Panic (11 page)

Chapter 21

Christina wanted to move, but her body wouldn’t respond. The room hung hazily in front of her disjointed eyes, a blur of gray and white. There had been a bright light. There had been a man with silver eyes, and then there had been pain. But Christina couldn’t remember why.

She remembered that the pain would stop when the kind man came in. The man with the silver eyes was afraid of him. The kind man had told her everything would be all right and had given her something to make the pain go away.

She forced her lazy eyes to focus and she saw the knife again. Cutting her flesh. Sliding the skin and muscle apart like butter. Christina smiled. All just a dream, floating through her mind like a wayward cloud.

The kind man would close up the wounds with silk, and he would smile when she didn’t make a sound. She liked making him happy. He kept the man with silver eyes away when he was happy.

Chapter 22

Jerome caught Leopold’s attention and motioned toward the small, dark silhouette approaching from the distance across South Lawn. As the figure grew closer Leopold could make out a short man dressed in crumpled clothes with unkempt and curly hair, a nervous and worried expression on his face. The man glanced about him and pulled up the collar on his jacket to obscure the bottom half of his face. The shabby figure approached and held out his hand.

“You the ones who called?” he said, his voice low.

“Who are you?” asked Jerome, ignoring the hand stretched out in front of him.

“Renard, of course. You can call me Albert.”

“So now we know exactly who you are and why you’re here. Rookie move. How do you know what we’d do with that information?” demanded the bodyguard.

Albert looked away sheepishly and thrust his hands into his pockets.

“Look,” he said, “I’m a busy guy. What do you guys need?”

“We want a tour of the tunnels,” said Leopold, “especially the network that runs underneath Pupin.”

“What’s so special about Pupin?”

“We’re history nuts,” the consultant lied. “Pupin used to be the headquarters for some top-secret weapons research during the second world war. We heard there might be some of the original equipment sealed in the basement and we want to go take a look. Your name came up as a guy who might be able to help.”

“No chance you’re getting into Pupin,” said Albert. “The lower floors were locked up years ago. No one gets in.”

“So I guess you won’t be wanting the two thousand dollars, then?” Leopold pulled a roll of hundred dollar bills out of his pocket and held them up.

Albert paused for a few moments, then glanced quickly from side to side and took the roll of notes.

“Okay, okay,” he sighed, “there
might
be a way in. Only hypothetical, mind you. I still keep in touch with some of the students here that continue the work I started before I got kicked out. There was talk of a possible way through, but it’s not something I’ve had chance to check out. It could be a dead end.”

“We’ll risk it,” said Leopold. “Where do we start?”

“The easiest access point is inside here.” Their tour guide pointed toward Uris Hall. “As long as we can get into the building, we should be able to access the tunnels. Then we can follow the network through to the area underneath Pupin, and hopefully get lucky.”

“Why can’t we just go in through Pupin Hall?” asked Mary. “I’m not totally sold on the idea of crawling through a bunch of tunnels just for the sake of it.”

“It wouldn’t work,” said Albert. “The first five stories of Pupin are actually underneath where we’re standing now, and they sealed off all the internal routes down to the lower levels years ago. Believe me, I tried to get in that way.”

“You’ve tried to get in before?” asked Mary.

“Yeah, of course. I actually came close once, but I was caught before I got a chance to finish mapping the tunnels in that area, and all my notes got taken. Since I got kicked out, I’ve been relying on my sources inside the University to provide updates on new routes, as well as making the occasional expedition myself.”

“Okay, fine, but if these shoes get ruined I’m coming after you,” said the police sergeant, eying Leopold.

The consultant grinned and motioned for Albert to lead the way. The four of them headed toward the big double doors of Uris Hall.

“Getting in is surprisingly easy,” said the tour guide eagerly, “when they forget to erase your pass card from the security systems.”

Albert swiped his card across the magnetic reader and the lock disengaged. He held the door open and Jerome, Leopold, and Mary stepped through into the lobby. The interior of the building was pristine, with polished floors stretching out in all directions before branching into corridors that snaked out into the distance. The walls were largely bare, with a few photographs of notable alumni hanging at sparse intervals along the width of the atrium. Other than the four intruders, the building appeared to be entirely deserted.

“We’ve got about twenty minutes before the next set of classes begin and everyone moves out into the corridors,” said Albert. “Which should be just enough time to get down to the tunnel entrance in the basement.”

The tour guide took the lead and motioned for the others to follow him toward one of the corridors. The four of them passed through a series of double doors and several other deserted corridors before finding themselves an open area that contained a few easy chairs, a vending machine and a large poster board covered in sign-up sheets, advertisements and lists of classrooms. To the rear was a door that read
Private: University Staff Only
.

“That door leads through to the lower levels and the basement, where the tunnels start,” said Albert. “It’s usually unlocked during the day, so we shouldn’t have too much of an issue getting down there. We just have to keep an eye out for the security guards doing their rotation.”

He reached for the door handle and pulled, but the door didn’t budge. He rattled the door several times before giving up.

“Shit!” cursed Albert, under his breath. “The only other way through is at the other side of the building, and there’s currently a packed lecture hall in the way.”

“Okay, so we just wait until the class finishes and slip in through the crowd,” said Mary.

“That’s not gonna work,” said the tour guide. “I’ve spent a lot of time plotting the routes that the security guards take, and we’ve only got a few minutes before they start sweeping the areas near the tunnels. They like to make sure students don’t disappear down there in between classes.”

“Well, it’s not like we can force our way in,” said Leopold. “The noise would give us away.”

“Relax,” said Jerome, patting his employer on the shoulder with a heavy palm. “You’re all acting as though this is my first covert mission.”

The bodyguard strode across to the other side of the room, stopping next to the fire alarm. Without saying a word he slammed his fist against the thin glass, filling the building with the piercing sound of alarm bells. Within seconds, Leopold could hear chairs scraping against the floor and doors being flung open as hundreds of students abandoned their classes and made their way to the fire exits.

Without wasting any time, Jerome charged, using the noise and distraction to mask the sound of the door breaking as his body collided with it. He focused the impact on the area near the handle, causing the lock to break but ensuring that the door didn’t come off its hinges. Jerome hurried the others through and quickly closed the door behind them, just as the first of many students rounded the corner.

Albert breathed a sigh of relief and then turned to face Leopold, a quizzical look on his face. “You guys aren’t tourists, are you?”

Chapter 23

The gloss and air conditioning of the public corridors gave way to damp air and bare concrete as Albert, Leopold, Jerome, and Mary made their way to the basement. The dim passageways that led through the older parts of the building were lined with exposed pipes and dim light bulbs that hung loosely from the ceiling. The rumble of HVAC units and the hiss of steam accompanied their footsteps, punctuated every now and again by the whizz and crackle of old circuit breaker boxes.

“It’s not much further,” said Albert, turning his head as he walked. “We should hurry, just in case they decide to run a security sweep down here.”

“Why would they do that?” asked Mary.

“They’ll be wondering who pulled the fire alarm. They usually run a quick sweep in between classes anyway, so chances are they’ll step up their timetable now,” said the tour guide, facing front again as he quickened his pace.

“Let’s make sure they don’t find us then,” said Leopold, leaning in close to Mary so that Albert couldn’t hear. “Otherwise our chances of finding Cupid are shot to hell. It’s only a matter of time before he works out we traced him.”

“Then all he needs to do is wipe the hard drive, and we’ve lost all the evidence linking him to this,” said the police sergeant, whispering.

“Exactly, and he’ll be able to do that remotely within a matter of minutes of finding the tracer we ran. This is our only chance to find this guy and hopefully find Christina. The longer she’s missing, the less likely we find her alive.”

Albert led the group deeper into the lower levels of the building, stopping only to make sure everyone was still behind him. After several minutes, the group reached the end of a narrow passageway and found their way blocked by a heavy metal door. Jerome tried the handle without success.

“Heavy mag-lock,” he said, pulling hard on the handle. “The door won’t budge. Doesn’t look like we’re going to be able to bust our way through this one.”

“Dammit,” said Albert, “this door wasn’t here last time I came down. They must have upgraded security since last time.”

“Why would they have done that?” asked Leopold.

“Well, I may not have mentioned this, but the last time I came down to the tunnels for a visit wasn’t exactly
uneventful
.” Albert shuffled uncomfortably.

“Spit it out,” said Jerome, taking a step closer to their guide.

“Okay, okay. One of the security guards found me down here, maybe a couple of months ago. Nearly caught me too, but I was too fast for him. That must be why they’ve installed this new door.”

“Great, just great,” said Leopold. “How are we going to get through?”

“We need a magnetic key-card,” said the bodyguard. “I’m betting the security guards have them as standard.”

“That’s not going to help us much,” said Mary.

“Wait a minute,” said Leopold, placing his hand on the tour guide’s shoulder. “Albert, when you ran into security last time, how many of them were down here?”

“Just the one.”

“Did he radio for backup?”

“No, he just yelled and ran after me.”

The consultant nodded. “I think I’ve got a plan. If we can swipe the guard’s key card, we can get down here before he’s even realized it’s gone.”

“It’s risky,” said Jerome. “If it turns out he’s got a radio, or a buddy on patrol with him, they could close on us pretty quick, and we lose our only window.”