Synbat

Chapter 21

Riley took the portable phone from Lewis's hand. "Yeah?"

"We got something." Giannini's voice was calm.

"What?"

"A cable company crew is missing."

"Missing?"

"They were supposed to be in by six last night. They didn't show up. Two men."

"Where were they?"

"One of our units found the van — no sign of the crew. Indiana and Cullerton. Near where we were yesterday. We'll go there. Be at my office in fifteen minutes."

Riley hung up. Lewis was hovering nearby. "What's going on?"

Riley took a second to collect his thoughts. He remembered the van outside the deli yesterday and the pieces fell into place. "They're underground."

"What?" Lewis asked, confused.

"The Synbats are underground," Riley repeated, slamming the 14-round magazine into his pistol and sliding it into his shoulder holster. "We're going to need night vision goggles. Thermals probably won't be worth much down there. I'm going to check it out. I'll give you a call to bring in the rest of my team if it looks like a good lead." He turned to Merrit. "You ready?"

"Yes."

Riley wasn't too sure of that. Merrit looked exhausted, her face drawn from lack of sleep. He was used to working with people on the edge of physical exhaustion but there was something in Merrit's manner that worried him. Whatever was draining her went beyond the physical.

As they walked out of the building, Riley turned to Merrit. "How good is the Synbats' night vision?"

"Good," Merrit replied.

"Good?" Riley repeated, grabbing her arm. "Ward said they were day creatures. What exactly does good mean?"

"About three times better than human," Merrit answered, looking down at Riley's fingers pressed into her arm.

"Great," Riley said, releasing his grip. "Just great."

Giannini pointed at the open manhole with a portable work railing around it. "The shift chief says they were supposed to be down there laying cable. Should've been back in by six last night. We got the call early this morning." She turned to the vehicle parked nearby. "No sign of foul play. The van was unlocked and their tool belts are missing."

"Anybody been down there yet?" Riley asked.

Giannini shook her head. "No. The shift chief wanted to go look but I sent him home. I figured I'd give you the honors."

Riley got on his knees and stuck his head in. "What's down there?"

Giannini shrugged. "Sewers, I guess."

All Riley could see was a metal ladder descending into a dark shaft. "Let me borrow your flashlight."

Giannini went to her car and returned with a large four D-cell light. Riley turned it on and pointed it into the manhole. The ladder continued for about thirty feet and ended on a dirty concrete floor. There was no sign of the cable crew.

Riley looked at Merrit. "What do you think?"

Her eyes were fixed on the dark hole. "It makes sense. It's a perfect place for them to hide. They can stay down there during the day and come out at night to forage for food. They can also travel underground without being noticed."

Riley swung his legs over the edge and put his feet on the rungs.

"What're you doing?" Giannini asked.

"I'm going to take a look."

"Alone?"

"You can come," Riley replied.

Giannini sighed. "All right. You go first."

"I want to go," Merrit said suddenly.

Riley looked at her briefly. "Not right now. We're just going to check it out. If we spot anything we're going to have to call in some help."

"You need me to deal with the Synbats," Merrit insisted.

Riley tapped the pistol in his shoulder holster. "I can deal with them. You wait here."

Riley clambered down the ladder, the echo of his movements bouncing off the walls. He reached bottom and looked around. A tunnel, about eight feet high by four feet wide, extended off in two directions. The walls were pitted concrete. Giannini came down next to him and peered about. "They could be a long ways from here."

"Yeah." Riley pointed at the bands of cable stretching along one wall. "But the two men must have been working somewhere close by. If the Synbats attacked them, we should see some sort of sign."

Riley's pistol was in his hand and Giannini pulled out her own. He played the light on the floor, which was covered with patches of mud. "There," he said. Two sets of footprints moved off to the left. "Let's go."

Riley led, feet squishing into the black ooze. The glow of the flashlight preceded them by only ten feet, leaving the rest of the tunnel in darkness. Something glinted up ahead, and Riley focused both pistol and light on it.

"What is it?" Giannini hissed.

Riley moved forward, pistol at the ready. A work helmet with the cable company logo lay on the floor along with a wrench. Riley played the light around, checking out the area. He stopped in shock. "Jesus Christ!" he muttered. "You don't want to see this," he said to Giannini as she stepped up next to him.

She pushed forward. "What?" When she saw what he had found, she froze, then took several deep breaths to get herself under control. What remained of the two workers was little more than two severed heads and a pile of intestines and bones. Their slashed uniforms were stuffed behind the two heads, which stared with unseeing eyes, the faces fixed forever in an expression of terror.

"What did those things do to them?" Giannini demanded.

"The Synbats killed them and then butchered them for the meat." Riley moved the flashlight to the left. The familiar tracks of the Synbats showed clearly in the mud, along with four straight lines that disappeared down the tunnel.

"Those are the Synbats' tracks." Riley squatted down. "The straight lines must be the shopping cart. Two men — two sets of marks. They killed the two men, cut them up, then loaded up the shopping cart. They had to make two trips to get it all."

"Goddamn," Giannini muttered, her eyes riveted on the remains. "Goddamn."

"Let's get back up top," Riley said, grabbing her arm. "We need more firepower before we go down that tunnel."

Giannini had the street cordoned off, and Riley's men were crowded in the back of the large truck parked next to the manhole. Merrit stood alongside Riley as he briefed the team.

"We've got a definite set of tracks. Trovinsky, I want you up front with me. We'll all wear night vision goggles. Strict noise and light discipline: I want to kill them, not scare them off. Remember — they're armed."

Riley pulled a small foil-wrapped object from his pocket. "We're going to mark our route and each other using IR chem lights." He cracked the package and pulled out the light stick, which in the dim light of the truck showed nothing. Using the night vision goggles, though, the chem light would show up brightly. Riley looped a piece of cord through the hole at the end of the chem light and slung it over his back. The rest of his team did the same. "That will mark you from behind. Make sure you turn on the IR light on your NVGs. That will mark you from the front. I want everyone to stay tight. You see the Synbats, shoot to kill. We've got to get all three adults. Any questions?"

There were none. Riley pointed at Merrit. "You stay right behind me." He looked out the back of the van and saw Giannini leaning against her car, out of earshot. She had been shunted aside by the colonel upon his arrival, and had not taken it very well. "Let's do it." Riley hopped off the back of the truck and headed for the manhole.

At the bottom of the ladder, Riley waited while the other seven members of his team and Merrit climbed down. Earlier Lewis's men had removed the remains of the two cable company men in body bags.

As the team gathered round, Doc Seay tugged on Riley's sleeve. "What do you think?"

"About what?" Riley asked.

"Are we going to get them all?"

Riley peered down the tunnel. "We'd damn well better."

Riley looked around — everyone was in place. Trovinsky quickly led the way down the tunnel, following the twin set of wheel tracks. Riley followed right behind, feeling hemmed in and vulnerable. Their numerical advantage — just a little more than two to one — wasn't going to help much in these tight quarters. Technology wasn't going to be much of an advantage either. They had the goggles, but if Merrit's information was correct about the Synbats' ability to see in the dark, then the goggles were more of an equalizer than an advantage.

The tunnel curved to the right and Riley splashed through the thin layer of mud, eyes on Trovinsky's back. The point man's head was down, watching the tracks. Despite their best attempts to keep quiet, the noise of the team moving through the tunnel was easily audible. They came to the first junction — a tunnel cutting at right angles across their front. The tracks turned left. Riley cracked an IR chem light and left it at the intersection, marking the way back.

Something glinted in his goggles directly ahead. Riley tapped Trovinsky on the back, halting him. "Cover me," he whispered.

Trovinsky moved over to the far right side and knelt on the scum-covered floor, ignoring the goo that soaked through his pants. The rest of the team spread out and waited. Rifle at the ready, Riley advanced. The object slowly took form in his goggles — the missing shopping cart. He halted briefly and carefully checked out the area. The tunnel continued on as far as he could see. Near the cart was what appeared to be a crack in the wall, about two feet wide and starting two feet up, extending to the ceiling.

Riley stepped next to the cart; the metal on the bottom gave off a sheen of dried blood. He stopped and listened carefully for about thirty seconds. The only sound was the nervous movements of the members of his team behind him. He leaned forward and, weapon first, peered into the crack. It widened to about a yard and went straight down twenty feet. There were no rungs on the sheer concrete wall. The bottom was another concrete floor, in a small alcove that appeared to open off to the left. No sign of the Synbats.

Riley turned and gestured with one hand. Doc Seay shrugged off the small daypack he was wearing, pulled out two lengths of rope, and came forward, handing them over. Taking the shorter, twelve-foot length, Riley quickly fashioned a field-expedient Swiss seat, wrapping it around his legs and waist. He unclipped a snap link from his combat vest and looped it through the rope at the front of his waist.

Riley then tied off the longer rope to the bottom rail of the shopping cart and wedged the cart lengthwise against the opening. Stepping over the cart, he clipped the long rope into the snap link on his Swiss seat, looping it once around the metal. He leaned back, one hand holding the long rope tight against his chest, the other holding his M16. With a nod to Seay, he pushed his hand away from his chest and descended in short bounds, reaching the bottom in a few seconds.

Riley quickly knelt at the bottom and scanned. He was in a small chamber, about five feet around, with an opening directly in front of him. There was no sign of the Synbats other than some dark spots on the dirty concrete floor, which Riley surmised were blood. Pulling the end of the long rope free of his snap link, he edged forward and looked through the opening. Another tunnel stretched off to either side. It was in a horseshoe shape about seven and a half feet high by six feet wide. On the far side, large conduits and cables, held in place by metal stanchions, ran the length of the tunnel. The walls were made of crumbling concrete and the floor was concrete, occasionally covered with damp dirt. A smell of decay was faintly noticeable in the air.

Riley edged out into the tunnel and checked the ground. He couldn't see any Synbat tracks. One thing he could tell for sure: This tunnel was not part of a sewer system. There were two small rails on the floor about two feet apart, as if some sort of small train system once ran down here.

After a few moments, Riley turned back into the opening and slung the M16 over his shoulder. He took hold of the rope with both hands and, clinching with his feet, pulled himself back up to an anxious Doc Seay.

"What do you have?" Seay whispered.

"Another tunnel," Riley answered in a normal voice. "I don't know how far it extends, but it seems to go quite a ways. I couldn't spot any tracks. Before we go any farther, though, I think we need a map of this tunnel system. We're wandering around in the dark, and that's to the Synbats' advantage." Riley pulled up the rope and untied and recoiled it.

"Let's get back to the surface."

The back of the large van was now Lewis's field headquarters. Radios covered most of one of the walls and a small table occupied the center. Around the table stood the colonel, Riley, Merrit, and Giannini, peering at a set of old blueprints.

"Your suspects," Giannini said, giving Riley a small look, "are in an old set of tunnels that were once used as a freight system." She tapped the blueprints. "I got these from the Board of Underground in the City Transportation Department, but all they show is the sewer system and the subways. The system you went into is below those."

"You don't have plans for these freight tunnels?" Lewis asked incredulously.

In reply, Giannini flipped open her notepad. "I talked to this old guy at the Board of Underground for an hour after you all asked me to check on this. He told me there are no plans on record for those tunnels."

"Well, how far do they go?" Riley asked.

Giannini flipped a page. "When they were first built, they stretched under the city for a little over fifty-nine miles."

"What?" Riley exploded. "Fifty-nine miles!"

Giannini nodded. "I couldn't believe it either. Let me give you a summary of what this guy told me." She flipped back a few more pages. "All right. Let's see. Construction on these tunnels began back in 1898 and they were opened in 1904. They were originally built to carry coal to buildings downtown and reduce congestion in the streets. Apparently the soil down there is some sort of blue clay that's real easy to dig through. They'd have shifts working all night digging out the tunnels and then the day crew would pour concrete to make the walls."

She glanced up. "Here's something interesting. Did you ever read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair?"

Lewis shook his head irritably and Riley just waited. He knew Giannini was pushing the colonel.

"Well, the main character in the book, Jurgis Rudkus, worked as a digger in these same tunnels." She shook her head. "It's funny, I've read the book, but I never thought those tunnels actually existed. Anyway, the last tunnel was built in 1954 for the Prudential Building, but it was never used. The system was shut down in '59. That was the year the Chicago Tunnel Company — the people who built and ran the tunnels — went bankrupt."

"Can we try and find some records from that company?" Riley asked.

"Nope. I asked."

"Who's responsible for the tunnels now?"

Giannini gave a weary smile. "The city. Who else?"

Riley sank down into a folding chair. "Does anyone have any idea where they go?"

Giannini pulled off the top blueprint and displayed a street map. "No one knows the full extent of them. Over the years, parts of the system have been blocked off or destroyed. When they built the subways, they cut through some of the freight tunnel system, especially when they built the State and Dearborn Street subway."

Riley looked at the map. "That's just north of here. You say these tunnels served downtown. Do you have any idea how far they extend in that direction?"

Giannini's finger made a loose circle, enclosing not only the Loop formed by the Chicago River and Lake Michigan, but crossing the river both to the north and west. "They're not only here in the Loop but they go under the river too."

"Does anyone use these freight tunnels?" Merrit asked.

"Yeah," Giannini said. "The city leases some of them to Edison, the power company, and to some cable companies, but they only use a very small portion — a couple of miles at most."

"So we have about sixty miles of tunnels down there where the suspects could be hiding," Riley summarized. "And we have no map of the system, so we have to go in blind and just wander around, hoping we run into them."

Merrit pointed at the map. "They stole the cart here, to the south. The cable crew was missing here, and as far as you can tell, you went almost a half mile in the sewer before you reached the point where they descended to the freight tunnel. I'd say that their hiding place is very far removed from where they go up to the surface."

"Detective," Lewis asked, "do you have any more information on the tunnels that might be of use?"

Giannini looked at her notebook. "Just some odds and ends. There are openings from the tunnels directly into the subbasements of many buildings — that way the coal could be run directly into the buildings. Almost all of those openings have been closed off; as a matter of fact, this old man told me that many of the owners of buildings in the Loop don't even know they were connected to this system or that it even exists." She shrugged. "That's about all I have."

"Thank you," Lewis said. "We'll contact you if we need anything else."

Giannini left without another word, glancing at Riley on the way out.

Lewis faced Riley. "Any ideas?"

"We need more people, sir. We've got more than fifty miles of tunnels to look through. That's going to take awhile."

"The Synbats might not even be in the tunnels themselves," Merrit noted. "They simply might be using them as their road system and actually be hiding in the basement of some building. I'm sure they've found a relatively isolated place to set up their base to take care of the young."

"All we can hope for," Riley said, "is to find some tracks and get lucky."

Lewis sighed. "All right. I'll call General Trollers and try to get some more people up here. Meanwhile, you start from where we know the Synbats were last and work your way north toward downtown."

"I've got tracks!" Trovinsky hissed, his low voice echoing off the concrete walls.

Riley moved up next to him and looked down at the thin layer of mud that covered this part of the floor. Two distinctive pad prints showed up clearly, heading down the freight tunnel.

"All right," Riley said. "Let's go that way."

He'd split his team in half, taking Trovinsky, Caruso, and Carter to the left and sending Doc Seay with three men to the right. The two four-man teams would break down once more to two-man teams when each hit the next intersection. Riley told Seay not to break down below two men, and even at that level he felt uncomfortable facing the Synbats. The FM radios would not work in the tunnels, so they had to rely on IR chem lights to mark their trail. Riley's greatest fear was that one of his teams would be attacked and he might not even know it.

The tunnel rose slightly and Trovinsky paused as the mud disappeared from the concrete floor. He pushed onto the next section of mud and then halted. "They're gone."

Riley looked over his shoulder. The mud was undisturbed. "We didn't pass any turnoffs. How can they be gone?"

Trovinsky looked about. "Remember when they took to the trees back at the Land Between the Lakes?"

Riley nodded.

Trovinsky pointed at the large tubes holding power and cable lines that were bolted to the side wall. "I bet you they're going along those."

"Shit," Riley muttered. "All right, let's keep moving. If they didn't double back on us, they've got to be ahead somewhere."

Doc Seay paused and signaled for his men to take a break. They'd been moving for more than three hours and had covered about three miles of tunnels. They'd spotted Synbat tracks once — the faintest impression in an isolated patch of dirt — but only once. They'd already passed sixteen side tunnels, but Seay had kept his party intact and on a straight course, due north by his compass. Looking at his map in the infrared glow of his goggles, he estimated that they were directly underneath the Loop and close to the river. For all he knew, they might have even gone under the river; it was hard to tell down here.

As Seay was contemplating his location, Bob Philips suddenly hissed for his attention. "Listen," he said, pointing to the next intersection.

Seay cocked his head, ears straining. At first he heard nothing, but then he slowly became aware of an intermittent, very low clicking sound bouncing off the walls — something striking the concrete floor. With hand and arm gestures, he indicated for his team to take defensive positions, oriented toward the intersection ten feet away.

The noise suddenly stopped. Seay held his breath and then the noise started up, louder and quicker this time, but heading away. Seay sprinted to the intersection and caught a brief glimpse of something low to the floor turning the far corner and disappearing.

"Let's go!" he yelled, and his men were behind him, sprinting down the tunnel. As they rounded the corner, Seay again caught sight of what had been making the noise, but it was too far away to make out clearly — almost fifty meters down the darkened corridor.

Seay flinched as a row of red tracers exploded past his right ear, the flat crack of the bullets echoing off the wall. "Cease fire!" he screamed as he rolled away from the rounds. The sudden silence was as abrupt as the shots. Seay slowly got up and turned to face his men. The team's junior engineer, Bartlett, stood there, rifle held in his hand, looking sheepish.

"Jesus, Bartlett, you just about took my head off!" Seay admonished. "Did you even see what you were shooting at?"

"I saw something running," Bartlett said.

"It looked too small to be a Synbat," Bob Philips commented. "Maybe a dog."

"A dog?" Seay asked. "How did a dog get down here? Maybe it was one of the baby Synbats."

"Merrit said the young ones wouldn't be able to move for a while," Philips noted.

"Merrit's been wrong before," Seay said. He pointed down the corridor. "Let's move out, but from now on, no one, and I mean no one, shoots across the formation." He turned his bulky goggles to peer directly at Bartlett. "Clear?"

"Clear, Sarge."

Saturday was Lester Karney's favorite workday. It was the one day when the City Hall was empty. Lester was thirty-eight, going on sixty. His body was whipcord thin, and his face lined and pitted from the ravages of alcohol.

Lester pushed his cleaning cart down the second floor main hallway to the freight elevator. He rolled the cart in and punched the button labeled B3. With a steady rumble the elevator descended, past the ground floor and the first two basement levels to the subbasement. The doors whooshed open, revealing a dark corridor that led to the furnace room and storage areas. Lester flipped on the set of naked light bulbs that lined the corridor and left his cart just outside the elevator doors. He slipped a paper bag from underneath a cleaning rag and stuck it in the large back pocket of his coveralls.

Lester walked past the double doors that opened into the furnace room, then took a sharp left turn in the corridor. He shook his head as he passed carton upon carton of papers piled haphazardly against the hallway walls. If the fire inspector ever came down here, there'd be hell to pay. But Lester knew that no one official had come down here in a long time. He'd poked through some of the boxes once and found papers dating back thirty-five years.

He heard the clink of a bottle around the corner and smiled. He entered a room lined with boxes, with a dilapidated desk in the center. Seated behind the desk was a skinny black woman of indeterminate age, her face crinkled up in a smile. "Sit down, Lester, baby."

Lester sat on the corner of the desk, pulled out his own bottle, and clinked it to hers. "Bottoms up."

He took a long swig. "So how goes the third floor, Liz?"

"Same as two," she replied, cackling. It was their little ritual every Saturday night. Lester took another slug and then set the bottle carefully on the floor next to the desk.

"You're in a little bit of a rush tonight, ain't you, Lester?" Liz said as he came around the desk.

"Been a long week, sweetie," Lester replied as he wrapped his arms around her from behind.

"Mmm," Liz replied, arching her head back and meeting his kiss. Lester lifted her out of the seat and turned her around. With smooth movements, he pulled her coveralls down around her feet. Pushing her down on the desktop, he began unfastening his own clothing.

He grabbed her legs and stretched them up into the air as he plunged into her. The two lost sight of the dinginess of their surroundings as they fell into the animal passion of the moment.

The clink of the bottle falling over on the floor was lost on Lester, but not Liz. Her eyes cracked open and looked past the form of the man on top of her. They grew wide as they took in the other occupants of the room. She screamed and Lester thrust even harder until he suddenly arched back, his face frozen in a grimace, his body shuddering. Liz screamed again and Lester smiled down on her for a brief second before a hand wrapped around his throat and another hand, holding a knife, cut across it, severing his jugular vein. Blood exploded out, pulsing over Liz, who was pinned to the desktop by Lester's dying weight. She pushed at him futilely as a grinning face dominated by two massive fangs loomed over Lester's body.

Liz closed her eyes and began praying to the God her mother down in Alabama had beaten into her. The prayers were interrupted by pain, and for a few seconds her agonized screams echoed unheard through the basement of City Hall.

Hossey crumpled up the message that Powers had transcribed and stuffed it into his pocket. The sergeant major stood at Hossey's side as he looked out the window of the 5th Group headquarters, peering at the stars in the clear night sky.

"What do you think, sir?"

"I think this is a bunch of bullshit, Dan," Hossey answered. "I think Lewis is in over his head and Trollers is playing politics."

"They aren't going to find them, sir," Powers said. "Sixty miles of tunnels…" He shook his head. "Shit, in Vietnam we hit tunnels and it was always bad news. And we weren't going against anything like these things."

Hossey rubbed the back of his neck. "I know. I know. They need more men."

"I've got B Company standing by, sir," Powers offered.

Hossey sighed and pointed across the street. "See that car, Dan?"

"Yes, sir."

"What do you think?"

He took in the two men sitting in the front seat. Powers sighed in turn. "DIA."

"Yeah. The minute we alert Bravo, they'll be down on us. I'd need the choppers to lift them up to Chicago, but when I talked to Captain Devens ten minutes ago out at the airfield, he said that two of Trollers's people were out there. They'd never get off the ground."

"Shit," Powers muttered.

Hossey left the window and went back to his desk. "But if we can't do the job, I know someone who can. And they're a bit closer than we are."

"Who, sir?"

Hossey absently reached up and rubbed a finger across the Ranger tab on his left shoulder. "I talked to Colonel Luckert of the 1st Ranger Battalion earlier today and his Alpha Company is at Camp McCoy in Wisconsin right now. He told me I could use them."

For the first time that evening a smile crossed Powers's face. A company of Rangers. The smile disappeared, though, as he thought it through. "They'll bust you, sir."

"Yes. They will." Hossey picked up the phone. "But if I don't do it, people may die. I don't have much of a choice. I'm putting them on alert to move in."

Riley peeled off his mud and sweat-soaked combat vest and threw it down on the floor of the van. Lewis was sitting in front of a communications console, watching him without expression.

"Get some sleep," Riley ordered Doc Seay, who simply nodded and slipped out the back of the van. They'd spent the last thirty minutes briefing Lewis on the results — or more appropriately, lack of results — of their search today. The back door of the van rattled closed behind Seay, and Riley was left alone with the colonel and his night shift of DIA agents.

"Do you think Seay's man fired at a young Synbat?" Lewis asked.

Riley tugged his 9mm pistol out of the vest holster and started breaking it down, cleaning the parts. "I don't know, sir. It doesn't matter, does it? Bartlett didn't hit anything."

Lewis looked at a map. "As best as I can tell, you and your men covered about eight miles of tunnels."

"That leaves only fifty-two miles to go," Riley said. "And that doesn't count the fact that they could be hiding outside of the tunnel system and simply using it for traveling."

Lewis slapped the map down on the desk. "We've got to get them tomorrow. We can't keep our cover come Monday."

"I know that, sir," Riley replied. "We need more people."

Lewis rubbed his eyes. "I know we need more people. I told General Trollers that not twenty minutes ago. But he insists that we keep this under wraps as much as possible."

Riley smoothly slipped the barrel back into the pistol. "If we don't get more bodies working on this, we'll keep it under wraps until it blows up in our faces. And then we'll have a panic. We have only about four or five days before the young are able to forage on their own. That's if Merrit is right, and at this point I'm not too sure about that anymore."

Lewis didn't respond.

Riley finished putting the gun together and slipped it into his shoulder holster under his shirt. "I need to get some sleep, sir. We'll go back in at first light. If you had more men you could have someone down there now searching," he added unnecessarily.

Riley pulled up the back door of the van and hopped out, closing it behind him. As he walked toward the rent-a-car, a figure appeared out of the dark shadows to his left. He twisted, hand snaking toward his holster before he recognized who it was.

"Not good news, I suppose," Giannini commented as she slipped a piece of gum into her mouth.

Riley relaxed slightly. "No."

"Let's get a cup of coffee," Giannini said as she led the way to her unmarked car.

Riley followed and slumped into the passenger seat. There were no words spoken as Giannini drove through the dark streets of downtown Chicago. She pulled up in front of an all-night cafe. "Wait here."

She went inside and reappeared a few minutes later with two cups of coffee. She handed one to Riley and pulled the lid off hers. "So what now?"

Riley blew on his coffee. "I don't know. We go back down in the morning after getting some sleep."

"Is there any way to maybe gas the tunnels to get these things?" Giannini asked.

"I've thought about that, but it's too dangerous. If we use some sort of chemical agent, it's going to get out of the system and into the buildings through the basements and onto the street through the interconnecting tunnels. The only answer I see is to get a whole lot of people down there and go through the entire system. Even then, there's a chance they could keep moving and stay out of sight."

"We've got thousands of police officers we could use," Giannini said.

"Trollers would rather see half the city dead before doing that," Riley responded. "I keep trying to tell you that security is the number-one priority for these people. I wouldn't even be surprised if my men and I were pulled out of here after tomorrow and Trollers let this be your problem."

"But how would they explain away the Synbats?"

"They wouldn't have to. There'd be no connection between them and Trollers."

"They have your men's M16s."

"Lost on a training exercise," Riley answered.

"But how would the existence of the Synbats be explained?"

"It wouldn't be," Riley said. "Trollers doesn't care about all that. All he cares about is that he gets his slice of the budget pie and that his career stays unblemished."

"Christ, I can't believe this shit," Giannini grumbled.

"Yes, you can," Riley replied. "Don't tell me you don't have people in your department who aren't more concerned with covering their asses than the safety of those below them."

"Yeah, we got people like that. But not at this scale. We're talking a bunch of dead people already, and the body count's going to get higher."

"You'd be amazed at some of the things your government is capable of," Riley said with undisguised bitterness.

"I don't care," Giannini said. "What I care about is stopping these Synbats. If you don't get them tomorrow, I'm going to my chief."

Riley shrugged. "You can do that, but I wouldn't be too surprised if he isn't on Trollers's and Lewis's side."

"Then I'll go public," Giannini countered.

Riley sighed. "All right, let me tell you what's going on. I'm in contact with my commander down at Fort Campbell. Lewis doesn't know that I am. And my commander has already alerted some troops in Wisconsin to be flown here to help in the search. So if we come up with nothing tomorrow, I'll be the one to go public. I think when a dozen or so helicopter lifts of heavily armed Rangers land in Chicago and go into the tunnels, the story will be out pretty quickly."