Violet Darger | Book 8 | Countdown To Midnight

by Vargus, L. T.

  Gone.

  Just gone.

  All of the SWAT officers started yelling at once. Panicked. Agitated. Shocked.

  “Lost eyes on the target!”

  “What the fuck?”

  Stutter-steps chopped at the gravel. The jumbled rhythms matched the chaos in their cries.

  The flashlight swung wildly as soon as Huxley escaped its circle. Flashed its gleam over the concrete tunnel wall. Brushed back to the spot where he’d disappeared. Holding steady on a black rectangle there. A cleft in the concrete.

  A side tunnel.

  CHAPTER 69

  Not again.

  Darger took a few steps closer. Stopped and stared.

  A small doorway gaped in the smooth concrete wall. A rectangular hole. Roughly cut around the edges as though it’d been chiseled there, chipped into existence one hammer stroke at a time. It formed the mouth of the utility tunnel.

  The flashlight speared a little way into the shaft beyond the opening. Swung up and down slick-looking cement walls. Revealed a much smaller tunnel than the one housing the subway tracks, wide enough for perhaps two men to walk side by side, but only just.

  The tunnel floor sloped downward about ten degrees. Appeared to grow smaller as it descended. Tighter.

  Darger swallowed in a dry throat. Hoped her mind was playing tricks on her with that last detail — some neurosis-based optical illusion making the shaft appear to shrink as it advanced. She didn’t think it would make much sense.

  “Son of a bitch,” Fitch said. “There’s a maze of utility tunnels and drain-off mains down here. A mess of interconnected shit that runs under half the city. How much you want to bet our boy has maps of all this shit? Knows exactly where he’s going. Maybe even has multiple exit routes ready to go.”

  “Maybe,” Darger said.

  Being prepared for this would fit the profile — the meticulousness with which he’d seemed to organize and execute his plan. But she hoped they had him on the run now finally. Improvising. At a disadvantage.

  “Either way, he’s on the run, and we’ve got to press it,” Darger said.

  She led the way through that chipped-out place in the cement. Shot forward into the dark tunnel.

  The flashlight’s beam shined past her to light the way in a swinging flicker. It couldn’t quite reach far enough to vanquish the dark. Illuminating one little chunk of the way at a time, the rest cleaving off into shadow.

  They ran for a while. Darger tried to force herself to focus solely on the path ahead, to not think about those concrete walls all around her, encasing her, entombing her. She tried.

  The subtle downward slope felt wrong. Made every step she took feel like it went on just a little too long, the ground perpetually lower than her sense of balance expected. It strengthened that roiling panic in her gut. Made her feel like one of these times, she’d go to step down and the ground wouldn’t be there at all.

  The swamp smell came first. Filled Darger’s nostrils with the reek of bog. Algae. Mud. Funk.

  Wet patches of concrete appeared on the floor next. Puddling in some spots. Gleaming wherever the flashlight’s beam touched it. Little flecks of black interrupting the sheen. Matte pebbles of some kind, duller than the rest. Oblong.

  “Rat shit,” Fitch said, explaining the pebbles. “Look out for ’em. Fuckers are supposed to be as big as terriers down here. Bigger. I heard they swarm anything that moves in the lower tunnels. Emboldened by the dark or something. Meaner, you know. Don’t know if it’s true.”

  “Lovely,” Darger said through gritted teeth.

  She scanned for large rodents as she ran, be they sewer rats or Huxley. No sign of anything four-legged, and still no sign of him. He’d gotten a pretty good jump when he darted into the tunnel, but with his gimpy ankle she figured they had to be gaining on him.

  That was all well and good if the chase kept to a single path like it had so far, but how long would that last? So far the tunnel hadn’t branched or connected to anything else, but it would inevitably. She guessed they’d worry about that when they got there.

  The floor leveled out after that. The wetness and rat feces receding. The dry clap of concrete replacing the wet slaps their footfalls had become.

  A deep rumble built up somewhere behind them. Growling and throbbing. Mounting in tension, in volume. It made the hair prick up on the back of Darger’s neck.

  She turned back. Realized a train was bearing down in the big tunnel. The rumble built to a roar. A tremor vibrated through the cement. Strengthening until it felt like the floor shuddered underfoot.

  The clank of metal pounding against metal pulsed at the center of it all. Train wheels banging the tracks like hammers. All of it getting bigger. Louder. Deafening.

  It whooshed past the small utility tunnel. A rectangle of lights flickering at the end of the tunnel, glowing dots flitting past like the checked yellow lines in the middle of the highway. The pull of the train sucking audibly at the doorway like a snuffling hound.

  And then with a final whoomp it was past. Trailing away. Gone.

  Darger refocused on the tunnel ahead. Running into the open space where the flashlight sliced a wedge out of the darkness.

  Utility pipes hung along the ceiling now. Dark snakes running up above them. Dead-looking metal. Rusty and dripping.

  Hissing steam leaked somewhere ahead. Its sibilance piercing, somehow instantly identifiable. Darger realized it was growing warmer and warmer as they moved forward — that cave-like coolness of the underground passage giving way to the steam heat running through here.

  The tunnel curved to the right at a subtle angle. Widened into something of a long chamber before them.

  The room housed a series of machines of some kind. Huddling things. Girthy. In the half-light Darger thought they looked like bulky generators of some type, though they made no noise. She didn’t pay attention to them for long.

  Her eyes drifted lower almost at once. To the oblong slabs laid out alongside the machines, darker than the rest.

  Sleeping bags.

  Little orange embers glowed above some of the bags. The cherries of cigarettes hovering in the dark.

  The flashlight swept that way just in time to see a man sit up in one of the bags. Scraggly beard. Haggard bony face. Squinting eyes shielded by his outstretched hand.

  A quick look around showed there were around twenty people nestled in this little chamber.

  “People actually sleep down here?” Darger asked.

  “Not a big surprise, I guess,” Fitch said. “Steam keeps it warm, a steady temp year-round, you know? A bunch of ’em got run off after Hurricane Sandy. Tunnels all got flooded and shit.”

  The homeless scuttled back like beetles. Crab walking on palms and feet. Trying to slide away into the shadows. Sleeping bags still cocooning their lower halves.

  Darger winced inside. They probably thought some kind of raid was happening. Police batons. Handcuffs. More abuse headed their way after a lifetime of it, an existence that had led them here, living in this dank rat hole beneath the city.

  Down in the dark where no light shines.

  “Did someone just run through here?” Darger said, her voice coming out harder than she meant. Accusatory.

  The haggard man in the spotlight blinked hard. Eyebrows crunching down.

  “What?”

  Darger took a breath before she tried again. Smoothed out the tone of her voice.

  “Did you hear someone run through the tunnel before us?”

  “Uh… yeah. Yeah, a fella just flew through. Kicked over Kevin’s lantern and busted it, the son a bitch. Hell, with the lamp burning it ain’t so bad down here. We can play cards. Read a newspaper or something. But in the dark? There ain’t nothing to do but drink and smoke, you know? Drink and smoke and sleep.”

  He pulled out a half-pint bottle of Jim Beam. Settled it between his teeth. Tipped his back and took a slug.

  “This guy — the lantern kicker — he went this way?” Darg
er pointed down to the far end of the chamber.

  “Oh yeah. He went that way. Kept on truckin’. Real wiry guy, it looked like to me. Limping like a pony with a broken leg. Wearing a, uh, red t-shirt.”

  CHAPTER 70

  Darger lurched forward once more. Fitch and the others followed. They zipped across the chamber. The vagrants thinning out as they advanced until only barren spaces lay between the hulking machines here.

  That hissing steam sound grew louder now. The sticky warmth wrapped itself around them like a wet blanket. Breathing on them. A soggy heat like Miami in the summer.

  Darger ran. A sheening surface filled the tunnel before her. Wet concrete again. Looking slick and shining back a green hue where the flashlight touched it as though the surface were being overtaken by some layer of algae or mildew. Glistening. Organic.

  At first, Darger thought the tunnel dead-ended before them. She saw only the smooth cement surface of the wall. No way forward.

  Then rusty rungs took shape in the center of the barrier. Ruddy stripes accenting the green. A ladder made of rebar looping out of the concrete. Ascending into a cement tube about the width of a manhole.

  Darger reached the wall. Stopped herself with her hands out in front of her, touching the slimy wet for a second. She looked up into the shaft where the ladder led.

  A circle of light shone at the top. Yellow light. Unnatural. Some kind of soft utility light, she knew. Some safety code thing, she figured. The kind of meager bulb that didn’t really light up an area so much as shift it the few degrees from pitch black to shadowy.

  They climbed. Hands looping around the rusted metal rungs. Feet pinging when they landed and pushed off.

  Darger felt the grit of corroded metal coat her fingers like powder. Pictured the dried blood shade adhered there now. Couldn’t wait to wipe her fingers off on her vest.

  She pulled herself up onto the floor above this one. Crawling into the tightest section of tunnel yet. Fingers finding not cement but angular metal beneath her.

  Amber light angled from a single bulb on the ceiling. Revealed a shrouded version of what she was feeling with her hands.

  A steel grate filled the area underfoot. It formed the floor for this next section of the utility tunnel.

  Darger got to her feet. Smeared her hands against her vest a few times. Waited a second for the others to pull themselves up onto the floor here.

  She leaned forward. Cupped her hands around her knees. Heart pounding. Mouth open. She focused on her breathing.

  So far she’d managed her wind pretty well, the adrenaline helping her avoid fatigue. But the chase was finally catching up with her. Pressing the first twinges of weakness into her limbs.

  She closed her eyes. Sucked in great lungfuls of breath. Held them at the apex for a beat. Deep in and slow out.

  The humidity didn’t help her respiration any. The air felt thick and hot in her throat. A soup that smelled like swamp.

  The last of the men made it up, and they took off again. Moving into that yellow light. Single file now.

  The grate clanged along with their heavy footsteps. Loud and distinctly metallic. The noise reminded Darger of a cowbell keeping time with a drumbeat.

  The tunnel grew hard angles now. A sharp turn to the right was followed by an equally sharp turn to the left. After that, three fat sections of pipe made bottlenecks. Clogged most of the tunnel. Everyone had to turn sideways and sidle past, Fitch and a few of the big guys sucking in their guts to avoid contact with the hot metal.

  The collective obstacles made this section of tunnel feel slower than what they’d experienced so far. Darger could feel the frustration amplifying in the crook of her jaw, the muscles there flexing in angry spasms.

  And all the while, the shaft grew warmer and wetter. Muggy. Miserable.

  Darger kept running. Kept pushing. The more weariness bloomed in her legs and in her lungs, the harder she pressed herself.

  She was setting the pace, setting the tone. She had to want it more than anyone else. Work harder than anyone else. Let that passion spread to the others.

  Here and now, for this one little slice of time, the officers in this tunnel shared a mission. A righteous cause. A calling.

  With Agent Darger leading the way, they would not be denied.

  CHAPTER 71

  Sergeant Burke of the 109th precinct led Agent Loshak down an empty hallway. The precinct’s basement seemed dated — sported yellowing drop-ceiling tiles and cheap flooring that reminded him of a high school hallway. It also seemed utterly vacant. Dusty in a way that suggested no one came down here much.

  Their footsteps clattered and echoed around the empty space. Clapping sounds that shuddered as they rang down the hall. Something about the quiet made Loshak uncomfortable.

  “So you’re the, uh, map guy, huh Burke?” he said, sounding a little dumb to himself but happy to break up the silence.

  Laughter hissed out of the short man, though Loshak couldn’t tell if it was coming from his mouth or nose. His bushy salt-and-pepper mustache twitched.

  “Map guy. I guess you could say that,” Burke said. “I’ve always been fascinated with the tunnels. Probably been down in the lower tunnels three, four dozen times over the years on various assignments, so I’ve gotten familiar with where the old maps are, how to read them. Not to mention navigating the mess down here in the basement. That kind of thing.”

  Loshak nodded, and the quiet blossomed around them again until the agent could hear his pulse pattering in his ears. He felt sweat slick his palms.

  “Got the lay of the land and whatnot,” he said, trying to keep the conversation going.

  Sergeant Burke chuckled again.

  “Well, so few people come down here these days aside from me, what with everything being digitized, that I suppose it’s become an assumption that this basement and these maps are my domain.” He opened a door that led into a dim room. “Here we are.”

  A second later the fluorescent bulbs winked on overhead.

  Evidence boxes cluttered the small space. Haphazard stacks of cardboard set in uneven rows.

  Burke wove his way through the maze of containers, turning sideways to squeeze between a couple of crooked towers of them. He disappeared into the gap and came back a few seconds later with a long metal tube in his hands.

  “Yes. Here we go,” the little man said, a smile curling the ends of the bushy mustache. “Help me hang this, would you?”

  Loshak took one end of the metal tube and together they hung it on hooks along the wall at the front of the room. Burke pulled the handle in the center of the tube, and the map unrolled to cover much of the wall. Reminded Loshak of his school days.

  Clear overlays showed various tunnel systems in different colors — a series of weaving lines like a diagram of the circulatory system. The subway system was rendered in black lines. Utility pipes appeared in a dull red. Water was blue. A few other layers veined the map in orange, purple, and green.

  “Okie dokey,” Burke said. “Where are we…”

  He ran his finger over the map in ever-narrowing spirals until he found what he was looking for. The tip of his index finger did a rat-tat-tat on a location on the map.

  “Main Street-Flushing station. That’s where he jumped onto tracks, yes?”

  “That’s right, heading west,” Loshak said, remembering what Fitch had relayed over the radio before they’d lost contact.

  “Right. Right. And then you said he took off down a side tunnel heading south?”

  Loshak nodded.

  The sergeant’s finger traced down the line. Found the intersection.

  “OK. Looks like he ducked into a little utility line here. Some of those are awfully narrow. Crawling room only in a few spots.”

  “Yikes,” Loshak said.

  That ought to do wonders for Darger’s claustrophobia.

  Burke’s finger followed the red line a ways, twisting and turning along with the meandering path of the tunnel.

&nbs
p; “This tunnel houses some generators it looks like. Backup emergency-type stuff. Nothing active. Also has pipe access. Could be a warm one. Steam, you know?”

  Loshak nodded. Watched the finger as it progressed over the glossy map.

  “Looks like it comes out… here.” He clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. Did another rat-tat-tat on the map. “Ah. One of the abandoned subway stations.”

  “Abandoned?” Loshak said.

  “Yep. 91st Street Station. They stopped using ’er back in 1959. Riding the 1 train, you can still see it for a few seconds. Guess it’s full of trash. Mole people.”

  Loshak didn’t say anything for a second.

  “Mole people?”

  “Oh yeah. Big time.”

  Loshak licked his lips.

  “Let’s leave that aside for now. Do you think we could get to the station before him? Cut him off?”

  Burke got quiet. He now worked two fingers at the map, one on each hand. Tracing various lines. Breath whistling through his nostrils.

  He clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth again, and his fingers stopped abruptly on the map.

  “Yes,” he said it almost under his breath the first time. “Yes. I know a shortcut.”

  CHAPTER 72

  Movement caught Darger’s eye. Silvery fluttering filling the tunnel before her. It looked like heat distortion somehow made opaque.

  She squinted. Scanned the throbbing shapes ahead, the hazy dance of light and dark, still not quite able to discern what she was seeing.

  She blinked hard as though to clear her eyes of some obstruction. Squinted harder. And then it made sense.

  Steam billowed out of one of the pipes that ran vertical along the wall. A roiling cloud spewing out at about shoulder level. The leak angled up toward the ceiling, moistened the pipes and cement up above so it all looked like a sweaty beer can.

  They slowed again. Ducking low. Pressing their backs against the opposite wall. Sidling past.

  Darger glanced up at the steam as she moved under it. Liquid smoke, more or less. Spitting and sniffing endlessly. Rolling ever upward.