Deadly Powers (Tapped In Book 2) Read online

  “Nice of you to mosey on by,” he said, taking my bags and handing them off to a steward standing at the rear of the plane.

  I didn’t reply to that. I knew Baltimore and knew that his caustic comments were just how he was. He lived and breathed SIFTR—a company man, through and through. I didn’t share his enthusiasm for the agency—or any government agency. I’d recently discovered retirement was not in the cards for me; at least, not until I figured out how to do it and keep on breathing.

  “And good morning to you too, sunshine,” I said.

  He ignored me and gestured for me to head up the steps. I did as told as he followed behind me. I was greeted by Darci, the thirty-something flight attendant, also a SIFTR agent. With a quick peek into her thoughts, I discovered this was her last scheduled round-trip flight. She was getting married and leaving the agency. Obviously, not all SIFTR agents were required to honor the same in-for-a-lifetime requirement that I seemed to be held to.

  The cabin smelled of leather and newness. Thick tan carpeting, muted lighting cast from recesses above, plus a perfect complement of burl walnut accents strategically placed. No less than twelve camel-colored wide leather swivel seats were positioned down the expansive cabin. Midway back sat a handsome, gray-haired man in an impeccably tailored dark navy suit. He casually raised a hand and I headed for the opposite seat, directly in front of him. Baltimore moved past me and sat next to the window.

  “Good morning, Rob.”

  “Mr. Calloway,” I said. “Replaced the old G550?”

  “No … it’s still a SIFTR asset.”

  I leaned back into the plush seat and waited for the man in charge of the SIFTR agency to say something. He didn’t look happy. In fact, he looked terrible. I peered into his mind, and suddenly found it hard to breathe. Pippa’s been taken!

  Chapter 3

  I did my best to keep my face neutral. Calloway nodded toward Baltimore and I was handed a folder. Inside were a dozen color eight by tens. My heart stopped when I viewed a panel truck with white letters reading D.C. Water and Sewer Authority painted on its side panel. But that wasn’t what caught my eye. It was a long black item being hefted either into, or out of, the back of the truck. I’d seen many of them in my lifetime. I knew what a body bag looked like. I glanced up to meet Calloway’s stare.

  “Just keep going.”

  But I remained focused on the film’s image. The surroundings looked familiar. Where have I seen that building before? “D.C.?” I asked.

  Again, Calloway nodded at me. What I was looking at, directly behind the truck, was a brown, nondescript, box-shaped building. It was obviously old … perhaps historical.

  “The Lockkeeper’s House,” I said. I knew the building and didn’t need confirmation from Calloway or Baltimore. I must have passed the two-centuries-old structure hundreds of times. Located between the White House and the National Mall—maybe even considered part of the mall—it was easy to walk past without a second glance. I brought the photo closer to my eyes. The small building was two storied, with one door and four windows. The roofline showed two chimneys, placed at opposite ends of the structure. The front door was partially opened. A date and time stamp were placed in the lower right corner of the photo: 3:31 AM.

  I moved to the second image, which was nearly identical to the first. The only discernible difference was the positioning of the two uniformed men with the body bag. They were now moving across the street, each holding on to an end of the bag. The time stamp read 3:32 AM. So they were moving the body bag out of the truck. I riffled through the remaining photos; each one showed the progress of the two men, until they were finally shown entering into the Lockkeeper’s House. The last photo showed the two men absent from view and the door closed.

  I looked up at Calloway, then over to Baltimore. “Are you telling me Pippa is inside that bag? That she’s dead?”

  Neither man spoke for several long beats. Calloway eventually said, “Yes, we’re fairly certain it is Pippa, but not so sure that she’s dead. Why go to the trouble of transporting her this way? There’s far easier, safer, means to dispose of a body.”

  Baltimore retrieved the folder, opened it, and scanning through the photos pulled number five out and handed it across to me. “This one shows the best view of the body bag. And, thanks to the nearby street light, you can catch the most detail.” He tapped at the photo and handed it over to me.

  Again, I brought it closer to my eyes. I shrugged, not seeing what he was referring to. Then I saw it: In the middle of the bag, low and long, was a smooth protrusion; a lump that looked to be cylindrical-shaped. “An oxygen tank?”

  Both Calloway and Baltimore nodded.

  “But why take her there? To an old abandoned historical building?”

  “Do you know the history behind the structure?” Calloway asked.

  I was finding it hard to keep my composure. This was Pippa’s life or demise we were dealing with. “I don’t know … I presume it has something to do with keeping the keys to various locks around Washington.”

  “No … not that kind of lock. In the early 1800s much of that area of D.C. was under water. Canals cut across, all the way to the Potomac. Various locks were set up, to raise and lower small boats. The Lockkeeper’s House was constructed for the Lockkeeper to collect tolls and keep records of the comings and goings of small boats. Eventually … sometime after the Civil War, as railroads became the primary mode of transporting things, the canals were filled in and the Lockkeeper’s House was given over to the United States government. It became a small police station for a while, then a public bathroom; now it’s a depot for city park groundskeepers.”

  I felt the big jet moving along the tarmac. Outside the window, I saw we were already moving along at a fast clip. “Interesting … what does all this have to do with Pippa?”

  Calloway said, “You already knew, firsthand, that there are high-speed trains running beneath D.C. The president has use of his own train, as do several other important government officials. We believe there is a second subterranean means of transportation. One that utilizes underground hydro-powered passages, leftover from the canal’s era.”

  “Should be easy enough to check. Why don’t you just look? Open the door to the little lock house and see.”

  “We did that,” Baltimore barked back.

  I waited for him to continue.

  “There’s nothing there. No trap door … no secret access. It’s a fucking garden shack.”

  “Obviously, there’s more to the property than is evident. Bulldoze the thing!” I said.

  “It’s not that easy. Our agent was discovered entering the house. Caught by security cameras, he is currently sitting in a cell, courtesy of Homeland Security. There are few things more important to them than protecting our country’s national treasures, namely the National Mall, and checking out potential dangers to the public. Until cleared, he’s being held as a possible terrorist threat.”

  I looked at Calloway, mystified. “Hell, you’re a BFF with the President of the United States … you ride together on that secret little train of his. Can’t you persuade him to pull some political strings?” I asked.

  Both Calloway and Baltimore exchanged looks.

  “That’s where things get a little murky,” Calloway answered.

  “Those two men carrying the body bag, at least one, we suspect, is CIA. That’s probably an agency surveillance truck, as well,” Baltimore said. “We can’t go anywhere near that building. And we can’t go to the president, either. Not yet, anyway.”

  “So what are we doing? Heading to D.C.?” I asked, looking out the window.

  “You’ll be our man on the ground at the mall. We have two other teams working this from other angles,” Calloway said.

  “On the ground. What does that entail?”

  * * *

  The thick, mid-summer eastern-seaboard humidity made the eighty-five-degree air feel more like one hundred and ten. And whoever’d worn these faded old ove
ralls previously had a serious problem—they reeked to high heaven. Aside from the hot sticky air, and the continual wafting-up of stink every time I moved … the fact I wasn’t able to actively look for Pippa caused my foul mood to ratchet up every minute that passed.

  Gustavo handed me a shovel, then picked up one for himself from the bed of the electric garden cart. Together we hoofed it over a grassy rise to the east side of the Jefferson Memorial. I was about as far away from the Lockkeeper’s House as humanly possible without leaving the mall. Two Asian girls, probably college kids, were taking a selfie, with the white, domed-shaped memorial in the near-distance strategically positioned behind them. Gustavo and I walked by them and I heard one of the girls make a choking sound. A waft of my own odor rose up and entered my nostrils. I didn’t need to read their minds to know what they were thinking. I glared at Gustavo’s back; he’d purposely given these particular overalls to me—picked them out special. After twenty-five years on the job, he didn’t like being told with whom he’d be working. Today was day three and so far I hadn’t the opportunity to be in the Lockkeeper’s House on my own, but I did notice it was under heavy surveillance—by cameras and plain-clothed security people, or agents.

  Apparently, SIFTR had done an adequate job in providing the necessary cover credentials. I was Garry Mangus from Akron, Ohio, here on a special job-share program for the mentally challenged. Seems the U.S. government will bend over backward for the disabled; there are all kinds of opportunities for those suffering from such misfortune. Commendable, to be sure, but right now, I didn’t give a shit about the unfortunate, underprivileged, or the mentally handicapped, and I contemplated hitting Gustavo in the back of the head with the business end of my shovel.

  “Dig here, Mangus … hurry it up, man,” Gustavo said, making an exaggerated, two-handed digging gesture just in case I didn’t know what dig here meant.

  I nodded and, keeping with my cover identity, pleasantly started to dig. The ground was soggy—saturated with water.

  “Somewhere around here there’s a broken sprinkler pipe … maybe a foot and a half down,” he said. He too was digging and together we piled the dirt and grass onto a growing mound off to the side. I looked into his mind for any indication he’d been involved with Pippa’s abduction. Baltimore had earlier mentioned that Gustavo might have been approached—bought off. But they just weren’t sure. The Lockkeeper’s House was Gustavo’s domain. Anyone would be hard-pressed to gain access into that place without him having direct knowledge of it. Certainly, the man seemed worried about something. Now, watching him in my peripheral vision, I saw the rhythmic tensing as his jaw muscles repeatedly clenched. He was inwardly arguing with someone, replaying the same conversation in his mind over and over again. It was dark so I couldn’t fully make out just to whom he was mentally talking. Someone in a suit and tie; someone Gustavo feared.

  “Just do what you’re told, or your big momma’s lack of residency papers will land her on a bus back to Mexico.”

  “She’s a Spaniard … we’re from Madrid.”

  “Then onto a boat or a fucking plane. She’s out of here and maybe your wife, too. You’ll do what we want … tonight, Gustavo. End of discussion.”

  I wasn’t able to decipher what, exactly, the man in the suit wanted from Gustavo. Whatever it was had made him nervous. It was unethical—against his principles. I was about to leave his mind when an image of someplace dark came into view. It was a dungeon, of sorts … perhaps in an old castle. I’d seen places like that before: cold, damp, and dreary. My mind flashed back to the Goertz’s Baden-Baden castle. And then I saw her … a glimpse of Pippa’s face. Someone had partially unzipped the top section of the body bag. Gustavo was looking down at her … he had never seen a dead body before.

  Chapter 4

  Pippa opened her eyes to total blackness. For a moment she wondered if she had gone blind. She felt the cold wet surface beneath her back and tried to comprehend where she was. What’s happened to me?

  Slowly, the memories of her abduction returned. She’d just left Chandler’s house—had pulled off the road and was about to do a U-turn. They’d fought and she’d been overly sensitive. There came a tapping on her car window. A lost-looking man, staring at her through the glass, was holding a map in one raised hand. He wore overly short shorts and a florescent green fanny pack. Who even wears fanny packs these days? He couldn’t have looked any more innocuous. And his very ordinariness should have tipped her off. She should have had the presence of mind to question even the slightest ordinariness. She was trained to do just that. Perhaps she’d let her relationship with Chandler dull her senses—endanger herself and others.

  The needle poked into her neck’s carotid artery before she had time to swipe his hand away. Since when had she so lost her edge?

  * * *

  She heard water dripping from multiple locations—sounds echoed into the blackness. Pippa forced herself to relax, allowing her heart rate to slowly settle into a normal sinus rhythm. More sounds. She heard voices in the distance—too far away to make out what they were saying. They were getting closer.

  Pippa sat up, realizing her hands were bound. She wanted to rub her sore wrists, but the snug-fitting, quick-tie binding wouldn’t allow her to do so. She stood and reached out with both hands in the darkness. Nothing. She took several tentative steps forward, until she felt something hard and cold … and wet … and slimy. She’d reached a wall. She used it to guide her way sideways and kept going until she came to a corner, and another right-angled wall. She followed along it until she felt a strong breeze touch her cheeks and the smell of rank water. Somewhere in front of her was an open sewer line. The voices were now loud enough for her to discern that there were two men arguing. Both had accents, unmistakably German.

  Pippa saw light—the back and forth swaying of white flashlight beams. As the men approached, her immediate surroundings became illuminated. She was indeed within the subterranean confines of a sewer system. Three massive sewer pipes, easily ten to twelve feet high, converged here. She was standing on a raised platform, walled in on three sides, with a half-height wall facing out toward the three-piped junction fifteen feet below. This was some kind of water station. She could now see, up three concrete steps, where a series of massive pipes transected into valves; each was topped with a big red-painted shut-off wheel.

  The two men came to a halt and stood on a concrete catwalk, five feet above where she now stood. Pippa shielded her eyes from their bright flashlight beams with her hands.

  “Who the hell are you?” she asked.

  Only one of the men answered her. “Friends, Ms. Rosette. You will not be harmed … if you come without resistance.”

  “What do you want with me?”

  One of the men began descending on iron rungs. Pippa hadn’t noticed the built-in ladder was even there before. He stepped down and approached her. He was blond and big. He could be a model on the cover of GQ—just the right amount of beard scruff—and a stylish haircut she guessed wasn’t a Saturday morning Super Cuts special. His masculine-scented body spray reached her before he did. It was a pleasant scent, and she found herself breathing it in. Dressed in a business suit and tieless, the top two buttons of his fitted dress shirt were undone, revealing a muscular hairless chest. This man put in some serious gym time.

  “You can call me Mr. Taffy.”

  “Like the candy?”

  He didn’t answer.

  She watched him appraise her, his eyes first taking in her face and then wandering up and down the entirety of her body. But she didn’t get any hunger vibes from the scrutiny—nothing sexual. Mister metro-sexual had a job to do and she was being appraised, not unlike a rancher assessing the sale of a Jersey cow at a county fair. After pulling a knife out from somewhere, he cut the quick-tie binding on her wrists. Gratefully, Pippa rubbed at the raw skin there.

  Taffy gestured with his flashlight toward the ladder. “Mr. Loren has a gun pointed at you. Please climb the rung
s.”

  Pippa moved in the direction of the ladder, suddenly self-conscious of the wetness of her backside. She was wearing off-white skinny jeans and she wondered what lying in the sewer had … she cut her own thoughts short. Who gives a shit what my pants look like?

  The truth was she had never met a more perfect-looking man in her life, as if he were created in a laboratory. Weird. She climbed the rungs and waited next to Loren. In the dim light, he looked to be in his early forties, dark and brooding—almost gangster-like.

  “What do you want with me?” she asked, as Taffy finished his climb up.

  “Shut your mouth or I’ll put a sock in it,” Mr. Loren said.

  While Taffy exuded all the emotion of an ant, Loren fumed with pent-up rage. She could see it in his eyes—a powder keg ready to blow at the smallest provocation. Taffy assumed the lead, then Pippa, with angry Loren following in the rear. She felt his eyes on her backside.

  They walked along the concrete catwalk for what seemed ten minutes before they came to a nondescript metal door—a door without a handle. Taffy stood still, his body perfectly erect at the door, and looked up. Then she saw it too, a small black box … a camera. She heard a buzz and the door unlatched. Taffy pulled the door open and walked through. Pippa felt a not-so-gentle shove at the small of her back and took the cue to follow. They entered into some kind of transportation terminal—like a subway station—but there weren’t any trains or subways here. The station was immaculately clean. Her eyes took in the polished concrete floors and intricately tiled walls and recognized lots of money had been spent here. Like the earlier concrete sewer pipes, they now approached another kind of pipe: just as big, but totally clear. No, not perfectly clear—it was filled with water. In a blur, a giant pill—like a huge white Tylenol—whisked by.