Follow Me Down

by Gordon MacKinney

  She led the way down, the sinews of her hands rippling as she grasped each rung. I flashed Reuben a grin. Nothing about our mission was guaranteed, so by God, we’d celebrate even the smallest victories.

  At the bottom, I jockeyed for position among backpacks, limbs, and adrenaline. Reuben remained standing in a corner so I could crouch next to Tricia for a closer look. Heat and musk radiated from her body in waves of exhilaration. She clutched the chrome ring with both hands like the steering wheel of a tractor-trailer rig. She tested the resistance. The wheel began to rotate. She gave a hesitant smile and applied more pressure. More rotation.

  Instinct forced my line of sight to the horizontal line separating wall from floor. I gasped. “Wait!” I slapped my hands on top of Tricia’s and bore down. “Don’t move it.”

  “What?” Reuben spoke above me, his voice breathy in anticipation of bad news.

  Tricia’s hands relaxed beneath my grip. I let up and exhaled through my nose. Extending an arm, I traced the ninety-degree angle at the base of the wall, beginning with a small hole that emerged from the concrete. My moving finger displaced a wedge of dust to reveal a small gray wire that disappeared again into another hole near the edge of the hatch. “It’s alarmed.”

  “We’re not turning back,” Tricia declared.

  I shifted my weight from one leg to the other, my boots hissing in the grit. “I never said we were.” I glanced up at Reuben. “We’re a democracy, right?”

  Reuben gave a single grim nod.

  I met Tricia’s electrified gaze. “We can’t get in and out undetected.”

  “What happens if we cut the wire?” she asked.

  “It’s a closed circuit,” Reuben said. “We’d open the circuit and trigger the alarm, probably a flashing light at the security desk.”

  I caressed the glossy beige surface of the bulbous hatch. “Somewhere underneath are a switch and the rest of the wire. If this were a window, we’d break the glass, reach through, and run a patch cord to keep the circuit closed.”

  Tricia considered that. “How soon will the guards notice the light? I mean—how many security guards stare at their consoles all night?”

  “Problem is, we can’t know,” Reuben said, his tone labored. “We might trigger an air raid siren.”

  I studied the wire further. “Old circuitry. At least we aren’t dealing with fresh security measures. Maybe the guards are tuned out.”

  But Reuben wasn’t up for my cheerier assessment. “This is Drax, secretive and paranoid.” He tipped his head toward the floor. “Trust me, if we pop that hatch, they’ll be all over us.”

  Tricia sat back cross-legged and folded her arms in front of her chest. “We’re not turning around.”

  “Let’s think scenarios,” I said. “That guy we heard walking around might be the only guard, or maybe he’s got a buddy, but there can’t be more than two.” Tricia seemed to expect a revelation in my words. “When they see the alarm, what are they going to do? Run over here, drop into seven miles of black, and start stumbling around with their guns drawn? I doubt it.”

  “No, they’ll get help first,” Reuben continued with glum certainty. “Which means we’ll have Valentine and his goons after us.”

  Tricia perked up. “But that buys us time. They’ll need a half-hour or more to get across town.”

  I played out more scenarios, first in my head and then out loud. “The rebar ladder keeps going below the hatch. We can rope the lid closed from underneath. That might buy us more time, especially if the night crew is afraid to test the hatch until Valentine shows up.”

  Tricia’s eyes glowed with anticipation. “How long would ropes hold them off?”

  I flexed my fingers. “They’ll try to pry it open—”

  “If they can find something to pry with,” she said.

  Reuben said, “They’ll dismantle the hatch.”

  “If they brought the right tools.” She kept up the pressure.

  Reuben made a clicking sound in his cheek. “Too many assumptions. Plan for worst-case—thirty minutes extra delay.”

  Tricia’s eyes pleaded with mine. “Can we shoot all the measurements in one hour?”

  Our triad was looking less like a democracy and more like two warring political parties with one independent voter—me. “I don’t know.” My number-crunching had been inconclusive. Depending upon the route taken and how well we could divvy up the duties, completion time varied from forty-five to ninety minutes.

  “Maybe they’ll wait for Tony,” Tricia said hopefully. “He lives in the hills.”

  “You’re dreaming,” Reuben said. “What if they send another crew to Alpha Portal and block our exit?”

  Tricia scrambled to her feet and brought her face too close to Reuben’s. “What if they don’t?” she said, her voice more growl than speech.

  Reuben stood his ground. “So now I’m not allowed to imagine possibilities?”

  I rose from my crouch. “Look, it’s a safe assumption the security people won’t think about Alpha Portal. It’s miles away, they scrambled the codes, and probably won’t know about egress override. Can we agree on that?”

  “Yes,” Tricia said and eyeballed Reuben.

  He nodded reluctantly before straightening his back and declaring, “Regardless, they could break our ropes in minutes, choose the right trail of footprints, and we’re in deep shit.”

  “Or they could wait an hour with their thumbs up their asses and then what?” Tricia said. “They’d be entering your territory—our territory—seven miles of transit tunnel and even more side tunnels to lose them in. What good are their guns if they can’t find us?”

  Reuben protruded his jaw. “An electronic flash in total darkness tends to attract attention.”

  “I’ll be spotter,” Tricia said. “Isn’t that why you brought me along anyway? I vote we go.”

  “Oh really?” Reuben replied with double-barrel sarcasm. Then to me, “I vote we not commit suicide at this time.”

  Tricia huffed. “You’re refusing?”

  “I never said that. I’ll support the group decision.” Reuben leaned toward me. “That makes you the tiebreaker, Lucas.”

  Reuben and Tricia watched me with their individual hopes, Reuben that I’d calculate our slim odds and order a wise withdrawal, Tricia that I’d be as stupid as ever and order once more unto the breach.

  I slipped off my pack and lowered it to the floor. “The clock doesn’t start ticking until we open that hatch, right?”

  Tricia said, “Quit stalling.”

  “You don’t want me deciding.” Had they forgotten my track record? “I decked Tony Drax, called his grandfather a Nazi—”

  “Which you were right about,” Tricia said.

  “—and led us into an ambush by the railroad tracks, almost getting Reuben killed.”

  My imagination ran headlong into a dark future. A pulse of fear tightened in my chest. I saw Tricia on her back on subway concrete, immovable walls rising to an impenetrable ceiling. She stares up warily. Drax men circle like jackals in an underground world without rules, consequences, or exits, a world soon to become seven miles of unmarked grave.

  I glanced at her face, her fury as indomitable as gravity’s pull.

  Was I any different? Like gravity, Drax’s assault on my family pressed down on me until black, venomous rage oozed out. Who was I kidding? There’d be no thoughtful calculation about the pros and cons of attack versus retreat.

  “Look, we’re not deciding on going now versus later,” I said, the air in our four-foot-square concrete shaft heating up. “There is no later. They’ll find our trail
of broken locks and weld everything shut.” I took a breath. “So, we decide to do this now, or give up permanently. Got it?”

  “Understood,” Reuben said. Tricia stared at me, her jaw set with wordless resolve.

  “Then why pretend we’re deciding?” I asked rhetorically and peered hard into Tricia’s eyes. “You’ll go no matter what we decide because of what they did to Alfred, your only real family.” She blinked her acknowledgement. “And I have to go for the same reason.” Because of Dad, because he had nobody looking out for him. I returned my attention to Reuben. “But you don’t have to do this.”

  Reuben recoiled as if I’d backhanded him, his eyes flaring open. “What kind of bullshit is that? You think after all these years I’m going to run away?”

  I shook my head. “That’s not what I’m saying. It’s just…” Something became crystal clear in my mind, something I should’ve realized long ago. “I’m done putting people in danger, that’s all.”

  Reuben retreated to a tightlipped silence. Wisely, Tricia said nothing.

  I listened to our breathing and my own heartbeat. Tricia twitched with nervous energy like an athlete before the final competition. Reuben bit his lip and darted his eyes, the telltale signs of a methodical mind on overdrive. “Then I’ll spare you the trouble,” he said.

  “What?” I responded.

  “It won’t be your decision.” Then his face dropped from my line of sight.

  Before I could come to my senses, Reuben had gripped the hatch’s steering wheel, twisted it, and pulled hard. The portal flew open. Off in the distance, a metallic alarm shredded the night.

  Reuben glanced up and flashed a wry grin. “The clock just started ticking, I’d say.”

  CHAPTER 25

  I pulled down the hatch overhead and the alarm bell faded to a faraway buzz. I found myself in a vertical tube not unlike a submarine conning tower, but made of concrete, not steel.

  Reassured by the density of the barrier above, I got busy with ropes as my comrades waited below.

  “What’s taking so long?” Reuben called up.

  I tugged on a double knot. “I’m tying them individually so breaking one won’t unravel the whole thing. Make yourself useful up here, okay?”

  I pressed myself into the corner as Reuben paralleled me on the ladder. Together, we strung and secured six rope lengths from the hatch handle to multiple rebar rungs. A good investment of precious time.

  I began my descent. “I bet they’ll have to dismantle the assembly to get through the hatch.”

  “Knock on wood,” Reuben replied.

  We dropped into the thirteen-foot-wide transit tunnel. Our flashlights created a cocoon of gloomy gray that faded left and right to infinite black. The combined aromas of natural and man-made substances made me think of unlit matches.

  Under different circumstances, I’d rejoice in such glorious vive émotion, but not this time. A relentless countdown in my brain drowned out all sensation but anxiety, prodding me toward one overriding goal: to squeeze progress from every minute. Yet as I scanned our stone passage, my goal seemed more elusive than ever. Tricia was nowhere to be seen.

  Reuben snorted his disapproval. Responsible urban adventurers never set out solo without notice.

  “Listen,” I said. We cocked our ears and picked up the fast rhythm of a runner’s footsteps. In unison, we swung our flashlights toward the sound. Tricia came into view rounding a steady bend, broke stride, and trotted to a halt in front of us.

  I jumped ahead of Reuben to prevent a verbal skewering. “You scared us.”

  Tricia’s chest heaved with inhales and exhales. “Sorry.”

  Reuben glowered. “What were you doing?”

  She pointed at our feet and swept her arm outward. “Making footprints.” Her ragged line of smeared impressions faded into the void. “There’s a junction down that way—”

  “Dorning and Fourteenth,” I said.

  She wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. “Yeah. I bet I put down a quarter-mile, including popping in and out of a bunch of service passages.”

  I swatted Reuben’s shoulder. “Brilliant, huh? They’ll trip all over themselves trying to follow us.”

  Reuben eased but stayed quiet.

  “Come to think of it,” I said, “we ought to shuffle the sequence of measurements.”

  Reuben’s disapproval returned. “Now you think of this?”

  “She’s got the right idea,” I said. “If we hit all the undisturbed territory first, we put down fresh footprints and get Drax confused.”

  No one protested.

  I set our pace at a brisk jog. We arrived in minutes at the first of the remaining measurement sites from Smith’s plan, with Tricia no more winded than Reuben and me.

  “Same as our rehearsals.” I cradled the Hasselblad like a Fabergé egg, sensing Alfred’s oversight from the world above the streets. Reuben held the laser against a wall while Tricia verified placement with the glass levels and their sliding bubbles. Upon receiving her A-OK, I tripped the shutter. Sh-clack.

  We improved our technique, soon spending no more than a minute or two on each measurement, keeping our dialogue efficiently on-task.

  “Set. Balanced?”

  “Clockwise one degree—in position.”

  “Got it.”

  Sh-clack.

  Travel time became a factor. During one jog, I rehashed my calculations to balance expediency and disrupting as much new dust as possible.

  After twenty minutes, I became convinced the overnight guards had waited to test the hatch until their bosses arrived, and only then encountered our ropes. I imagined Valentine berating his subordinates for their lack of battlefield initiative.

  After thirty minutes underground, we’d moved a mile from Drax headquarters, executed seven turns, and detected nothing behind us.

  After an hour, we completed the last measurement.

  “That’s it,” I said, snapping the Hasselblad’s lens cover into place. “Maybe they never made it past our ropes, or maybe they did but took off in the wrong direction.”

  Reuben checked my enthusiasm. “Maybe toward Alpha Portal to block our escape.”

  Indeed, success lay approximately two miles to the northwest. I flipped over the Hasselblad to access the catch. “Lights out, just in case.” In total darkness, I carefully rewound the film, clicked open the camera back, withdrew the roll, and felt all around to verify a lightproof seal. “Clear.”

  “What are you going to do with that?” Tricia asked once illumination returned.

  I sensed something lurking behind her question and squeezed the roll tighter in my hand. “Protect the hell out of it. Why?”

  “If we get caught,” she said, “they’ll confiscate our stuff, including that.”

  I searched Reuben’s eyes for signs of comprehension, but picked up only stifled bemusement.

  Tricia continued. “You guys suck at holding on to film.”

  No need to remind me, the train station debacle too painfully fresh. “You have an idea?”

  “If you can handle it.” Tricia held out a cupped hand. “Film, please.”

  Generals strategize, soldiers improvise, went Dad’s old saying. Besides, our democracy could overrule if her idea fell flat. I surrendered the film.

  Tricia straightened her back. “You’ll need the electrical tape.”

  Curious, I lowered my pack to the ground, dropped to one knee, and rummaged until I produced the roll of black plastic tape. When I looked up, my mouth fell open.

  Tricia had spread her legs
slightly so that her jeans, now freed at the button, had stopped their descent at her knees. With her left hand, she held the roll of film against the inside front of her left thigh about an inch below her underwear.

  Reuben cleared his throat, a substitute for unavailable speech. Tricia saved me from similar verbal constipation. “Tape it all the way around, multiple loops, and don’t be shy.”

  I fumbled the tape roll.

  “Look,” she said, “no hiding place is safe from Drax. But this better be the last place they search.”

  Yeah, some soldier. I collected myself and proceeded as commanded. Beginning with the outside of her thigh—somehow it seemed safer—I adhered the leading edge to her skin and looped around while reaching between her legs with my free hand to pull the tape through, rotating slightly for clear passage. I repeated for five loops, struggling to focus on my task.

  . . . . .

  Mid-jog and mid-tunnel en route to Alpha Portal, we heard the first sound, a dull metallic clunk like a wooden bat against a swing set. On instinct, we stopped, frozen.

  How amazing the way a desperate mind can deny the obvious. I briefly entertained a ludicrous explanation that the steel superstructure had creaked, maybe because of temperature change.

  But my theory vaporized when “Fuck!” reached our ears in a high-pressure whisper, as if someone had stubbed a toe, or more likely whacked a shin on a utility bracket. More epithets followed, directed at the loudmouth who’d blown cover.

  I tapped shoulders and gestured us into the closest service passage where our sounds would stay contained. Manic-eyed and huffing, we crouched, our faces inches apart. Questions and conjecture flew in rapid-fire whispers.

  Tricia: “Do they know we’re here?”

  Me: “No clue.”

  Tricia: “We were quiet.”

  Reuben: “Sound carries. Or maybe they saw our lights.”

  Tricia: “How far back does this service passage go?”

  Me: “Dead-end into storage. We’d be trapped.”