He wondered briefly who was inside Graham’s jet, but it could be anyone for a million different reasons. When the Range Rover slowed down and got off the Thruway at the exit for the express to downtown Buffalo, Jake nodded to himself. But before reaching the center of the city, Graham got off the expressway and headed through a run-down industrial area toward the river. Empty weed-ridden lots and crumbling brick buildings surrounded a towering yellow brick cereal factory still belching smoke. The rich smell of yeast and baking wheat filled Jake’s nostrils as he followed Graham over a steel trestle that lay like a sleeping giant across the river’s span. Grain bins ten stories high lined the river’s bank as the road turned to follow its course down a finger of land that split the river.
Chain-link fences surrounded the different warehouses and abandoned mills, and Graham turned his Range Rover into the parking lot of one. Jake drove past the entrance and just caught sight of Graham pulling his SUV right into the big open bay of an abandoned mill before disappearing into its dark bowels. Half a block down, an old ball-bearing factory had a broken parking lot nearly a quarter full with rusty pickup trucks and late model cars. Several cars had been parked along the street and Jake found a spot among them, scanning the area before he got out and walked quickly back toward the warehouse.
As the open bay of the hulking concrete building came into view through the fence, Jake searched for signs of life, seeing none. Down where the road took a turn in front of the cereal factory, a dusty cement mixer pulled out and rumbled away. Past the warehouse, late afternoon sunlight glittered on the broken mud-brown surface of the river. A deep strumming sound of heavy diesel preceded a vast tanker that surged into view like a skyscraper laid on its side, pushing a four-foot wake from its bow as it surged upriver.
When Jake reached the open gates, he took one final look and sprinted across the open ground without stopping until he reached the shadow of the warehouse and felt the crumbling face of its wall. Outside the bay, he paused to listen before peeking around the corner.
The cool smell of rot and spilled oil seeped from the opening. Through the vast empty space, a second open bay allowed a square of light to illuminate the Range Rover resting beside a black Suburban. At the sound of another vehicle approaching from the direction of the cereal factory, Jake ducked into the shadows of the warehouse. He heard the vehicle turn in at the gate and he backed deeper into the gloom. Just outside the bay door, the vehicle came to a stop. Someone got out and a door slammed shut before a silver Mercedes G55 SUV rolled into the warehouse and headed for the far door.
Jake heard the distinct metallic click of a Zippo lighter and smelled cigarette smoke as it drifted from the man outside the door into the warehouse and toward the river. The taillights of the Mercedes glowed as it came to rest next to the other vehicles by the far bay door. The front doors of the Mercedes swung open and two thick-chested men popped out, one of them hurrying to the hatch and removing a wheelchair while the other opened the back passenger-side door and began to help a bent old man into the waiting chair.
His eyes now adjusted to the dark, Jake made his way carefully through the maze of metal drums, deserted machinery, and empty wooden pallets, stepping silently across the damp, gritty floor. Soon a faded picnic table came into view in front of the vehicles. Robert Graham sat across from a muscular man in a suit. Standing over them in the shadows was an enormous fat man in a short-sleeved silk shirt with his tattooed arms folded and resting atop the shelf of his gut. The old man in the wheelchair had been placed at the end of the table, and Jake saw now that he wore a cranberry cardigan sweater and his eyes stayed hidden behind the kind of monstrous black glasses reserved for the blind. Behind him stood one of the big men from the Mercedes while the other paced slowly in the open bay, scanning both the bank and the river beyond.
Jake could tell the men around the table were talking, but he couldn’t hear a thing. He studied the sedan and the truck, memorizing their license plates, then, keeping to the deepest shadows and crouching low, he began to work in a roundabout way toward the open bay and into earshot. His heart thumped a fast steady beat and he tried unsuccessfully to quiet his ragged breathing. When the men’s voices rose, Jake doubled his pace, thinking that if he took much longer anything of interest would already be said.
When he peeked up to get his bearings, his hand found what he thought was the metal rim of an oil drum, but when his foot slipped and he instinctively gripped it for balance the hubcap he held flipped through the air and clanged into the side of another metal drum before clattering to the concrete floor.
“What the fuck!” one of the men shouted.
Footsteps slapped across the concrete, heading right for him. Jake scrambled off his backside and felt blindly for the obstacles in front of him as he dove even deeper into the maze of junk.
19
JAKE MADE IT TO the back wall of the cavernous space and raced along its edge like a rat, praying and feeling for a way out, sweat breaking out under his arms and on his brow. One of the men retrieved a flashlight from a vehicle and their shouts were now accompanied by the sweeping probe of light. When his hands found a doorframe, he cast himself through it just as the beam flashed past. Metal stairs went only down and he took them, placing his feet as carefully as he could and with no idea how far down the stairs would go and seeing absolutely nothing now.
Even the lightest step of his feet sent a faint echo through the stairwell. Cool dank air filtered up at him and a petroleum odor laced the rancid smell of standing sewage water. When his feet stumbled on the last step, he splashed forward, groping for a handhold, finding a broken wall, and keeping himself from falling face-first into the filth. A faint circle of light cast a gloomy pall through the factory basement. Pipes the size of storm drains lay in ruin and scattered about like a child’s toys. Jake sloshed toward the source of light and reached the three-foot opening just as he heard the voices above enter the stairwell.
Feet clanged on the metal stairs and the flashlight’s beams created a panic of shadows. Jake scurried into the piping without hesitation, relieved by the strong smell of the river. The slight decline and decades of oily slime made it hard for Jake to keep upright even on his hands and knees. He was halfway to the light when he heard and felt the monstrous pulse of a freighter out on the river. The damp air pounded into Jake’s ears. He slipped and slid and crawled, frantic to get out. With just five feet to go an explosion of foam blasted him in the face. Water filled his mouth and nose and the force of the surge pumped him backward and halfway up the pipe.
Jake choked and banged his head on the top of the pipe, catching the smallest gasp of air before being sucked back out toward the river. He turned over and grasped with his hands for anything to hold, catching nothing, plummeting down, slamming his head on a rock, everything turning dark, then nothing.