How thick are the subway walls outside Copley Square Station?”
“You’re crazy, Peter.” Tom Fallon was seated at his desk in the Fallon and Son shack. Peter, Evangeline, Danny, and Ferguson were crowded into the tiny room with him, and it was stifling.
“That’s what you said yesterday morning, but we got the old lady out and the Pratts didn’t do a thing about it,” answered Peter.
Tom Fallon looked at Ferguson. “What about this guy Rule, the one you’re so afraid of?”
“Right now, I don’t think we have to worry about him. If he’s been watching the Pratts, he’s more concerned about them than he is about us. I’m not sayin’ he won’t come after us, but he can deal with us anytime.”
“Well, even if there’s nobody shootin’ at you, you can’t just start diggin’ a hole in a subway wall any damn time you please. Trolleys run through Copley Square Station every five minutes.”
“Not when I’m waiting for them,” cracked Evangeline.
“They shut down at twelve-thirty, Dad,” said Peter.
Tom laughed. “If the Pratts have started diggin’, they’ll have that thing dug up, polished, and sittin’ on the mantel by midnight.”
“They can’t start digging until the church seminar room is empty,” said Evangeline. “The room is used by a drug rehabilitation group until eleven o’clock on Sunday nights.”
“Which means they’ll only have an hour’s start,” said Danny.
“I don’t think you people should be destroying private property,” said Tom.
“C’mon, Dad. You said yourself that we need a miracle to stay afloat for the rest of the year. That tea set will pay our bills and pay for any damage we do along the way. The Lord helps those who help themselves, Dad. He’s put the tea set down there, and it’s up to us to get it.”
“What bullshit,” said Tom Fallon softly. He glanced at Evangeline.
“We’re going to end this thing tonight, Mr. Fallon. Once and for all,” she said.
“I’ll ask you again, Dad. How thick are the subway walls?” Peter’s voice offered no doubt.
“Two feet.” Tom Fallon made his decision. He would stay with his boys. “Poured concrete, steel reinforcements.”
“How long will it take to cut through it?” asked Peter.
Tom grunted. “With a jackhammer, it’ll take you half the night to make a hole big enough to stick your cock in.” He looked at Evangeline and apologized.
“I’ve heard it before.”
“If you hit one of the steel reinforcements, you’ll have to start again. Beyond that, there’s guys diggin’ down from above. After you’ve been cuttin’ for a while, the sound of two heavy hammers and a compressor will carry right through the dirt and concrete up into the basement of the church. If they haven’t already figured out our plan, that’ll give it away for sure.”
Peter leaned against a file cabinet, folded his arms, and listened. He always enjoyed hearing his father talk about construction. It was one of the few things they could easily discuss.
“What about the Pratts?” asked Evangeline. “How long will it take them?”
“How many men do they have diggin’?”
“Could be five, could be seven,” said Ferguson.
“They’ll probably have to dig a hole about five feet square, just to make room for two guys to swing a shovel at once.”
“But before they start diggin’, they’ll have to cut through the floor,” offered Peter. “They start runnin’ a compressor out in the alley, neighbors might get a little suspicious.”
“They won’t need jackhammers,” said Danny. “Most basement floors are only three or four inches thick. They’ll cut through in an hour if they have a couple of Hilti hammers.”
“What are they?” asked Evangeline.
“They’re like a small jackhammer, only you run ’em off a wall outlet. Powerful little buggers.”
“Once they’re through the floor,” said Tom, “they’ll probably have about twelve feet more to dig, because the basement and the space beneath it go down about fifteen feet into the landfill. If they have two guys workin’ shovels all night, and I mean haulin’ ass, they’ll be lucky to hit twenty-seven feet before five in the morning. And once they get down seven feet or so into the landfill, they’ll have to start shorin’ up the sides of the hole. It’s a tall order, but they ain’t on salary and they ain’t workin’ for the city, so maybe they can pull it off.”
Tom Fallon’s mind was spinning now. He was attacking the problem. “You’ll have to do some shoring too if you try to tunnel. You’ll have to do some shoring too if you try to tunnel. You’ll also have to worry about pilings.”
“Pilings?” said Evangeline.
“Damn right. That’s not the most stable land in the world, even today. Look what happened when they started building that big skyscraper over there. Buildings all around it started to settle. Back in 1875, it was even less stable. You don’t build in fresh landfill and mud unless you sink pilings. Almost every building in the Back Bay sits on pilings. Pilings every four or five feet, granite capstones on top of the pilings, and the foundations poured on top of the capstones. If there’s a piling in your way, you’ll have to go around it.”
“This is sounding more discouraging all the time.” Evangeline looked toward Peter.
“You want to solve a problem, honey, you’ve got to know what it is,” said Tom. “And you’d better hope that the old lady was on the money when she said the strongbox was buried right beneath the outer wall. If she’s four or five feet off in the wrong direction, a steam shovel dug that thing up sixty-five years ago.”
“What do you mean?” asked Ferguson.
“Along Boylston, there’s only a few feet of play between the outer walls of the subway and the foundation walls of the buildings above. You’ve got the foundations going down ten feet. The dome of the tunnel is about four feet beneath the street, and the tunnel floor is about thirty feet underground. If you dropped a line from the outer wall of the foundation, you’d see that you only have about five feet of earth between the foundation and the tunnel wall.”
“You sure know your stuff.” Jack Ferguson laughed. He had forgotten his anger at Peter. He felt comfortable with all these people. He trusted them.
“Fallon and Son used to do a lot of work in the subways,” said Danny.
“If the tea set is right where you think it is,” continued Tom, “then you’ll have to tunnel in about three feet, which you should be able to do pretty quickly, once you’re through the wall. If it’s in any farther, you’ll be in trouble. Tunneling takes time, and you won’t have very much if you’re in a race with the Pratts.” Fallon paused. “On the other hand, if the old lady was off by a foot or two, the strongbox may be starin’ you right in the face when you get through the wall.”
“But how in hell do we get through two feet of concrete if a heavy hammer won’t do it?” asked Peter.
Tom looked at Danny. “Remember the time we did a job for a guy down near the Blue Hills? We had to move a lot of rock out of the way before we poured the foundation?”
Danny smiled.
Jack Ferguson was right. For the moment, William Rule had stopped thinking about the Fallons and Ferguson. They had lost the race. They might have all the clues, but the Pratts had the strategic advantage.
At four o’clock, Rule’s Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud skimmed down Boylston Street, past the New Old South, and parked on the opposite side of Copley Square. Rule got out and sat on a concrete bench. A troupe of Russian folk dancers were performing for a Sunday crowd on the sunken plaza, and the sound of balalaikas reverberated off the surrounding buildings. A little girl just out of the stroller jumped about in imitation of the dancers while her parents shared a joint that smelled sweet and inviting. College kids reclined in the sun and sipped beer. The winos clustered at the southeast corner of the square. A pleasant summer Sunday, despite the heat.
Edward’s report had been accurate. There were Pratt men all around the church. Apparently, they had found the tea set.
William Rule gazed at the church and thought about Billy Rulick, the little boy who had refused to give in until he had what he wanted. He thought about Philip and Calvin Pratt, men born into a world where there was no struggle and no hardship. He had frightened the Pratts. He had made them squirm. He had brought them to the brink, and with a little luck, he would push them over.
But William Rule preferred not to rely on luck. He had the proxies he needed to take over chairmanship of Pratt Industries. He had, for years, been trying to tie up loose ends, to track down distant Pratt relations and destroy the handful of missing clues. His first mistake had been in leaving the Korbel woman alone. He had decided that an obscure woman on the West Coast would present no problems. When he learned of Pratt’s most recent trip to Los Angeles, he decided, a few hours too late, to eliminate Sally Korbel.
On a tombstone in South Boston, Rule’s genealogist—Rule had hired him at an enormous salary to track down all Pratt descendants—read an inscription: “Sean Mannion, December 9, 1806, to October 10, 1863; Beloved Husband of Lillian; Beloved Father of Joseph; Beloved Servant and Friend of Abigail Pratt Bentley.” The genealogist had found the inscription most unusual. He had investigated the cause of Mannion’s death and traced Mannion’s descent. When the Pratts had begun to close on the tea set, Rule had killed Mannion’s last descendant. In the long run, a needless death. He wondered briefly if he could have taken control of Pratt Industries without the tea set. Of course not. The tea set had been the key to landing the Hannaford block of stock. A hundred-thousand-dollar forgery for two million dollars’ worth. An excellent deal.
Rule had known from the day he first heard Phil Cawley’s gravel voice that he would use their own legend, their own greed, to avenge himself on the Pratts. He had engineered everything to that end.
Now, Rule had few options but to wait. If Hannaford’s plan succeeded, he might be able to turn back the Pratts, whether they found the tea set or not. And there was always the possibility that the tea set wasn’t there, that it had been dug up inadvertently by some construction crew and dumped where no one would ever find it. But Rule was certain of one thing: he could not kill anyone else. He laughed to himself, at himself. He had worked so hard, and now it was out of his control.
Tom and Danny Fallon spent a hot, busy afternoon. They had to prepare for the night’s work while the others lay low in Danny’s basement. The police were still interested in questioning Peter, and Ferguson figured that, although Soames and his men would be at the church, they might still try to monitor the Fallons. Peter, Evangeline, and Ferguson sat in front of the television set, watched the Red Sox, and waited.
Danny had to place several telephone calls, through a complicated network of cover men, before he found the man he needed. He arranged a deal, then drove to Chelsea and purchased fourteen sticks of dynamite. Danny Fallon had a state dynamiter’s license. After tonight, he would probably lose it. He hoped that after tonight he would never need it again.
When he returned, he and his father readied the tools they would need, and they removed three fuses from the electrical box on the pick-up truck. They didn’t want tail lights, brake lights, or back-up lights tonight.
At ten-thirty, Bennett Soames was sitting in the basement seminar room of the New Old South Church. The rehabilitation meeting was open to anyone who had a drug problem, and Soames, seated among former heroin users and pill takers, was describing his addiction to amphetamines. Outside, his men waited.
In the house at Commonwealth and Clarendon, Philip Pratt finished a ham and cheese omelette and a cup of coffee. He wasn’t hungry. His stomach felt like a clenched fist. He didn’t want to go back to the church. He wanted to leave tonight on the Gay Head IV. But he had conceived this scheme. He had to see it through. He had a responsibility to himself and his heritage. He had to do what he could to hold on, even if he no longer cared.
Calvin and Isabelle were eating with him in the second-floor living room. Philip was wearing jeans, deck shoes, and a dark jersey.
“We should be getting over there,” said Calvin.
“You should be going home,” answered Philip. “We have enough men to dig, and if we all end up in jail, we’ll need a good lawyer to get us out.”
“I’ve been involved from the beginning,” said Calvin.
“There’s no need for two Pratts to dirty their hands. Go home and stay by the telephone.”
Isabelle went downstairs with Philip. At the door, she touched his cheek. “Good luck.”
“In a way, I hope it isn’t there,” he said.
“It will be. You’ll find it. You have to find it.”
“I’d rather sail to Hawaii free of responsibilities. Are you still interested in serving before the mast?”
“I won’t be here when you come back, Philip. No matter what happens, we can’t stay together.”
She had been thinking about his offer all day, but she hadn’t known what her response would be when she walked him to the door. Now, she faced their reality. “We’ve given each other strength. Let’s leave it at that.”
He kissed her on the forehead.
“Be careful, Philip.”
He stepped outside. He knew she was right. The clenched fist in his stomach tried to punch its way out of him. He started up Commonwealth Avenue. His pace quickened. His steps became pronounced, angry. He knew that he wouldn’t be sailing anywhere with anyone. He had to find the tea set. Pratt Industries was his life.
At eleven-thirty, the drug-rehabilitation seminar ended. On his way out, Bennett Soames slipped into a restroom. He had little problem defusing the alarm system from inside the church, and at midnight, he opened the door. The entrance to 645B Boylston Street was at basement level. A flight of stone steps led up to the street, where Pratt, Harrison, and the others were waiting for him.
By twelve-fifteen, the Hilti electric hammers were cutting into the floor in the seminar room.
On Huntington Avenue, the trolley tracks ran down the middle of the street on a gravel-and-stone roadbed, and automobile traffic traveled on either side. The last inbound trolley stopped in front of the Museum of Fine Arts at twelve-thirty. Huntington Avenue was nearly deserted.
Evangeline Carrington was waiting to board. She was wearing jeans, sneakers, and a sweatshirt. The doors flipped open and she put her foot on the first step. “Is this the Green Line?”
“The trolley’s green, ain’t it?” said the driver, a heavy Irishman interested only in finishing his run and going home for a beer.
“Forest Hills to Park Street?” she asked.
He nodded. “And I’m goin’ to Park.”
The pick-up truck shot out from a side street. It pulled onto the vehicle crossing about a block behind the trolley and backed down the tracks, its tires slamming over the railroad ties.
“Can I change at Park Street for Harvard Square?” asked Evangeline.
“Not if you don’t get on real quicklike.”
Evangeline glanced down the track. The truck was backed up to the rear of the trolley. Peter and Danny were dropping the tailgate. They needed more time.
“Do you make change?” she asked.
“Lady, if you don’t have the right change, you can ride for nothin’. Just get on.”
She looked down the track again. The railcart rolled off the truck and onto the tracks.
“You don’t get on, lady, I’m gonna close the door right on your pretty leg and drag you to Park Street.”
As Evangeline stepped onto the trolley, Jack Ferguson came running out of the darkness with a big shopping bag under each arm. “Hey, wait a minute! Wait!”
“Oh, wait,” said Evangeline. “There’s another man coming.”
“I see him.” The driver cursed to himself and kept the doors open.
Evangeline knew that although the railcart would ride close to the tracks, the cab of the pick-up was level with the trolley’s back window. She looked behind her. The light inside the trolley was bright enough that she couldn’t see into the darkness outside.
Ferguson stepped onto the trolley and dropped one of the shopping bags. He stepped off and picked up the packages that had tumbled out. The driver looked at his watch and glared at Ferguson, but Ferguson didn’t need to stall any longer. Peter Fallon gave him thumbs up, and Ferguson climbed onto the trolley.
“Be careful,” said Tom Fallon to his sons. “I’ll be at the ventilator between Auditorium and Copley.”
The trolley began to move. The railcart coupler engaged. The driver sensed a brief hesitation, but the trolley kicked ahead and the Fallons were on their way.
Tom Fallon pulled his truck off the tracks and watched the trolley rattle past Northeastern University. He was helping them do something dangerous and crazy. But he was helping them. He threw the truck in gear and headed for Boylston Street.
Peter and Danny Fallon held tight to the handles on either side of the railcart, which the Fallons used to transport equipment when they did a masonry job in the subway. Tonight, the Fallons were carrying a gasoline generator, two powerful electric drills for boring holes in concrete, picks and shovels, a set of high-quartz work lights, plywood and planks to support a tunnel, hardhats, fourteen sticks of dynamite, a detonator, and blasting caps. They were also carrying five heavy steel fire doors; Tom Fallon had picked them up on a demolition job and thought they might make good protection against the force of the explosion.
After another stop on Huntington Avenue, the trolley descended into the ground. The breeze turned hot and humid, and the metallic whisk of the trolley across the surface tracks became a deafening roar in the tunnel. Blue fluorescent lights flipped past like pulses from a strobe.
Peter looked at Danny. “Scared?”
Danny nodded and yelled over the roar, “Shitless.”
“Wanna turn back?”
“No way.”
“Me neither.” Peter smiled.
There were four other passengers in the trolley. An old woman sat directly behind the driver and read a tabloid. A teen-age couple clung to each other about halfway down the car. A drunk kept falling asleep and waking up, his head bouncing around as though it were on a spring. All were oblivious to their surroundings.
Evangeline sat in the rear seat. She was excited. She was almost happy. She had never believed she would come this far, but she knew that tonight, it would end. She only hoped that tomorrow, she and Peter would find something more to keep them together.
Jack Ferguson sat a few seats away and stared at his reflection in the window. He barely recognized the face. Years of drinking, searching, and running in fear had made him look old and haggard. But tonight, it would all be worthwhile, and tomorrow, he could begin again.
The trolley stopped at Symphony Station, where the coin booth was not visible from the platform. Peter looked around at the peeling paint on the tunnel walls and realized that he was under the ground of what had once been Gravelly Point. He imagined Horace Taylor Pratt poking his cane into the mud at the edge of the Back Bay. He wondered what Pratt would think if he saw this world today.
The trolley lurched ahead again. Fallon felt a jolt of adrenaline turn his stomach over like an engine. He grabbed the sides of the cart. He felt the strength in his hands and arms. He realized the clarity with which he saw everything around him, even in the half-light of the tunnel. He looked up. Through the back window of the trolley, he saw Evangeline looking down at him. He saw one of her gold earrings catch a reflection. She was beautiful. He waved—a short, confident motion, like a salute.
Philip Pratt had his fingers in his ears. The sound of the electric hammers was deafening. But the fingers didn’t help. Every time one of the hammers bit into the floor, the vibrations sent shock waves through his feet and up his spinal cord. He wondered why the noise didn’t seem to bother Soames, who watched impassively as Buckley and Harrison operated the hammers.
Soames was wondering about other things. He didn’t expect any trouble from Rule. He knew that Rule could not afford more overt violence. But he wasn’t certain about Fallon and Ferguson. He did not believe that they would give up so easily. For a moment, both electric hammers stopped clattering, and Soames heard the last outbound trolley rumble through the tunnel below. He wondered if they might come in through the subway. They could never cut through two feet of concrete in time.
As the trolley rolled into Prudential Station, beneath the Prudential Center, Peter Fallon looked toward the change booth. At this stop, the booth had a clear view of the tracks. But Fallon wasn’t worried. At the moment, he believed he could make himself invisible if he had to. He knew instinctively that they would make it through.
The man in the change booth was counting his money and paying no attention to the platform. Evangeline and Ferguson got off the trolley.
“I thought you wanted Park Street,” said the driver.
“I think I’ll walk,” answered Evangeline.
The doors slammed shut and the trolley pulled away. Evangeline and Ferguson waved as the railcart rattled past. The Fallons looked like a pair of MBTA employees on their way to a repair job in the tunnel. Ferguson looked toward the change booth. The man inside was still preoccupied, and there was no one else on the platform. Ferguson and Evangeline stepped onto the tracks and followed the trolley into the tunnel.
On its last run, the trolley was hitting close to fifty miles an hour. Peter and Danny were both on their knees holding tight to the railcart handles. If not for the ballast of the heavy steel doors, the railcart might have bounced off the tracks.
Peter looked at Danny and hollered, “Now?”
Danny nodded.
Peter let go of the handle and crawled to the front of the railcart. He reached forward and pulled the coupling pin. It came out smoothly, and the cart cut loose.
The driver felt the trolley speed up, although his foot was steady on the accelerator. He reminded himself to make a report.
The cart rolled to a stop, and the trolley spurted on to Copley Station.
“Beautiful,” said Danny. “Beautiful.”
They jumped off the cart and pushed it to the crossover their father had told them they’d find about halfway down the tunnel. They rolled the cart from the inbound onto the outbound track and sat down to wait. The trolley pulled away from Copley Station, a quarter mile down the tracks, and was swallowed by the concrete tube. Except for the sound of Evangeline and Ferguson running down the tracks to join them, the tunnel was silent.
William Rule sat on his balcony and sipped iced tea. His wife had gone to bed. Edward was reading in his room. Lawrence Hannaford had not yet called. William Rule did not ordinarily mind being alone, but tonight he felt very lonely.
He lifted his toupee and wiped the perspiration from the top of his head. The weatherman had predicted a cold front tonight. Rule hoped it came soon.
By one-thirty, the hole in the church basement was three feet deep. Buckley was watching the door. Harrison was resting. Soames and Dill were digging.
Dill stopped and leaned on his shovel. “I’ve been digging for an hour. I need a break.”
Soames took the shovel and handed it to Pratt. “I think it’s time you dirtied your hands for the cause, Mr. Pratt.”
Pratt took the shovel willingly, but he sensed an edge of bitterness in Soames’s voice. He did not like it.
At two A.M., the clean-up crew finished work in Copley Square Station. Now, the Fallons could start. Danny threw his cigarette onto the tracks. Ferguson pulled a pint bottle of whiskey from his pocket.
“I thought you were on the wagon,” said Peter.
“I am. But if I have to be doin’ any shootin’, I don’t want a case of the shakes.” He took one gulp, recapped the bottle, and put it back in his pocket. “I had one belt before I got on the trolley, one belt now. When I see that tea set, I’ll take one more belt and drop the rest of this booze in a sewer.” He knew it wouldn’t be that easy, but it sounded good.
He checked the ammunition clip in his pistol. He had eleven bullets left, and the .45 sounded like a cannon when it went off. He didn’t want to shoot anyone, just scare the hell out of them. He had already killed one man. That was enough.
They gave the railcart a shove and it began to roll down the gentle grade toward Copley Station. Danny and Jack walked beside the cart so that it wouldn’t roll too far too fast.
Peter grabbed Evangeline by the elbow, and she turned to him. “It may get dangerous tonight. Do you want to wait with Dad up in the truck?”
She frowned. “And leave the boys to have all the fun? I’m going to be the first person to look into that box, Peter. I’ve earned it.”
“I can’t make you turn back?”
In the quiet moments since they had arrived in the tunnel, his excitement had worn off, and he had been able to think clearly. He knew that in a few moments, the action would consume him. “There may be gunfire.”
“You don’t need my help anymore, so you want me out of the way?”
“Whether we make it tonight or not, I want you around tomorrow.”
“I’ll be here if you will.” She spoke calmly, rationally.
Twenty minutes later, Soames and Philip Pratt heard the faint rumbling sound of a drill boring into concrete. They stopped digging. They heard it again.
“The Fallons?” asked Pratt.
“Did you ever expect them to give up?”
Pratt shook his head. “Can they get it first?”
“Not if they’re trying to jackhammer through two feet of concrete.”
The Fallons calculated that, if Abigail Pratt Bentley’s directions were precise, they would find the tea set about fifteen feet outside Copley Station, knee-high on the tunnel wall.
Now, Peter and Danny were drilling fourteen holes in a six-foot circle around the spot they had chosen. When they were finished, they would pack the holes with dynamite. Danny was already figuring how to set the charges. In the middle of the circle, he was drilling three holes. He’d wire those to blow first. That way, the top half of the circle would have a place to collapse into when it blew a millisecond later. The charges in the bottom half of the circle would be the most powerful. They would explode a second after the top half fell, and they would move the rubble away from the wall.
About forty feet down the tunnel, Evangeline was fashioning a protective barricade from the steel fire doors. A few feet in front of the area where the Fallons were working, Ferguson was setting up the powerful work lights. He was angling them toward the Copley platform and trying to place them so that they would not be knocked over by the blast. There was little conversation.
Everyone had a task. Everyone worked quickly and methodically. Evangeline did not think about the danger. Jack tried not to think about the drink he wanted. Peter was not even thinking about the tea set. He thought of nothing but the process. He felt nothing but the drill spinning in his hands.
At three-thirty, William Rule was asleep in a chaise longue on his balcony. The telephone rang and shook him awake. He spoke briefly, then hung up and called for his butler.
Edward appeared in his shorts. “Yes?”
“Prepare a light breakfast. Mr. Hannaford and I will be eating in an hour.”
Edward went off to dress.
Rule looked out toward the airport and realized that he couldn’t see it. The temperature had dropped twenty degrees since he’d nodded off, and the fog was rolling in.
The hole in the seminar room floor was over six feet deep, and dirt was heaped in great piles all about. Pratt and Harrison were digging.
“Stop,” said Soames. He cocked his head like a robin listening for a worm. “They’re not drilling anymore.”
“Could they have made it through?” asked Pratt.
“Not likely.” He wondered if any of them had the training to use explosives. Danny Fallon, the independent contractor. Soames cursed. He should have stopped them when he’d had the chance.
“Do it.” Peter’s voice vibrated with excitement.
Evangeline stuck her fingers in her ears.
Ferguson put his hands on his head.
Danny twisted the crank on the detonator box. An electrical charge streaked down the wires.
Philip Pratt and Geoffrey Harrison were knocked against the side of the hole. Soames staggered. The ground in the hole sank by a foot.
Huge chunks of concrete smashed off Evangeline’s barricade and scattered everywhere. The smoke and dust billowed into Copley Station and rolled down the tunnel. For a moment, Peter Fallon was transfixed by the cloud pulsating toward him. Illuminated from behind by the lights in the station, the smoke looked like some giant sea anemone. As it engulfed him, Peter Fallon leaped to his feet.
“Let’s go, Danny!” He grabbed a shovel and ran toward the hole.
Soames called for Buckley and Dill.
“My niece is down there,” screamed Pratt from the hole.
“Your niece is probably waiting for them in a car someplace down Boylston Street.” Soames snapped the Beretta out of his holster.
Ferguson took out his pint and sneaked one more belt of whiskey. Evangeline began to cough. He offered her the bottle. She shook her head. He started to take another drink, then hesitated. It seemed like a good time to stop. He threw the bottle against the wall.
The dynamite had torn a six-foot hole in the side of the subway wall and had bent reinforcing rods like pieces of plastic. The shock snapped the electrical circuit which fed the fluorescent lights. Except for the emergency lights shining out from Copley Station, the tunnel was in darkness. Water and gas lines running between the street and the tunnel dome had not been damaged. However, groundwater was already seeping through the rubble.
For the Fallons, Evangeline, and Ferguson, the blast had been deafening, and shock waves were rolling all the way back to the tunnel entrance on Huntington Avenue. But Danny believed that the concrete would contain most of the sound twenty-five feet underground. Since Boylston Street was a business section, there were few people on the street or in the buildings above the blast at four in the morning. A security guard in the Public Library might have heard the noise. A sensitive burglar alarm might have been tripped someplace above them, but that was all part of the gamble. The Fallons knew that in most residential areas of the Back Bay, the blast had been nothing more than a faint jolt, not enough to wake a light sleeper.
Peter and Danny attacked the dirt. Evangeline and Ferguson threw the steel doors onto the railcart and pushed it back down to the new hole in the tunnel wall. Ferguson pulled three doors off the cart and set them up so that the Fallons could dig behind them. Then, he set up a pair for himself. Evangeline couldn’t start the generator. Danny grabbed the wires from her, and she grabbed his shovel.
Soames, Buckley, and Dill broke into the subway and raced down the stairs through the rising dust.
Ferguson saw them when they reached the platform. “Hit it!”
Danny threw a switch on the generator, and four powerful quartz beams cut through the smoke, momentarily blinding Soames and the others.
“Back off,” screamed Ferguson from behind the lights. “Back off and out. We’ve outsmarted you.”
Soames answered by shooting out one of the lights. Dill jumped across the tracks and hid behind a concrete piling.
Ferguson fired wildly down the tunnel. One of his shots caught Henry Dill in the arm. Soames stuck his head around the corner and fired at another light, but the glare was blinding. He missed. Another volley from Ferguson. Buckley leaped across the tracks to Dill and pulled him back behind the cover of the platform. Soames fired into the tunnel again.
Philip Pratt threw down his shovel. He realized that he had surrendered all his authority to Soames. His hands were filthy, his jeans and sneakers black with mud. He had surrendered his dignity as well. He would regain something, even if it meant losing the Golden Eagle.
He jumped out of the hole and told Harrison to follow him.
The steel fire doors had been a good idea. Behind them, Peter, Evangeline, and Danny were pouring themselves into their shovels. But they didn’t have to dig far. Just a few feet into the earth, Evangeline hit the strongbox, and her shriek echoed up and down the tunnel.
They’d found it, almost exactly where Abigail had predicted.
Soames fired again, then he looked at Buckley, who was trying to stop the bleeding in Dill’s arm. “We’re not paying you to cower behind corners. Get over on the other side of the tracks. We’ll shoot out the lights and go after them.”
“Bullshit.” Buckley drew the word out. “I’ll trail guys, I’ll put the knuckle on guys, I’ll dig holes in the mud. But I don’t see no future in runnin’ down a tunnel into a set of high-beams while some guy is shootin’ at me. And I don’t like shootin’ back too much, either.”
Peter and Danny cleared the dirt from the strongbox, then Evangeline grabbed the handle and pulled. The box didn’t budge. Peter grabbed the handle with her, and together they tore the Golden Eagle out of the ground. Its weight surprised them, and they dropped it into the rubble at their feet. For a moment, no one dared touch it. All four watched it as though they expected it to open itself, as though it had a life of its own.
“We’ve done it,” said Peter finally.
Soames fired and knocked out another light. Ferguson fired back.
“We’ve done it,” repeated Evangeline, in awe.
Peter grabbed one handle, Evangeline the other, and they started to run.
Soames heard the footsteps in the tunnel. He could not see past the work lights, but he knew where they were going. He turned to Buckley again. “You don’t have to do a thing. Just stay here for ten minutes and take pot shots. Both of you. Aim at the ceiling if you want. Just make them think you’re chasing them.”
Dill took out his pistol. “I’ll stay.”
“All right,” said Buckley. “Ten minutes. Pot shots. Nobody gets hurt.”
Soames ran up to the street. Pratt and Harrison were running toward him.
“Get in the car,” Soames commanded.
Pratt had no time to protest.
When they were sure that Ferguson and the others were fleeing, Buckley and Dill ran into the tunnel and turned the work lights around. Then, they began to fire randomly down the tube. Every time they fired, they could see the four figures fall to the tracks, get up, and run farther. Ferguson would return the fire, but Buckley and Dill were now safe behind the steel doors.
Geoffrey Harrison spun the Pratt Industries limousine around and careened down Boylston Street. He was going the wrong way on a one-way street, but at four-fifteen, there was no one else around.
“There he is!” Soames pointed to a pick-up parked on the left side of the street, near a subway ventilator grate.
Before Tom Fallon could react, the Cadillac was bumper-to-bumper with his truck and Soames’s pistol was aimed at his head.
“Get out,” barked Soames.
Tom Fallon climbed out of the truck.
“Against the wall.”
Tom Fallon put his hands against a storefront. Soames smashed him across the back of the head, and he collapsed on the sidewalk.
“You didn’t have to do that,” said Philip Pratt.
“Shut up.” Soames turned to Harrison. “Disable it.”
Harrison opened the hood of the pick-up and pulled out the distributor.
Peter, Evangeline Danny, and Ferguson reached the ventilator opening with the gunfire echoing down the tunnel after them. The opening was a five-by-ten-foot hole in the sidewalk, covered by an iron grate. A metal ladder led to the surface. Peter looked up into the darkness. “Hey, Dad.”
No answer.
“Dad?” Peter looked at the others. “Do we keep running?”
They heard more gunfire traveling down the tube toward them.
“We can run to the next station,” said Evangeline.
“This is where the truck is,” said Danny. Another volley of gunfire. Danny looked behind him. “The Pratts are down there. We can keep runnin’ all night and they’re still gonna chase us. Maybe the old man didn’t hear us. He’s probably asleep.”
Peter climbed the ladder, cautiously raised the little door in the grate, and poked his head above the surface. When he saw Soames, he was looking down the barrel of a pistol. Fallon tried to duck down, but Harrison grabbed him by the hair and pulled him up.
Fallon tilted his eyes down the ladder to Evangeline and the others. “Keep running.”
“Hand it up,” said Soames.
Ferguson had the .45 in his hand. He wanted to get off a shot, but the spaces in the grate were so small that the bullet would probably ricochet.
“Get out of here,” said Fallon.
Soames wanted no more hesitation. “Miss Carrington, I killed your brother, and I will kill your lover unless that tea set is in my hands in ten seconds.”
Philip Pratt was stunned. So was Evangeline. Jack Ferguson had guessed it was something like this. Evangeline tugged on the strongbox. Ferguson had the other handle. For a moment, he didn’t let go. He didn’t think that he could.
“I’m waiting,” Soames’s voice rasped out of him. “This young man has caused me no end of difficulty. I will kill him.”
Pratt advanced on Soames. “You killed my nephew?”
Harrison leveled a pistol at Pratt. “Stay there.”
Evangeline and Ferguson reluctantly handed the strong-box to Fallon, and he climbed out of the hole. Harrison grabbed one handle and told Pratt to take the other. They put the strongbox into the back seat, and Harrison forced Pratt into the car.
“Miss Carrington,” said Soames, “please join us.”
“Stay where you are,” said Fallon.
“I’ll count five, then I’ll kill him, Miss Carrington. You’re doing very well. Don’t make a mistake now.”
Evangeline climbed up to the sidewalk. Soames forced Fallon back down the ladder and slammed the grate.
“Follow at the girl’s peril.” Soames pushed Evangeline into the back seat of the limousine and locked the door.
As Philip Pratt had a moment earlier, she noticed that the lock knobs in the back seat had been removed.
The limousine turned around and headed back down Boylston Street. Fallon, Danny, and Ferguson were up on the sidewalk a second later. The sky was brightening, but a thick fog had rolled across the city. They could barely see the campanile of the New Old South, just a few hundred yards down the street.
Danny ran to his father’s side. Tom Fallon was unconscious, but he seemed to be breathing.
“It looks to me like the little bastard’s screwing his boss,” said Ferguson. “If you want to screw a Pratt, who’s the best person to go to?”
“Rule?” offered Peter.
“That’s right, but we better be careful, because that little bastard’ll kill her.”
Peter looked at his father. “Is he all right?”
“I don’t know,” said Danny.
“It’s a bump on the head. He’ll wake up,” said Ferguson.
“I’m stickin’ around to make sure he does,” said Danny.
“In the meantime, the tea set is gettin’ away from us,” said Ferguson.
“So get goin’,” yelled Danny. “When the old man wakes up, we’ll follow you. And be careful.”
Peter and Ferguson headed down Boylston.
“Did you kill my nephew?” demanded Philip Pratt.
Soames smiled. “I had to say something to get the tea set out of that hole.”
“You haven’t answered the question,” snapped Evangeline.
Soames ignored her. He looked at Pratt. “I think we should open the box.”
“My niece wants to know what happened to her brother,” said Pratt.
“Mr. Pratt, I have been dedicated to finding this tea set. All my actions have been dedicated to it and our mutual interest.” He smiled. He knew he might still need Pratt’s help.
Pratt wanted to accept Soames’s response as a denial.
“Let’s open the box,” repeated Soames.
For a moment, Pratt contemplated the box. Then, he pulled off the padlocks, two of which had already been snapped. The outer steel box was rusted shut, and he needed a screwdriver from the glove compartment to pry it open. After that came an oak liner, rotted into wet powder.
Evangeline forgot Soames. She held her breath and watched her uncle enter the family tabernacle. She hoped that the water hadn’t seeped through to the tea set.
But there was another oaken box; it was about an inch thick and in better condition. Philip Pratt opened it and revealed a Revere masterpiece: a copper liner for the strongbox. At the time that he had made the tea set, Revere had been experimenting with rolled copper. Lid and bottom fit so perfectly that the liner seemed watertight.
Philip Pratt’s mouth went dry. His palms were sweating. He broke open the liner. First came the red velvet, then, silver.
Silver. Gleaming, luminous, incandescent.
Evangeline did not see the blackened, tarnished metal she had expected. She saw silver, silver glowing in the predawn light.
Philip Pratt was dazzled.
For a moment, no one spoke.
Then, Soames reached into the box and picked up the sugar urn. “After all these years. Exquisite.”
“It’s almost too beautiful,” said Pratt. “Too beautiful to keep hidden.”
Soames’s eyes shifted from the small golden eagle on the urn to Philip Pratt. “I’m afraid that is impossible. We are going to deal right now.” Soames slammed the Plexiglas divider between front and back seat and locked it.
The limousine turned off Storrow Drive and headed for the waterfront.
Philip Pratt realized that he was being betrayed. He was losing everything—his company, his stature, his self-respect. He wished he had never heard of the Golden Eagle.
He turned to Evangeline. “I’m sorry, Vange. About Christopher, about everything.”
She didn’t look at him. Her eyes were fixed on the silver. On the tiny golden bird. On the object which had dominated and destroyed so many lives.
The limousine turned onto Lewis Wharf.
“You know exactly what to do,” said Soames.
Harrison nodded and took out his pistol.
Soames climbed out of the car and looked up at Rule’s balcony. He had to act quickly. He could see Edward peering down at him. He straightened his sportcoat and put the sugar urn into his pocket. He was nervous, but he had rehearsed this moment a hundred times. After this morning, he would never arrange a schedule, take a phone call, or swallow an insult from Philip Pratt again.
When Edward answered the door, Soames had a pistol pointed at his belly. “Let’s have your pistol.”
Edward turned over a .22 revolver, and they both went upstairs. Soames was surprised to see Rule and Hannaford having breakfast. It was not yet five o’clock.
“Morning, Soames,” said Rule. “Coming rather heavily armed to breakfast, aren’t we? I suppose you’re mad because you weren’t invited.”
Soames didn’t like Rule’s joviality. He backed onto the balcony so that Harrison could see him. He waved, then stepped back into the room. “If I am not out with an answer in two minutes, Mr. Harrison will leave with Pratt and the tea set.”
“You have the tea set?” asked Rule.
“Produce three million in cash and securities by nine A.M., and it’s yours. Otherwise, it goes to Pratt, and you two gentlemen are revealed for the frauds that you are.”
“Do you have evidence of the tea set?” Hannaford was interested in seeing it, at least once.
Soames took the sugar urn from his pocket and put it on the table. “There are thirty-one pieces. Each engraved with a small golden eagle. Do we have a deal?”
Rule could see the perspiration on Soames’s forehead. He was glad Soames was nervous. The scheme might work on a nervous man. He looked at Hannaford. “I suggest we call the police. It seems that we have an art thief on our hands.” He began to laugh.
“What are you talking about?” said Soames.
“Show him, Larry.”
Hannaford reached into the duffel bag beside him and pulled out a lump of silver about the size of a softball. He dropped it to the table. “It’s still warm.”
“It seems,” said Rule, “that thieves broke into the Museum of Fine Arts and stole the Golden Eagle Tea Set. You say you have it in your possession. That’s what you call your grand theft.”
“I don’t believe you.” The fury was building in Soames. He was smarter than Pratt. He was smarter than Rule. He was smarter than all of them. He couldn’t be bluffed.
“It’s true,” said Rule. “Listen to the morning news.”
Soames leaned across the table. “You listen to me. There is a hole in the subway six feet wide. There is another hole in the basement of the New Old South Church. When we tell the story of this tea set, people will believe us, because no one would make the mess we’ve made unless there was a reason to make it.”
Rule knew that Soames was right, but Rule was gambling. He laughed. “Try and prove it, little man, now that there’s no more fake. You can talk all you want to, but there’s only one tea set. That’s all there’s ever been. All that wasted effort.” Rule began to laugh, taking in great gulps of air and pouring out derision.
Hannaford began to laugh with him. “Face it, Bennett. You’ve been outmaneuvered.”
Outmaneuvered. He had played it all so well. He had planned everything so carefully. And now, they were laughing at him.
The fury exploded out of Bennett Soames. He raised his pistol and shot Lawrence Hannaford in the chest. He turned the gun onto Rule. Edward streaked across the room and caught Soames with a shoulder in the belly. Together they smashed over the balcony railing and down three stories to the paved wharf.
For a moment, William Rule couldn’t move. He looked at Hannaford’s body, at the smashed balcony railing, and then, for the first time in his life, he panicked. He heard the engine kick over on the wharf below. They were leaving with the tea set. He had to stop them. He had to destroy the tea set before it destroyed him.
He pulled a .45 from his desk and ran to the balcony. Through the fog, he could see the limousine starting to back off the wharf. He fired five shots. One missed. One hit the radiator, another the hood. Two smashed through the wind-shield on the driver’s side. The car accelerated suddenly, swung in a half circle, and slammed into one of the pilings on the wharf.
Philip and Evangeline were trapped. They couldn’t get out of the car, nor could they get into the front seat to get Harrison’s keys. Harrison was slumped over the wheel.
Rule reached the limousine as Fallon and Ferguson arrived at Lewis Wharf in a hot-wired car. He took Harrison’s keys and opened the back door. He grabbed Evangeline by the arm and pulled her out of the car.
“No!” Philip Pratt tried to grab Rule, and Rule shot him in the chest.
Peter and Jack jumped out of the car. Rule turned and fired at them, then he put the gun to Evangeline’s head. She struggled, but his arms were powerful and he held her tight.
“Don’t wrestle with me, you little bitch, or I’ll shoot you, too. Now pull that fuckin’ trunk out of the car.” He released her, and she did as she was told. Ferguson started to advance.
Rule fired at him. “Stay where you are, Jack.”
Rule and Evangeline backed down the ramp onto the floating dock. Each held a strongbox handle. Evangeline wanted to drop her handle and run, but William Rule was a madman. She knew he would shoot her. They flung the strongbox onto the Peter, which was moored at the dock.
“Goddammit,” said Ferguson. “He’s not gonna dump that tea set.”
Fallon grabbed him. “If we let him go, he’ll toss her overboard. She can swim back.”
In the distance, a police siren was wailing.
“He’ll dump the tea set.” Ferguson strode down the wharf and fired his pistol into the air. “Hey, you son of a bitch! Take a shot at me. I’m the one who’s been on your tail. Shoot me!”
Rule aimed the pistol at Ferguson, and Evangeline jumped into the water. Rule fired. A crimson stain spread on Ferguson’s shoulder, but he kept coming. Rule jumped onto the Peter and started the engines. He shot again at Ferguson, who was now halfway down the ramp, but he was out of ammunition. He tossed the gun aside and leaned on the throttle. The powerful twin screws drove the boat from the dock. Ferguson leaped and caught the stern.
Fallon could have made it easily if he’d jumped for the Peter, but Evangeline had hit the water in panic, and, as the Peter pulled away, she was sucked down into its wake. For a terrifying moment, Fallon thought she had gone into the propellers.
He dove and was beside her in an instant. She had taken a mouthful of the harbor and was struggling, fighting, instead of treading water. He wrapped an arm around her. He told her to relax. His presence settled her. After a moment, she didn’t need to hold onto him, and they swam together back to the dock.
Peter hauled himself out of the water, then helped her. “Are you all right?”
“I will be,” she said weakly.
He looked toward the Peter, barely visible in the fog. He could make out the figure of Jack Ferguson clinging to the stern. He jumped into a small Boston whaler moored next to Rule’s space. He pulled the ignition wires out of the control panel, touched them in the correct sequence, and the engine kicked over.
“We can’t even see them, Peter,” said Evangeline.
“We’ll follow their wake.”
The Peter was already skimming past the waterfront restaurants and heading toward the outer harbor. William Rule had navigated this route so many times in his good life that the fog was no more an impediment than a slight easterly chop.
Ferguson managed to get a leg out of the water and haul himself onto the deck. Rule looked over his shoulder, but he couldn’t let go of the wheel. He was going too fast.
Ferguson leveled the gun at him. “Turn this thing around.”
Rule laughed.
“I said turn it around.”
The panic was gone. William Rule realized that it was over, no matter what happened to the tea set. He was finished. If he couldn’t convince the world that his tea set had been authentic, he would not give the Pratts the chance to prove that it had been false. “You’ll have to shoot me, Jack.”
Through a break in the fog, Fallon and Evangeline glimpsed the Peter. Fallon corrected his course and fed the outboard more gas.
“I will shoot you if you don’t turn this thing around,” said Ferguson.
“No you won’t.” Rule looked over his shoulder. “And you know why? Because you’re too decent. You’re a sucker.”
Ferguson stepped across the deck. Rule pulled a fillet knife from the knapsack beside him. “Don’t try to wrestle the wheel away from me, Jack. I’ll cut you open like fuckin’ codfish. You want to stop me, shoot me in the back of the head. Because it’s all over for me, Jack. The tea set’s ruined me. If you can get it ashore, you’ve got a whole new life to enjoy. So take a tip from a guy who should know. When you get the chance, kill your enemy. Don’t try to nickel-and-dime him to death. Don’t mess up his apartment and try to scare him when he figures out you’ve killed a Carrington. Don’t try to get him drunk and hope he drinks himself to death. Put a new set of nostrils in the back of his head and kiss him goodbye.”
Ferguson raised the gun.
Rule looked around. “No balls, Jack. You have no balls. I’ve got ’em to rent. That’s why I’ve lived the way I have, and you’ve ended up in the gutter.”
The Peter streaked out past Castle Island and Thompson’s Island, past the unmarked grave of a long-decayed cargo sloop called the Reckless, and out toward the open sea.
The outboard couldn’t keep up, and soon Fallon was circling in the fog, cutting his engines periodically to listen for the cabin cruiser. But the heavy moisture in the air captured sounds, and the Peter was already too far away.
William Rule had decided that he wasn’t going back. His loaded flare gun was on the bulkhead. A quick shot into the gas tank would take him, Ferguson, and the tea set to the bottom. His troubles would be over, and trouble was all he could see ahead of him.
Ferguson held the pistol so that it was close to Rule’s ear. “For the last time.”
Rule laughed. “You can’t shoot a man in the back of the head, Jack. You just can’t.”
Jack Ferguson knew that Rule was right. William Rule had tried to destroy his life. Jack Ferguson had lived for the moment when he would avenge himself. The moment had arrived, and he couldn’t do it. He looked at the strongbox. It was finally within his grasp. If he pulled the trigger, the tea set would be his, and the murderer would be punished. In the pit of his stomach, Ferguson had known all along that Rule had killed Jeffrey Carrington.
He raised the gun. He aimed. He told himself that Rule was no different than the assassin who had done Rule’s killing. His hand squeezed the gun, but he couldn’t pull the trigger. He was too decent to shoot a man in cold blood. He lowered the pistol. He wished he had the stomach to kill Billy Rulick.
After twenty minutes at high speed, the Boston whaler ran out of gas. Fallon and Evangeline were left adrift in the fog with no oars and no means of signaling. The air was thick and gray and quiet. They could see nothing but each other and a small carpet of water around them.
“Dammit!” Fallon slammed his hands against the wheel.
“You’d never catch them in this boat.”
“We have to keep trying.” He wouldn’t admit that it was over.
He stood up and tried to listen for the engines, although he had no way of following. He cocked his head one way, then another, but he heard nothing. For almost five minutes, he gazed silently into the fog. He had never felt more helpless in his life.
Evangeline shivered and drew her arms around herself. They were both soaked from their plunge into the harbor, and the air temperature was only about sixty degrees. Cold water was dripping from Fallon’s hair and running down his neck. He tried to ignore it.
He slipped down into the bow of the boat and pulled his knees up against his chest. His cotton shirt was plastered to his skin. Depression was closing in around him like the fog. “I didn’t even get to see it.”
She left her seat and joined him in the bow. “Maybe you’re lucky. I saw it. It was beautiful, but all I could think of was the pain it caused.” She shivered again. “It wasn’t worth it.”
Then they heard the explosion. It seemed to vibrate through the fog and water, and the small boat began to roll on the swell. According to the compass, the sound came from the east, the direction the Peter had taken. They both knew what it was. They moved closer to each other.
“Poor Jack,” said Evangeline softly. Her body shuddered with the cold.
“It’s gone,” said Peter. “It’s gone to the bottom.”
“For good.”
He gazed to the east. The fog was moving up the scale from dark gray toward white. The sun had risen. “Maybe not.”
“Forget about it, Peter.” She had dug it up. She had seen it. Wherever it was now, it couldn’t hurt her. She didn’t want it to hurt them. “Forget about it.”
“I can’t forget about it. You can’t ever forget about it.” Fallon was getting colder.
“No matter how hard you look, you’ll never find it. You’ll just destroy yourself. For what?”
He realized he didn’t know.
He shivered.
She said his name. He put his arm around her, and the two bodies shivered together. He wished they had a blanket.