Criss Cross

Chapter 42

“He’s in there!” I yelled as I jumped into the driver’s seat and fired up the car.

Sampson climbed in. “Who is?”

I tossed my phone at him. “M! Read it! He’s killing someone right now.”

Before Sampson could reply, I mashed the gas pedal down.

We slid, bounced, and threw mud before the rear tires caught the gravel road and got some traction. I spun the wheel, straightened, and slammed the car into drive.

“Where are you going?”

“The anthill,” I said, stomping harder on the gas. “He’s in there.”

“M’s in the anthill?”

“Read the text, John! He’s played his hand.”

“There’s nothing on the screen!”

I pounded the steering wheel. “Because the messages self-destruct!”

“What?”

“Wickr!” I shouted as I raced toward Rivers’s driveway. “It’s an app that Ali put on the phone. Messages vanish forever after a few seconds, but I’m telling you, M said he was murdering someone and he taunted me. He texted, ‘Where am I, Dr. C.? By a River’ — with a capital R — ‘or somewhere deep underground?’ ”

“It said that?”

“Signed M.”

“Wait, Alex! You think he knows we’re here?”

“No. No way,” I said, hitting the brakes and skidding into Rivers’s driveway.

“But what if M’s somewhere completely different?”

I shouted, “What would you rather risk, John, an innocent woman’s life or breaking a law with the best of intentions?”

He said nothing, but I glanced over and saw he wasn’t happy at all. “How are you going to explain going in there if you’ve got no proof of that message?” he asked.

“As best I can,” I said, driving past the house and parking by the excavation machinery. “Let’s go,” I said.

Sampson hesitated.

“Are you telling me you don’t believe I saw that message?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Then let’s do this, oldest friend and partner.”

“Shit,” he said, opening his door. “You don’t play fair.”

“Not when someone’s life is at stake.”

I got out, my pistol drawn and my flashlight cupped beneath the barrel.

“How many ways in and out?” Sampson said as we hurried around the bunker.

“Only one that I know of,” I said, slowing as we reached Rivers’s green Jeep.

I shone my light through the side windows, saw files on the seat and keys in the cup holder.

There was no padlock on the hatch. Sampson covered me while I turned the wheel and pulled the door open. Hearing that hum belowground again, I led the way to the staircase.

I paused, listening, but heard nothing except that hum. I’d just decided to take a step down when I thought I heard a faint wail from far below us.

“You hear that?” I whispered.

Sampson shook his head. “What?”

“Could have been a scream or a cry,” I said, and I started down with more conviction and more speed, Sampson behind me.

We stopped at the first landing but found two padlocked doors.

On the next landing down, one door was not locked, and it opened. We looked into a container car set up as a kitchen and pantry with two tables and chairs. It smelled of cat urine from a litter box by the door.

There was a second door at the far end of the galley, but we didn’t check it. I was sure that shrill sound had come from somewhere deeper in Rivers’s anthill.

The single door off the third landing opened as well. Instantly the humming sound was louder. I spotted a light switch and hit it. We were in the bunker’s power plant of battery packs and electrical motors fed by the solar arrays in the field above.

There were two other doors off the power plant, but I decided to wait to explore them, reasoning that I could not have heard the scream or whatever it was over the sound of the motors.

“I’m not liking this, Alex,” Sampson said.

“We’ll go down to the bottom, one more level, then work our way back up.”

He seemed to struggle with the idea and then shrugged. “We’ve come this far.”

“That’s my man.”

“What the hell do we do if we encounter Rivers?”

“Depends on what he’s doing and who he’s with.”

“I’m saying I don’t want to have to shoot in here. The walls are all steel.”

“Then we won’t shoot,” I said and started down again.

There were two doors off the bottom of the staircase. The one on the left opened into a container car that held an elaborate water-filtration system and pump.

As we moved to the door on the right, we heard a loud clang on the other side.

“Someone’s home,” I muttered, raising my pistol and lifting the latch.