The Spider Thief (12 page)

Mauricio lifted his head. His face shone with sweat, and his eyes went big when he saw Ash. He stretched back to look out through the doorway, then he whispered, “They’re waiting for you by the front door.”

“I know. I came in the back.” Ash got his fingernails under the edges of the tape and peeled it up. It made a long scritching sound as it came off the table.

“You don’t have a knife?” Mauricio asked.

“Left it at home with my compass and my merit badges.” Ash ripped at the tape, then paused to sniff the air. “Why do I smell fried chicken?”

“Don’t ask.” Mauricio got to his feet the moment his legs were free. He tried to peel the long strips of duct tape off of his arms, but they just got more tangled. He ended up with two dull silver masses bunched up around his forearms.

Ash put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him before he got his arms stuck together. “Come on.” He jerked his thumb toward the door. “Let’s get out of here.”

They left the room together, searching the shadows for any sign of movement. Ash led the way, retracing his steps as fast as he could without making too much noise. Up ahead, he spotted the door he’d entered through. He pointed it out to Mauricio.

It swung open and a string of black-clothed figures streamed in, wearing helmets, carrying automatic weapons. They vanished almost immediately as they took positions behind cover.

Ash stared, paralyzed, as the distant door swung shut, cutting off the light. Cutting off his only escape route.

Mauricio grabbed his arm and pulled him behind one of the giant machines. They waited there in the dusty darkness, staring wide-eyed at each other. Ash’s ears strained for any sound, but the furtive movements he heard seemed to echo all around him, left, right, and above.

He shook himself out of his fear and forced his feet to move. He ducked and led Mauricio beneath the bulk of an air duct, then squeezed between two thickly wrapped pipes. A puff of powdered insulation swirled down around them. Ash held his breath.

Mauricio leaned close. “Do you know where we’re going?”

Ash put a finger to his lips. “Don’t breathe,” he croaked. “Asbestos.”

“Oh, yeah,” Mauricio whispered back. “
That’s
our biggest problem right now.”

“Shh.” Moving clear of the asbestos, Ash crouched behind a rack of giant steel wheels. “You act like this is somehow my fault.”

“This whole
thing
is your fault.” Mauricio said more, but his words were lost in a sudden hammering of gunfire.

Edge

Bullets sparked off of the equipment rack in front of them. Ash hurled himself to the ground, then crawled on his hands and knees. As fast as he could, he headed for the relative safety of a steel cabinet that looked like a Dumpster set on end.

Breathing hard, he curled up behind the thick steel and pulled his feet in. But when he turned around to tell Mauricio to squeeze in beside him, Ash realized he was alone.

Mauricio was gone. Must have headed in the opposite direction, Ash realized, and cursed under his breath.

“FBI!” a voice shouted from a catwalk above.

“FBI!” a deeper voice shouted. “Put down your weapon!”

Footsteps clanged on the metal grating over his head. He caught a glimpse of Salvador flashing through a pool of muddy light as he ran, then more gunshots rang out.

Ash knew one thing for sure. He couldn’t stay here. He turned and crawled back the way he had come, looking for his brother.

*

Mauricio darted from shadow to shadow, jumping at every shout and burst of gunshots. The factory was an immense maze, with no clear exit. He had no idea which way Ash had gone.

“Sobrino!”

Mauricio froze.

Andres stood beside a control panel nearby, holding his silenced pistol at his side. He motioned Mauricio closer. “Come.”

Mauricio looked around. He had nowhere to run. Any direction he took, Andres would have a clear shot at him. Left with no choice, he approached the control panel.

Andres took him by the shoulder and steered him into the shadow beside him. “This FBI, they are very dangerous, yes? Stay close.”

“They’re after you.” Mauricio’s throat threatened to close up on him, but his burning anger kept him talking. “All I have to do is yell and they’ll find us.”

“Hmm.” Andres’s eyebrows furrowed. “Probably they will shoot you too, not ask questions.”

“You think so?”

“Without hesitation.” Andres pressed his silenced pistol into Mauricio’s hand. The grip was warm and subtly textured, but the weapon itself was surprisingly heavy and awkward. “For you. This will not give away your position. Bend your knees, squeeze when you shoot.”

Mauricio was speechless. He held the gun in his hands like a live animal that would bite if provoked.

Andres seemed to mistake his shock for concern. “Not to worry, Sobrino. The FBI will not kill me. La Araña has chosen for me a much greater destiny. To be with her. Forever.”

The way he said it so firmly, so utterly certain, for a moment Mauricio believed him. For that instant, Andres radiated such strength that Mauricio wondered if maybe he really was immortal. Chosen for a higher purpose.

Andres bent down and pulled a snub-nosed pistol from a hidden ankle holster. “Salvador will lead them away from us. You are ready?”

Mauricio swallowed and nodded.

“Come. Is time to go.” Andres spun on his heel and strode away through the factory.

Mauricio took a few steps after him and then stopped himself. That would be insane.

He turned and ran the opposite direction.

*

Ash sprinted through the darkness, from one machine to the next, pausing to look around for Mauricio. Overhead, a firefight raged across the catwalks as the FBI shot it out with Salvador and Lazaro. The darkness came alive with blurs of movement. Stray bullets sparked off the factory machines.

A few yards ahead, a body tumbled down off a catwalk and thudded to the floor, curling up in pain. He wore mottled gray fatigues, a black helmet, and a vest with
FBI
on his back in big letters. Overhead, Salvador leaned across the railing, aiming his assault weapon down to finish the guy off.

In a heartbeat, Ash grabbed the FBI agent by his vest straps and heaved, pulling him beneath the metal rollers of a conveyor belt. Salvador fired. Bullets chased them across the concrete, then ricocheted off the conveyor like metal hail.

The FBI agent peered up at Ash through his clear protective eyewear, and their gazes met for just a second. Ash nodded once, then patted him on the back and crawled out from beneath the belt.

He straightened up and ran for a cluster of pipes that rose high along the wall. Beyond that was a series of drum-shaped machines, and a glow that might have been an open door.

When he got to the pipes, he found Mauricio hiding behind them. “What are you doing?” Ash said, making him jump. “We’ve got to keep going. There’s probably a door back there.”

Mauricio caught his breath and shook his head. “I just came from that way. No door. But look.” He pointed up a nearby ladder, to a recessed rectangle high on the wall.

“Up there? Where does that go?”

Mauricio gestured with a silenced pistol. “Fire escape, maybe?”

“Jesus,” Ash whispered, transfixed by the gun. “Where did you get that?”

“Long story. You want it?” Mauricio held it out to him by the barrel.

“You keep it,” Ash said. “I don’t want to shoot anybody.”

“Me either.” With some effort, Mauricio tucked it into his belt. “You ready?”

Ash nodded. “I’ll go up first. You cover me.”

Mauricio watched him climb. “What does that even mean, ‘cover me’?”

“Just come on.” Ash climbed the ladder hand over hand, as fast as he could. If he was going to make himself a target, he wanted to move fast. The ladder ended in a platform ringed by a metal railing, a couple of yards away from the wall.

Oddly, a stained white door was set deep into the wall next to him, but nothing connected to it. It was just built into the blank expanse of the wall, as if someone had forgotten to put in a floor.

Mauricio climbed up the ladder and squeezed onto the platform beside Ash. “What, there isn’t like a bridge or something?”

Ash stepped up onto the lower rung of the metal railing and leaned out as far as he could. His hands stretched toward the door knob, but he couldn’t quite reach. “Grab my belt!”

“This is a truly bad idea,” Mauricio said, but he grabbed on.

Ash leaned all the way out, trusting Mauricio to keep him balanced. He didn’t dare look down. The copper-colored door knob was unexpectedly warm beneath his fingertips, its top half grimy with accumulated grit. He couldn’t quite get a grip on it. His fingers slipped off.

“Hold on tight!” Ash said, leaning out further. His boots slipped on the railing.

“Ash! Here they come!”

He looked over his shoulder. Fifty feet away, a pair of FBI agents climbed up onto another platform, silhouetted against a grid of windows. They headed toward him.

Grunting, Ash stretched his shaking fingers as far as they could go. He unlocked the door, twisted the knob and gave it a shove. Hot sunlight poured in. He breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Federal agents! Stay where you are!”

The shout was loud enough, and commanding enough, that Ash nearly froze to the spot. He forced himself to step down and grab Mauricio. “Go! Jump!”

Mauricio climbed up onto the railing and balanced there, one hand on the ladder that ran up beside him. For a moment, Ash was afraid he would stay there, frozen in fear. But then Mauricio leaped, arms outstretched. Ash’s heart seemed to stop for the endless moment it took Mauricio to crash through the door and fall into the blazing sunlight beyond.

“Hold it!” a voice shouted.

Ash followed Mauricio’s lead, stepping up onto the railing and jumping for all he was worth. He grazed the open door with his arm as he tumbled past it. Behind him, someone opened fire. Bullets whistled around him and punched through the wooden door. Splinters erupted into the air.

Ash scrambled up on his hands and knees on hot gravel beneath an open sky. Sunlight burned his eyes. Mauricio grabbed his arm and guided him away from the doorway. They scrambled to their feet and ran across the roof, between the aluminum globes of old ventilation fans, motionless blades shining white in the hot sun. The smelly tar roof beneath Ash’s boots crunched with loose gravel.

Mauricio cradled his gauze-wrapped arm. Trails of loose duct tape from his wrists flapped in the breeze. “Andres was right,” he panted.

Ash caught up to him, squinting against the glare. “Right about what?”

“They’ll shoot us, no questions asked.” Mauricio skidded to a stop at the edge of the gravel, where it turned into a downward slope of riveted sheet metal. It ended in empty air three stories above the blacktop.

“No fire escape,” Ash said, panting.

“Well, thank you for pointing out the obvious.”

“Hey.” Ash made a circle with his finger, encompassing their surroundings. “This was your idea.”

Mauricio set off along the edge of the gravel. “Never mind. We’ve got to find a way down.”

“Yeah. Before they find a way up.” The sound of distant gunfire echoed from somewhere inside the building. Ash listened hard, trying to place it.

With a scrape of gravel, Mauricio slipped.

Ash was too far away to catch him as he fell. Mauricio slid down the metal slope, yelling all the way, his hands and feet flailing. He vanished over the edge.

“Mauricio!” Ash started after him, but his boots lost traction the moment they touched the metal. Ash went down hard. He flipped over onto his stomach and grabbed the edge of a vent before he, too, slid down. The hot metal burned his palms as he pulled himself back up onto the gravel.

“Ash!” Mauricio’s panicked voice filtered up from below. “I’m snagged! Help!”

Ash ran along the edge of the roof, looking for a ladder, a cable, anything. The roof made a right-angle turn and then abruptly ended. There was nowhere for him to go, no way to climb down. The brick wall was a sheer drop-off below, pitted by the elements and streaked with bird droppings. He ran out onto an L-shaped part of the roof that stuck out at a right angle over the corner of the building.

Mauricio dangled at the edge of the roof, high above the alley between this building and the next. The strips of duct tape wrapped around his wrist had tangled into a thick knot and caught on a rivet, leaving him swinging in the air.

Ash fought down a rising tide of panic. There was nothing beneath Mauricio’s kicking feet except three stories of emptiness and then the debris-strewn black top.

Near Mauricio, a pair of thick pipes, wide enough to swallow a person, ran down the side of the building. Their tan paint had flaked off long ago, revealing an expanse of red rust. The pipes stretched all the way down past three stories of broken windows, then disappeared behind stacks of weathered wooden pallets.

Ash cupped his hands around his mouth. “Mauricio!” He pointed. “Grab on to the pipe!”

Mauricio strained to reach, his fingers clawing at the air. He was only a few feet away from the nearer pipe, but it wasn’t close enough. “I can’t reach!”

Ash swore. “Just hang on!”

“To
what?
”

Ash paced back and forth on the edge of the roof, racking his brain. There was nothing here for him to use. No ladders, no loose two-by-fours, not even a scrap of wire.

On the other side of Mauricio, one floor lower, the rectangular column of an air duct jutted out of the wall and ran down the side. Each section of air duct had an X-shaped impression, and bands of rust fringed the seams. The duct looked big enough to hold him, if he could just get to it.

Ash eyed the distance between Mauricio and the duct, trying to gauge it as best he could. He backed away from the edge.

The tape around Mauricio’s wrist started to fray. Ash’s blood ran cold as he watched it stretch thinner, strands snapping one after another, letting Mauricio sink inch by inch.