He had to turn sideways to get through the fissure. Once inside, he switched off the flashlight and stowed it in his belt. He took out his locator. He paused to enter the coordinates of the entry point so that he could find his way back and kicked up his senses.
The faint heat of footprints glowed on the floor. Same prints as those he had found in the house. He started walking.
The tunnel sled was parked a few steps away. He had gotten lucky. The sleds looked like golf carts, and they were slow, because they used the simplest of amber-based engines. At top speed they could move only about as fast as the average person could run, but they were the only option for those who wanted to travel long distances or haul a heavy load in the Underworld.
Gabriel smiled. One of the most useful aspects of a sled was the built-in locator. It automatically recorded the coordinates of each trip.
He stepped up into the small vehicle, sat down on the bench seat, and rezzed the screen that locked in the coordinates. Most of the trips, including the last one, had been to the same destination. The location wasn’t far away.
He punched in the coordinates and powered up the sled. The little engine hummed to life. The vehicle glided forward down the corridor.
Fifteen minutes later, after a series of twists and turns, it came to a halt at another jagged crack in the Wall. He drove the little vehicle into a nearby chamber to conceal it, got out, and went back to the hole-in-the-wall. There was a short tunnel through dirt and rock. At the far end, a mag-steel door guarded the route to the surface.
He moved through the tunnel, preparing to go to work with the lock pick. A strong vibe of energy from the vicinity of his jacket made him realize Pitney’s tracking stone was hot. He took it out. The amber was glowing a fierce, deep blue. Pitney had not described exactly how the tracker worked, but presumably the intensity of the energy indicated that it was close to more than one signal stone. That, in turn, indicated a high probability that at least a few of the kidnappers were on the other side of the door, most likely on the surface.
He put the tracker back into his jacket, took out the lock pick, and opened the door. Predictably, he found himself in yet another unlit basement. No one rushed at him with a mag-rez or a flamer, so he left the steel door ajar and took out his flashlight.
There was a spiral staircase at the far end of the basement. When he got to the door at the top, he looked through the window and saw the faded gaming floor of an abandoned casino. Card tables and overturned slot machines had been pushed against the walls to make room for a couple of long workbenches. Three people in white coats, gloves, and protective goggles were working at one of the benches.
A clunky machine that appeared to be a cross between a fire extinguisher and a leaf blower sat in the middle of the table. Next to it was a steel rack. Three glass canisters stood upright in the rack. The contents shimmered and gleamed a ghostly shade of gray. In addition to the machine, there were a number of high-tech lab instruments and assorted power tools on the bench.
Four men dressed in khaki and leather lounged near the door at the far end of the room. They wore a lot of amber and they all had flamers and meg-rez guns, but the weapons were holstered. There was no mistaking security personnel—in this case bored security personnel.
Gabriel pulled the camera out of his jacket, took several shots through the window, and went back down the staircase. He let himself out through the steel door, rezzed the lock behind him, and moved through the fissure and into the glowing tunnel. He fired up the sled and set the coordinates to return to the hole-in-the-wall beneath Tuck’s house.
He knew an off-the-books lab when he saw one. The Guild was forever taking down such operations in the Underworld. The tunnels and the Rainforest were ideal places to set up illegal businesses, but the location had one very big drawback—high-tech equipment didn’t work down below. The fact that the lab he had just seen was filled with exotic instrumentation explained why it was on the surface.
The old casino didn’t look like a standard drug lab. More like a weapons factory.
He considered his options. The four ex-Guild men were involved in whatever was going on in the lab. He had the authority to take them into custody and request that the police hold them for questioning. But at this point it would be next to impossible to prove they had kidnapped Lucy. He needed more information before he could act.
He brought the sled to a halt near Tuck’s hole-in-the-wall and stepped down onto the quartz floor. He took out his flamer and his own locator. No sense courting trouble by exiting the tunnels through Tuck’s house. Soon there would be a confrontation with the mercenary, but there was one more thing to do before that happened. It was time to take care of the public relations aspect of the case.