In For the Kill (McClouds & Friends #11)(121)

When she could breathe again, she got back onto the road and followed signs to the Autostrada. She stopped at a rest area coffee bar, grimly determined to act like a grown-up and take care of her wretched self. No one was around to nag at her to eat breakfast, thanks to her own brilliant maneuvering, and today was not a day to fast. Who knew how much walking and climbing she might have to do? Some coffee, a yogurt, and a pastry later, she bought some gas and pressed on.

Like her departure from Villa Rosalba, driving to the coordinates on Mama’s photo was easy at first, just a matter of following signs. But once beyond the unbeautiful, shabby little town of Pozzo di San Ignazio, road signs no longer coincided with the maps. She got turned around several times until she realized she was better off ignoring signs and just following the satellite picture. Then the road butted up to a concrete barrier. She parked the car and continued on foot.

After a forty-minute walk up the deserted, winding dirt road, she came upon a tall chain-link fence that was chained shut. Large signs warned her that it was proprietà privata, and attenti ai cani. Dogs, no less. Whoop-de-do. Dogs, wild boars, fire-breathing dragons, bring them on. She draped her purse crosswise over her shoulder and climbed the chain-link fence. The kicks were the right shoes for the task, having enough flex in the toes to hook into the links, but they weren’t great for the climb that followed—miles of steep switchbacks, as the sun got higher and hotter. She stuck to the rough, rutted road, which had been abandoned to the weather and was washed out in some places into a slippery cascade of dirt and shale. There were huge tumbled boulders, steep drop-offs. Scrambling over it was slippery and exhausting.

The road descended into a canyon, its walls rearing up on both sides to block the sun. The heat beat down anyway. A fox disappeared into the bushes. Lizards darted, the occasional snake wiggled across the road.

The buildings came into view a few minutes after she began looking for them. She wasn’t sure she was in the right place, it looked so different. The chain-link fence in the photo was now rusted out and knocked down. The building, some featureless prefab construction, had been new in Mama’s photo, but now it was battered, discolored. The shutters had been ripped off, the windows broken. Graffiti was scrawled on the fa?ade, satanic symbols predominating. Some rooms had fire damage, with blackened streaks around the window frames.

Her footsteps slowed as she approached the door. It was repellent, but the force that had pushed her thus far was like a gun to her back. She’d paid for this with her own heart. She would take what she had paid for.

She was grateful for the flashlight, once inside. The light that filtered through the filthy windows was barely enough to see.

The place stank. When her eyes adjusted, she saw why. It was unspeakably foul. Someone had built a fire in the middle of the room, and the bones of various small, half-burned animals were inside it. Human waste dotted the floor, as well as corpses of other animals, drug paraphernalia, used condoms. It looked like a meth den. Not surprising, if this was in fact the abandoned lab. Even afterward, an evil place attracted more negativity, more despair. She steeled herself to look through it. The front area, then a series of what must have been laboratories, looted and fouled. Broken glass crunched under her feet.

In the back were large rooms made of cinder blocks and concrete. They were windowless, with drains built into the floors for easy hosing down, and industrial bathrooms attached, with metal toilets and sinks all streaked with dried, ancient filth. The remnants of big, heavy locks were evident on even heavier door frames. What appeared to be a vidcam mount could be seen high in the corners of each room.

A holding pen, for the test subjects. That was what this room was. She knew this room. She’d lived in several like it herself, for months.

She longed for Sam’s bracing presence. His caustic observations would put all this into perspective. He would keep this sick, creeping dread and sadness from making her feel hollowed out.

But she did not have Sam. This was her cross to bear, not his. It was smart of him, not to get sucked into her vortex. Look at the shape he was in after just a few days with her. Almost dead.

She forced herself to go on, but the rest of the place was innocuous. Storage spaces, a filthy, looted kitchen. She walked out a doorway that was wide open to the elements, the door having been taken off its hinges and carried away. There wasn’t much outside, just more dirty, weatherbeaten ugliness. Rock, scattered garbage. The ground sloped down, first gradually, then sharply, into a gully. It had been used as a garbage dump. There was a snarl of rotten plastic bags, plastic bottles, cardboard boxes. Narrow mattresses, rusty bed frames. Too many bed frames. They’d gotten sloppy. So sure that their tracks were covered, or that no one cared enough to notice their evil deeds.

She crawled down to look more closely. Garbage was garbage, and this pile was more depressing than most, but she picked her way down and clambered out onto the pile. It was steep. She risked tumbling and sliding all the way down the hill, in a cascade of weatherbeaten trash.

That phrase in Mama’s last letter echoed in her mind. You’ll find your strongest weapon buried in all this garbage. She’d been so annoyed with that. Mama should have known better than to have inflicted an empty, facile New Age truism on her, after what she’d been through.

Then again, she’d taken an anthropology class, years ago in college, and heard a lecture about how much could be learned about a culture from studying its garbage. Garbage talked, the professor said. Nothing else in this goddamned mess was talking.