The Prisoner (10 page)

Kosmerl stepped forward. “You from HQ? About time! I need processing back online at once.”

The two men didn’t even look at him but went to stand at opposite ends of the room, seemingly relaxed but for their eyes, which were busy darting glances.

“Hey!” Kosmerl shouted to the man who had taken the station close to Pete. “I spoke to you!”

The man didn’t move or even acknowledge Kosmerl in any way.

“Identify yourself!” Kosmerl reached to his belt.

The man was insane. The newcomers must have cleared four security checks before reaching the control room. Sandra detected movement by the door. Another man had entered the room. Slight, about five one or five two, and thin, with prominent cheekbones; his piercing blue eyes were rimmed with luxurious black eyelashes and magnified by thick bifocals. Obviously the man didn’t believe in corrective eye surgery. From where Sandra sat, the newcomer looked like a caricature of a British professor she once saw in a book when she was little. He stood by the door, rubbing bony fingers as if preparing to roll a set of dice. The man could have been any age between forty and sixty and wore a light tweed jacket with elbow patches, corduroy trousers, and a plaid shirt. Far too hot for the weather outside.

Kosmerl jerked his head toward the door. “And who are you?”

The man put a rigid index finger to his lips. “Too loud.”

Like a beast searching for an exit, Kosmerl looked in turn at the three men. “What’s going on here? I demand to see IDs.”

Sandra followed the exchange as if viewing a slow-motion game of tennis on a plasma screen.

“Please, remain calm.”

Kosmerl froze and Sandra narrowed her gaze. The stranger’s choice of words was unsettling.

“My name is Masek, Nikola Masek.” The man stepped closer to Kosmerl. Suddenly a small cellular phone appeared in his hand, as if he’d conjured it out of his sleeve. Thin lips pressed a smile of sorts on his face as he flicked the phone open.

“That won’t work here,” Kosmerl said.

“This one does.” Masek offered the open device to Kosmerl, who reached for it, a dubious look on his face.

Whoever was at the other end of the line must have been shouting, because tiny scratching noises issued from the area around Kosmerl’s ear. The giant paled, continued listening, then paled some more. “Yes, ma’am.” He closed the cell and handed it back.

“Well, Mr. Kosmerl, now that we’re enlightened, why don’t you tell me what you have bungled so far?”

In a monotone punctuated with frequent contractions and none of his pseudo-German accent, Kosmerl rattled out a full account of the security measures.

“The black man is still at tank 913?” Nikola asked.

Kosmerl nodded once.

“His neck snapped, you said?”

Kosmerl nodded again.

Nikola pondered the information. “And this pig of yours has no cameras?”

Silence.

“Sloppy. Very sloppy,” Nikola said.

A loud beep issued from the central console area.

“We’re back online,” Pete announced. Then he swiveled his chair toward Nikola. “Your instructions, sir?”

Sandra had to suppress a smile. Pete knew how to survive.

“Thank you.” Nikola smiled. Then he turned to Kosmerl. “Let me have the location codes of the fugitives. How many?”

Kosmerl’s face sagged and he looked around once more as if seeking help. “Besides the controller, there are four inmates involved but as I told you, sir, one didn’t make it. And there are no codes.”

“Fugitives without codes?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But if there are inmates with no code, how do you know how many have escaped?”

“The wires, sir. Over tank 913 there are four pairs of empty wires.”

“I see.”

Perhaps this could be her opportunity to be noticed. “I—I may be able to help,” Sandra supplied.

Masek stepped over and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “You must be Sandra, Sandra Garcia.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And how could you help me?”

Sandra glanced at Pete, who avoided locking eyes. He swiveled his chair back and stared into his center screen. “I—”

Masek ran his hand softly over her hair. “Please, calm down. I don’t bite.”

She was committed, and his touch felt oddly soothing. “I know where the restricted center codes are,” she whispered.

Masek leaned forward. “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that. Restricted center codes, you said?”

“Yes.”

He drew closer, his lips almost brushing her ear. He smelled of cinnamon. “You have accessed restricted files?”

She shook her head, but her lips moved. “Yes.”

“And Kosmerl? And the others? Have they accessed Hurley’s files?”

Sandra shook her head automatically, as understanding bloomed in her mind. How could he know the center codes were in the supervisor’s restricted files? He’d only wanted to find out who, if anyone, knew the center inmates’ identities, and she’d fallen for it.

Masek stood and patted her shoulder. “Thank you, Sandra.”

With slow steps, Masek walked over to the door, where several security officers had appeared out of nowhere. He neared one wearing sergeant stripes and stopped to whisper in his ear. “There are temporary vacancies in tank 913. Process the Mexican bitch.”

19:17

In the last two centuries, only a portion of the Washington sewers had been upgraded to concrete. The section the group now crossed was formed of brick, crumbling in places. “At the next junction we bear left,” Laurel said, after checking her GPS.

Lukas nodded and trained his flashlight along the left side
of the tunnel until the jutting fork of a Y junction came into view. Behind her, Raul plodded like a work horse. He hadn’t spoken a word since they entered the city sewers. The anonymous workers had welded the curved panel back with remarkable speed after gesturing to several oversize carryalls loaded with treasure: four sets of waders, two-piece suits of stout reinforced polymer in sewer-regulation yellow, flashlights, waterproof plastic watches, a gold-foil thermal blanket, and a waterproof, military-issue Metapad carefully programmed with a map provided by Shepherd.

While they dressed, Laurel watched the closemouthed workers. Each of the three must have been close to seventy—far too old to be in active service and probably brought out of retirement for this one job. As soon as they finished the last piece of welding, they gathered their tackle, nodded, and splashed away down a side corridor.

Dumping the bags, weighed down with loose bricks—one of them containing a now-unnecessary suit and waders—had been the hardest part. Raul had picked up the now-spare flashlight and nodded when Laurel pocketed Bastien’s watch. Then he gazed for a long time as the lump sunk in a pit of slime, until Laurel kissed his cheek and squeezed his shoulder to pull him out of the dark lair where he’d sought refuge.

Panning their powerful new flashlights, Laurel and Lukas waded to their midriffs through streams of foul water, followed by Raul with the unconscious Russo wrapped in gold foil and draped over his shoulder. They had been shuffling and treading for the best part of an hour through a rat-plagued and endless subuniverse of alleys, pipes, tunnels, and side tunnels.

Laurel checked the Metapad, where she’d tapped the coordinates she now knew by heart.
Two miles left
.

The darkness of the sewers enhanced noises. Ears needed to work as hard as eyes to aid navigation through the maze of tunnels.
Down in the sewer, your ears and sense of smell could save your life
. Their trainer had been thorough. Her feet squelching inside flooded waders. Laurel wondered how Shepherd had gathered his knowledge.

“Now what?” Lukas kept his flashlight trained on a dark wall one hundred feet ahead, seemingly blocking the tunnel.

As they drew near, it became clear the tunnel continued, although the roof dropped down to half its previous height.

“We carry on straight ahead,” Laurel said.

Inside the confined vault, they couldn’t walk upright but had to crouch down, their noses scant inches over a whitish fluid dusted with a flotsam of condoms, plastic bags, Q-tips, shit, tampons, and fat. After one hundred yards, they entered a wider tunnel, with a dry four-foot-wide walkway on one of its sides.

“Let’s rest a few minutes,” Laurel suggested.

Lukas jerked his head. “Rest? Are you kidding?”

“No.” She doubled back past Lukas and gave Raul a hand lying Russo on the dry ledge. In their mad rush through the station’s drainpipe, she’d worried that Raul couldn’t carry Russo for much longer. He’d been huffing like he was out of breath, but Laurel must have misinterpreted. He didn’t look tired, let alone winded.

She drew aside the gold-foil wrapper and checked Russo’s pulse by touching his neck on both sides of his throat: thready but regular.

“He’s hanging on to life tooth and nail.” Laurel glanced down at Raul, propped her back against the curved wall next to him, and ran an eye along the tunnel: a horrible place with thin skeins of skeletonlike roots threading their way down the roof and walls.

Lukas checked his watch and glared in their direction. Something dark and bulky sailed past, turning over and dropping below the surface to bob a little farther on, bloated and shiny under a film of fat. Raul turned his head to follow its passage.

“A friend told me about these giant hairballs clogging the sewers under the city streets.”

Laurel raised an eyebrow. “Hairballs?”

“It seems that over the decades, strands of hair molted by millions of citizens have built up.”

Lukas checked his watch again and stepped closer.

“You’re joking,” Laurel said.

“I’m not. Coated in grease and dirt, tons of hair have been shaped into huge knotted boulders that swell as they trundle through the sewers.”

“That’s a lie,” Lukas muttered.

“Wanna bet?”

Lukas bit his lower lip, shook his head, and checked his watch again. “We should get going.”

After a curt nod, Raul stood up and offered his palm to Laurel. “You’ve lazed enough.”

“Me? I thought you needed a rest.”

“A shower is what I need.” He squatted, checked Russo’s pulse, adjusted the thermal blanket, hefted his cocoon over his shoulder with an easy swing, and straightened. Then he froze and turned slowly to peer at the darkened end of the tunnel.

Laurel lowered her head to hide a smile.

“Hear that?”

“What?” Lukas croaked, his flashlight slashing in all directions.

“I bet it’s one of those giant hairballs.”

Lukas’s face sagged an instant, only to rearrange into a weak smile of relief. “Very funny.”

They set off again and headed along a narrow ledge stretching through a winding tunnel. The atmosphere changed; unbelievably, it became darker and stuffier. After a tight bend, Laurel rechecked the Metapad and pushed forward, listening to a muted rush of distant waterfalls punctuated by their squelching waders, the rolling fetid water, and the squeak of rats. “We’re almost there.”

The light from her flashlight bounced off greasy streams. At another junction, they stopped an instant, enough so that Laurel could make out the leg scratching of angry red cockroaches. Startled by the light, the insects on the curved roof swarmed, collided with one another, and rained down on mounds of brownish matter that glistened in places. She cringed.

In the last tunnel leading to the station, you’ll come across roaches and big rats feeding on the fat fields: thousands of tons of fat solidified into huge iceberglike formations. Millions
of gallons from cafés, leftover breakfast dishes, frying pans, and fast-food joints
.

“Holy shit,” she heard Lukas mutter somewhere behind her.

“Fat: the effluence of affluence,” Raul muttered.

Laurel stepped forward to stare at a vast tunnel, its surface seemingly solid and swarming with insects. The stench was indescribable.

“Well, he certainly didn’t make it.” Lukas trained his flashlight on a figure wedged between two solid-looking mountains of brownish matter.

Laurel’s eyes widened as she took in a skull and a mass of bones sprinkled with a few buttons and pieces of shoes: the remains of a man, probably a vagrant, his flesh and dress devoured piecemeal by the rats.

“Through there?” Lukas asked.

Laurel noted that the beam from Lukas’s flashlight fought to remain fixed in one place without much success.

“That’s right. A few hundred yards.”

Lukas coughed, then leaned to the side to dry-retch a couple of times before drawing a hand across his lips. “I’ll take his fucking hairy balls anytime.”

Raul stopped dead in his tracks. “My hairy balls?” He turned around, pouted his lips, and blew a kiss in Lukas’s direction. “Can’t fault you for your taste.”

Lukas huffed and stepped forward into the greasy quagmire.

Laurel likewise ventured through solidified slabs of fat, careful to plant the soles of her waders with care before taking another step; a fall would be nasty, and probably fatal. Fat roaches darted in all directions before the powerful beams. Dark shapes scurried, filling the air with curious chirps. They waded through the fat for what seemed an eternity. The ground felt strange—at once brittle and squishy, like rotting cereal. Brown and white and gray—a pigeon-shit stew scattered with a top layer of tampons, disposable diapers, and condoms.