Night Watch

FIFTY-THREE

The temperature dropped the minute we crossed the threshold into the subterranean shelter. Outside it had been a warm, sunny April afternoon, but once the steel door closed behind us, the fifty-five-degree temperature-and the sudden injection of fear-had me shivering uncontrollably.

Peter Danton kept a firm grip on my neck as he moved me forward. There was a single corridor-a long, gray cement floor lined with cases and cases of wine, stacked floor to ceiling. Overhead, the long fluorescent lights cast an eerie glow in the windowless space.

I could hear voices in the distance. I thought about screaming, but there was no point in creating chaos without an understanding of what had gone on. I knew that Mike had a gun, and it didn’t appear that Peter Danton did.

Every ten cases or so, an alley had been created between the cartons, each ending against a solid concrete wall. I looked from side to side but saw no one.

I paused to catch my breath and rub my hands together. The boxes stacked on my right side were different than the wine cases. They were brown cardboard, labeled ENERGY LIFE PACK, which seemed ironic at the moment. The date stamp said 1960, and they had obviously been sealed for more than fifty years. In small print below that was a list of uses: ATOMIC WARFARE/BACTERIA WARFARE/HURRICANES/EARTHQUAKES. I wondered if their contents would be of any help today to interlopers buried alive in an out-of-date bomb shelter.

“Is that you, Peter?” Josh Hanson called out. “You back?”

“Yeah. Is there a problem?”

“Nah. Mike here is asking questions I just can’t answer.”

I bit my lip as Danton dragged me along beside him.

“What is it you don’t understand, Detective?” Danton asked.

We were coming to the end of the corridor, and I could tell from the direction of Josh’s voice that the others were around the corner to the left.

The bunker seemed almost like a labyrinth-a small maze with a low ceiling and no natural light, and no exit at the end of any of the rows. The tight, cold space was a claustrophobe’s nightmare. It seemed airless, too, because the chilly temperature made it harder to breathe. I closed my eyes to try to concentrate on a way to safely talk us all out of this disaster.

“I’m just trying to learn about all these vintages-what makes them valuable and that kind of thing.”

Mike was the first person I saw when we turned the last corner. He was ten feet away from me, holding a bottle of wine from the long rows of shelves on which the bottles had been stacked after being removed from their cases.

Although Peter Danton had let go of my neck, Mike clearly got a look at the panicked expression on my face.

“Coop-what-?”

There was a long table tucked into the far corner behind Mike, where Luc and Josh had been seated with Jim Mulroy. Luc got to his feet immediately and called out my name.

“I’m fine,” I said, holding out both hands in front of me and urging both Mike and Luc to stay calm.

“Alex was afraid she was missing out on something tasty,” Danton said. “Aren’t you guys still drinking?”

There were several open bottles of red wine-and four half-filled wineglasses-on the table at which they’d been sitting before Danton came back out and found me.

Mike started toward me as Luc tried to catch up with him.

“I’m fine!” I shouted, far too loud to be convincing as my voice echoed off the ceiling and wall.

At the same moment, Danton yoked me with his right arm, dragging me back and reaching out with his left toward a crack between the metal racks of the last row of wine bottles.

Before Mike could reach me, Peter Danton dropped his hand from my neck and lifted a double-barreled shotgun, pointing it directly at the three startled men who were facing us.