The World Beneath (Joe Tesla) (7 page)

Another feeling had joined the fear. A feeling he hadn’t experienced in a long time.

Exhilaration.

Joe let the feeling wash over him. Ever since he’d become trapped inside, his world had diminished. He’d lost his job, his friends, the sky. He tried not to dwell on it and keep going, but his new life had weighed him down in a thousand ways.

Tonight he’d caught a glimpse of something new, something exciting—a mystery that was to be found only in the world beneath. He had to solve it. He had to figure out who Rebar was, why he was there, and how the train car came to be bricked in. It might be dangerous, but he’d risk a lot to keep feeling this alive.

As he followed Edison toward his front door, he couldn’t stop grinning.

Things were going to change for him.

Chapter 7

November 28, 4:04 a.m.

Bricked-in train car under Grand Central Terminal

Rebar watched the man with the yellow dog sprint away from him across the rows of shiny tracks and into a tunnel. He didn’t bother to chase them. They didn’t seem dangerous, just curious. He didn’t have time to bother with them. He had to concentrate on his prize.

He had found what he had long searched for. He wasn’t crazy. He was right. He’d almost given up back there on the platform, but he hadn’t. And now he had found it.

With one dirty hand, he touched the brick wall and muttered a quick prayer, surprised that he still remembered one. This brick train shed wasn’t just the source of the secrets he sought. It was also a tomb for the doctor who had started it all, and a hapless soldier who’d been ordered to accompany him on his final journey. His papers said so, and he would find proof.

He wiped his hand on his filthy pants and picked up the lantern again, then leaned against the cold wall and stuck his arm through the hole. Reverently, he gazed into the room. The lantern light shone on a blue car that had once carried the president himself. The car had been lost for so many years. Everyone had given up on it. But not him. He knew that he would find it. And he had.

The doctor must have been trying to get out. He lay crumpled against the end of the tunnel where they had laid the final bricks. Dark stains on the back of his coat told Rebar that he’d been wounded, probably shot to keep him inside while they finished the wall. He hadn’t given up.

The soldier had obviously chosen to eat a bullet rather than die of dehydration or from running out of oxygen. A brave choice. The other skeleton looked like it belonged to a monkey. It hadn’t been mentioned in the papers that Rebar had come across before.

Rebar climbed through the hole he’d created in the wall and walked over to the long-dead doctor. The man had died before Rebar’s own parents were born. Hard to believe that he might even now hold the secrets to Rebar’s own life and death. Funny.

He studied the white-clad figure on the floor. The man had nothing in his hands, and the ground around his body was clear. If he’d carried anything with him, he hadn’t brought it all the way to this last resting place.

Holding the light at waist level, Rebar turned in a slow circle, looking for clues. The skeleton in the uniform listed against the wall. His skull rested about a foot from Rebar’s boot.

He didn’t have the papers on him, either. That left the train car.

Rebar set the lantern inside, then hefted himself up into the old car. Sooty dust lay velvet thick over everything—chairs bolted to the floor, a cabinet in the corner with an old sink, and empty glass decanters.

He searched the floor, and spotted what he was looking for next to a chair. A grimy rectangle. A briefcase? He wiped the dust off the top with the sleeve of his jacket, uncovering a cracked leather surface.

Rebar lifted it up with trembling hands.

The briefcase’s hinges had long since rusted, and they screeched and broke as he lifted the top off. He stared down at a stack of yellowed papers inside.

He sat down on an old chair that had perhaps once held FDR and began to read. The papers didn’t make sense, yet. They discussed clinical trials, strains of the parasite, side effects. Nothing about a cure. There must be more papers.

A clink outside caught his attention. Probably a train. Or a man working far away.

He couldn’t be sure. He needed to take the papers somewhere safe and hide them until he had time to read them carefully. Before that, he needed to check the rest of the car out to make sure that there weren’t other papers hidden there.

He emptied the papers and maps from his own pockets into the briefcase, smashing them in until he could put the top back on. Then he took off his belt and wrapped it around both halves of the broken case. Nothing could fall out now. He tucked it under his arm and lifted the lantern.

The room was, as he’d expected, empty. He climbed through the hole he’d opened up. He swung the lantern in a slow circle, shadows chasing each other across the walls. No one out here, either. Hadn’t there been a man and a dog earlier? Were they back? He didn’t think so.

The uneasy feeling wouldn’t go away. He took the lantern and walked along an unused track, counting his steps. At just the right spot, as if he’d known it all along, he stumbled over a stack of broken train ties that looked as if they’d been tossed there before the Korean War. Quickly, he cleared a space in the pile, placed the briefcase in the middle, and then restacked the ties haphazardly atop it.

Then he went back toward the car. He would find the other papers, the ones that the doctor must have hidden.

The ones that told how he could be cured.

Dread consumed him. What if they weren’t there?

He half-ran back to the brick tomb and climbed inside. He ransacked the car, finding no papers concealed in the cupboards or fastened under the chairs, nothing on the floor or walls. The ceiling held nothing but a wire and pockmarks from bullets, nothing useful at all.

With a curse, he threw the glass decanters one after another against the thick glass windows. The square bottles shattered, and shards of glass glittered against the thick dust.

He jumped from the back of the train and ran to the doctor’s body, ripping the coat from the skeleton, hands delving into the pockets, searching even his pants pockets. Nothing. He repeated his actions with the soldier’s corpse, pulling them both into the center of the room so that he could see them better.

Sweat ran down his back, and his breath grew tight. Calm down, he ordered himself. Think. The papers had to be here somewhere. After all, the men were trapped in this room. Nothing could have left the room.

He started at the far end of the room and walked from one end to the other, lantern in one hand, peering at the dirty ground. When he got to the brick wall, he turned, took a step to the left, and walked back the other way. His footprints formed straight lines in the dust. He was walking a grid. If it was here, he’d find it.

An hour later, he collapsed on the steps that led up to the car. He’d found nothing. There was no hope. He dropped his head into his hands and wept.

Chapter 8

November 28, 4:52 a.m.

Tunnels

Ozan hated train tunnels. They smelled like oil and rat piss. The third rail ran electric death along the side of each track. One kick to the wrong spot, and Erol would be alone. Ozan walked on the train ties, both to avoid the third rail and to keep from leaving prints in the dirt.

He’d brought a flashlight, but hadn’t had to use it yet. The tunnels were illuminated well enough that he could walk without one. The light would draw attention, and he never liked to draw attention.

It was inconvenient that he had to come down here, but inconveniences were necessary on a job like his—as were the uncomfortable too-big shoes he currently wore, even though he had a pair that fit perfectly in his jacket pocket.

A train rumbled up and Ozan slipped behind a pillar, taking cover. When he came back out, his target was gone. A shadowy figure headed back to the platform. Ozan tracked it. He caught up just as the man neared the platform. The man paused by the stairs, as if he sensed Ozan’s presence behind him in the tunnel, then hurried into the light. He was several inches too short to be Subject 523, so Ozan retreated.

A few hours later, he was ready to call it a night.

The trains started to run again at 5:30. That gave him only thirty-eight more minutes to search. After that, he’d head topside for a shower and a long sleep, and start again in the evening.

The man should have been distinctive—tall, dressed in dirty fatigues, looking like a homeless man but walking like a military one. Ozan had spotted six men who fit that description in the first few hours of staking out Grand Central Terminal. He’d followed each one, eliminating each one as his target.

Sometimes, jobs were like that—many false trails had to be followed before the right one revealed itself. Ozan didn’t mind.

He’d first spotted Subject 523 when he had walked into the terminal just before the last trains left for the night. He’d gone straight down to Platform 23 and headed into the tunnel where Ozan had lost him. Ozan had a feeling, based on the man’s easy, comfortable stride, that he always used Platform 23 to access the tunnels. He’d probably be back there the next day.

Ozan passed through a maze of tracks where commuter trains converged on Grand Central Terminal. Security swept this area often, and he had to appreciate the target’s stealth. Had the man had been coming down here for months without being caught? Ozan hoped that he himself would be so fortunate.

He was ready to turn back when a glimmer of light twinkled far ahead in the tunnel. A golden orb bobbed up and down—a lantern, not a flashlight. Subject 523 had been carrying a lantern.

Ozan pocketed his own flashlight and closed in on the light. Mindful of stones and debris on the ground, he chose each step carefully, footfalls whisper quiet. It was a matter of professional pride that no one ever heard him coming. And it kept him alive.

The target walked furtively, shoulders hunched, head on a swivel. Whoever the man was, he was nervous. His steps, too, were cautious. The target clearly had training in moving undetected. Nothing about this background had appeared in the dossier Ozan had received, so he had to assume the worst—that the man was trained as a deadly killer and no one had bothered to tell Ozan. Any other assumption was foolish.

Ozan crept closer. The man’s head turned far enough to one side that Ozan recognized his receding chin. Subject 523. In one dirty hand he carried a battery-powered lantern that radiated light in a giant circle. That lamp had drawn Ozan to him as brightness drew so many predators to prey.

The man stopped and held the lantern high, searching in all directions. Ozan stopped, too. The light from the tunnel behind might silhouette him, but he could do little about that now. He eased himself against the stone wall and waited.

Seeming satisfied, the target turned around again. Ozan lagged behind. Once the man chose a tunnel, there were few places where he could turn off and, even for those, his light would make him easy to find—as long as he didn’t become suspicious and douse it. But he was a careful man, Subject 523, so Ozan could take nothing for granted. He didn’t let him out of his sight.

The light bobbed along in front of him like a will-o’-the-wisp. It promised magic and excitement. Because tonight Ozan hoped to kill the man who held it.

He fingered the knife in his pocket, then touched the hard steel Glock he carried in a shoulder holster. Both weapons were suitable, but he hoped to come across an object at the scene that he could use instead. A rock. A brick. A discarded board. On-site weapons were impossible to trace and made the police think of crimes of passion instead of premeditation. That would lead them down blind alleys.

The light ahead stopped abruptly, then jerked up with tiny quick movements as if the man were climbing over a low wall. Ozan noiselessly closed the distance between them. He smelled the target’s sweat and the clay-like odor of disturbed brick dust.

The beam angled toward the ceiling as if it had been put down. Ozan drew his knife. The Glock was a better distance weapon. Considering how the last man on the job died, the more distance the better, but he didn’t enjoy it as much when he killed from a distance. He liked to be close enough to feel their muscles go slack, see death dull their eyes, and let their last rattling breath whisper against his cheek. He stroked the knife’s hilt with his thumb, waiting.

The target had climbed through a jagged hole smashed into a brick wall. Footprints in the dust told him that the target had come to this place and left at least once.

Among the target’s tracks he spotted another set. Whoever had left them was a person of interest, might have met Subject 523 here. Ozan studied the prints, about a size ten, but that meant little. Plenty of short men had large feet, and large men had small ones. The stride would tell him more. He left Subject 523 alone in the brick room and circled back to follow the other man’s prints, careful to keep to the train ties and leave no prints of his own in the dust here.

Based on the length of the strides, the man who had left the prints was tall, around six feet, and had been running. Maybe he’d come across Subject 523 here, too, and 523 had chased him off. A quarrel like that might prove useful to Ozan. He’d prepared an alternate scenario for Subject 523’s murder for the police, but would he use this one instead? The footprints might be years old. Better to stick with what he had. Still, he would track those footprints back to their source later, to be sure.

He crept back toward his target. He didn’t want to lose sight of his quarry tonight of all nights. This was the perfect place. They were alone down here, and he could work without fear of detection, away from the people and surveillance cameras that plagued him. And he’d been told that he must do it soon.

He moved until he could see through the jagged opening into the room where 523 had disappeared. A rusty blue train car sat inside. A curious Ozan slipped closer, glimpsing a small skeleton resting undisturbed in a layer of dust atop the car. Another skeleton lay on the ground a few feet from the car.

The target sat down on the rusty steps, sweat plowing furrows in the dust and grime coating his face.

Ozan didn’t have much time before the trains started running and the security sweeps came by. Someone might hear the man’s screams. And Ozan believed in acting with caution. This man had killed a skilled colleague. He was probably trained to withstand interrogation, at least for a time, and he was large and possibly armed. The best option was to kill him and search for the papers later. The contract had said that their retrieval was desirable, not mandatory. Ozan had no intention of risking his life on lower-level priorities.

He spotted a sledgehammer leaning against the outside of the broken wall, and the decision was made for him. A thin layer of dust coated the hammer, as if it’d been used long ago and then set aside. Maybe 523 himself had brought it here to break the wall. A perfect weapon of opportunity. He closed in on it quickly.

The wood felt slippery under his gloves. It had seen good use, this tool.

The light stayed still in the car, and the target still sat on metal steps that had been folded out from the side of the car as if it had stopped at a station. He leaned forward, hands clenching and unclenching in his pockets. “It has to be here,” the man whispered over and over.

It didn’t matter what he was talking about. Ozan had a job to do. He leaped over the broken bricks and into the room. He landed with each foot flat on a different train tie. The time for stealth was past.

The hammer arced down.

The target lifted his head, quicker than Ozan expected.

Hammer met bone. Bone gave. But not the skull. The man had deflected the blow with his right arm.

The man’s left fist connected with the side of Ozan’s head. O
zan’s ears rang, and he stumbled back.

The man was on him then, knocking him to the dirt.

Ozan rolled to the side, but the man fell onto him. His wounded arm dripped blood in Ozan’s open eyes. Ozan blinked it away and twisted the man’s wounded arm. It felt hot, as if the man had a fever. Broken bones grated against each other. The man screamed and reared back.

Ozan pulled away from him and reached for the hammer. The man tried for it, too, but Ozan was quicker. The hammer connected with the side of the man’s head. Blood and gore spattered up onto Ozan’s hands.

The target fell backward against the side of the car. His hands jerked once, and then he was still.

Neatly done. Efficient. One blow.

But this shouldn’t look efficient.

Ozan brought the hammer down five more times. The man’s head stopped looking as if it had ever been human by the third blow. That was what crimes of passion looked like—too much force, wasted energy.

Ozan released the hammer and let it drop into the thick dust next to the body. He did a quick inventory of his own injuries. Nothing serious. A bruise on the side of his head and a cracked rib. He could finish the job and walk away.

No danger now. Without moving his feet, he surveyed the room. The skeleton on the floor belonged to a soldier. Based on the uniform, the man had died here before Ozan was born. Next to that skeleton rested another wearing a stained white lab coat with a dark hole in the shoulder surrounded by a dark blotch. An old bullet hole. What had brought these men to this place? What had brought 523 here?

It must not be relevant to his job. If it were, then he would have been informed.

The artistic part of the job was done. All that remained now were loose ends. First, he searched 523’s pockets. He found, and took, a map of the tunnels and a wad of crumpled one-dollar bills. He didn’t find any other documents, classified or otherwise, but he searched inside and underneath the train car just in case. He found broken alcohol bottles, pens, and a few sheets of aged blank paper with the White House seal. He took those, too. But he found nothing interesting, and nothing modern.

That was a problem. He’d hoped to find those papers.

He had one more task, one he’d almost forgotten because it was so out of his usual routine. He flipped a plastic bag inside out and used it to scoop up a sample of 523’s warm brain tissue. He turned the bag right side out again and sealed it, then put it inside a second bag. He’d have to get the sample into a special chilled container and mail it to his client, proof that the job was complete. Brain tissue seemed an odd choice for DNA testing, but he couldn’t imagine what else they might want it for, unless they’d messed with the man’s brain.

Ozan drew a twenty-dollar bill from his front pocket. He’d never touched it with his bare hands so it wouldn’t have his fingerprints. He folded it and tucked it into the dead man’s pocket. He dropped another bill on the floor.

Three more bills were in Ozan’s pocket, and he fished them out. Dropping his right hand into the man’s blood, he held the bills with his bloody fingertips, careful to smear them enough that it would be hard to tell if he’d worn gloves.

After a murder like that, the killer would be frightened, running. Ozan sprinted toward the door, lengthening his strides to appear taller. He already wore shoes a size too large. The inserts crammed against his toes made it easy to run in them.

Bending, he swept away the prints of the third man, the one who’d stood and watched the target and the room. If the body were ever found, he didn’t want things to be complicated. Whoever that man was, he was lucky.

Ozan smashed the lantern against the wall, and it went dark. Then he headed for the outside by the shortest route, making sure to step in the dirt to leave a good print here and there. If it ever came to it, the police should be able to track the panicked killer aboveground.

Soon he’d be outside. He took off his gloves, carefully turning them inside out and tying the ends closed. He wiped his face and hands with his antiseptic wipes and secured them all in a paper bag. He’d drop it into a dumpster with his ripped and dirty jacket. He’d be an ordinary man out for a stroll in the early morning quiet. He’d leave the too-large shoes he’d worn for the murder and a few bloody bills next a homeless man who slept near this very exit. Then he could go home.

Contentment filled him. He’d completed his task early, and he’d never killed a man with a hammer before. He’d liked it. If only he had someone to share his joy with, but there was just Erol, and he would never understand. Erol must be protected from this side of his brother, always.