The World Beneath

Chapter 29

Ozan leaned back against the white wall next to an intersection of pipes that shielded him from view. He slid down to a sitting position, legs crossed tailor-style.

The pipes provided the only cover in the tunnel, but it was hotter near them. Maybe the heat would cure his fever. He thought they did that for fevers in the old days. Or maybe they packed people in ice. Ice would feel good right about now. An ice cube glowed blue in his mind, bright as fire. The fever again. Strength sapped from his body with each drop of sweat.

He took off his shirt and used it to mop his forehead. His head felt too heavy on his neck, like it had been turned to steel. He hung it forward until his chin touched his chest. Pain pulsed in his brain to the slow beat of an old ballad.

Get up, Ozan, said a voice that sounded like his mother’s. Go home and rest.

He could almost feel her cool hand on his brow. The money is in your accounts, she reminded him. It’s enough to keep Erol safe in that beautiful home for another year. You are a good brother. Now, go home and rest.

He struggled to his feet and stood, swaying. But he moved too close to a steam pipe and pain seared along his side. His head cleared. He couldn’t go home. Not yet.

He’d heard from a contact at the CIA that the New York Police Department had orders to turn Tesla over to the CIA before interrogating him. That meant one of two things — either they intended to kill the millionaire themselves or they wanted to keep whatever he might say under their control.

Either way, whatever Tesla found out about 523 would not be made public. Ozan might never know. If his illness was connected to his contact with 523’s blood, he would never know.

He remembered the one hundred dead men he’d found in the hold of the boat. Maybe they’d all died from this disease. Maybe Dr. Dubois had hired him to cover that up. The doctor would let him die before telling him anything.

Ozan slid down to the floor again and watched his strength leach out in drops on the stone floor, drifting in and out of sleep. A sound woke him with a jerk. It took him a long time to remember where he was. Then his head rolled to the side and he could see around the pipes and back up the tunnel. A man and a dog shimmered through the heat, their figures small with distance.

Ozan stumbled to his feet. His legs had gone to sleep. They tingled painfully and felt fat and cut off from his body.

“Stop!” he shouted.

The man broke into a run. The dog jogged along at his side.

Ozan sighted his gun at the man’s back, remembering just in time that he needed to take the man alive. He lowered his gun and took aim at the man’s legs. He fired, but it went wide.

Steam boiled from a pipe behind the running man. Ozan’s bullet had opened a hole. He’d have to crawl under it.

“I need to talk to you,” he shouted.

The man and dog sprinted on, half-obscured by steam. The man ran as if he knew that it was for his life, long panicked strides.

Ozan hobbled after as fast as he could, which was pitifully slow. “It’s about 523.”

That didn’t provoke a response, either, so he fired again. The shot went high and broke a light bulb, raining glass onto the ground.

Ozan’s hands shook, and his eyes blurred. He could not let them get away. He abandoned aiming, just fired his Glock empty. The tunnel rang with the sounds of the shots. Steam shot from hole after hole, creating a hot, white wall he could not see through.

A jet of steam hit his wrist. The pain steadied him, made him realize what he had risked. He might have hit Tesla. He might have killed him. He cursed his own stupidity.

Ducking under the scalding steam, he stumbled forward.

He needed Tesla alive.