by C. Forsyth
It reeks like a week-old corpse down here, he thought, clapping his left hand over his nose while the right clung to the tunnel wall.
X had expected it to be hot but the temperature was actually at least 30 degrees colder than above ground, and the fugitive felt goose bumps rising on his arms. The stream, though shallow, roared like a mountain river. Occasionally from far above, X could also hear the rush of traffic and the occasional rattle of manhole covers.
Retrieving his getaway car and the clean identity of Steve Holdenbrook was, of course, now a lost cause. But X had a plan. He had a friend - all right an acquaintance, for X had no friends as an ordinary person would understand the term - who operated a legal brothel about 50 miles outside Vegas. If X could make it there, he could probably find a temporary refuge.
X's face encountered a spider web that stretched the breadth of the tunnel and he brushed it away in revulsion. The bug that made that thing must be the size of a raccoon, he thought, wiping lingering strands from his cheeks.
It was slow going. About 100 feet later, he felt a punch to the rib cage as he slammed into a protruding lateral pipe. X lost his footing and - horror of horrors - fell to his hands and knees in the water. He scrambled to his feet, screaming in disgust and fury. He hated germs, he hated dirt.
Why is this happening to me? It isn't fair!
"Yuck, yuck, yuck!" His voice echoed through the tunnel and he cursed himself for his stupidity. Hardly the time for loud complaints.
X trudged on.
About 150 yards farther down the tunnel, X came to a juncture where a sewer drain, 15 feet above, above cast a parallelogram-shaped beam of light, unveiling graffiti scrawls and arcane official markings reminiscent of hieroglyphics. The sudden illumination also revealed cockroaches scuttling over the walls, while crawfish the size of trout wallowed in the green-brown water. Compared to that loathsome sight, the dark was almost comforting.
In the distance X heard approaching voices. Reluctantly, he abandoned the oasis of light and broke into a run, splashing in the opposite direction.
Traci and a team of eight heavily armed agents were at this point no more than 500 yards to the east. There were 10 such teams pouring into the tunnels from various ports of entry. The searchers were outfitted with masks, hazmat suits and rubber waders that reached to their waists. Traci's high-intensity LED flashlight illuminated rats swishing through the water, on top of which floated a child's doll, a basketball and a moldy, torn-up sneaker.
Though theoretically protected from biohazards, the overall repulsiveness of the place brought Traci nearly to the point of retching. Only her pride prevented her from ripping off her mask and puking in full view of the otherwise all-male crew.
Pulaski, an expert from the city's Streets and Sanitation Division who looked a bit like Tony Soprano, guided them, pausing now and then to consult a map. They had reached yet another fork and had to decide which way to go.
"We're just under Bonanza Road now," the beer-bellied guide informed her, panting from the effort of their descent. "That way leads east, that's west."
Traci flashed her light down one corridor, then the other. Each was equally dismal, each equally forbidding.
"We split up," she decided.
"That cuts us to four," protested a husky male subordinate.
"I can divide, Agent Greavy," she said sharply.
X sloshed down a snaking tunnel, guided by blind instinct. To his alarm he saw two pinpricks of light appear suddenly in the distance. As the far-off flashlights swiveled in his direction, he crouched down, barely ducking the beams in time. Then, with no other option, he lay flat, head underwater. After holding his breath as long as he could - close to a minute - he surfaced, gasping for breath. The lights were gone.
He struggled to his feet and staggered on.
Traci walked alongside the husky male agent, who was just a few years older than herself.
"So, are you married or what?" Greavy asked casually.
She couldn't believe she was being hit on, decked out in full hazmat attire, mired in crappy water and in the midst of the most intense manhunt the city had ever seen.
"That's not appropriate," she responded sternly.
"Just making small talk. Yeesh, excuuuuse me."
The talk at headquarters was that Traci was a lesbian, a theory G-men could not resist frequently putting to the test.
"Hey, what happened at the Giza?" the agent blundered on. "You wouldn't believe some of the rumors floating around. Some people are even saying you gave the guy a- "
"Shh! I see something," she whispered.
X emerged from a narrow tunnel and suddenly a bright beam of light shone in his face. He cowered from it like a vampire avoiding sunlight. Then he raised his hands quickly.
I beat the odds making it this far, he thought.
A hoarse voice came from behind the glare. "Are you from the city?"
X didn't skip a beat. "Yes," he said, lowering his hands. "What are you doing here?" He pumped as much authoritative bass into his voice as he could summon. "This area is off limits."
"Hunting rats," the stranger said. "I sell the pelts for women's winter hats."
"I see," X said. Then paused and added, "That can't be true."
"No. But then again, you're not from the city, now are you?"
The stranger directed the flashlight at himself and X saw that he was a wrinkled, 70-something man wearing the tattered remnants of a priest's garb, including a stained white collar.
"Are you lost?" the old man inquired.
"I bet your pardon?"
"It looks like you've lost your way, son."
"Yes, yes," he said. "I'm a reporter for the Las Vegas Sun. We're doing a report on life beneath - "
The old man raised his hand, stopping X mid-babble. The priest could see right through his line of bullshit.
"Come follow me," he said, gesturing with a crooked, yellow-nailed finger.
X hesitated. The old geezer was clearly nuts. The question was how nuts. He could be some kind of serial killer, preying on the derelicts who supposedly haunted this loathsome place. An old movie called C.H.U.D. (Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers) came to mind and he briefly imagined his bones being gnawed on by rats while the creepy cleric dined on his kidneys.
"Come quickly," the priest whispered.
Well, beggars can't be choosers, X thought and stepped toward the light.
A moment later they were hunched over, wading through a five-foot-tall tunnel, ankle-deep in thick, soupy sludge.
"You actually live down here?" X asked, astounded.
"I minister to the people of this place," the old man said. "The homeless, the hopeless who find themselves here."
X had heard rumors that beneath some cities drug addicts and lunatics dwelled in the sewers and subway tunnels, but had always dismissed them as urban legends.
"There are about 40 people in my little flock. Men, women, children."
"And the church pays you to do this?"
X knew that Catholic priests weren't paid much. But even the bundle raked in by evangelical preachers at mega-churches - whom X had long admired as the greatest scam artists of them all - wasn't enough to entice any sane person to work in this hellhole.
The priest chuckled.
"The church lost track of me long ago," he said. "I wasn't excommunicated; I simply fell off the radar."
That makes a little more sense, X thought. So I'm talking to a fallen angel.
"I came here to gamble. The roulette wheel was my poison. I gambled away church funds, to the tune of $43,207. This is home for me now."
He pointed his beam at a corner where four big pipes formed a rectangle. A bed hung suspended from wires about four feet from the floor. It was composed of couch cushions and a rotten wooden door; a stack of old National Geographics served as a pillow. On the walls were pictures that X recognized vaguely from his days as a Catholic schoolboy as saints. That was St. Francis over there, wasn't it
?
"It's not much but it keeps you dry at night," the priest said of his accommodations.
Night, day, is there any difference down here? X wondered. This made even the most barren monastic cell look like digs at the Ritz Carlton.
"How long have you been down here?" he asked.
The old priest stroked his beard and thought for a moment. "Now, let's see. Three ... four ... five years now."
X shook his head in disbelief.
"Have a seat," the priest said, pointing at a battered car seat upholstered in what had once been fine Corinthian leather. How the chair ended up down here was anyone's guess. X pondered the mystery as he sat down. He knew he should keep moving, but he was physically and mentally spent. He had vaguely hoped the old man might be able to hide him somewhere, but right now he only longed for a few moments' rest.
"Care for some crackers?" the old man asked, retrieving a cellophane-wrapped package from a tin on the bed.
X was indeed hungry, but he had a feeling those crackers dated from the Eisenhower administration. "Not just yet," he said.
"Are you Catholic?" the priest asked.
X had not set foot in a church of any stripe in 15 years.
"Well, not practicing. I was raised as one."
"I can hear your confession, if you wish. "
"Excuse me?"
"It still counts, if that's what you're wondering. As I said, I was never defrocked, deserving of that as I may be."
"I ... I don't really have anything to say."
The priest smiled wryly.
"So you've led a blameless life, have you, me boy?" he said in a mock Irish brogue, the kind an old movie priest might employ.
Is this guy some kind of mind reader? X could only presume that his desperate appearance suggested criminal behavior.
"Thanks, but I don't have time."
"It may be later than you think," said the old man. "Listen, son, you can keep running from who you are. But sooner or later you have to choose which life to lead."
The old man was creeping X out now. The priest continued, "Find something beyond yourself to live for - before it's too late."
In the distance, X heard multiple feet splashing through water. And although it meant the enemy was at hand, it was almost a relief to be rescued from the conversation.
"Listen, I've got to get out of here. The truth is I'm - I'm being hunted."
"I suspected that a little bit."
"Please, which tunnel should I take?"
The priest chewed that over for about 30 seconds then pointed.
"Go 75 yards down here, then where it forks, take the tunnel to the left. Another 50 yards or so, take a right. Another 20 feet and you'll find a narrow tunnel on the left. It's an abandoned shaft. I don't think it's even on the maps."
"Left. Right. Left. Got it," X said. "Thank you. Thank you, father."
"Bless you my son." The priest said. "May the Lord give you a chance to redeem yourself."
X began to back away, then the old man said, "Wait." He handed the identity thief his flashlight, handle first.
"You need a light to guide you," the priest said.
X backed away, turned, then bolted into the tunnel.
Traci and her party were closing in on a moving figure - identified with the help of an infra-red sensor that picked up body heat. Another team was covering the only escape path, so the target was cornered. Her heart beat faster in anticipation of finally nailing their quarry.
Normally Traci was cool as a cucumber; some co-workers even called her "cold." But after that humiliating episode in the hotel room ... well, this was personal. She had, of course, been given a "safe word" to use if she got in a jam. But, believing she could handle the situation, she had hesitated to ask for help a second too long and had ended up hogtied on this little creep's bed. Now it was payback time.
"Over there!" one of her men shouted. They turned the corner and saw a human figure. Guns flew out of holsters as if they were a posse of Wild West gunslingers.
"FBI, don't make a move!" Traci hollered, pointing her Glock 17 at a shadowy figure just a few yards from her.
"Don't shoot! Please don't shoot!" a female voice responded.
Four beams from the search party's flashlights converged, shining with the intensity of stadium lights on what turned out to be a five-member family in filthy rags. All had hollow, haunted eyes that winced from the light. They looked like a cross between the Joads from The Grapes of Wrath and a tribe of hitherto undiscovered Neanderthals. Behind them tottered a makeshift cardboard dwelling.
Miscellaneous belongings ranging from jugs of water to a rusted tricycle were piled five feet high in shopping carts. The youngest child, clutching a one-eyed teddy bear even dirtier than she was, appeared to be no more than three. They surely needed rescue from their predicament; a visit from Social Services or some other agency seemed in order, but that wasn't Traci's concern at the moment.
"Sorry to scare you," she said. "Have you seen a man pass this way?"
The small, ghostly waif pointed silently.
X was crawling now, through a flooded tunnel that narrowed at an alarming pace, until it could barely accommodate his shoulders. His head was just above the stinking water. Why had he listened to that crackpot? He was going to drown like a rat.
"I'm beginning to doubt my career choice," he whispered to himself.
Then a faint light appeared in the distance. As he surged on, the light grew brighter and brighter, like the arrival of an archangel. It was an outlet. He felt a gentle breeze and plowed ahead, hoping against hope, toward the light.
If I get out of this ... If I get out of this ... I'm going to go into another area of crime entirely. Carjacking, perhaps.
But soon, to his horror, he saw that a rusted iron gate blocked his passage. The bars were thick as a man's wrist and spaced no more than four inches apart. A toddler couldn't squeeze through. X stopped and began to laugh at the Good Lord's sadistic joke. His mad cackle echoed through the tunnel.
Going back was not an option, so he crawled forward, wriggling on his belly like a snake now. As he got closer, he saw that the grate was ajar. He pushed tentatively, and the grate swung open, creaking like the door of Dracula's castle.
X slid out of the drainpipe and found himself in an open-air channel. Bulrush grass poked up from the stream and cinderblocks cluttered the bottom. The concrete walls of the ditch had to be 20 feet high and fenced, with barbed wire crowning the top. But after what he'd been through, that seemed hardly formidable. After about 50 yards he found a ladder and, hand over hand, he pulled himself up the rungs.
Miraculously, he found he was miles outside the city, which he could see, a hazy monument, in the distance. It was raining cats and dogs. But the thorough drenching was welcome after the mire of the sewer.
X shed his filthy clothes. He yearned mightily to burn them. Instead, he stretched them over a cactus and when most of the muck was washed off, he wrung them out. If he could make it to a highway, he could hitchhike, get far from here.
X began to walk, stiffly at first, and then with hope, toward the roar of the Interstate.
Chapter 10
WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS
X stood by the side of a highway surrounded by a bleak desert landscape Goya could have painted. Although he'd cleaned up to what he deemed a reasonable degree, and looked less like a zombie bum, a dozen cars zoomed passed. He thought of that old Rutger Hauer movie The Hitcher, and couldn't really blame them.
Finally, after about half an hour, a battered yellow pickup pulled over. It bore two occupants, the driver a chrome-dome with a long, straggly gray John Brown beard and alarmingly thick glasses, the passenger a wiry man who could be his kid brother, sporting a baseball cap and a thick handlebar moustache.
"Whereabouts you headed?" X asked after they'd been on the road a few minutes. This time his voice had its normal, mid-Atlantic inflection. He couldn't muster the energy — nor was there really any need - for any b
ogus accent. He had introduced himself as Jack and the brothers didn't probe for details.
"Groom Lake," replied Don, the bearded one.
"Fishing?" X suggested.
The brothers guffawed in stereo.
"I guess you've never heard of Area 51," said Earl, the wiry one. X dimly recalled having read about such a place in a supermarket tabloid while standing in the checkout line.
"It's some kind of secret military base, isn't it?"
Don now adopted an officious tone. "Jack, we're researchers with the Ohio Institute for Unexplained Phenomenon. We're investigating reports of new UFO activity on the base."
He pronounced it "you foe."
"UFOs?"
"You've heard of the Roswell incident?"
X shook his head. The bearded man responded with the bewilderment as if the hitchhiker had said he'd never heard of Corn Flakes.
"In 1947, near Roswell, New Mexico, a UFO crashed. Air Force investigators visited the site and announced that it was a flying saucer. It was reported in newspapers coast to coast. But just a couple of days later, the Air Force retracted the story and claimed it was just a weather balloon. The story goes that alien remains were retrieved from the wreck."
Earl chimed in. "It's also widely agreed that the Air Force recovered alien technology from the wreckage and took it to Area 51. Our scientists used reverse engineering to develop the Stealth Bomber, the Star Wars missile defense system and a lot of weaponry that's never been declassified. Possibly even a time-travel device."
X nodded. "Why, it only stands to reason," he said encouragingly.
He might have known no sane person would pick up a male hitchhiker these days. Well, at least they seem harmless. Not more than a 10 percent chance I'll wind up in a dozen different garbage bags along the highway.
"When it comes to the federal government, you've got to understand that every word they tell the public is a lie - including 'and' and 'the,' " Don continued. "It's wheels within wheels, lies within lies, riddles inside of riddles. Heck, there are so many secret agencies today, they keep secrets from one another - the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing and one group ends up foiling the plans another group has had in the works for decades."