Whispers Under Ground

by Ben Aaronovitch

  ‘Since we’ve lost the FBI’s most wanted,’ said Kumar. ‘Do we go forward or back?’

  ‘Are you sure you saw someone?’ I asked Reynolds.

  ‘I’m positive,’ she said.

  ‘Let’s at least see where this goes,’ I said. ‘Because I do not want to have to come back down here later.’

  ‘Amen to that,’ said Reynolds.

  We pushed on, literally, up the sewer pipe which got gradually narrower until I was walking hunched over. I also started to suspect that the water level was rising – although it was hard to tell, what with the changes in pipe size. To be honest I think we kept going out of misplaced machismo, but by the time we reached the junction we were ready for any excuse. One branch carried on straight ahead while a second branch curved off to the right, both equally narrow, cramped and full of shit.

  And like the last temptation of Peter Grant there was, on the left, a slot in the wall less than a metre wide that contained stairs going up.

  ‘Much as I love standing knee-deep in shit,’ said Kumar. ‘It would be a really bad idea to hang around here much longer.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘The water level’s rising,’ he said. ‘In fact, as the senior officer here I think I’m going to insist.’ He stared at us, obviously expecting one of us to object.

  ‘You had us at “the water level is rising”,’ I said.

  We squeezed up the narrow staircase into a rectangular landing where a ladder, which I noted was much more modern than the Victorian wall it was attached to, led two metres up to what was presumably the underside of a manhole.

  ‘Listen,’ said Reynolds. ‘Can you here that?’

  There was a drumming sound from the manhole. Rain, I thought, heavy rain. And also the sound of rushing water, faint but distinct, coming from the opposite corner of the landing. I turned my head and my helmet light illuminated a shadowy rectangle in the floor – the top of a vertical shaft.

  Kumar took hold of the ladder. ‘Let’s hope it’s not welded shut,’ he said.

  I stepped over to the hole in the floor and looked down.

  There, less than a metre below, a young man was staring up at me. He was hanging from a ladder that led down into the darkness of the shaft. He must have been frozen there hoping we wouldn’t look down. I didn’t get more than a glimpse in my helmet light, of a pale face with big eyes framed by a black hoodie, before he let go of the ladder and fell.

  No, not fell. Slid down the shaft, hands and feet jammed against either side to slow his descent. As he went, I heard a noise like a room full of whispered conversations and felt a burst of imaginary heat as if I’d stepped out into hot sun.

  ‘Oi,’ I yelled and went down the ladder. I had to. What I’d felt had been vestigia and what the guy had done, slowing himself down without friction burning his hands off, had been magic.

  I heard Kumar call my name.

  ‘He’s down here,’ I shouted, trying to skip rungs and then jumping the last metre. The impact of my landing drove the accumulated water in my wellies up into my groin – fortunately it was warm.

  Another short narrow corridor. I saw movement at the far end and followed. The air was full of the sound of rushing water. Common sense made me skid to a halt at the end, just in case the guy was waiting around the corner with an offensive weapon. The corridor opened into a barrel-vaulted tunnel. To the right, water cascaded down a weir and to the left I saw my guy, bent under the low ceiling, water up to his hips – wading away as fast as he could.

  I jumped into the water behind him and the current swept my legs out from under me and landed me on my back. What can only be described as highly diluted poo washed over my face and I shoved myself back up fast enough to crack my head on the ceiling. If I hadn’t been wearing a helmet I probably would have killed myself.

  I staggered forward, vaguely aware of splashing behind me which I hoped was Kumar or Reynolds. Ahead, the man in the black hoodie was making for what looked like another intersection. He glanced back, caught sight of me, and suddenly turned, raising his right hand. There was a flash, a painfully sharp retort and something zipped past my ear.

  The big difference between green and experienced soldiers is that until you’ve actually been shot at once or twice, your brain has trouble working out what’s going on. You hesitate, often for only a moment, but it’s the moment that counts. I was green as snot but fortunately Special Agent Reynolds was not.

  A hand grabbed the back of my coverall and yanked me off my feet. At the same time there was a bright flash just to my right and a bang that was so loud it was like being slapped in the ear with a telephone directory.

  I went back down – shouting. There were three more flashes, three more bangs, mercifully muffled by the water this time. I came back up spluttering and froze.

  Reynolds was kneeling beside me, shoulders square and a black semiautomatic pistol held in a professional two-handed grip aimed up the sewer. Kumar was crouched down behind me, his hand on my shoulder in an effort to restrain me from leaping up and making a target of myself.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ I asked Reynolds.

  ‘Returning fire,’ she said calmly.

  Her pistol had one of the little back torches slung under the barrel and I followed its beam back to the intersection eight or so metres ahead. I remembered the first flash and bang.

  ‘Did you hit anyone?’ I asked.

  ‘Can’t tell,’ she said.

  ‘Do you know how much trouble you’re going to be in if you’ve shot someone?’ I asked.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ she said.

  ‘We can’t stay here,’ said Kumar. ‘Forward or back?’

  ‘If the special agent here hit someone we can’t leave them there to bleed out,’ I said. ‘So, forward.’ There was a conspicuous lack of agreement from Kumar and Reynolds. ‘But only as far as the intersection.’

  ‘Am I allowed to return fire?’ asked Reynolds.

  ‘Only if you give a warning first,’ I said.

  ‘What’s she going to say?’ asked Kumar. ‘Halt, totally unauthorized armed foreign national, drop your weapons and put your hands in the air?’

  ‘Just shout “Freeze FBI”,’ I said. ‘With a bit of luck it will confuse them.’

  Nobody moved.

  ‘I’ll go first,’ I said.

  I’m not totally mad. For one thing, the only reason I could think that our mysterious hoodie would hang about was if he’d been shot. And for the other thing, I took a deep breath and mentally ran through aer congolare – just to be on the safe side.

  It was a still very cautious advance – with me in front, I might add.

  The small sewer we were clambering along met a much bigger sewer at a diagonal. Judging from the yellow-brown brickwork and its relatively fresh fragrance I guessed it was a later addition and probably a floodwater relief sewer which was, judging by the water rushing through it, admirably doing what it was supposed to do.

  ‘Clear,’ said Reynolds and did a second three-sixty just to be on the safe side.

  Upstream, the relief sewer was dead straight, vanishing off into infinity. Downstream it turned sharply down into a step-weir that dropped over three metres.

  ‘I think he went that way,’ said Reynolds pointing down to where the water boiled white at the bottom of the weir.

  ‘Either you missed him,’ I said. ‘Or he was wounded and swept away.’

  ‘There’s an access ladder here,’ said Kumar hopefully. It was mounted in a recess just short of the weir.

  ‘We’re not going to find him tonight,’ I said. ‘We might as well go home.’ I looked at Reynolds. ‘And you’re coming with us for a chat about why you were down here.’

  ‘I’m going back to my hotel,’ said Reynolds.

  ‘It’s us or Kittredge,’ I said.

  ‘It’s all the same to me,’ she said.

  ‘Children,’ said Kumar. ‘We are leaving.’ He put his foot on his ladder for e
mphasis.

  ‘Can you promise me hot towels?’ asked Reynolds.

  ‘As many as you can eat,’ I said.

  ‘Okay,’ she said and then she looked past my shoulder. I saw her react and the thought form on her face long before she got her mouth open to yell – behind you!

  I lurched around as fast as the water would let me, my mind grasping for the formae, and got the shield up just in time.

  The Sten gun is one of those iconic bits of British design, like the Mini or the Tube Map, that has come to represent an era. It’s a submachine gun of very distinctive configuration with its side-mounted magazine and tubular stock. Designed at the start of World War Two to be cheap and cheerful, providing your definition of cheerful was lots of pistol-calibre bullets going in the general direction of the enemy. As Nightingale explained to me, when we found a couple of rusted examples in the armoury, from the individual infantryman’s point of view there really is no such thing as too much personal firepower.

  The guy had popped up from nowhere in the small pipe, kneeling to fire in just the same fashion as Reynolds had. My gaze was so fixated on the gun that all I registered was the same pale face, big eyes and a look of terrified determination.

  The Sten had a 32-round magazine and early models fired only on full auto. But the action was crude, which meant they weren’t particularly accurate – which is probably what saved my life.

  The flash blinded me, the noise deafened me and then a sledgehammer smashed into my chest, once, twice and a third time. I staggered backwards trying to keep my mind focused only on the spell while another part of my mind was yelling that I was dead.

  Then the lights went out and I went over backwards and down the weir.

  I tumbled, cracking elbow, hip and thigh against the weir’s steps, and then I was dragged face down along the rough bricks of the sewer floor. I pushed myself up and broke the surface gasping for breath. I tried to stand against the current but I’d just made it to my feet when something human-sized smacked into me and sent us both underwater.

  An arm grabbed me under the armpit and hauled me up in the classic lifesaving position – I heard an annoyed grunt in my ear.

  ‘Reynolds?’ I gasped.

  ‘Quiet,’ she hissed.

  She was right. Mr Sten Gun could still be standing at the top of the weir, or he might even have come down it – it’s not like I would have heard him. Reynolds was letting us both float back with the current – the better to put distance between us and the gunman.

  ‘I don’t think he’s following us,’ said Kumar right beside my ear.

  ‘Jesus Christ.’ I managed to keep it to an outraged hiss.

  ‘I’m not the one coming back from the dead,’ he said.

  ‘Can we please not blaspheme,’ said Reynolds.

  I remembered the blows to my chest.

  ‘The vest caught it,’ I said.

  Kumar grunted in surprise – the Metvest is supposed to be stab and bullet resistant but I don’t think any officer I know ever believed it.

  ‘I reckon we’re clear enough for you to use your flashlight, Sergeant,’ said Reynolds.

  ‘Love to,’ said Kumar. ‘But it’s dead.’

  ‘Yours is dead as well?’ asked Reynolds. ‘What are the odds of that? What about yours, Peter?’

  I didn’t need to check. I asked Kumar if he had any glowsticks.

  ‘Just the one,’ he said and cracked it, careful to mask the yellow light with his body.

  ‘You can let go of me,’ I told Reynolds. ‘I can stand on my own two feet.’

  Reynolds let me up, my feet skidded on the floor and I had to lean at a forty-five-degree angle just to avoid being swept away. The water was up to my waist. According to Kumar the water was probably a combination of snowmelt and unusually heavy rain in the North London catchment area.

  ‘How long have we got?’ I asked.

  ‘Cave systems can fill up very quickly and this is a system that been purposely designed to fill up as fast as possible,’ said Kumar.

  ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to stay down here,’ I said.

  ‘You think?’ said Reynolds.

  We decided that, mad gunman notwithstanding, we probably couldn’t push our way upstream even if we wanted to.

  ‘There’ll be street access further down,’ said Kumar. ‘We should let the current wash us along until we reach one.’

  I looked at Reynolds, who shrugged.

  ‘Let’s do it,’ she said.

  So Reynolds got behind me and grabbed my shoulders, Kumar got behind her and grabbed hers and on the count of three we all lifted our feet and let the current sweep us down the sewer pipe.

  The water was above the halfway point and running faster than a mountain stream. In case you’re wondering, I’ve kayaked down a mountain stream – it was a school trip and I spent a lot of time underwater. As the guy at the front I was doing that again now – only the water wasn’t as clean. In the absolute black, Kumar’s glowstick didn’t do much more than texture the darkness and add to the sensation that we were hurtling out of control.

  ‘Oh great,’ I screamed. ‘Now we’re a bobsleigh team.’

  ‘It’s the luge,’ yelled Kumar. ‘It’s only a bobsleigh if you’ve got a bobsleigh.’

  ‘You two are insane,’ shouted Reynolds. ‘There’s no such thing as a triple luge.’

  Between duckings I glimpsed a patch of grey. I opened my mouth to yell ‘Daylight’ and then really wished I hadn’t when I got a mouthful of diluted sewage.

  It was another intersection. I saw an alcove with a ladder and lunged – only to be swept past, with my fingers centimetres from the metal. My foot hit something underwater hard enough to pitch me over and the world’s first-ever Anglo-American Olympic sewer luge team broke up.

  I slammed into another thing that was at least vertical and made of metal, and then something else caught hold of my ankle.

  ‘Are you holding onto me?’ I shouted.

  ‘Yes,’ gasped Reynolds. ‘And Kumar’s holding onto me.’

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘Because I think I’ve found a ladder.’

  20

  Holland Park

  The thing about absolute darkness is that you end up doing things very carefully, especially after the first time you nearly brain yourself on a concrete cross-beam. So when I reached the top of the ladder I felt around myself slowly – I had come up through another floor hatch, I thought. There were no lights visible in any direction.

  I made a werelight, which revealed a rectangular concrete room with a high ceiling and a shadowy doorway at the far end.

  ‘I can see a light,’ said Reynolds from below.

  ‘Just a moment,’ I said.

  I fixed the werelight to the ceiling with scindare in the hope that Reynolds would mistake it for a light fixture, and climbed out of the hatchway onto the gritty cement floor, freeing it up for her.

  ‘About time,’ said Reynolds.

  I reached down to help her up. She was shivering and her hands were freezing. She crawled clear of the hatchway and flopped over onto her back breathing heavily. Kumar followed her up, staggered a few steps, and sat down heavily.

  ‘A light,’ said Reynolds, staring at the ceiling. ‘Thank God.’

  We could still hear the water rushing away below us.

  I gingerly undid my coverall and felt my chest. The Metvest was still intact but there were three holes in the nylon covering. They were ragged with blackened edges – like cigarette burns. Something dropped from my chest and pinged off the cement floor. I picked it up – it was a pistol-calibre bullet.

  ‘That’s odd,’ said Reynolds, who’d sat up to take a look. She held out her hand and I dropped the bullet into it so she could examine it more closely. ‘Nine millimetre. It’s barely deformed at all. Are you sure this hit you?’

  I winced as I felt the bruises under the vest. ‘Pretty certain,’ I said.

  ‘This one must have gone through the water
first,’ she said.

  I found it remarkably easy not to tell her that it was more likely that the bullet had been slowed by the magical force field I’d conjured up.

  ‘I don’t know what happened to the lamps,’ said Kumar. He’d detached his helmet lamp from its bracket and was prising off its back.

  ‘Maybe they’re not as waterproof as we thought they were,’ I said.

  Kumar frowned down at the lamp, but LEDs, like most solid-state technology, look the same whether they’re broken or not. ‘Never happened before,’ he said and gave me a suspicious look.

  I looked away and noticed that Reynolds was still shivering.

  ‘Are you cold?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m freezing,’ she said. ‘Why aren’t you?’

  I explained that we were wearing wetsuits.

  ‘They didn’t have those at the embassy thrift store,’ she said. ‘I had to make do with Marine hand-me-downs.’

  I’d like to have asked what had brought her into the sewers in the first place, but her face had gone very pale. I’m not privy to the media policy directives of the Metropolitan Police, but I suspected that from a public relations standpoint a dead FBI agent would be way more embarrassing than a live one.

  ‘We need to find somewhere for you to dry off.’ I said. ‘Where’s your backup?

  ‘My what?’ she asked.

  ‘You’re an American,’ I said. ‘You guys always have backup.’

  ‘Times are hard,’ she said. ‘And resources are limited.’ But she looked away when she said it.

  Ah, I thought. She’s playing that movie – the one where the pen-pushers block the hero from getting involved and she goes rogue to solve the mystery herself.

  ‘Does the embassy know you’re down here?’ I asked.

  ‘Never mind me,’ she said. ‘Where’s your backup?’

  ‘Never mind backup,’ said Kumar. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘We’re still in the sewers,’ I said. ‘We just need to find a way out.’

  ‘What are our options?’ asked Reynolds.

  ‘Well, we have hole number one,’ said Kumar. ‘The ever-popular floodwater relief sewer. Or we have a dark and mysterious doorway.’ He struggled to his feet and went over to peer inside.