Last Chance to Die

by Noah Boyd

  “Yes.” He listened for only a moment before disconnecting the line. “The money’s being transferred right now.” He dialed a four-digit extension. “I want everybody to the basement immediately. Someone’s on the computer terminal there. Whoever it is, I want held until I get there.” Carson pushed the phone back into the cradle. “He used the same password as before.” Both men were moving toward the door. “We have one computer terminal in the basement, mostly for storage inventories.”

  Once they were in the hall, Vail said, “Will the stairs be quicker?”

  “No, the only access is by elevator. You need an override key.” They ran to the elevator, and Carson pounded the button repeatedly. Finally the car arrived.

  Just as the doors opened to the basement, the two men heard three quick gunshots.

  Vail drew his automatic and ran toward someone yelling for help. In a large room stacked with boxes, one man in a suit was on his knees tearing open the shirt of another man who’d been shot in the stomach. Carson, directly behind Vail, said, “Those are both my men.”

  Vail raised the muzzle of his weapon upright. “Who was it?”

  “That guy Sakis from accounting, Jonas Sakis. He went out that way.” He pointed to a corridor beyond the computer station.

  The security man’s wound was now exposed, and Vail looked at it. He checked the man’s face for signs of shock. Carson was already calling 911. Vail took out a handkerchief and placed it over the wound, then pulled the kneeling man’s hand onto it. “There, use that much pressure. Watch him for shock. Les, where does that lead?” Vail nodded at the corridor the shooter had disappeared into.

  “It’s a dead end. There’s no way out.”

  The man on his knees said, “Except the old railroad tunnel.”

  Vail remembered the news story from the early nineties, when an engineering miscalculation had caused the Chicago River to seep into the sixty miles of tunnels, forty feet below the downtown area. They had been built to move freight under the downtown area in the early 1900s. With typical Chicago buoyancy, a city that had been rebuilt after the Great Fire, the incident was referred to as the Great Chicago Leak. “The old freight tunnels?” Vail asked. “I thought those were sealed.”

  “Our door is, but that’s the only thing back there.”

  As Vail started in that direction, Carson said, “Steve, you’d better wait for the cops.”

  “Either of you have a flashlight?” Vail asked.

  The kneeling man pulled one out of its carrier on his belt and handed it to him.

  “I’ve got a feeling that door is no longer sealed,” Vail said.

  Without turning on the light, he followed the corridor until it turned right. As soon as he looked around the corner, he could see the door. It was made of steel and was three times the width of a room door. And it was open.

  Before entering, he stood and listened. He couldn’t hear anything, so he leaned his head in. It was dark except for the ambient light from the bank’s storage space. The tunnel itself was concrete—floor, walls, and ceiling—six feet wide and maybe seven feet high. He snapped the flashlight on and then quickly off so he wouldn’t provide a lasting target. Thirty yards in was a concrete bulkhead with a gate, a lock and chain lying on the deck next to it. Without turning the light back on, Vail started toward it, his Glock raised to eye level. What is it with me and tunnels? He flashed back to the electric train tunnel in which he’d been buried alive during the Los Angeles case. Maybe I should wait for the cops.

  Then he thought about Kate. When he’d been an agent, after a while there was a gamelike quality to working cases. They rarely took on any real urgency, any real consequence. If he failed on one, there were dozens more to take its place, and he still got to go home and watch the game that night. But he was getting just one shot at this, and it was ahead of him in the tunnel. He couldn’t risk losing the only lead that could free Kate. Whatever might happen to him was no longer a consideration.

  When he reached the gate, he turned his light back on. Once he determined that the shooter wasn’t on the other side, he picked up the lock. It appeared to have been cut with a bolt cutter—and, from the surface rust, not recently. That meant the tunnel was a planned escape route, so Vail didn’t have to worry about being ambushed, because the shooter wanted to put as much distance as possible between himself and anyone foolish enough to pursue him. At least it sounded like a good enough theory to let him rationalize throwing caution to the wind. He turned on the light and broke into a trot.

  Another hundred yards ahead, he found a second bulkhead with the padlock cut away. Vail noticed that the odor in the tunnel was becoming more pungent, and he thought he could detect the slightest trace of methane. The air was stale and felt heavy in his lungs. He tried to measure his rate of breathing to see if his lungs were requiring more oxygen, but he wasn’t feeling light-headed, so it probably wasn’t going to be a problem. Besides, the shooter had apparently been through here before without a problem.

  After a few more minutes, Vail found himself at a three-way fork in the tunnel. Stopping at its intersection, he turned off his light and listened. There wasn’t a sound. After turning the light back on, he could see he was standing in a couple inches of water that had accumulated because the floor at the intersection was an inch or two lower where the old switching tracks had been removed. In the left-hand passage, the floor was dry. The same in the center. The floor of the right branch revealed some partial footprints left by the shooter’s wet shoes. Vail took the right branch and after ten feet turned around and compared his tracks against those of Sakis. The rate of drying was difficult to judge, but the early tracks weren’t that much different. He was still close enough for Vail to catch.

  Seventy-five yards later, Vail came to a right turn. It was impossible to tell what direction he had traveled in, but he thought it was initially south and now possibly west. As he was about to make the turn, he heard the sound of metal on metal. He peeked around the corner and saw another bulkhead with a steel gate. The man he’d been chasing, illuminated by his own small flashlight, was busy working on something attached to the ceiling of the tunnel. Vail drew his weapon and carefully inched forward.

  When he got to the gate, he saw that it was chained and locked shut from the other side, separating the two men. Carefully, Vail pushed his Glock through the bars, aiming it at Sakis. He couldn’t be sure, but it looked as if three linear-shaped charges had been attached to the ceiling in a triangular pattern. Each one had wires coming down from it to an electrical detonator. Vail snapped on his flashlight and said, “I guess I’m a little early.”

  Sakis looked up, unruffled, keeping his hand on the detonation box. “You are. I thought maybe I lost you at the fork. If not lost, at least delayed.”

  Vail could hear a slight accent in the man’s speech but couldn’t tell its origin. “Why don’t you carefully set the box down and come over here and unlock the gate?”

  “You are evidently not a student of game theory. What you are proposing is a zero-sum game—all the advantage goes to you while I lose.”

  “I’m fairly certain that zero-sum games are exactly what gun manufacturers have in mind. I believe their collective motto is ‘If you have the gun, you win.’ ”

  “But this detonation box makes it a non-zero-sum situation.”

  “Actually, this is more like a game of brinkmanship. We’re each promising to cause the death of the other to gain an advantage. I could kill you with one shot, and if I did, you would flip that switch and set off the charges on the ceiling.”

  “True,” Sakis said, smiling. He raised the box in front of his face so that Vail wouldn’t have a clear head shot and end Sakis’s life before he could throw the switch. “Do you know where we are standing right now?” When Vail didn’t answer, he said, “Directly under the Chicago River. If the blast doesn’t kill you, the tunnel will flood instantly and you’ll drown. It’s too far back to the bank to outrun it. Too bad the gate between you
and me is locked, because the way out for me is about twenty yards ahead. Of course, you can’t get to it. Unless you think you can shoot that lock off, but that’s a heavy-duty lock I put on it. I guarantee a handgun won’t dent it.”

  “It’ll dent you. If you even twitch, I’ll empty this magazine into you.”

  Sakis smiled calmly. “There is one solution. We could each go our own way, you back to the bank and me out through the exit. A draw.”

  “And what’s to prevent you from coming back and setting off those charges once I’m around the corner?” Vail asked.

  He laughed. “Nothing at all. But I suspect you know that if we both stay here in this stalemate, the police will eventually find us, and I’ll lose. Or maybe we all will. So I guess I’ll just have to take a chance your marksmanship isn’t that good.”

  Vail said, “You’re ten feet away, and I have a couple of full magazines. Do you really think anyone’s that bad a shot? Maybe I’m the one who should take a chance that those charges won’t go off.”

  Sakis smiled. “They’re triple-primed. They’ll go off.”

  Vail laughed and then in a theatrical voice said, “What we have here is a failure to compromise.” The man looked at him uncomprehendingly. “Cool Hand Lukesky?” Still there was no indication of understanding from Sakis. “I guess they don’t allow American prison movies in Moscow. Even the southern road gang is better than the gulags.”

  Finally Sakis smiled as if he knew something Vail didn’t. “Exactly what compromise did you have in mind?”

  “I’ll back up five feet from the gate. Then you come up to it and set down the detonator at one side. With me that far back, it would be too difficult a shot to risk hitting you through the bars. You stand at the other side as far as possible from the detonator, take the key to the gate, and throw it as far down my part of the tunnel as you can. By the time I retrieve it and come back to the bulkhead, you’ll have enough time to make it to the next turn and out of range. Once I get the key and can open that lock, you’ll be gone and I’ll be five minutes behind you. Then there’ll be no reason to set off the explosives.”

  Sakis considered the proposal. Evidently this FBI agent had forgotten the gun he had shot the guard with. It was now tucked behind his back. “You have to lower your gun.”

  “Okay,” Vail said, dropping his arm to his side. Then he stepped back the agreed-upon distance, never taking his eyes from Sakis’s.

  Sakis figured that once he threw the key behind Vail, the agent would have to turn his flashlight away from the gate and in the other direction down the tunnel. If he did glance back momentarily, he would be watching the box, making sure Sakis was not moving toward it. As soon as he fully turned to search for the key, his own light would silhouette him, and Sakis would shoot him in the back. Then he could trip the detonation timer before making his escape.

  Sakis took the detonator and set it down along the wall about a foot from the gate, so Vail couldn’t reach through and disarm it. He then moved to the opposite wall, dug a key out of his pocket, and held it up so Vail could see that it was a padlock key. “Okay?”

  “Toss it.”

  Sakis threw the key as far as he could, at least ten feet past the agent, who was now casually leaning against the wall. Vail gave him one last careful glance. Then he swung his flashlight around, and its beam glinted off the key on the concrete floor ahead. Vail turned the light back onto Sakis and the detonation box. “I’ve got a feeling it won’t be too long before we meet again.” He turned and started toward the key.

  Sakis reached behind his back and carefully drew his gun. As he raised it, Vail dropped into a crouch, pivoted, and fired. The bullet tore into Sakis’s throat.

  Vail hadn’t forgotten about the gun. He knew that Sakis would use it if Vail created a scenario in which Sakis could shoot him in the back. The ploy was the only way he could separate him from the detonation box. Vail had hoped to shoot up through his throat and sever his brain stem, not only instantly killing him but also paralyzing him so the switch could not be thrown. The odds of making the shot were astronomical, but he had no other choice. The bullet had missed by almost two inches.

  Although fatally wounded, Sakis was not paralyzed. He sank to his knees and fell forward, reaching for the box. Vail started to squeeze off another round but realized that it was too late when he saw Sakis’s index finger trip the switch.

  He ran up to the gate as Sakis rolled off the box, his eyes vacant with death. In the darkness Vail could see the red LED display. It read 2:58 . . . 2:57 . . .

  Vail ran back and retrieved the key. At the gate again, the lock was on Sakis’s side and the chain was thick and difficult to maneuver. The bars on the sides of the gate were narrower than the gate itself. Vail’s hand barely fit through. With his right he grabbed the chain on his side and manipulated it to bring the lock closer to his left hand. 2:43 . . . 2:42 . . .

  Carefully, he tried to place the key in the keyhole, but the lock was large and had a spring-loaded metal cover to protect it from debris and weather. He pushed the cover back with the key and just about had it seated when it slipped from his hand and fell to the floor. 2:07 . . . 2:06 . . .

  Dropping down to his knees, he shoved his hand through the bottom of the bars, but it was well out of reach. 1:59 . . . 1:58 . . .

  Vail stripped off his belt, then his shirt and T-shirt. There was a small puddle of water under the gate; he soaked his T-shirt and then tightened his belt around it. 1:42 . . . 1:41 . . .

  Threading them through the bars, Vail threw his shirt at the key, holding on to the end of the belt. His first cast landed on the key. Slowly, he drew it back to him, the weight of the water keeping the key under the shirt as it was pulled toward him. 1:30 . . . 1:29 . . . 1:28 . . .

  Finally he was able to grab it with his fingertips. He delicately inserted it in the lock—this time it seated fully. He tried to turn it, but it wouldn’t move. Vail then realized that Sakis had thrown him the wrong key, maybe one for a gate ahead.

  Vail’s laughter bellowed down the tunnel. “If I had a hat, I’d tip it to you for making that switch.” He glanced at the timer: 1:14 . . . 1:13 . . .

  The closest part of Sakis’s body was his foot. Vail reached through the bars and could get just two fingers on his trouser cuff. He pulled it to the bulkhead. Working his way up Sakis’s leg, he eventually had the entire body against the gate. He pulled part of the other man’s suit coat through the bars and patted the pockets, hoping there was another key. He couldn’t feel anything through the cloth. 1:01 . . . 1:00 . . . 0:59 . . .

  He grabbed at Sakis’s left trouser pockets, front and back, pulling them close enough to pat them. Still nothing. 0:47 . . . 0:46 . . .

  Using only his fingertips, Vail grabbed Sakis’s belt and pulled it toward him to roll the body partially over. Finally he was able to feel the right front trouser pocket. There was a set of keys in it. But he couldn’t roll the body over any further, because it was against the bars, and the pocket, although he could grasp its opening edge, was facing away from him. He took out his lockback knife and slit the material open, exposing a key ring.

  From behind him Vail could hear voices and footsteps. The cops. And it sounded like there were a half dozen or more of them. He looked at the timer: 0:31 . . .

  Vail took the ring and was relieved to see a key similar to the one Sakis had decoyed him with. He stood up and, holding on to it with both hands, worked it into the lock. It turned. He pushed the gate open. 0:24 . . . Vail ordered himself to stop looking at the timer.

  The device appeared to be basic. Timer, power supply, electrical blasting caps wired to the three shaped charges attached to the concrete ceiling. Vail wondered if the timer had been booby-trapped, but then he reasoned that he was never supposed to get to it. So he took the first blasting-cap wire, doubled it over, and stuck his knife’s blade into the loop and pulled. The wire severed cleanly. Quickly, he did the same to the other two. The first cop’s flashlight finally came into
view. Vail looked at the timer and watched as it counted down from 0:11. “Plenty of time,” he said out loud. He watched as the readout continued, which it would even if the bomb was defused. When it was about to go to 0:00, he closed one eye, squinting at it. The display went black.

  “Let me see your hands,” the first police officer said.

  Vail raised them and then heard Les Carson say, “That’s all right, he’s the agent.”

  Vail stepped back through the gate, partially closing it. “Sorry, guys, there’s explosives in there. I think they’re defused, but you’d better get someone down here who knows what he’s doing.”

  A sergeant walked forward and peered through the gate. “That the shooter?”

  “It was.”

  “Why was he trying to blow a hole in the ceiling? To escape?”

  “We’re under the Chicago River. Actually, he was trying to kill the rest of us,” Vail said.

  Les Carson came forward and looked at the body. “Yeah, that’s Sakis. At least that’s the name he gave us.”

  Vail straddled the body. Remembering the fake passports and escape plans that Petriv had been supplied with, he started going through Sakis’s pockets. There was no wallet, but in the suit coat Vail found a grainy photograph. Recognizing the background, he realized that it had been taken in Washington. But it still surprised him.

  It was a photo of himself.

  20

  John Kalix watched Vail come through the gate after the flight back from Chicago. He searched his face for any indication that he had just killed another man, but he couldn’t see any. “How you doing, Steve?”

  “Good. Any word from Ident on Sakis’s prints?”

  “There’s no record. And that security director at the bank, Carson, forwarded his résumé. He started checking it and said so far the work history appears completely phony.”