“Research.” He interrupted me. “And a whole lot of luck.”
It wasn’t much of an olive branch, but I seized it anyway. “So you didn’t just stumble on it one day. You guys deliberately looked for it.”
“Don’t you ever stop asking questions?”
“Nope.”
He grunted in annoyance as he directed us down a different tunnel. “Me and the Sand Demons, we were different than the other sandhogs. For them, the tunnels were just a place to work. But for us, they were our lives. While everyone else hit the bars after quitting time, we stayed down here, exploring the underground.”
“I get it. I used to be an urban archaeologist. There’s just something about the underground that’s addictive. It’s raw, real. More real than what’s above ground.”
“Save your sucking up for someone else. That crap won’t work on me.”
He seemed eager to talk. But his guard remained up. I decided to provoke him a little bit. “You talk a good game. People like you always do. But I’m willing to bet you didn’t do a damn thing to find this place. Admit it. You and your friends got wasted one night and stumbled onto it, probably fell flat on your faces in the process.”
“We worked our butts off to find this place.”
I laughed. “And you think I’m just going to take your word for it?”
He glared at me. “While you were still a nightmare in your mother’s eyes, we were exploring every nook of this city. I can’t even count how many speakeasies, cellars, and crypts we discovered over the years.”
“Some guys chased skirts, you chased the past.” I felt admiration toward him, tempered by pity. “Frankly, I think you would’ve been happier if you just got yourself a girlfriend.”
He shot me a contemptuous look. “We originally set our sites on Alfred Ely Beach’s demonstration tube. But it had been destroyed. A few years later, I got my hands on some of his papers. I found a couple of maps and plans related to a new subway tube.”
“And that led you here?”
He nodded. “For three straight days, my buddies and I chipped away at the cement. Eventually, we discovered a small natural crevice in the bedrock. When we looked through it, we knew there was a manmade tunnel on the other side. We hollowed out a space to crawl through the bedrock. And when I finally set foot in here, well, it was the greatest day of my life.”
“Who cares?” Beverly’s tone turned exasperated. “Can we move on to something more interesting? Namely, how the hell did you get involved in this mess?”
Cartwright looked at her and then looked away. I took the opportunity to glance at Beverly. She shot me a wink and a crafty smile.
Cartwright grumbled quietly for a couple of seconds. I sensed his internal struggle. He wanted to talk, but felt guilty doing so. I knew we could break him, but we needed to keep applying pressure. If we played our cards right, he’d open up to us. If not, he’d shut down for good.
“Yeah,” I said. “What happened that day? Wrong place, wrong time?”
“How much do you know about what happened down here?” he asked.
“Just about everything.” I shrugged. “We know about Hartek’s laboratory, Rictor stealing the Bell, and the Omega. What we don’t know is your side of the story.”
“Rictor’s brothers were friends of ours. We met Rictor and Hartek through them and they also became good friends. When Hartek needed help building his lab, we agreed to do it. And when he needed something delivered, we’d make the arrangements and handle it.”
Beverly kicked a pebble. “Did you know what he was doing at the time?”
“Only that he was building some kind of device. One day, I overheard a conversation between Rictor’s brothers. They planned to kill Hartek and seize his invention. They said it was some kind of nuclear weapon.”
“Did you warn Hartek?”
“We were too late. By the time we reached the laboratory, Rictor had already killed the other assistants, kidnapped Hartek, and stolen the Bell. We ventured back into the tunnel and covered the tracks with debris. When they stopped, we opened fire.”
“On your own friends?”
He paused and his eyes grew distant. “We wanted to rescue Hartek. He’d been tied up in a burlap bag and moved into the Omega. But during the fight, Rictor shot him. After it was over, Hartek used his dying breaths to tell me about the Bell, about Red Mercury.”
“What exactly did he tell you?”
“After he came to America, he spent decades researching and testing the Bell in secrecy, hoping to discover at least one peaceful purpose for it. He never wanted to add another weapon to the world. He saw enough pain and suffering during the war to last a lifetime.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “I found an old Nazi badge in his desk.”
“He used to carry that around with him. He said it was to remind him of the horrors of war.”
Beverly coughed. “Did he tell you that the Bell couldn’t be destroyed?”
“He warned us not to play with it.” Cartwright’s face hardened. “It’s a nuclear device in its own right. Unless dismantled properly, it’ll explode.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Well, that’s not exactly good news. But why’d you stay down here all this time? Why didn’t you just abandon it?”
“He told us one other thing before he died. He said we needed to keep operating the Bell or it would explode. Every one hundred and fifty-five days, we remove the decayed Red Mercury particles and refuel the Bell with a special mixture.”
“What’s in the mixture?” Beverly asked.
“Gold, mercury, and a few other things. Fortunately, we’ve never had to make it from scratch. We’re still using some of the fuel we got from his lab.”
I walked around a bend. “So, after Hartek died, you sealed up his laboratory and started to hide the Omega in a side tunnel. But when Fred Jenson showed up, you knew you had to move it. You’d already cut out a small tunnel to Beach’s system. So you just needed to expand it. Am I right?”
“One hundred percent.” He sounded impressed. “How’d you know about Jenson?”
“We met him. Just before Chase killed him.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Jenson was a good man. We ran into him from time to time. To the best of my knowledge, he never told anyone where we had hid the Omega.”
“There’s one thing I don’t understand.” Beverly adopted an accusatory tone. “I know why you sealed up the lab. But couldn’t you have at least returned the bodies to the surface? Did you ever consider the pain their families must’ve felt?”
“It was Hartek’s final wish. He wanted us to seal off everything, bury all traces of him and his work. I don’t know if it was the right decision, but I listened to him all the same.”
I stopped as I entered a small room. There was nowhere else to go. I examined the space. It was covered with dirt. Chunks of stone stuck out in seven areas. My heart raced as I saw etching upon the stones. They weren’t ordinary stones.
They were gravestones.
I whirled around and looked at Cartwright. He returned my stare with cold, calculating eyes. I needed to buy time. “One more thing. What’s the deal with that alligator?”
“We found her in here some time ago. She was a lot smaller then. We didn’t know what to with her so we blocked up the tube with the grating and kept her as a pet. To feed her, we poured fish into the river. As she got bigger, she got meaner. I guess you could say she’s become our guard dog.”
“Let’s cut the small talk.” Beverly placed her hands on her hips. “We know why you brought us here. And you’re making a mistake. We’re on the same side. If you kill us, you’re throwing away valuable allies.”