Lost Contact (The Bridge Sequence Book One)

by Nathan Hystad

  Footsteps in an alley drew my attention, and I hurried forward as I saw a man shuffling toward us. He mumbled in French, and we continued with Tripp in the rear, covering us. The streetlights were few and far between as we wound around the church, and finally, we broke from the protection of the narrow street into a courtyard. A statue rose from the ground, a plaque attached, probably describing the saint’s significance and what year it had been erected.

  The church had a central spire, with two more rounded on either side. The symmetry was beautiful, and even well past midnight, there were lights emerging from the front doors.

  Tires squealed behind us, and a black car skidded to a halt at a red light. It was the only vehicle on the street, and it drove off in a hurry when the lights changed. The entire operation was filled with tension, which was why I preferred to do these things in the daytime.

  But Juliette claimed there would be no eyes on us as we entered the catacomb tunnels from beneath this church. We took her word for it and walked as a group around the courtyard, to the rear of the building. I spotted a man smoking near a side entrance, his foot planted to hold the door open, and the burning cigarette spun from his hand, hissing in a puddle of water. Then he was gone.

  The back of the church was nearly as well-maintained as the front, and Juliette moved with grace for a secondary building. The doors were high and metallic, gates with a chain and padlock wrapped around the handles.

  “How do we get inside?” Marcus asked as he tested the gate. The chains rattled loudly.

  Juliette shook her head in annoyance and slid bolt cutters from her pink backpack. She winked at him as the padlock fell into her palm. “Leave it to the pros.”

  And we were in. “What is this place?”

  “Lots of the old churches had crypts hundreds of years ago. Don’t mind the bodies,” she said with a grin, and we began to descend wide stone stairs.

  The air cooled the lower we went, and the floor leveled out. The walls were dark gray, and the main room was lined with a series of carved stone pillars, reaching up to a domed ceiling. Juliette didn’t leave us time to explore as she hurried across the floor, ignoring the heavy blocks that would be stone coffins. Some of them had markings, carvings at the fronts; others had effigies sculpted on top of their casket lids.

  “This place is creepy,” Marcus said softly, making our guide laugh.

  “If this scares you, you might want to stay above ground,” she said. The room ended, and we walked through an arched doorway, which took us down another flight of steps. We repeated this process a few more times, and I noticed how Marcus stayed in the middle of the pack as we went.

  Tripp and I held flashlights, and Juliette kept hers on as she finally stopped. “This is where the crypt exits into the tunnels. There are a handful of skeletons, but we’ll pass a major burial site eventually. Should be able to cross over to your location shortly after.”

  “Skeletons,” Marcus whispered.

  We exited the relative safety of the church grounds, and I instantly felt a chill. The ground was dirt, the walls narrow and confining. I touched the passageway, remembering the images I’d seen of the catacombs, with skulls and bones rising from the floor to ceiling. This was a different area, clearly, because it was nothing but stone and dirt.

  “Which way?” Tripp asked, shining his flashlight left, then right.

  Juliette walked past him, leading right. “Follow me.”

  Veronica caught my arm, and I waited while Marcus and Tripp continued. “Do you think we’ll find it?”

  “The Token?”

  She nodded.

  “Yes, I do,” I told her.

  “Not this one. I mean the sixth,” she whispered.

  The rest of our group was gaining distance, and I didn’t like the idea of lagging behind in the catacombs. “Time will tell, but I think we have a shot.”

  “How? If we don’t have the coordinates…”

  “It seems to me Hunter has some serious detection systems in place. He found one of the Tokens from some movie producer’s online photos. If the last Token is out there, he’ll make sure we track it.” My flashlight flickered, and I banged it against my palm. The beam shone brighter.

  I tried to be positive about it. “Either way, you get paid, right?”

  “Will it matter if these Objects are coming to destroy us?” Veronica asked.

  “I guess you’re right.” I didn’t want to think about that, not with so much riding on what happened in the next hour or two.

  It was musky, and I found myself struggling to make a clean inhale. The corridors changed, the ground growing more even, the wall texture smoothing as we rounded a bend, and I saw our first skull. It was on the floor, fallen from its position. Marcus crouched near it, poking his finger into the eye socket. He fell back as a rat the size of a raccoon emerged from the jaw, scurrying across our path.

  “What the hell!” Marcus shouted. “As if a skull wasn’t bad enough.” He bounded up, dusting his pants off. There were dozens more, the walls stacked high with various bones. “Whoever did this had to have long-lasting psychological effects.”

  “They didn’t have a choice. The city cemeteries were too full, and storms were threatening the city’s structure. The only way to ensure Paris didn’t sink into the earth was to support it and bring the skeletal remains underground.” Juliette’s voice was haunting. Her eyes seemed yellow in this light, almost like a wolf caught staring from the forest.

  I gawked at the remains, trying to imagine that these had once been people like me. They’d had lives, and families. They’d loved and felt pain. Now they were bricks in a wall.

  “It’s not far,” Juliette said.

  Tripp grunted, taking the lead in front of the rest of us. The corridors narrowed again, and we had to duck repeatedly, a handful of bones scattered here and there.

  “Is this public?” I asked our guide.

  “Not here. There’s another tunnel this connects to. Right now, we’re running parallel with it until it joins in a type of hub. Only we’re lower, so it’s easy to evade any patrols.”

  “Do they really patrol it?” Tripp reached into his jacket, and for the first time tonight, I wondered if he was packing. We had gone back to the hotel after the nightclub, and he’d spent a few minutes in the suite.

  “Mostly investigate reports. Don’t worry. This corridor isn’t on their list,” she said with confidence.

  Her steps were light, and her pace had picked up. Did she want to get this over with, or was it something else? I checked the GPS and saw we were half a mile away from the Token’s predicted location. We passed a half-dozen doorways along this confined corridor, and Juliette slowed at each, almost as if she was expecting a skeleton to pop out and scare her.

  “Does anyone ever go missing?” Marcus asked, breaking the silence.

  “All the time,” Juliette said. “Why else do you think people call the place the gates to hell?”

  “I dunno. Maybe because of the millions of skeletons,” Marcus muttered.

  I held my GPS and saw we were shifting in the opposite direction to our target. I said as much to Juliette, but she only grinned at me as my flashlight cast over her. “There is no such thing as a direct route in the catacombs.”

  I don’t know who noticed first. I saw the shadows lift from the wall, falling just short of my beam as Juliette slowed. Then I heard the voices. Laughter. A man speaking French, and the cigarette smell.

  “What the hell have you done?” Tripp asked, and Juliette shrugged.

  Footsteps echoed from the corridor behind us, and I turned around, shining my light in that direction. Two men approached, the ones she’d been with at the nightclub. Veronica was at my side, Marcus near Tripp, forming a circle.

  “You’re not really Juliette, are you?” I asked, feeling a fool for ever trusting the bartender and her word for it.

  “Juliette is gone, but you’d be amazed at how many people show up at Charme seeking her out,” th
e imposter said. Her accent miraculously vanished, and I heard a hint of Dublin in her tone.

  A hulking bald man with a leather jacket appeared from the direction ahead of us, a cigarette still in his lips. A short woman with close-cropped hair and a neck tattoo stood defiantly near him, her gaze flicking between the four of us.

  “What do you want?” I asked, trying to keep control of my voice.

  “Usually your money, but I have a feeling there’s another reason you’ve come. Maybe a treasure. Maybe a missing person. And if you’re willing to give me three thousand euros for a simple tour, you must have a friend with deep pockets,” Juliette said.

  “You’re mistaken. We just need to—”

  I silenced Veronica by setting a hand on her arm. “We may as well tell them the truth.” I didn’t want this to turn violent. Tripp looked relaxed, and he hadn’t spoken yet. This told me he was eager for action. He was probably harnessing his strength, ready to spring like a coiled snake. “We’ve been hired by a movie company to scout a location for a new flick. The government is dropping all kinds of red tape, and it was suggested this destination might be a safe spot to film a few scenes.”

  Juliette stepped back, her head tilting slightly as she listened.

  “There could be more than ten thousand in it for you if you think you could get us in for at least three days without being seen. We’ll have some gear, maybe these… fine people can help us carry it,” I said, standing taller and adding in my cultured accent, trying to convey affluence and importance.

  One of the guys behind me pulled a knife and mumbled something in French. “Raconter des salades.” He didn’t believe us.

  We’d given Juliette half the payment already, and the rest was inside my jacket pocket. She’d seen it, and she walked forward, her sneakers quiet on the stone floor. She smiled at me and shoved her hand into my jacket, pulling the bills out. She handed them to the other woman, and leather coat pulled a gun.

  I barely saw Tripp move. He rushed away and his arm flung out, striking the bulky man in the face. He spun, elbowing the guy’s gut, making him keel over. The man with the knife lunged in, and I bolted at him, shoving him aside. Marcus was in his path, and the blade sliced my friend, who staggered back, striking the wall, knocking bones loose.

  Veronica was already moving, grabbing hold of Juliette. The girl was slight, but she was fast. Her arm cracked against Veronica’s face, and everyone halted at the sound of a gun firing.

  Tripp held the big man’s gun and pointed it at the ceiling, and motioned at Juliette, then the guy who’d cut Marcus. “Drop the knife.” When nothing happened, Tripp aimed the gun at the perpetrator. “Drop the weapon!” His voice boomed in the corridor, falling flat against the dense space.

  The blade fell to the ground, and I went for it, picking it up. The handle was warm and damp with sweat.

  “What do we do with them?” I asked. The five thieves were in a line, with the four of us facing their group.

  “I know what I’d like to do with them. Think anyone would miss these pieces of crap?” Tripp asked.

  “We’re not killing them,” I told him.

  “Are there more of you hiding down here?” Tripp asked them.

  Marcus held his arm to his chest, his eyes closed. “You okay?” I whispered.

  “Yeah, just a scrape. Nothing serious,” he replied, and I nodded gratefully.

  “It’s only us,” Juliette assured Tripp. She stared at the gun.

  “What would have happened if we didn’t pay you? How many bodies have you dragged and stowed in these tunnels?” Tripp stepped closer, and she pressed against a pile of bones.

  “None. We don’t kill anyone. We scare them.”

  “Here’s what’ll happen. Your friends are going to scatter, and you’ll bring us in as promised. Then you’ll leave, and all five of you will forget you ever saw us. Understood?” Tripp kept his voice level.

  Juliette didn’t move. Tripp fired the gun, a skull exploding from the impact. Juliette screamed and slammed her hands to her ears. The big guy started forward, but Tripp quickly aimed at him. “I’m not messing around. My boss tells me to leave you alive, and I’ll do it, assuming you don’t test my patience.”

  I almost smirked at him referring to me as his boss, but not quite. Things were still extremely tense in the catacomb’s corridor.

  “Oui.” The guy who’d brandished the knife was the first to depart. The other two men were right after, and the girl shrugged and apologized as she took off, leaving Juliette the only one of their gang left.

  “Nice friends. They were quick to abandon you,” Tripp muttered. “Come on. Take us the rest of the way, and you’ll live to see another sunrise.”

  It turned out we were only a twenty-minute walk from the GPS coordinates Luis had left on the inside of the Caracas airport locker. Juliette clearly understood the layout of the catacombs, and we lowered another two flights of stairs, crossing under a bridge overhead before the path ended. Marcus’ knife wound appeared to be superficial, and we tore a piece of Tripp’s shirt off, tying it around his forearm.

  “Is this a joke? Another deceit?” Tripp asked her, the gun ever-present in his grip.

  “No. The corridors have secret passageways,” she said, appearing to vanish. As I advanced closer, I saw the illusion for what it was. The wall looked the same as the opening, and we entered another hall. This one was colder yet, with water streaming from the ceiling. I thought about the street we’d been at in the early hours of this day, with the constant rainfall. This would be directly below that location, but perhaps a few stories under.

  There were no skeletons here, just mud and slippery rocks and rats. I wondered what Luis had thought as he strode these hallways thirty-something years ago, trying to hide one of the Tokens. Had he seen my father using the Bridge? Was that why he was so adamant on burying them?

  “Juliette, you were never here. Got it?” I asked.

  She glanced at Tripp, and then to the gun.

  “Lots of places to hide a body, pal. We don’t have to let her go,” Tripp said, and I hoped he was only trying to scare the woman.

  “I won’t tell anyone. I have no reason to.”

  “You might want to rethink your choices in friends. And maybe select a new career path,” Veronica said. The other woman had already run off with the second half of her payment, and I decided this scammer might consider it hush money.

  “Take the cash and leave,” I ordered her.

  She didn’t need to be told twice, and I watched her dart through the doorway, hearing her shoes rush across the stone floor.

  “Marcus, you’re tracking our path?” I asked, and my sidekick nodded as he pulled out his phone with his uninjured arm.

  “Got it here. We’re good to escape.”

  “That just leaves the reason for this whole mess.” Tripp shoved the gun into his belt, and we proceeded forward.

  “I’m impressed,” I told him.

  “What? Back there? It was nothing.”

  “If you say so.” I peered to the walls, then the ceiling, searching for any markings.

  And there it was. A jaguar claw, like the symbols under the causeway at El Mirador. It was carved into the bumpy partition, pieces of dark stone chipped away to form the emblem. Water dripped over it, and I followed the flow, finding it creeping behind a stack of skull-sized stones. “Give me a hand with these.”

  Marcus bent over and, despite the cut, used both hands as we attempted to relocate the pile, which appeared to be supporting the wall. Structurally, I doubted it was, and imagined Luis here, rolling the stones into a neat line, then placing more on top. It looked purposeful.

  With all four of us on the case, the removal was quick, and soon the dirty sack’s corner stuck up from the mud. Without a second thought, I dug with my bare hands, freeing the bag. I grinned at the others, Tripp’s flashlight illuminating the sack as it spun in my grip. I passed it to Veronica, and with a flick of my blade, I cut the bottom ou
t, letting the Token fall into my palm: a half moon over a spoon shape.

  “Let’s leave,” Veronica whispered.

  They exited the room, and I waited, using a rock to bash the etching Luis had carved from existence. When the claw was gone, I grabbed the flashlight on the floor and splashed after my team.

  The third Token was in my pocket.

  9

  Two more days. Time was strange when you traveled around the world in such a short period. I struggled to remember what day of the week it was as I stared at the vast ocean from the window. Hunter had a property in Malibu, but he didn’t dare use it.

  “And why can’t we hide at your mansion?” Marcus asked him.

  “Because they’re watching it. Waiting for us to screw up,” Hunter said. He was clearly exhausted after the last week or so, and I wondered how he was coping.

  Francois, his serving man, stepped into the room, holding a cell phone. “Sir, the doctor is here.”

  “Yes. Yes. Let him in. Do you mind if I have some privacy?” Hunter pointed to the living room’s exit.

  This might not have been his mansion, but it was a large rental with five bedrooms and an infinity pool, complete with a theater room and games area. Marcus was the first to stand, and I glanced at the bandage on his arm. It was healing up nicely, and I’d already apologized for my part in the injury.

  I hadn’t seen Veronica yet today, but there she was, outside on the deck, lying in the sun. While this was cold for most of the locals, it was far warmer than we were used to, and she soaked up the rays, wearing a tank top and tights.

  “I should be the one to get the Token,” Tripp muttered, leaning against the glass railing to stare at the splashing waves.

  “You have the grace of a black bear,” Veronica said without opening her eyes. “Old Rexy can really ham it up when he needs to, can’t you? Harvard-educated.”

  “You don’t live in Boston and mingle with the stiffs Rex does without picking up a few things,” Marcus said with a laugh.

  “I’ll be watching,” Tripp finally said.