The Tunnel Rats (Coronet books)

by Stephen Leather

  ‘Do you know if Nick’s uncovered anything about Horvitz over there?’

  ‘Oh Jesus,’ said Reid. ‘I was supposed to pass the details on to you. Apparently Eckhardt and Horvitz served together in Vietnam in an outfit called the Tunnel Rats. Something happened out there that they’re desperate to keep a secret. Jim Bamber’s out there with him.’

  ‘Bamber’s there? Shit, I need to talk to Nick,’ said Hunter. ‘Do you know what hotel he’s staying at? This is important.’

  ‘You can try his mobile. I got him a few days ago. It’s a GSM so it works out there, assuming it’s switched on.’

  Reid gave Hunter the number and he keyed it in, read it back to Reid, then cut the connection. He pressed the ‘send’ button and waited impatiently for it to ring, hoping that the BTP detective hadn’t got himself into trouble.

  Bamber stopped crawling. Wright thought he was about to consult his map again so he waited, concentrating on the FBI agent’s back and breathing slowly so as not to hyperventilate in the damp, sour air. Wright had to keep fighting off images of collapsing tunnels: the walls were damp and each time he rubbed against them small avalanches of red dirt spilled on to the floor. Bamber made no move to open his map case.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Wright asked.

  ‘We’ve got a problem,’ said Bamber.

  ‘What?’

  Bamber rolled to the side and pressed himself against the wall of the tunnel, allowing Wright to see ahead. The beam of Bamber’s flashlight illuminated the head and chest of Sergio Ramirez, his eyes closed, his mouth open in a silent scream. A bamboo spear was impaled through his stomach and blood seeped through his mud-stained T-shirt. One end of the spear had been thrust into the tunnel wall, locking the body into position. He had a flashlight in one hand and a knife lay on the floor in front of him.

  ‘Was it a booby trap?’ asked Wright.

  ‘No. Somebody did that to him,’ said Bamber. He crawled forward and took something that was poking out from Ramirez’s T-shirt. He handed it to Wright. It was a playing card, smeared with blood. An ace of spades.

  Wright stared at it. ‘Oh Christ,’ he whispered. ‘The killer’s down here with us.’

  Bamber bared his teeth. ‘Of course he is, Nick. What did you expect?’

  Wright stared at the FBI agent in horror. ‘You knew?’

  ‘What did you think all this was about?’ He pulled the playing card from Wright’s hand. ‘Why do you think he left the cards on the bodies? So that they’d know that he knew their secret. He wanted them to come back here, he wanted them down the tunnels so that he could kill them.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Wright. ‘Why does he want them dead?’

  Bamber threw the card on the ground. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘we have to get him out of there. It’s the only way down.’

  ‘Down? We’re going down?’

  ‘We have to follow this through to the end. Doc and Hammack are down there, and the killer will be after them.’

  Wright pointed at Ramirez. ‘Jim, whoever killed Ramirez is still up here, in the third level.’ He felt a presence behind him and jerked around, but there was nobody there.

  ‘You’re jumping at shadows,’ said Bamber. ‘And you’re wrong, Nick. My map only shows one way down to the fourth level, but there are bound to be others.’ He crawled forward and grabbed Ramirez by the shoulders. He pulled but the bamboo spear was wedged into the damp clay, preventing him from moving the body. He twisted the stick savagely to the side, ripping open the wound in Ramirez’s stomach. Greasy grey intestines spilled out.

  ‘Oh Jesus,’ whispered Wright, turning his head away.

  ‘He’s dead, Nick.’

  ‘I know he’s dead,’ said Wright. ‘That doesn’t make it any more pleasant.’ Intestinal gas bubbled out of the wound, making Wright gag.

  ‘You’re going to have to help me,’ said Bamber. ‘I can’t move him myself.’ He yanked at the spear and it snapped.

  Wright crawled over to Bamber. Together they heaved Ramirez’s body out of the hatchway. Wright prised the flashlight out of the dead man’s hand. He reached for the knife but Bamber beat him to it.

  ‘I’ll go first,’ said Bamber, nodding at the hatch. There was a gleam in his eyes that was almost manic in its intensity. He looked as if he relished the opportunity of meeting the killer face to face.

  ‘Okay,’ said Wright. He gripped the flashlight tightly and looked away as Bamber crawled over the body, his knee digging into the stomach wound with a sickening squelching sound.

  Bamber put his head down the hatch and slithered down, opening his legs wide and pressing them against the tunnel walls for leverage. The hairs on the back of Wright’s neck stood on end and he whirled around, his flashlight held high like a club. There was nobody there. He forced himself to relax.

  Bamber pulled himself back into the tunnel ‘It’s clear,’ he said. ‘Wait till I call you.’ He slid his feet through the hatchway and dropped down.

  Wright edged towards Ramirez. Slippery grey tubes slid snake-like out of the gaping belly wound and pooled in a steaming mass on the damp clay floor. Wright kept as close to the tunnel wall as possible but he couldn’t avoid contact with the entrails. He’d seen more than his fair share of bodies and had sat in on several post mortems, but seeing was one thing, physical contact with a corpse was another. He closed his eyes and crawled over it, wrinkling his nose at the smell.

  ‘Okay, Nick,’ Bamber called from below.

  Wright squatted over the hatch and lowered himself down.

  Doc and Hammack ripped the sheets of parachute silk from the walls of the chamber, gathered them up in their arms and dumped them on the floor. ‘Come on, there has to be another way out,’ muttered Doc.

  Hammack tossed a rolled-up piece of silk into the middle of the chamber. ‘What if there isn’t?’ he said.

  ‘This was the command centre,’ said Doc. ‘They’d have been crazy not to have had an escape route.’ He pulled a large sheet away from the wall, revealing damp clay underneath. Three of the walls were now bare. Other than the hiding place, the walls were perfectly flat.

  Hammack wiped his forehead with his arm. Suddenly he looked up. ‘Did you hear that?’ he asked.

  Doc stopped peeling away a piece of silk. ‘What?’

  Hammack held up his hand. ‘Listen,’ he said.

  The two men stood in silence. ‘I don’t hear anything,’ said Doc eventually.

  ‘I thought . . .’ Hammack shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I imagined it.’ He bent down and picked at a section of parachute silk, then slowly pulled at it. It came away with a sound like tearing paper.

  Doc cleared the rest of the wall, then stood back with a look of dismay on his face. The wall was flat and featureless. He frowned. ‘Impossible,’ he said. ‘No one would build a command centre with just one way in.’ He looked around the chamber. The pile of parachute silk in the centre of the room almost came up to his waist. ‘The floor,’ he said.

  ‘Give it up, Doc,’ said Hammack, squatting down, his back against the wall.

  Doc began ripping up the mats that covered the floor. There was damp, hard clay underneath. He tossed two of the mats to the side, then bent down and picked up another. A trapdoor lay underneath, the sides flush with the floor. Doc grinned triumphantly. ‘I knew it,’ he hissed.

  He used his knife to prise the hatch open. Hammack scrambled to his feet and joined Doc. The two men shone the beams of their flashlight into the darkness.

  ‘Wonder where it leads to?’ said Hammack.

  ‘There’s only one way to find out,’ said Doc, dropping down through the hatch.

  May played the rope between her fingers until she felt the bucket hit the surface of the water, some twenty feet below where she lay on the floor of the tunnel. She allowed the bucket to sink, then slowly pulled it back up. She sniffed the water cautiously, and then sipped it from the plastic bucket. It tasted fresh and clean but she drank sparingly. The Americans had spraye
d tons of Agent Orange on the ground above and it still seeped through the soil into the water. May had been to local hospitals and seen the damage the chemical was still doing to newborn babies more than a quarter of a century later.

  She put the bucket on the floor and pressed her ear against the tunnel wall so that she could hear the two Americans moving along the tunnel from the command centre. She smiled to herself. They thought they had found a way out, but they were wrong.

  Suddenly May tensed. Her forehead creased into a worried frown. She shuffled over to the other side of the tunnel and put her ear against the clay. There was someone else in the network. She listened intently. Two people. Two men. Moving into the command centre. She could hear the dull murmur of their voices, but couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  Wright ran his flashlight beam along the floor and up the walls. ‘What the hell were they doing?’ he asked.

  ‘Looking for a way out, is my guess,’ said Bamber. He nodded at the open hatchway in the floor. ‘And they found it.’

  Wright went over to the fungus-covered desk. He stopped short as he saw the open grave and the skull leering up at him. ‘Jim. Come here,’ said Wright quietly.

  The FBI agent joined Wright and shone his flashlight on the skeleton. Something glinted in the beam.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Wright.

  ‘An old playing card,’ said Bamber.

  Wright knelt down and picked it up. He showed it to Bamber. ‘The ace of spades,’ he said.

  Bamber took the card from Wright and examined it. ‘Bicycle brand,’ he said. ‘Same as in London.’

  ‘And Bangkok,’ said Wright. ‘Except this one is twenty-five years old. This is what it’s all been about,’ he said, straightening up. ‘They killed this guy. Killed him and buried him here.’ He frowned. ‘But why? And who killed Eckhardt and Horvitz?’

  Bamber went over to the hatch and looked down into the tunnel below. ‘Why don’t we catch them up and ask them?’ he said.

  Wright walked around the perimeter of the chamber, examining the walls. He stopped when he got to the alcove cut into the clay. He bent down and examined it, running his fingers along its smooth sides. He wondered what it was. A storage area maybe. He looked at the silk that had once covered the walls. The hole would have been concealed. Perhaps it was a hiding place. But for who?

  ‘Come on,’ said Bamber, swinging his legs through the hatch. ‘They can’t be far away.’

  The tunnel was only a few inches wider than Doc’s shoulders and he had to haul himself along with his arms, dragging his legs behind him. Behind him, Hammack grunted with each movement.

  ‘Bernie, are you okay?’ whispered Doc.

  Hammack laughed harshly. ‘Let’s just say that I know what a fucking sperm feels like,’ he said.

  The tunnel sloped upwards. Doc put the end of the flashlight between his teeth so that he could grip with both of his hands. He had to stretch his arms out, get as much leverage as he could with his palms and forearms, then pull himself up. The best he could manage was six inches at a time. Every muscle in his body ached and he had to strain to breathe. They’d taken off their rucksacks and tied them to their waists with lengths of string so that they could drag them along behind.

  ‘Doc, have you any idea where this tunnel leads to?’ asked Hammack.

  Doc stopped where he was and took the flashlight out of his mouth. ‘The third level, I guess,’ he said. ‘We’re heading west, so with any luck we’ll link up with a passage that we recognise.’

  ‘And if we don’t?’

  ‘Then we keep heading north and up.’

  Doc put the flashlight back in his mouth. He stretched his arms out and splayed his fingers on the tunnel floor. He gripped with his fingertips, but as he did he felt a sliver of something hard and smooth running perpendicular to the tunnel. He froze.

  ‘What’s up?’ asked Bernie from behind him.

  Doc moved his head, directing the beam of the flashlight at his hands. His neck burned with the effort of keeping his head up. All he could see was the back of his hands and the muddy floor of the tunnel. He moved his left hand slightly. He could just about make out a thin piece of bamboo set into the tunnel floor. He eased his head down and allowed the flashlight to rest on the ground.

  ‘Can you back up, Bernie?’

  ‘Oh shit,’ said Hammack. Doc heard him scrabble backwards, breathing heavily.

  ‘Don’t be too long about it, Bernie. I’m not sure how long I can keep my hands still.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I can’t see. I think I’ve tripped it already, whatever it is.’

  Doc put his forehead on the tunnel floor. His fingers felt as if they were on fire and the muscles in his arms were aching.

  Hammack stopped. ‘I’m not leaving you,’ he said.

  ‘There’s no point in both of us getting it,’ said Doc.

  ‘I’m staying.’

  ‘Do as you’re fucking told, Bernie.’

  Doc heard a rustling sound from behind him, then a grunt.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m getting the rope out of my rucksack.’

  ‘We don’t have time for this,’ said Doc. ‘I can’t hold my hands steady for much longer.’

  Doc felt rope being looped around his ankles, then tied tightly. ‘It’s about thirty feet back to the hatch,’ said Hammack. ‘That’s about how much rope I’ve got.’

  ‘Bernie, it’s going to take you at least five minutes to get back. The tunnel’s too tight.’

  ‘I’ll make it. Just hang on.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You can. If I can get to the hatch, I can pull you back. If I can get you away fast enough . . .’

  ‘It won’t work, Bernie.’

  ‘It’s worth a try.’

  Doc heard Hammack back slowly down the tunnel. Doc’s fingers were in agony. Sweat was pouring off his hands and he felt them begin to slide off the bamboo. ‘I can’t hold it,’ said Doc, his voice a hoarse whisper. His arms began to tremble and he gritted his teeth, willing the shaking to cease. For a moment he managed to get the trembling under control but then his fingers slipped and the piece of bamboo flicked upwards. He heard a click, then another, and soil cascaded down from the roof.

  His first thought was that it was a cave-in and that he’d be buried alive, but then among the soil and mud he saw shiny black creatures with claws and stinging tails. Scorpions, he realised. Deadly scorpions.

  ‘No way,’ said Wright. ‘There’s no way I’m going in there.’

  Bamber shone his flashlight down the narrow tunnel, and lowered himself through the hatch. ‘It won’t be far,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘It’s an escape route, a way to get out if there was a problem with the main entrance.’

  ‘So maybe it’s never been used,’ said Wright. ‘Maybe it’s blocked.’ He was lying on the floor of the chamber, looking down through the hatch.

  ‘That’s the way they went,’ said Bamber. ‘We have to follow them.’

  Wright shook his head. ‘It’s too narrow.’

  ‘Hammack went that way. Neither of us is bigger than him. If he can squeeze through, so can we.’

  Wright shook his head again. He backed away from the hatch. ‘I’ll go the other way, the way we came in.’

  Bamber stood up and poked his head and shoulders up through the hatch. He had his flashlight in his left hand and Ramirez’s knife in his right. For several seconds he locked eyes with Wright. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, Nick,’ he said quietly.

  The skin on the back of Wright’s neck began to tingle. He got to his feet. Bamber continued to stare at him, and Wright took a step backwards. Bamber put his elbows on either side of the hatch. He pushed himself up, his eyes fixed on Wright. Wright shivered. It reminded him of the dead stare that the snake had given him.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Wright asked.

  Bamber was halfway out whe
n he cocked his head on one side. He looked at Wright quizzically. ‘Did you hear that?’ he asked.

  Wright’s voice caught in his throat. He coughed and shook his head.

  Bamber popped back down the hatch. A few seconds later he reappeared. ‘They’re coming back,’ he whispered. He pulled himself up and moved on tiptoe to the side of the chamber. He waved Wright back. Wright flattened himself against the wall. Bamber motioned for Wright to switch off his flashlight. Wright did as he was told. Bamber’s flashlight went out a second later.

  Wright could hear the FBI agent’s shallow breathing from across the chamber, and even though the darkness was absolute he could sense Bamber staring at him. Wright shivered and held the flashlight close to his chest. Wright didn’t know what had come over Bamber, but he knew one thing for sure: when the FBI agent had emerged from the hatch with the knife in his hand, there had been murder in his eyes.

  His train of thought was interrupted by a scraping noise from the hatch. Wright held his breath. He heard whispering, then the sound of something being dragged across the ground. There was a muffled curse, then more scraping. The hatchway was suddenly filled with a warm glow, then a flashlight beam carved through the darkness of the chamber. Wright ducked as the beam sliced above his head.

  Hammack grunted and heaved himself through the hatch, then lay sprawled on the floor, gasping for breath. He rolled on to his back, his chest heaving.

  Thirty seconds later Doc’s head popped through the hatch. He was also exhausted and it took him several attempts before he managed to claw his way into the chamber. ‘Thanks, Bernie,’ he groaned. ‘If you hadn’t pulled me back . . .’

  ‘Forget it,’ said Hammack. ‘It don’t even make us close to even.’

  Wright switched his flashlight on. Doc and Hammack jerked as if they’d been stung. Hammack jumped to his feet and pulled a knife from his belt.

  ‘Easy,’ said Wright. ‘It’s me, Nick Wright.’

  Doc sat up. His face and hat were smeared with red mud. As Wright walked closer to Doc he realised that there was also blood on his face, from dozens of small scratches that crisscrossed his flesh.