The Dark River

by John Twelve Hawks

  “Steam pipes,” Naz muttered. “Don’t touch.”

  Following the pipes, they passed through a pair of steel safety doors and entered a maintenance room with a thirty-foot ceiling. Four large steam pipes from different parts of the underground were joined together in the room; the pressure was monitored with stainless-steel gauges and diverted with regulator valves. Stagnant water dribbled out of a crack in the ceiling and dripped downward. The room had the fetid, moldy smell of a hothouse for tropical plants.

  Maya shut the safety door behind her and looked around. Her father would have called this a “box canyon”—a place with one way in and no way out. “Now what?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Naz said. “I’m just trying to get away.”

  “That’s not true,” Maya said. “You led us here.”

  She drew the push knife and held the T-shaped handle in her fist. Before Naz could react, she grabbed his jacket and slammed him against the wall. Maya held the tip of her knife against the slight indentation just above Naz’s breastbone.

  “How much did they pay you?”

  “Nothing! Nobody paid me nothing!”

  “There aren’t any surveillance cameras in these tunnels. But they followed us anyway. And now you’ve led us into another trap.”

  Gabriel stepped beside her. “Let go of him, Maya.”

  “This was all planned. The Tabula didn’t want to attack a building in Chinatown. It was too public and there were too many police in the area. But down here, they can do whatever they want.”

  A drop of water hit one of the steam pipes and there was a faint hissing sound. Gabriel leaned forward and watched Naz’s face with a focused intensity.

  “Are you working for the Tabula, Naz?”

  “No. Swear to God. I just wanted to make some money.”

  “Maybe they tracked us in a different way,” Vicki said. “Remember back in Los Angeles? They put a tracer bead in one of my shoes.”

  Tracer beads were small radio devices that broadcast the location of a target. Maya had been careful about any object taken into the loft during the last few months. She had inspected each piece of furniture and article of clothing like a suspicious customs agent. As she concentrated on the knife, a feeling of doubt and hesitation came to her; it felt like a ghost had entered her body. There was one object that she hadn’t examined, a golden apple thrown in her path so tempting, so irresistible, that the Tabula knew she would grab it.

  Maya stepped away from Naz, slid the knife back into its sheath, and pulled the ceramic gun from her shoulder bag. The struggle with Aronov came back to her, and she analyzed each moment. Why hadn’t they killed her when she entered the taxi? Because it was planned, Maya thought. Because they knew she would lead them back to Gabriel.

  No one spoke as she checked the ceramic handgun. The barrel and the frame weren’t thick enough to conceal a tracer bead, but the plastic pistol grip was perfect. Maya shoved the grip into the narrow gap between two pipes on the wall and then used the gun barrel as a lever. She forced the barrel down hard, and the grip cracked open with a loud snap. A pearl-gray tracer bead fell onto the floor. When she picked up the bead it felt warm, like a spark from a fire glowing in her hand.

  “What the hell is that?” Naz asked. “What’s going on?”

  “That’s how they tracked us in the tunnel,” Hollis said. “They’re following the radio transmitter.”

  Maya set the tracer bead on a narrow concrete ledge and crushed it with her revolver. She felt as if her father were in the room, looking at her with contempt. He would have spoken to her in German, something cutting and harsh. When she was a little girl, he had tried to teach her the Harlequin way of looking at the world—always suspicious, always on your guard—but she had resisted. And now, because of her thoughtless impulse to take this weapon, she had destroyed Sophia and led Gabriel into a trap.

  Maya looked around the room for an exit. The only possible way out was a maintenance ladder attached to the wall that ran parallel to a vertical steam pipe. The pipe went up through a hole in the ceiling, and the narrow gap might be wide enough to push through.

  “Climb that ladder and get to the next floor,” she told the others. “We’ll find a way out through the train station.”

  Naz hurried up the ladder and squeezed through the gap to the upper level. Gabriel was next, followed by Hollis and Vicki. Ever since they had left the loft in Chinatown, Alice Chen had been at the front of the group—trying to escape the Tabula. This time, she climbed up the ladder and hesitated. Maya watched as the child tried to figure out the best way to protect herself.

  “Hurry up,” Maya told her. “You’ve got to follow them.”

  Maya heard a thump as one of the steel doors in the tunnel was slammed shut. The men who had killed Sophia were in the tunnel, getting closer. Alice slid back down the ladder and disappeared beneath one of the steam pipes. Maya knew it was useless to go after the girl; she would stay hidden until the Tabula left the area.

  Standing in the middle of the maintenance room, Maya analyzed her choices with the ruthless clarity of a Harlequin. The Tabula were moving quickly and probably weren’t expecting a counterattack. So far, she had failed to protect Gabriel, but there was a way to make up for her mistakes. Harlequins were damned by their actions, but redeemed by their sacrifice.

  Maya removed her shoulder bag and tossed it on the floor. Using the pressure gauges and valves as handholds, she climbed onto a steam pipe and then lifted herself up onto the one above it. Now she was fifteen feet above the floor, directly opposite the entrance to the room. The air was warm and it was hard to breathe. A faint noise came from the tunnel. She drew the revolver from the holster and waited. Her legs trembled with the strain. Her face was covered with sweat.

  The door slammed open and a big man with a beard crouched in the opening. The mercenary was holding a gun with a laser sight mounted below the barrel. He glanced quickly around the room and took a few steps forward. Maya dropped through the air and began firing. A bullet hit the mercenary at the base of his throat and he collapsed.

  Maya fell on the floor, rolled forward, and jumped to her feet. She saw that the dead man’s body was keeping the door open. Red laser beams flashed from the dark hallway and she ran for cover. A bullet ricocheted off the walls and struck one of the gauges. Steam spurted into the air. She ducked down, wondering where to hide, and Alice’s hand emerged from beneath one of the pipes.

  When another bullet hit the wall, Maya lay flat on the concrete and pushed herself sideways beneath the pipe. Now she was lying directly behind Alice, and the little girl gazed back at the Harlequin. Alice didn’t look frightened or angry—more like a zoo animal studying a new addition to her cage. The shooting stopped and the laser beams vanished. Silence. Maya held her revolver with two hands, the right hand cradled in the left. She got ready to stand up, extend her arms, and fire.

  “Maya?” A man’s voice came from somewhere in the dark tunnel. An American voice. Calm, not frightened. “This is Nathan Boone. I’m head of security for the Evergreen Foundation.”

  She knew who Boone was—the Tabula mercenary who had killed her father in Prague. Maya wondered why Boone was talking. Perhaps he was trying to make her angry so that she would decide to attack.

  “I’m sure you’re there,” Boone said. “You just killed one of my best employees.”

  The Harlequin rule was never to speak to an enemy unless it gave you some kind of advantage. She wanted to remain silent, but then she remembered Gabriel: if she distracted Boone, then the Traveler would have more time to escape.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “Gabriel is going to be killed if you don’t let him walk out of this room. I promise not to hurt Gabriel, Vicki, or your guide.”

  Maya wondered if Boone knew about Alice. He would kill her also if he realized the child had survived the destruction of New Harmony. “What about Hollis?” she asked.

  “Both of you made a decision
to fight the Brethren. Now you have to deal with the consequences.”

  “Why should I trust you? You killed my father.”

  “That was his choice.” Boone sounded annoyed. “I gave him an alternative, but he was too stubborn to take it.”

  “We need to talk this over. Give us a few minutes.”

  “You don’t have a few minutes. There’s no alternative. No negotiations. If you’re a true Harlequin, then you’ll want to save the Traveler. Send the others down the tunnel or everyone in the room is going to die. We have a technical advantage.”

  What was he talking about? Maya thought. What technical advantage? Alice Chen was still staring at her. The little girl touched the warm steam pipe above them with her palm and then extended her hand—trying to communicate some message. “What are you telling me?” Maya whispered.

  “Have you made your decision?” Boone shouted.

  Silence.

  A bullet hit one of the two fluorescent light fixtures hanging from the ceiling. A second burst of gunfire and the fixture was blown away with a shower of sparks; it bounced off one of the steam pipes and hit the floor.

  Now that the room was darker, Maya understood what the child was trying to convey. Boone and his mercenaries had night-vision devices. Once the second light fixture was destroyed, she would be blind while Boone and his men could see their targets. The only way to hide from infrared devices was to become very cold or to push your body next to a warm object. Alice knew this; that was why she had stayed behind and hidden beneath the steam pipe.

  The shooting started again; two laser beams were aimed at the second light fixture. Alice rolled away from the steam pipe and stared at the dead body lying in the doorway. “Stay here!” Maya shouted. But the girl jumped up and ran over to the doorway. She crouched down when she reached the dead mercenary, making herself as small as possible, then grabbed some equipment that had been clipped to the man’s belt. When Alice scurried back, Maya saw that the girl was carrying night-vision goggles attached to a head strap, and a hand-size battery pack. Alice tossed the goggles to Maya and returned to her hiding place beneath the steam pipe.

  A bullet hit the second light fixture and the room was absorbed by darkness. It felt like they were in a cavern deep within the earth. Maya pulled the night-vision goggles over her eyes. She pressed the illuminator button and immediately the room was transformed into different shades of green. Anything warm—the steam pipes, the pressure gauges, the skin of her left hand—glowed with bright emerald color, as if these objects were radioactive. The concrete walls and floors showed a light green color that reminded her of new leaves.

  Maya peered around the top edge of a steam pipe and saw a green light growing brighter as someone walked slowly down the tunnel to the open doorway. The light wavered slightly, then a mercenary wearing goggles appeared in the doorway. Carrying a sawed-off shotgun, he carefully stepped over the dead man’s body.

  She moved behind the pipe and pressed her back against the warm metal. It was impossible to predict the mercenary’s position as he moved around the room; she could only plan the general direction of her attack. Maya felt as if all her energy were flowing from her shoulders and down her arms to the gun held in her hands. She breathed in, held her breath, and moved around the pipe.

  A third mercenary holding a submachine gun had appeared in the doorway. The Harlequin shot him in the chest. There was a flash of light as the force of the bullet pushed him backward. Even before the dead mercenary hit the floor, Maya spun around and killed the man holding the shotgun. Silence. The faint scent of cordite mingled with the rotting smell of the room. The steam pipes glowed green around her.

  Maya shoved the night-vision goggles in her shoulder bag, found Alice, and grabbed her hand. “Climb,” she whispered. “Just climb.” They hurried up the maintenance ladder, passed through the gap, and reached an area just below an open manhole. Maya stopped for few seconds and then decided: it was too dangerous to enter the track area. Still holding the little girl’s hand, she pulled her down a tunnel that led away from the station.

  10

  H olding on to the rungs of the ladder with his left hand, Naz used his right to push on a cast-iron manhole cover. After much grunting and swearing, he finally maneuvered the cover over the lip of the holding bracket and shoved it to one side. Gabriel followed Naz through the opening to the lower level of Grand Central Terminal. They were standing between a soot-covered concrete wall and one of the tracks of the railroad line.

  Naz looked as if he were ready to take off in any direction. “What’s going on?” he asked. “Where are Vicki and Hollis?”

  Gabriel peered down into the manhole and saw the top of Vicki’s head. She was twenty feet below him, moving cautiously up the ladder.

  “They’re right behind me. It might take a minute.”

  “We don’t have a minute.” Naz heard a distant clattering sound, spun around, and saw the twin lights of an approaching train. “We got to get out of here!”

  “Let’s wait for the others.”

  “They’ll catch up with us in the terminal. If the motorman sees us on the tracks he’ll radio the transit police.”

  Gabriel and Naz sprinted across the tracks, vaulted onto the passenger platform, and walked up a concrete ramp toward the lights. Quickly, Gabriel removed his bloodstained jacket and turned it inside out. The lower concourse of the train station had been turned into a food court ringed with fast-food outlets. Only a coffee bar was open, and a handful of commuters dozed on benches while they waited for late-night trains. The two men sat down at a café table and waited for the others to emerge from the track area.

  “What happened?” Naz asked. “You saw them, right?”

  “Vicki was climbing the ladder. Hollis was just a few feet below her.”

  Naz jumped up and began to pace back and forth. “We can’t stay here.”

  “Sit down. It’s only been a couple minutes. We need to wait a little longer.”

  “Good luck, man. I’m gone.”

  Naz hurried over to the escalator and disappeared into the upper level of the terminal. Gabriel tried to imagine what had happened to the others. Were they trapped below? Had the Tabula caught up with them? The fact that a tracer bead was hidden in the ceramic gun had changed everything. He wondered if Maya would take an unnecessary risk to punish herself for what had happened.

  Gabriel left the eating area and stood in the open doorway that led to the tracks. A surveillance camera was focused on the platform, and Gabriel had already noticed four other cameras mounted on the ceiling of the concourse. The Tabula had probably hacked into the terminal’s security system and their computers were scanning the live feeds for his image. Stay together. That was what Maya had told them, but she had also provided a backup plan: if there was a problem, they would meet up tomorrow morning on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

  Gabriel returned to the dining area and concealed himself behind a concrete pillar. A few seconds later, four tough-looking men wearing phone headsets came down the escalator and ran through the doorway to the track area. The moment they were gone, Gabriel went the other way, climbing a staircase to the main concourse and passing through a doorway to the street. The cold winter air made his eyes water and his face sting. The Traveler put his head down and stepped into the night.

  DURING THEIR TIME in New York, Maya had insisted that everyone memorize safe routes through the city and a list of single-residency hotels that were off the Grid. One of these places was the Efficiency Hotel on Tenth Avenue in Manhattan. For twenty dollars in cash you got twelve hours in a windowless fiberglass pod that was eight feet long and five feet high. The forty-eight pods lined both sides of a corridor and made the hotel look like a mausoleum.

  Before Gabriel entered the hotel, he took off his leather jacket again and folded it so that the bloodstains weren’t visible. The hotel clerk was an elderly Chinese man who sat behind a bulletproof barrier and waited for customers to slip their cash into a
narrow slot. Gabriel paid him twenty dollars for the use of the pod and an extra five dollars for a foam rubber pad and a cotton blanket.

  He received a key and walked down the hallway to the communal bathroom. Two Latino restaurant workers were standing bare-chested in front of the sinks, chattering to each other in Spanish as they washed the cooking grease off their faces and arms. Gabriel hid in a toilet stall until the two men were gone, then came out and washed his jacket in the sink. When he was done, he climbed a ladder to his rented space and crawled inside. Each pod had a fluorescent light and a small fan to keep the air circulating. There was a single peg to hold his jacket, and the wet leather began to drip softly, as if it were still sodden with blood.

  Lying on the foam pad, Gabriel couldn’t stop thinking about Sophia Briggs. He had felt the Light within her, surging and moving like a powerful wave of water, and then it had flowed through his hands. He could hear muffled voices through the thin walls of the pod and it felt like he was drifting through shadows, surrounded by ghosts.

  MAYA HAD TAUGHT Gabriel that the Grid was not absolute; there were still gaps and shadow areas where you could move safely through the city. The next morning, it took him about an hour to avoid the surveillance cameras and walk over to Tompkins Square Park. In the financial district and in the Midtown area, the gray bedrock of Manhattan was close to the surface, providing a foundation for the skyscrapers that dominated the city. On the Lower East Side, the bedrock was hundreds of feet below the surface, and the buildings that lined the streets were only four or five stories high.

  Tompkins Square Park had been the traditional site for political protests for more than a hundred years. A generation earlier, a group of homeless people had established a camp there until the police had closed the park and surrounded it with a massive circle of officers. The police then walked toward the center, ripping apart improvised shelters and beating anyone who refused to leave. These days, huge elm trees shaded the park in the summer, and black iron railings surrounded every patch of ground. There were only two surveillance cameras in the park; both were aimed at the children’s playgrounds and easily avoided.