Cross the Line (Alex Cross #24)(20)

There was an industrial-strength vertical zipper in the sheeting and two small square windows through which light was blazing. I stepped up, looked through one of the windows, and felt my stomach fall twenty stories.

“Alex?” Bree said from behind me. “What is that?”

“An air lock,” I said, twisting away from the window.

She must have caught the shock on my face, said, “What?”

“Call in two more forensics teams,” I replied, hearing the tremor in my voice. “Better yet, call the FBI, Ned Mahoney. Tell him we need a team of the best from Quantico. And have them bring chemists and hazmat suits.”





CHAPTER


20


BY THE TIME my old friend and partner Ned Mahoney and two FBI chemists arrived, there were news satellite trucks setting up and news helicopters circling overhead.

I was on the phone with Chief Michaels, having just given him an overview of what we’d seen inside.

“Jesus,” he said. “The FBI will take this over, won’t they?”

“Not yet,” I said. “Which brings me to your question from last night.”

“Okay?”

“I’m honored, but my place is in the field, and right now it’s inside this factory.”

“Goddamn it, Cross, I need someone managing my detectives.”

“Chief, they’re bringing me my hazmat suit. I’ll call when we’re out and know the full extent of things.”

I hung up before he could challenge me. I went to the FBI van, where Mahoney, his chemists, and Sampson were climbing into protective suits.

“How many did you see?” Mahoney asked.

“At least five more bodies,” I said.

“Wait until the cable shows get hold of this,” Sampson said.

“They already have,” said Bree, coming up behind us and eyeing the hazmat suits. “Someone needs to talk to them.”

“Once we know what to tell them,” I said. “You coming?”

She made a sour face and shook her head. “I’d get claustrophobic in one of those things. And we don’t even know what’s in there yet.”

“Which is why we have to go look,” I said, and I kissed her.

I donned the hooded visor. The temperature outside was pushing ninety, and inside the suit, it had to be well over one hundred degrees as we started back into the factory. Sampson let the chemists go through the air lock first. I heard one of them inhale sharply.

“Be careful in here,” he said. “No sudden moves.”

“Believe me, there won’t be,” I said, and I ducked through the flaps of the air lock into a room set up as a sophisticated laboratory.

The FBI chemists were already studying the mind-boggling array of equipment and the various chemical processes that had been under way at the time of the massacre. Sampson and I went to the five dead people in the room, two women and three men, sprawled by various workbenches.

They wore hospital scrubs, lab goggles, booties, and surgical hats and masks. Every one of them was shot either through the head or square in the chest.

I scanned the floor all around, said, “I haven’t seen a cartridge casing yet.”

“No,” Sampson said. “They policed their brass, swept their way out.”

“Professional gunmen,” I said.

Mahoney and the chemists came over.

“What do you think?” I asked.

Pitts, one of the chemists, said, “It’s no Walter White setup, but this has the makings of a serious drug lab. Meth and ecstasy.”

“Any danger of this place exploding?” I asked.

“Lots of potential danger,” Pitts said. “But now that we know what we’ve got, we’ll start shutting down the reactions. Then we’ll do an inventory and take the samples we need. We’ll call for a full team to dismantle the entire lab and store it for trial.”

Trial. I couldn’t begin to think how long it was going to take to investigate this case, much less bring the killers to court. Sampson and I headed toward a second air lock at the other end of the laboratory.

We went through it, and in the next twenty minutes we found the rest of the illegal drug factory as well as twelve more bodies. Five females, seven males of various races and ages. Twenty-two dead in all.

Three of the females were found in a packaging room with long stainless-steel tables, large mortars and pestles, digital scales, hundreds of boxes of zip-lock bags, and four vacuum-sealing machines. Six kilos of raw meth were piled on the table. Sampson figured there was at least twice that amount already wrapped, sealed, and boxed for delivery.

“If this were a case of assassins hired by rival drug lords, you’d figure they would have taken the drugs with them,” Sampson said.

“Maybe they were after money,” I said. “An operation this size has to be generating millions in cash.”

In the last room we found the cash. On a pallet, there were banded fifty-dollar bills, similar to the ones we’d seen at Edita Kravic’s place, stacked three feet high and wrapped in cellophane. Next to that were two guys in their mid-to late thirties wearing suits and ties. Both had been shot between the eyes.

“Has to be at least a million dollars right there, and they leave it,” Sampson said. “I don’t get it.”