The World Beneath (Joe Tesla)

by Rebecca Cantrell

  The target sat down on the rusty steps, sweat plowing furrows in the dust and grime coating his face.

  Ozan didn’t have much time before the trains started running and the security sweeps came by. Someone might hear the man’s screams. And Ozan believed in acting with caution. This man had killed a skilled colleague. He was probably trained to withstand interrogation, at least for a time, and he was large and possibly armed. The best option was to kill him and search for the papers later. The contract had said that their retrieval was desirable, not mandatory. Ozan had no intention of risking his life on lower-level priorities.

  He spotted a sledgehammer leaning against the outside of the broken wall, and the decision was made for him. A thin layer of dust coated the hammer, as if it’d been used long ago and then set aside. Maybe 523 himself had brought it here to break the wall. A perfect weapon of opportunity. He closed in on it quickly.

  The wood felt slippery under his gloves. It had seen good use, this tool.

  The light stayed still in the car, and the target still sat on metal steps that had been folded out from the side of the car as if it had stopped at a station. He leaned forward, hands clenching and unclenching in his pockets. “It has to be here,” the man whispered over and over.

  It didn’t matter what he was talking about. Ozan had a job to do. He leaped over the broken bricks and into the room. He landed with each foot flat on a different train tie. The time for stealth was past.

  The hammer arced down.

  The target lifted his head, quicker than Ozan expected.

  Hammer met bone. Bone gave. But not the skull. The man had deflected the blow with his right arm.

  The man’s left fist connected with the side of Ozan’s head. Ozan’s ears rang, and he stumbled back.

  The man was on him then, knocking him to the dirt.

  Ozan rolled to the side, but the man fell onto him. His wounded arm dripped blood in Ozan’s open eyes. Ozan blinked it away and twisted the man’s wounded arm. It felt hot, as if the man had a fever. Broken bones grated against each other. The man screamed and reared back.

  Ozan pulled away from him and reached for the hammer. The man tried for it, too, but Ozan was quicker. The hammer connected with the side of the man’s head. Blood and gore spattered up onto Ozan’s hands.

  The target fell backward against the side of the car. His hands jerked once, and then he was still.

  Neatly done. Efficient. One blow.

  But this shouldn’t look efficient.

  Ozan brought the hammer down five more times. The man’s head stopped looking as if it had ever been human by the third blow. That was what crimes of passion looked like—too much force, wasted energy.

  Ozan released the hammer and let it drop into the thick dust next to the body. He did a quick inventory of his own injuries. Nothing serious. A bruise on the side of his head and a cracked rib. He could finish the job and walk away.

  No danger now. Without moving his feet, he surveyed the room. The skeleton on the floor belonged to a soldier. Based on the uniform, the man had died here before Ozan was born. Next to that skeleton rested another wearing a stained white lab coat with a dark hole in the shoulder surrounded by a dark blotch. An old bullet hole. What had brought these men to this place? What had brought 523 here?

  It must not be relevant to his job. If it were, then he would have been informed.

  The artistic part of the job was done. All that remained now were loose ends. First, he searched 523’s pockets. He found, and took, a map of the tunnels and a wad of crumpled one-dollar bills. He didn’t find any other documents, classified or otherwise, but he searched inside and underneath the train car just in case. He found broken alcohol bottles, pens, and a few sheets of aged blank paper with the White House seal. He took those, too. But he found nothing interesting, and nothing modern.

  That was a problem. He’d hoped to find those papers.

  He had one more task, one he’d almost forgotten because it was so out of his usual routine. He flipped a plastic bag inside out and used it to scoop up a sample of 523’s warm brain tissue. He turned the bag right side out again and sealed it, then put it inside a second bag. He’d have to get the sample into a special chilled container and mail it to his client, proof that the job was complete. Brain tissue seemed an odd choice for DNA testing, but he couldn’t imagine what else they might want it for, unless they’d messed with the man’s brain.

  Ozan drew a twenty-dollar bill from his front pocket. He’d never touched it with his bare hands so it wouldn’t have his fingerprints. He folded it and tucked it into the dead man’s pocket. He dropped another bill on the floor.

  Three more bills were in Ozan’s pocket, and he fished them out. Dropping his right hand into the man’s blood, he held the bills with his bloody fingertips, careful to smear them enough that it would be hard to tell if he’d worn gloves.

  After a murder like that, the killer would be frightened, running. Ozan sprinted toward the door, lengthening his strides to appear taller. He already wore shoes a size too large. The inserts crammed against his toes made it easy to run in them.

  Bending, he swept away the prints of the third man, the one who’d stood and watched the target and the room. If the body were ever found, he didn’t want things to be complicated. Whoever that man was, he was lucky.

  Ozan smashed the lantern against the wall, and it went dark. Then he headed for the outside by the shortest route, making sure to step in the dirt to leave a good print here and there. If it ever came to it, the police should be able to track the panicked killer aboveground.

  Soon he’d be outside. He took off his gloves, carefully turning them inside out and tying the ends closed. He wiped his face and hands with his antiseptic wipes and secured them all in a paper bag. He’d drop it into a dumpster with his ripped and dirty jacket. He’d be an ordinary man out for a stroll in the early morning quiet. He’d leave the too-large shoes he’d worn for the murder and a few bloody bills next a homeless man who slept near this very exit. Then he could go home.

  Contentment filled him. He’d completed his task early, and he’d never killed a man with a hammer before. He’d liked it. If only he had someone to share his joy with, but there was just Erol, and he would never understand. Erol must be protected from this side of his brother, always.

  Still, he’d done a good job. As much as he knew that he could demand the rest of his fee and move on, a niggling doubt in the back of his mind told him that he must stay a few more days and search for the papers. He would play with Erol and enjoy the pleasures that New York had to offer.

  A bark broke through his concentration. Ozan froze, listening.

  Another bark. Someone with a dog was behind him, by the murdered man.

  Now he had a difficult decision to make. Should he stick to his original plan and leave, or should he go back?

  If the man with the dog was a friend of 523, he might have passed him the classified papers.

  Their retrieval wasn’t mandatory, but Ozan liked to be thorough.

  He turned around and headed back down the tunnel toward the barking dog.

  Chapter 9

  November 28, 5:20 a.m.

  Tunnels

  Edison at his side, Joe hiked through the tunnels toward his destination. The only illumination came from his flashlight—a bubble of brightness that disappeared a few paces ahead of and behind them. Unlike the tunnel on which his house sat, which was covered with simple planks, sharp stones covered the ground here. Two lines of silver tracks ran down the tunnel’s center, and a third rail sat to one side. Remembering his training, Edison avoided the third rail and walked by the opposite side track.

  Joe had paced around his house for a couple of hours, wanting to go back and check out the abandoned train car again, but afraid that Rebar would still be there. Then he’d tried to sleep. Eventually he’d given up and convinced himself that he would just go and take a peek. If Rebar was still there, he’d go to bed and try later. The
trains would be running soon, and that would probably chase Rebar back outside.

  It seemed like a good plan in his well-lit parlor with the electric fire crackling by his feet and stout steel doors between himself and danger. Now, in the tunnels, where a crazy man with a hammer lurked, it seemed like the worst kind of stupidity.

  Still, for the first time in a long time, Joe had a mystery to explore.

  As they drew closer to the field of tracks where he and Edison usually played fetch, he slowed. Edison stuck close to his heels, as if sensing that this was serious business.

  He’d run. At the first sign of trouble, he’d run. If he maintained enough distance between them, Rebar wouldn’t catch him. Besides, the man was probably long gone. Joe wished that he believed his own words.

  When he reached the tracks, he examined the spot where he’d seen the abandoned train car. It was dark. He relaxed. Rebar had taken his lantern and gone home, wherever that might be. Joe could poke around the skeletons and the train car and try to figure out why a homeless veteran had known about it and broken it open. He’d even be able to film it for later analysis.

  Then he would call the city and report it. Someone ought to identify the dead men. Their families might have been waiting decades to learn their fate.

  Joe walked toward the pillar. The bricked-in structure was behind pillar nine. Scarlet flashed in his head. Nine.

  Slowly, the tunnel grew darker. The faint glow of the old-fashioned light bulbs faded behind him until he could barely see where he was going. But he didn’t put on his night-vision goggles. If Rebar was there with a light, he could blind Joe in an instant. Instead, he counted on Edison to find the way forward.

  His heartbeat quickened when he passed the pillar. A slow glance around in the dark didn’t reveal anyone, so he switched on his flashlight. His beam picked out a distant pile of broken brick. He’d found the room that Rebar had broken open.

  He shone his light around in a circle to see if Rebar was still there. Near as Joe could tell, he was alone. Still, for several minutes he scanned the area. No sign of movement. No unusual sounds.

  Slowly, he crept forward to the pile of broken bricks, anxious to see the secret room again but beset with an uneasy feeling. What if Rebar was inside with the light off and his hammer ready?

  Joe hesitated before he pulled out his phone. He kept his phone in a special cell phone holder. He called it his pocket-size Faraday cage, because it blocked incoming and outgoing signals. Nobody could reach him, and even the cell phone towers didn’t know where he was. As long as he kept the phone in there, he was off the grid.

  It didn’t matter down here. There was no signal anyway. He filmed the pile of bricks, the darkness beyond, and the floor. Edison touched his nose to his knee, and Joe jumped. He took a deep breath and listened for trouble. He heard only a faraway train, Edison’s rapid breathing, his own pounding heart, and rocks rolling underfoot—nothing amiss.

  As he neared the pile of bricks, Edison snarled. Joe stopped in surprise—the dog had never made a sound like that before. His hackles stood straight, and a low growl came from deep in his chest. Edison barked.

  “What is it?” he asked, wishing that the dog could answer.

  Edison barked again, ending with a growl.

  Joe swung the flashlight around. Still no one. He stopped and tried to listen, but Edison’s growl made that impossible, and he didn’t want to shush him. If something upset his stolid dog, Joe wanted him to make noise.

  A low rumble grew to a roar. Joe jerked around in time to see a train thunder into the tunnel, across the tracks just past where they’d played fetch, and on toward Grand Central Terminal.

  When the noise died away, Edison had stopped growling, but he stared at the broken wall, tail tucked between his legs but head up. Something in there scared him, but he was clearly trying to fight his fear and protect Joe if he had to.

  Joe could walk away. He didn’t need to know what that room contained, not really. Doubtless, he could lead a happy life without ever looking.

  Not true.

  He inched toward the hole that Rebar had smashed into the brick wall and stuck his head inside. The beam of his flashlight stabbed into the room, as if eager to show him the secrets inside.

  A lot had changed since his last visit.

  A handful of small brown creatures moved about in the center of the room. Joe’s heart thudded in his chest. Edison’s growl changed to a loud bark that echoed around the enclosed space. A few brown bits broke off from the group and ran to the corners. His stomach roiled.

  Rats.

  He shone the flashlight beam on the object they’d been climbing on. He made out a tan camouflage jacket like the one that Rebar had been wearing hours before. Dark patches stained the collar and sleeves. The jacket covered a corpse. Rebar?

  Any hopes that this person had died of natural causes were dashed when he saw the hammer in the dust next to the body. Stains darkened the hammer’s silver head. His light played across rusty splashes on the blue train car, lingered over streaks and smears. The man had been beaten to death.

  Bile rose in Joe’s throat, and he fought it back. This was a crime scene now, and he wasn’t going to puke his DNA all over it. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. Sensing his distress, Edison whined.

  “Sit,” he ordered. Whatever had happened here, it was over now. He should take Edison and go immediately.

  But the pull of curiosity was too strong.

  He peered back through the hole to examine the rest of the car. Someone had moved the skeletons of the doctor and the soldier, dragging them from the side of the room into the center and piling them on top of each other like pickup sticks. The skeleton on top of the car had been left alone. Someone had also flipped the bodies over and turned their pockets inside out. Rebar, or his killer, must have been searching the bodies of these long-dead men.

  Joe pulled out his cell phone and filmed the scene inside from where he stood, hoping that his flashlight would give enough illumination. Then he filmed the whole area, sweeping the light and camera in a circle.

  He couldn’t shake a feeling of dread. He’d seen enough. He trotted back toward the well-lit tracks and home. He’d have a cell phone signal there, and he could call the police.

  They had cleared the tunnel and crossed most of the unused tracks when Edison stopped, turned back toward the direction from which they’d come, and barked a warning. Joe spun, angling the light behind him. A shadow flitted to the side so quickly that he wasn’t sure he had seen it. Gooseflesh ran up his arms.

  He backed toward the tracks where the trains still ran. A sound that he’d heard only on television cut through the dry tunnel air. The racking of the slide of a gun.

  “Stay,” whispered a man’s voice. “Or I will put a bullet in your back.”

  Joe’s heart raced, but he froze, one foot on the track, the other on a railroad tie. Edison growled and took a step toward the voice.

  “I’ve never liked dogs,” the voice whispered again.

  “Shh.” Joe hushed Edison. “Heel.”

  This was probably the man who had killed Rebar. Options for escape clicked through Joe’s mind—run and hope for the best, charge the gun and pray for a miracle, or try to talk his way out of this. “What do you want?”

  “Did the dead man ever give you anything?”

  If he told the truth and answered no, would the man shoot him? “I didn’t know him.”

  “I will shoot you first in your left shoulder,” the man said conversationally. “You’re left-handed, I see, and it will take them months to repair the damage, if they can.”

  Joe held his breath, afraid to move.

  “I can probably shoot you four or five times before you die.”

  The colors for those numbers flashed through his head—green, brown.

  “You look like you’re more determined than people would think, and I bet you’ll tell me what I want after the third shot, which is quite respecta
ble, as most people talk after one. I’m rarely wrong about these things.”

  The track vibrated under Joe’s sneaker. His mind stayed surprisingly calm, working through the data that he had—Joe was exposed and in the light, the other man impossible to see in the darkness. The other man had a gun and might be a murderer, Joe was unarmed and had to think about Edison’s safety, too. The tracks hummed louder. That was what Joe had. Just that. The 5:47 (brown, green, slate) train on the Harlem line.

  “Think carefully,” said the voice. “And let’s start again. Did that man back there give you any documents?”

  “No. I didn’t know him.” Joe remembered the papers stuffed in Rebar’s pockets. He hadn’t seen them just now when he filmed the body. But, if this man had killed Rebar, surely he must have been the one who took the papers.

  The tracks’ humming grew to a roar. A train barreled down the tracks upon which Joe stood. The engineer saw Joe, and his eyes widened. Joe was right in his path.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Joe saw the shadows that concealed the man twitch. Joe was certain that he was aiming his gun.

  “Heel,” Joe yelled. He spun, then jumped to the other side of the tracks mere feet ahead of the moving train. Edison’s solid form pressed close to his right leg. Joe ducked against the side of the tunnel before the train reached them, pulling Edison down, too.

  The man with the gun was on the other side of the moving train, so Joe was safe from a bullet for now, but not out of danger. Yet.

  The train barreled past, cars passing so close that Joe could have reached out and touched them. If he hadn’t jumped when he had, he’d have been cut to hamburger by the wheels. His body wanted to flatten itself against the side of the tunnel and wait, but his brain wouldn’t let it.

  He had to use the train as a shield.

  Joe ran. On one side was the unforgiving stone of the tunnel, on the other the moving train. Heat and light blasted off its metal walls. The moving air pushed him sideways, and he fought to stay upright. If he lost his footing, he would be chopped to mincemeat under the wheels.