Page 34

Chapter 34

The office was full when I walked in. Sidnee was there, looking clear-eyed and determined, and Gunnar was there looking grim. April appeared tired but determined; she had a huge can of energy drink on her desk, so clearly, she intended to power through another shift.

Sigrid was there, too, dressed in a homespun skirt and her ever-practical boots but with a new addition of tough, flinty eyes. It looked like she was stepping into the breach with us, too. ‘At least go and have a sleep in the back,’ she said to April. ‘I’ll man the phones until you wake up.’

‘Go,’ Gunnar ordered. ‘There’s a bunk in the back for that purpose.’

‘I won’t need much sleep,’ April promised. ‘Shifters can go without when we need to.’ She yawned widely then shuffled off.

Sigrid made us all drinks and we clutched them as we perched on plastic chairs in a circle. No one wanted to break the companionable silence because we all knew what was coming next would be grim. This was more than murder: this had been a deliberate mass killing. The thought shook me. So far the MIB group had clung to the shadows, tried to abduct us and subdue us with drugs, but now it seemed the gloves were off.

Gunnar broke the silence. ‘It’s not like I can contact the government and ask for the MIB’s assistance. This splinter group is MIB, and they may even be acting with government approval – though Thomas and my other MIB contact assure me that won’t be the case. Even so, I can’t risk contacting the wrong person. If we’re going to take these fuckers down, we don’t want government witnesses.’

‘Hoorah,’ Sidnee said, but without any of her usual levity.

‘I’m certain this group is hidden and unsanctioned, but they’d still find a way to block any order the governor gives.’ He tugged on his beard.

‘What about I go out and look around Chrome Bay?’ Sidnee asked.

‘Absolutely not!’ Sigrid snapped, before blushing lightly and glancing apologetically at her husband. Clearly her presence had been allowed at the office on the basis that she didn’t countermand his orders .

Gunnar shot her an amused look that had a distinct ‘told you so’ edge to it; nevertheless, he agreed with her. ‘No, Sidnee, I’m not sending you out there alone. They’d kill you or capture you. I’d feel better sending Calliope – if she’d go.’ He frowned ‘Then again, she’s volatile and she isn’t law enforcement.’

He leaned back and the loud squeak of the chair sounded ominous. Abruptly, he brought his fist down on the table. ‘Damn it! We aren’t sitting here like proverbial ducks. We’re not ducks!’

‘Yeah!’ Sidnee said enthusiastically. ‘We’re like birds of prey! Bald eagles!’

Gunnar swiped a self-conscious hand over his head. ‘Speak for yourself,’ he muttered. ‘I have a full head of hair.’

‘Golden eagles?’ I suggested helpfully.

‘Do we have to be birds?’ Sigrid asked. ‘I’m not much of an ornithologist.’

Gunnar huffed. ‘The point is, we’re not ducks.’

‘I quite like ducks,’ I murmured, making Sidnee giggle. Once she started, she couldn’t stop and the helpless laughter released the tension we were all carrying. Even Gunnar guffawed.

As we finally calmed down, his expression turned grim. ‘It’s time to be proactive, but I won’t pretend it won’t be dangerous. I propose we go to that hatch in the ground that you found then we go down the rabbit hole to see what we can find. I won’t order you to come with me.’

Sidnee folded her arms and glared. ‘Try and stop me.’

‘Ditto,’ I agreed.

Gunnar smiled. ‘I’m so proud of you both, you know that, right?’

Sigrid sniffed a little. ‘We both are.’

‘Group hug?’ I suggested.

Sigrid pushed me and snickered. ‘Nothing says professional officers of the law like a group hug before we go hunting.’

I grinned. ‘I bet the MIB hug it out all the time.’

Gunnar sighed. ‘Can we focus? I’m calling a council meeting.’

My eyebrows shot up. ‘Shouldn’t we explore first?’

He answered by standing up. ‘Yes, it’ll take the councillors a while to gather. We’ll call it, go explore then report back. But first we’re going to the gun safe and loading up.’

Sidnee and I smiled at each other. She held out her hand for a fist bump, and of course I couldn’t leave her hanging. Gunnar ignored our antics. ‘Vest up, ladies. The shit is going to hit the fan in the worst possible way.’ He was such an optimist .

We pulled on vests and loaded the SUV with shotguns and rifles. We all had service pistols, and Gunnar and Sidnee had matching magical bulletproof vests the same as mine. Even Fluffy was decked out in his.

Gunnar had called for an emergency council meeting at 3am, giving us a good six hours to check the situation below the hatch before we reported back; better to ask for forgiveness than permission just in case the councillors didn’t agree with our course of action.

Connor called me as we were getting in the SUV. ‘I’m coming too,’ he said, without preamble.

I looked at Gunnar. ‘Connor wants to come.’ He nodded tersely. ‘We’re on our way now,’ I confirmed.

‘Do you have your vest?’ Connor asked.

‘We’ve all got them.’

‘I’m going to call Thomas.’

‘You don’t want to wait for the council meeting?’

‘Fuck the council. We only have three Nomo officers – we can’t afford to lose one. Thomas and I will be backup.’

‘Do you have a vest?’ I demanded.

‘I don’t need one.’ He’d been shot in Sitka but, unlike me, he hadn’t nearly bled out; he’d drunk from someone and healed instantly. When I’d been shot, I’d nearly died and it had taken a lot of blood for me to heal .

‘Connor…’ I started. Even though he was more bullet safe than me, it had nearly killed me to see him get shot.

He gave a short laugh. ‘Don’t worry, I have a vest.’

I let out a relieved breath. ‘Good.’ We hung up. ‘Connor’s bringing Thomas.’

Gunnar gave a grunt of acknowledgement, but Sidnee looked worried. ‘I wish Thomas didn’t risk himself so much. He’s only human,’ she muttered mostly to herself.

I met her eyes. ‘He is also incredibly deadly and totally capable,’ I pointed out.

She nodded, but I could see she was still worrying for him. I suspected I looked the same at the thought of Connor joining us.

Sigrid stayed at the office to man the fort while April slept, and the rest of us set off. We were quiet on the journey to the mine. We drove past the wreckage and debris, dodging wood and twisted steel in the road and chunks of rock and pavement. The worst damage wasn’t so visible from the road.

Finally we drove around the mine and the car park to the road that twisted up to the tailings pile.

The tractor was still on the roadside, but the huge truck was gone. I had a very bad feeling about that. Had the MIB left the vicinity? Brought in more people? Had mining personnel come and taken it? If so, who?

The miners had far greater concerns; it had been hard watching the dwarves scour the rubble, not for survivors but for parts of their loved ones, desperately trying to reconstruct the bodies of the lost so that they could move on to the afterlife. Whoever had done this was cold and callous beyond belief. And I couldn’t quite shake the idea that someone within the mine had been in on it.

Gunnar parked partially off the road in front of the tractor to keep the approach passable. ‘I’ll take the cameras.’ I volunteered. The feed from them that was supposed to stream to our phones hadn’t done so; we were either too far out, had bad coverage or the cameras had been destroyed. They were still hidden in position so I hurriedly grabbed them; perhaps they hadn’t been found or the men were still inside the hole.

I brought them to the back of the SUV so we could watch the footage while Gunnar and Sidnee armed up. Both cameras showed the same thing: several more men going down the hatch and one armed man driving the truck towards the tailings’ pile.

‘We’ve no idea how many there are down there.’ I muttered. We’d seen the original five go down, then the seven on the camera, but we had no idea how many had gone down before we’d set the cameras. The MIB could have a whole underground network .

‘Did you check for their cameras?’ Gunnar asked suddenly.

I blinked. ‘Umm, I looked around, but no not really.’

Sidnee looked up. ‘Has anyone checked for drones?’

Gunnar looked at her sharply. ‘Why? What have you seen?’

‘Nothing, but it’s night time and sophisticated drones have night vision, infrared, thermal, ENVG-B and probably stuff they don’t announce.’

I looked at her with an open mouth. ‘Umm, have you been holding out on us?’

She smiled. ‘It interested me at the academy so I looked into it in my free time. Some of that stuff is wild!’

‘What’s ENVG-B?’ Gunnar asked.

‘Enhanced Night Vision Goggle-Binocular. It can see everything at any time – it uses thermal imaging too to give an outline of what’s around you. It’s not as good as daylight visibility but as close as you can get.’ She shrugged. ‘It seemed sensible to look into what technologies they might want to use against us.’

‘Smart,’ I said admiringly. ‘We haven’t had any calls about rogue drones yet, so maybe they’re just using boots on the ground or they’re trying to keep their presence unnoticed.’ Too bad for them that the local fisherman had seen them.

Just then Connor’s truck pulled in behind the SUV and he and Thomas climbed out. We filled them in on the camera footage whilst they got themselves suited and booted for war.

When everyone was ready, we approached the hatch. The sewer-type lid didn’t have a handle and, unlike most sewer lids, it didn’t have a hole for a key. ‘How do we get in?’ I frowned as I looked at the useless tyre iron in my hand. ‘I guess it opens from the inside, so they must be watching it – or they’ve set up a communication system so whoever is inside can open the door.’

Connor looked at it and smiled. ‘Hand me that crowbar.’

I didn’t see anywhere to get the tool under the lid to apply force, but he looked determined as he stared at the cast-iron lid. ‘Iron is strong, tough and can hold a lot of weight – but it can be pierced with a high tensile rod and great force.’

He lifted the crowbar over his head with the sharp wedge-shaped end facing downward then, muscles bunching in his arms and back, he drove it down into the lid. There was a loud, screeching bang as the crowbar sank into the metal. Connor bent it downward so he could use it to hook the lid and pull it up.

Only it didn’t come up: the screech of metal increased, but the hatch lid stayed put. He cursed. ‘It’s locked alright. This rod isn’t strong enough to break the mechanism.’

‘If anyone is close to the hatch, they heard all that,’ Thomas said grimly.

We all stared down at the hatch for a few moments, momentarily stumped.

‘I was kind of hoping they’d hear the noise, come and investigate and open it for us,’ Connor admitted.

We waited. No one came. I tapped my lip thoughtfully. ‘Their tunnel has to access the mine somehow. What if it comes out near the site of the first murder? There has to be a reason why they killed Helmud – maybe he saw one of them.’

‘Where are you going with this, Bunny?’ Gunnar asked.

‘If we can’t get in here, maybe we should check the other end.’

He looked in the direction of the mine. ‘Well, some dumbass blew up the mine so we can’t get in there.’

I smiled. ‘You’re forgetting one thing.’

‘What?’

‘The hag.’