Winston Chase and the Alpha Machine

by Bodhi St John

  Winston traded a meaningful glance with Shade. Apparently, 1948 had been a busy year for little-known disasters.

  “But this had been going on forever,” she said. “The original purpose of the tunnels was drainage. Obviously, there was nothing you could do to prevent the water coming in during a flood. Businesses would have to pump the water out of their basements and first floors to dry out and get back to work, which wasn’t exactly easy back then. So, the city built these tunnels under the businesses that all led back to the river.”

  “But the flooding would trash your cargo tunnels,” observed Winston. “You’d be constantly repairing them, wouldn’t you?”

  Melanie smiled and said, “You should work for the city, kid. Yes, exactly right. Which is why, to take some of that strain off the system, the city actually built two levels of tunnels.” She pointed at the photo, drawing her finger along the buildings’ top stories. “This is ground level.” She drew her finger lower, pointing out the second stories. “They would unload cargo here, but down here along the bottom was mostly for drainage.”

  “Huh,” said Shade. “Well, that wasn’t on Wikipedia.”

  Melanie arched her eyebrows with a trace of irritation. “Sometimes it takes a human.” She focused on Winston. “What are you looking for?”

  He’d been asking himself just how much he should trust her, and in the back of his mind, Winston heard his mother urging him to keep his head down. The more obscure the better. Trust no one. And yet he needed her help.

  “Something small and round, about the size of a fist. Something that was hidden a long time ago.”

  “How long ago?”

  Winston swallowed. “A long time. Probably at least thirty years.”

  Melanie started to laugh but stopped once she saw that there was no trace of humor on Winston’s face. Her eyes narrowed. “Exactly what kind of treasure hunt is this?”

  “A really important one.” Winston took the five bills from his pocket and set them on the table before her. Melanie studied them for a moment, then slid them into her satchel.

  “I’ll do what I can, but the tunnels aren’t what you probably think.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Melanie flipped to the last laminated photo on her ring. It was the same map they’d found and photographed in the library.

  “That’s our picture!” Shade exclaimed.

  Winston kicked him again, harder. “Ow! Stop that!” he cried, punching Winston in the shoulder.

  “Hey, stop hitting me!” exclaimed Winston. “And stop giving out info about us!”

  “She’s fine!” Shade said, then seemed to hear his own words. He asked Melanie, “You’re fine, right?”

  She edged back slightly in her seat. “I guess so. Fine about what?”

  “This thing is down in the tunnels somewhere,” said Winston. "We have to find it — quickly.”

  “Well, that’s what I’m saying.” Melanie swept her hand over the map. “You see this map — which is really rare, by the way, so I’m impressed you found it — and it looks like all these tunnels are connected, right? But they’re not.”

  Winston felt the floor drop out from under his stomach. “No, they are. The map shows it.”

  Melanie shook her head. “No, they did connect. They had to for drainage. Not anymore. Bonneville Dam was completed in 1937, which put an end to most of the flooding.”

  “But you said Vanport—” Shade started.

  “Was an exception,” Melanie continued. “After a huge storm. Most of the need for the tunnels vanished. And even before Bonneville, you had the tunnels being used by booze runners during Prohibition. They were used as opium dens and—” She stopped herself, obviously realizing that she was used to giving PG-13 tours and her two clients didn’t have any grown-ups around for parental guidance.

  “Anyway,” she continued. “By the‘60s, a lot of homeless people had moved into the tunnels. People were dying down there, and it might be weeks or even months before the police got notified to come clean things up. By 1970, the city was sick of dealing with the problem, and they ordered a ton of engineers to come in and block everything up.”

  “Block?” asked Winston, realizing the significance of what she was saying.

  “Block. Bricked over. Bulldozed. Paved. You name it. Nearly every access point was sealed off and every tunnel between buildings filled in. What used to be tunnels is now just a handful of basements that some of the businesses use for storage. In fact, come here.”

  Melanie got up and motioned for them to follow her. She led them to the rear corner of the restaurant and set her hand against a scratched up wooden door set in the back wall. Winston could see that a deadbolt lock had the door firmly closed.

  “I have a key to this door because it’s part of the tour,” she said. “But there’s only a bit of space down there. Part of a wall is broken down, and you can see a little strip of empty nothing beyond it. It’s kinda creepy and all, but it’s definitely not a tunnel anymore. These guys saw to that.”

  She pointed at a black-and-white photo in a black wooden frame on the wall next to the door. It showed a work crew on a city street, six or seven men wearing work vests and hard hats. They stood around a cement mixer in the process of dumping lumpy cement down its slide and into a square hole in the sidewalk.

  “This was taken on the other side of this block, over on Couch Street,” said Melanie. “Crews spent the better part of a year putting an end to the Shanghai Tunnels.”

  “No,” whispered Winston. “It can’t be. I have to find it.”

  Melanie set a hand on Winston’s shoulder. “I hear you,” she said. “If I can help, I will. Do you want to see down below the pizza parlor? I don’t have to be anywhere for another hour.”

  Winston shook his head. Any place that had tours running through it all year was highly unlikely to be where they wanted. It would have been picked over years ago.

  He wanted to swear and pull his hair out. They were so close. He could feel it. But they had hit a brick wall — literally. He stared at the photo, silently cursing his bad luck.

  Then he froze.

  There were six workers. Two had shovels and were helping to push cement down the dump slide. Four were standing still, all gazing in different directions. Two of them were smoking, but one stood by the driver side door of the cement truck looking at a clipboard. He was also the only one wearing a tie, probably signifying supervisor or manager status. The man was turned sideways to the camera, leaving his face in profile.

  Winston knew that profile. He could spot that humped nose and pointy chin anywhere. It was Mr. A. Claude. His father. This had to be the same work crew as in his scrapbook photo.

  His heart jumped. If the shot on the wall had been taken only a block away, that had to mean something. His dad wouldn’t have allowed himself to be in a photo like this by accident. This was a message.

  They weren’t sunk yet.

  18

  Tunnel Trap

  Bledsoe watched the three of them over the top of his tablet. The Chase boy stared open-mouthed at a photo on the wall. His friend sniffed at the air and glanced back toward the pizza counter. The tour guide seemed innocent enough. Bledsoe suspected that she was here by random chance and wasn’t somehow in league with Claude’s Alpha Machine plans. Best not to assume too much, though. The boy appeared to have plenty of money, and money could make people do unwise things. Perhaps the few bills he had slipped the guide were only a down payment for a much larger amount.

  On his screen, Bledsoe closed his locator app. Once Management had pried loose the SIM codes of all prepaid phones purchased within a 10-mile radius of the MAX terminal from which the boys exited this morning, pinpointing them couldn’t have been easier. Thank goodness the cellular service providers were willing partners in preserving national security.

  Still, he mused, there was something lost in the move to digital. In the old days, spies and agents used to conceal themselves behind large
newspapers in public places like this. Somehow, doing surveillance behind a slab of glass and plastic while sipping a Coke in a pizza shop lacked the same elegance.

  Across the table from him, Agent Lynch was careful to keep his back to the boys so they wouldn’t recognize him from this morning. Bledsoe worried that he and Lynch in their dark suits on a warm day might be too conspicuous, but these were only kids, not trained professionals. So far, the boys had gotten by more with luck than wits.

  That luck was about to run out.

  Winston and the tour guide talked for a moment. She seemed to be asking him about the picture, but he waved his hand, dismissing it. He redirected her toward the door. She drew a small ring of keys from her pocket, inserted one into the deadbolt lock, and pulled open the door. Aside from a single, yellowed bulb, Bledsoe could see nothing beyond the door but darkness, so it had to be a stairway down to somewhere.

  The Chase boy’s friend went in first. Before following him, Winston took one last look back. Before Bledsoe could glance down to his tablet, the two of them made eye contact. Bledsoe couldn’t help himself. He kept his expression unchanged, but he had to peer into the kid’s eyes for a second, just to measure him man to man.

  I’m going to put you in a cell right across from your old man, he thought to the boy. And then, one syringe at a time, I’m going to see what makes you tick.

  Beldsoe felt his tinnitus flare up in his left ear, a high-pitched ringing that blotted out half of the pizzeria and broke his concentration. He returned to his tablet, but not before seeing the Chase boy also cringe and rub at his ear. He cocked his head to one side, as if stretching his neck.

  Well now. That was interesting.

  When Bledsoe glanced up again, Winston was following his friend down the stairs. The blonde guide lady descended after them, closing the door behind herself.

  Bledsoe scooted back his chair and stood, tablet in hand. He motioned for the big agent to stay seated. “Give me a second.”

  Bledsoe approached the door and, peering between the door’s edge and its frame, confirmed that the brass deadbolt remained open.

  He examined the picture on the wall.

  “Well, well, well,” he hummed to himself, recognizing a much healthier version of his prisoner. “Well, indeed. What were you doing working on a road crew, old buddy? The state benefits aren’t that good.”

  Bledsoe thought he had a fair idea.

  Drawing his companion’s attention, Bledsoe beckoned Lynch over to his corner.

  “Do you carry a lock pick set and know how to use it?” asked Bledsoe.

  Lynch pulled his wallet from his back pocket and removed what looked like a gold-colored credit card. On closer inspection, it turned out to be a set of five flat, laser-cut tools mounted into a small sheet of stainless steel. “For that old thing?” Lynch nodded at the deadbolt. “This will be fine.”

  “Lock it,” said Bledsoe. “And break off the end to keep them in there.”

  Lynch seemed dubious at first but quickly obeyed. He silently snapped the metal shim in half.

  “Everyone’s in position around the block,” said Bledsoe. “Let’s go.”

  ***

  The wooden stairs creaked as Winston, Shade, and their tour guide Melanie descended under Old Town Pizza and into what had once been a part of the Portland Shanghai Tunnels. The smells of golden crust and spices gave way to decades-old dust and stone. The restaurant’s many conversations and laughter sounded distant and hollow. When they reached the bottom, Winston heard clicking from the door above them.

  “What is it?” Melanie asked, seeing him look above and beyond her.

  “I thought I heard something.”

  She handed Winston and Shade flashlights from a pegboard tacked to the brick wall. “There’s always noise from the pizza shop,” she said. “And you always hear stories about creepy crawlies and ghosts in the tunnels, right? Lucky for me, I’m deaf in my left ear, so it’s only half as scary.”

  Melanie laughed loudly again. Well, that explained the volume. To Winston, it made her even more likable.

  Way to make a disability work for you, he thought. If you gotta talk loud, be a tour guide.

  Plumbing snaked about the ceiling, weaving through and around thick floor support joists. At six feet tall, Winston had to duck constantly to keep from banging his head. The pipes appeared freshly painted, and he guessed that the restaurant kept them in good repair.

  In one corner lay a pile of bricks and mortar pulled from the adjacent wall, exposing a seven- or eight-foot-wide gap into a narrow space beyond. The little room held nothing but more plumbing, some old dusty gloves on the hard-earthen floor, and a rust-speckled oil lamp.

  Winston had found a couple of videos on YouTube showing Shanghai Tunnel footage with cells for holding captives, broken glass shards scattered in the dirt to prevent barefoot abductees from escaping, and even a luxurious old-fashioned bed where sailors might be led to recline and pass a few hours of illegal activity before who knew what terrible end.

  This place had none of that. It was simply an open cellar rimmed by brick walls. A ring of chairs waited at the center of the main space, no doubt meant for tour attendees to enjoy while hearing terrible stories of yesteryear in pitch blackness.

  “Where are the ghosts and jail cells and trap doors and whatnot?” asked Winston.

  Melanie smiled ruefully. “You’ve been checking out our competition.”

  Winston shrugged. “Not on purpose. Just googling.”

  “It’s OK,” she said. “Theatrics sell tickets and attract the documentary makers. Our company decided to stick to the facts rather than…” She waved her hands in circles and held her arms out wide. “…speculation. Do you want the lights-off part of this gig?”

  “Sure!” said Shade. “But no ghosts. That makes me really uncomfortable.”

  Winston started to object, hoping to keep them on track, but Melanie flicked off the light switch next to the flashlight collection. The room plunged into complete darkness. For just a second, Winston did start to panic. Normally, he could still see at least a bit in a dark room, enough that his mom often said he had a cat’s eyes. There was absolutely no light here, though, and suddenly it became easy to imagine men from a century ago trudging ten or twelve feet under the city’s surface, shuffling cargo along, and perhaps knocking men unconscious so that they could be dragged down to the docks and sold into hellish slavery on the open seas.

  Winston fumbled for his flashlight’s on button. Or was it a slider? Or a twist design? He couldn’t feel how to turn the thing on. His mouth felt dry, and he really wanted some light.

  That was when his cell phone chimed and he felt it vibrate against his thigh.

  Winston was so used to the sensation that it took a moment to remember that this wasn’t his normal phone. Only the phone company should know this number.

  A chill ran down his back that had nothing to do with ghosts and darkness.

  “We encourage people to silence their cell phones during the tour,” said Melanie with a light, humorous air. “It helps to—”

  “No one should be calling me,” interrupted Winston. “Please turn on the lights.”

  A second later, the bare bulb over the stairwell turned back on. Winston pulled the phone from his pocket. The screen reported the caller as “Unknown ID.” Even down here, he still showed having two bars. They were on the grid.

  “This is not good,” he muttered, then swiped to accept the call. Winston licked his dry lips, raised the phone to his ear, and listened.

  At first, he only heard background chatter. Lots of it, but distant. And the clinking of dishes.

  Suddenly, there were three knocks at the door right above them. Half a second later, Winston heard the knocks repeated in his ear.

  Through the line, metallic and a bit fuzzy with the digital compression, Winston heard someone begin to laugh. It was not at all like Melanie’s full, honest laugh. This belonged to a man, and it sounded low and
malicious and vengeful.

  “Who is this?” Winston asked, and he heard the tremble in his own voice.

  “Should I tell you?” asked the man, betraying more than a hint of Southern drawl. “Or should I let you guess?” He spoke slowly, savoring every second.

  “Bledsoe,” said Winston.

  Again, the laugh. Winston instinctively started backing up into the room and away from the stairs. He’d only gone a couple of steps before his head collided with a steel pipe, causing him nearly to drop the phone.

  “Winston?” asked Shade, clearly picking up on his friend’s change in tone.

  Melanie no longer smiled. “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  Winston waved his free hand at them, asking for quiet. He needed to think — and quickly.

  “What do you want?” Winston asked. He grimaced, knowing it was an obvious, stupid question, but he didn’t know how else to start.

  “Just the Alpha Machine,” Bledsoe said.

  Winston unslung his bag and fit his hand into Little e. He brought a blue marble close to the wrist guard’s bulge, saw the little round door pop open, and dropped the ball inside. Almost immediately, that pressure in the back of his head increased.

  “I only have one piece,” Winston said, unsure if he should even give that much information away.

  Bledsoe hummed deep in his throat, as if mulling the idea over. “Just one, huh? Hmm. Well, I suppose that’s fine. I wouldn’t want you to have to do all the work.”

  They paused, and Winston listened to the background rattle of the pizza parlor through his phone. This wasn’t right. The guy was playing him, delaying him. Why? For fun? No, that was something a kid would do, but not a grown-up who’d come forward through time and now controlled FBI agents.

  Then why the wasting of time? Because Winston was cornered? No — because he wasn’t cornered. Bledsoe was stalling and distracting.