by Sarah Lovett
From New York to LA, the phone companies relegated their POTS (that’s plain old telephone service) lines obsolete.
All that perfectly good copper conduit crisscrossing the city, laid neatly in place underground and forgotten. It’s so much easier to just lay new fiber-optical cable.
Well, almost forgotten.
Digital subscriber companies remember that copper conduit; they might even rejuvenate those once-defunct lines for their clients, sending superfast, supercompressed information fifteen hundred feet in less than half a nanosecond.
Ben Black, bomb tech for hire, remembers the copper, too. Miles and miles of it with the power boosters already built into the conduit—the power to do the big jobs.
It’s all so simple—it’s done with a variation on cluster radioscopes and telescopes—the very large array of explosives. You simply synchronize a dozen smaller scopes to create one massive one.
Simon says, hook up a phone at point A.
Call point B.
After two rings, the call is forwarded to point C.
Ditto, point C to point D.
It’s a chain reaction, a party line that stretches from LA Harbor to LAX to Water & Power to the war room at the dam to the flood channel at Ballona Creek to Union Station to the Red Line hubs.
But the best part is the payoff.
At each and every point—A, B, C, D—he’s wired a thirty-second delay to a primer charge; the primer connects to the main charge, the main charge is C-4 and PTN.
When the first call goes through, an electrical spark zooms along that good old copper conduit, the phone rings, the delay is triggered by the spark, and the call—hence the charge—is forwarded on to the next daisy in the chain. Meanwhile, the first bomb goes BOOM.
But that’s the second phase.
Phase one: a series of explosions will neatly pop gas lines as they cross over and intersect with LA’s steam pipes, sewers, and 2,370 miles of storm drains. The gas will do what comes naturally—it will saturate available space, creating one massive bomb just ripe for initiation.
But don’t forget what truly matters to M: phase one will offer freedom to a prisoner.
John Freeman Dantes will share in the glory with M because Edmond Sweetheart will make that possible. Sweetheart is an honorable man, and he will come after Angel Face.
Now M gazes at the charge that is set in an eight-inch bored hole just above his head. This work was completed last week. The charges must be set close to detonation time because they are sensitive, and like beautiful and restless women, they don’t like to be kept waiting.
Just checking. He tamps fixative around the base; he has set each of four charges on a delay. They should be accurate, contained, doing only the damage that he anticipates.
M is directly beneath the LA City Detention Facility.
He closes his eyes, listening very carefully.
Yes, there it is: tap, tap, tap . . .
He lifts his wrench.
Tap, tap, tap . . .
9th Circle . . .
The Lair of Traitors’ Souls
He’s the kind of guy who doesn’t leave the house without a pair of M26A1 frag grenades in his pocket. A real Boy Scout. Always prepared.
Devil’s Hand: The Life and Death of Terrorist Ben Black (International Press, 1999)
5:39 A.M. Except for headlamps, it was pitch black in the storm drain.
The county flood control truck didn’t exactly hurtle. Pete—supervisor with the Army Corps of Engineers’ Los Angeles flood control—kept his foot lightly on the accelerator, maintaining an average speed of thirty miles per hour; but navigating a subterranean tunnel—the effect of light curling up this concrete cylinder driven deep through hard rock and earth, light flaring at the edge of total darkness only to die out—made for optical, spatial, and energetic illusions. It made for intense discomfort.
“We’ve got about twenty-four hundred miles of storm drains under LA,” Pete said, tightly. “Flood control can take up to a hundred and forty-six thousand cubic feet of water per second before the LA River overflows. When she does flood, it’s a hell of a sight. Bad seasons in thirty-six, sixty-nine, and the nineties.”
Sylvia was wedged in the front seat between Pete and Sweetheart. In spite of his size—or perhaps because of it—Sweetheart had an acute self-awareness: he always knew what place his body occupied in space, and his physical boundaries were meticulously maintained. Sylvia thought most babies must take up more space.
“Right now,” Pete continued, “I’d say we’re under our zero point . . . Main and First Streets.”
Which would put them directly beneath downtown Los Angeles; they were approaching the locus point—the intersection of Vignes and Cesar Chavez.
Sylvia bit her lip nervously, staring out at the walls as they drove; although graffiti had become scarce after the first quarter mile or so off the LA River, a few displays—the work of brave and definitely not claustrophobic artists—were fleetingly visible. No elegant bison or big cats. Instead, there were skulls, swastikas, gang symbols, gargoyles: guardians of the underworld. Each one a statement: I was here, I existed long enough to leave my mark. A discourse on the human need for procreation, belonging and identity, and the inevitable.
FUCK EVERYTHING
DEVILS RULE
DEATH WINS
Urban cave paintings. LA’s new Avignon.
“Who came down to hell to fetch his true love back to earth?” Pete asked in a voice that was too loud for the tight, dark space.
“Orpheus.”
“Who fought the Minotaur so he had to follow some string to get out of the maze . . . you know that one?” Pete turned toward Sylvia, his face alive with nervous energy. The truck came perilously close to scraping paint on concrete.
“Theseus,” Sylvia said sharply. Sweetheart was too damn quiet.
“I knew that—” Pete braked suddenly. “Hey . . . what the . . .?”
Sylvia peered out into the briefly illuminated subterranean cylinder. Her throat felt uncomfortably tight.
“Somebody’s been sleeping in my bed,” Pete said quietly. He opened his door, set one leg outside, and flashed his torch on a pile of rags, a rough foam mattress, a few fast food wrappers.
Sylvia peered at the makeshift camp, following the flood control employee. “Have you ever run over anybody?”
“Almost squashed two transients once . . . missed ’em by inch—Jesus H. Christ—” Pete’s voice dropped out of sight.
A deep rupture in the belly of the drain had left a jagged concrete gash—roughly three feet across. It was passable on foot, but the truck wasn’t going to like the jump.
“What the hell?” Pete asked, shaking his head. “I’m going to send out a marker on this one.”
“I want to scout on ahead,” Sweetheart said. He squatted down, running his fingers along the edge. He sniffed his hand. “He used RDX tape. All he had to do was run it along the cut he wanted.”
“Give me a minute to mark down our bearings,” Pete said in a somber voice. He disappeared inside the truck, his mind on his business. By agreement, any transmission would be relayed ASAP to Special Agent Purcell and the LAPD—another search team was active beneath the city—but that meant leaving the deepest and most remote areas of the storm tunnel to find a location with reception to transmit.
The truck’s headlamps illuminated a word spray-painted in black: CAINA.
“In the ninth circle, the Inferno,” Sweetheart said quietly, “Caina represents treachery against family, against a kindred spirit.”
Sylvia shivered, suddenly cold in the dank, moldy tunnel. M had marked his trail.
Pete joined them, his features drawn, his voice sharpened by anxiety. “If you want, we can scout ahead a ways.”
They left the truck—following headlamps—traversing the drain on foot. The stench of foul water, moldy earth, and things unthinkable caught in their throats. In places, a sharp chemical odor hit as if they were wandering in and out o
f noxious clouds.
After a long five minutes, the drain had curved just enough to shake off most of the light from the truck’s beams. Now their flashlights cut through darkness like three yellow blades; the world was made of instants, abrupt illuminations, inches sliced away from the dark whole. Sweetheart slowed behind the others. From what Sylvia could tell, he was examining the concrete wall where something had snared his curiosity: beneath a metal plate, an electrical conduit—and a neat cluster of wires.
“Sweetheart,” she prodded. When he didn’t answer, she dragged her heels, then trailed after Pete. Each step was hazardous due to rock, broken glass, sticks, and whatever else the runoff deposited.
“What have we got here?” Pete’s question bounced around the tunnel. He flashed his beam ahead on the high curve of the ceiling. Sylvia missed it at first; but when Pete prodded at the wall with his stick, rubble fell clear.
“Is it some kind of drain?”
“Not one of ours.”
“What do you mean, not one of yours?”
“Somebody decided to improvise their own . . . and did . . . a pretty sophisticated job of it.”
She glanced back for the professor, who was twenty feet behind, the beam of his flashlight darting wildly as he scraped at the wall. “Your average transient wouldn’t do that, would he, Pete?”
“Look here . . .,” Pete murmured, in a fading tone that said his mind was already following a curious scent. “Somebody carved out some toeholds.”
She saw the faint, tight cuts in the wall; they resembled the prehistoric marks she’d seen in the Anasazi cliff ruins of New Mexico; three or four inches across, an inch or so deep. She said, “The ancestors of the Pueblo Indians used them so a person could scale a sheer face and escape enemies.”
“Good idea.” Pete grunted, already hoisting himself nimbly up the wall. While Sylvia watched, he scrambled through an opening high in the concrete.
Moments later, she followed. Head and shoulders crammed through the opening, she could see by the light of Pete’s flashlight. Within a matter of inches, the passage expanded to a width of at least three feet and a height of about five feet. A ripple of emotion washed over her body, carrying with it the ancient fear of cramped dim spaces. She couldn’t see where this new tunnel ended; it stretched out like a long, dark throat.
She scrambled the rest of the way in: “What is this, Pete?”
“It’s old. Hell, I’ve never come across it before.” He ran workingman’s fingers along one wall and dust formed in small clouds. “Old clay . . . so it could’ve been used for sewage or water.” He whistled uneasily. “I’ve been at this job for so damn long I’ve heard just about every tall tale.”
“About?”
“Old Spanish tunnels.”
“Spanish as in seventeen hundreds?”
“Where a guy like Zorro could hide out for years,” he said flatly. “I don’t like it. You better stay back—this kind of unshored tunnel is what we in the earth business call a very long tomb.”
“I’m going to be stupid and follow you.” But she was afraid, fearing what she’d always feared most—the loss of bearing, emotional or physical, the failure of her ability to rely on her instincts. That was where Sylvia felt most vulnerable in the world. She imagined it was the way a sailor used to navigating by the stars must feel when clouds obscure the night sky.
She held her breath while the worst of the dust cleared. She was grateful for the hard hat, the leather gloves, the clear goggles. The first aid kit she carried was digging into her hip through the fanny pack. She slipped the eye protectors on now.
Pete’s flashlight illuminated earth held in place by a thick weave of roots, rock, clay. Sylvia was afraid to swallow. She dreaded each step that took them deeper into earth. This territory belonged to other creatures, night animals.
Appropriate that a mole would have a lair, she thought.
Pete grunted, coming to a standstill. He had his light directed straight ahead; in front of them, the tunnel had collapsed in upon itself. His light beam began to chip at the dead end tunnel wall. For the thirty or so still-navigable feet in between, three low openings led off the tunnel. But they were crude, cramped, diving even deeper into solid earth.
She just had time to brace herself against the internal recoil when more dirt showered down on them, forcing her to squeeze her mouth shut. As the dust settled, she opened her eyes and wiped the grit from the lenses of the goggles. Pete’s flashlight was on the tunnel floor; its yellow, dying beam illuminated the wall and the three letters painted in black: DIS.
Dis, city of nether hell. An invitation to journey deeper into M’s world.
“We’re going back,” Pete said suddenly. “I can’t be responsible—have to get help.”
Recovering his flashlight, he brushed past Sylvia, with a gruff “C’mon now.”
She didn’t follow. Behind her, she heard Sweetheart’s voice—somehow he’d managed to squeeze through the opening.
“You know exactly where we are—you take the truck, Pete, send help,” Sweetheart told the flood control employee. “Sylvia?”
“I’m not going back without you,” she said softly.
“I’ve got all the reason in the world to keep going—even if it means I never come out. You don’t have to—”
“Shut up and move.”
After a moment, Sweetheart nodded, saying, “Tell them Dr. Strange and I will probably need a rescue.”
“This ain’t legal,” Pete said.
“It is if I pull rank,” Sweetheart insisted. “Federal government beats LA County.” Sweetheart flattened his mouth into a grim line. “You’re wasting time we don’t have. On your way out, take a look at the electrical cable in the main flood drain. Our friend seems to have wired your tunnel.”
“Wired? As in . . .?” Pete’s eyes went wide.
“Explosive capabilities,” Sweetheart said. “Make sure Special Agent Purcell gets that information.”
“Right.” Pete stared at them both, shaking his head at the same time he offered Sweetheart his tool belt. “This might come in handy,” he offered. “We’ll get back just as soon as we can. I know how to find you.” And then he was gone, returning through the mouth of the improvised tunnel to the main flood drain.
Sylvia willed her rapidly beating heart to slow down. She squatted, got down on all fours, and began to crawl through the smallest opening, just below the entrance to nether hell.
No way Sweetheart would make it through—but when she turned, there he was, her substantial shadow.
For a distance of about fifteen feet this new tunnel was narrower than the last—but it widened out abruptly. Fighting off the claustrophobia, and in spite of the dust, Sylvia inhaled deeply. Breathing helped.
Sweetheart took the lead. They traveled in silence. The distance was almost impossible for her to gauge—fifty feet? One hundred?
Abruptly, they heard the dull rumble of dirt giving way; the sound came from behind—a cave-in. The flashlight revealed a wall of earth where a section of the ceiling had collapsed.
Silently they moved forward, only to arrive at another dead end. But this time there was a short chimney overhead, extending to a narrow opening.
Another message on the wall: ANTENORA.
Without waiting for a question, Sweetheart said, “Betrayal of cause or country. If it makes you nervous, turn around.”
“It doesn’t make you nervous?”
“Scared shitless.”
“I feel better,” Sylvia managed to whisper. Her throat was aching. The flashlight attached to her hard hat cast eerie shadows. “Turn around? Damn you. And go where?”
In the semidarkness, she caught Sweetheart’s face in the light beam and saw him crack a smile. Then he leveraged his arms on the sides of the chimney and he hoisted his body upward, barely fitting into the space. He was down again immediately. He said, “Metal door.”
“Manhole cover?”
“Probably an entrance to a util
ity vault.”
“Locked?”
“Or sealed.”
“Pete’s tools.”
Sweetheart flashed his light at the tool belt, searching through items and finally selecting a rusty, generic key. “Worth a shot.”
Almost instantly, he hoisted himself again, bracing himself with one foot wedged against earth, grunting, groaning. But it wasn’t going to happen.
He dropped back down, shining his light along the ground. “Didn’t I kick something hard about ten feet back?”
Sylvia followed the light beam as it caught the tail end of a piece of rebar. She retrieved the makeshift prying tool, handing it to Sweetheart.
For the third time he pulled himself into the chimney, forcing the metal tip into a rounded seam of the cover. He leveraged himself again, arms overhead, going for one final effort before his muscles failed.
Five seconds, ten, fifteen—when the cover gave way, it didn’t just open; it broke.
There was a sharp cracking sound. Warm, stinking air hit their faces. Sylvia gagged.
Sweetheart dropped back to the tunnel floor, whispering what sounded like a curse. Then he scaled the ladder, lifting himself up and into the dark, boxlike space.
Sylvia waited a few seconds, then she gripped the ladder and let her feet take the rungs in small, quick steps.
It was a concrete, rectangular vault, about ten by ten by six. The walls were covered with thick metal sleeves running the length of the room to duct banks. The sleeves probably contained electrical cable or phone lines. In the center of the room, a heavy, rusting ladder hung down from a hinge in the ceiling.
Sweetheart directed his light along the floor, moving clockwise. At first, Sylvia thought he’d discovered a dog lying on a bundle of filthy rags.
Then she saw the pale, lifeless face of Molly Redding.
6:31 A.M. As they crouched over her frail body, Sylvia felt the faintest butterfly breath on her arm, saw the most subtle movement of ribs expanding beneath Molly’s worn yellow T-shirt. She was alive—barely.
“She’s dehydrated, in shock,” Sweetheart said, accepting the first aid kit from Sylvia. He broke it open, scattering contents, extracting a plastic needle, tubing, and a saline bag. His hands were steady while he readied the supplies.