It was a veritable gallery of street art. Some of it went back before Giuliani’s reign, a time capsule back to the sixties and seventies. Bob Marley smoked a giant reefer beside a newer painting of Kurt Cobain and Courtney with a declaration of She shot the sheriff.
Jake figured they were almost back down near 91st now. They kept on walking. The art changed to a commentary on bankers, making the obvious visual gag.
A minute later a subway platform came into view. They kept on walking. It was the old 91st Street station, which had closed nearly sixty years before when the platform at 96th was extended. Closed meant that the stairs had been removed and the entrances at ground level sealed. Everything else remained. The tracks still ran through the old station stop, right past the deserted platforms.
As near as Jake could guess, they had to be somewhere close to the brownstone now. They hadn’t walked quite as far as the platform. “You don’t have to do this,” he whispered to Ryan.
“Are we gonna go through this again? Von’ll kill me if I let anything happen to you. So, like it or not, you’re stuck with me. Or, more accurately, I’m stuck with you.”
“I’m serious.”
“Deadly. Now, shhh, unless you want to get us caught.”
They began looking around, scanning the walls with their loops of cable and nailed wooden planking. The place was a warren of maintenance tunnels, complete with exits going off in seemingly every direction imaginable apart from up. Most of those tunnels came out in public buildings or between them, but if someone had wanted a place with its own escape hatch, they could have bought property directly above one of the old entrances and incorporated it into their own building. These guys had money; they were devious and secretive.
Jake was banking on them having secured a way out. It would involve real long-term thinking, but given everything he’d seen so far, these guys were playing exactly that game, and today’s events were very much the latest in a long line of well-executed moves. Buying the perfect building for their needs—months, even years in advance—didn’t seem like such a stretch.
The walls here were covered in years of grime and dirt and cast-off oil, but mixed in with the dark smears and spots were slashes and swirls of brighter color. Two splashes were made by a pair of weird symbols somewhere between drawings and oddly shaped letters.
Jake paused; they looked familiar. He shone the light directly on them. They were the same scrawls that the two graffiti artists had daubed on the walls right before the place blew up with them shouting about warriors. They were remarkably similar, if not identical.
“Over here,” he whispered. He ran the flashlight over the wall, ignoring the symbols themselves for a moment, instead looking for the shadows of a door. The wall was as unbroken and dirty as everything around it.
Ryan shone his own light all around the surface, letting it linger along the ground while he searched for telltale scratches. Nothing.
Frustrated, Jake kicked out, catching something that might have been a piece of burnt, twisted metal that had fallen from a train but could just as easily have been a lump of coal or a fire-blackened brick. It shattered from the force of the blow, fragments flying in a powdery explosion. Shreds of newspaper that had been stuck to the lump floated free, springing up before wafting slowly back down again.
Jake watched one of wisps of old paper drift down right by the wall, seemingly sliding halfway under it before finally settling to rest. He crouched down to study the spot where it landed. “Bring the light over here.”
Sure enough, he could just make out the darker shadow of a tiny gap beneath this section of wall. Which meant it was a fake front placed carefully to hide the real wall behind it. And what would you want to hide down here?
A door.
He didn’t see any obvious way to move the fake wall, but there had to be one, otherwise any door it concealed would be completely useless. They wouldn’t lock and bar their emergency exit. It needed to be easily accessible. Of course, it could have been only accessible from the inside, which would make sense. Exits were about getting out, not in.
“Don’t suppose you brought a fire ax, Rye?”
“It’d kinda fuck up the whole element of surprise, don’t you think?”
There had to be an edge. A weakness. It couldn’t be perfectly flush. Not given the nature of the ancient tunnels. Even if he couldn’t see it, it had to be there.
Jake started running his hand over the wall, feeling for any dips or gaps, anything he could slide a fingernail in to work loose. Ryan kept the beam pointed toward the surface of the wall.
Jake almost missed the tiny gap. The tip of his fingernail snagged on it as his hand brushed over the space. He stopped moving, then carefully ran his fingertips back over the area, slowly. “Here,” he whispered.
Ryan brought the flashlight’s beam up to focus on where that finger had been as Jake lifted it out of the way. At roughly shoulder height there was a narrow gap.
It wasn’t an accidental chip; the edges were neat and perfectly squared. It looked like a coin slot in a vending machine.
If this was the keyhole it was pretty clear no ordinary key was going to fit it. It had to be something only these guys would have, because they didn’t want some transit worker stumbling in through their back door. Something only they would have . . .
“Keep it steady,” Jake said, as he reached into his pocket and dug out the small gold pin. It went in far enough for its outer edge to line up precisely with the wall around it, no farther, earning a muted click from somewhere deep inside the hidden mechanism.
The fake wall shifted a couple of inches under his hands, creating a suddenly visible seam. Ryan wedged his fingers into that space and together they heaved it so the door could swing open. It wasn’t smooth or quiet as it dragged away across the rough ground.
Jake winced as it opened onto an old, battered metal door with a submarine-style capstan lock. The door was recessed in a dirt-smeared frame, solid steel, gunmetal gray.
“Shall we?”
Jake grasped the wheel and, after a moment’s resistance, felt it turn.
Chapter Thirty-FIVE
THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME, Finn thought as she collapsed into her chair.
Of course, it wasn’t really home, and out there the real world wasn’t exactly Oz, but in all the ways that counted her office was now more of a home than her apartment. She spent more time in this room than anywhere else in the world and, truth be told, had experienced more damn excitement here too. Through the window, she watched the snowfall thicken as it swirled. By morning it would be knee-deep.
She caught herself grinning at the memory of Jake.
Some time very soon she was going to have to have a word with herself, because she wasn’t prepared to be anyone’s dirty secret or their mistake. Simple as that. He was going to have to work hard for a second chance.
She wasn’t all that forgiving normally, but saving the world would be a start. Though it wouldn’t bring automatic forgiveness with it.
She grinned again. Who am I kidding?
She’d considered heading back to her apartment for a nanosecond—the Port Authority adventure had left her drained and shaking when the aftereffects of the adrenaline receded—but the weather made that a fool’s errand. The odds were it was still without power and she didn’t like the idea of pacing around the tiny one-bedroom apartment in the dark, unable to relax or do anything useful while a storm raged outside. She wasn’t about to waste the evening cleaning kitchen countertops and folding laundry. She was tired, but there was no way she could sleep. So, the equation pretty much balanced on the side of work. Besides, there was an element of safety in numbers too. The campus was never deserted, even at this time of night.
“Let’s see what we’ve got, shall we?” she said aloud, typing in her password. She opened her e-mail and web browser. It took a minute for the pages to refresh. It was still faster than it had been that morning, so maybe the Internet, and therefore b
y association the rest of the world, was starting to recover a little?
She had a few new e-mails, but what caught her eye was a notification that new images from the dig site had been uploaded. That surprised her. It was the most obvious sign yet that normality was beginning to get a grip. Finn grabbed a water bottle from her little fridge and twisted the cap off, taking a long swig as she navigated over to the dig’s private page and opened the first of the new pictures. Then she sat back, sipping her water and watching as the gallery began to propagate on her screen.
Even as thumbnails it was obvious the new pictures were considerably better than the first batch, much sharper and cleaner. The water down there must be incredibly clear and almost without undercurrent or motion, because in most of the shots Finn had to consciously remind herself that these ruins were underwater. It was only the soft, diffuse lighting that gave it away. There wasn’t a single place in all North America that looked like this, she was absolutely sure of that. Several images offered close-ups of the buildings, zoomed in on the markings carved into them.
Finn created blank pages in her imaging program and traced each symbol methodically so she could study them more easily without the distraction of the environment to lead her thoughts to any particular conclusion. By the time she was finished adding the new symbols to the file she’d already started, her vision had a blurred sleep-deprived quality, but she was absolutely certain of one thing: these markings were not Egyptian.
She’d thought that already from the initial images, but now she was sure. Everything about the images suggested they were in some way related to hieroglyphics, but at the same time they had too many dissimilarities to simply be different presentation styles. Which begged the obvious question: what were they?
They really did bear a strong resemblance to Olmec. Maybe Mayan? The problem was the building they were on. It was a perfect classic pyramid, a four-sided, smooth-walled triangular structure that would put the pyramid at Giza to shame. And here it was on the bottom of the ocean near Cuba. That didn’t fit with any history of the world she’d ever learned.
Minimizing the shots of the ruins, Finn opened the page with all the text changes marked. Then she pulled up an Olmec glossary, an Egyptian one, and a few others, hoping that one of them would act as a key.
* * *
She completely lost track of time. The hunger in her belly was the only indication that it had past at all.
Finn pushed her chair back from her desk and stood up, stretching to the audible crack of her joints realigning. Every bit of pain was worth it because she’d finally found a match. While not perfect, it was as close as she was likely to find.
For the hundredth time she looked at the two images side by side. She’d been right first time: they were Olmec. The images on the ruins were a little sharper, more formal in their construction, but that made sense considering they had been carved into what was obviously a holy building. Carving was the business of sharp lines and clean edges. Any image could be chiseled out, but it would wind up more even, more precise in appearance, than something crafted with the smooth sweeps and flourishes of handwriting.
So what she was looking at here were Egyptian pyramids with Olmec carvings at the tip of the Bermuda Triangle. There was something absolutely impossible about the juxtaposition, she knew. But it was brilliant.
These carvings were close to home, but the pyramids themselves were in a part of the world they had no business being in, making this one of the strangest discoveries Finn had ever heard of. Which meant, inevitably, she’d be questioned, doubted, and probably accused of falsifying her data to get attention. The joys of academia. None of that changed the truth of what she was looking at, though.
The images challenged the established socioanthropological norms. Everything academia thought it understood about migratory populations and the reach of Egyptian culture was undermined by a couple of deep-sea images. They were a game-changer.
And outside the storm worsened.
Chapter Thirty-SIX
THE DOOR OPENED INTO A DARK, NARROW TUNNEL that stretched out before them.
“After you,” Ryan said.
Jake retrieved the pin before allowing the door to swing closed behind them. There were no obvious light switches, but a quick sweep of the Maglite revealed several small white ovals along one side of the wall, set a little above head height. At a guess, battery-powered emergency lights. He tapped one. It glowed slowly to life, confirming his supposition. Nice. But he wasn’t about to light any more of them just yet. Better to go forward in the dark. He tapped the light again and it dimmed. He hooded the flashlight beam with a hand, keeping it aimed at the immediate ground in front of him. Ryan did likewise.
The tunnel was straight. There were no obvious bends or junctions turning off it. They walked slowly forward, placing each footfall carefully, not wanting their steps to echo ahead and announce their arrival.
It took them a surprisingly long time to come to another capstan-locked door. This one was in much better condition than the outer door.
Jake twisted the capstan wheel; it moved freely, well oiled. Behind it, he found a staircase, leading up. He nodded to Ryan, who killed his flashlight and followed Jake as he took the steps slowly.
The risers beneath their feet were well worn in the middle, meaning at one time or another they’d been heavily trafficked. The brickwork was painted sky blue above their heads. As they reached the top they faced another door. No capstan this time. Jake paused and heard footsteps on the other side. He stood right behind the door and waited, his whole body tense, ready to slam it into whoever was unlucky enough to open it.
The door didn’t open. He waited, still tense. Behind him, Ryan fidgeted. Then he heard something, a slide, and realized his partner was carrying. It was difficult to relax, even after the footsteps had faded to nothing.
“What the fuck are you doing what that?” Jake rasped.
“Protecting your pretty little ass. Someone’s got to.”
Jake shook his head. “Seriously not cool, my friend.”
“Tell that to the first fucker who tries to ventilate your carcass.”
“Do you even know how to use that thing?”
“What do you think?”
He looked Ryan in the eye. He didn’t want to admit what he thought. He knew a killer’s eyes—Ryan knew how to use the gun. He didn’t want to know where he’d learned. He stopped trying to argue with him, and decided to open the door.
It led into a decorative hallway, straight out of a better, vanished time. It was all hardwood floors with thick brass carpet runners, and exquisite end tables showcasing priceless art. It looked every inch the exclusive old gentlemen’s club, though after his encounter at Penn Station it was hard to think of the people in here as anything approaching gentlemen in anything but the most vulgar form of the word.
Jake slipped out into the hall. Ryan followed him, closing the stairwell door carefully behind them. They began to make their way down the hall, but with no real clue as to where they were going it didn’t matter whether they went left or right. Jake was looking for stairs, working on the principle that anything of value or importance wasn’t going to be in the basement or on the ground floor. They needed to be up near the top floor of the brownstone.
They were halfway down the hall, a few feet from a door, when it opened. A guard stepped through. The man—dressed in the uniform black and gray of almost every single flunky he’d ever encountered—was armed to the teeth. He carried a submachine gun cradled in the crook of his left arm, a holstered pistol at his belt, and a wicked knife strapped to his thigh.
Jake couldn’t give him the chance to raise the alarm—or to get a shot off. Without time to think, he threw himself forward, putting himself between Ryan and the guard so he couldn’t shoot even if his trigger finger itched. Forgetting combat training in favor of pure street-fighting instinct, Jake then launched himself at the guard, who turned right into the trajectory of his clubbing fist.
The punch answered the riddle of what happened when an impossible force hit an immovable object. The object’s head snapped back, lights out, and hit the deck cold.
“Fuck . . . one punch, man.” Ryan said, voice full of admiration. “Nice.”
“Take his legs,” Jake said as he grabbed the guard under his arms. They carried him back toward the staircase down to the subway level.
Jake thought about dumping him in there, assuming no one would venture that way, but it was a risk. He needed to minimize the chance of someone simply stumbling onto the unconscious man or of him being able to raise the alarm when he came around. Short of slitting the guy’s throat, that was going to be easier said than done.
They passed the door, looking for an alternative. The third door to the left opened onto a small storeroom. There was industrial-strength shelving filled with a survivalist horde of food, electronics, emergency gear, and other supplies meant surely to see out the apocalypse. Everything imaginable, and lots of things he’d never have considered. Jake dragged the guard into the storeroom. He found industrial tape on the shelf, and used it to bind the guy’s hands and feet, then slapped a piece across his mouth. There was no way his screams were going to bring the house down. Done, he shut the door behind him.
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