"SWAT is en route to Miller's house," Jenkins reported, holding onto the passenger grab handle as we took a corner at sixty miles an hour. "They're two minutes out. But Marcus, headquarters is a fortress right now. Miller's Code Zero lockdown is in full effect. Every exterior door is magnetically sealed. Uniformed patrol officers are surrounding the perimeter. They have orders not to let anyone in or out."
"Daniels knew that," I grunted, swerving to avoid a late-night delivery truck. "He wanted the perimeter locked down. It keeps the cartel out, and it keeps the rest of the police force from walking in on him. He turned our own headquarters into a panic room, and he's the only one inside with the keys."
We skidded to a halt two blocks away from the precinct, parking in a darkened alley behind a row of closed pawn shops. The rain was coming down in sheets now, masking our approach as we sprinted through the shadows toward the rear of the massive, brutalist concrete structure of police headquarters.
True to the Code Zero order, the building was ringed by flashing blue lights. Uniformed officers stood in the freezing rain at the main entrance and the garage ramps, clutching patrol rifles.
"We can't just walk up to them," Jenkins whispered, pressing her back against a brick wall. "If we tell them Miller is compromised and Daniels is the mastermind, it'll take twenty minutes to verify our badges and clear the chain of command. Daniels will be gone."
"We don't walk up to them," I said, pulling out a slim black keycard. "We go under them."
Before I transferred to Internal Affairs, I worked three years in the subterranean evidence archiving division. I knew every rat-infested tunnel and forgotten maintenance shaft beneath this building. I led Jenkins down a rusted fire escape ladder into a flooded concrete trench that housed the building's massive steam pipes.
The heat was suffocating, a stark contrast to the freezing rain above. We navigated the narrow, dark tunnel, our boots splashing softly in the contaminated water, until we reached a heavy, unmarked steel access door.
"This leads to the sub-basement boiler room," I whispered. "It bypasses the magnetic perimeter seals."
I swiped the keycard. The reader flashed red. Access Denied. Code Zero Lockdown.
"Damn it," I hissed.
Jenkins pushed me aside. "Let me." She pulled a small, ruggedized decryption tablet from her tactical vest, jacked a wire into the exposed port beneath the card reader, and typed furiously. "Miller authorized the lockdown, which means his administrative credentials are the root command. I recorded his digital signature when we were at S.O.I.L."
A tense, agonizing ten seconds passed. The tablet screen flashed green. The heavy steel door clicked open with a heavy mechanical thud.
We slipped into the sub-basement, drawing our weapons. The building was eerily, terrifyingly silent. A precinct that usually buzzed with the chaotic energy of a thousand officers was completely dead. The lockdown had forced all non-essential personnel into secure holding areas, leaving the main corridors empty.
We hit the stairwell and climbed four flights in total silence, our breathing tight and controlled. We bypassed the main bullpen and headed straight for the Internal Affairs floor.
When we reached Observation Room B, the door was wide open.
I stepped inside, my weapon raised. The interrogation room on the other side of the glass was empty.
Lying in the center of the metal table were the heavy steel handcuffs I had placed on Daniels hours ago. They were still perfectly locked. Next to them, resting on the cold steel, was a tiny, jagged piece of white ceramic, no bigger than a fingernail.
"He was chewing the inside of his cheek," I said, the memory flashing vividly in my mind. "I thought it was a nervous tic. He wasn't nervous. He had a ceramic handcuff key concealed in his mouth. Non-metallic. It bypassed the metal detectors when we booked him."
"He didn't just escape," Jenkins said, pointing to the corner of the room. The grey paper jumpsuit lay in a heap on the floor. "He changed clothes. Where did he go?"
"The evidence vault," I said, the final, devastating piece of the puzzle falling into place. "The real two hundred kilos of fentanyl wasn't at S.O.I.L. It was here. It was always here. The DEA transferred it to our central evidence vault three days ago pending the incinerator run. Daniels didn't need to steal a truck. He just needed to walk down the hall."
We sprinted out of IA and headed for the central elevators, taking the stairs down to the secure evidence floor. The massive, bank-vault-style door at the end of the corridor was hanging wide open. The digital keypad had been melted into a slag of plastic and wire by a thermite charge.
Daniels hadn't needed a key for this door. He just needed the building to be empty so nobody would hear the blast.
We approached the vault door, slicing the pie, clearing the angles. I peered inside.
The vault was massive, lined with thousands of wire mesh cages containing millions of dollars in seized cash, weapons, and narcotics. At the very back of the room, standing under a flickering fluorescent light, was Officer Thomas Daniels.
He was wearing a dark tactical uniform, completely devoid of police insignia. He was methodically loading heavy, taped bricks of pure fentanyl into three massive, reinforced duffel bags. Next to him was an open ventilation grate that led directly to the underground subway tunnels beneath the city.
"Daniels!" I shouted, stepping into the vault, my laser sight painting a bright red dot squarely on the center of his chest. "Step away from the bags. Hands in the air!"
Daniels froze. He didn't drop the brick of fentanyl in his hand. Instead, he slowly turned around. The arrogant, dead-eyed smirk was back, plastered across his face.
"Detective Vance," Daniels said, his voice echoing off the concrete walls. "I have to admit, I'm genuinely impressed. I thought for sure you and Miller would be babysitting a truck full of drywall dust until the sun came up."