by Brandt Legg
“Ryker can you hear me?” Westfield asked repeatedly.
As the smoke cleared, Ryker saw what he was looking for and cussed again.
“They’re gone.”
Sixty-Eight
Chase and Wen found themselves in a suddenly silent world. The smell of cold, stale air and wet concrete greeted them. Chase shivered as they stood in the damp, dark space, lit only by their small flashlights. They’d just climbed down the rusty metal rungs of a narrow, built-in ladder beneath the manhole cover Chase had backed the car over. Prior to their descent into the storm drains, Wen hastily made a series of alcohol bombs from the Booker’s Rye whisky left in the Lamborghini. Chase went down first, before Wen moved the car the final inches into position over their escape route. Wen’s slim frame allowed her to slip under the car after tossing two lit Molotov cocktails into the vehicle.
“It won’t take long for them to discover our vanishing act,” Chase said, shining his light up where Wen had slid the cover back in place. He had recently read an article about the scores of “mole people” living in the hundreds of miles of storm drains under Las Vegas.
“We can get lost down here for hours,” Wen said.
“More like days,” Chase answered, still second-guessing the decision to run from the fight. “This feels like the ancient catacombs, or a tomb.”
“It could become one for us if we don’t keep moving.” They took a second to debate which way to go.
“Lipton innovations is south of here,” Chase said. “Which direction is south?”
“You’re pretty optimistic,” Wen said, shining a light down both tunnels. “I’m calculating the odds if we can make it out of here alive, and you’re still planning to get to our destination on time.”
“It’s impossible to tell, because these tunnels can just wind and turn,” Chase said, ignoring her. “We may think we’re heading south and wind up actually going northwest.”
“We’ve already waited too long. They could drop down on top of us any moment. Let’s just go this way.”
They ducked into the round concrete corridor and did their best to move fast through the cramped space. After what seemed like a long time, they slowed to catch their breath, now completely disoriented.
“How long have we been down here?” Chase asked.
“Seven minutes,” Wen said.
“That’s nuts, it feels like an hour.”
That far underground, there was no cell coverage, no wireless, and definitely no point in trying the Antimatter machine. Wen pointed her light up ahead. “It seems to widen,” she said, starting to jog again.
Chase had to stoop to keep from scraping his head on the concrete ceiling, and was relieved when they reached the area Wen had seen, because it opened into two rectangular tunnels crossing theirs.
“Left,” they said in unison, having no interest in continuing down the narrower round drainage tunnel and figuring left was the most likely tunnel to be heading south. Making better time, a few minutes later they came upon a side opening, which looked to be somebody’s bedroom—a stack of blankets, stacks of paperback books and magazines, a shopping cart filled with dirty laundry and jackets, an open sleeping bag, crumpled bedding, a cardboard box overflowing with empty food containers.
“Mole people,” Chase said. “Supposedly there’s hundreds of them living down here.”
The area seemed otherwise abandoned. They kept moving.
They passed three or four more encampments before Wen suddenly grabbed his arm. “Shh do you hear that?”
Chase stilled himself for a moment and strained to listen. “It’s definitely footsteps,” he whispered.
“A lot of them,” she hissed.
“I can’t tell what direction it’s coming from.” The long, vacant stretch seemed to offer no place to hide, no way out.
“We probably should’ve stuck to the round tunnel. Gone up one of the manhole covers.”
“There was a round tunnel back a little ways, do you remember?”
“I think that’s where the footsteps are coming from,” she said, pushing him forward. “The men followed us into the tunnel.”
They started running faster, knowing their footsteps could be heard as well. It wasn’t long before they ran into a group of homeless people—eight men, two women.
“Hey, hey, hey, where you going in such a hurry?” one of them asked.
“We’re trying to find our way outta here,” Wen said breathlessly.
“Aren’t we all, honey,” one of them said, as most of them laughed. “Aren’t we all.”
“Can you tell us the quickest way to get out?” Chase asked, looking over their shoulders and trying to determine if this was going to turn into something ugly.
“The fastest way to get out of here is to get yourself a good paying job, save enough money to pay rent—oh and cable TV, you’ll want cable,” one said, to more jeers and laughter.
“But to get a good place, you’ll need good credit,” one added. “No credit, no place—no place, no job. The casinos aren’t going to hire you once been down here in—”
“Okay,” Chase said, cutting off the man’s rambling. “Have a nice night.” He tried to weave his way past, but they blocked him.
“There’s a toll to get through here.”
“I don’t see any tollbooth,” Wen said.
“There’s been signs for the last mile, but it is kinda dark in here, honey,” a big lady said.
“We don’t want any trouble,” Chase said impatiently, still hearing footsteps behind them. He’d had a brief hope that the footsteps had belonged to this group. Now he knew they were all about to get slaughtered.
“How much is the toll?” he asked.
“Your wallet, everything in it, and your backpacks,” the largest man said.
“Last chance,” Wen said in a firm, even voice. “Let us pass.”
“Pay the toll and—”
Before he could finish, Wen had knocked him and three other men to the ground with a combination of round kicks and flying punches.
The others came charging at them. “Why you little—” Before he got out his insult to Wen, she’d slammed him and another one into one of the walls. Chase pushed two more out of the way and kept moving with their forward momentum. None of the homeless followed. But it wasn’t the downtrodden and derelicts they were worried about it, it was the crew from the surface of heavily armed, highly trained men who still had them trapped underground.
“The dirty dozen back there came from this direction,” Chase said. “Oxygen shouldn’t be much farther.”
“As long as there aren’t any turns.”
“Nice work back there.”
“They were just down on their luck, looking for an easy score,” Wen said. “Normally I wouldn’t have gone at them that hard. But those men from up top can’t be more than a minute or two behind us, and you know they heard the commotion. They’ll be moving faster now.”
Sixty-Nine
The echoes of approaching trouble reverberating through the concrete maze warned Chase and Wen that they were down to seconds. The footfalls had been growing louder until they became a constant rumble. The living quarters where they had chosen to take their stand were similar to the dozen they had already passed—littered with trash, worn and stained clothing, and strange collections of urban artifacts that the occupant thought might be useful. Unfortunately, the occupant was also present, and somewhat inebriated. In the thirty or so seconds that they’d been trying to convince the poor fellow that they were not going to hurt him or take his belongings, Chase had given him two twenty dollar bills, and continuously begged for his silence, saying they were just there “to play a joke on friends.”
The man moaned and repeatedly asked if Chase had any liquor. “You sure as shocks smell like a distillery,” the man slurred.
Chase, who had spilled quite a bit of the Booker’s Rye on himself while they set up Molotovs for torching the Lamborghini, couldn’t deny the familiar
aroma that the homeless man was drawn to, but informed him, with apologies, that he’d already drank it all.
“Now that’s not fair, I—” the man whined, starting to get up.
Chase gently pushed him back and reminded him of their deal. “Please be quiet for just two more minutes.”
The footsteps’ drone became deafening. Wen readied her weapon and aimed it at the opening. Chase thought of his father and steadied his arm, knowing they’d have to begin shooting as the men arrived or they’d lose their element of surprise.
The stampede amplified more, telling them that the pursuers could only be a couple of feet from the opening, and then they suddenly slowed.
“Another one,” a gruff male voice announced.
“Ransack it like the others,” came a different voice.
Chase and Wen, barely concealed behind an old cardboard box and an overstuffed shopping cart, remained completely still as four men ran by and only two remained to search their dwelling.
As soon as the two men climbed into the cavity, the homeless man began to protest.
“Hey, what the flip! This is not a party, you get the surprise?”
Two men shined the light at the man.
“Yow, get that light outta my eyes! Do you got twenty dollars for me to shut up, too?”
The men looked at each other.
“But I don’t want any of that blinding light,” he slurred. “Tell him, Distillery Man, tell them our deal.”
The men suddenly realized somebody else might be in there. “You got friends visiting?” one of them asked.
“Not friends, they just busted in here and took over like they own the place. I don’t got no landlord.”
“Where are they?” the man asked as he ripped a large piece of cardboard down.
Wen grabbed his head and snapped it so fast he never even saw her. The other man spun and raised his gun just as Chase toppled the shopping cart onto him.
The homeless man began protesting loudly, flailing about, complaining they’d messed up his home.
Before Chase could make another move on the man struggling to get out from under the shopping cart, Wen twisted his arm until it snapped, grabbed his gun, and did some sort of move on his neck that instantly silenced him.
Chase grabbed the other man’s gun and tried to get a look at his face.
“I already checked,” Wen said. “Neither of them.”
Chase knew she meant that the two dead weren’t Ryker or Damon.
He nodded and followed her out.
“You freaks!” the homeless man yelled. “I can’t— You get back here! What am I supposed to do with these two bodies and this crazy, messy house?”
They hit the tunnel running as fast as the space allowed, heading toward the men who were already at least fifty feet ahead. Once they were within twenty feet, one of the men yelled back. “Is that you Bowker? Anything in there?”
By now, Chase and Wen were only ten feet behind the men, and could see four clear silhouettes.
“Now!” Wen shouted, opening fire with the men’s weapons. They dropped all four men before even one of them could turn around. As they stepped over the bodies, they shined a light onto each man’s face to see if Ryker and Damon were among the dead.
“Two in the house, four out here . . . Either Ryker and Damon are still back there,” Chase said, pointing back the way they came, “or they didn’t come down.”
“They could be waiting for us at the exit.”
“Wherever that is.” Chase noticed one of the men was still moving. The man reached a bloodied-arm toward his dropped weapon. Without hesitating, Chase squeezed the trigger and blew the man’s head apart. “That’s for my dad, you piece of trash.”
Seventy
Ryker and Damon were coping with the maddening experience of trying to anticipate when and where either their crew, or Chase and Wen would emerge from the tunnels. Westfield had secured a map of the storm drains for them; however, it came with the caveat that it was not necessarily complete or accurate.
“We should have heard by now,” Ryker said. “If Malone and the woman escape again, Westfield’s going to have us shot.”
“Maybe,” Damon said as he read the GPS on his tablet. The display was now overlaid with the schematic of the storm drains thanks to a nifty piece of software.
“All we can do is guess,” Ryker said. “If I was down there and came out of that small little round tunnel, I would surely not crawl back into it on the other side of that nice big wide comfortable tunnel. But which way would they go? Assuming they had no knowledge of the drains, the tendency is to go right. But according to our data, the tunnel eases slightly downward there in that direction. In the natural tendency then, I don’t think they’d be inclined to go deeper, so they went left.”
“Possibly,” Damon said, manipulating the screen with his fingers so that the map would follow the tunnel to the left.
“And it just so happens that the tunnel to the left gets them to fresh air fastest.”
Damon nodded.
“Assuming they don’t take a wrong turn somewhere.” Ryker studied the various tunnels. “Let’s take another guess that it’s one of those two openings. Which one is more logical for them?”
“Flip a coin?”
“I’m not making a decision like this on a coin toss. There’s an answer in there on that map about which way they’d go. Of course, if our boys get the . . . ” But Ryker had a bad feeling the “boys” weren’t up for the task. “Chase Malone has some sort of lucky totem or something, and that girl is like a magic weapon”
“Like chasing the wind,” Damon agreed.
The amount of graffiti and its colorful elaborateness increased as they continued down the tunnel. “That’s a sure bet we’re nearing the outside world,” Chase said, pointing to the urban artwork.
They had made a series of choices left and right, big tunnels, small tunnels, rounded, rectangle, using everything from the temperature of the drafts, intuition, and listening for sounds of any kind to guide them. All the while they stayed vigilant for Ryker, Damon, and whomever else they might bring with them.
Wen hoped they’d avoid the confrontation she knew Chase wanted. The indelible images of his father struggling with his last breath to take one last look at his boys had destroyed part of Chase. She knew there was no repairing that. A different man was down there with her now, one new to killings and revenge. It wasn’t the right time yet, but over the course of the next few weeks, she would have that conversation with him. The one about no matter how hard he tries, how much he might be able to make Ryker and Damon suffer before they die, before he kills them, even if he finds their bosses and their bosses’ boss and kills all of them, he’s not going to feel any better. It’s not going to make that pain ache any less. Only time does that, and it takes a very, very, very long time for it to heal that kind of wound.
And then she would hold him, and kiss him, and tell him the worst part of all is that it never truly heals. The healing that people feel is really just the numb covering of years, the fading rawness of the wound, but inside, those scars would always burn.
Chase checked the time—eleven forty-three. It was still possible to make it to Lipton Innovations before Powder, but not by midnight—unless they got lucky and escaped the underworld in the next few minutes, then figured out transportation to the tech center.
They passed a few straggling homeless people, each walking alone. The men didn’t make eye contact, but they were certainly observing Chase and Wen, who each, as much as possible, held their weapons out of sight.
They asked one where the entrance was, but he just grunted and ignored them. They came across a couple, a man and woman in their forties, definitely looking out of place down there—clothes still filthy and frayed, but just a little nicer than the others they’d seen. Maybe they were more recent arrivals. Maybe they didn’t have substance abuse issues or mental disorders.
“Is this the way out?” Wen asked.
>
They slowed and took a few moments, apparently deciding whether to engage or not. Finally the woman answered, “Yes. The opening is just about two or three minutes that way.” She pointed over her shoulder.
“Did you happen to see any men out there?” Chase asked. “People with guns?”
The couple looked at each other in the glow of the four flashlights. “No,” they both said in unison before hurrying along.
“Let’s go,” Wen said.
“I can’t wait to breathe fresh air,” Chase said as they started to jog again.
“Yeah,” she agreed, wondering what they would encounter.
“Between the mall and down in these storm drains, I’ve read so much graffiti I can almost understand it. In fact, I think I’m becoming fluent in Graffiti.”
“That just makes you more dangerous.”
“Right,” he said in a sad voice.
“They could be out there, you know.”
“I hope so. We’ve got guns.”
Seventy-One
Powder kept reminding himself to focus while he waited to move on the Lipton Innovation building. Concentration hadn’t come easy since the Austin catastrophe and the close call in Phoenix. Part of the months of training had included clearing his mind, staying in the zone. They’d known all along that the further the mission progressed, the more risks would close in on them. Yet knowing and dealing with it were two different things. It didn’t help that this one came with even more challenges.
Lipton Innovations, part of a massive conglomerate, utilized every modern measure to safeguard the facility and employed the largest private security force in the world—some even referred to it as a corporate Army.