Joe smiled a big toothy grin at that.
“Good boats. You’ll get plenty of use out of them.”
And then suddenly Dennis was at it, playing along, “Emma’s told us all about them. We can’t wait to get our hands on them.”
Max grinned and waved a thank you at the old man. “Be seeing you then.”
Joe nodded. “See you later girl.”
“Get me a drink in,” she laughed and headed off purposefully to the right of the workshop. Joe carried on his way. Max didn’t think he noticed anything untoward.
“I take it he’s not part of this?” Max asked Emma.
“You’d be right. He’s nothing.”
They entered a small office attached to the side of the workshop, about twelve feet from the waters’ edge. Papers were strewn over the only desk and overflowing out of a couple of plastic in-trays. The early afternoon sun got sliced through the venetian blinds and golden bars of light fell across the scuffed greying carpet tiles. As they ventured inside, Max noted the half-drunk coffee in two moulding cups beside the computer keyboard. A couple of filing cabinets and a chair and a potted plant and that was it. Max was confused. “This is it?”
“What did you expect?”
Max couldn’t answer. From the way Dennis had spoken about this mysterious MI18, he’d been expecting something more high tech and a little less estate agent.
“You were going to take us to see Thadeus? Where is he?”
“Close the door.”
Dennis, who’d been lingering by the open doorway, stepped further into the room, bringing the door closed behind him.
The phone on the desk was incongruous by its age. Max hadn’t seen a rotary dial on a phone in ten years at least. Emma picked it up, but Max snatched it away.
“I need that if we’re to go and see Thadeus,” she said irritated. “You can hold the handset if you like. I wasn’t going to speak to anyone.”
“OK. No funny business.”
Emma rolled her eyes and started dialling a number. Max watched her slim fingers with immaculately painted nails dial a ten digit number. It didn’t mean anything to Max.
Without a warning, the lights in the office burned bright. Max blinked against the sudden discomfort but it was short lived. A couple of seconds later and the lights returned to normal.
“Hey, it’s gone dark outside.” Dennis was looking through the window that had moments ago been letting the afternoon sun spill in.
“What’s happened?” Max said, taking the gun firmly in his hand and pointing it at Emma. “What did you do?”
Dennis opened the office door and gasped.
Max rushed over and saw at once that they were not by the lake anymore, they were somewhere else. It was a dark passageway, walls made of concrete. A string of light bulbs danced from old wire along the ceiling.
Emma had come over to the door and squeezed herself past the two men.
“Welcome to the Tombs.”
32
Max found it difficult to do anything other than stare along the darkened corridor outside the office door; a corridor that shouldn’t be there. Only moments ago they’d been beside the Marine Lake. Now, where the hell were they?
Dennis stepped back, deeper into the office. “I don’t understand what’s just happened. Where are we?”
"We’re in the Tombs.”
“Come again?” Dennis replied.
“The Tombs was the nickname given to the Manhattan Detention Complex, a jail in lower Manhattan. Our ventilation system never worked properly, making it so hot you could believe you were in hell's waiting room. Someone thought it was appropriate,” Emma said.
“Cute, but let’s get going,” Max gestured that Emma lead the way, and she shrugged her shoulders before stepping out of the office. Max didn’t want to be down here any longer than was necessary. He felt vulnerable heading into the enemies camp, and the longer he stayed still, the more the unease gnawed at his confidence.
Max followed Emma but immediately lost his footing into a deep puddle of water, coming up to above his ankle. “Damn!”
Emma laughed. “Sorry, I meant to say be careful to watch your step. This tunnel is always a bit damp.”
Max noticed that Emma stood on one of a line of breeze blocks that stepped away into the distance. They were the perfect height to traverse the corridor whilst keeping your feet dry, their tops lying just above the water line.
“Thanks for the heads up.”
“Anytime.”
Dennis kept to the back of the convoy, and with Emma leading the way, they made their way along the corridor. Two large rusted pipes clung to the concrete wall. Sandbags had been dumped seemingly at random along the top of it.
Max tried to gather his thoughts. “We’re underground. We’re under the Marine Lake?”
“Yes. It was always damp, or so they say. The engineers built this complex well before my time, but they miscalculated, or there were shifts in the rock bed. Whatever it was, the water always caused those problems.”
“But if we’re under the lake, then how? I mean—we were in that office.”
“An extravagant lift. It’s not worth getting excited over.”
The overhead bulbs fizzed and dimmed for a few seconds before returning to their normal dim brightness.
“Another one of your problems?” Max suggested.
“Ageing generators. Never enough money to fix everything.”
At the end of the corridor a steel pressure door barred their passage. Emma paused and tapped a number into the keypad beside the door. A hiss of pneumatics and the door slid into the wall revealing a stairwell beyond. Emma started quickly down the concrete steps, holding onto a rusting handrail that didn’t look safe at all. The staircase wound down a square, concrete shaft, leaving a central column of air in the centre. Her footsteps echoed and Max had a sense that this shaft was deep. The railings looked ancient, rusty and insubstantial. His fingers pulled away a fragment of rusted metal as if to confirm his suspicions. The gaps between each rail—there were two lining the central cavity—were massive. One wrong step and you could easily fall through.
Max hesitated. “How far down are we going?”
“Not far. Next level down.”
“Wait a moment.”
Dennis kept his voice to a whisper. “What’s wrong? You’re looking pale.”
“Never been one for heights,” Max explained. He took hold of the handrail and wrapped his fingers over its rough surface. Dennis peered over the top railing, down the centre of the staircase. “I don’t think it’s too far. I think I can see the light at the bottom.”
“I hate to interrupt,” Emma said, “but we should get going. I don’t want to keep him waiting.”
“But he doesn’t know we’re coming.”
Emma tilted her head then nodded at something behind Max. He turned and in the corner of the roof space above his head, a tiny red LED blinked.
So much for the element of surprise.
Max stepped onto the staircase expecting it to wobble underfoot, but it didn’t. The concrete steps, despite looking worn and stained, proved to be sound and substantial. He couldn’t bring himself to hold onto the centre handrail though, that was just asking for trouble. Instead he walked close to the wall, his shoulder brushing against the concrete blocks that made up the walls of the shaft.
“We best get moving then. It would be rude to make him wait any longer.”
Dennis followed close behind Max. The lights flickered and went out for a second, and Dennis failed to stop in time, bumping into Max who slipped off the step he was on, and for a moment felt out of control. A hand grabbed his arm and steadied him.
When the lights came on, it was a surprise to see it was Emma who had supported him.
“The stairs can be dangerous. Watch your step.” She grinned, then turned and continued down the shaft.
It took them a couple of minutes to reach the bottom. Max hadn’t noticed any other doors leading off
the shaft. It really did seem to just serve as a bridge between two levels.
As they stepped into another dark corridor at the bottom, Max heard more water dripping around them. At least his feet weren’t getting wet. He couldn’t see more than a foot in front of him.
“Been cut off?”
“What?” Emma said.
“Not paid the electricity.”
A clunking sound came from the wall and the corridor was suddenly illuminated in bright lights. Emma stepped away from the old fashioned lever switch on the wall and started along this new corridor. It was markedly different down here. Still a concrete floor and although damp, it had none of the flooding problems that besieged the upper level. The lights were more modern looking, big circular dishes fixed to the walls. And it was the walls that were most striking. Red painted brick. There was dust and brown coloured stains at various heights but the vibrant red still unnerved Max. It reminded him of the room the Lutz family found in the cellar of the Amityville house. A room that led straight to hell.
Max followed his ‘prisoner’ along the corridor, Dennis close behind. More doors led off this corridor, tiny nameplates worn with tiny lettering upon each. Max couldn’t read them as he kept pace with Emma. In the gaps between the industrial air conditioning tubes, Max saw the occasional blinking red light and a tiny weight tugged at his stomach with each one.
“This place is old isn’t it?” Dennis asked Emma. “Who built it?”
“You’re walking through a government facility. Well, former government facility. Built during the Second World War as a bunker in case the south was invaded. Churchill wanted somewhere on the coast and close, but not too close, to Liverpool in case they got attacked. As it turns out, he made a pretty good choice here. Southport got off lightly in the war. But Churchill never got to use it. He didn’t even get to visit.”
“It’s incredible. It must have cost a fortune.” Dennis frowned. “Why build something under the lake? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“It made sense to them at the time.”
They’d reached the end of the corridor. Ahead of them, another door with a keypad. Emma entered the code and the door slid open revealing another stairwell.
“How far down are we going?” Max asked.
“Does it matter?” she replied, stepping on to the metal staircase.
At the bottom, another corridor similar to the one above on the second level. It felt different down here. The lighting was covered with a shiny green substance and the walls were damp to the touch. Emma led them along the corridor. There were rooms here, and more intersections than above. Max looked along a couple of them, and they seemed to join other corridors. How easy would it be to get lost in here?
A couple of minutes later, a few more intersections crossed, and a couple more security doors passed, they came to an impressive looking door.
“What’s inside?” Max asked.
“Thadeus.”
“You go first. Any sudden movements and I’ll use this.” Max glared into her eyes and she didn’t blink.
She pressed a code into the keypad on the wall and the door slid open with a grinding, scraping effort. The lights were off in this room as well and only a thin sliver of light from the corridor breached the first few feet of the room. Emma nipped through the opening and Max heard her struggling with something.
“Ow!” she said. “Bloody switch is stuck.”
“Let me help,” Dennis said, walking into the dark, following the voice.
“No, wait, something’s wrong.” Max tried to warn him but he heard a thump and the sound of something heavy hitting the floor. He rushed into the room, trying to accustom his eyes to the dark, knowing they’d been tricked. His foot caught the side of something on the floor and he stumbled, almost falling.
Without warning, something hard whacked into his arm, sending the gun flying out of his grip. The lights drummed on and Max quickly noticed three things. Dennis was lying on the floor, a dangerous looking cut on his forehead. Secondly, Emma was now holding a traditional looking gun and it was pointed straight at Max’s head.
“This one will do more than stun you,” she called.
The last thing he noticed was the most unreal of them all. The room was huge. It was about the size of the sports hall in high school. But the implausibility of a room as large as this under the lake wasn’t what was making the backs of Max’s legs tremble. It was the row upon row of people, lined up on benches facing this way. Men and women. All shapes and sizes.
From what Max could see, every last one of them, was missing their face.
33
Max was not getting used to having a gun pointed at him. He didn’t think he ever would.
Emma stepped backwards towards the door, holding the gun at arm’s length, a smile chiselled into her face.
“What is this place?” Max asked.
“Storage,” she said and took another step away.
Dennis groaned. Max forgot about Emma and the crowd of blanks behind him and crouched down beside his companion. Dennis’s eyes were closed. On his forehead, a large red mark had appeared alongside a cut about an inch long. Blood ran down the side of his head, turning his grey hair a dark crimson. Max’s tried hard not to panic. If he gave into his fear now, he was going to seal them both to their fate. Max didn’t have anything to hold against the wound so he pressed his palm against Dennis’s head and with his free hand, reached inside Dennis’s trouser pockets. He found a handkerchief and switched his hands over, pressing down with the handkerchief instead. His other hand came away bloody and he wiped it on his trousers.
“You stupid bitch, he needs a doctor. What the hell did you hit him with?” Max said, glancing round at Emma. She stood motionless in the doorway.
“That,” she said pointing at the spanner that lay strewn in the corner. If she was concerned about what she’d done, she wasn’t about to show it. “I need to get Thadeus. You can look after him.”
“I told you, he needs a doctor. Do you really want him to die on you? It’ll be your fault.”
She shrugged. “He’ll be fine.” And then she stepped out of the room. Max heard her tap away at the keypad in the corridor and the door slid shut, sealing them up.
Max lifted the handkerchief. The blood had slowed but still ran.
“Dennis, can you hear me? You’d better wake up. You’re hurt and you’re going to be fine, but right now, I could really do you with you waking up and telling me what an idiot I am for getting you involved in this mess.”
A soft moan came from Dennis’s lips but there was no sign of him about to wake up.
It had been a good job Emma hadn’t bothered to search them. It was either her overconfidence or the shock at hurting someone. Max didn’t care. He was going to deal with her later. Right now he was just glad that she’d been sloppy. He pulled out his pocket knife from his jeans pocket and took off his jumper. He attacked the sleeve with the knife, digging it into the armpit where he easily pulled the stitching apart. Seconds later he had a temporary bandage in hand which he used to tie the handkerchief to Dennis’s head. It wasn’t great but it would do at least as well as his hand had done and it freed him up to look around this place for a way out.
Max got to his feet and stood facing the crowd of blanks. Lines of benches stretched away from him all the way to the back of the room. Each bench was fully occupied by the faceless people. It was unnerving to look at these people, knowing what they were capable of. Their heads slumped onto their chests, like an army of deactivated robots waiting to be switched on.
Judging by their clothes and shapes, he was looking at a mixture of men and women. He took a step closer to the man sat on the end of the first row. He wore a shirt and tie, looking dishevelled. Specks of dirt ran up his white shirt. From this distance there was also a distinct smell of body odour. Moving quickly along the first couple of rows, Max saw the same story repeated and repeated. They came from all walks of life, all ages apart from children. A good
cross section of society trapped in this room.
How was this possible?
A groan came from Dennis and Max hurried over. He opened his eyes.
“Dennis. How are you feeling?”
“Not feeling that good truth be told. Not good at all. What happened?”
“You’ve been hit on the head with a spanner. Being chivalrous got you nowhere today I’m afraid.”
“Bloody hell. Where is she?”
“On her way to fetch Thadeus she said. About five minutes ago.”
Dennis tried to pull himself into a seated position but as soon as he lifted his head off the floor, he let it back down again. “Wow, I think I’ll leave that for a minute.”
Max had noticed Dennis’s pale skin.
“We need to get you out of here before she comes back.” Max moved out of his way and Dennis saw the lines of blanks for the first time.
“Max, I think we’ve got company.” His voice less steady.
“Don’t worry about them, they seem harmless enough. I think they’re asleep.”
“Why are there so many of them?”
“I’ve no idea. I was hoping we might have a chance to ask Thadeus.”
Max had been thinking about that for the last few minutes. His first thought had been to get out of here. Whatever advantage he thought they’d had when they first entered had been lost along the way. Now, they were nothing more than trapped animals waiting to be shown to the lion. It wasn’t going as planned.
He walked to the door, and tried the handle. It didn’t move so he looked around it, trying to see how it might work. Was there a lock that could be picked? The door was fitted into a recessed frame all around it. Even if he had a crowbar, there was nothing to lever against, no edge of the door to prise. There was no keypad on this side of the door but there was a small rectangular plate fitted in the wall at about the same height as the keypad had been on the other side. Max pressed it. He heard a click but the door didn’t move. He tried again, this time using his whole hand he pressed against it. As soon as his palm touched the plate, the glass shone with a green light. His elation at this discovery was short lived as it became quickly apparent that the door was still not going to open.
The Face Stealer Page 19