The World Beneath

Chapter 13

Joe stretched his feet toward the electric fire in the parlor and took a sip of coffee from the Victorian teacup on the side table. Cold. The clock on the mantel told him that it was almost four, time to take a break.

He’d been trying for most of the day to find out more about the presidential train car and its grisly contents. Torres’s presence in the house distracted him. Floorboards creaked when she walked around, and he worried that she’d find the secret passageway behind the upstairs bookshelf. She had declined lunch, but agreed to help herself to anything in the kitchen if she got hungry later.

Every hour she went out and walked the tunnel, as if someone could break in there without him noticing. But it was her job, and he left her to it. He remembered what it had been like to have a clearly defined job. He missed it.

All day, he’d been racking his brain to figure out why she seemed so familiar. He was good with faces — he’d built a multimillion-dollar company off that talent, and he could not remember where he’d seen hers. By afternoon, he’d developed a suspicion, and he had to know if it was true.

He locked the parlor door from the inside with a long skeleton key, ready to see if he was right.

In his long weeks of confinement at the Hyatt, he’d hacked into the surveillance cameras installed nearby. It gave him something to do, and a feeling that he could watch the outside world, even if he couldn’t join it. These days he sometimes flipped through them, as if he were strolling down the sidewalk, like everyone else. Like he used to do without thinking.

He’d been careful with his spying, of course, and he hadn’t been caught. In his endless free time, he’d managed to compile a thorough list of the nearby cameras, including what they watched and where they sent the video they obtained. He had a long list now, and, key for his current problem, it included all the cameras at Grand Central Terminal.

Joe connected through a few different computers to cover his tracks and got down to business. He took pleasure in hacking — being able to see what others couldn’t, to do things most people were afraid of doing. At the circus, he’d grown up behind the scenes, always knowing more than the marks who’d paid to see the show. Hacking felt the same way.

Edison lay on the floor next to his chair, head on his outstretched paws. He sat up and gazed at Joe with reproachful brown eyes.

“Do you think this is a morally gray area?” he asked, quietly so that Torres wouldn’t hear him through the parlor’s door. “This kind of snooping?”

Edison lowered his head back to his paws with a sigh.

Joe felt a twinge of guilt. “I don’t care what you think, Edison. I have to know.”

The dog thumped his tail against the floor. Once (cyan), twice (blue). Joe decided to take that as assent. He was going to do it anyway.

He wanted to find late-night video from the concourse itself, most particularly the camera that showed the round information booth that led to the entrance to his home. He wanted to try to find out what had happened to him after he’d returned to the concourse on the night before he’d become afraid to go outside.

On that night, he’d come down here for the first time. Leandro Gallo had been throwing a birthday party, and he’d hoped to see Celeste there, or at least find out why she had stopped returning his calls. When he’d found out that she was ill, actually dying, he drank too much and lost track of most of the night, something that had never happened to him before. He remembered taking the elevator up to the concourse, where a person had helped him back to his hotel.

He hadn’t cared before, but tonight he was going to find out who.

He hacked into the Grand Central video surveillance database and scrolled through files until he reached the right time. Then he watched himself stumble out of the information booth alone. On-screen Joe closed the door behind himself and then fell flat on his face. He hadn’t remembered being so drunk, but he must have been, and he was horrified that surveillance cameras had caught him out, that anyone with access could post him looking like a newb on YouTube for the world to mock. It could have been a media disaster, could still be.

A tall woman with short dark hair helped him to his feet and dusted him off. An uneasy feeling rose in him. She looked familiar, but he could see only the back of her head. Maybe she was simply a Good Samaritan who’d stepped in to keep him from being arrested for public drunkenness.

He switched to the next camera and watched as she helped him stagger across the giant room. He flopped around, his face clear in the video, but she kept her head down as if she were well aware of the cameras.

The quality of the video went up after he switched to the outside cameras. He held his breath when a man entered the frame and drew a knife. How could he have been too drunk to remember that? Damn. The woman on-screen easily disarmed the man, knocked him down, and stomped on his balls. Joe winced.

As the man curled around his crotch, she dragged Joe to his feet and resumed walking him to the Hyatt. Based on her quick actions and her cool response, he guessed that she had specialized training. Probably military.

He rewound, then froze on the image of her face as she confronted the attacker, because for a second she was more concerned about safety than about the cameras. The tall woman with the dark hair and lovely cheekbones was sitting on a chair in his hall. Vivian Torres.

Goose bumps raised on his arms.

He glanced at the closed wooden door, wishing it had a stronger lock. Had Daniel hired her to watch out for him on that night, too? If not, why had she been there? If so, why hadn’t he been told about it?

With one finger, he touched the face on his screen. A beautiful woman, but much more than that. He replayed the mugger scene one more time. She was calm and in control. He wished that he could hear what she was saying.

Now that he had an identification, he wanted to find out more. Not a problem.

The Army was the biggest branch of the armed services, so he’d start there. He used the login for Agent Bister, a CIA operative he’d worked with at Pellucid, to connect to the Army personnel system. Bister had led the charge to appropriate Pellucid’s software just for the CIA, and Joe couldn’t stand him. So, he used the man’s accounts often. He had it coming.

Once inside the database, Joe started a search for Vivian Torres. He got a hit right away. She’d served in the Army, but had been dishonorably discharged a year ago. His unease grew, and he searched for more information, the Victorian parlor around him practically fading away as he moved into the high-tech world on the other side of the screen.

According to her record, she’d served well and earned commendations from her superior officers. As he’d seen on-screen, she was good in a fight, level-headed, and competent. She had been on track to making a solid career when something had gone wrong in an Afghani village where she was on patrol. The details of the event weren’t in the file, but whatever happened had resulted in a dishonorable discharge. Since her discharge, she’d worked for various private-security companies and law firms as a bodyguard, including Daniel Rossi’s law firm.

With nothing else left to search for, he logged out of Bister’s account and broke his connection with the computer he’d used to hide his real location.

“What do I do with this knowledge?” he whispered to Edison. “And why didn’t she tell me herself?”

The dog eyed the parlor door. Joe had canceled his daily walk with Andres, not wanting the dog to be out of his sight today. Instead, they’d spent the day with a dangerous woman who had her own dangerous secrets.

Joe stood and paced the ancient Persian carpet. Ever loyal, Edison rose and paced next to him.

The video of Torres and the mugger made it clear that she could take him in a fight, even if she weren’t armed. She could have done that when he’d stumbled out of the booth drunk. He’d been completely at her mercy, and she’d only helped him. If she meant him harm, he’d already be dead. Besides, over the course of the day, he’d grown to like her. She didn’t seem as if she wished him ill. But it would be stupid to rely on that judgment completely.

He should just ask her, but he was afraid. Overly paranoid, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t going to talk to her without insurance. He set up his phone to film his conversation, with the video streaming straight back to his laptop, where it would be stored in a file. He set a timer for ten minutes (cyan, black). If he wasn’t back to shut it off, the video file would be emailed to Daniel at the highest priority. He’d know what to do.

Of course, he reminded himself, that wouldn’t actually save him. It would just make sure that she got nailed for the crime if she killed him.

With only that tiny bit of reassurance, he tapped the screen to start filming, dropped the phone into his breast pocket so that the top of the phone peeked out, careful to make sure that the camera lens was not obscured, and opened the door.

Torres shifted in her chair when he walked into the hall. He’d insisted on moving one of the leather wingback chairs out here for her. If she had to spend her day staring at his front door, she might as well be comfortable. She looked calm and collected, like a competent bodyguard. He balanced his open laptop in one hand, feeling like a waiter holding a tray.

“No activity to report out there,” she said. “How’s work coming?”

He stood awkwardly in the door frame and stared at her face, eyes traveling across her features to confirm that she was the woman on the video. No doubt.

“First, I want to thank you,” he said.

“I’m just doing my job,” she answered.

“Not for that. For getting me home safe last spring.”

Surprise flickered across her face, but disappeared in less than a second. Microexpressions were impossible to control. Without his training in spotting them, he’d have missed it.

“Were you paid for this service?” The laptop trembled as he pressed a few buttons, starting up the surveillance video of their meeting in Grand Central months before, when she’d brought him back drunk.

“If I were paid for that kind of service, I wouldn’t be able to reveal that information.”

“Why not?” What was his goal here? To get her to confess? To what, exactly?

“As you know, sir, I work in close protection. Anything I do or see while on the job is confidential.” Her dark eyes met his levelly. She clearly was not intending to back down.

“So, you were on a job?”

“I can’t say.” She squared off her shoulders.

“Does that mean that you were stalking me?”

She laughed. “Not hardly. Maybe I just happened by, helped you home, did the right thing. I’m a Good Samaritan.”

Joe didn’t believe that.

She pointed behind his head. “What’s that mean?”

Joe turned around to look at the round red light recessed above the front door. “It means that the elevator has started going up. But that doesn’t make sense, because no one has access to it but me and the Gallos, and they never come down here.”

Someone else was coming.

Joe stared at the light that indicated the elevator was right now heading up to the clock and the information booth. He’d never seen it lit before, hadn’t known if it really worked, but Celeste had assured him that it did. Evaline wouldn’t have let anyone past her who wasn’t on the list. Maybe it was Leandro. If not, he hoped no one had hurt her.

“I’d like you to move to the back of the house, away from the windows.” Torres’s voice was matter-of-fact.

She drew her gun and stood next to the front door, away from the window, and peeked through the filmy curtains. Her phone buzzed in her pants pocket. Without taking her eyes off the tunnel, she eased it out and glanced at the screen.

“It’s from Mr. Rossi. He says that he’s coming down with police and two CIA agents.” Torres holstered her gun. “They’re here to question you about the death in the tunnels. Your fingerprint was found at a murder scene.”

Joe stumbled backward. The police and the CIA?

“Mr. Rossi will take care of you,” she said.

“They might take me.” Joe’s heart raced. “They might take me outside. I can’t go outside.”

He heard panic in his voice, and Edison must have heard it, too. The dog tugged his pant leg, trying to pull him back into the parlor. That wouldn’t help.

“Good boy,” Joe said automatically.

“I’m sure that Mr. Rossi will explain the situation to them.”

Joe didn’t think they’d care about his mental issues. If anything, they’d weigh against him. He measured the distance to the doors at the end of the tunnels in his head. He might make it to one of them before the elevator arrived and the men came out, but he also might not.

Edison bumped Joe’s knee with his head, reminding him that he was there, that everything was OK. Except that it wasn’t.

“I’m going upstairs,” Joe said. “Can you buy me time?”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “I’ll stall them as long as I can.”

Joe dropped his laptop in the backpack by the front door, pulling on the hoodie hung there, and pocketing the flashlight. He ran back through the parlor to get his power cord and then sprinted up the stairs, heading for the back bedroom.

He reached into his pocket, fingers closing over a ring of metal keys. That was something. On impulse, he grabbed the polar fleece blanket from the bedroom floor, the one that Edison usually slept on.

The doorbell told him that they’d reached his front door. Angry voices said they’d be breaking through any second if Torres didn’t let them in.

Edison growled.

Joe put his finger to his lips and whispered, “Hush.”

He struggled with the heavy bookcase as boots thudded through his house — they were in the kitchen and the parlor. Two separate groups.

If they caught him, they’d arrest him and drag him outside. He couldn’t let that happen.

He pointed at the secret passageway, and Edison leaped in.

Joe backed in after him, snaked a hand around the end of the bookcase to pull the rug flat, and closed the door.

The bookcase was barely in place when the bedroom door crashed against the plaster wall.

The heavy steps of several men entered his room.

He didn’t dare turn on the flashlight. Light might show around the edges of the bookcase. He should have checked that out on the first day — dropped the flashlight in there, closed the door, and seen if the light leaked through. But he hadn’t.

Edison’s warm shoulder leaned into his.

Joe scrunched past him and crawled through the darkness as quickly as he could. He had to hope that the dog would follow him and stay quiet. One bark or growl and all would be lost.

He tucked his head low between his shoulder blades so that he wouldn’t crack it against the low roof. The tunnel dropped down fast. He forced himself to slow so that he wouldn’t lose his balance and face-plant into the rocks.

He hurried toward the end. Was the tunnel on the original blueprints of the house? Was someone waiting for him at the other end?