Chapter 9 - THE CAGE
The temperature dropped fast enough for Evelyn to see her breath within seconds.
Daniel moved to the rear of his cage and pulled a wool blanket from beneath the chair.
"You have maybe six minutes before the locks freeze solid."
Rafe crouched beside the wire on the floor.
"And if we trip this?"
"Both doors seal permanently and the room fills with suppressant."
"What kind?"
"The kind you do not breathe twice."
Evelyn stared at the steel bars.
"You said the cage can be cut."
Daniel pointed toward the ceiling.
"Maintenance rail."
An old meat hook track ran above the cages.
One section had a motor housing beside it.
Lorenzo looked at Rafe.
"Can you power it?"
"If Celeste did not kill the circuit."
Rafe climbed onto the table.
His fingers were already stiff from the cold.
Evelyn stood at the bars.
She wanted to reach through and touch her father.
She also wanted to hit him.
Fourteen years of grief did not become forgiveness because a dead man turned out to be alive.
Daniel seemed to understand.
"You can hate me after we get out."
"I have been practicing."
He smiled faintly.
"You always were efficient."
The familiarity of the line hurt.
Lorenzo noticed Evelyn looking away.
He said nothing.
Rafe opened the motor housing.
"Power is live."
"Good," Daniel said.
"The track used to move sides of beef."
"There is a manual release above cage three."
Rafe followed the rail.
"I see it."
Lorenzo looked at the bars.
"What does the release do?"
"Drops the maintenance hook."
Daniel pointed to a welded seam near the top corner.
"Hook it there."
"Motor has enough torque to tear the frame."
"Maybe."
"Maybe?" Evelyn snapped.
"You had fourteen years to improve this plan."
Daniel's eyes filled with regret.
"I did not plan for you to be here."
"Everybody keeps saying that while building things only I can open."
The speaker crackled.
Celeste's voice returned.
"Still arguing with Daddy?"
Evelyn looked at the camera.
"You sound jealous."
Silence.
Lorenzo's eyes flicked toward her.
Evelyn continued.
"You spent months watching me because my father was alive."
"You staged a massacre because Lorenzo might follow me."
"You dragged your own mother into a twenty-year conspiracy."
"And somehow I am still the person in the room you need."
Celeste's answer was colder.
"You are a key."
"Keys are replaceable."
"Then replace me."
Evelyn stepped closer to the camera.
"Open the door and prove it."
Celeste laughed.
But the laugh came late.
Evelyn had touched something.
Daniel mouthed one word.
Good.
Rafe lowered the maintenance hook.
Lorenzo guided it through the top of Daniel's cage.
"Left."
"More."
"Stop."
The hook caught the welded seam.
Rafe activated the motor.
The track groaned.
Steel screamed against steel.
The cage frame bent half an inch.
Then the motor stopped.
"Again," Lorenzo said.
"It is overloaded."
"Again."
Rafe reset the breaker.
The second pull tore one upper corner free.
Daniel grabbed the bars and pulled downward.
Lorenzo joined him from the other side.
Evelyn put both hands around a bar.
Cold metal burned her palms.
"On three," Daniel said.
"One."
"Two."
They pulled.
The cage tore open enough for Daniel to squeeze through.
His shoe caught the trip wire.
Evelyn saw it move.
"Stop!"
Daniel froze with one leg outside.
The wire trembled beneath his heel.
Rafe's face went white.
"Do not lift your foot."
Daniel looked down.
"I know."
Lorenzo crouched.
"Can we anchor it?"
Rafe pulled a clamp from his tool pouch.
"Maybe."
"I hate that word," Evelyn said.
"Everyone does tonight."
Rafe slid the clamp over the wire on both sides of Daniel's shoe.
He tightened until the tension held.
"Now lift slowly."
Daniel moved his foot.
The wire stayed.
He stepped free.
Evelyn grabbed him before she decided whether she wanted to.
Her arms wrapped around his coat.
For one second, she was twelve again.
Then anger returned.
She stepped back.
"Do not mistake that for forgiveness."
Daniel nodded.
"I would not dare."
The temperature display flashed minus ten Fahrenheit.
Lorenzo went to the east door.
"Now how do we get out?"
Daniel looked at the old control panel beside the cage.
"There is a thermal emergency release."
Rafe laughed once.
"The room is already a thermal emergency."
"It was designed for workers trapped during refrigeration failures."
Daniel entered a code.
Nothing happened.
He tried again.
"Changed."
Celeste's voice came through the speaker.
"Of course I changed it."
The overhead lights returned in red.
A monitor flickered on behind the cage.
Celeste appeared on screen.
She was no longer wearing the emerald dress.
She wore black trousers and a cream coat.
Dante stood behind her.
"You have three minutes," she said.
Lorenzo raised his gun toward the screen.
"Where are you?"
"Close enough."
"Coward."
Celeste smiled.
"That word from you is almost romantic."
Evelyn studied the background behind Celeste.
Concrete wall.
Yellow line.
A metal sign reflected in a window.
Only part of the word showed.
...ILING BAY 4.
She looked at the blueprint in her memory.
The central warehouse had four loading bays.
Celeste was upstairs.
"Rafe."
He looked at her.
She pointed at the monitor and silently held up four fingers.
Rafe nodded.
Lorenzo kept Celeste talking.
"You wanted me dead."
"No."
"Not at first."
Celeste leaned toward the camera.
"I wanted you obedient."
"There is a difference."
"You could have had the city."
"I already had enough of it."
"That was always your weakness."
Her eyes shifted toward Evelyn.
"You mistake restraint for morality."
Lorenzo's expression did not change.
"And you mistake hunger for intelligence."
Celeste's smile vanished.
While they talked, Rafe removed the panel beside the emergency release.
Daniel whispered.
"Blue relay."
Rafe bridged two contacts.
The door unlocked with a heavy clack.
Celeste heard it through the microphone.
Her face changed.
"Dante."
The screen went black.
Lorenzo opened the door.
"Move."
They entered the corridor.
Cold had slowed their hands and legs.
Evelyn's fingers felt numb.
Rafe led them toward a stairwell.
Gunfire erupted from above.
Concrete chipped beside him.
They dropped behind a refrigeration unit.
Daniel pointed toward a side passage.
"Old conveyor tunnel."
They ran bent low.
At the next junction, two armed men appeared.
Lorenzo fired first.
One man fell.
The other retreated.
Evelyn hated how quickly she was learning the sound of gunfire in enclosed spaces.
They reached a ladder beneath Bay Four.
Voices echoed through the ceiling grate.
Dante.
"Car is ready."
Celeste replied.
"What about Daniel?"
"If he gets out, we take him."
"And Evelyn?"
A pause.
"Alive."
Lorenzo's jaw tightened.
"Why alive?" Evelyn whispered.
Daniel answered.
"Because Marian will only surface for you."
Evelyn looked at him.
"You know that?"
"I suspected."
Lorenzo's eyes hardened.
"You have done enough suspecting without telling anyone."
Above them, a car door slammed.
Rafe climbed the ladder and pushed the grate aside.
They emerged behind a stack of pallets.
Celeste's SUV was fifty feet away.
Dante stood near the rear door.
Celeste was already inside.
Lorenzo raised his weapon.
Daniel grabbed his arm.
"Do not kill Dante."
Lorenzo turned on him.
"He betrayed me."
"He knows where Marian is."
Dante spotted them.
"Go!"
The SUV accelerated.
Dante fired toward Lorenzo.
Rafe returned fire.
A bullet struck Dante's leg.
He went down.
The SUV crashed through a rolling door and disappeared into the night.
Lorenzo reached Dante first.
He kicked the gun away.
Dante laughed through clenched teeth.
"Still alive."
"Disappointed?"
"Mostly impressed."
Lorenzo pressed a boot near the wound.
"Where is Marian Vale?"
Dante's smile widened.
"Closer than you think."
Daniel crouched beside him.
"Who controls Janus now?"
Dante looked at him.
"You still think Salvatore does."
"Does he?"
"Salvatore is old."
"Victor Vane is dying."
"The city moved on while you were hiding."
Evelyn stepped closer.
"Celeste."
Dante looked at her with something almost like pity.
"You really do not understand."
"Celeste did not inherit Janus."
"She was raised by it."
Lorenzo grabbed his coat.
"Where is my uncle?"
Dante's eyes shifted to Daniel.
"Ask him."
Daniel went still.
Evelyn saw the answer before anyone spoke.
"You know."
Daniel looked at her.
"I knew where Salvatore was six months ago."
"Where?"
"Federal medical center."
Rafe frowned.
"He has been in custody?"
"Protective detention under another name."
Dante laughed.
"Not anymore."
A siren sounded outside.
Then another.
Police vehicles surrounded the warehouse.
Dante's smile disappeared.
"She called them."
Evelyn looked at Lorenzo.
"Celeste wants you found here."
Rafe looked around the blood-streaked loading bay.
"With bodies."
Daniel added quietly.
"And a man the police think has been dead for fourteen years."
Lorenzo stared toward the approaching lights.
"She is rewriting the story again."
Evelyn looked at Dante.
"Then we need a better one."
She pulled Celeste's old phone from her coat.
The device still held the video from the Obsidian coordination messages.
"Can this go live?"
Rafe understood immediately.
"To where?"
"Everywhere."
Lorenzo looked at her.
"That exposes you."
"I am already on every screen in Chicago."
Evelyn unlocked the phone.
May you like
"For once, I would like to choose what they see."
