And a half-dozen packages of relay cameras.
Striker drew his pistol and gave Felicia a hard look.
‘The Adder,’ Felicia gasped.
‘Keep your gun ready and cover me,’ Striker said. ‘I’m going down.’
Seventy-Six
Striker aimed his SIG Sauer and scanned the area below as he prepared to descend. There was no movement down there, just a still, murky dimness. The room appeared medium in size. Maybe twenty feet by thirty. Lots of grey concrete. A bed that was messed up. A dresser next to it with a small widescreen TV and a Blu-ray player. And a cabinet, holding a computer.
It all seemed rather ordinary.
Striker stepped on the first rung of the ladder and looked below. It was a surprising drop. Over fifteen feet down to hard concrete. He kept his gun pointed below, ready for anything unexpected, as he made his way down.
From above, Felicia covered him.
When Striker’s feet touched bottom, he turned around and stared at the room before him. From this vantage point he could see that the bed was actually an old futon, and the space beneath it was empty, save for a pair of old runners.
The room smelled strongly of disinfectant. Something like bleach. And as Striker made his way around the perimeter, he found the source of the smell. Sitting in the far corner, tucked behind one of the boxes of latex gloves, was an old can of varnish.
Steinman’s.
The sight made him tighten his grip on the gun.
‘What you got down there?’ Felicia called.
‘It’s a friggin’ lair,’ he called back. ‘The Adder’s. No doubt about it.’
‘I’m coming down.’
Thoughts of getting trapped back at Sarah Rose’s place flashed through Striker’s mind. ‘No!’ he called. ‘Stay up there. We need you up there covering our backs.’
‘Patrol’s with me.’
Striker looked up and spotted a blue uniform behind her. ‘Okay, fine. But get someone to guard the top there. I don’t need us getting trapped in another burning building.’
Felicia got the patrol unit to cover them, then came down the ladder and joined Striker. The moment she looked around, her claustrophobia kicked in. Striker knew it; he’d seen it in her a million times.
‘You can wait upstairs,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to be down here.’
‘Just get looking.’
He did. He started with the shoes under the bed. The label inside said size ten and a half. Same as the suspect’s shoe imprints they’d found back at Mandy Gill’s place, in the secondary crime scene.
Striker turned the runners over and analysed the tread. Checkered. And the wear pattern on the right toe was far greater than on the left shoe, suggesting an awkward gait. Maybe from a previous knee or hip injury. Maybe something congenital. Regardless, the pattern of wear matched the sole imprints from the crime scene.
‘There’s no doubt,’ Striker said.
‘I’m getting the creeps,’ Felicia said.
‘Just keep your guard up. There could be traps.’
Felicia turned away and started carefully searching through the bedding on the futon; Striker left her there and approached the cabinet. On the desktop sat a new computer case, three external back-up drives, and a mouse with keyboard. Lining the top shelf was a row of DVDs and Blu-ray discs. All of them were brand-new, unused, still covered with cellophane wrap.
Striker moved the mouse, and the monitor turned from black to blue. Across the screen was the Windows password request. A hundred different possibilities ran through Striker’s head, but he opted to leave the computer untouched. One wrong attempt might be enough to lock them out or start a pre-programmed formatting application.
The Forensic guys could handle this one.
‘We need Ich here,’ Striker said. ‘To unlock the computer and back everything up.’ He pulled out his iPhone and tried to make the call, but from this deep in the bunker, surrounded by walls of concrete, he couldn’t get a signal. He headed back for the ladder, put his foot on the first rung, and stopped.
To his left was a picture on the wall. A lithograph of some kind. It was a famous work. Striker couldn’t recall the artist, but he knew the title.
Relativity.
It was a picture of people walking up and down different flights of stairs that defied all laws of gravity. Twisted, abnormal, unnerving.
Fitting for this place.
The print was huge, blown up, easily four feet by four feet. In a room that offered nothing else – no family photos, no posters, no knick-knacks of any kind – it seemed odd and out of place. But it was not just the picture that stole Striker’s attention, it was the frame. The frame hung slightly out of kilter, the left side higher than the right.
Striker stepped towards it, pulled out his flashlight, shone it all around the wall. On the concrete, there were faint scuff marks, ones that matched the gold-black paint of the frame.
He reached out and took hold of the painting. With one heave, he lifted it from the wall and put it down on the ground. Behind it was a strange door, half the size of a regular one. Maybe two feet wide and three feet high.
After staring at it for a half-minute, Striker realized what it was.
An old dumbwaiter.
The perfect hiding spot or escape route.
He gestured urgently for Felicia to join him. She saw what he had found and drew her pistol. She aimed it at the door and waited for Striker to open it. When he did, then aimed his flashlight inside at the gaping darkness, all they found was an empty space.
Felicia deflated and holstered her SIG; Striker leaned down and shone his flashlight up into the hole. There was a passageway there, leading up. It was large enough for a man to stand in.
Striker angled the beam towards the upper floors and saw that the dumbwaiter went all the way to the top. Right to Dr Ostermann’s locked study.
Interesting.
‘Why have a built-in dumbwaiter all the way down here?’ Felicia said, half to herself.
‘They probably used this room as an old food or wine cellar way back when,’ Striker replied. ‘God knows it’s cool enough down here.’
He studied the dumbwaiter.
On the left side, on the inside of the post, was a pulley system. Striker grabbed the rope and slowly lowered the dumbwaiter down to his level. On the tray was a video camera, a model he had never seen before, one with an LED screen. Instead of a disc or tape, the camera had a built-in hard drive. The camera also had a built-in motion sensor. So when Striker moved the camera, it began recording again.
He found the settings and turned off the motion sensor.
Felicia came up beside him. ‘What’s on it?’ she asked.
‘We’re about to find out.’
Striker hit Play and the video began. On the screen were Dr Ostermann and Lexa, but dressed like Striker had never seen them. Dr Ostermann was naked, except for the leather collar and chain that hung around his neck; Lexa was tightly wrapped in a red leather corset, her breasts pushed up and outwards, almost falling out of the cups. Below, she wore a pair of red silk panties and stockings to match.
She tied Dr Ostermann down, face first, on the table, shackling his hands and feet to each post. Then, when he was all splayed out, she began caressing his body with a long strap of black leather.
Ostermann groaned in delight with every teasing lash. But within minutes, the lashings grew more strenuous. Fierce, even. The tail-end of the strap left huge raw red marks on the doctor’s back and neck and buttocks and legs.
‘Red,’ he cried out. ‘Red, Lexa. RED! ’
But she acted as if she never heard their safety word and continued lashing the man. The expression on her face was one that Striker had not seen on her before – smug, controlled, dark.
The feed went on for another four minutes. Until Ostermann stopped moaning and groaning, and just lay there whimpering on the table like a tenderized piece of meat.