CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

When Finn walked into the warehouse midmorning, it felt like a real operation for the first time. The once-empty, echoing space had been transformed, most obviously by plywood framing that walled off a large area next to the grid-cut and broken floor. A full-length trailer was backed through the far bay and loaded with dozens of concrete pipes a meter in diameter. Neat stacks of lumber sat next to the Kei truck up on wheel stands with pieces of metal and the welding kit unpacked on the floor. The table and chairs, cluttered with paper and small tools. A radio—sports talk, probably the only station everyone could agree on—buzzy at the volume it had been turned to.

And to complete the picture, two workmen arguing with each other.

“How could you forget? You’re the fucking driller, for Christ’s sake.” Jake, arms crossed.

“I don’t know. I don’t know!” Asher’s permanent scowl went even deeper. “You never made a mistake in your entire life?”

“I don’t think I ever forgot to put my pants on before leaving the house. You know? When I get in the bathtub, I generally remember to fill it with water first. That’s the kind of screwup we’re talking about here.”

“Yeah, well—”

“Good morning.” Finn pitched his voice loud enough to be heard over both of them, the radio, and a train rumbling past. “What’s going on?”

Jake pointed at the new construction. “That. See?”

Finn studied the curtain wall. It was simple enough: a two-by-four frame, sill plates bolted directly into the concrete floor, the far side faced with plywood and buttressed with diagonal braces every six feet. Crude but strong. All the spoil excavated from the jacking shaft would go behind it—otherwise, the pile of dirt would overrun the entire interior.

“Looks good to me. Corman put it up?”

“Me and him, yeah,” said Asher.

“Two thousand cubic feet,” said Jake. “That’s what we’ll take out of the pit. There’s just enough room back there.”

“Okay, that works,” Finn said. “So what’s the problem?”

Jake shook his head. “The tunnel bore. Where does that dirt go?”

“Oh.”

“A hundred twenty meters, one meter in diameter. We need another twenty-five hundred cubic feet of dump volume.”

Finn grimaced. “The microtunneler pumps it out in slurry. Can’t we just leave it in the sedimentation tank?”

“I don’t think so.” Jake looked at Asher.

“No.” Glaring, like none of this was his fault. “Maybe a fourth of that before the tank has to be cleared.”

They could heap some muck above the height of the wall, but not all of it.

“At least you thought of it now. Be kind of obvious if we had to put it in the street.” Finn looked around. “Okay, here’s what you do. Build another wall, across that corner.” He pointed to the opposite side of the warehouse.

“That’s not exactly convenient,” Asher said.

“Well, if you hadn’t—”

“Never mind.” Finn cut Jake off. “Look, the control unit goes here, right?” He held out both hands, indicating the area in front of the broken concrete. “Gantry for the pipe jack is going to stick out at least this far. Sedimentation tank behind it. That uses up almost half of the entire floor.”

“Yeah, but—”

“The excavator can handle it if necessary.”

Jake nodded agreement. Asher seemed willing to flounder on, arguing about anything, but no one wanted to listen. Eventually, grumbling, he found a measuring tape and went to check whether they had enough lumber for the second wall.

There was take-out coffee at the table. Finn sat, moving a coil of hose to the floor to make room. Jake leaned on the wall.

“Who brought in the concrete?” Finn gestured to the flatbed. “I thought you and Corman went to get the boring rig.”

“We split up. He can handle it.”

“Okay.” The air had a faint, pleasant smell of resin and sawdust. Finn drank some coffee, staring absently at the jacking pipe.

“That doesn’t look like enough,” he said eventually.

“Nope. We’re going to need another trailer. I was waiting until the curtain wall was done before unloading this load.”

“Good point.” The pipe would have to be stacked, ready for use, and close to where the gantry would sit over the entry shaft. “Actually, we might want to get the whole tunnel machine in place before that.”

“I thought about that, but it’ll be easier to run the excavator back and forth beforehand.” The earthmover was not just for digging the pit; it would carry the pipes, one by one, in a sling attached to the scoop. At thousands of pounds each, the concrete sections were far too heavy to move by hand.

“Guess we should wait on the laser, too.”

The bigger the project, the more complicated the dependencies. Back when Finn was on the legitimate side of the business, planning was driven by cost. Now it was all about speed. Once they started the drill, it had to run without the smallest hiccup.

Jake went to help Asher frame the second wall. Finn picked up the work area around the Kei truck. Another train went past, then some heavy trucks, loud in the street.

They were having lunch, eating sandwiches and arguing about football, when Corman walked in empty-handed.

“Hey.” Jake looked at the closed bay doors. “I didn’t hear a diesel rig.”

“No.” Corman helped himself to some tortilla chips from the paper sack Finn had opened.

Long pause.

“No … what?”

“No boring machine.”

Finn sighed. “Okay. Why not?”

“Because it hadn’t been returned yet. Crew renting it now, they were supposed to have it back already. But their job ran long.”

“Fair enough. When can we get it?”

“Guy said tomorrow.”

Jake looked at the roof, calculating, for a moment. “Well, that’s not a problem. Still plenty of time to get it installed in the pit.”

“Long as it’s running right.” Asher shook his head. “Who knows what condition it’ll be in?”

Corman was eating a large handful of chips. When he’d finally swallowed, he wiped his hand on his jacket and said, “They’re doing maintenance after they pull it out of the ground today. Should be done by tonight, they’ll drive it back to the rental yard early tomorrow morning, we can pick it up then.”

A lot of words at once for Corman.

Finn started to talk, had a thought, and stopped dead for a moment.

“Hang on,” he said. “They’re doing the refit on-site?”

“Easier that way. Clean everything there, they don’t have to take it apart again at the yard.” Corman shrugged slightly. “Could just be making excuses.”

Finn looked at Asher. “Does that sound right?”

“Sure. Promise to bring it back all shiny and shipshape, sometimes they’ll discount the rental.”

“Good enough.” Jake wadded up the paper wrapper from his tuna-with-everything and caught Finn’s eye. “No? Not good enough?”

“Let me ask you something,” Finn said, turning to Corman. “Do you know where they just finished up? The current job?”

He thought about it. “I think I saw the name of company that’s got it now on the paperwork.”

“Because, it seems to me—” But he didn’t finish, because Asher started laughing.

Jake looked at him, annoyed. “What?”

“Because it’ll just be sitting there,” Asher said.

“Yeah, so wh—”

“All night long, clean and sharp and ready to go. Probably up on the trailer and everything. Right?”

“Exactly,” Finn said. “Bootstrapping.”