Deep Black

83

The passage Dean and Lia found extended into a long, dark tunnel. They had to crouch as they ran, but the passage was clear and dry.

Dean heard the faint rumble of machinery ahead. After they had gone a hundred yards, Lia grabbed his arm to stop him; she needed to catch her breath.

“What is this, a sewer?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Where does it go?”

“Hey, you’re the one with the magic map,” said Dean. “You tell me.”

“I’m not getting anything,” she said. “The Russian jamming is cutting down on our signal strength, and down here there’s just too much interference.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying about high-tech bullshit,” Dean told her. “It’s useless when you need it most.”

“We wouldn’t have made it this far without it, cowboy.”

A flashlight beam played across the roof from the direction they’d started in. Dean pulled Lia with him, turning off the flashlight at first even though the tunnel was pitch-black. He had to turn it back on; there was no way to see otherwise.

The tunnel began running downhill and angling slightly. After they’d gone another twenty or thirty yards, Dean saw an air shaft or something ahead; light played down it. Lia ran to it, but the shaft was barely a foot square, too narrow for even her to crawl up.

“They’re close,” he hissed. He could hear their pursuers walking into the tunnel behind them.

Ten strides later, Dean nearly collided with the wall as the tunnel took a sharp turn to the right. Twenty yards beyond that, it split in two.

They went left. The machinery noises were very loud now.

Behind them, one of the men cursed. A gun fired twice and the ricochet of the bullet cracked in Dean’s ears.

“Maybe they killed each other,” said Lia.

“Yeah. And maybe we hit the lottery.”

“Door.” Lia pointed ahead. A metal door stood above a cement-block step on the wall ten feet ahead. In the middle of the door was a sign with Cyrillic letters. Lia pulled a small lock pick from her pocket and worked at the lock as two more gunshots echoed through the tunnel. They sounded louder.

“They’re panicking,” said Dean. There was light now back near the V, small flashlight beams.

Lia undid the lock and pulled the door open. Dean nearly fell backward as a rush of steam blew out into the passage.

“Come on,” said Lia, grabbing his hand and pulling him through. They were in a machinery room. The temperature had to be over a hundred degrees. The noise was deafening.

Lia pulled him along to a catwalk, then down a flight of steps. She let go at the bottom, disappearing to the right. Dean followed her into a long tiled hall, turning into an archway as she did, then stopping short on a narrow cement ledge, suddenly in the darkness.

When his eyes adjusted, he saw he was in a subway tunnel. There were lights every fifty feet or so and a flood of white maybe two hundred yards on his right.

“Come on!” yelled Lia.

Dean took two steps, then watched her jump off the ledge. His heart nearly stopped.

“It’ll be faster on the tracks,” she explained. “Come on! Come!”

Dean froze. All he could think of was horror stories about people getting run over after falling onto train tracks or frying when they touched the third rail.

“Charlie Dean, get that lovely butt of yours in gear!” yelled Lia, turning back and seeing him frozen. “Don’t be a sissy wimp.”

“Sexist pig,” he answered — but only in a mutter; he was suddenly out of breath.

Dean crouched.

Shit, if she could do it, so could he.

Unless there was a train coming.

He checked, saw nothing.

Still short of breath, Dean jumped down. He landed in a crouch and tumbled over, his face hitting something hard and cold.

It was the rail. It seemed to be humming.

Sure that a train was coming, he jumped to his feet and ran in Lia’s direction. Bullets whizzed by him — two Russians had just burst out into the tunnel.

Fortunately, they didn’t have a good angle from the ledge. By the time they got down on the tracks, Dean had reached the flood of light — a station on the outskirts of the city.

Lia had already climbed on the platform. She reached down and grabbed Dean’s hand, helping him upward as the Russians fired again.

A half-dozen people stood on the platform, their faces a study in disbelief. Lia and Dean began running toward the stairs. Then she stopped. A man in a long black raincoat appeared at the top of the steps, one hand on his ear and another in his pocket, obviously holding a gun.

“This way,” said Lia, running past the stairway along the platform.

The men who’d been in the tunnel were out now, yelling at the man on the stairs. They were all chasing, converging around the steps as Lia pushed her head down and started to run. Dean threw himself forward as well, following as she threw her hand on the stair rail and pirouetted onto the steps. He looked up to see a large blond bear throw her to the side.

Dean pitched his arm to slug the bastard, but before he could connect, the giant threw him aside, laughing as the off-balance American fell against the steps and then rolled down onto the subway platform.

Karr.

“Hang tight, Charlie Dean,” said the NSA agent, spinning around at the steps. He had his jacket, a box — there was a massive roar, the sound the metro engine might make if it exploded in the tunnel.

Two men fell off the platform.

Karr yelled something as the echo of the A-2’s gunshot dissolved into the roar of a train screeching into the station. Dean saw people backing away, then getting on the train. They looked pale as the doors closed.

“Come on,” said Karr, bolting up past them as they continued to hug the railing. He’d thrown away the jacket, giving up all pretense of hiding the A-2. “Those fuckers have radios. Come on!”

“How the hell did you know where we were?” Dean asked.

“Had the Art Room track the locators. Can’t beat the technology, Charlie. It’s what I’ve been telling you. Now if we could use it to hail a taxi, we’d be home free.”