Chapter 24 #2
“Assignments,” the director began, and started reading from his tablet screen.
From the way the room reacted, Hallie guessed that they had already known what they were here to do and where they would be assigned.
As the director looked up from the end of his recital, Hallie realised that he hadn’t mentioned her or Girard.
She kept quiet. She was quite sure they hadn’t been forgotten, which proved correct as the director looked from her to Girard and then across to Frollo.
“Abbott, Miss Talbot, and Frollo’s team will sweep the basement levels.
They’ve been passed through at least twice today, but it needs done again.
As you know, we had to pull Brennus off to look at the maps, so he’s not here to keep us in touch.
That means comms down there are patchy, so stay alert. ”
“Sir,” Frollo said, echoed by Girard and Hallie.
The director dismissed the room and everyone started filing out, heading for their posts.
Frollo paused by Hallie and Girard and grinned. “Down into the dark we go.”
Said in Frollo’s usual, apparently careless manner, it should have made Hallie want to laugh.
Instead she felt cold wash across her skin.
There had been threats against the Conclave.
Findo Trask and Russet Welliver were somewhere in the city.
And she was being trusted to be part of the team making sure that the Conclave building was secure.
She spared a glance across at Girard as she kept pace with him.
She couldn’t ask for a better person at her side.
“Basement levels, as in more than one?” she asked.
“It’s a bit of a maze,” Girard told her. “One full basement level is for parking, then there are two levels below which are split between parking and machinery.”
“Parking? Who for?” Hallie asked, remembering the sweep of roadway outside the front of the building. Somehow she couldn’t imagine Conclave members descending into a dark basement parking area.
“For staffers,” Girard said, almost absently, then glanced down at her and perhaps read the next question on her face.
“The building has a lot of staff to manage it, from the front desk to technical support to hospitality to janitorial, so there are parking spaces for them. Each Conclave member also has a physical office suite in the building and they may have aides who work here most of the year or who need access.”
“That’s going to be a lot of people, then,” Hallie said slowly, remembering their interviews at Vertiger. Each of the Conclave members had brought at least a couple of people with them.
“They all have to get through a security checkpoint,” Frollo added.
He’d stopped at a plain door, along with the rest of his team.
He opened the door, revealing a stark white-painted stairwell with stairs heading down.
The tac team members were all putting on their helmets, focused and ready to work. “We’ll take point. Keep behind us.”
With that command ringing in her ears, Hallie watched as Frollo led the way down the stairs. She noted, with approval, that the tac team all made a point of looking up the stairwell as well as down.
The stairwell itself was well-lit both by wall lights and by windows higher up letting in natural daylight.
One flight down and they entered the parking level which was a mass of grey concrete and harsh strip lighting, the parking bays almost all full, and holding plain-looking city cars of various shapes and sizes.
Hallie thought it shouldn’t surprise her that even a janitor in the Conclave building could afford a car, but it did.
One of the tac team - Hallie thought it was Caerleon - stowed his weapon, drawing out a tablet and checking off the vehicle type and registration as they made their way through the level.
Hallie bit her lip to stop from offering to do that checking.
She was feeling quite useless and it made her skin itch.
She wasn’t used to being a spare part. She was used to being in charge.
The highly competent tac team was moving at a rapid pace, eyes scanning every part of the structure.
She felt that the least she could do was to take some of the admin work.
She kept quiet, though. They were working in a good rhythm and she didn’t want to disturb that.
Besides, she wasn’t as familiar with the vehicles or technology, so, rather than helping, she would actually slow them down.
They also checked the ramps up and down, and Hallie caught a glimpse of a security barrier at the top of the up ramp.
It didn’t look very sophisticated to her, but she suspected she wasn’t seeing everything.
With the first level completed, they took another set of stairs, on the other side of the building, down to the next basement level and made quick work of the parking section.
By that point, Hallie was feeling almost bored.
She could not fault the tac team’s efficiency.
There was nothing for her or Girard to do.
After a brief discussion, Frollo opted to complete the checks of the parking before heading into the machine rooms. This time, they went down the ramp to the next level.
As the team peeled off to one side, Hallie’s attention was caught by a perfectly anonymous car tucked in next to the ramp.
“That looks like the car Quella described,” Hallie said to Girard, pitching her voice low so as not to disturb the tac team.
She thought she was most likely wrong. She couldn’t imagine a circumstance where Findo Trask and Russet Welliver would have been able to simply drive their vehicle into the parking lot under the Conclave building.
“It does,” Girard agreed. “It’s a common model, though, and the plate doesn’t match the target vehicle. All the same, let’s get it checked.” He turned away, lifting a hand to draw Frollo’s attention.
Hallie moved a little closer to the car, the hair lifting at the back of her neck, and put her hand on her gun.
That gesture was becoming more instinctive the longer she carried the weapon, which was almost as unsettling as the sensation that had made her pause.
There was something wrong. Something there.
She started when Frollo and Dechtire moved past her, their weapons ready.
“Hold!” she said.
To her surprise, they stopped at once. Frollo flicked a glance towards her. “What’s up?”
“There’s something wrong here,” Hallie said. She wanted to kick herself for how silly that sounded, except no one around her seemed to think it was silly.
Girard gave her a serious look. “What do you sense?”
“Ah, that’s it,” she said, skin twitching. “It’s a sense. Magic. There’s been magic used here.”
“This is the Conclave building,” Girard said. He wasn’t arguing with her, just stating a fact. Pushing her to look further.
“Yes, and there have been little pockets of magic here and there all the way through the building and to here. But this feels different. It’s, well, the best way I can describe it is sticky.
Unclean. The other magic has had something like almost purity to it.
This is different.” Hallie forced herself to stop babbling and looked at Frollo instead.
From what she remembered, he had some sensitivity to magic. “Do you feel it as well?”
“There is something here, yes,” Frollo said. “Centred around this car. Caerleon, what’s the story with it?”
“Registration comes back to a Brade Watkins. Member of the security technical team,” Caerleon replied, reading off the screen.
He read out the time that the car had passed through the security checkpoint.
“Gate guard noted that there was another person in the vehicle. Another member of the security team, but there’s no name or ID provided. That’s odd.”
“Modron, you and Griff go to the gate and find out from the guard why there’s no ID on the passenger,” Frollo said.
For a moment, Hallie wondered why they didn’t just radio the request through, then remembered the directors’ warnings about comms. Modron and Griff didn’t question the order, just headed off up the ramp at a steady run.
“Tortain, Dechtire, sweep this vehicle. Everyone else, take a few steps back.”
Hallie moved back with Girard, Frollo and Caerleon as Tortain and Dechtire stepped forward, producing handheld scanners from their heavy equipment belts.
“There’s a trace of something,” Dechtire reported after a tense few moments. She took two measured steps forward and Hallie could see her jaw tighten, most of her face hidden by the helmet. “Yeah. There’s definitely something here.”
“Can you be more specific?” Frollo asked. There was no trace of the reckless young man now. He was completely professional, cool and calm.
“Positive for some kind of explosive, but it’s a faint reading,” Tortain confirmed, moving to stand an arm’s length to one side of Dechtire.
“Suggests to me that the vehicle was carrying explosive material for a while, but it’s no longer here.
” He moved away from the vehicle in a semi-circle, holding his scanner away from the car.
“There’s no trace in the air for us to follow. ”
“Right,” Frollo said. He moved a few more paces away, halfway up the ramp, and tried his radio. “Rojas, this is Frollo. Come back.” There was a pause, then he repeated the request.
He came back down the ramp, shaking his head. “Radio’s out for now. Nothing but static. We’re confident there’s nothing that’s going to go boom in the vehicle?”
“Can’t be absolutely sure,” Tortain answered, “but reasonably sure.”
“I’d like to look inside it,” Frollo said. He sounded as calm as if he was considering what to have for lunch and not possibly opening up a car primed to explode.
“Could we try poking it with a stick first?” Hallie suggested. She didn’t really want to be caught in an explosion.
Tortain gave a muffled laugh. Dechtire and Frollo grinned.
“Keep this up, and we may make you an honourary team member,” Frollo told her. “Tortain, there was a fire extinguisher on the wall back that way. Should make a decent impact. Enough to set off any ordnance.”
“Right you are,” Tortain said, and headed over to the wall Frollo had pointed at. As he was coming back, a large, bright red fire extinguisher in one hand, Modron and Griff came running back down the ramp. Barely out of breath.
“Gate guard swears he recorded the name of the second person in the car, except he can’t now remember it, and doesn’t have it written down anywhere,” Modron reported.
Another wave of apprehension slid over Hallie.
That didn’t seem at all right for a building as closely guarded as this one.
From the grim expressions around her, Hallie guessed her reaction was shared.
Then Modron’s eyes landed on the fire extinguisher.
“We’re going to throw rocks at something? ”
“We are,” Frollo confirmed. “All of you get back up to the upper level, take shelter behind the red-painted concrete divider. It’s designed to be blast-proof. I’ll throw the rock.”
Hallie wanted to protest, but no one else questioned Frollo, so she headed back up the ramp and around the end of one of the concrete walls that she had assumed were there to divide up the car parking spaces.
Looking more closely at the wall she saw the diagonal red lines painted on its surface.
It stirred a memory. She’d seen that pattern somewhere recently.
Whatever was trying to work loose in her mind was interrupted by a dull thud that must have been Frollo throwing the fire extinguisher at the car. There was a short pause, then another thud.
“Does he actually want to get blown up?” Hallie muttered.
That prompted smothered laughter all around her.
“He does like testing the limits,” Griff said, sounding cheerful. “Which can be useful.”
“Except on the road,” Caerleon added, prompting another round of laughter.
“All clear.” Frollo’s voice snapped them out of the momentary lightness and back to work.
They went down the ramp to the lower level to find that Frollo had managed to create two impressive dents in the car - one on the front and one on the side.
The fire extinguisher - somehow still in one piece - had been set upright in front of the car.
Frollo had moved around the side and opened the driver’s door.
“I hope it is Findo’s car, because otherwise we’re going to have to pay to get it fixed,” Hallie said, shaking her head at the damage.
“Definitely not Brade Watkins’ car,” Frollo said, straightening up. He was holding a folded sheaf of papers. “Car rental agreement. It has a different licence number on it.” He handed it across to Girard, who took one look and nodded, grim-faced.
“That’s the licence plate Quella gave us.” Girard moved to the front of the vehicle and crouched by the plate. “They must have switched it out, because this one is fixed solid.”
“So we’ve got Findo Trask and Russet Welliver’s vehicle inside the Conclave building,” Hallie said. “And that map, the one on the wall in the house? It had diagonal lines like the ones on that wall up there.” She pointed to where they’d just taken shelter.
“Mapping out the weak points and the baffle zones,” Frollo said, face tight.
He reached for the radio at his shoulder and stopped the movement with a grimace.
“Radio isn’t working. Caerleon, Dechtire, high-tail it upstairs and alert the commander as soon as you can get a call through.
Rejoin us when you can. We’ll keep going. ”
Caerleon and Dechtire were already moving before Frollo finished speaking, heading up the ramp at a sprint. Hallie saw them crossing the floor of the upper parking level, heading for the stairs that were likely the quickest way up into the building and to reach the commander.
Frollo turned to his people. “Abbott, Hallie, you stay at the back. Everyone else, on me. We’ve got searching to do.”
Frollo’s earlier words into the dark we go, rang around Hallie’s mind, hair rising on her body as she followed the tac team, bristling with weapons, into possible danger.