Forever and a Death

by Donald E. Westlake

  “Bulldozer’s gone,” one of them said.

  Tian looked around an edge of plastic. He saw an armored personnel carrier, windshield shattered, slowly driving down the access road from the smashed-open gate. A couple of men sniped at the personnel carrier from behind parked trucks, but he could see it was all over.

  “We go now,” he decided, and signaled to his men, and they trotted after him in a long line away from the battle, toward the passage to the alley leading to Partition Street.

  * * *

  “I have to leave here now, sir,” Bennett said into the phone, knowing how panicky he sounded but unable to stop it. “The police broke through, they’re coming this way.”

  “Did you set the timers?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Leave the phone off the hook.”

  “But I have to go now, sir, I—”

  “Leave it off the hook!”

  “Yes, sir,” Bennett said, and dropped the phone onto the desk. Standing, he ran around the desk, and pulled open the door, and blue-uniformed policemen swarmed in.

  * * *

  Sharom swam through the flooded tunnels, his headlamp showing the way. At the end, there was a ladder, and he climbed it to the level above the water. He pushed the button there to summon the elevator, and while waiting for it he changed out of his flippers and back into the rubber thongs.

  Then the elevator came, and he rode upward, flippers under his left arm. When he got to the surface level and stopped, the elevator cage was surrounded by uniformed policemen, most of them pointing pistols or rifles at him. When he raised his arms, the flippers fell to the floor of the cage.

  * * *

  In six places in the flooded tunnels, carefully positioned by Colin Bennett following Richard Curtis’s precise instructions, tucked against side walls in the pitch blackness, were rectangular metal boxes, each about the size of a child’s coffin. The boxes had hinged tops and padlocks, and inside, in waterproof plastic bags, were the timers, the radio receivers, the detonators and the slim tubes of TNT.

  Water had already seeped into the boxes, but that didn’t matter. The timers chittered quietly to themselves, unreeling the seconds. When they judged the instant was right, one after the other, they would detonate.

  No one explosion would be very severe, but every one of them would agitate the water in these confined tunnels, every additional one increasing the agitation, until the sixth explosion would be like attaining free-fall. The energy would now renew itself, the water shoulder more space for itself, pressing outward, crumbling the concrete, eating the landfill, turning all the island below the clustered tall buildings into porridge.

  * * *

  Curtis sat at the table in the main cabin of Granjya, telephone to his ear, his eye on the radio and sonar that controlled the submarine. Granjya plowed steadily through the night, south and west, and the submarine obediently followed.

  Through the phone, he could hear a confusion of people milling around in his office at the construction site. Voices spoke, too far away from the receiver for him to make out what they were saying, but from the sound of it he believed they’d captured Colin.

  What would he tell them? Would he implicate Curtis? Not that it mattered. Nothing that anyone in that room could say would matter, before long.

  All those lights, he thought, looking out at Hong Kong Island as it receded in the night, all those lights will soon switch off. Forever. I won’t see it, he thought, but I’ll hear it, the beginning of it. In just…twenty-seven minutes.

  13

  The shooting seemed to be over. Manville followed Tony Fairchild down the steep gradient of the access road, Kim beside him. Fairchild walked beside the new inspector, the overweight man who’d been rushed in to take Inspector Ha’s place, whose name Manville hadn’t caught. Fairchild was trying to establish some rapport with this new man, but Manville didn’t think he was getting very far.

  Well, the new man had a lot on his plate. Some sort of insurrection in the center of the city, and apparently a nearby theft of a lot of gold. Also, vandalism in the water tunnels. And he was coming to it all from a standing start.

  As they walked down the slope, Manville saw a small sullen cluster of prisoners off to the left, two bodies on the ground nearby awaiting transportation, and uniformed policemen everywhere. More lights were being brought in, the blue plastic sheathing was being stripped from the shell of the building-that-wasn’t, and the construction vehicles were being moved out of the way.

  Unfortunately, Luther had been taken off to the hospital because of a graze wound on the side of his head before Manville could ask him about circumstances inside here. Where was Bennett, that was the question. The tunnels had been flooded, they knew that much. Was the soliton set?

  As they neared the bottom of the slope, Manville called to Fairchild, “Do they have Bennett? Do they know where he is?”

  Fairchild paused for Manville to catch up, as the new inspector strode on. “They have someone in the site office,” he said, “and a diver. We’ll go see.”

  As they started across the cleared excavation toward the trailer containing the office, Manville said, “We don’t know how much time Curtis has given us.”

  “Bennett may know,” Fairchild said. “I gather they may have used a submarine to take the loot away. If it’s in the harbor now, Curtis won’t want to do anything that might sink it.”

  “If it’s in the harbor now, it’s leaving the harbor fast,” Manville said.

  The site office was crammed with people. Bennett and a short olive-skinned man in a wetsuit sat on a bench to one side. A dozen policemen milled around the room, searching drawers, testing walkie-talkies, getting in each other’s way.

  Manville crossed to Bennett.

  “You,” Bennett said.

  Manville unconsciously raised two fingers to the scar on his cheek. “Did you set the explosives?”

  Bennett gave him a dull look, and a policeman angrily snapped at Manville in Cantonese to get away from the prisoners. Ignoring him, Manville said, “Bennett! Do you want to die?”

  The policeman tugged at Manville’s arm, and the new inspector called, “Inspector Fairchild! Get that man away from the prisoner!”

  “Inspector,” Fairchild said, “we have to stop the next round of explosions.”

  “We’re in control here now,” the new inspector said. “There will be no more explosions.”

  Manville said, “You don’t understand—”

  The new inspector said, “Inspector Fairchild, you cannot bring these civilians in here. I must demand they return to the street, to the other side of the barricade.”

  Manville said to Fairchild, “He doesn’t know about it. Inspector Ha was trying to avoid panic, remember? He told as few people as possible what was happening here. This man hasn’t the first idea what’s going on.”

  “Inspector Fairchild,” the new inspector announced, “I don’t know what lenience my predecessor demonstrated for you, but I must insist on my orders being carried out. If you don’t have these people removed, my men will remove them.”

  “We need them here,” Fairchild began, and Manville turned back to Bennett: “Did you or did you not set the explosives?”

  Again the Chinese policeman yanked at Manville’s arm, yelling at him, but this time, with sudden ferocity. Fairchild spun on him, towering, red-faced, and roared, “Let the man ask his questions!”

  The policeman, stunned, looked to his inspector for guidance. Tony turned his glower on the new inspector. A long silent moment went by, when no one spoke or moved.

  They just got out from under the British thumb, Manville thought. They aren’t going to like being yelled at by this big overbearing Australian.

  But then the new inspector’s professionalism broke through, and he snapped something at his policeman, who nodded, though grudgingly, and backed off. The new inspector made an imperious come-closer gesture at Fairchild and said, “Come here, sir, and explain yourself.�
��

  “I will, Inspector.”

  While Tony did, Manville turned back to Bennett. “If you didn’t set the charges yet,” he said, “for God’s sake, tell me so. If you did, let’s undo it before we’re all killed.”

  “We’ll be all right,” Bennett muttered, not looking at him.

  “We’ll be all right?”

  “Maybe get a block or two away.”

  “Man, don’t you know what Curtis has set up?”

  “It’s a robbery,” Bennett said. “I expect I’ll do time.”

  “It’s a massacre! Bennett, have you heard about the soliton?”

  Before Bennett could answer, a ragged creature crashed into the office, crying, “Help me! Help me! I’m an American! Help me!”

  Everybody stared at the man in bewilderment. He wore tattered grubby shorts and the remnants of shoes. He was unshaven, filthy, hair matted, wounds and scars all over his body. “My name,” he moaned, “is Hennessy.”

  Kim, in awe, whispered, “Mark?”

  “Kim!” Mark lurched toward her across the office. He dropped to his knees in front of her, staring up at her. “Don’t let them,” he begged. “Kim, don’t let them.”

  “Mark.” She went to her knees beside him, starting to touch him but then clearly afraid that any touch would only increase his pain.

  “Mark Hennessy,” Manville said. And then, turning to Bennett: “You recognize this man? You know he worked for Curtis?” Manville leaned down toward the quivering man. “You have to tell Bennett about the soliton.”

  Mark shook his head, confused. “But you…you know what it is. You built it.”

  “But if he hears it from you, he’ll know I’m not making it up, trying to fool him. Tell him, Mark. What is the soliton?”

  “You used it at the island, Kanowit Island.”

  “Tell him what it does.”

  “Turns land—landfill—turns it into mud.”

  “How?”

  “Water in tunnels, explosives in water.”

  Wheeling on Bennett, Manville said, “He told you it would just remove the evidence, didn’t he? But you’re the evidence, Bennett, we’re all the evidence. There’ll be probably six explosive devices, am I right?”

  Bennett frowned at him. “Well, what do they do, then?”

  “Every part of this island that has been added to,” Manville told him, “will be gone. And the buildings on it, all of them. And us.”

  “He told me—”

  “You believed him? You believed he’d let you live, to hold this over his head?”

  Bennett shook his heavy head, back and forth, back and forth.

  “You set them.”

  “Yes.”

  “How long ago?”

  “I don’t know, ten minutes, maybe less.”

  “For how long?”

  “Thirty minutes.” Bennett looked up at Manville. “Couldn’t we get away in time?”

  “From the city? How do you switch it off?”

  “You don’t,” Bennett said, sounding surprised. “No one ever said anything about switching it off.”

  Manville laughed, without mirth. “No fail-safe, once again. Naturally.”

  Tony Fairchild said, “Can we get to the explosives, switch them off manually?” Beside him, the new inspector was looking ashen-faced and terrified.

  Manville said, “They’re underwater, in the tunnels. We’d need divers, we’d never get divers here in time.”

  One of the policemen in the office suddenly noticed something and spoke up. “That telephone,” he said, “is off the hook.”

  They all stared at it. Tony strode to the table, picked up the receiver, listened, reacted, and turned to say, “I heard him hang up.”

  Manville said to Bennett, “Curtis?”

  Bennett nodded.

  Fairchild said, “George? Is there really no way to stop it?”

  Kim said, “I can go.”

  14

  Kim had never been so frightened in her life. All she could see in her mind’s eye was that great boulder of hard gray water rolling at her from Kanowit Island, surrounding her, submerging her, beating her into a rag doll.

  She was now wearing the other diver’s wetsuit and goggles and headlamp and flippers and air tank, thanking heaven he was a small man so it more or less fit. She moved strongly through the black tunnels. The water filling the tunnels was clouded, already beginning to mix with dirt from the temporary cross-tunnels. In a little while, you wouldn’t be able to see down here at all. Of course, in a little while, there would be no down here.

  The more she thought about the urgency of the job, the need for speed and efficiency, the more anxious she became. And she knew that could be fatal. She’d almost fallen down the ladder into the water, unable to control her feet in flippers on the ladder rungs. And she didn’t want to dive or fall into that water, because who knew what debris might be in there, to cut her or knock her out.

  And now, when she should be concentrating on swimming forward, finding the bombs, defusing them, all she could think about was the destroyer wave off Kanowit Island, all she could do was feed her fear.

  George hadn’t wanted her to come down here. None of them had wanted her to do it, none of them would have asked her to risk her life to save theirs—to save everyone’s. But who else was there?

  For about two seconds there had been the idea of convincing the other diver of the peril of the situation, and having him come down here, but everybody agreed he wouldn’t understand the danger and would most likely just swim through the tunnels and out the breached seawall and away.

  So it had to be her. George had said it wouldn’t be necessary to disarm all six bombs, even if there’d been time, and there surely was not that much time. “These three,” he’d said, pointing them out on the construction plans, and Kim concentrated on what she had to do when she got down below.

  It was simple, if she could only remember it. Through the first cross-tunnel, then down that water tunnel a little way to the right, and that would be number one. Back, find the next cross-tunnel, take it, pass through the next main tunnel to go to the next main tunnel, and to the left, and that would be number two. Then back the way she’d come, all the way back, past the ladder, down a different tunnel, another left into a cross-tunnel, another right, and there would be number three. And then, as quickly as possible, scoot back to the ladder and up.

  “The other three,” George had said, “will do some damage, but there won’t be enough pressure to build up the soliton wave. As long as you’re out of the water once they start to go off, you’ll be all right.”

  Be all right. She didn’t see how she could possibly be all right, she didn’t see how any of them could be all right.

  There. In the increasingly murky water, there it was, on the floor, next to the wall, looking like a flattened footlocker. On an elastic loop around her wrist was the padlock key Bennett had dug out of the desk drawer, and when she hunkered beside the box to try the key, it worked.

  How much time was left now? Ten minutes? Less?

  Her hands fumbled when she pulled the wire-clippers from her belt. “Just cut the wires between the timer and the detonator,” George had told her. “It’s a very simple device. Cut the wires, and move on.”

  The wires. She squeezed the wire clippers, and the wires were tougher than she’d expected. More time wasted. She had to cut the wires one at a time. At least that worked.

  Clippers back into utility belt; don’t drop them!

  The headlamp glow reflected back at her more and more from the dirty water. She slid along the right side of the water tunnel, finding the cross tunnel mostly by feel, moving on.

  What if the water becomes too dirty to see in at all? How can I move fast if I’m blind?

  It took more swimming than it felt to her like it should have, more than she could afford, but then her fingers brushed something hard against the wall and she felt along its outline. The second box. Knowing how to do it now, she mo
ved more quickly, but reminded herself not to hurry, not to make any mistakes. Her heart pounded inside the wetsuit as she manipulated the clippers, then slid them back into her belt and kicked out and away, reversing course, swimming as strongly as she could back the way she’d come.

  Oh, how she wanted to climb that ladder when it came dimly into view, but no, not yet, there was more to be done. One more. Without disabling one more, she’d only have weakened the soliton, not prevented it. Maybe only a hundred thousand would die rather than millions—that was some victory, she supposed. But not an entirely satisfying one. Especially given that the dead would include her. And George.

  She swam past the ladder and on down the dark tunnel, only able to see the side of the tunnel she was nearest to. Her own movements agitated the water, mixing it more quickly with the dirt in the side tunnels. It was like swimming in a sewer. Like swimming in a nightmare.

  She kept her head down, kicked harder, took the turns George had shown her. Box number three was there where it was supposed to be, but she couldn’t see it at all, had to open the padlock by feel, grope around inside it for the wires. She found them and braced the clippers against them, shifted her grip for greater leverage—and the clippers slipped from her hand.

  She fumbled for them, grabbed at them, and missed.

  For a second she couldn’t breathe. Just a second, but it was the most painful second of her life, physically painful, like she was being crushed from all sides at once. She forced herself to take air in, forced herself to focus. You’re going to die down here, she told herself, and strangely it succeeded in calming her down.

  She stretched her arm out, groped along the bottom of the open box, praying, and when her fingers made contact with the rubber-sheathed grips of the clippers she seized them.

  No more time. The wires had to be cut, and no time to do it one by one. Grimacing, she forced the jaws of the clippers together around the wires, squeezed hard with both hands. She’d have sworn she could hear the clippers bite shut as the wires split. It was done. She’d done it.

  But the relief she felt was short-lived. For even if the explosives that were left wouldn’t create a soliton wave, they would be more than enough to snuff out the life of one unfortunate diver caught in their path. She’d miraculously survived one underwater explosion already—no one beat the odds twice.