The Prisoner

by Carlos J. Cortes

  “You move a lot?”

  “Used to. We’ve been left undisturbed here for close to six years. A couple of years ago, there was activity farther west by the power station. The police crashed into a community and the brothers had to scamper. Some moved in with us and a few stayed. The Marchesi clan had set up a drug laboratory in an underground cave connected by a network of escape tunnels and passageways to their headquarters.”

  Raul’s eyes flickered. “The heat found it?”

  “Eventually. They pumped in concrete to seal all the exits.”

  Laurel was about to ask if the mobsters were in or out when the concrete poured down, but a gleam in Henry’s eyes answered her question. In. “So now you stay put. I mean …”

  “We visit other settlements to trade information or something they may have in excess. Sometimes we even have visitors, other than brothers from other tunnels—journalists and artists, principally.”

  “Artists?”

  “Yes. It seems a floor dusted with soda straws, condoms, tampons, and diapers nurtures creativity and artistic imagination. Go figure.”

  Floyd darted a glance toward the opening at the end of the station. “You travel through the active subway tunnels?”

  “That’s dangerous. We keep to the sewers as much as we can. Some have risked shortcuts between settlements through live tunnels, but it’s crazy. They may be run over by a train or touch the electric third rail—a shortcut’s not worth having your head, feet, and hands explode.”

  chapter 22

  9:11

  After Metronome bolted down the tunnel, burdened with his rat cage, Henry Mayer finished his short exchange with Laurel and Raul, then moved to one end of the station, tailed by Barandus. There they sat for a while, Henry obviously talking, his hands dancing in midair, and Barandus leaning forward as if eager not to miss a word. After a few minutes, Barandus stood, strolled to a group gathered around a fire on the lower rail bed, and returned in the company of two men. Then he left again, this time to the opposite end of the station, where he shifted cardboard boxes aside. A little later he marched once more toward Henry, trailed by a plump woman swathed in a grimy military-issue raincoat.

  Laurel couldn’t work out what was going on from where she sat on the platform, but she felt too weary to walk over and find out. Most likely Henry was marshaling his troops. Until he made a move, they could do nothing but wait.

  Floyd loomed over her. “How are you feeling?”

  “Rough,” Laurel said. Her throat was clogged again with all the emotions boiling up from inside. Bastien.

  “Here, take this.” He offered a decrepit-looking water pack and, from his top pocket, a piece of metal foil with two dimples on its surface.

  “What is it?” Laurel was already pushing the tablets, oval with a shiny silver coating, onto the palm of her hand.

  “Vitamins and a dose of caffeine. Not too strong—you’ve eaten only rice—but it will perk you up.”

  “And the hangover?” She offered a weak smile and swallowed the pills with a sip of the tepid water.

  “When the effect wears off, you’ll need to sleep around the clock.” He squatted by her side and, wedging his back against the slightly curved wall, sat down.

  Laurel glanced at Raul, dozing next to Russo’s stretcher, and Lukas, slumped in a corner, his eyes vacant.

  Floyd followed her glance. “Of course, the issue may be academic. When the effect wears off, we may all be dead.”

  “There’s a third alternative,” Laurel offered.

  “Yes?”

  “Something in between. We may be on our way to sleep around the clock, in a tank.”

  Floyd didn’t answer. He must have relaxed, because his arm pressed against hers. She arrested an unconscious reflex to give him more room by moving aside. Instead, she leaned her head on his shoulder. He tensed, but only for a moment. After a long sigh, Floyd shifted to free his arm and wrapped it around her shoulders. The polymer material of Laurel’s stiff jacket creaked, but his hug felt good.

  “I won’t let it get that far,” Floyd muttered.

  “You came prepared?”

  He shrugged. “I grabbed some syrettes we use to put down patients too far gone.”

  “Like dogs at the pound?”

  “Mmmm, how long?”

  The sudden change of topic caught Laurel unaware. “How long what?”

  “Until we get out of here.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Floyd turned his head toward Russo and nodded. “He’s wasting away. He won’t last much longer. Hours, maybe.”

  Laurel opened her eyes a fraction to look through her eyelashes at Russo’s prone shape. “Shep—the man who planned the breakout—knows his condition. He’s organized our extraction with Henry’s help.”

  “And the blood?”

  “And the blood.” A while ago Floyd had given her a list of the materials he needed to revive Russo—a long list she’d keyed into her Metapad and flashed to Shepherd.

  “Floyd?”

  “Yes.”

  “You said you have more than one syrette?”

  “I did.”

  “Then save one for me.”

  On the opposite end of the tunnel, something flashed, followed by tiny flames that soon grew into a roaring fire. Around it, dark figures hovered like tormented souls in a Goya etching.

  “Why him? Is he a big gun? An experiment gone wrong? A mobster?” Floyd had a nice voice.

  Shepherd’s instructions had been clear: Don’t volunteer any information about Russo to the doctor or the controller. But that was before. Now secrecy was moot; they were in the same boat. “Russo is a lawyer, like Raul—” She was going to add, and Bastien, but swallowed instead. “And me.”

  “And what else?” he insisted.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t spend eight years slowly dying in a tank for being a lawyer unless you’re a rapist–lawyer, or murderer-lawyer, or—”

  “I see what you mean. No, Russo is just a lawyer, an activist. A blue-assed fly who rattled someone in power.”

  “What was he convicted of?”

  “He was never tried.”

  “You must be joking.” But his voice quivered.

  She moved closer, until her head touched his cheek. The sensation of warmth on her scalp was almost too delicious to bear. “I wouldn’t describe this circumstance as a joke, but I always knew you quacks had a weird sense of humor.”

  “Quack? How dare you?” But he tightened his arm, as if dreading she would pull away. “I only use leeches when strictly necessary.”

  A silence followed, as satisfying as any violin concerto.

  “So, our government’s betters have been using the tanks to salt away troublesome folks and kill them,” he said.

  “Something like that.”

  “I see.”

  “What do you see?”

  “The streets teeming with police, DHS FDU squads, and troops. I bet even the Boy Scouts and the Salvation Army are looking for us. They can’t allow the worms to get out of town.”

  “Mmmm?” Laurel felt sleepy. His pep pills must have outlived their shelf life.

  “I’m losing my touch. Here I am, oozing witty remarks, and all I get is snores.”

  “Your touch is fine.” For the first time in many hours, she felt a smile tug at the corners of her lips. Floyd Carpenter, forty-one, doctor of medicine, broke after a recent traumatic divorce, no children or live-in pets. At least, these were the scant details Shepherd had rattled from his notes while they ran over the operation. It seemed years ago instead of weeks.

  Yes, Floyd was damaged but cuddly and comfortable, like a worn teddy bear. She drifted in and out of dreamless sleep until his hand pressed her arm with insistence.

  “Mmmm?”

  “My, but you are verbose. Henry is moving.”

  She roused instantly, her mind clear as a foggy road after a strong wind. Maybe his pep pills worked after all. Laurel le
aned over and pecked his cheek. “Thank you.”

  “Er, I didn’t catch that. Could you repeat it?”

  She stood and ran a hand over the seat of her trousers in an unconscious gesture to shake off the dirt. Her fingers caught on something slimy. She refused to look. “No.”

  At the end of the tunnel, Henry stood with the other men, waving for them to approach. Laurel neared Raul and leaned over to run a hand over his head. “Something is happening.”

  Raul made a wry movement with his mouth, reached for her hand, and held it an instant. “Latte, large, scrambled eggs on toast, and juice.”

  “Served by odalisques from a nearby seraglio?”

  “Perfect. No veils, please; they only get in the way.”

  She squeezed his hand and moved over to Lukas. Out of the corner of her eye, she detected Floyd squatting next to Russo and listening to his chest before shaking his head.

  “Come on, let’s go see Henry.” She peered into Lukas’s eyes. All the adrenaline-triggered resolve was gone, leaving only fear in its wake. “Come,” she repeated, offering her hand. “We’re going to be all right.” There was no reason for the encouragement, but, like someone hopelessly in love, his eyes begged for a charitable lie.

  As Laurel neared the group, Henry slapped one of the men on the shoulder. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  Henry fingered his matted beard, then nodded to Laurel. She eyed the grimy faces of men and a woman, dressed in a bewildering assortment of rags, their sunken eyes ablaze with a strange inner light. Hope or drugs? She couldn’t make up her mind. Like a quarterback calling the play, Henry stepped slightly inside the circle.

  “You know Barandus,” Henry said, gesturing to the tall, morose man on his right. Then he raised a hand to encompass the other three. “Jim, Susan, and Charlie. Good friends, and knowledgeable.”

  The nature of their knowledge filled Laurel with dread, but she managed a smile. “What are we doing?”

  “With luck, the DHS will be busy for a while—not for too long, though. We need to arrange a small diversion to draw all the city forces away from your extraction point. To do that, we need some goods. I propose we go get them.”

  Laurel returned Henry’s stare. He hadn’t named the place they were supposed to meet Shepherd, but he hadn’t explained anything about his plan either. “But we have no money.”

  Henry nodded. “My word is good enough where we’re going.”

  “Who’s going with you?” Raul asked.

  “La crème de la crème—Laurel, you, and the five of us. That should be enough. The doctor can look after his charge, and Lukas can help him.”

  Henry seemed to have sorted out in his mind who belonged where.

  Raul edged forward and cleared his throat. Obviously something was bothering him. “Enough for what?”

  “My friend … does it matter?” Henry raised a hand before Raul had a chance to reply. “You’re fucked. I mean, really fucked. You need to get your pal out there to a safe place. We can try to help you achieve your goal, but you do it our way. Or … you’re welcome to try it on your own.”

  Raul stood very straight, his lips pressed tightly together.

  “Let me get something straight. Down here we operate as a group, and I lead. You will do as I say. No questions. If something happens to me, Barandus takes over.”

  “Are we in the army now?”

  “I wish we were, son. This is a tad harsher, with fewer rules and no safeguards. Of course, if you have a problem, you can stay here.” Henry squared his shoulders and waited.

  Raul pursed his lips and nodded once. “Understood.”

  “That’s not enough. Here we depend on one another. You will do as I say.”

  “Cut it out, guys. Of course we’ll go along. You’re the expert,” Laurel said in exasperation.

  Still Henry waited, his eyes never leaving Raul.

  “I’ll do as you say,” Raul agreed.

  Laurel darted a glance toward Russo. “Are we going far?”

  “About three miles in a straight line. Problem is, we have to go deep first. Say an eight-mile round trip.”

  “How long?”

  Something flickered across Henry’s eyes and Laurel braced herself for a sharp rebuke, but it never came. “Five hours, perhaps six, if we don’t run into problems.” He raised a hand to forestall the next question. “As to the possibility and nature of the problems, your guess is as good as mine.” He turned to the woman he’d introduced as Susan and muttered something.

  She trotted to a far corner of the station to rummage in a large cardboard box propped against a pile of others in a corner—their stores, Laurel guessed.

  Laurel neared Floyd and Lukas. “You heard the man—five or six hours. Try to catch some shut-eye.”

  Floyd nodded. “And you take care.” He reached over and brushed his fingers across her cheek.

  Lukas hadn’t recovered his color and looked positively sick. She neared and gripped his arm. He blinked and nodded once. Laurel guessed that a tank full of an oily mixture was on the supervisor’s mind. “Be prepared. As soon as we get back, we can go home.” She hoped her voice would carry conviction, but it failed.

  Raul hadn’t moved, probably smarting from Henry’s tug at the leash. She stepped over and draped an arm around his waist. “Angry?”

  “No. He’s right. This is terra incognita for us, and they’ve been here for years. It’s just that I hate being blindsided.”

  “We’ll figure it out sooner or later.”

  He threw an arm around her shoulder and drew her closer. “What do you reckon?”

  “About what?”

  “Those two. The doctor and Woody boy.”

  “They’ll behave, at least for the time being. They have nowhere to go. We are their only chance.”

  Raul lowered his head as if to check something on the floor. “And the derelicts?”

  “I don’t know about the rest, but Shepherd trusts Henry with his life. His words, not mine.”

  “And heavy words at that.”

  “You bet. In another incarnation, they must have been close. Shepherd mentioned that it wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “That he trusted Henry with his life? Probably the army, then.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Shepherd’s ways, and his attention to detail and discipline. He’s ex–armed forces, and so is Henry, and probably that other man, Barandus. I would bet on that.”

  “What would you bet?”

  “Get lost.”

  Susan returned with what seemed like a brace of ribbons. As she neared the group, she dug into the shapeless mass and shook a handful of dark tapes free.

  Henry grabbed some and passed them on to Raul and her. “Here, harnesses. Strap ‘em on.”

  The two-inch strips of webbing were stoutly stitched together in places and peppered with buckles. Laurel reached for the contraption and untangled its folds, trying to work out what went where.

  “That’s it.” Henry blinked. “Your legs go through those hoops and your arms through there. Then you clasp it shut and tighten it by pulling this end.”

  “Where are we going, then?”

  Henry’s contortions to work the webbing around his colossal anatomy released a thick waft of stench. “Sewers. Dangerous places.”

  “I know about sewers and fat fields … and roaches.” As she spoke, it dawned on Laurel that the word sewers had issued darkly from Henry’s lips.

  “I mean deep sewers. Sewer workers seldom go below levels four or five, and they always wear a harness and rubber waders that come up to the crotch like yours. We don’t have waders.”

  Her mind clouded with foreboding. “Deep?”

  Henry nodded to her Metapad resting atop an upturned gallon can. “The map you carry covers only three levels and sections of another two deeper down. Those are the systems in service. A cross-section of central Washington has fifteen levels in places, plunging as deep as three thousand feet,
and mostly uncharted.”

  Questions jostled for priority in Laurel’s mind, but she chose the bliss of ignorance for what lay ahead and didn’t ask anything else.

  Henry switched on his LAD flashlight. A bright circle of light appeared at his enormous rubber-boot-encased feet. “So, you know your roaches, yes?” He tilted his body and the light caught a glossy insect, almost black. “Here we have an illegal immigrant, Blatta orientalis, the oriental cockroach; this one must be lost, because they favor moist and warm places.” He stepped over it and a faint crunch followed a high-pitched hiss. “But there we have the locals.” His flashlight panned the floor and shapes scurried in all directions. “These are Periplaneta americana, our very own, and above all survivors, like all of us. Wonderfully designed scavengers. They need only warmth, water, and a little decaying matter to survive.” With the light coming from underneath, Henry’s face had gained a disturbing chiaroscuro of shifting shadows. “They’re excellent climbers, as people on the surface know too well. They climb up drains to kitchen sinks and counters with leftover food, where they feed, leaving in their wake hard, cylindrical droppings that resemble fragments of pencil lead.”

  The bastard was doing it on purpose and enjoying himself.

  Henry straightened and switched off his flashlight. “The males have wings and occasionally fly. But the best is … they can swim.”

  Barandus neared with an armload of what seemed like folded cloth, but on closer inspection Laurel determined they were new backpacks. “A factory closed down,” he explained, “and we grabbed a few boxes. Have one.”

  She darted a glance to Lukas, who had followed the roach lecture, his face tinged with an unhealthy green hue.

  “I don’t understand why we should wear these.” She jerked the webbing tight around her waist with what she hoped would seem fearless certainty. “Surely we don’t have to be roped together like climbers.”

  Henry cocked his head. “No, but it’s easier to drag a body out when there’s a harness to grab hold of.”