Legacies

15.

"Why'd you open them?" Alicia said as Jack pulled the string to close the blind.

"Wanted to make sure they know we're here." He stepped back from the window and shook his head. "They're carrying assault pistols. Looks like they mean to do some serious harm."

Alicia's intestines writhed into a painful knot. Men with guns… looking for her… how did she ever come to this?

"You mean they're going to kill us?" Alicia said.

"That's about the only thing Tec-9's are good for," Jack said. "Close-range annihilation." He gave her a quick smile. "But not you. Killing you is the last thing they want to do."

Alicia noticed that he'd left the obvious unsaid: Killing Jack would be the first thing on their list.

Will Matthews, where are you when I need you?

"Call the police," she said, suddenly frantic. She didn't want Jack to join the other three men she'd involved in this. "Maybe if they know the police are coming—"

"That guy who climbed the pole fixed that. And even if he hadn't, the cops couldn't get here in time. And even if they could, we wouldn't call them."

He strode across the living room into the small connecting dining room. Alicia followed.

"Look, Jack. I know you have a thing about the police, but there are a dozen armed men—"

"Eight," he said as he knelt by a dusty, scratched sideboard and pulled it away from the wall. "And one of them isn't armed—or at least isn't showing it."

On the wall behind the sideboard was what appeared to be a security system keypad. Jack began punching in a code.

"All right, eight" she said, her fear and frustration rising. "Whatever the number, there's a small army out there and just you and me in here. And what are you doing? Setting an alarm? We don't need an alarm, we need help!"

"No," he said. "We need out. And that's where we're gonna get." He pushed the sideboard back against the wall and headed toward the kitchen. He motioned her to follow. "Let's go."

He led her through the kitchen without turning on a light. A quick left past the refrigerator to a dark open doorway.

"This way to the basement," he said. "The handrail is on the right. Soon as you close that door behind you, I'll turn on the light."

The basement was partially finished—half-paneled, half-bare cinder blocks. Jack crossed the littered floor to a section of paneling, poked his finger over the top, then pulled. The section swung away from the wall on hinges. Behind it, a circular opening, four feet across, gaped in the block.

"What on earth?" Alicia said.

"Not on," Jack said, "in the earth."

"A bomb shelter?" The thought of being sealed up in that dark hole, crouching and cowering while men with machine guns searched for her was too much. "Oh, no. I don't think I can."

"It's a tunnel." She sensed from his tone that his patience might be wearing a little thin. "It'll take us to the field across the street. Come on. We don't have much time."

He handed her a flashlight, and motioned her to go first. Taking a breath, she ducked inside and crawled in a few feet. She found herself in a ribbed tube of galvanized metal; cold, but surprisingly clean. Jack came in after her, pulling the wall closed behind him. She turned on the flashlight as darkness engulfed them.

"Shine that over here a sec," he said.

He set some sort of latch on the panel section, then wriggled past her. He took the flashlight and began crawling down the tunnel.

"This way."

"Do I have a choice?" she said, wondering where and when this night would end.