On the wall inside the door there were some industrial flashlights sitting on shelves. One of the shelves was empty, but Natalie didn’t seem to notice that when she pulled one down for each of them.
“We didn’t hook up any lighting in the halls or tunnels,” she said as she turned her flashlight on and locked the door behind them. “The cost would’ve been prohibitive, and we don’t use them that much.”
“What about the rooms you built down here?” Jon said. “What are they called again?”
“‘Belows.’ Yes, they have light and power. And cell phone signal boosters and Wi-Fi routers that are left on for when we do come down.” She shook her phone at Jon and thumbed its screen as she led them down a hallway, which Jon figured was built into the Water Wall.
“So there’s a Below near here,” Jon said.
“Uh-huh,” she said. “We’ll check it out.”
“We should be quiet,” Halladay whispered, “in case he’s in there.”
“If you insist,” Natalie whispered back.
They continued in silence down the dark hallway, which was more like a narrow tunnel, and then turned left away from the Wall into another passage that sloped downward. That one, apparently excavated by the Builders, led to a wide stairway that even an outsider like Jon recognized as part of the subway system. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, they turned right onto an abandoned train platform. As Jon swung his flashlight around, it revealed that the tracks in the tunnel below the platform were covered in water. He also noticed a bad smell and heard Halladay make a disgusted noise.
“We weren’t able to close up all the tunnels before they flooded,” Natalie whispered as she also shined her light on the small river over the edge of the platform, where the trains used to run.
At the end of the platform there was another narrow passage, obviously created by GS engineers to run parallel to the flooded subway and to provide access along it. Jon wondered why it had been less trouble to dig this tunnel rather than clear the water out of the already existing one, but he didn’t have much of a chance to think more about it, because they soon arrived in front of a closed door set into the side of the passageway. Natalie abruptly shut off her flashlight and motioned for the two cops to do the same. They could see a very thin line of yellow around the edges of the door—indicating that there was a light on inside.
Jon caught a whiff of strong perfume when Natalie moved close to him and whispered in his ear that she would go in first, in case there was a GS employee in there. Then she moved quietly over to Halladay and did the same thing. Both cops drew their sidearms, but Natalie didn’t, apparently still confident that there would be no one dangerous in the room. Instead she pulled out the underground key, opened the lock with it, stuck it back in her pocket, and pushed open the door.
As she and the cops stepped inside, a big figure was only about ten feet way, moving toward them in the middle of the room as if he had heard the door opening and was coming to greet them.
“Hello?” said Natalie.
Shinsky’s face filled with puzzlement at seeing Natalie, but then with panic as his eyes fell on the two detectives behind her. He immediately dove into the woman like he must have done in his football days, driving her back explosively into Jon and Halladay and scattering them like bowling pins back through the door and into the tunnel outside it. Shinsky simultaneously fired his handgun into Natalie’s midsection as he drove her body back, and though blood from the exit wounds sprayed onto the two cops, none of the bullets hit them.
By the time they gathered themselves and figured out that the blood on them wasn’t their own, Shinsky had disappeared into the darkness down the tunnel, in the opposite direction from which they had come. Jon located and picked up the flashlight he had dropped in the melee, and Halladay did the same for his gun, and they took off down the passage after the perp.
After about thirty feet Jon skidded to a stop, realizing that he could only see what the flashlight was shining on, and that Shinsky could easily wait for them in ambush, or even just turn around and shoot them from beyond the range of their lights. So he experimented quickly by turning the flashlight off, with Halladay following his lead, but then they couldn’t see anything ahead of them. Their prey must have had a light as well, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to see anything, either. He had probably turned a corner or was too far ahead, because there was no sign of him except a far echo of footsteps.
Jon turned the flash back on and decided to keep it pointed low so that they would be able to see Shinsky’s light ahead of them if it came into view. He was trusting his ears at this point, in the belief that the big man was fleeing ahead of them and not waiting around a corner to take them out.
There was a corner that turned to the left about a hundred feet up the passage, and Jon peered around it cautiously and shined his flashlight into the flooded subway tunnel. A makeshift bridge consisting of a long metal girder stretched over the water to the left end of a service platform on the other side of the tunnel. Shinsky had obviously crossed it, because he was now on the far right end of the platform, climbing down into what looked like a small inflatable boat.
“Police! Stop!” Jon yelled as he stepped out from behind the corner and trained both his flashlight and gun on the perp. The big man started firing wildly in his direction while continuing to situate himself in the little water craft. Jon ducked back behind the corner and heard Shinsky starting the motor, but the sound was drowned out by Halladay stepping out from behind him and firing about five rounds right next to his ear.
“Frank!” Jon shouted, batting at his partner’s arm and pulling his shoulder backward. “What are you doing?!”
“Shooting the bastard,” Halladay shouted back. “Whaddaya think I’m doing?”
“You’re too far away to ensure a wound shot, and we don’t want to kill him.”
“I do,” the bigger cop said, glancing down at the blood on his shirt.
“We need him to talk.”
Jon pointed the flashlight around the corner again just in time to see the little boat passing out of view down the flooded tunnel. He and Halladay both stepped out into the opening at the end of the bridge and shined their lights around to see if there was another craft like the one Shinsky had taken. There wasn’t, so they gave up on any pursuit and headed back down the passage to the Below, which was easy to find because the yellow light from inside the room was still shining through the open door.
They checked Natalie’s body for any signs of life and found none. Shinsky had put at least three rounds into her.
A brief inspection of the Below revealed that it had obviously been serving as Shinsky’s headquarters for the crimes he had committed during the brief stretches of daylight, and for whatever he was planning to do when Dayfall arrived. In addition to the cell booster and wireless router in the corner of the room, there was a TV hooked up to the router, a stock of food and water, a cot for sleeping, and meth paraphernalia in one of the tall lockers along the back. In another there was some clothing, including a long leather coat like the one worn by the killer they had seen on the video from the office building murders, with custom slots inside to hold an array of knives and other cutting weapons. A third locker contained the weapons themselves, an impressive collection containing everything from switchblades to bowie knives to even a couple of small axes.
“Look at this,” Halladay said from next to a small card table in the middle of the room, where Shinsky had apparently been sitting when they arrived. The big cop was flipping through a sketchbook with elaborate drawings of trees, flowers, animals, and other innocuous subjects. “He definitely ended some people, but I don’t get the impression he was into it like the killer at the office building. That one mutilated the women and threw the guy’s junk across the room.”
“Maybe the other one enjoys killing,” Jon said. “But this one is just doing his job, so he can pay for the drugs. The question is, who’s he working for?” He looked at Halladay
. “Let’s see how well the cell booster works.”
He dialed Render’s number and found the signal was good enough to reach the GS boss.
“What’d ya find out?” Render said when he picked up.
“One of the killers was using a Below as his base of operations.”
“What? Was he one of mine?”
“Apparently not,” Jon said. “An independent hiring himself out to support a meth habit.”
“Did you get him?”
“No, unfortunately he escaped, using some kind of small boat to travel in the flooded subways.”
“A dinghy,” Render said thoughtfully. “We put them down there, but they require the same key as the doors.” The older man paused for a few seconds. “And you’re not insisting that he’s working for me?”
“He didn’t know we were coming,” Jon said. “He was surprised. So you didn’t alert him, like you said you wouldn’t.”
“Damn right I didn’t, and I didn’t tell anyone else, either. Hold on a second.”
Jon heard the click of the phone as Render made another call, then came back on the line.
“Gant doesn’t know anything about this, either,” the GS boss said, “but he was pissed about me not informing him, just like I said he’d be.”
“You’ve earned some trust from me, sir,” Jon said. “But we’ll need more of your help. Is there anyone else who has access to the keys for the underground?”
“Hmmm … I’m not sure, but I think part of the deal when we secured it was that we had to give some to the Mayor’s office. That’s all I can think of right now, but I’ll check on it.”
“Thanks, and one more thing,” Jon said, after thinking a little. “I’m sorry to say that the agent you sent to meet us was killed by the perp, so you’ll have to send another to let our cleanup crew in.”
“Awww…” Render responded, swearing under his breath. “He was a good man.”
Jon hung up, noting the male reference and figuring that Natalie’s transition was a recent event. He knelt down and felt through her pockets until he found the underground key that had been used to open the door. He put the key in his own pocket and noticed again the blood from the shooting that had sprayed onto his shirt and neck, making it look like the wound below his chin had reopened. He and Halladay, who was also wearing some unwanted red, washed themselves off in the Below’s bathroom and borrowed a couple of shirts from Shinsky’s locker. The one Jon put on was obviously several sizes too big for him, but he really didn’t care at this point.
They left their stained clothing on the floor for Amira, whom Jon texted about cleaning up the scene and gleaning any further evidence from it. He also asked her to check Gunther and Carter’s bank and credit accounts for anything suspicious, because he saw on his phone that Carter had sent him a text giving permission to do so.
While he was sending these instructions to Amira, another message came through, this time from Mallory. It said:
I got a new list from my GS contact, and took a picture of it like you said. You’ll have to come here to The Office to see it, though, I don’t want to send it. And come alone.
And then another one from her:
You won’t believe whose name is on it.
18
“You need to go back to the Flatiron,” Jon told Halladay when they were in the car. “Work with Amira on that map of the underground and any chaos crimes video she can get access to. Now that we know our witness was right about Shinsky knifing people in the crowd, and we also know he’s been moving around in the underground, we can piece together how many of the deaths could have been caused by him or his buddy from the office building.”
“Where will you be?” the older cop said.
“Drop me off at The Office, so I can talk to Mallory a little. I’ll walk to the Flatiron when I’m done.”
“Without me?” Halladay said with raised eyebrows. “Is there an apartment behind that bar or something?”
Jon let that ride, because Mallory hadn’t wanted Halladay to be there, so she probably didn’t want the big Scot to know why Jon himself was going.
“You wanna tell me finally,” Halladay said after a while, “why all the focus on Render and Gotham Security? I’m figuring you had some information you didn’t share with me, and that’s how you knew what direction you were going in from the start.”
“The Mayor told me something when she hired me,” Jon said, ready for Halladay to be all in—or mostly in, at least. “She told me that Render was behind the crimes, sowing panic so that he could win the referendum vote on Tuesday. She said she knew that the two professors at NYU were on his payroll, though she couldn’t prove it. She wanted me to get the evidence to expose Render before the vote, and stop the killings before Dayfall so that people could feel safe without him.”
“Ahhh,” Halladay said. “Why didn’t the King just give me the info she had? She knows I like her, and she knows I don’t like Darth Render.”
“That’s why. She needed an outsider who could be believed, not someone who owes something to either side.”
Halladay thought for a moment, then said, “But now you’re having second thoughts…”
“Why do you say that?”
“You called him ‘sir.’”
“I was surprised that Shinsky was still there, that Render didn’t warn him off. But I’m sure there’s an explanation for that—the evidence all still points to GS. The Mayor hadn’t even thought about the underground transportation angle, which I bet you’ll find is something that ties the Dayfall murders and the chaos crimes together.”
“Makes sense to me,” Halladay said, then both men sat in silence for the last few minutes of the ride, until Jon got out at The Office and the older cop continued toward MPD headquarters a couple of blocks away.
Jon felt a surge of adrenaline as he entered the bar, knowing he was about to get some new information for the case, but also because he was going to see Mallory again. He felt even more exhilarated when those ice-blue eyes looked up at him, her full lips smiling at him, the dark wisps of hair on her forehead moving as she gestured for him to meet her in the back room. She opened the door ahead of him, and pressed against him in an embrace once they were both inside. He kissed her tenderly, forgetting completely for a few moments about the case and the threat of a coming apocalypse.
As he hugged her tighter, he moved his face to the left to nuzzle her neck, and as he did his eye was caught by the top of her one small tattoo, peeking out from beneath her shirt collar just below her right shoulder. Jon moved the edge of the shirt down with his hand so he could see the small green-and-black figure of a four-leaf clover—except it was only half of one.
“I like your ink,” he said as he studied the unusual shape. “It’s … different.”
“I went to get it when I was a teenager,” she said. “Felt pressured by my friends, and then I didn’t like some of the stuff the guy was saying when he was working on me. So I got up and left in the middle.”
“Why didn’t you ever have it finished?”
“I don’t know,” she said pensively. “I guess I like that’s it unique, and kinda represents how broken and incomplete I’ve always felt.” She seemed on the verge of tears, but then a thin smile creased her lips. “Except for with Tom.… He said that when he looked at it he saw the whole thing.”
John looked harder at the two leaves of the green-and-black clover and tried to imagine it with four, but it remained half-finished to his eyes.
“I wish I could,” he said softly, and then into her ear: “But I like it.”
“I like your beauty spots, too,” she said, putting her hand up to the wound under his chin and gently touching it with her finger. It must have been visible to her because he had been craning his head to study the tattoo.
“So you really meant that?” he asked, snapping upright again and looking into her eyes. “When you said it before?”
“I did,” she said.
Jon pulled
away from her slightly, smiling, and asked about the picture of the list. She pulled out her phone and found it, holding it out for him to see. He didn’t even have to expand the view, because there were only three items on the list. The second was “Bear,” the last was “Whoever you can at Dayfall,” and the first item on the list was “Detective Jon Phillips.”
“Hmmm,” he said. “Did you pass this on?”
“Yes, the recipient usually comes in right after. But I took the picture first like you asked.” She smiled broadly, then added, “You’re in some kind of danger, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know, but … you’re happy about that?”
“I’m happy that I can prove to you that Gotham is the good guys.” She pointed at the phone. “See, you’re on their protection list. You must have talked to Gar Render like you said you were going to, and he wants to keep you safe. Did you talk to him?”
“Yeah…” Jon said, thinking about how it did seem to fit together. Apparently this list arrived sometime after he had talked to Render about the perp using the underground, and maybe even after they’d been attacked by Shinsky.
Jon’s phone buzzed and he paused to read a text message from Amira. Her first perusal of the NYU professors’ accounts didn’t yield any connection with Gotham Security, but there was a recent $10,000 deposit in one of Dr. Carter’s accounts that she was able to trace back to the Mayor’s office. John texted back to her, “The Mayor? Are you sure?” and she answered “Yes, don’t know what that means, though.”
Jon was starting to think he knew what that meant, and he turned back to Mallory.
“So you said that they use these lists to do police work without the police knowing,” he said, and she nodded. “Do you think they also might be protecting some of these people from the police?”
“They could be. That’s why I didn’t want you to bring what’s-his-name along with you. I don’t trust him, or anybody in the existing government. That’s why we need a change of the guard, and thank God that’ll be happening on Tuesday.”
Dayfall Page 12
