“Dean!” he shouted, his words echoing slightly down the halls. “Son, can you hear me?”
Dead silence. Ryan shook that word from his mind. Negative thoughts would only slow his reflexes. He had to concentrate on finding his son.
Still holding the SIG-Sauer, Ryan placed two fingers in his mouth and whistled once loudly. No response. With a growing sense of unease in the pit of his stomach, the man moved past the elevator and started down the open stairs, shining the flashlight everywhere. At the third story, he encountered an iron grating padlocked shut. Ryan hesitated for a moment, then leveled the 9 mm blaster and shot off the lock. The cough of the silenced weapon was lost in the crash of the exploding metal and seemed to endlessly bounce off the plaster walls, the noise somehow making the building seem even more empty than before.
Two more gates blocked his progress, and by the time he reached the ground floor, the rest of the companions were already waiting in the spacious lobby. The area was well lit by the strong light of the lanterns. Wide couches surrounded low tables piled with magazines, the pale walls decorated with ornate paintings of landscapes and running water. Velvet ropes formed a maze to traverse before reaching the massive reception desk, where a tiny sign sternly announced that no smoking was allowed.
“We heard shots,” J.B. said urgently, the Uzi held steady in a combat grip.
“Locked doors,” Ryan replied, clicking off the flashlight and returning it to Mildred. “Any sign of Dean outside?”
“Not a trace. You?”
“No.”
Shoving aside the soft ropes, Krysty strode behind the reception desk and glanced underneath. Wounded, the boy could be hiding anywhere.
“Lavatories are clear,” Doc announced, bursting out of the ladies’ room, his frock coat spreading wide in his wake like the wings of some terrible prehistoric bird.
Mildred yanked open an unmarked door and jumped back, almost firing as a collection of brooms and mops piled out, nearly hitting her. “Janitor’s closet,” the physician reported. “Also empty.”
“Dean!” Ryan shouted through cupped hands. The name echoed throughout the old building.
A great rage was building within the man, the fury tempered with the dire possibility the boy was dead and gone. Crossing the lobby past a brace of telephone cubicles, Ryan kicked open the first door. Inside were only chairs, desks dotted with coffee cups and a huge easel covered with a meaningless pie chart showing the excellent performance of something somewhere.
“Okay, we do this systematically. I’ll take the left side with Krysty. Jak with Mildred, J.B. stay here and cover us with the Uzi. Doc, sweep outside again.”
Scratching her cheek with the barrel of her .38, Krysty spoke. “Remember, that mutie flew. If it wasn’t alone, and another grabbed Dean…”
“Then there’s nothing to be done,” Ryan stated coldly, his features set as if cast in an arctic glacier. “We can’t track an animal in flight. So concentrate on what can be done. Search this place room by room.”
“Over here!” Jak cried, partially masked by the shadows of the reception desk.
Grabbing a lantern, Ryan shone the light in the direction of the call. The pale teenager was kneeling at the iron-lace railing that cordoned off the middle of the lobby. “Central access not stop here! Down another level!”
In a second, Ryan was already alongside the Cajun, leaning over the railing and shining the lantern around. A chrome-and-steel kinetic sculpture made of sharp panes and angles rose from the dusty center of a dried fountain. Dozens of small tables dotted the floor around it, and lying amid them was a crumpled human body, limbs splayed, a trickle of blood dribbling from his slack mouth.
“Dean,” Ryan said softly, almost dropping the light.
“Still bleeding,” Mildred stated quickly. “That means he’s alive.”
“How do we get there?” Krysty demanded, looking around. “The enclosed stairs stop on this level. Where are the ones leading to the basement?”
“This way!” Doc shouted, gesturing with the LeMat.
Staying at the railing, Ryan gauged the distance, then jumped over the banister. He landed next to the boy, missing the granite rim of the fountain’s basin by only inches. The others arrived minutes later, charging out of the enclosed stairwell. They maneuvered through the rows of tables and found Ryan kneeling solemnly alongside his son.