by K. T. Tomb
“Oh. That’s messed up, dude. I think I’m gonna hurl.”
“Ok, next time someone tries to kill you, I’ll let them.”
Kang’s voice was emotionless, he was clearly thinking about something else as he peered at the hole in the floor.
“Hey guy, check the pockets of this one here.”
Manny was affronted.
“My name is Manny. And hell no! I’m not going through a dead man’s pockets, what for?”
“He was smoking earlier, check his pockets, I need his lighter.”
Manny did as he was asked, bile rising in his gullet as he touched dead flesh. He found a tiny crack pipe, some rock cocaine, and a cheap lighter, which he tossed to Kang. He caught it nimbly out of the air, and bent down low, striking a flame on the second attempt.
“Manny, look at this.”
Manny bent down next to the strange Chinese man.
“What am I looking at? I can’t see anything.”
“What you are looking at, Kang said, “is the beautiful thing about modern toilets and ancient sewer systems. When the British owned Montserrat, they built sewers connecting their important buildings. Back then it was just a hole in the floor with a wooden bench built over it, but then when the flushing toilet was invented, everything above ground got smaller, but the hole is still the same size—it’s just covered up.”
Manny gave a little laugh.
“Man, why do you know so much about toilets? Are you a collector or something?”
Kang was impassive.
“Help me smash the floor here. We may not have much time before the police decide that I’m dead and come to check on me.”
Using the metal pole, they battered at the tiles and thin concrete for a short while, and Manny was sure they would be overheard. As it turned out, Kang had been right about the sewer, and as soon as the hole was large enough, he quickly disappeared into the stinking darkness.
Manny couldn’t believe what he was about to do, but anything beat staying there with dead and mutilated men, waiting to be charged with their assault and murder. Tucking the treasure map into his pocket, he slipped feet first down the hole after Kang, and was gone.
Chapter Eight
Quincy was in a rage.
Not only had Kang not been killed, he had managed to escape from a basement cell and left a heap of bodies in his wake. The sergeant had booked another prisoner, the young man with the big hair, who had given him the obvious fake name, Michael Jordan. Could he have been a conspirator?
Quincy had to know exactly what they knew.
His political allies in London were set to lose the next election, and with them gone Quincy’s decade-long exploitation of Montserrat would surely come to an end, unless of course, he could raise enough capital to keep the cocaine flowing from South America.
His operation was simple but ingenious. Everyone knew smugglers would routinely traffic a few kilos of coke at a time through the Caribbean, but almost no one knew that it was much easier to smuggle cocaine if you used your diplomatic immunity to bypass customs.
Quincy couldn’t figure out everything Kang knew, but what he did know was this: Kang had left Panama three weeks ago, traveled over-land through Columbia and Venezuela, and left Caracas by boat, heading up the chain of Caribbean islands.
From what his contact with the Columbian cartels had said, several meetings had taken place between a Chinese businessman and the banks the cartels used to launder the currency sent by Quincy, and many others. If the Chinese were taking interest in the flow of coke out of South America, there must be concerns in Beijing that their burgeoning middle class was at risk of increased exposure to the drug.
All the diplomatic immunity in the world would not help him if his involvement in the trade was exposed to London, and that would be even more irrelevant if Kang escaped and reported to Beijing that he had been tortured at the instruction of a British Colonial Governor.
Death would come swiftly.
He had to move fast, and there was only one way to go. It took his men a good half an hour to consult the schematics for the building and realize the truth about the tunnel below the prison cell. A further half an hour passed before the flooring in the basement had been sufficiently hammered through to reveal the route taken by the escaped captives, the original hole had been far too small for even the smallest of Quincy’s guards to give chase.
What had been revealed was a deep tunnel that had originally not been a sewer at all, but an escape route. At some point in history, which Quincy put a mental bet on as being during the turbulent slave uprisings a couple of hundred years before, a tunnel had been dug beneath the building. It had probably been used by the important men of the East India Company to escape retribution. It was well known that the company was heavily involved in the slave trade, and the riotous chattels were not likely to be forgiving to the company responsible, in part, for their involuntary servitude.
What no one could tell Quincy was where this tunnel led. To the ocean? Inland? No one knew. It showed on none of the blueprints, which made logical sense as the builders of the tunnel would have had no motivation to leave a record of where their secret route went, or that it existed at all.
In short order, the five men, Eze included, who made up the Governor’s guard had armed themselves from the scant armory, and filled up backpacks with supplies, equipment and ammunition. Eze went into the black nothing first, his head mounted flashlight illuminating his progress as he descended. Quincy followed him, almost too fat to make it down at all. With the giant Eze in front, nearly bent over double, the progress through the passage was going to be slow and laborious. Quincy could only hope they could catch up to the escapees on the other side.
Two off-road vehicles and police motorbikes were on standby to roll out as soon as the exploratory team radioed back to them with their location. The tunnel stank and had a steep decline to the east. Quincy, decked out with a head-torch like his men, examined the walls and low ceiling with its bright illumination.
As Eze slowly moved ahead, Quincy stopped suddenly. The men behind him nearly knocked him flat, despite only moving at a slow pace. In the wall of the tunnel were gouged two words in barely visible trenches, nearly obscured with years of human effluent. The only reason they were visible at all was the height and angle of the words, and they were clearly chiseled into a flagstone that had then been set into the earth walls. Quincy read it aloud, with wonder.
“Boysie Marlowe.”
Eze stopped, and with difficulty looked over his shoulder. “You say something boss?”
“I suppose you know of the legend, a fortune of stolen Spanish gold and gems is buried in a secret location on Montserrat? It was rumored that a pirate told a farmer where it was, even left him a map in exchange for a ship so he could escape to South America. The story holds that the treasure was never found, and the map disappeared over a hundred years ago. Hypothesize with me, Eze, my friend. What purpose, do you suppose, would a pirate have used a secret tunnel for? We had it under our feet all this time, and we never knew it.”
Eze considered for a moment.
“Well, if I was a pirate with a secret tunnel leading only God knows where, I’d probably hide something important at the end.”
Eze smiled broadly, he knew exactly what the Governor was thinking.
“If we catch up with this Chinese pissant and his stupid friend, ‘Michael Jordan’, and make sure they never leave this place, then we can find Captain Marlowe’s gold.Then, Eze, my friend, we can use it to maintain our business interests with the cartel. This could be just the break we need.”
Quincy was nearly salivating at the prospect, his heavy jowls masticating with excitement.
“We don’t have a moment to lose! We need to catch those men!”
Eze moved off again at a frustratingly slow pace. Quincy ground his teeth. He had to succeed. He had to kill Kang and his sidekick.
He would get his hands on that gold or die in the process.
Chapter Nine
Kang and Manny hadn’t made as much progress as they had hoped.
With only a cheap lighter to help light their way neither of them had seen the plaque left by Captain Boysie Marlowe centuries before, and fumbling in the dark was not conducive to making a swift getaway. As such, Manny only had his best guess as to whether or not they were on the right path at all, and the intractable Kang was not helping his rudderless feelings.
The man was impossible. Manny tried making conversation with him but received no real responses. Inscrutable. Kang was also far too interested in what Manny was doing in jail in the first place, and was not forthcoming with any information as to why the Governor wanted him dead. The tunnels did nothing to help the atmosphere; horribly cold and stinking of feces as they were.
“Can you see anything?”
Manny had asked the question countless times. Kang was in front, feeling his way along the walls in the pitch black. They had decided to save the lighter fuel until they needed it. Manny wished he could see the treasure map now. He had tried committing it to memory, but he couldn’t remember the details other than “Look West”, which was a fat lot of good now, underground with no idea which way west was.
In any case, Manny had decided that as useful as Kang was in a fight, he needed to get away from him. He had to find the treasure, and he reasoned that anyone who took out opponents as easily and violently as Kang did was not exactly friend material.
“Stop!” Kang called from the lead. “I found something…hold on.”
Manny froze in place as if he was playing a game of freeze tag like he had as a child. He could see the lighter sparking again, and then a much larger flame filled the tunnel they were in. A spasm of fear ran through Manny before he realized what it was. Kang had found a crude torch on the wall. It must have been here for centuries, any fuel must be long gone, but the fabric wick was tinder dry and burned easily. Both men squinted, their night vision dissipating as their irises narrowed to protect their eyes from the unfamiliar light.
Manny could see the passage was now wide enough for both men to stand side by side, so he caught up. He saw the reason why the torch had been placed here, instead of any further back. The tunnel forked just ahead and went in two directions. By the light of the flame, they could see another torch, opposite the bracket where Kang had obtained his. Manny pulled it free, and held it up for Kang to light.
“Light me?” Manny asked.
Kang looked at him as if he was an idiot. Manny could feel his hackles rising.
“We should save the torch, we don’t know how long we will be down here. Two torches will also burn more oxygen.”
Manny considered the two passages.
“I think we should split up. Nice knowing you and all, but I have things to do. Alone.”
Kang was impassive, as usual.
“I think that’s a bad idea. We are undoubtedly being followed, and if they catch you, you will not survive.”
That cocky bastard! Sure, he was definitely the best fighter Manny had ever seen, but he could handle himself, too. Hadn’t he saved Kang’s ass as much as Kang had saved his?
“I don’t care what you think. What I have to do is for me alone. I have a mission.”
“As do I,” Kang replied, “and I guarantee you mine is far more important. I must reach the surface and get off of this island.”
This was the most Kang had revealed about what he was up to. Manny couldn’t help himself for trying to find out more.
“Yeah, so you say, but you never explain why. If you told me what was going on, maybe I could help you out, once I’ve done what I need to do and what I came for.”
Kang sighed.
“It is something far too dangerous for you to even know about, my young friend.”
“I’m not your friend! Friends tell each other stuff. We’re even. We helped each other get away from the cops, that’s enough.”
Kang smiled.
“But you, also, do not tell me why you are here. So perhaps you are right. Farewell, Manny McMillan.”
Manny scowled at him. Nothing seemed to bother this guy. Kang lit Manny’s torch.
“So, Manny. Which way do you go now? It would look foolish if we both decided to explore the same tunnel.”
Screw you, Manny thought.
With no way of knowing which way was west, he’d have to take a guess at it. It obviously felt like the left-hand tunnel would be west, but Manny knew that meant nothing. That only worked if he was facing north, and he was all turned around. It could be that ‘Look West’ meant nothing to do with the passages they were in, and may refer to something else entirely. It could be that he was wasting his time trying to find the treasure in the first place. He really wanted to be at home, penniless or not. Well, part of him did.
The determination that had pushed him out his front door in New York still rested uneasily in his stomach. With a curt nod to Kang, he set off down the thankfully much wider tunnel. If he hadn’t been in such an irritable mood due to Kang’s flippant ways, he might have hung around long enough to watch Kang make his way down the other tunnel, on the far wall of which, was another carved flagstone, this time bearing the inscription ‘West Tunnel’.
Manny felt good, now that he was striking out on his own. He had a good feeling he was on the right track. This tunnel would surely lead him to the treasure, and then he could get off this island, and go back to the life he was born for; fast cars, faster women, and, maybe a real vacation. Perhaps not to a Caribbean island though. This trip hadn’t turned out well, judging by his aching ribs and mashed up face. He hoped that he hadn’t had his looks damaged too badly.
The tunnel forked again ahead, so he took out his map, and peered at it. It was almost impossible to read, and what he could read of it, didn’t help. LOOK WEST, and the curved line were still taunting him with their vagueness. Who makes a treasure map that no one can follow? He’d have to keep trusting his gut.
He picked the right-hand tunnel, and when that forked into three, he picked the middle one. That turned out to be a dead end, so he had to go back the way he came. This time, he picked the tunnel to his immediate left, effectively doubling back on himself from the dead end, at an acute angle. The temperature was warmer the further he went in this direction, which struck him as odd. With no sunlight at all down here, he and Kang had been freezing cold.
Kang. Unkind thoughts about the man surfaced.
“I bet,” Manny said to no one, “that guy is some kind of triad, on the run, and he pissed off that Governor somehow. Jerk!”
As he spoke, he wasn’t looking where he was going at all, which was a near fatal mistake. His foot caught on what felt like rope, which gave way immediately. He tripped and went sprawling, this happened to save his life, as an iron spike, propelled on some kind of tension-loaded length of wood, hurtled through the air where his face had just been and smashed into the rock wall of the tunnel with a resounding crack. Manny raised his head and had the wherewithal to snatch up his torch before it guttered out.
Picking himself up to his feet, he examined the murderous device. A rudimentary pulley system provided the tension, and the tripwire released it. Somehow it had survived the centuries, a legacy of Captain Marlowe. Manny had almost felt sympathy for the pirate when his grandfather had relayed the tale of how he had given up his treasure to try and save his skin, but that was before Marlowe had tried to kill him from across time.
He was about to press on, more carefully, when sharp, echoing cracks careened through the tunnel system. The strange distortion provided by the rocks confused Manny. He couldn’t place the noise at first and then it came to him.
Gunfire. It was coming from behind him, the Governor’s men must have found Kang. Manny wasn’t too proud to admit that his first instinct was to press on, and hope Kang could look after himself. Despite his better judgment, he couldn’t just leave Kang to die. Kang had saved his life after all, and that counted for a lot in Manny
’s book, even if Kang was a smug jerk with mysterious plans.
At a sprint, he retraced his steps until he found the junction where they had split up. Manny figured that if there were any more of Marlowe’s traps in this direction they would have been set off or disabled by Kang or his pursuers.
This tunnel was much easier going, leading upwards, and Manny could even see a faint light at the end. The gunfire was becoming louder also. As he drew closer, he slowed his pace. In the opening, a scant few meters away now, he could see the figure of a man, aiming and firing a shotgun from a kneeling position. An unconscious body lay next to him.
Kang’s work, no doubt.
Manny surmised that Kang had reached wherever this brighter place was, heard the soldiers coming up the tunnel, and decided to ambush them. This suggested at least he had managed to arm himself and was holding the soldiers off. Manny doubted that even Kang was fast enough to dodge bullets.
Manny crept up behind the soldier, who was still aiming down the barrel of his gun, and used the still lit torch as a club to beat the soldier over the head. He didn’t catch fire, but the blow shook a flurry of embers into the man’s face, and he went down screaming. Manny struck another two-handed blow, and he was silenced.
Manny scooped up the man’s gun and pulled several extra magazines from his belt. He peeked around to see where the other gunshots were coming from. As he did so, he marveled at where he was. It looked to him like a deep amphitheater, like the one he had once visited in Greece, but evidently this was naturally formed, with a curved ceiling.
Overhead, there was a small window to the world above, which let in the light of the moon, high in the sky. It must be about midnight. Had they really been in the tunnels for so long? As he looked around for enemies, he saw a flushed pink man, from his build it was to identify him as Governor Quincy, aiming a pistol down at a cluster of rocks on the theater’s floor.