by David Meyer
But I pressed on, passing by discarded tools, a workbench, and building supplies. It wasn’t until I reached the far end of the passage that I found something interesting.
The flashlight illuminated a couple of gouges in the wall. My heart skipped a beat. “Beverly. Come over here.”
She appeared at my side. “What’s up?”
“Take a look at this drawing.”
“My God.” Her voice became hushed. “It’s a map. A detailed map of Manhattan.”
“And it’s accurate. Right down to the block.”
She pointed at the wall. “That deep line, the one on the east side, is probably the Lexington Avenue Line. But I don’t recognize the other one that connects to it.”
I stared at the map. A single line began at the southern tip of the island and extended north to Union Square. From there, it branched out into two lines, one of which continued straight up the east side while the other one angled to the west before traveling up the west side.
“Actually, I don’t think it is the Lexington Line.” I traced my finger along the map. “It travels straight up Park Avenue. The Lexington Line, for the most part, runs to the east of this one.”
“So, the Sand Demons made a mistake.”
“The rest of the map is accurate. Why would they mess up the subway tunnels? Heck, they worked down here.”
“Well, I…”
Her voice trailed off. I stared into her face for a second, waiting for her to finish. But she just stood still.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She lifted a finger and pointed it toward the mouth of the passage. I shifted, following her lead.
Then I froze.
Something was moving south just outside the tunnel.
Something big.
Something alive.
My feet pounded against the trackbed. Simultaneously, my hand flew to my holster, yanking out my pistol. I hadn’t caught a full look at it yet, but I knew what was out there.
And I was going to kill it.
At the front of the tunnel, I vaulted over the broken concrete wall, landing on top of a pile of debris. My flashlight shifted to the flooded trackbed.
And then I saw it.
The brownish-green mass was over twelve feet long. Its body was thick and scaly. It moved in crazed fashion, twisting and thrashing about from one side of the tunnel to the next.
“Good lord,” Beverly whispered. “It’s huge.”
Adrenaline completely consumed me. All I could think about was the horror the beast had unleashed upon the city.
Upon Javier Kolen.
I aimed my gun into the darkness, trying to target its head.
“Don’t be a fool,” Beverly hissed. “If you fire that thing, Jack will hear it.”
My finger tightened around the trigger. “It needs to die.”
Suddenly, the alligator reared upward. The movement was so fast I didn’t have time to react.
Its head turned toward me and I saw its eyes. They were red as blood, yet dark as night. As I stared into them, I felt like I was looking into the soul of the devil himself.
The gator lunged at me. My instincts took over and I dove to the south. As I rolled through the water, I seized the machete from my waist with my free hand.
I rose to my feet. The gigantic alligator was just a few feet away. I backed up, trying to get some breathing room.
It followed me.
I backed up farther. It continued to follow me, gnashing its teeth in the process. Looking down, I studied the small puny objects in my hands.
I’m going to need some bigger weapons.
Suddenly, it lunged at me.
I thrust my machete at its head.
But nothing happened.
Abruptly, the alligator reared to the side. As I watched it struggle, I realized that thick ropes were wrapped around its neck and attached to long sticks. My eyes traced the sticks back to their origins and for the first time, I noticed numerous shadows in the darkness.
Chase’s guys. This just gets better and better.
But as the seconds passed, I began to doubt my initial impression. The shadows were quiet and still. They didn’t try to kill or capture me. They just seemed to watch me.
I heard frantic whispers from Beverly, imploring me to return to the relative safety of the passage. But the alligator dominated my focus.
My pistol lifted into the air.
I took careful aim.
“Stop right there.”
Startled, I turned to the side and saw a man pointing a shotgun in my direction. A thick cigar dripped from his lips, its end burning a reddish hole in the darkness.
He was a walking contradiction. He stood tall, yet hunched over. His body was strong, yet withered. He stared at me with a face that was at once both handsome and haggard. He looked a little like a former professional wrestler who’d fallen on hard times.
Very hard times.
But one look into his menacing, angry eyes told me that he wasn’t the sort of man to be overlooked.
“That thing’s a killer,” I replied angrily. “It deserves to die.”
He chewed on the cigar. “I know she’s a killer. That’s the whole point.”
“I…”
“If I were you, I’d shut up. You’ve got ten guns trained on you as we speak.”
I glanced at the shadows and then back at him. “What do you want?”
“I want you to get out of the way.”
Slowly, I maneuvered away from the man and the alligator. After reaching the passage, I climbed back over the crumbled concrete. As I joined Beverly, the other shadows started walking south through the tunnel, propelling the gator ahead of them.
The man kept his shotgun aimed at me. As the others vanished into the darkness, he slowly edged away, following their path. “Leave these tunnels now. And don’t ever come back.”
“I’m not leaving,” I replied. “Not yet. Not until I find something.”
He stopped and chomped his cigar for a moment. “I know why you’re here. And I know what you hope to find. So, let me give you a piece of advice. Stop looking. If you don’t, you’ll die.”
Chapter 43
What the hell was that? Some kind of urban alligator wrestling league?
I exhaled deeply through my nose. My body sagged and I realized that I’d been holding my breath for over a minute.
A strong whiff of smoke caught my attention. I turned it over in my mind, trying to place it. It seemed familiar yet distant.
I glanced at Beverly. “That’s definitely not something you see every day.”
“Wow,” she muttered. “I mean, wow. At first, I thought it was a trick of the light but…wow.”
I sniffed again. “Do you smell that?”
She didn’t respond. Glancing over, I saw that her head poked out of the passage with her face turned south.
“Did you hear me?”
She withdrew her head. “That’s the biggest alligator I’ve ever seen. It must’ve been…”
“Just pay attention to me for a second. Do you recognize that smell?”
“Smoke,” she said after a minute. “It’s cigar smoke.”
“My thoughts exactly. I smelled the same thing after we woke up on that island. I guess we know who kept us from drowning.”
“I wouldn’t mail your thank-you cards just yet. That is, unless you want to shower your appreciation on a bunch of murderers.”
“Murderers?”
“In case you didn’t notice, they seemed awfully familiar with that gator.”
“How does that make them murderers?”
“They don’t want to kill it. Otherwise, they would’ve already done so. Maybe it’s their pet.”
“No one keeps an alligator as a pet.”
I looked out into the main tunnel again, but the alligator and its wranglers were long gone. Why were they keeping the gator alive? Did they know about it before it started to attack people? And most importantly, where did the
y intend to take it?
Turning around, I headed for the rear of the passage. Stopping just short of the wall, I knelt down. The beam from my flashlight illuminated the carved map of Manhattan. The deeply etched lines that ran across its surface captured my attention. I traced their path, beginning in Battery Park City and extending north. At Union Square, I studied the line as it branched into two separate lines. One continued past Central Park to East Harlem while the other one veered off to the west before turning north again.
Seeing nothing, I leaned in closer and shifted my beam backward, following the lines back to Battery Park. When I reached Union Square, where the two lines joined, I noticed a bit of tiny lettering carved out beneath the space.
“Beach’s Tunnel,” I read aloud. “Beach. You don’t suppose it refers to Alfred Ely Beach?”
“Who?”
“I studied him while researching these tunnels.” I rubbed my jaw, deep in thought. “He was an inventor of some renown. In 1869, he unveiled an invention that shocked the world…New York City’s first subway tunnel.”
“You know way too much about these tunnels.”
“Maybe. Or maybe you just know too little.”
She glanced at the map. “Do the lines match his work?”
“I’m afraid not. Beach’s tunnel was short, more a curiosity than an actual means of transportation. It started on Warren Street, and curved around Broadway, eventually reaching Murray Street. All told, it ran three hundred feet with a nine foot diameter.”
“Did it use a third rail?”
I shook my head. “The tunnel was a giant pneumatic tube. A large rotary fan blew a railcar from one end to the other. Then, the fan was reversed, sucking it back to the original station.”
She smiled. “Its hard to imagine New York before subway tunnels.”
“It was a nightmare. Streetcars and carriages raced down crowded streets at reckless speeds. You can imagine the number of accidents. So, after London opened its subway in 1863, New Yorkers started clamoring for one too.”
“And Beach got the honor to build it?”
“He did it on the sly,” I replied. “Back then, Boss Tweed ruled Manhattan like a king. Beach knew Tweed would never give him a chance, especially since Tweed got kickbacks from the streetcars. So, he got a permit to build a pneumatic mail tube under Broadway. But instead of a skinny tube, he constructed one big enough to fit his subway car.”
“That’s pretty ingenious.” Beverly tied back her hair. “He probably figured that public approval would force Tweed’s hand.”
“That was his plan. People lined up around the block just to get a glimpse of it. The New York Herald called it Aladdin’s Cave, and marveled at how people could miraculously transport from one end of the tunnel to the other.”
“Tweed must’ve blown a gasket.”
“Tweed was an opportunist. He tried to capitalize on the invention. But he wasn’t Beach’s only enemy. The Astors and a whole bunch of rich folks were petrified that subway tunnels would undermine their properties. Beach didn’t stand a chance. By the time he got the political go-ahead, popular support had waned and the Panic of 1873 had dried up funding sources.”
“What happened to the tunnel?” she asked.
“Beach closed it up and it was lost for almost forty years. Transit workers rediscovered it in 1912. The tunnel and wooden train were still intact, as was the tunneling shield. Unfortunately however, the workers dismantled the whole thing.”
She sighed, frustration evident in her tone. “Good story, but a waste of time.”
I looked at the map, between the lines that represented Warren and Broadway streets. “You know, this part here looks a little like the original tunnel. As I recall, it didn’t run straight with Broadway. It was angled to the east, just like this line.”
“Who cares?”
“Beach did everything to avoid government interference.” I rubbed my jaw. “He wasn’t the type to let a bunch of politicians stand in his way.”
“I still don’t see…”
“What if Beach got frustrated with the politics and decided to expand his original tunnel, counting on public opinion to force New York’s hand?”
“Then why didn’t he ever make it public?”
I shrugged. “Maybe he ran out of funding. Maybe the project turned out to be an embarrassing boondoggle. Or maybe he worried that New York would punish him for building tunnels without permission.”
“I don’t know.” Her voice turned skeptical. “If you’re right, why was it never discovered?”
“Maybe workers just never stumbled on it. After all, if Beach expanded his original tube according to these lines, it would’ve drifted away from the modern subway system.”
“But you’re forgetting those other workers from 1912,” she countered. “If Beach built a tunnel that extended throughout Manhattan, they would’ve found it.”
“Not necessarily.” I felt a surge of excitement. “When they blasted their way into Beach’s tunnel, they could’ve triggered a cave-in that blocked any extension from view. It’s also possible that Beach left the original walls of the demonstration tunnel in place. He might’ve worked behind them to keep the extension a secret.”
“I don’t know. It seems like a long shot.”
“But you have to admit, if an extension actually exists, it would make an excellent place to hide the Omega. The chances of someone finding it by accident are slim to nothing.”
“Maybe. But it’s still a long shot.”
My flashlight caught sight of an etching on the map. It looked a lot like a microscopic X. “Some long shots are worth the risk.”
“You actually want to do this? You actually want to search for a tunnel that might not even exist?”
“I don’t want to search for it. I want to find it.
Chapter 44
Diane’s face appeared in my mind as I strode south through the Lexington Avenue tunnel. I felt guilty I wasn’t searching for her. But on a deeper level, I also felt something else.
Turmoil.
Diane served as a painful reminder of all I’d given up while trying to escape my inner demons. A part of me regretted leaving New York, leaving her. But at the same time, I wouldn’t have traded the last three years of my life for anything in the world. I’d hunted for treasure, made a few friends, and helped out many others. I knew I couldn’t leave that behind me. If only there was a way to take the good things from my former life and meld them into my new one.
But that was impossible. My two worlds were different from each other. Diane was different. Her attachment to the ideals of archaeology conflicted with my chosen profession. No amount of prodding would change that part of her.
At the Union Square platform, Beverly touched my shoulder. “What’s the closest station to Beach’s demonstration tunnel? Spring Street?”
“Canal Street’s a better approximation. We’ll start there and work our way north.”
“Not south?”
I shook my head. “The X on the map was north of Canal Street.”
“But that might represent the Omega’s final resting place. If the map is accurate, then the expansion should extend both north and south from the original tunnel.”
“Honestly, I doubt Beach built his tunnel to the south. You have to remember that he caused a massive stir with his original tunnel. The public would shrug if he merely added on a few blocks south to Battery Park. The only way to make a splash, to really raise the stakes, was to build a tunnel that dwarfed his old one. And to do that, he’d have to go north.”
“How long do you think it would’ve taken him to expand the tunnel as far as say, Union Square?”
“It took him fifty-eight days to build his original tunnel.”
She frowned. “At that pace, it would’ve taken him a year to build out six blocks. There’s no way he could’ve expanded the tunnel across Manhattan.”
“Nice try, bright eyes. Much of that time was spent building the station, the sy
stem, and the railcar. Expansion would’ve gone much faster. And anyways, he didn’t need to build the entire system to get attention. He just needed to prove underground transportation was feasible and that he was the man to do it.”
“I still say this is crazy.”
Pipes banged nearby. I strode past them before looking in Beverly’s direction. “We’re searching for a three-decade-old device that can be used to build a hydrogen bomb. We’re racing the head of a respectable PMC to find that device. Oh, and there’s a group of strange men wandering around here with a giant alligator. And you think a lost subway system is crazy?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then bear with me for a little bit. If I’m wrong, you get to say you told me so.”
“It’s a deal. By the way, as long as we’re walking in this direction, shouldn’t we look for this lost subway system of yours?”
I shot her a grin. “I’ve been looking for it ever since we started walking. Haven’t you?”
She returned my grin with a sheepish one of her own. “Uh, no.”
“Well then, less talking, more looking.”
We walked a little farther. Soon, another bellmouth appeared out of the darkness.
“Want to check it out?” she asked. “Or should I?”
“Don’t waste your time.”
“What do you mean? The other tunnel was behind a bellmouth.”
“If Beach actually built his expansion, it pre-existed this tunnel. So, we won’t find a bellmouth this time.”
“What should I look for then?”
“The Sand Demons would’ve needed a way to access Beach’s tunnel from this one. I’m guessing they created their own hole. So look for concrete that’s a different color or texture than the surrounding walls.”
Beverly turned and without another word, continued to walk south. As I followed her lead, I kept my beam focused on the east wall. I saw a couple of places where the concrete texture or color appeared to change. But upon closer inspection, these anomalies proved to be nothing more than tricks of the light.
At the Canal Street platform, I leapt off the ledge and sloshed my way through the water. After climbing up on the opposite ledge, I began to retrace my path.
