The Dark River

9

Naz had guided Maya and the rest of the group through a warren of stairs and passageways to the Times Square shuttle. The platform was a brightly lit area where a shuttle train departed from one of three parallel tracks. The gray concrete floor was dotted with blackened pieces of chewing gum that formed a random mosaic. A few hundred feet away, a group of West Indian men with steel drums pounded out a calypso tune.

So far, they had avoided the mercenaries, but Maya was sure they were being watched by the underground surveillance system. Now that their presence in New York had been discovered, she knew that the full resources of the Tabula would be used to find them. According to Naz, all they had to do was walk down the subway tunnel and take a staircase to the lower level of Grand Central Terminal. Unfortunately, a transit policeman was patrolling the area and, even if he disappeared, someone might tell the authorities that a group of people had jumped onto the tracks.

The only safe route into the tunnel was through a locked door labeled with the tarnished gold lettering KNICKERBOCKER. In a more convivial era, a passageway once led directly from the subway platform to the bar of the old Knickerbocker Hotel. Although the hotel was now an apartment building, the door remained-unnoticed by the tens of thousands of commuters who walked past it every day.

Maya stood on the platform feeling very conspicuous as commuters hurried to board the shuttle. When the train clattered out of the station, Hollis approached her and spoke in a quiet voice.

“You still want to get on the train going to Ten Mile River?”

“We’ll evaluate the situation when we reach the platform. Naz says there aren’t any cameras there.”

Hollis nodded. “The Tabula scanners probably detected us when we left the loft and walked through Chinatown. Then somebody figured out we were using the old subway station and hacked into the transit computer.”

“There’s another explanation.” Maya glanced over at Naz.

“Yeah, I thought about that, too. But I watched his face in the subway car. He really looked scared.”

“Stay close to him, Hollis. If he starts running, stop him.”

A new shuttle train arrived, took on a new crowd of passengers, and then rattled west toward Eighth Avenue. It felt like they would be standing there forever. Finally the transit policeman got a call on his radio and hurried away. Naz ran over to the Knickerbocker door and fumbled through the keys on his ring. When the lock clicked, he smiled and pulled the door open.

“Special subway tour goes this way,” he announced, and a few commuters watched the group disappear through the doorway. When Naz shut the door, they stood close together in a short, dark passageway. He led them past a manhole cover and then down four concrete steps to the subway tunnel.

Everyone stood between one set of tracks as Naz pointed at a third rail filled with electric current. “Be careful with the wooden shield that covers that,” he told them. “If it breaks and your body hits the rail, you’re dead meat.”

The tunnel was black with soot and smelled like sewage. Water trickled down the drainage channel; it oozed through the concrete wall and made the surface glisten like oil. The City Hall station had been dusty, but fairly clean; the tunnel to Times Square was littered with trash. Rats were everywhere-dark gray ones nearly a foot long. This was their world, and they weren’t afraid of humans. When intruders appeared, the rats continued to rummage through the garbage, squeaking at one another or scurrying up the walls.

“They’re not dangerous,” Naz said. “Just watch where you’re going. If you fall down, they crawl all over you.”

Hollis stayed close to their guide. “Where’s this doorway you were talking about?”

“It’s right around here. Swear to God. Start looking for a yellow light.”

They heard a low, rumbling sound, like distant thunder, and saw the headlights of the approaching shuttle. “Next track! Next track!” Naz shouted. Without waiting for the others, he leaped over the third rail to the adjacent track.

Everyone but Sophia Briggs followed Naz. The old woman looked exhausted and slightly confused. As the lights of the shuttle got closer, she took a risk and stepped directly on the wooden cover of the third rail. It held her weight. A moment later, she passed through the gloom and joined the others.

Naz darted up the track and then came back looking excited. “Okay. I think I found the door to the stairway. Just follow me and-”

The shuttle train on the next track absorbed the rest of his words. Maya saw quick flashes of different passengers framed within the windows-an old man with a knit cap, a young woman with braids-and then the train was gone. A candy wrapper flew up in the air and drifted downward like a dead leaf.

They kept walking to a juncture that led off in three different directions. Naz took the track on the right and then led them to an open doorway illuminated by a single lightbulb. He climbed up three metal steps and entered a maintenance tunnel, followed by Alice and Vicki. Hollis reached the top of the steps and shook his head. “We need to slow down. Sophia is getting tired.”

“Find a safe place and wait for us,” Maya said. “Gabriel and I will bring her along.”

Maya knew that her father would have betrayed the rest of the group to save the Traveler, but she couldn’t fall back on this strategy. Gabriel wasn’t going to leave anyone behind in the tunnels-least of all the woman who had been his Pathfinder. She looked down the tunnel and saw that Gabriel had taken Sophia’s knapsack and placed it on his own shoulders. When he offered his arm to Sophia, the old lady shook her head vigorously, as if to say, I don’t need anyone’s help. Sophia took a few steps forward and then a red laser beam cut through the gloom. “Get down!” Maya shouted. “Get-”

There was a sharp cracking sound and a bullet hit Sophia in the back. The Pathfinder fell forward, tried to get up, and then collapsed. Maya drew her revolver and fired down the tunnel as Gabriel scooped up Sophia and ran toward the steps. Maya followed him, pausing in the open doorway to fire again. The laser beam vanished as four dark shapes retreated into the shadows.

Maya broke open the revolver and used the ejector rod to push out the empty cases. She was reloading as she entered a maintenance tunnel with brick walls, and found Gabriel on his knees embracing Sophia’s limp body. His brown leather jacket was covered with blood.

“Is she breathing?”

“She’s dead,” Gabriel told her. “I held her and she was dying and I felt the Light leave her body.”

“Gabriel…”

“I felt her die,” Gabriel said again. “It was like water flowing between your fingers. I couldn’t hold it back…couldn’t stop it…” He shivered violently.

“The Tabula are very close,” Maya said. “We can’t stay here. You’re going to have to leave her.”

She touched Gabriel’s shoulder and watched as he gently lowered Sophia’s body onto the floor. A few seconds later, they hurried down the tunnel to a stairway landing where the others were waiting. Vicki gasped when she saw the blood on Gabriel’s jacket, and Alice looked as if she were about to run away. The child’s head moved back and forth. Maya sensed what Alice was thinking: Who will protect me now?

“What happened?” Vicki asked. “Where’s Sophia?”

“The Tabula killed her. They’re right behind us.”

Vicki put her hands to her mouth and Naz looked like he was about to run away. “That’s all,” he said. “I quit. I’m not part of this.”

“You don’t have a choice. As far as the Tabula are concerned, you’re just another target. Right now we’re directly under the train station. You’ve got to get us out of this area and back on the street.” She turned to the others. “This is going to be difficult, but we need to stay together. If we get separated, meet at Purest Children at seven o’clock tomorrow morning.”

Looking frightened, Naz led the group downstairs to a tunnel with electrical conduit on the ceiling. It felt as if the weight of the terminal were pushing them deeper into the earth. Another staircase appeared-a very narrow one-and Naz followed it. The air in this new tunnel was warm and moist. Two white pipes, each two feet in diameter, were fastened to the walls.

“Steam pipes,” Naz muttered. “Don’t touch.”

Following the pipes, they passed through a pair of steel safety doors and entered a maintenance room with a thirty-foot ceiling. Four large steam pipes from different parts of the underground were joined together in the room; the pressure was monitored with stainless-steel gauges and diverted with regulator valves. Stagnant water dribbled out of a crack in the ceiling and dripped downward. The room had the fetid, moldy smell of a hothouse for tropical plants.

Maya shut the safety door behind her and looked around. Her father would have called this a “box canyon”-a place with one way in and no way out. “Now what?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Naz said. “I’m just trying to get away.”

“That’s not true,” Maya said. “You led us here.”

She drew the push knife and held the T-shaped handle in her fist. Before Naz could react, she grabbed his jacket and slammed him against the wall. Maya held the tip of her knife against the slight indentation just above Naz’s breastbone.

“How much did they pay you?”

“Nothing! Nobody paid me nothing!”

“There aren’t any surveillance cameras in these tunnels. But they followed us anyway. And now you’ve led us into another trap.”

Gabriel stepped beside her. “Let go of him, Maya.”

“This was all planned. The Tabula didn’t want to attack a building in Chinatown. It was too public and there were too many police in the area. But down here, they can do whatever they want.”

A drop of water hit one of the steam pipes and there was a faint hissing sound. Gabriel leaned forward and watched Naz’s face with a focused intensity.

“Are you working for the Tabula, Naz?”

“No. Swear to God. I just wanted to make some money.”

“Maybe they tracked us in a different way,” Vicki said. “Remember back in Los Angeles? They put a tracer bead in one of my shoes.”

Tracer beads were small radio devices that broadcast the location of a target. Maya had been careful about any object taken into the loft during the last few months. She had inspected each piece of furniture and article of clothing like a suspicious customs agent. As she concentrated on the knife, a feeling of doubt and hesitation came to her; it felt like a ghost had entered her body. There was one object that she hadn’t examined, a golden apple thrown in her path so tempting, so irresistible, that the Tabula knew she would grab it.

Maya stepped away from Naz, slid the knife back into its sheath, and pulled the ceramic gun from her shoulder bag. The struggle with Aronov came back to her, and she analyzed each moment. Why hadn’t they killed her when she entered the taxi? Because it was planned, Maya thought. Because they knew she would lead them back to Gabriel.

No one spoke as she checked the ceramic handgun. The barrel and the frame weren’t thick enough to conceal a tracer bead, but the plastic pistol grip was perfect. Maya shoved the grip into the narrow gap between two pipes on the wall and then used the gun barrel as a lever. She forced the barrel down hard, and the grip cracked open with a loud snap. A pearl-gray tracer bead fell onto the floor. When she picked up the bead it felt warm, like a spark from a fire glowing in her hand.

“What the hell is that?” Naz asked. “What’s going on?”

“That’s how they tracked us in the tunnel,” Hollis said. “They’re following the radio transmitter.”

Maya set the tracer bead on a narrow concrete ledge and crushed it with her revolver. She felt as if her father were in the room, looking at her with contempt. He would have spoken to her in German, something cutting and harsh. When she was a little girl, he had tried to teach her the Harlequin way of looking at the world-always suspicious, always on your guard-but she had resisted. And now, because of her thoughtless impulse to take this weapon, she had destroyed Sophia and led Gabriel into a trap.

Maya looked around the room for an exit. The only possible way out was a maintenance ladder attached to the wall that ran parallel to a vertical steam pipe. The pipe went up through a hole in the ceiling, and the narrow gap might be wide enough to push through.

“Climb that ladder and get to the next floor,” she told the others. “We’ll find a way out through the train station.”

Naz hurried up the ladder and squeezed through the gap to the upper level. Gabriel was next, followed by Hollis and Vicki. Ever since they had left the loft in Chinatown, Alice Chen had been at the front of the group-trying to escape the Tabula. This time, she climbed up the ladder and hesitated. Maya watched as the child tried to figure out the best way to protect herself.

“Hurry up,” Maya told her. “You’ve got to follow them.”

Maya heard a thump as one of the steel doors in the tunnel was slammed shut. The men who had killed Sophia were in the tunnel, getting closer. Alice slid back down the ladder and disappeared beneath one of the steam pipes. Maya knew it was useless to go after the girl; she would stay hidden until the Tabula left the area.

Standing in the middle of the maintenance room, Maya analyzed her choices with the ruthless clarity of a Harlequin. The Tabula were moving quickly and probably weren’t expecting a counterattack. So far, she had failed to protect Gabriel, but there was a way to make up for her mistakes. Harlequins were damned by their actions, but redeemed by their sacrifice.

Maya removed her shoulder bag and tossed it on the floor. Using the pressure gauges and valves as handholds, she climbed onto a steam pipe and then lifted herself up onto the one above it. Now she was fifteen feet above the floor, directly opposite the entrance to the room. The air was warm and it was hard to breathe. A faint noise came from the tunnel. She drew the revolver from the holster and waited. Her legs trembled with the strain. Her face was covered with sweat.

The door slammed open and a big man with a beard crouched in the opening. The mercenary was holding a gun with a laser sight mounted below the barrel. He glanced quickly around the room and took a few steps forward. Maya dropped through the air and began firing. A bullet hit the mercenary at the base of his throat and he collapsed.

Maya fell on the floor, rolled forward, and jumped to her feet. She saw that the dead man’s body was keeping the door open. Red laser beams flashed from the dark hallway and she ran for cover. A bullet ricocheted off the walls and struck one of the gauges. Steam spurted into the air. She ducked down, wondering where to hide, and Alice’s hand emerged from beneath one of the pipes.

When another bullet hit the wall, Maya lay flat on the concrete and pushed herself sideways beneath the pipe. Now she was lying directly behind Alice, and the little girl gazed back at the Harlequin. Alice didn’t look frightened or angry-more like a zoo animal studying a new addition to her cage. The shooting stopped and the laser beams vanished. Silence. Maya held her revolver with two hands, the right hand cradled in the left. She got ready to stand up, extend her arms, and fire.

“Maya?” A man’s voice came from somewhere in the dark tunnel. An American voice. Calm, not frightened. “This is Nathan Boone. I’m head of security for the Evergreen Foundation.”

She knew who Boone was-the Tabula mercenary who had killed her father in Prague. Maya wondered why Boone was talking. Perhaps he was trying to make her angry so that she would decide to attack.

“I’m sure you’re there,” Boone said. “You just killed one of my best employees.”

The Harlequin rule was never to speak to an enemy unless it gave you some kind of advantage. She wanted to remain silent, but then she remembered Gabriel: if she distracted Boone, then the Traveler would have more time to escape.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“Gabriel is going to be killed if you don’t let him walk out of this room. I promise not to hurt Gabriel, Vicki, or your guide.”

Maya wondered if Boone knew about Alice. He would kill her also if he realized the child had survived the destruction of New Harmony. “What about Hollis?” she asked.

“Both of you made a decision to fight the Brethren. Now you have to deal with the consequences.”

“Why should I trust you? You killed my father.”

“That was his choice.” Boone sounded annoyed. “I gave him an alternative, but he was too stubborn to take it.”

“We need to talk this over. Give us a few minutes.”

“You don’t have a few minutes. There’s no alternative. No negotiations. If you’re a true Harlequin, then you’ll want to save the Traveler. Send the others down the tunnel or everyone in the room is going to die. We have a technical advantage.”

What was he talking about? Maya thought. What technical advantage? Alice Chen was still staring at her. The little girl touched the warm steam pipe above them with her palm and then extended her hand-trying to communicate some message. “What are you telling me?” Maya whispered.

“Have you made your decision?” Boone shouted.

Silence.

A bullet hit one of the two fluorescent light fixtures hanging from the ceiling. A second burst of gunfire and the fixture was blown away with a shower of sparks; it bounced off one of the steam pipes and hit the floor.

Now that the room was darker, Maya understood what the child was trying to convey. Boone and his mercenaries had night-vision devices. Once the second light fixture was destroyed, she would be blind while Boone and his men could see their targets. The only way to hide from infrared devices was to become very cold or to push your body next to a warm object. Alice knew this; that was why she had stayed behind and hidden beneath the steam pipe.

The shooting started again; two laser beams were aimed at the second light fixture. Alice rolled away from the steam pipe and stared at the dead body lying in the doorway. “Stay here!” Maya shouted. But the girl jumped up and ran over to the doorway. She crouched down when she reached the dead mercenary, making herself as small as possible, then grabbed some equipment that had been clipped to the man’s belt. When Alice scurried back, Maya saw that the girl was carrying night-vision goggles attached to a head strap, and a hand-size battery pack. Alice tossed the goggles to Maya and returned to her hiding place beneath the steam pipe.

A bullet hit the second light fixture and the room was absorbed by darkness. It felt like they were in a cavern deep within the earth. Maya pulled the night-vision goggles over her eyes. She pressed the illuminator button and immediately the room was transformed into different shades of green. Anything warm-the steam pipes, the pressure gauges, the skin of her left hand-glowed with bright emerald color, as if these objects were radioactive. The concrete walls and floors showed a light green color that reminded her of new leaves.

Maya peered around the top edge of a steam pipe and saw a green light growing brighter as someone walked slowly down the tunnel to the open doorway. The light wavered slightly, then a mercenary wearing goggles appeared in the doorway. Carrying a sawed-off shotgun, he carefully stepped over the dead man’s body.

She moved behind the pipe and pressed her back against the warm metal. It was impossible to predict the mercenary’s position as he moved around the room; she could only plan the general direction of her attack. Maya felt as if all her energy were flowing from her shoulders and down her arms to the gun held in her hands. She breathed in, held her breath, and moved around the pipe.

A third mercenary holding a submachine gun had appeared in the doorway. The Harlequin shot him in the chest. There was a flash of light as the force of the bullet pushed him backward. Even before the dead mercenary hit the floor, Maya spun around and killed the man holding the shotgun. Silence. The faint scent of cordite mingled with the rotting smell of the room. The steam pipes glowed green around her.

Maya shoved the night-vision goggles in her shoulder bag, found Alice, and grabbed her hand. “Climb,” she whispered. “Just climb.” They hurried up the maintenance ladder, passed through the gap, and reached an area just below an open manhole. Maya stopped for few seconds and then decided: it was too dangerous to enter the track area. Still holding the little girl’s hand, she pulled her down a tunnel that led away from the station.