“What’ll we do now?” asked Alex as he looked around at the windows. He half-expected people to come crashing through the walls, firing weapons as they came.
“I suggest you give yourselves up quietly,” said Todd.
“The van’s no good,” said Doug as he reached it. He busied himself throwing various pieces of equipment into a canvas bag. “It’s all wired up. No time to get it clear. There are a few things we may need though…”
“There’s a back door this way,” said Emily as she moved toward a door in the back corner of the room. “Plan B.”
“Plan B?” asked Alex. “What’s plan B?”
“There’s always a plan B,” said Emily.
“Why wasn’t I told about plan B?”
“You were kind of busy learning how to fly a plane, as I recall. Come on!” Emily was almost to the door.
“What’ll we do with him?” asked Alex, nodding at Todd.
“Leave him! Get your ass over here!” shouted Emily. Doug left the van and was close behind her.
“Wait!” said Todd. “There’s no need for this. You won’t be harmed - unless you run.”
“I’m not giving up that easy!” called Emily over her shoulder as she got to the door. “Alex, come on!”
Alex hesitated for a moment as he balanced the desire for things to come to a conclusion with an intuitive feeling that things would be all over if he didn’t run.
“Alex!” cried Emily.
Making up his mind, he turned and started toward the back. As he did, he could hear the screeching of tires out front, and then running footsteps. Shit! Busted! Adrenalin surged through his veins and his pace quickened. He couldn’t help but look over his shoulder; that slowed him a little. Glass broke and men in black jackets peered into the room with weapons at the ready.
“Halt!” someone shouted.
Alex broke into a dead run. Twenty paces to go. He heard the garage doors shatter open as a vehicle rammed its way into the room, tires screaming.
“Halt, or I’ll fire!”
Now just ten paces away. The back door stood wide open, Emily and Doug both safely inside the hallway beyond. Emily moved into the doorway, waving Alex on. She looked up and past him, flattened herself against the wall behind the door and yelled, “Duck, Alex!”
Alex lunged head first toward the doorway, diving forward with one arm extended to absorb the shock of landing. He no sooner hit the floor and he heard multiple loud explosions, followed immediately by thuds and showers of cinderblock over and beyond his head. As Alex slid into the opening, Emily stepped into the doorway, raised her pistol in a two-handed grip and fired several times. Alex came to a stop, pulled his knees up to his chest and rolled out of danger as Emily quickly stepped back behind the door. More shots, thuds, and clouds of cement dust thrown up from the floor where Alex had been just moments before. Emily slammed the door shut and flattened herself against the wall. The sound of many running feet, a cacophony of shouts, more firing and suddenly, there was daylight shining through small holes in the metal door. Emily grabbed a piece of angle iron and jammed it between the wall and the door knob, wedging the door shut.
“What the hell were you doing back there?” she shouted at Alex.
“Pissing my pants,” he said.
“Well, move your ass. Down these stairs. There’s an old steam tunnel down here.” She moved toward steel boiler plate stairs that led between iron pipe railing into a dim hole about one story down. “Move it. That door won’t hold them long!”
Alex flew down the stairs, stumbling as he tried to keep up with Emily. He could hear banging at the door behind them. “What about the pilots?”
“I’m afraid they’re on their own,” said Emily. “There’s nothing we can do. Doug? Where are you?” He had moved on as Emily and Alex were struggling at the door.
“Just ahead,” Doug said. “I’ve found some good cover. You and Alex go on down the tunnel, I’ll hold them off here as long as I can and then follow.” They caught up with Doug who was kneeling behind two fifty-gallon steel drums just visible in the half-light. Doug reached into the bag he was carrying and gave Emily and Alex each a flashlight. “It’s dark down here.”
Alex was still breathing heavy. “I… have… to… rest… a… minute,” he gasped between breaths. His heart was pounding wildly and, despite the coolness, sweat was soaking his shirt. Shining his flashlight around, he saw they were indeed in a tunnel. It was about twelve feet wide and eight feet high. There were half a dozen six to twelve inch diameter pipes covered by white insulation running along the walls and ceiling. The broken cement floor was wet and the air was damp. Here and there in the tunnel were steel drums, wooden boxes and smaller pieces of detritus.
There was a whumping sound he felt more than heard, followed by an acrid odor and the air became thick with dust.
“Go! Now!” shouted Doug. “They’ve blown open the door. These guys are serious!”
Emily grabbed Alex’s sleeve and pulled him further down the tunnel. “Do you think it’s a good idea to exchange fire with the FBI?” he asked as he tried to keep up.
“These guys aren’t FBI,” said Emily. “They aren’t wearing the regulation jacket with big bright letters identifying them. Besides, agents wouldn’t be so hell-bent to kill us.”
“Who are they then?”
“Private army of some kind, I’m guessing. Come on!” She tugged harder at his sleeve.
“Just where are we going?”
“Just follow me.” Emily stopped, looked around, and ducked behind a box against the wall. She reached down and grabbed something out of a bag hidden there. She handed it to Alex. “Take this and duck behind those barrels over there.” She nodded to the opposite side of the tunnel a few feet behind her.
Alex took what she held out to him; it was the pistol he picked up in his house when all this started. “Oh, crap,” he said, “not this again.”
Emily rolled her eyes at him. “You hold the flashlight with your left hand, the gun with your right. Use your left wrist to support your gun hand, aim both the flashlight and the gun at the same spot. Like this.” She demonstrated. “Don’t keep the light on any more than you have to and give the other guys something to shoot at. Doug will be running by here soon. We need to give him some covering fire when he does.”
They could hear gunshots echoing down the tunnel and shouts of frantic men. In a few moments, Doug came running up, still carrying his bag of goodies. “Keep up the fire for a few minutes. I set up a whiz-bang just beyond that last corner. It should slow them down a little. I’m going on to the back door.” He disappeared down the tunnel at a dead run.
“Back door?” asked Alex.
“Never mind,” said Emily. “Just pay attention to the bad guys.” She put her flashlight on top of a barrel pointing toward the last bend in the tunnel. “Turn your flashlight off for now.”
Running footsteps approached and stopped just before the corner. A head popped into view, then quickly pulled back. Emily and Alex fired at the space where the head had been. In response, return fire hit the wall and barrel where Emily left her flashlight. Smart girl, thought Alex, grateful the bullets weren’t going toward them. She must have done this before. There was a loud bang and a very bright flash of light. Alex was momentarily stunned, unable to see, move or think.
“Come on, Alex!” shouted Emily. “Let’s go!” She grabbed her flashlight and ran past him down the tunnel. Alex shook his head, pulled himself together, turned on his flashlight and followed. They came upon Doug who was on his hands and knees, doing something with several wires. The other ends of the wires disappeared into holes in the walls on both sides of the tunnel. Alex paused to see what Doug was doing.
“Keep going!” said Emily as she pushed him from behind. “Down there, behind that wall.” They ran thirty feet further to a wall protruding halfway across the tunnel and crouched behind it. Doug followed, trailing wires behind him. “Put your hands over your ears and keep your mouth open,” said Emily. Doug made a twisting motion with his right hand and there was a deafening explosion that rattled Alex’s teeth, followed by a shock wave that knocked him onto his back. Thick cement dust and the pungent odor of spent explosive filled his nostrils as bits of broken cinderblock and dirt fell around and on him.
“The back door is locked,” choked Emily as she coughed.
Alex got up on his knees, crawled beyond the wall and waved the beam of his flashlight back and forth over the rubble in the middle of the tunnel. “Damn, Doug,” he said. “You really know how to mess a place up.” The ringing in his ears finally stopped and he could hear normally again.
Doug peeked around the wall, glanced at the rubble, then bent down and picked up his bag. “They aren’t coming that way,” he said. “We have some time before they figure out how to get down here.”
“There is another way out of here, isn’t there?” asked Alex.
“Of course.” Doug looked over at Emily. “Let’s go check out the tunnel mouth.” He moved off down the tunnel, away from the rubble.
“This tunnel has several branches,” said Emily as she and Alex followed Doug. “The one we’ll take goes into a stream bed outside the grounds of the factory that used to be here. It’s not on any blueprints and we’re hoping those guys won’t know about it.”
“Man, you guys really did your homework.”
“Contingency planning,” said Emily. “Always plan for contingencies.”
Soon, they came to a branching of the tunnel. One branch led off at an angle to the left, another to the right. Emily moved straight ahead to some piles of boxes and wove her way among them. There was another tunnel behind the boxes that couldn’t be seen from the tunnel behind. “Over here, Alex.”
This tunnel was a bit different from the others. Lined with brick instead of poured concrete and cinder block, layers of thick wet green moss attested to an older age. It had no pipes in it and had a muddy, compacted dirt floor. The air was heavy with the musty odor of wet earth.
“They used this tunnel a long time ago to bring in water from a mill pond that used to be up ahead,” Emily explained. “It ran the machinery before steam and electricity. It’s so old, it’s not on any of the plans of the factory buildings it used to serve.”
The tunnel wound around, turning randomly this way and that in arcs rather than the sharp corners of the other tunnels. Alex and Emily rounded a corner and the tunnel came to a dead end. Up ahead, Alex could see dim sunlight coming through the wall, but he couldn’t tell how until he was a few feet in front it. The end of the tunnel was blocked by thick brush and light was penetrating through its many leaves and branches. Doug stood, peering through the greenery. “I don’t like it,” he said. “It’s too light out there. Too exposed. It’s going to be dark soon. Let’s wait for a bit.” He sat down, leaning up against the wall.
Alex was grateful for the rest and followed suit. “Are we safe here? Won’t they find us?”
“I think we’re safer here than out there,” said Doug. “At least for right now.”
“God knows I could use the breather,” said Alex.
. . .
“You know,” said Alex, “Todd said Richard and Oscar are in Marlborough. It just occurred to me, it’s only about a twenty or thirty minute drive from here.”
“Well, we aren’t going to be able to help them any. We’ll be lucky if we get out of this at all,” said Emily.
“Maybe when we were over Connecticut, we should have turned right and headed up to Montreal or Quebec instead of returning to Worcester,” said Alex.
“And then what?” said Emily. “If they have the Russians and Chinese with them, they sure as hell will have the Canooks on board too.”
“We do seem to have exhausted our options,” said Doug. “But I agree with Emily. Let’s get out of here first.” He stood and moved over to the tunnel opening. “It’s been an hour or so, I’m going to take a peek outside.” Their piece of tunnel lit up a bit as Doug moved some branches out of the way to get a better look. “Shit!” he said and flattened himself against the wall of the tunnel, motioning Alex and Emily to do the same. A shot rang out and a thud in the wall opposite the greenery told why Doug wanted them to move.
“Cease fire!” called out a voice that sounded like Todd, not very far away. “Doug? Is that you? Are Emily and Alex with you?” There was a pause as if he were expecting an answer. “Listen. This is totally unnecessary. If you give yourselves up, you won’t be harmed. We can’t let you escape alive, but you will be safe if you come with us.”
“Somehow, I don’t find your promises very credible,” answered Doug. He motioned Emily and Alex back down the tunnel. “It seems that every time we meet your people, they’re trying to kill us!” Manhole, mouthed Doug.
Emily nodded, grabbed Alex’s arm and retreated back the way they came. There still was no sound of pursuit from that direction.
“You can’t escape. You can’t stop the release of the virus. You can’t change what’s going to happen,” called Todd. “If you get away, you might screw up our plans, make things a little more difficult, and we don’t want you to do that. But you can’t change the ultimate course of events. Give yourselves up now and you’ll be safe. Continue to run and we will use lethal force to stop you.”
Emily and Alex ran back down the tunnel, around a few bends. They heard a loud explosion and heard Doug call out, “There’s your answer and anyone coming close to this tunnel will feel the force of its promise!”
Emily paused, looking up at the ceiling. There was a hole leading up a few feet to a round metal plate. Sunlight shined down through holes that pierced the plate. Alex looked around the opening. Iron rungs set in brick led up both sides. He glanced down the tunnel toward its concealed opening as sounds of boxes sliding rolled to his ears. Doug appeared from the opposite direction, motioning them upward with staccato waves of his hands. Alex grabbed a hold of a bottom rung and began climbing. Just below the metal plate, he braced his feet on rungs on opposite sides of the opening and pressed upward with his hands. The plate barely moved.
“Hurry!” called Emily.
Alex could hear running steps approaching them. He climbed a little higher and pushed upward with his shoulder jammed under the plate. The plate moved a little more. He pushed with all his strength, using his legs to lift, and at the same time, shoved sideways. The plate rose and moved to the right, leaving a crescent-shaped swath of light.
Down below, he heard gunshots. “Hurry!” called Doug. “I can’t hold them off for long.” More gunshots.
Alex put his fingers through the slit he made and shoved as hard as he could. No longer having to support the weight of the plate, he was able to slide the cover free. More commotion from down below, more gunshots. Alex stuck his head up through the opening and looked around. Immediately, a man dressed in black noticed him and called out, “They’re over here!” and brought a pistol down aiming at Alex’s face.
Alex ducked out of sight as a shot rang out, hitting the manhole cover with a loud clang. More shots below. “This is no good,” he called out to the others.
“We’re trapped then,” said Doug.
“This is it,” said Alex. “We have to give up.” He looked down at Doug’s and Emily’s raised faces.
“Shit!” said Emily.
“He’s right,” said Doug. Doug threw his pistol down and called out down the tunnel, “Alright, we give up!”
“Shit!” said Emily again.
“Don’t shoot!” Alex cried upward through the open manhole. “We give up! We’re coming out.”
“Damn it!” said Emily. She dropped her pistol.
“Alright, come out, hands up,” said a voice from above. “No quick moves. Someone get Todd.”
Alex slowly rose up out of the manhole, his left hand appearing first, as he held on with his right.
“Let me see both hands.”
“How?” asked Alex. “I have to hold on or I’ll fall.”
“Put both your hands on the edge where I can see them and slowly pull yourself up.”
Alex poked his head out of the hole as he did as he was told. A pistol was held a few feet from him, pointing at his nose.
“That’s it. Slowly… carefully… that’s right, no sudden moves…”
Alex climbed the last rung and pulled himself up onto a sidewalk running between factory buildings. He got to his knees, stood and again held his hands high. Soon, other men dressed in black appeared around a corner, then Todd came walking up.
“Good, good,” said Todd. “Everyone stand down, no more violence.” Behind Todd stood the guy with the do-rag on his head. “Martin, take control here. Keep them safe, but don’t harm them.”
Emily and then Doug appeared out of the hole.
Martin walked up, pat-searched each of them and placed plastic wire ties around their wrists. “Hey, watch it, buster!” complained Emily when her turn came for the pat-down.
Martin smiled at her, and pushed her forward. “That way, bitch,” he said.
“Martin, tone it down a notch,” said Todd. “Calm down, everybody. We need to talk. It’s all over now. You can trust me.” Emily grunted. Todd turned to Martin. “I need to get back to the lab ASAP and check on things. Take them to Marlborough. Feed them, be nice, but keep them under control until I can meet with them.” He leaned his mouth in close to Martin’s ear. Alex could just barely make it out, but it seemed Todd said, “Tie up the loose ends.” It didn’t sound good.
“What about the pilots?” asked Martin.
“They’re a liability,” said Todd as he moved away. “Just take care of it.”
Goddamn it, they found them, thought Alex. Fear and regret spread through his mind like napalm on a battlefield as he realized he put those guys in harm’s way. He never considered the possible consequences.
Martin nodded and waved a pistol past the three of them toward a van pulled up to the curb near where they stood. He turned to a gaunt older man dressed in blue jeans as he pointed the gun back toward Alex. “Thank you, Mr. Everett. Your knowledge of these old buildings served us well. We were very lucky we found you on such short notice when we got here. Again, thank you.”
“That’s the guy I leased this place from,” whispered Emily to Alex.
“Just who are these people, and why do you want them?” the old man asked. He seemed unsure of the wisdom of his role in what was happening.
Martin swung his pistol toward Everett. There was a soft thump as his hand jerked upward. Everett folded in the middle and fell to the ground. “Your services will no longer be required,” Martin said.
“I guess it doesn’t pay to ask questions,” said Alex.
“Keep that in mind,” said Martin. Looking to the men in black, he cocked his head toward the man he just killed. “Take care of him,” he told them. Four men moved up and grabbed the body as Martin pushed Emily, Doug, and Alex into the sliding side door of the van. Martin got in after them, pistol at the ready and pointing at them.
“Is that what you’re going to do to us?” asked Emily as she looked at the body through the still open van door. “Why not just do it here and get it over with?”
“Make yourselves comfortable. We have a little trip to take,” said Martin as he slid the door shut.
“Emily, I don’t think we should tempt the man,” said Alex.