by Sean Rodman
“We don’t need him. We don’t need anybody else.”
“What’s your problem?” said Jake. He lowered himself into an armchair. He looked absolutely cool and calm. Jake was a rock. “You worried about your money? Because I don’t want any of the take. I’m just here to back up Bex.”
“What the hell? Are you serious? You’re here for your BFF? What are you, in kindergarten?” snapped Kieran. He’d stopped pacing now. “And, no, it’s not about the money. I don’t give a crap about the money. Bex is the only one who seems to really care about that.” He spun to face me. What the hell did that mean?
“Let me break it down for you,” Kieran said. “I don’t know if you figured this out, but we’re committing a crime. You get that? We are breaking into a ‘secure facility.’ And then stealing stuff. We’re criminals. And criminals don’t invite their besties along for the ride.” He pointed a finger at me. “You and me are the entire team, end of story.”
I shook my head. “Not anymore.”
“Bex, grow up, leave your buddy here behind and join the big leagues!” Kieran said, eyes bright with anger.
Jake looked at me calmly from the armchair. It was up to me. For the first time in a long while, the decision I had to make was clear. I dropped down into the other overstuffed armchair, facing Jake.
“How about I break it down for you, Kieran?” I said. “You said you can’t get in there without me? I don’t do this without Jake. It’s that simple.” Kieran just stood there, chest heaving.
“So, you want to try this alone?” I said. “Or do you want some help?”
Kieran looked like he was about to explode, go mental on me. But he held it together and took a deep, ragged breath.
“Fine. Whatever,” he hissed. “Just get me in there.”
Kieran drove fast, slaloming between cars on the highway. The glow of the city was behind us, the dark city limits ahead. The DMA site was less than forty-five minutes away from the city center. But it felt like I was heading off the map, away from everything that I knew.
I pulled out my phone and sent a text to Asha.
I’ll make everything all right again, I texted. Promise.
I hit the Send key, then put the phone back in my jacket pocket. The rest of the ride, I waited for the vibration from the phone that might be Asha texting back. But I felt nothing.
It was a warm spring night. The full moon was bright enough for us to see, even without our headlamps. We left the car by the side of a dirt road and picked our way through the thin woods on the edge of the DMA facility. The only sound was the hollow roar of traffic on the highway in the distance.
I’d taken some maps we needed from Kieran’s laptop and dumped them onto my smartphone. The maps were pretty good, and I was able to quickly lead us to where I thought the tunnel entrance might be. Then it was a matter of hunting around to actually find them in all the bushes and undergrowth. After about an hour, I was starting to get cold. Then I heard a low whistle from Jake.
Kieran and I arrived at the same time. Jake was pulling overgrown black-berry bushes from a huge round metal grate made of thick rebar. It was set into the slope of a hill that rose gently toward the DMA facility, about half a mile away.
The metal bars of the grate were about the thickness of my finger. I clicked on my headlamp and shined it in. All I could see were the concrete sides of a tunnel, heading off into murky shadows. I flicked on my phone, activated the gps and checked the digital map on the screen.
“This would make sense,” I said. “This is it.” I saw Kieran smile in the faint moonlight. All that stopped us from lifting the grate aside was some thin wire attached to the concrete. Jake snapped that with bolt cutters. Then we all grabbed part of the grate.
“On the count of three,” I said. It was heavy, almost too heavy to move. We grunted and heaved. The grate finally flipped away from the tunnel entrance onto the ground. It made a ringing sound that quickly died away. Just the same, we turned off the head-lamps right away. I scanned the moonlit darkness around us to make sure no one heard. There was no sign of anything, just a bit of wind rustling the leaves.
We went in.
The tunnel was big enough that I could stand up and stretch out my arms, no problem. But that didn’t make it easy to travel through. The floor and walls were curved and slimy. There was a steady stream of knee-deep water running down the middle of the big concrete tube. I tried to stay to one side but kept slipping and landing in the stream, swearing at the shock of the cold water every time.
Occasionally there was a weird gust of damp wind like the tunnel was taking a deep breath. Single file, we kept marching through the tunnel in silence.
Fifteen minutes later the only thing different was that the stream was deeper, up to our waists. The water was cold, but we got used to it. The deeper it was, though, the harder it was to push against the current. To keep me going, I kept thinking about Asha. What she’d say when I gave her the money. What we could do in the summer, the places we could explore together.
We were all getting tired and cold. I wasn’t sure how much farther we could go on tonight. I was pretty sure we’d have to turn back. We hadn’t brought the right gear for something this wet. Beyond bolt cutters and a few other basic tools, we hadn’t brought anything serious.
“Kieran,” I finally said. “Kieran!” I saw his headlamp stop up ahead in the tunnel, then spin around toward me.
“What?”
“We need to go back and take another run at this tomorrow. The water’s getting deeper, we need different equipment. I’m not even sure if this tunnel is going the right way.”
“Can’t you check the map on your phone?”
“No. The GPS doesn’t work underground.”
“Hey.” Jake had slogged back toward us as well. “Did you guys see that?”
“What?” said Kieran.
“Turn off your headlamps, then look up ahead.” We did. At first, the darkness was complete. The gurgle of water around us sounded louder than ever. Then, faintly, a circle of moonlight appeared, way up ahead.
“That’s the exit to DMA!” shouted Kieran. “Let’s go!” With new energy, we splashed up the tunnel.
We were exhausted and not thinking straight. We were sloppy. So when things went wrong, we were totally unprepared for it.
It started with a slight splash up ahead, almost like a small rock dropping in the water. I didn’t think anything of it. It took me a second to realize that the light from Jake’s headlamp had disappeared.
“Jake!” I screamed. Kieran spun around to face me, then back toward where Jake had been a second ago. We both shouted his name.
But he was gone.
Chapter Nine
I shoved Kieran to one side, and surged forward along the tunnel toward where Jake had been. What the hell had happened? How could he just disappear?
Beneath the water, I felt a hand grip my ankle.
And pull me under.
Cold water pressed against me as I went down. I kicked and thrashed. But I was being pulled into some kind of underwater pit.
And then, just as quickly, I was being yanked back to the surface. Kieran had reached down and gotten hold of me. By the time my face broke the surface, I had figured out what was going on. I gulped in some air.
“Let go of me!” I said. “Jake’s down there!”
Taking a final breath, I shook off Kieran and sank down again into the pit. It must have been some kind of drain tube, heading vertically down from the main tunnel. There was a small but steady current pulling at me as I dropped down four or five feet. When I hit bottom, I thrashed around. I could feel pieces of garbage, scraps of metal and torn up coils of wire. Then I connected with Jake’s leg.
It was wrapped up in some of the wire. The more he kicked and tried to free himself, more entangled he became. But I could tell that his movements were getting weaker. I wasn’t sure how long he’d been underwater, but it felt like forever. I had to get him back up to the surfa
ce. Now.
Fumbling around in the cold water, I reached into the pocket of my cargo pants for a wire cutter. I got it out, then pointed it down around his leg. I cut blindly, hoping I wasn’t connecting with any flesh by accident. A couple of snaps, and Jake was freed of the wire. He started floating toward the surface. I pushed off from the bottom, trying to get us both up as fast as possible.
We broke the surface at the same time. Kieran helped me up, and together we half-dragged, half-floated Jake back down the tunnel toward the entrance. Jake was conscious. Coughing up water. But he was breathing.
It wasn’t until we reached the tunnel entrance that I realized how badly Jake was bleeding. There were still pieces of wire wrapped around his leg. It was a bloody mess of torn jeans and steel. Like I’ve said before, I’m brave but I can’t handle gross. I panicked.
“Stop,” I said. “I’m going to call for an ambulance.”
“No!” said Kieran. He looked at me across Jake’s body. “You want to explain to the cops what we’re doing here?” We kept going toward the car, Jake stumbling between us through the dry leaves of the woods. When we finally got there, we put Jake in the backseat. The bleeding seemed to be slowing down. I wrapped the leg in an old blanket, then put my jacket over Jake. He was shivering from the cold. Maybe from shock. I got in the front passenger seat. Kieran opened the driver’s-side door but then stopped.
“We need to go back,” said Kieran.
“What? Into the tunnel? Are you crazy? We need to get Jake to a hospital!” I said.
“Just back to the tunnel entrance. We left the grate off of the tunnel. Someone could figure out that we’ve been in there. Blow the whole thing,” said Kieran. He was calm and focused. How could he not be freaking out?
“That is not the most important thing right now. Jake is hurt-don’t you get it?”
Kieran didn’t move.
“Get in the car,” I said, “or I call the cops right now.”
Chapter Ten
“You wouldn’t. The Boy Scout would go to jail?” Kieran sneered.
“Try me,” I said.
We stared at each other. Then Kieran swore and got into the driver’s seat. We peeled out of there. Within a few minutes we were on the highway. But when the car hit the bridge overpass, I realized that Kieran had driven past the exit to the hospital.
“What the hell?” I said.
“We’re not risking the plan. We’ll bring him to my house and clean him up. My dad’s away on a business trip.” Kieran stared straight ahead at the road sliding by.
“What if he needs a doctor?”
“Bex,” Jake croaked from the back-seat. “I’m all right. Your friend is a psycho, but I’ll be fine. No hospital.”
I turned to see Jake, pale and shivering in the backseat. But he tried to smile at me.
“This is going to be hard enough to explain to my parents. No doctors,” he said.
By the time we reached Kieran’s house, Jake seemed a little better. He said his leg hurt, but otherwise he seemed okay. We cleaned him up in the bathroom, covering the white tiles with mud and bloody scraps of his jeans. The wounds weren’t too bad, once we could get a good look at them. His leg had gotten pretty scratched up, but none of the cuts were too deep. There’d been a lot of blood, and the jeans were trashed. But no serious injury that I could see. Jake didn’t speak much the entire time we fixed him up.
Later, Kieran dropped us off at Jake’s house. Jake went ahead to unlock the back door so we could sneak in. Kieran waited until he was out of earshot.
“Next week. We go in on Saturday night. Without Jake.” I just shrugged. I didn’t want Jake to get hurt again. Kieran nodded, got in his car and rolled off down the street.
The next morning it took some serious fast-talking to convince Jake’s parents that his trashed jeans and new wounds weren’t a big deal. We made up a pretty good story about climbing a fence to recover a ball during a pickup soccer game. Jake seemed to think that they bought it. I was just glad Jake was still covering for me.
The next week at school, I avoided Kieran. I think he assumed that I was still on board. That he’d been proven right about Jake. I wasn’t so sure. Jake and I talked about it several times, and Jake was pretty clear where he stood.
“It’s not worth it,” Jake said. We were in the courtyard at school, tossing a basketball around over lunch. Playing ball with Jake was always a pretty even contest. He had height. I had speed.
“I know,” I said. “But how else do I get Asha back?” Jake slipped around my defense and dunked. He turned back to me, panting.
“You kidding me? I told you before, the money won’t change anything. You need to talk to her, man,” he said. That wasn’t going to happen. Asha hadn’t even looked at me this week at school. I didn’t have a way in with her. No matter what Jake said, I was still certain that I needed the money to end this argument between us. Her only real reason for leaving was that she needed to cover tuition next year at university. I’d take care of that for her. All of our problems would be solved.
“Bex?” said Jake. “You’re spacing out on me.” He tossed the ball to me.
“I’ve got stuff on my mind.”
“Listen, I get it. And, like I said, I’ve always got your back. So you do this thing with Kieran, you tell me when and where and I’ll be there.” I couldn’t shake the memory of Jake underwater, his movements getting weaker in the cold dark water. I made my decision.
“I’m not going to do it,” I said. Jake gave me a big wide smile and practically hugged me. It was only long after our game had finished and I was walking home that I fully realized what I was doing. I’d just lied to my best friend. Even if it was to protect him from getting hurt again, I’d crossed a line. And I wasn’t sure where I’d end up.
The week blurred by. Saturday afternoon, I was back on the bus out to Kieran’s house again. We’d agreed that the two of us would meet up at his place, pack up our gear, then sneak out to the site around midnight.
“Are you sure we need all this stuff?” said Kieran. He was looking over the pile of gear spread across his bedroom floor. I was cross-legged in the middle of it all, sorting.
“We want to do this right, we come prepared.” That said, I probably was over-compensating for our disaster last time by going heavy on the equipment. There was a full climbing setup, with a long length of black climbing rope, carabiners, belay devices and two harnesses. I’d dug up a collapsible hiking pole from our garage-might come in handy finding that pit in the tunnel again. There was my pair of bolt cutters, and smaller wire cutter. We each had a full set of dry clothes for when we came out the other end of the tunnel. Then we each threw in some extra personal stuff too. Kieran put in four steel bottles filled with energy drink and a bunch of energy bars. I added a can of bear spray from my hiking gear, hoping I’d never have to use it on anything. Or anyone.
For me, the most important piece of gear was also the smallest-my phone. I’d copied every map, satellite image and picture I could find on Kieran’s laptop- and some extra stuff I’d pulled off the Internet. The phone would help guide us through the site once we emerged from the tunnel. While I had worked out how to get through the tunnel and under the fence, I still didn’t know exactly what we’d do on the inside to get into the warehouse.
Everything went into two black nylon backpacks. Then, there was just the waiting. We’d decided to go in after midnight. But by 10:30 we were both hyped on coffee and nerves.
“Screw it,” said Kieran. “Let’s do this now.” Then we were in the car and outbound from the city, lights blurring by.
Chapter Eleven
The tunnel went quickly, now that we knew what to look out for. I used the collapsible pole to poke ahead of us until we hit the drain tube that had caught Jake. Kieran was a strong swimmer, so he went first. He fought his way up the tunnel against the current, holding one end of the climbing rope. When he’d gotten far enough, he got his footing again, then held the rope while I
pulled myself over the drain tube.
Kieran had barely said a word since we’d left his house. The entire way up he seemed jumpy, constantly checking the rearview mirror. It was like he kept seeing something that I wasn’t, or hearing noises that weren’t there. I was worried about those pills he was taking. He’d popped some on the drive up here. They couldn’t be helping the situation.
Eventually we reached the end of the tunnel. We were too tired to celebrate. At this end of the tunnel, there was a metal grate similar to the one covering the entrance. But this grate was attached to the concrete with hinges on one side, and a padlock on the other. I pulled out my bolt cutters and snapped it off. With a strong push, the grate swung open. We were in.
We were underneath the engine testing platform, hidden from sight by some high walls protecting the tunnel entrance. The platform was awesome in the moon-light, a towering framework of rusted metal and concrete soaring three stories up. It was clearly old and abandoned, overgrown with bushes. There was crumbled concrete scattered all around. I paused for a moment, imagining a rocket engine strapped to that thing, flames gushing down over where we stood, funneling down the tunnel we had just come up. The black-and-white photos I’d looked at when I’d been researching this place didn’t do it justice. I thought about taking some pictures to post on the Citycrawler website. Nobody would believe that I’d gotten in. Then I realized that I didn’t want any evidence of what were doing.
“C’mon,” said Kieran. “Enough sightseeing.” He was right. We pulled dry clothes out of the garbage bags in our backpacks. We both dressed the same, in dark hoodies, black cargo pants, black boots. Then we carefully closed up the metal grate, placing the broken padlock back together so no one would suspect a thing.
I got a bearing using the gps and the map on my smartphone. I pointed in the direction we needed to go. Silently, Kieran and I ran across the facility grounds. We stuck to the shadows, clinging to the sides of big dark buildings. In the distance, I could see lights glowing in a few places. It felt like we were creeping through a strange city during a power outage.
