The Memorist

Chapter 40

Monday, April 28^th-8:50 p.m.

“I can’t see how far down the shaft goes.” The American’s words echoed in the underground chamber.

David sucked in his breath. What was going on? There hadn’t been any music coming from the concert hall tonight: no performance, no rehearsals. Only the occasional scurrying of a rat or a rock falling. And now suddenly these voices were reaching him down in the crypt from men who sounded as if they were deeper and closer than could be possible.

“Let me send down a probe,” a second voice, also American, responded. “See if we can hit bottom.”

Were these men working for Global Security? Part of Tom Paxton’s effort to look for trouble before it showed itself? How far down were they?

David glanced over at the cage he’d brought into the cave with him tonight and the three rats he’d already beguiled into the trap.

“Any luck with that reading? What’s going on?” the American called out.

David pulled on the heavy gloves. If his plan worked the rat would offer an explanation for any infrared patterns that might show up on Global Security’s monitors. He knew from his interview with Paxton that their GPR system was not only generations more sophisticated than the ground-penetrating radar first used in the Viet Cong tunnels, but the most sophisticated equipment available. The basic methodology was so commonplace now everyone used it, from crime scene investigators searching for graves to construction companies investigating sites before building. Of course Paxton, a man obsessed with winning, would have the most advanced system available. In every news story David had written about the security business, in the war against terror, Global was consistently far ahead of the rest in innovation and results.

“This shaft must go down into some sewer system,” the American called out. “I’m past twelve meters and still dropping.”

David looked at his watch. Ten to nine. Why were those bastards still working? But he knew the answer-because that’s what Paxton demanded.

“Can you get down any deeper and shine some light down there?”

“The opening’s too narrow,” the first man’s voice echoed. “No way.”

David imagined the man trying to lower himself down the shaft that ran perpendicular to where he was hiding. But he’d looked through the cracks and knew it wasn’t even large enough for a child to fit in. From what Wassong had told him and from the blueprints David had found, it was part of an archaic turn-of-the-century heating system, long ago abandoned but still in place.

Reaching into the cage, he grabbed one of the rats and shoved the vermin through the narrow crack in the rock wall that separated his hiding space from the shaft. David could hear the rat scurrying up the wall. He waited.

“I’m getting a reading here that I don’t like.” The American sounded alarmed.

David imagined the Global employee noticing the activity on his monitor and checking his diagnostics. They were seeing the rat. He was sure of it. But what if the system had other sensors? Could it be detecting the Semtex he’d picked up in the Czech Republic? No, he reasoned, he was using the older type that had virtually no radioactive material they could detect.

“You sure there’s no way you can shimmy down any farther?” one American called out to the other.

David opened the cage and pulled out another rat: the biggest one this time, and as he did, the creature sank his teeth into David’s hand. It didn’t tear through the glove but he still felt the pressure of the sharp little fangs. He didn’t waste any breath cursing it as he released it; he owed the rat only thanks for playing its part as a diversion. He wondered if on Thursday night when the last notes of Beethoven’s symphony rang out, any of the rats would survive.