The Ninth District - A Thriller

by Douglas Dorow

  The rain was still coming down, but not as hard. Mike was setting up a barricade around the open manhole. His raincoat was wet and shiny. Jack sat on the bumper of the truck and pulled the coveralls on. He stood up, pulled the bottoms up past his waist, and struggled to get one arm in, then the other. He pulled the zipper up to his chin and swung his arms around to get the coveralls to sit right on his frame. They fit, but they smelled; a combination of sweat, long-wet cloth, and whatever was in the sewer.

  “You’ll get used to the smell,” Jimmy said. “They look like they fit. The main thing is to keep you dry and warm. It’s damp down there and always cool. The boots are the most important part. They’ll keep your feet dry, as long as you don’t fall down.”

  Jack pulled the boots on and fastened the chin strap for the hard hat. The rain drops echoed off of the shell like rim shots on a drum. He sat on the bumper and waited for Jimmy and tried not to think about what they were going to do. He told himself that he could do it. He had to do it. The Governor had to still be down below ground and they were going to find him. If they could find a clue at the tee that Jimmy described, they would catch him. He was trying not to think about going in the sewer, but that wasn’t working.

  “You don’t look so good,” Jimmy said.

  Jack just peered up at him.

  “There’s nothing to be nervous about. It’s actually kind of neat. There’s all sorts of history down there and if we go outside of the sewers into some of the caves there’s flowstone and stuff. It’s pretty.”

  Jack stood up and faced Jimmy. “I’ll be all right. One thing I’m worried about is you.” Jack tugged at the seam on the shoulder of the coveralls to adjust them a bit. “I don’t want to put you in any danger. But this guy we’re after? I have to catch him and he’s dangerous. And I can’t go down there alone. I don’t know my way around.”

  “Hey, you’re not forcing me to go down there. I know my way around better than anybody. Once we get down there he won’t be able to hear us and if we go with low lights he shouldn’t see us coming either.”

  Hearing “low lights,” Jack’s chest tightened and his throat constricted, making it hard to breathe. He closed his eyes and tried to force a deep breath into his lungs. He got a small amount of air in. He tilted his head back and looked at the sky in attempt to open his airway further. He still couldn’t breathe.

  “Hey, you OK?”

  Jack looked at Jimmy, almost panting to get a small amount of air in and out of his lungs.

  “Here, sit down and try to relax.” Jimmy lightly grabbed Jack’s upper arm and guided him back a couple of steps to the bumper of the truck. “You need to relax.”

  Jack leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. He focused on a spot on the ground between his feet and slowed his breathing. He felt his chest start to relax and he worked on taking larger breaths.

  “You sure you want to do this?” Jimmy asked.

  “I have to get this guy.” Jack took another deep breath. “I’ll be OK in a minute. Then we have to go.”

  “All right. Don’t hyperventilate. Just sit here and relax. Long, deep breaths.” Jimmy climbed into the truck. “We’ll give her a shot in a second!” he called from inside the truck.

  Jack sat on the bumper and closed his eyes. His chest was still tight, like a belt cinched around it keeping him from breathing. He concentrated on taking shallower breaths and tried to slow his breathing. He cupped his hands over his mouth, remembering that people who were hyperventilating sometimes breathed into a paper sack.

  Jimmy was banging around in the truck. Above the sound of the rain hammering the top of the truck, it sounded like Jimmy was opening drawers, poking around through tools. Jack caught movement out of the corner of his eye and tensed. His right hand instinctively reached for his gun, which was at his waist under the coveralls.

  One of the Federal Reserve guards dressed in black, a hood protecting his head from the rain, and a short machine gun slung across his shoulder and hanging below his chest, approached Jack. “Are you Agent Miller?”

  “Yeah,” Jack answered without getting up, working at slowing his heart again.

  “Granowski sent me over.” He handed Jack a couple of bundles. “The other agent, the guy with his arm in a sling, thought you needed these.”

  “Thanks. No other developments?”

  “I haven’t heard anything,” the guard answered and walked away through the rain.

  Jack looked at Mike standing at the manhole smoking a cigarette in the rain. The guy was used to waiting; Jack wasn’t. He turned around and yelled over his shoulder. “Jimmy, let’s go!”

  Two nylon belts landed on the ground and Jimmy jumped out of the truck. “So, you’re ready to go through with this?”

  “Yeah,” was all Jack said.

  Jimmy held out a closed right fist and a bottle of water in his left hand. “Take this?”

  “What is it?”

  “Something to help you relax, take the edge off. I can’t afford to have you freak out down there.”

  Jack just looked at him.

  “It’s not illegal.”

  “What is it?” Jack asked.

  “It’s Xanax. As long as you aren’t pregnant, plan to become pregnant, you’ll be fine. It’ll calm you down.”

  Jack laughed and held out his left hand, palm up.

  “Take one now and save on for later, just in case.” Jimmy dropped the pills into his hand and handed him the bottle of water. He waited for Jack to take the one, then he handed him one of the nylon belts. “Now put this on. The tag goes in back.”

  Jack handed Jimmy one of the Kevlar vests the guard had brought him. “And this if for you.”

  “Is this what I think it is?” Jimmy asked.

  “It is if you think it’s a bullet-proof vest. I told you, this guy’s dangerous.”

  Chapter 53

  Rain splashed by the round, black hole. The drops that fell over it continued to fall down it into the ground. Jack leaned over and looked down into the manhole. Raindrops reflected light from his headlamp and looked like streaks of light zooming down into the darkness below. It gave him a slight case of vertigo and he leaned back and focused on the truck to regain his feeling of balance. He hoped the pills were going to help.

  Mike put a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “You’ll be fine. Just listen to Jimmy. He’ll tell you what to do.”

  Jack swallowed. His tongue felt swollen and his mouth was dry. “Let’s go. I gotta’ go catch this guy.”

  Jimmy took a first step down the ladder into the manhole. “Jack, there’s a ladder bolted to the wall. Don’t come down until I’m at the bottom.” He started climbing down and disappeared into the ground.

  Jack looked at Mike. “How deep is it?”

  Mike looked down into the hole. “At this point, it’s probably thirty feet or so. You’re attached to a cable on the way down so you’ll be fine.” He looked at Jack. “But once you’re down in the sewer you never know how far underground you are. It’s all the same. You’ll be able to walk through most of the sewers. Might have to crouch once in a while. They’re old brick sewers that have been there a long time.” He peeked back down. “You’re up.” Mike raised the safety cable and clipped it onto the metal loop at Jack’s back.

  Jack stepped slowly over to the manhole. He was starting to sweat. He told himself it was from all of the gear he was wearing. He grabbed on to the round, metal barricade and turned around. Then he stepped down into the manhole and tried to feel the metal rung of the ladder with his foot. The rubber boot was a little big and he poked around with his toe to find the rung.

  “A couple more inches, Jack. Once you get on the ladder, you’ll be fine.”

  Jack lowered himself a little further and felt his foot rest on the metal bar. He looked at Mike. “I’ll be fine,” he said to Mike as well as to himself.

  “Yep, just listen to Jimmy. Good luck.”

  Jack put his weight on the foot on the ladder and lif
ted his other foot off of the ground. He lowered himself until that foot found the next rung. He repeated the process and started climbing down the ladder. He stopped when his head was still above the ground and took a deep breath.

  “You’ll be fine, Jack.”

  “Yeah,” Jack whispered. He looked around at the ground. Water splashed his face when the rain hit the puddles. The staccato sound continued as the rain hit his hard hat. He looked down into the manhole again. Thirty feet, he could do it. He took a deep breath to try to loosen the tightness that squeezed his chest.

  “Jack, Jimmy’s waiting.” Mike walked over and crouched next to the hole. “You can do this, Jack.” The red ember on the end of his cigarette glowed as he sucked in. He flipped the glowing butt down into the darkness and exhaled a cloud of smoke. “You gotta’ go down to get this guy.”

  “Yeah.” Jack looked down and then at Mike. “Gotta’ go,” he said and climbed down into the ground.

  The ladder felt cool and rough under his gloves. From the light of his hard hat, Jack could see the dark walls. They were damp with bits of dirt and broken mortar hanging between the bricks. Jack tried to control his breathing, keeping it steady, concentrating on inhaling and exhaling in rhythm to his climb down. Sounds from above disappeared as he went lower into the ground. They were replaced with a muffled sound as well as dripping and the sound of his boots and gloves scraping the rungs with his descent.

  “You’re doing fine. Almost down!” Jimmy yelled up to him.

  Jack stopped and looked down between his body and the ladder. His hands were tired from holding so tightly onto the rungs. Jimmy was standing off to the side in water that was about mid-shin deep. Jack saw his feet were still above Jimmy’s head so he figured he had about ten or twelve feet to go. He took a calming breath, flexed the fingers on one hand, then the other, and continued his climb down.

  When he reached the bottom, he carefully stepped into the water with one foot and then the other before he let go of the ladder.

  “How you doing?” Jimmy asked.

  “Fine, I think. Better than I thought I’d be doing. Those pills seemed to help.” Jack looked around where they were standing.

  “Well, you made it. Now that you’re here, the rest should be easy. Just a couple of quick tips and we’ll be off.” Jimmy unclipped the cable and shined his headlamp at Jack’s feet. “Most of the sewer is like this. It’s a storm sewer so it’s not too nasty. Watch your step. Put a hand on the wall to steady yourself if you feel like it. We’ll head downstream towards the river. There’s more water than usual since we’ve had all of this rain.” Jimmy took a step downstream and shined his headlamp into the dark ahead of them. “Everything runs in straight lines down here. We’ll go down here about forty yards and then turn left and go upstream into a sewer from the north to the point we were talking about.”

  “I’m ready. We better try and stay quiet,” Jack said. “If anything appears strange or out of place to you, let me know. We need to figure if he was down here, where he went, and if he’s still here.” Jack tapped his hand to his vest to make sure his gun was still there. “Let’s go.”

  “What do you mean, there’s a delay?” The Governor stood over the controller. A headset was attached and he was speaking with Vadim over a phone line to coordinate the timing of his entry of codes to reroute the Fedwire transmissions and cover their tracks. The time on his watch showed that that should happen in six minutes.

  “We’ve been monitoring communications and traffic. They haven’t said anything about the explosion or an attempt at the vault, but they’re communicating that they want to send some test messages and that Fedwire coming back online will be delayed.”

  “I guess we should have anticipated this might happen,” the Governor said.

  “It is nothing,” Vadim answered. “Just some time. We’ll keep monitoring and we’ll execute the plan when they come back up. You can wait?”

  “I’m fine here. We don’t know how long?

  “No.”

  “If I’m not online, I’ll check back in every quarter hour, every fifteen minutes of the hour,” the Governor said.

  “Ten four,” Vadim answered.

  The Governor shook his head. Ten four? Vadim must have been watching some American TV or movies. He looked at his watch, an hour delay. He thought that after the explosion and the probable discovery of the bodies that the Fed would have believed that the attempt was over and regular operations would resume.

  They were just being careful, weren’t they? Could they know about him underground? The Governor thought about it. There was no way. That’s what he believed, but there was no way to check. His team was dead, all except Vadim, snuggled safe away in some hotel room in downtown Minneapolis. The Governor turned and placed his back against the wall and then slid down into a sitting position on the ground. He might as well get comfortable. He looked at his watch and then turned off his headlamp to conserve the batteries and hide in the dark.

  “This is it.” Jimmy stopped and Jack took a few more steps and joined him at his side. Their headlamps lit the sewer walls and ceiling. Water, about a foot deep, ran past them as it made its way to the Mississippi River. The walls were approximately eight feet across and the ceiling was eight feet high plus or minus. “You still doing OK?”

  “Yeah,” was all Jack said. His answer sounded muffled and seemed to disappear down the sewer along with the storm water. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jimmy look at him. He turned and met his stare. “I’m fine.” Jack turned forward again, and took a deep breath to calm his nerves.

  Ahead of them were three openings. Water ran in from two of the others and the forth carried all of the water farther along towards the river. “This is it.” Jimmy walked ahead and stood at the junction. “He didn’t come up the tunnel we were in, so he’s probably either up here,” Jimmy pointed at the first tunnel on the left. “Or down this one.” He shined his light down the sewer where all of the water was flowing.

  “Why not that one?” Jack asked, nodding at the last one, which was straight ahead of him.

  “It’s short and drains River Road. There’s nothing there.”

  “What should I be looking for?” Jack looked around the tunnel at the walls, the ceiling and the water, anxious to find a sign of where the Governor went.

  “Look for something new, out of place. Dirt rubbed off of the walls, a fresh scratch.” He shined his light down at the water. “Look to see if there’s a fresh disturbance on the bottom. If he walked through here, we should see something.”

  Jack followed his flashlight beam around the interior and focused on the walls, the area where the walls met the water, and then looked down into the water at his feet. The water was clear. He could see the toes of his boot below the surface. Cigarette butts and plastic straws floated by in the water, the current carrying them away from him and down into the tunnel ahead of them. His focus on finding a clue distracted him from his surroundings. He pulled up the sleeve of his coveralls and looked at his watch. “We’ve been down here a while. Find anything?”

  “Nope.”

  “Where do you think we should go?”

  Jimmy nodded to his left. “This way. Downstream.” He adjusted his helmet and the belt around his waist. “More options down this way. Side tunnels, utility tunnels. Let’s look around as we go to see if we see anything that might give us a clue. I vote we go this way.”

  “Well, you’re the expert. Lead the way. I’ll be right behind you,” Jack said.

  “Is it always this clear?” Jack asked. The water he was walking through was so clear his headlamp cut through it and illuminated the bottom so he could easily pick out rocks and sand at the bottom.

  Jimmy continued to wade through the water ahead of him. “It’s usually pretty clear. It’s just storm water and we’ve had so much rain lately that it washed the muck through already. The only stuff you’ll see down here is garbage that washed off the streets and down the sewers. Plastic stra
ws, cigarette butts, stuff like that.”

  “Have you seen anything that makes it look like somebody else has been down here recently?” Jack asked.

  “Not yet. But I’m looking.”

  Jack wondered if they were wasting their time. But if they weren’t down here, what would they be doing? They didn’t have any other leads to follow.

  Ahead, a small circular sewer pipe, about a head high, stuck out of the wall and a stream of water poured out of it into the water in which they were walking. Jimmy ducked under the water, letting it arc over his head. Jack followed him, moving to the left and bending over as he walked under the fountain. He felt the cool spray hit his neck. He told himself it was just rainwater.

  They passed another larger sewer and continued walking downstream. “We don’t want to check that one out?” Jack asked.

  Jimmy stopped and looked back. “Nothing there. It’s just a short feeder. Collects run-off from a bunch of shorter sewer lines, like that one we walked under, and feeds it in here.”

  Jack fell back in line behind Jimmy and they continued on. The pressure on his booted feet changed. Jack looked down and then swung his headlamp to Jimmy’s back and looked at his legs. “Jimmy?”

  “Yeah,” Jimmy called back over his shoulder.

  “Is the water getting deeper?”

  “Yeah, and a little faster. Can you feel it pushing your feet forward when you walk?”

  Jack didn’t answer. He looked at the back of Jimmy’s legs where the water was now almost up to his knees. With each step he took, the water pushed the free foot ahead.

  “Watch your step,” Jimmy yelled back. “You don’t want to fall here. It’s deep enough that it will start to wash you downstream. It can be tough to find footing to stop yourself.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” Jack said only loud enough for himself to hear.

  Chapter 54

  Jack looked ahead to see what was in front of them. His light illuminated Jimmy’s back and more wet, dirty, brick walls and things hanging from the ceiling. The water pushed harder on his feet, making him take bigger steps than he had before. Farther up the tunnel, he illuminated a ladder running up the left wall leading to a hole about eight feet up.