The Empty Room

The room was empty.

Not merely vacant. Not abandoned.

Empty. As still as the Empty Tomb.

Detective Tristan Lyons stood motionless in the doorway, one boot resting on a twisted piece of steel that had once been part of the lock. Behind him, the remains of the double steel doors hung crookedly from their hinges after the Emergency Service Unit's hydraulic ram had persuaded them to surrender.

The echo of the breach still lingered.

Silence answered it.

Detective Lance Shields slowly lowered his Glock. No use for it now. Or the vests they were wearing for that matter, apparently. There wasn't going to be any OK Corral-style shootout. He still kept it out, just in case. You never know.

"...You've got to be kidding me."

"Nope."

No desks.

No crates.

No computers.

No drugs.

No weapons.

No people.

Only blackened concrete walls and the faint smell of burned paper and melted plastic. And acid. The strongest whiff of acid they'd ever smelled.

Someone had been here.

Someone had left.

Someone had made absolutely certain they left nothing behind.

Tristan walked forward, every footstep sounding louder than it should.

The floor bore faint rectangular outlines where heavy equipment had once stood. Dustless patches interrupted the otherwise grimy concrete.

"They packed everything."

Lance crouched beside a pile of gray ash.

"No."

He rubbed it between two gloved fingers.

"They burned everything."

Four hours earlier...

The confidential informant had been terrified.

Red Hook.

Warehouse 18.

Second floor.

Lithuanian crew.

Tonight.

"They're moving product," the informant whispered. "Big shipment. Maybe their bosses too."

"How many?"

"I didn't count."

"You didn't count?!?"

"Heck no!"

"Armed?"

The informant laughed nervously.

"They're Lithuanians. 'Course they're armed!"

That answered everything. To the teeth.

For six months, the Lithuanian organization had been haunting Major Crimes.

Nobody knew who actually led them.

Nobody had successfully infiltrated them.

Witnesses disappeared.

Evidence disappeared.

Money disappeared.

Once, an entire shipping container vanished from police custody.

The District Attorney wanted indictments.

One Police Plaza wanted arrests.

The newspapers wanted headlines.

The Mayor wanted results.

Instead...

Detectives Tristan Lyons and Lance Shields had accumulated enough dead ends to pave Brooklyn. Maybe even all Five Boroughs, plus New Jersey.

Until tonight.

By 9:30 p.m., the warehouse was surrounded.

ESU covered every exit.

Harbor Patrol watched the water.

A helicopter circled overhead.

Uniformed officers sealed off neighboring streets.

Nobody was getting out.

At least...

That was the plan.

The first floor was deserted.

Old forklifts.

Rotting pallets.

Dust.

Second floor.

Nothing.

Third floor.

Nothing.

Then an ESU officer pointed.

"Thermal."

A warm spot.

Behind reinforced steel doors.

Finally.

Lance grinned.

"There you are."

The ram struck.

Once.

Twice.

The steel screamed.

A third impact shattered the locking mechanism.

The doors flew inward.

Weapons raised.

"POLICE!"

No answer.

No movement. Not a gangster was stirring. Not even a mouse.

Only...

The empty room.

Tristan walked its perimeter slowly.

Every instinct told him something wasn't right.

Rooms didn't become this clean by accident.

There wasn't even trash.

Someone had swept.

Someone had mopped.

Someone had scrubbed.

Even the burn pile had been carefully contained in a steel drum.

Professional.

Methodical.

Calculated.

Lance found electrical conduit protruding from one wall.

"They had servers."

Tristan nodded.

"And networking."

Another officer spoke.

"Boss..."

He held up a melted hard drive.

Or what had once been one.

Only warped aluminum remained.

Every circuit board had liquefied.

Every memory chip destroyed.

"Industrial furnace temperatures," Lance muttered.

"We’ve been made. They wanted us finding this."

The captain arrived twenty minutes later.

His expression said everything before he opened his mouth.

"Tell me we got something."

Nobody answered.

He looked around.

His shoulders sagged.

"...Hell."

By midnight the phones began ringing.

First came the lieutenant.

Then the deputy chief.

Then someone from One Police Plaza.

Then...

The District Attorney's Office.

Assistant District Attorney Melissa Grant didn't bother saying hello.

"Please tell me you have probable cause for twenty-seven overtime officers and an ESU deployment."

Tristan pinched the bridge of his nose.

"We have a burned room."

Silence.

"...Excuse me?"

"A burned room."

"No suspects?"

"No."

"No evidence?"

"No."

"No narcotics?"

"No."

"Weapons?"

"No."

Another pause.

"I've got the elected District Attorney asking why we're still spending money on this investigation!"

"So do I."

"Find something! Or all our heads are going to be served on silver plates!"

The line went dead.

By two in the morning, Crime Scene Unit had collected exactly three boxes.

Ash.

Concrete scrapings.

One partially melted coffee mug.

Lance stared at the evidence log.

"Three hundred officers."

"Mm-hmm."

"Six months."

"Mm-hmm."

"This is what we get?"

He held up the coffee mug.

"'World's Best Uncle.'"

Tristan actually laughed.

Not because it was funny.

Because it wasn't.

The forensic technician interrupted.

"Detective."

"What?"

"You should see this."

They walked back into the room.

She pointed toward the center of the floor.

At first...

Nothing.

Then Tristan noticed it.

A faint square.

Almost invisible.

Different shade of concrete.

He knelt.

Ran a gloved hand across it.

Smooth.

Too smooth.

"A patch."

The technician nodded.

"Fresh."

Lance looked around.

"Covering what?"

Nobody answered.

Within twenty minutes, a jackhammer arrived.

Concrete exploded into chunks.

Dust filled the room.

One foot down.

Nothing.

Two feet.

Nothing.

Three feet.

The operator stopped.

"Hollow."

Everyone froze.

The last section broke away.

A steel hatch appeared beneath the concrete.

Lance looked at Tristan.

"They didn't run."

Tristan nodded slowly.

"They disappeared."

The hatch swung open with surprising ease.

Cold air rushed upward.

A tunnel.

Fresh footprints.

Still damp.

Leading toward darkness.

Tristan looked at Lance.

"The fish didn't swim away."

Lance chambered a round.

"They slipped through the net."

Without another word, the two detectives descended into the tunnel, their flashlight beams cutting through the darkness. Somewhere ahead, the architects of six months of frustration had escaped by only minutes.

"I'm going to be breaking hands and kneecaps when we haul in our catch."

The empty room had not been the end of the trail.

It had been the beginning.