A CHORUS OF WILLS
Gaia was crouched in the hole the bomb had blasted in the wall. Leaning out and peering straight down, she saw that there was a ten-foot drop at most—and at the bottom of that drop, she could see the steel grating of the catwalk that stretched off endlessly in both directions.
Simple to climb down, she realized, gauging the distance. Not so simple to climb back up.
The chalk arrow on the wall pointed left. It didn’t look like something a Philadelphia engineer would have put there.
So who did? And why right there?
But the answers were obvious. In her mind, the Socorro plan was beginning to make sense. Someone had found the spot in the tunnel that butted up against the courthouse sub-basement—and had marked it.
As if somebody was supposed to come through the hole—once it had been blasted out—and follow the arrow.
Follow it where?
Gaia could only think of one way to find out.
“Gaia?” Will was asking. His voice echoed in the tunnel, repeating back over and over like a chorus of Wills. “I said, ‘Now what?’”
“You knew there was a bomb,” she remembered. She pulled herself out of the blasted wall opening, back into the comparatively quiet sub-basement room. “Because you did research on Rossiter, right?”
“He builds bombs,” Will explained. “There’s like three dozen incidents in the FBI database—Rossiter’s blown up all kinds of things. Do you know him?”
“We’ve met,” Gaia said, laughing humorlessly—a laugh Will had heard before. Gaia remembered the beard, the stinking breath, the weight on her back—where the bruise had almost completely faded—and the hands around her neck. “I’d love to meet him again.”
“So what do we—?”
“Why do you keep asking that?” Gaia interrupted impatiently. “We follow the arrow. We go down the tunnel.”
“And go where?” Will protested.
“We can’t find that out,” Gaia said doggedly, “without going there. It’s obvious.”
Will was already shaking his head. “There could be anything down there. Any number of people or guns. It’s stupid to just go by ourselves—we’ve got to get help.”
“What do you mean?” Gaia was in no mood for this conversation. Her legs and body were nearly twitching with the need to go through that hole into the cool, wet air and down that tunnel. “Get help from who?” She pointed up. “We cant go back, in case you forgot. The courthouse is completely locked. The tunnel’s the only way.”
Will was still shaking his head. She saw that his face was suddenly illuminated by a piercing blue light—he had opened up his cell phone. “I’m not stupid, Gaia. I’m just saying let’s get aboveground and call for backup. Call the FBI, call the Philadelphia police—damn it, no signal.”
“Of course there’s no signal,” Gaia yelled. “Anyway, how are you going to call the bureau?”
“The wall blew up!” Will was yelling right back. “Don’t you realize that the bomb changes everything? We’re not theorizing anymore! You found the real terrorist plot—I think Malloy will listen to you now.”
Gaia was listening, but she was also remembering Winston Marsh’s words from the day before. They want Sanders dead, Marsh had told her. You won’t find an official order or anything on paper, but that’s an absolute priority. She knows too much.
And you too. Make no mistake, Gaia—the sole purpose you’re serving right now is to lead the FBI to Catherine, if she’s still alive. Once you’ve done that for them, then you’ll be terminated, too.
“No,” she told Will flatly. “No phone calls, no cops, no Malloy, no FBI” She moved closer to him, pointing over her shoulder at the jagged hole in the wall. “Catherine’s down there. I’m sure of it. Tied up, bleeding, frightened. She took risks to contact me and asked me to save her.” Gaia could hear her voice getting angrier, but she couldn’t help it. She was tired of standing in this dust-filled underground room—she was aching to get moving. “Now I’m going to save her. You can come with me or not. But if you want to stop me, you’re going to have to fight me.”
“Gaia—” Will sighed theatrically. Gaia’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough that she could begin to see his face. “Gaia, be reasonable. There’s a procedure we’re supposed to follow when—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Gaia shouted. “If either of us were following ‘procedure,’ we wouldn’t be here. If you’re scared, just admit it! Admit that this whole thing has you spooked and you want to run home to Daddy!”
“Gaia—” Will sounded hurt. “That’s not fair.”
He’s right—it’s not, Gaia thought sadly. But I’ve got to do it—I’ve got to get his ego on the line so he’ll come with me.
“Then prove it,” Gaia said, sitting down on the cold, jagged edge of the hole, swinging her feet over into the cool air of the tunnel. “Follow me.”
“Gaia—”
“If you really are the man you act like,” she told him, “you’ll come with me.”
“You know I can’t,” Will said miserably. “Someone’s got to get backup—otherwise we’re walking into a death trap.”
“Fine,” Gaia said. Tensing her body, she gripped the edge of the hole and dropped down. Her hands slid against the wet concrete and then her feet slammed into the steel catwalk. “See you later, Will.”
“Gaia, wait!”
Gaia looked up. The sound of rushing water was louder now, echoing all around her like the roar inside a seashell. She could see Will’s head silhouetted above her. The hole was ten feet up the smooth, wet curve of the tunnel’s cement wall.
No way back up.
“Are you coming?” Gaia shouted. There was no answer. She couldn’t see Will’s face or hear anything over the loud roar of the water. She turned to the left—the direction in which the arrow pointed—and started down the tunnel.
A NATURAL CAUTION
This is the end of the journey, Gaia thought.
She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she was certain of it. The road chosen in Quantico, when she drove off into the night—the road that led to Baltimore and Collingswood and finally to Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love—ended in this tunnel.
Gaia remembered the dream she’d had in which she was following a river. It was funny that she’d ended up here, deep underground, moving along this waterway. If Gaia had believed in premonitions, she would have been spooked.
After she had walked for five minutes the hole in the wall disappeared in the distance behind her. The tunnel seemed to continue forever, its work lights diminishing into the endless distance like highway reflectors. Her footsteps clanged and rattled against the steel catwalk, echoing and reverberating in an endless dull symphony of metallic percussion. The water shone like glass five feet below the catwalk, roaring past her at what seemed like high speed. From the temperature of the cool, damp air Gaia guessed that the current was cold and strong—and fairly deep, too. She didn’t like to think what would happen to her if she fell in there. There was nothing to grab on to at the water’s edges except smooth concrete; a person who fell into that raging river would probably we washed miles downstream after they’d drowned.
Gaia had no idea where she was in terms of Philadelphia geography. That’s what that map was for, she thought, realizing that she’d left it behind in the courthouse’s basement. If I’d realized, I could have asked Will to toss it down to me.
Will. Gaia frowned in the darkness as she thought about him. It would be so much simpler if he were right here with her, following the underground river by her side. They could confer, make decisions—and she wouldn’t be alone, as alone as she’d been since this whole surreal journey began.
But he’s not like that, she told herself doggedly. It’s not in his nature. A boy like that cannot be made to throw away everything he believes in just because you tell him to.
But Gaia knew she was being unfair.
Running her hand along the steel balustrade that flanked the catwalk—and bringing her hand away wet—Gaia realized that Will had actually done exactly that.
Didn’t he steal all that information just because I asked him to? Didn’t he sneak into that chat room with me even though it could have cost him everything? Maybe even his life?
Gaia’s eyes narrowed in the darkness as she thought about it. And didn’t he run away from the base just to meet me here? Because he thought I was in danger?
Will had come through for her—over and over. She forced herself to admit it. All he had done at the end was exercise a natural, sensible caution.
What if he’s right? Gaia thought, looking ahead down the tunnel. What if I can’t handle whatever’s down there?
Should I go back?
But there was no way to go back. Her watch told her that she’d already been walking for nine minutes—she had no idea how far that meant she’d traveled. If she retraced her steps, she’d just be back at that hole with no way to climb up. She could shout for Will, but how could she be sure he would hear her? If he was back up the ladder, in the courthouse basement where they’d kissed, then he definitely wouldn’t hear her. A bomb had gone off and they’d barely picked up the noise—there was no way the sound of a yelling girl would penetrate through all that stonework.
Up ahead, Gaia saw, the tunnel was ending.
Getting closer, peering through the dim light, she realized that it wasn’t ending, exactly, but forking. The tunnel ran into another tunnel that moved off left and right. Gaia noticed that the catwalk formed a bridge up ahead, allowing her to go in either direction.
So what do I do?
Gaia wasn’t interested in getting lost in the Philadelphia water system. Images flashed through her head of herself spending the rest of her life down here, wandering like a wretched shipwreck victim, her pale dead body eventually washing out to sea.
Getting closer to the junction, Gaia suddenly saw another chalk arrow on the opposite wall. Pointing right.
Someone’s supposed to follow the path, she realized again. She was absolutely sure of it. Through the new hole and down the pipes to—where?
But there was no way to find out except to keep going.
Gaia thought about the journey she’d taken—about Rossiter, and Marsh, and the basements and motel rooms and rest areas, about the decayed city parks and pumping stations, all leading to this tunnel. Thinking through the steps she’d taken, she was convinced she hadn’t made any mistakes—that every move had been logical.
I’m coming, Catherine, she thought again, following the arrow across the metal bridge and moving farther down the tunnel. I’m nearly there now. I can feel it.
Will
This is ridiculous.
I know I’m right. Every instinct, every bit of knowledge and experience tells me I’m right. But I feel wrong.
The argument I gave Gaia makes perfect sense. Catherine told me how Gaia won the game back when we first started—how she laid out the evidence for Agent Bishop, point by point, justifying each leap of logic, and, once she’d finished, it didn’t matter anymore what rules she’d broken. In the end, what’s important to the bureau is solving and preventing crimes, not upholding rules and regulations.
Right?
I mean, in Hogan’s Alley, Gaia realized that the empty medicine cabinet pointed at the doctor as the perp—and she was right. Now she’s traced a series of clues to a terrorist bomb—and she’s right again. The FBI will care about that more than they’ll care about that memo or all their misunderstandings. I’m sure of it.
But that was a game—it wasn’t real. And like I just realized, when it’s real, everything’s different. It’s one thing to be brave and smart and in command when you’re just racking up points and trying to win. Hell, I’ve been doing that all my life. But when it’s life or death for real—when you’re staring at an actual bomb that will actually detonate, not a classroom model—suddenly everything’s different.
And she saw me afraid.
That’s the worst part. Pacing this damn courthouse basement, holding my cell phone, trying to decide who to call first, I keep looking at the room with the detonator and the spot on the floor where we sat and talked—and kissed. Okay, maybe somebody without fear doesn’t have the right to give anyone grief about their moment of weakness. But that doesn’t make it hurt any less.
She could be walking into a trap. She could be in incredible danger.
Could be? Of course she’s in incredible danger. I can’t get that image out of my head—the last view I had of her, a dark shadow moving away on that catwalk over that mysterious underground river. On her way into the heart of the mystery. And me, leaning over that jagged hole, watching her go. And doing nothing.
This is a waste of time. I’m letting a girl influence my thinking. Just like when I first got that message from her about the chat room—I effectively stopped thinking rationally and just did whatever she told me to do. Like a sap—like a man with no will of his own.
I shouldn’t be pacing and debating with myself. I should flip this phone open and dial 911 and start talking. I could have the cops here in ten minutes, and then I could show them my badge and explain the situation and ask to be taken to the FBI’s regional field office and then—assuming they believe my story and don’t waste time with too many questions—the cops and the bureau will be down in that tunnel with as much artillery as is necessary. And with bomb experts and terrorism experts and full military backup—
—and I let a girl walk into danger.
I have to stop thinking about it and do something. I won’t think about Gaia anymore. She made her own decision—I’m tired of covering for her anyway. It’s time to do the right thing. I don’t care what the consequences are; I’ve broken enough rules for one day. I’m calling for backup right now.
NOTHING BUT BLACKNESS ABOVE
Without her wristwatch Gaia knew she would have completely lost track of time. There was no frame of reference—just concrete, steel, and water running off in all directions. Gaia figured that it would be very easy to go insane down here if you somehow got lost and couldn’t find your way out. In these tunnels there was no day and night, no north and south, no up and down. Just tunnels, connecting and reconnecting, with the same feeble, regularly placed bulbs and the same dull roar of water until you wanted to scream.
Since dropping through the hole in the wall and leaving Will behind, Gaia had made four turns, each marked with a chalk arrow. She was forcing herself to memorize the path she was taking, but the geography was very difficult since everything was the same—she kept losing track of how many junctures she’d passed through or turns she’d taken. Gaia knew that retracing your steps backward could be very difficult—anyone trying to follow trip directions in the other direction quickly found that out. And down here there seemed to be no way out but forward and back—only once had she seen a ladder going up, and peering through the hole she saw it led up through nothing but blackness above. Probably leads to a manhole, she thought, picturing herself trying to unseat a heavy iron disk from beneath, with traffic moving overhead as she did it. No, thanks. That was an easy way to get—
Gaia suddenly stopped walking.
The light had changed.
Squinting ahead, she was sure—the tunnel was getting brighter. There was another light source ahead, a bright one, around a curve in the tunnel’s sloping wall.
Gaia moved forward hesitantly. Her eyes had gotten so used to the darkness that the yellow light ahead seemed blindingly bright, and she squinted painfully until her eyes adjusted.
There was a hole in the wall up ahead.
It was easy to see that it wasn’t a part of the tunnel’s original construction. But unlike the hole beneath the courthouse, which had been instantly created in the past hour by means of expertly placed explosives, this hole was much more regular. It looked like it had been neatly sawed out of the stone.
Bright light was shining out through the hole—and by concentrating, Gaia could hear murmuring voices.
On the opposite wall of the tunnel, illuminated by the brilliant yellow glare from the hole, a final chalk sign had been drawn. Not another arrow—a big X.
X marks the spot, Gaia thought dazedly. I’m here.
A metal ladder had been attached to the catwalk she was on, leading up to the hole in the wall.
Gaia unsnapped her holster and carefully drew out her Walther. She flicked the safety back. Her hands were slippery, and she dried them impatiently on her pants legs. It wouldn’t be very smart to drop her gun in the water.
With the gun ready, Gaia took a deep breath and then walked to the ladder as quietly as she could. Gripping the gun tightly, she climbed up step by step, taking care to keep her head below the edge of the hole.
What am I going to see? What’s in there?
Gaia had no idea.
She could hear voices, but the roar of the water was still maddeningly loud, and she couldn’t make out how many people were speaking or what they were saying any more than she’d been able to hear Will an hour before, however many miles behind her they had said goodbye.
Without sound cues Gaia had no idea how to move through the hole. It was conceivable that she’d be shot dead the moment she stuck her face up into view. There might be some kind of acrobatic way to get through the hole, land without stumbling, and point her gun at any assailants who were there—but it would be very difficult, if not impossible. There was just no way to predict what the area in there was like. The floor could be right there or it could be ten feet down, with another ladder on the other side of the punctured wall. From her vantage point all she could see was a smooth, dimly lit cement ceiling.
Will was right, Gaia admitted to herself. I can’t do this by myself.
But it was a little late to change her mind.
Slowly raising her head, Gaia looked through the hole.
IMPRESSIVELY FAST REACTION TIMES
She was looking into a brightly lit room with a low ceiling lined with industrial fluorescent lights. The room was wide and bare, about the size of a small warehouse. The walls were featureless white cinder block. The floor was clean, dry cement.
The room was full of supplies. Gaia could see stacks of crates and rows and rows of weapons—artillery, rifles, handguns, cases of grenades, bundles of dynamite. Several of the crates had warning labels that read DANGER: EXPLOSIVES and C-4.
Not a place where you want to be firing a handgun, she realized uneasily.
Five men were standing in a clump to one side. They all wore black T-shirts and baggy camouflage pants, and their hair had been shaved down to buzz cuts. All of them were well built and carried themselves like they had received physical training. Poised at the top of the ladder, Gaia kept her head low, peering over the cement edge of the hole in the wall, watching the men as they intently unpacked a crate, removing and assembling what looked like the mounting tripod for an large-bore artillery gun.
I can take them, Gaia thought, looking at the men. They didn’t seem to have noticed her—but then, of course, they could be faking—just pretending not to see her so that they could capture her by surprise once she moved toward them. There was no way to tell.
The men were all armed, she saw, with what looked like Clock handguns in belt holsters, but the same restriction applied to them as to her—a stray bullet in that room could mean an explosion big enough to vaporize a city block.
So, no shooting—hand to hand. One against five.
The problem was that she couldn’t see the whole room. It was too big, and there were too many crates and boxes in the way. Any number of other men could be hidden from view, ready to pounce.
So be it, Gaia told herself. What are you going to do—wait for everyone to leave?
As quietly as she could, Gaia reholstered her gun, carefully flipping the safety back on. With the holster snapped shut she took a moment to calculate her move, setting her hands in the right places on the top rung of the ladder, and then, when she was good and ready, surged upward and jumped through the hole.
She landed neatly on floor, her shoes squeaking slightly as they hit the cement. The five men turned toward her instantly and displayed impressively fast reaction times. They didn’t stop and ask themselves why this blond girl had suddenly jumped into the room—they just dropped into fighting stances.
“Hai,” Gaia hollered from her center, leaping toward them. She jumped forward, aiming a kick at the head of the man nearest to her. With incredible speed the man whipped his head back, and Gaia twirled in the air, fighting not to lose her balance before landing heavily on her other foot. The men to either side of the first man moved toward her—
And suddenly Gaia felt cold metal pressing against her head and heard the unmistakable sound of an automatic pistol being cocked.
“Stop right there,” ordered a voice she instantly recognized. “Move one muscle and you’re dead.”
Someone else in the room, she thought furiously. I knew it, I knew it—
“Hands behind your back,” the deep, resonant, almost theatrical voice continued. “I’m watching your feet, Gaia—if you look like you’re even thinking about performing a scorpion kick, I’ll hit you with a nerve-block punch and you’ll be immobilized for hours.”
The gun remained pressed against the back of her head as a hand reached around to pull her own Walther roughly out of its holster. The five men in front of her stared dully into her eyes, their arms poised in ready position. Gaia stared right back. She could feel the gun pressed to her head suddenly pull away.
“Okay, I’m out of your kill zone,” the voice behind her said, having moved farther back. “But I’ve still got you covered—and I will shoot. Turn around slowly with both hands showing.”
Gaia had placed the voice. She knew what she was going to see as she slowly turned around. But even expecting it, she still found the view a sickening surprise.
“Very good,” Winston Marsh said, leveling his Beretta between her eyes. He was exactly far enough away that she couldn’t reach him with a flying kick. He was dressed like the others, in a tight black T-shirt and camouflage pants. As she watched, she could hear the men behind her circling around back into view. “Hello, Gaia—and welcome. Do you know where you are?”
“I think so,” Gaia said. “This is Socorro headquarters, isn’t it?”
“Exactly.” Marsh smiled, his eyes crinkling pleasantly. He looked exactly the same as he had in the Clavarak Motel room the last time she’d seen him, but the change of clothes—and the whole situation—made a tremendous difference. “You realize there’s nothing to be gained by attacking, right? Even if you subdue everyone in this room, which is extremely unlikely, you’ll never make it through those doors and out of here alive. Anyway, we’ve got a lot to talk about.”
Gaia couldn’t even muster words. She knew she should be shocked and bewildered. After all, he was standing there before her—alive and well. Smiling, even. The man who was supposed to have been gray-opped into oblivion by the FBI. The man who’d somehow reminded her of her father.
But there was no more room in Gaia’s psyche for shock or bewilderment or horror. She’d exhausted every last bit of it in the first seventeen years of her life. No, this was a scenario with which she’d become far too depressingly familiar: betrayal.
Apparently she was no less gullible now than she had been at the age of six. That big fight with Rossiter obviously had been staged, and she’d been duped by the charade. It wasn’t her father she’d sensed in Winston Marsh. It was her uncle.
It was too pathetic even to admit to herself. But it seemed, no matter how much training she’d gotten at Quantico, there were still some things she would simply never learn.
“You’re upset,” Marsh said. He hadn’t made the slightest move toward lowering the gun. “I don’t blame you—it’s reasonable. I want you to understand, I took no joy in deceiving you. But if you’d known about my involvement in Socorro, there’s simply no way we could have brought you here. And we need you here, Gaia. You have no idea how badly we need you here with us. You’ll begin to understand.” Marsh turned to the others. “Gentlemen, would you leave us alone, please?”
The five men didn’t ask any questions—they just turned and moved toward one of the metal doors at the far side of the room. Gaia kept her eyes fixed on Marsh while in her mind assessing the physical situation. She couldn’t charge the gun, as she had that morning with the FBI agents. They were afraid to shoot her; she had no way of knowing if Marsh harbored the same qualms. And if she was dead, then nobody could save Catherine.
Gaia briefly considered trying to jump back out, through the hole. It would mean a spectacular leap, mostly from memory, since a glance backward would give her away. She’d have to chance not getting shot as she jumped and then clearing the cement edges and somehow managing to miss the catwalk and land in the water, dodging the bullets from above while fighting the current—
No. An Olympic diver couldn’t do it. Not even without the bullets. Not a chance in hell.
“Forget about jumping backward,” Marsh said in his maddeningly calm voice. “Good, I can see you’ve already given up on that madness. Obviously I didn’t tell you the full story about Socorro, but I’m sure you can see the ways in which my hands were tied. It’s so easy to misinterpret what we do or what a visionary like Ramon is capable of.”
Visionary? Gaia thought. What’s he talking about?
“And the bureau,” Marsh went on. “The fabled FBI. By now you’ve checked my background; you know I was telling you the truth. Do you realize that their entire purpose is to keep things from changing? To maintain the imperialist status quo no matter what the cost? If people around the world heard our message in an unbiased way, if they could really listen to RamOn Nino and hear what he’s trying to tell them, the freedom he’s offering to them, they would rise up together and follow him. Which is why your FBI is working so hard to make sure that never happens. I may have bent the truth slightly, but make no mistake: the FBI is interested in locking people up and in silencing them, not in liberating them.”
“I don’t want to listen to this anymore,” Gaia said quietly. “I want you to put the gun down so I can beat the crap out of you.”
Marsh smiled. “You’re really impressive, Gaia,” he told her fondly. “So sure of yourself; so iron willed. She was absolutely right about you—and I’m so glad I listened to her.”
She—?
“Who’s ‘she’?” Gaia said impatiently. “And believe me, Marsh, I’ve heard just about enough of your mysterious—”
Gaia stopped talking because the metal door had swung open again and a third person had entered the room. Gaia’s gaze was finally torn away from Marsh and from the gun barrel pointed at her face.
There was Catherine Sanders.
She was dressed like the others, in a black T-shirt and camouflage pants. The military getup didn’t make her look any less pretty, Gaia noticed, although the brush cut she’d recently gotten radically altered the look of her jet black hair. She still wore the same round glasses—they glinted and flashed in the fluorescent lights as she stepped forward into the room.
Cath—Gaia tried to speak, but her throat was utterly dry. She coughed and tried again. “Catherine—?”
“Gaia,” Catherine said warmly. “God, it’s good to finally see you.”
And she looks like she means it, Gaia thought. She was so stunned that she had to willfully force herself not to collapse to the floor. She’s not being held captive.
She’s one of them. She’s always been one of them.
“Catherine?” Gaia said again. She seemed to be practically speechless.
But there were more surprises to come.
“Would you leave us alone, Dad?” Catherine said to Marsh. “My ex-roommate and I have a lot to talk about.”
“Sure, kid,” Marsh said, backing toward Catherine, covering Gaia with the gun as he moved. Gaia watched in utter disbelief as Marsh put his arm around Catherine’s shoulders, kissing her on the forehead as he handed over the gun. Catherine hugged Marsh back before fixing the gun on Gaia. There had been a moment when they were both distracted, and in that moment Gaia might have attacked—but she was simply too stunned.
I’ll see you soon, Gaia,” Marsh said over his shoulder as he moved toward the door. “We’ve got a lot of planning to do.”
Planning? What did that mean?
The door slammed shut, and Catherine and Gaia were alone in the room.