by David Wood
“Damn it!” rasped Maddock, hurrying to catch up to her.
The air was suddenly filled with the squeal of brakes locking, tires skidding, and horns blasting out in irritation. Maddock winced at the crunch of a collision from somewhere off to his left. Directly ahead, in the innermost westbound lane, the driver of a yellow taxi stomped on the brakes, screeching to a stop, but was half a second too slow. Maddock and Leopov both veered to the right, trying to avoid being struck, but Leopov was likewise too slow. At the last instant, she threw herself onto the hood of the car to avoid having her legs cut out from under her. She hit with a thump and rolled up onto the windshield, but then promptly rolled back down to land on her feet beside the car, evidently unhurt, and kept going.
By some miracle, they made it across the eastbound lanes without getting killed, but the disruption of traffic cleared a path for their pursuers. As they reached the broad concrete sidewalk overlooking the river, Leopov cut to the right, heading west. As Maddock started to follow, he felt a sudden pressure at his throat, as if someone was trying to garotte him. One of their pursuers had gotten close enough to snare his shirt, pulling the collar tight against his Adam’s apple. Reflexively, Maddock clawed at the constriction and succeeded in getting his fingers in between his neck and the fabric, but even as he tried to get some breathing room, his attacker pulled again, with enough force to nearly yank Maddock off his feet. Unable to break free or tear loose, Maddock did the only thing he could think of—he planted his feet, skidding to a stop, and then hurled himself blindly backwards. The pressure at his throat vanished immediately, but the relief was short-lived as the back of his head struck something hard and sharp. He pitched back, mentally bracing for a hard landing, but something broke his fall—or rather, someone. He crashed down on top of his assailant, who was likewise supine, with sufficient force to knock the wind out of the man.
Maddock capitalized on the momentum of the fall by throwing his legs into the air and curling into a reverse somersault that rolled him over the stunned attacker’s head. He finished in a crouch, and immediately spotted Leopov, about twenty-five yards ahead, still running, one of their pursuers still hot on her tail.
It took him just a fraction of a second to do the math. There had been three men chasing them. One was writhing on the ground in front of him, blood smearing his face where the back of Maddock’s head had smacked hard into his mouth and nose. Another was chasing Leopov. So where was Number Three?
Sensing his vulnerability, he ducked his head, and was just about to roll to the side when the blow fell. Something hard and heavy—a weighted sap or the butt of a pistol—swiped across the back of his head. Ducking spared him the full fury of the impact, but he nevertheless saw stars for a second or two. He managed to complete his intended evasive maneuver, and as he rolled, he saw a hulking leather-jacketed figure moving in for another attack.
Maddock rolled again, almost all the way to the waist-high concrete guard rail on the river side. Ignoring the pain, he bounded up and squared off against the Russian just as the man drew back to deliver another blow. This time, Maddock was ready for him. He easily evaded the swipe, and then seized the man’s arm as it flashed past, using a simple Judo maneuver to redirect the man into the guard rail, flipping him over it and out into the river. Maddock continued turning until he was facing west again and took off after Leopov and her pursuer.
She was a good fifty yards away now, and despite the fact that he was a faster runner, he knew there was no way he would be able to reach her before her pursuer did. Still, he had to try. He dug deep and pushed as hard as he could. He could feel the burn of lactic acid in his muscles and the ache of repetitive impact vibrating up from the soles of his feet to his shins to his knees.
But it was working. He closed to within twenty yards... Fifteen....
Ten yards ahead, he saw Leopov’s pursuer reaching out to snare her ponytail. Maddock tried to shout a warning, but his heaving lungs couldn’t supply enough breath for more than a barely audible croak.
The man’s fingers closed on her hair and he started to pull.
Leopov skidded to a dead stop, and then pirouetted in closer to her assailant, her left knee coming up fast, right into the man’s crotch.
Maddock winced involuntarily as the Russian dropped to his knees, curling into a pathetic ball.
So much for rushing to save the damsel in distress, he thought.
Leopov spotted him and flashed a triumphant grin. “What are you waiting for?” she shouted, and then turned and started running again.
Maddock slowed to a more sustainable pace, catching up to her a few seconds later. “What’s your hurry?” he panted. “We lost them.”
She glanced over, grinning. “Plan C, remember?” The words came out in gasps; she was clearly feeling the exertion, too.
“I thought running into traffic was Plan C.”
“Just part,” was her cryptic reply as they passed under the pink granite arch of the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge, their original rally point. Before he could challenge her, she veered toward the guard rail and, slowing to a walking pace, peered over the edge as if looking for something in the water. “Here! This is the place,” she called out, and then proceeded to climb onto the guard rail.
Maddock stopped beside her. “Zara, what are you doing?”
“Getting wet,” she said with a laugh. “I told you you wouldn’t like it.”
“This was your plan? Swim across the river? You don’t think you could have at least mentioned what you had in mind?”
“Why do you complain? I thought you SEALs preferred to be in the water.”
“Yeah, actually I’ve been thinking about a career change. Besides, there’s a perfectly good bridge right there.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry. We are not swimming across river.” She swung her legs out over the water, scooting closer to the edge in preparation to lower herself down. Directly below, the concrete-reinforced river channel sloped away to disappear beneath the dark surface, but a few paces to the right, there was an opening in the embankment wall—a culvert or possibly the outflow to a storm drainage system. The opening was at least twelve feet in diameter, all but three feet of it above the water level. A steel gate secured with a padlock blocked access to it.
Leopov pushed off, sliding down the curving wall to splash into the shallows at the edge of the embankment. Then, using the gate like a ladder, she pulled herself up to grab ahold of the padlock. To Maddock’s surprise, it was already unlocked. Leopov then grasped the gate and awkwardly began pulling it away from the opening.
“I could use a hand,” she grunted.
Still shaking his head, Maddock clambered over the guard rail and allowed himself to slide down to join her. The chilly water instantly soaked through his jeans and filled his hiking boots. The slope of the embankment made it difficult to get a good foothold, which was probably why Leopov was having difficulty opening the gate, and as Maddock tried to move closer, his feet slipped out from under him. He barely managed to grab one of the vertical bars of the gate, preventing himself from being fully immersed. As he steadied himself, he muttered, “I don’t even want to think about what’s in this water.”
“No, you probably don’t,” agreed Leopov.
Working together, they succeeded in opening the gate enough for Leopov to slip through. Once inside, she stood without difficulty in the knee-high water. As Maddock squirmed through the opening, a small flashlight blazed to life in Leopov’s hand.
“I see one of us came prepared for crawling around in the sewers,” he remarked. “Would have been nice if you’d given me a head’s up in advance.”
“You should always be prepared,” she replied, grinning. “Is Boy Scout motto. You were a Boy Scout, weren’t you?”
Maddock scowled but didn’t answer.
She laughed. “And this is not sewer. It’s the Niglinka... The Neglinnaya River.” She pointed the flashlight deeper into the tunnel and started walking, movi
ng slowly to avoid unnecessary splashing. “As city grew,” she went on, “the river was dammed up, and diverted through these tunnels. Now is completely underground—five miles long. Is part of flood control system and even connects to Metro tunnels.”
“Is this where Lia was hiding?”
“Not here precisely, but we can get there from here. There is a whole secret city down here. There is a local group of urban cave explorers—they call themselves ‘the Diggers.’ I have been exploring the underground with them for a few months.”
Maddock gave a grunt of acknowledgement. He was still irritated with her for not explaining this part of her plan, but complaining about it wouldn’t accomplish anything. “They must have seen us go in here. Do you think they’ll come after us?”
“I doubt it,” she replied. “But I’m sure they’ll be covering the exits. They were more resourceful than we anticipated.”
“Guess I was wrong about them being amateurs.”
“Yes. They didn’t seem to want to involve the police, though. I think maybe they are Bratva... Russian mafia.”
Maddock had heard stories about the rise of organized crime gangs in Russia. Although they had always existed, they had flourished since the collapse of the rigidly authoritarian Soviet government. Their reputation for ruthlessness and brutality put the Sicilian Mafia to shame.
“Fortunately,” Leopov continued, “we won’t be leaving by any of those exits.”
Beyond the opening, the river channel was confined to a deep trough running down the center, and to either side, raised platforms allowed them to pass through without wading. The air smelled foul—a mixture of stagnant water and mildew—but after a few minutes, Maddock grew accustomed to the stench. As they continued in silence, he saw that a variety of architectural techniques had been employed in creating the underground river channel. Some sections looked ancient, consisting of fired clay bricks, joined with mortar to form a continuous arch like the inside of an enormous pipe. In some places, the brick had decayed so badly, the passage looked more like a natural cavern than the product of human ingenuity. Other sections were constructed of concrete slabs, and eschewed the round tunnel design in favor of square angles. Several times they passed graffiti, and Leopov always stopped to examine the scrawls, as if they might contain information about what lay ahead. Then she would resume walking without offering any explanation. Once or twice, he thought he glimpsed movement in the darkness ahead. If the Moscow Underground really was like a second city, then it only stood to reason that it would be inhabited, probably by people who preferred to be left alone.
Three times they came to junctions, and each time she paused, scrutinizing the passages as if checking them against her mental map. Maddock watched her face in the diffuse glow of the flashlight, and noted that she didn’t look particularly confident about her eventual choices, but thought better of second-guessing her. He was keeping his own mental map, and if they had to backtrack, he felt reasonably sure he could get them back to the entrance.
A few minutes later, they passed an iron ladder affixed to the wall, rising up to disappear into a narrow vertical shaft. Leopov shone her light up into the shaft for a moment, then gave a satisfied nod. “We are in right place.”
Maddock expected her to start ascending, but instead she kept going. He quickened his step to catch up to her. “Was that one of the exits you were talking about?”
“No. Just a manhole cover. I don’t think we want to pop our heads up in the middle of Kutuzovsky Prospekt. What we want is just ahead.”
As promised, about fifty yards further up the passage, they came to a section of the tunnel where the wall had crumbled away, exposing a hole just big enough to crawl through. Maddock pointed at it. “That’s how we’re getting out of here?”
“Don’t worry. We only have to crawl a little ways.”
Maddock rolled his eyes. “Sure. Why not?”
Leopov just laughed and then began insinuating herself into the hole. With her body mostly filling the hole and blocking the flashlight’s beam, Maddock was plunged into darkness, but after a few seconds, diffuse light glowed in the passage, silhouetted around Leopov’s crawling form. “Come on,” she called out, her voice muted. “What are you waiting for?”
Resignedly, Maddock squirmed into the hole. There wasn’t quite enough room for him to move on hands and knees, so instead he had to lie flat and low crawl, propelling himself forward with his feet. The passage wasn’t solid stone or concrete, but compacted dirt. It was dry and appeared stable enough, but he was acutely aware of the close confines and the fact that there were literally many tons of earth suspended above him, held up by little more than inertia. He didn’t want to linger in the crawlspace any longer than he had to. After about five yards of crawling toward the light, he felt the ground beneath him began sloping down. The grade continued to decline until it was all he could do to keep from sliding down the rough surface. The passage still looked dry, but he could feel dampness seeping into the fabric of his trousers. He estimated they had descended a good thirty feet, possibly more—well below the level of the river.
“You do know where we’re going, right?” he shouted down the passage.
Her reply was barely audible, as if she was speaking from inside a crypt. “Yes. I have been here before.”
The answer fell short of encouraging, but shortly thereafter, the passage leveled out again and then opened up into a much larger tunnel. As Maddock got to his feet, making a futile effort to brush away the accumulation of mud and grime, he spotted parallel iron rails, corroded with age and disuse, resting atop black wooden ties.
“A subway tunnel?” he wondered aloud.
“Yes,” Leopov confirmed. “This was the D-6 Line, part of Metro Two. A secret underground train system that runs deeper than the Metro. It was built by KGB... Commissioned by Stalin during the Cold War. It connects government offices all over Moscow. It was to be used for emergency evacuation of government leaders in the event of a nuclear war.”
“Was? As in not anymore?”
Leopov shook her head. “It was too costly to operate and maintain, especially as a secret program.” She shone her light down the passage to their immediate left, revealing the track bed. The roughly excavated tunnel was braced with badly corroded iron support beams. “Come. We go this way.”
She started off at a brisk walk, staying between the rails. Maddock followed, albeit a little more tentatively. The wooden crossties felt mushy underfoot, so he made a conscious effort to tread on the gravel in the space between them. He soon found his stride and increased his pace, catching up to Leopov.
They moved in silence for several minutes until the tunnel opened up into a larger area. Leopov played her light back and forth, revealing a raised loading platform. A skeletal iron stairwell ascended at the back of the platform, presumably leading up to the sub-basement of some Soviet-era government office building. Maddock was about to ask where it led when he glimpsed movement at the edge of the area illuminated by the flashlight
Leopov recoiled involuntarily, jerking the light sideways, revealing more scuttering shapes.
“Oh,” she groaned. “Rats.”
Maddock grimaced. Under ordinary circumstances, he liked rats about as much as the next person, which was to say, not at all, but he wasn’t particularly afraid of them. Like most wild or feral animals, they preferred to run away from humans, attacking only when cornered or driven mad by hunger or disease. The biggest rodent-related threat was from diseases like plague and hanta virus. But down here, a hundred or more feet below the city streets, his apprehension grew exponentially. This was their world.
“You said you’ve been here before,” Maddock said. “You didn’t mention anything about rats.”
“I didn’t come this far.”
“Are you actually sure you know where we’re going?”
“The Metro Two tunnels all converge at Ramenki-43. It is a bunker the size of a city, modeled after the NORAD headquarters
at Cheyenne Mountain. They built it to survive a direct hit by atom bomb. The walls are steel, several feet thick, and there are big doors like at Fort Knox. In the event of a nuclear attack, they could have sealed it up and survived for years. That was the plan, at least. There is only one entrance above ground, under Moscow University. If we are where I think we are, it should be just another mile or so.”
“And we’ll be able to get back to the surface?”
Leopov’s nod was less than enthusiastic. “Some of the Diggers claim to have entered through the main entrance. I don’t know exactly where it is, but it should be easy to find from inside the bunker.”
Maddock uttered a weary sigh. “We should keep moving,” he said.
She nodded, but he could see that the unexpected encounter had left her rattled. She turned the light back into the subway tunnel and resumed moving, but after just a second or two, she abruptly pivoted and shone it back onto the platform.
The circle of light revealed hundreds of scurrying shapes.
“Maddock...” Leopov’s voice quavered with fear.
“Keep going,” he urged. He placed his hand against the small of her back and gave her a gentle but firm push to keep her moving. She complied, but he could feel the tension in her body, vibrating in her muscles like an electric current.
“They’ll leave us alone,” he assured her, adding silently, I hope.
But as they moved further along the tunnel, leaving the rudimentary subway station behind, the rats were always there, just beyond the reach of the light and with each subsequent encounter, the creatures seemed to lose a little bit more of their fear of the strange intruders in their subterranean realm. A few refused to flee when the light revealed them but held their ground, staring back with their eerie pink eyes, noses twitching above long yellow incisors, moving only when Maddock aggressively stomped his foot at them.
Leopov made another abrupt turn to check behind them, and this time the light revealed a river of gray furred bodies flowing up the track bed between and to either side of the rails. They did not flee the light either, but continued with their slow, relentless advance. Leopov turned again, bringing the light forward. The swarm was moving in from all sides.
