The Machiavelli Covenant (55 page)

"No, this way," he said quickly and led them dangerously forward toward the oncoming men to another
break in the rock, a fissure that even with lights would be almost impossible to find unless one knew the tunnel very well. It was steep and narrow and led farther down in an abrupt, twisting sweep deeper into the earth. They had climbed down it for a full thirty seconds when they heard the rescuers pass by its hidden opening and stopped. And it was there they remained, all but trapped as still more forces joined the others above. Finally Amado had looked to his uncle.

"These are more than just 'friends' who are lost."

"Yes," Miguel glanced at Hap and then back to his nephew. "One of them is an official of the United States government."

"And these men, these police forces hunting him, want to do him harm."

"They think they are helping him but they are not. When they find him they will bring him to people who will harm him, but they don't know that."

"Who is this man?" Hector asked.

Hap had trusted them so far and right now he needed all the help and trust he could get. "The president," he said definitively.

"Of the United States?" Amado blurted in broken English.

"Yes."

The boys laughed as if it were a joke and then they saw the expressions on the faces of the men.

"It is true?" Amado asked.

"Yes, it's true," Hap said. "We have to get him out and away from here without anyone knowing."

Miguel translated the last into Spanish then added, "The man who is with him is good, the president's friend. It is up to us to find them and get them away from the police and to safety. Do you understand?"

"Sí," each boy said. "Sí."

It was then Hap glanced at his watch and looked to Miguel. "Before, the boys said they thought they knew about how far the president might have come since the landslide. That was two and half hours ago. They know the tunnel. Where do they think he and Marten might be now, assuming they're still alive and moving at about the same speed?"

Miguel looked at the boys and translated.

The boys looked at each other, had a brief discussion, then Amado looked to his uncle.
"Cerca,"
he said.
"Cerca."

"Near," Miguel translated. "Near."

It was then they heard the movement and voices of the men in the tunnel above. They had come back and were much closer, their voices echoing clearly down to where they were. Miguel was afraid they would be discovered, and Hector moved them farther down, inching them along through a chimney that turned and twisted like the coils of a snake. Less than five minutes later José had stopped them with his sudden "No!" Refusing to go any farther.

"What is it?" Miguel asked him in Spanish.

"Los muertos"
—the dead—he said, as if only seconds before he had realized where he was and where this chimney led, and it rocked him to his soul.
"Los muertos,"
he repeated, clearly terrified.
"Los muertos."

Hap looked to Miguel. "What is he talking about?"

A brief exchange in Spanish followed. Miguel to José, who remained silent, then to Amado, whom he finally got the truth out of.

"Down there," Miguel gestured farther down the chimney, "is another tunnel. It has a single track. Traveling along it he has seen a 'streetcar' filled with the dead."

"What?" Hap was incredulous.

"More than once."

"What is he talking about?"

Miguel and Amado had an exchange in Spanish. Then Miguel translated.

"A few months ago José and Hector were exploring and found another tunnel, the one he is talking about that is below us now. It's much smaller and newer and sprayed with a cement coating. A single steel track runs down the center of it. There was a hole at the top of the tunnel. It is how they saw into the shaft and where they were looking when the streetcar-kind-of machine came along. Dead bodies were stacked on it like firewood. They got scared and climbed out and told no one what they saw. Two months later they dared each other to come back. They climbed down and waited and then saw it again. This time bodies were being taken in the other direction. José became certain that if he ever went down there again he would become one of them. He believes it is Hell."

For a moment Hap stared unbelieving, trying to digest it. Then he asked a simple question. "Is there a way, besides this chimney, to get from that tunnel up there," he pointed to where they had been, "down to the tunnel where the bodies were?"

Once again Miguel turned to the boys and translated. For a moment no one said anything; finally Hector spoke, scratching two lines in the stone with a piece of rock as he did. Miguel translated what he said.

"The shaft below runs level. The shaft above starts high then slopes lower. Where we are it is maybe sixty feet between them. Much further down it is less than twenty and there are cutouts all along it, he thinks for air, so yes it is possible to get from one to the other."

Hap listened carefully to Miguel's translation. As he did he heard more noise from above. Suddenly the hair stood up on his neck.

"There are a lot people still up there," he said with urgency. "Dead or alive, if the president was in that tunnel they would have found him by now and we would have either heard their reaction or they simply would have gone."

Suddenly Miguel realized what he was saying. "You think my cousins are in the lower shaft!"

"Maybe, and maybe close by. Let José stay here if he wants, the rest of us are going down to find out."

•
10:44 P.M.

We've got direct overhead satellite coverage now, sir." A young Secret Service tech specialist was looking over his computer screen at Bill Strait. "Very clear thermal picture of our movements aboveground, sir. So far there is nothing else."

"Bill," Strait looked up as Jim Marshall suddenly came into the command post, pulling the hood back from his parka. He was soaked through and pale as death.

"What is it?" Strait said.

"Jake and I were out on a trail in the dark. We were talking. He was still upset. He lost his footing and slipped. I tried to grab him but it was too late. I heard him land. He fell a long way. My God, he's got to be dead!"

"Oh good Lord!"

"Bill, you've got to get some people down there fast. Alive or dead we have to get him out. We can't have people asking what he was doing up here. The accident will have to have happened somewhere else, probably the location where we're supposed to have the president. He was out walking alone after a meeting and slipped and fell."

"I understand, sir. I'll take care of it."

"I want to inform the vice president right away. I'll want a secure phone," he glanced around at the closeness of the others, "and privacy."

"Yes, sir. Of course, sir."

•
10:49 P.M.

The monorail track followed a long bend in the tunnel. Marten turned to look back as they started around it. It was their last straight view of the tunnel behind. If their pursuers had found the shaft, so far there was no sign of them.

"How much farther can this thing go?" he said as he caught up to the president.

"It doesn't," President Harris was staring straight ahead. Fifty yards in front of them the tunnel ended abruptly at a massive steel door.

"Now what?" Marten said.

"Don't know."

They covered the distance to the door quickly and in silence. The monorail track passed through it at ground
level, a cutout precisely machined to accommodate it. The door itself was fitted to geared, machined rails on either side, making it obvious that the door opened by rising straight up.

"It's got to weigh five tons," the president said. "There's no way we're going to open it by hand."

"There," Marten said and indicated a small red light mounted in the door itself just above eye level. "It's an infrared sensor, like the remote on a TV. Suddenly he pulled Foxx's BlackBerry-like device from his jacket, then stepped in front of the sensor and pressed what appeared to be the
POWER
key. A light came on. He looked at the panel. Among its array of buttons was one marked
SEND.
He pointed it at the sensor and pressed it. Nothing happened.

•
10:54 P.M.

"There's got to be an entry code of some kind," Marten said, working one combination of the number/letter keys and then another. Finally he tried devising patterns using a grouping of nine keys with raised symbol-like figures that were mounted on the gadget's lower half. Still nothing happened.

"We have to go back down the tunnel," the president said. "It's not going to work!"

"To where?"

"Foxx was a military man. He wouldn't have built something like this without giving himself a way out if things went wrong. Somewhere along the way he would have created an emergency exit, probably more than one."

"We saw nothing."

"Then we missed it, Mr. Marten. We simply missed it."

•
10:57 P.M.

The president and Marten rounded the long turn in the tunnel going back the way they had come. Each man studying the ceiling and the side of shaft closest to him, looking for an area in the cemented tunnel wall that might have been cut out and then replaced.

Then Marten saw it. Maybe a half mile down in the dark of the tunnel. The briefest flash as an emergency light glinted off steel.

"They're coming!" he said quickly.

Both men froze, staring down the shaft in front of them. A split second later they heard the distant sound of men running toward them.

"The vents!" the president said suddenly. "The way we came down. They'll get us back up into the other tunnel!"

•
10:58 P.M.

They reached the bend in the tunnel and cleared it on the run, trying to get out of the line of sight and at the same time looking for the air vents above where the tunnel wall met the ceiling.

"I don't see them," Marten cried out.

"They've got to be here. We've seen them the whole way alo—" The president's words were cut off by a loud splintering crack in the tunnel roof just ahead. A split second later there was a sharp cry and the body of a young man crashed through it to land on the tunnel floor not twenty feet in front of them.

"What the hell!" Marten yelled.

•
10:59 P.M.

Hector was picking himself up as they reached him.

"Don't think he's a cop," Marten said quickly and glanced down the tunnel behind them.

"He's not American either!" The president looked up at the shattered dark hole in the tunnel ceiling where Hector had fallen through. "If he came down, there's a way up!"

"Cousins!" Miguel's joyous face suddenly appeared in the hole.

"Miguel!" The president was incredulous.

"Miguel," Marten jumped on it, "there are fifty guys right behind us!"

"Tell Hector to boost them up," a second voice barked from the darkness, then Hap Daniels moved into view. He wasn't looking at Marten or the president, he was staring at Miguel. "Now! Dammit! Fast!"

•
11:00 P.M.

The president came up first, then Marten, then Hector.

•
11:01 P.M.

They could hear the men coming.

"They'll see the hole," Miguel spat.

"They know we're here somewhere," the president said. "We had to burn Marten's undershirt for light. They'll have found it."

"Where?" Hap said.

"In the upper tunnel."

Abruptly Hap handed the president his flashlight.
"You and Marten, get up the chimney and fast. It's steep and full of tight spots but you can make it. We're right behind you."

The president hesitated.

"Now!" Hap commanded, and president and Marten started up.

Immediately Hap looked to Miguel. "We're going to have to give them the boys."

"What?"

"Amado and Hector. They were exploring the tunnels. Their flashlight went dead. It was pitch black. They got scared and decided to burn Amado's undershirt to see their way. It finally went out. They got lost again. Flashlight lost somewhere too. They wandered around, found this tunnel, then the hole here. Broke it open and were about to start up. If those guys are looking for two men, there they are."

Miguel hesitated. This was crazy. Amado was his nephew. He couldn't do it.

"Miguel, tell them now! And tell them to delay whoever gets them for as long as they can. Cry. Beg. Scream with relief. Be afraid their mothers will kill them if they find out. Anything. We've got to have time to get the president away from here."

•
11:10 P.M.

Demi crossed the church floor in the darkness. Cameras over her shoulder, she used a lone candle to light her way as she moved from ancient paving stone to ancient paving stone, looking at the family names carved into them. Stones, Cristina had told her, that marked family tombs and held the earthly remains of the honored dead.