The TV came to life.

On the screen was a man imprisoned in a cage. He was facing away from the camera, curled up on his side. His back and legs were bleeding and he was quivering.

‘Please,’ he whimpered. ‘Please.’

But his voice was weak, lost.

Barely a whisper.

Behind him, half in the shadows, was a figure. Dressed in a long dark cloak. The face was hidden, but in the person’s hand was a long, thin rod. Sharp steel. The end of it glistened with wetness.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Felicia said. ‘What a sick fuck.’

Striker took another look at the DVDs in the cabinet. One of the discs had no title but it displayed today’s date on the label. Thoughts of Mandy and Sarah filtered through his mind and were replaced by the image of Larisa.

It left him sick inside.

He stuck the disc in the player, but the machine couldn’t read it. Swearing, he took the disc out, cleaned it off, and tried again. But the machine displayed the same message:

Unreadable format.

‘Shit.’

‘You need a computer,’ Felicia said. ‘There was one in Ostermann’s main office.’

Striker didn’t hesitate. He took the disc with him down the two flights of stairs. When they reached the main-floor foyer, Striker could hear the sound of police sirens in the faraway distance, their sad wails slicing through the night. The sound felt good to his ears, and he continued down the hall.

They made their way into Dr Ostermann’s office. As Felicia booted up the computer, Striker took note of the throw carpet on the floor. It was a small rug, less than four feet wide and eight feet long, and it sat unevenly in the room, covering more of the right side than the left.

Why would the doctor leave it that way?

Curious, he walked across the room and stepped on it. As he did, he felt a little give in the centre. Some springiness. He stepped back, grabbed hold of the corner of the rug, and pulled it across the room.

Beneath it was a hatch in the floor.

‘Look at this,’ he said to Felicia.

She stopped fidgeting with the computer and came up beside him. ‘Wine cellar?’ she asked.

‘We’re about to find out.’

Striker slid his fingers through the iron handle and pulled; the hatch lifted with a metallic groan and Striker let it fall to the floor on the other side. He stared down the ladder, into what looked more like a concrete bunker than an old wine cellar.

The lighting down there was dim and appeared to be fluorescent. Weak, but it did the job. As Striker stared into it, something caught his eye. Stacked on the floor, near the bottom of the ladder, were some pertinent items.

A battery pack for a cordless drill.

A box of latex gloves.

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.