The World Beneath

Chapter 46

Vivian moved to the side as Tesla stumbled in next to her, clanged shut the gate, and activated the lever to send them up.

“Cops on the other end,” she said, calmly. “Lots.”

Tesla released the lever, and the elevator lurched to a stop. “Don’t let it start again.”

“Your arm is wounded.” He was losing blood out of what looked like a bullet wound in his forearm. He’d come into the tunnel with that. Nobody had got a shot off once he got through the door. That meant that, even though the men she’d disabled hadn’t raised the alarm, someone else must have.

“I know.”

He threw his backpack on the floor and pulled out his laptop. “Hot damn! Wireless!”

Vivian knelt next to him and pulled off her scarf. “Really? You’re going online now?”

“Give me one second.” He fumbled with the keyboard, typing slowly with his left hand.

“How about I bandage up the right one?” she asked. “It’ll only take a minute.”

He held up his hurt arm without looking away from the computer. She pulled up his sleeve and began to wrap the wound with her scarf. She had enough left over to tie around his neck as a sling.

“Can they override the elevator?” she asked.

“I checked on that once. They can’t.” He reached into his backpack. “The only way they can get us moving is by cutting the cables and dropping us down.”

He glanced quickly at the ceiling. She remembered the last time they’d been in the elevator together. He’d been nervous then. She hoped he didn’t lose it.

She helped him pull a brown leather box out of his backpack. It was an ancient briefcase, fastened with a modern leather belt. He tried to open it one-handed.

“Tell me what to do,” she said. “I don’t want them cutting the cables, either.”

He smiled gratefully at her. “If you could take out the papers in there and lay them out on the floor.”

He fiddled with his phone while she worked. The papers talked about a disease. Some were old, some new. She didn’t take time to read them.

Joe whistled, startling her.

“I’m in.” He struggled to his feet next to her and photographed the papers. He had to stand on one foot because something was wrong with his leg, but he wouldn’t let her look at it.

She put them away after he took the pictures and laid out new ones until he was done. He also opened the metal case with the biohazard stickers and took pictures of glass tubes inside of it. “Those pictures are going to save us?”

“Maybe not us,” Joe said, “but lots of other people.”

“Great,” Vivian said. “What about us?”

Joe sat cross-legged on the floor and pulled his laptop onto his knees. “Maybe.”

Vivian’s phone rang. Mr. Rossi. She put him on speaker.

“I’m up here in the concourse of Grand Central Terminal,” he said. “I’m with an agent named Connelly. Do you know Tesla’s whereabouts?”

“I’m in the elevator,” Tesla said. His fingers zoomed around the keyboard. Even left-handed, he was a faster typist than she was.

“Connelly would like to negotiate your surrender before anyone else gets hurt.”

“If I surrender right now,” Tesla said, “thousands of men will get hurt. Soldiers. American soldiers.”

“They say that they have dispatched a crew to cut through the elevator cables,” said Mr. Rossi.

That was probably a lie, she thought. But if it was true, and assuming they lived through the crash, she didn’t think the two agents at the bottom would be happy to see them.

She drew her gun. If Tesla had ever needed a bodyguard, the moment was now.