,” Reeves replied. “But sooner or later, the city is going to learn the truth about its heroine.”

  Ash groaned and slapped the newspaper into Reeves’s arm, and he grabbed it and handed it to the uniform guarding the door.

  “Tobin still inside?” he asked.

  “Yeah, she told me it was going to be a long night,” the cop replied with a sigh.

  Ash shuddered as she followed Reeves into the warehouse. She knew returning to the scene so soon was pushing it, but the Pendulum case had been her private obsession and she was determined to prove she was right, that she had seen someone else in the Facebook facility in Twin Lakes.

  “Harrell wants to see you first thing tomorrow,” Reeves informed her as they pressed on. “I think he’s considering compassionate leave.”

  “Why? Is he ill?” Ash countered quickly, and Reeves smiled.

  A pair of bright field lights illuminated the lobby, leaving nowhere for the decay to hide. Anyone willing to lease this dump had to have something to conceal. The harsh glare of the lights
revealed more than just damp; there were rodent droppings, broken glass, discarded hypodermics, and massed wet garbage that was impossible to identify. Ash followed Reeves to the corridor beyond, where they turned right. A unit light in the corner illuminated their way, and its twin pointed left, lighting the dog-leg where the nooses hung. Ash shivered and skipped a couple of steps to catch up with Reeves.

  “Tobin says it’s gonna take at least a week to go over this place properly,” Reeves said.

  Ash could see why. Pendulum articles, photos, and printouts surrounded them and each one would have to be checked, cataloged, and tested for prints and DNA.

  When they reached the end of the corridor, Reeves pushed the door to their left, which was slightly ajar, and led Ash into the room where they’d been held captive and almost killed.

  Four HMI lights lit up every nook. Ash felt her stomach turn as she looked around and saw that the place was almost exactly as she remembered it, except for Haig’s body, which had been removed. Three forensics agents in white suits made it feel more like an ordinary crime scene, rather than the place where she and her team had come within moments of meeting their deaths.

  “Tobin!” one of the forensics agents called. Ash vaguely recognized him. His name was something like Blake or Blaine.

  Linda Tobin was a well-respected agent in her early fifties. She hadn’t chased flashy ambition. Instead, she’d found something she loved and she’d stuck with it for thirty years, building an enviable reputation as a forensic specialist, both within the Bureau and outside it. She’d consulted on a number of books, and advised movie and television producers, all with the blessing of a Bureau that was keen to showcase a world leader. Tobin had short blonde hair, narrow eyes, and a lined face that wasn’t carrying a spare ounce of fat.

  “Should you be here?” she asked Ash.

  “Probably not,” Ash replied. “But my head isn’t going to fall off, if that’s what you’re worried about. Least, not today.”

  Tobin smiled. “In case you hadn’t noticed, this place is a mess. We’ve got machining tools, specialist motors, components, motherboards, circuit boards, firearms, tools—shit, it’s like a pharaoh’s tomb. Each and every item has to be tracked and traced, printed and typed. I’m guessing he stole most of it from Hidyne, but we have to check everything, make sure he didn’t have any outside help.”

  “There was a photo,” Ash said.

  “If you saw it, it’s still here,” Tobin interrupted.

  “And the suit?” Ash asked.

  “That’s a puzzler, ain’t it?” Tobin replied. “It wasn’t just a copy. It was an exact replica. The breastplate is a modified Survival Armor X50 unit and the limb protection uses similar nanotech to the Surefire Institute. The mask is modeled on a carbon fiber face-piece used by Taiwanese special forces. Pendulum spent a lot of time researching the best tactical combat gear and then adapted it. It’s state-of-the-art, not something you buy off the shelf.”

  “I think it was one of Pendulum’s spares,” Ash told Tobin, and pretended not to see her and Reeves exchange a cynical glance.

  “Really?”

  “I think Haig found his base,” Ash responded. “Look around. I think he was Pendulum’s biggest fan.”

  “We’ll run the suit for prints and DNA,” Tobin assured her. “See if we can link it to Pendulum.”

  Ash scanned the room. “Mind if we browse?”

  “Sure, but you know the rules. Be careful and don’t touch anything.”

  Tobin returned to what she was doing; dusting the machining workbench for prints.

  “You really think he found it?” Reeves asked Ash skeptically.

  She nodded.

  “I’m guessing you didn’t take Harrell at his word. Maybe you’ve been moonlighting?” Reeves suggested. Ash was impassive, but he pressed on. “So how could this nut find something that eluded one of the Bureau’s best and brightest?”

  Ash ignored the question and sidled over to the computer workbench, where the screens cycled through indecipherable code. “What are they doing?” she asked.

  “DDOS attack on Facebook,” Reeves replied. “Tobin doesn’t want the machines turned off until cyber has had a chance to take a proper look.”

  Ash focused on the photo of Wallace that was pinned to the wall. She noticed the corners of a number of other photos beneath it, and glancing round to check that the boiler-suited agents were otherwise occupied, took hold of the pictures and pulled out the pin that fastened them. Reeves signaled his disagreement with a shake of his head, but stood behind her, making it difficult for anyone to see what she was doing. Ash spread the photos out on the workbench. There were seven of them. Six were of people she recognized: Pendulum’s victims. All six photographs were clearly surveillance images taken of the subjects in or around their homes.

  The seventh photograph was different. It was a hand-held selfie taken by Haig and it showed him standing beside a dirt track, tall green trees crowding either side of it. In the photo, Haig was smiling broadly, like a tourist on vacation. Or a big game hunter standing beside a trophy, Ash thought to herself. She placed the photo on the workbench and used her phone to take a picture of it, before replacing the sheaf of images on the wall and fixing them in place with the original pin. She scanned the surrounding memorabilia—stock photos of Pendulum, his victims, reports, newspaper articles, bulletin board messages—and then she froze. There, pinned to the wall beneath a bus ticket, was a picture unlike any other. It looked as though it was an internet printout, and it showed an unknown family standing in front of a diner, posing for what was undoubtedly a holiday snap. Seated inside the diner, at a table by the window, like a ghost almost lost to the background, was Max Byrne, the man otherwise known as Pendulum.

  15

  The first stars were visible in the gray sky. Wallace tried not to think about oncoming night and told himself that he recognized landmarks as he urged his horse on. The clatter of its hooves echoed across the mountainside, breaking the stillness of the vast landscape. He did not want to look over his shoulder, but he had to check on his captive, the short Afghan officer, whom he’d gagged and forced on to Kurik’s horse at gunpoint, before binding the man’s hands to the saddle-horn. But the resentful, brooding man was not the source of Wallace’s discomfort. It was the sight of Kurik laid across the horse’s withers, the boy’s lifeless eyes staring at the rocky ground. Wallace checked the reins of Kurik’s horse, which were fastened to an eyelet in his saddle’s cantle, and, satisfied that they were secure, turned his gaze forward.

  They’d been riding for six hours, and were heading back up the mountain toward the endless cavern. Whenever Wallace couldn’t recall the route, he’d let his horse choose their way, hoping that the animal’s innate sense of direction would lead it home. The desperate strategy had paid off, and they’d reached the deep cave late in the afternoon, but there was no sign of Vosuruk or his men, just the haunting sound of the wind screaming its way down to Hell. Wallace had pressed on, trying to remember the route to the narrow ravine and the shallow cave that had given them sanctuary the night they’d escaped the attack on Kamdesh.

  He hoped to reach the shallow cave before nightfall, but hadn’t made allowances for the distance they needed to travel or the speed with which the sun dropped behind the mountains, and after another two hours’ ride, during which Kurik’s horse slowed with fatigue, it became clear that they weren’t going to make it to the ravine and would have to camp in the open. They were high above the tree line, and wherever Wallace looked he saw nothing but jagged rock and unyielding stone. As light faded and darkness swept over the mountain, Wallace’s mind played scenarios in which they were ambushed by the remnants of the Afghan Army patrol that had attacked Guktec and his men, or were discovered and murdered by bandits or Taliban fighters. Neither prospect scared him. If he hadn’t felt a sense of obligation toward Vosuruk, he might have released his captive and handed him a gun.

  They finally passed through the shadow
of a high outcrop, which Wallace recognized as being at least two hours’ ride from the ravine.

  “Tr’ok Si’ol,” a voice called from above, startling Wallace, who looked up and recognized Guktec’s face poking over the edge of the high rocks.

  “My brother is not a good guide. We see you across the mountain,” Guktec teased.

  Wallace saw the smile fall from Guktec’s face when he registered that the second rider wasn’t Kurik. When he finally realized what was on the trailing horse, there was a moment of horrified disbelief.

  “N’a Kurik!” he yelled, his cry so loud and pained that it seemed to shake the mountain.

  Wallace heard the sound of hurried footsteps, the rattle of scree shifting, and the crack of stone rolling against rock. He saw fear animate the Afghan officer’s face, and watched him tug ineffectually at his restraints. Wallace turned to see the first of Vosuruk’s men round the outcrop and approach hesitantly.

  “Kurik!”

  Wallace recognized Vosuruk’s voice and saw the Kom magistrate coming from the other side of the rocks. Vosuruk ignored the terrified officer and ran straight to his youngest son, embracing his head, clasping it to his chest.

  “N’a, n’a, n’a! I p’utr, Kurik, I p’utr,” Vosuruk wailed, stroking his son’s hair, as his men stood around him in mournful silence.

  Maddened by grief, Vosuruk turned on Wallace, his eyes burning.

  “What did you do?” he demanded, grabbing Wallace and hauling him out of his saddle. “My boy!”

  “I’m sorry, Vosuruk,” Wallace said. “We were ambushed.”

  Vosuruk pushed Wallace back, as though he was afraid of what he might do to the foreigner. He looked at his son’s body and gave a low, guttural moan before rushing at the terrified Afghan officer. He grabbed the smaller man and hurled him to the ground.

  Wallace watched as Vosuruk set about the man with his fists, pummeling his head and body with mighty blows. Guktec joined the fray, kicking the officer in the ribs, and Wallace was forced to look away as more of Vosuruk’s men joined the beating. He stared at the high peaks and tried to ignore the groans that came from the officer as he was assailed by men who would beat him to death.