As she and the cops stepped inside, a big figure was only about ten feet way, moving toward them in the middle of the room as if he had heard the door opening and was coming to greet them.
“Hello?” said Natalie.
Shinsky’s face filled with puzzlement at seeing Natalie, but then with panic as his eyes fell on the two detectives behind her. He immediately dove into the woman like he must have done in his football days, driving her back explosively into Jon and Halladay and scattering them like bowling pins back through the door and into the tunnel outside it. Shinsky simultaneously fired his handgun into Natalie’s midsection as he drove her body back, and though blood from the exit wounds sprayed onto the two cops, none of the bullets hit them.
By the time they gathered themselves and figured out that the blood on them wasn’t their own, Shinsky had disappeared into the darkness down the tunnel, in the opposite direction from which they had come. Jon located and picked up the flashlight he had dropped in the melee, and Halladay did the same for his gun, and they took off down the passage after the perp.
After about thirty feet Jon skidded to a stop, realizing that he could only see what the flashlight was shining on, and that Shinsky could easily wait for them in ambush, or even just turn around and shoot them from beyond the range of their lights. So he experimented quickly by turning the flashlight off, with Halladay following his lead, but then they couldn’t see anything ahead of them. Their prey must have had a light as well, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to see anything, either. He had probably turned a corner or was too far ahead, because there was no sign of him except a far echo of footsteps.
Jon turned the flash back on and decided to keep it pointed low so that they would be able to see Shinsky’s light ahead of them if it came into view. He was trusting his ears at this point, in the belief that the big man was fleeing ahead of them and not waiting around a corner to take them out.
There was a corner that turned to the left about a hundred feet up the passage, and Jon peered around it cautiously and shined his flashlight into the flooded subway tunnel. A makeshift bridge consisting of a long metal girder stretched over the water to the left end of a service platform on the other side of the tunnel. Shinsky had obviously crossed it, because he was now on the far right end of the platform, climbing down into what looked like a small inflatable boat.
“Police! Stop!” Jon yelled as he stepped out from behind the corner and trained both his flashlight and gun on the perp. The big man started firing wildly in his direction while continuing to situate himself in the little water craft. Jon ducked back behind the corner and heard Shinsky starting the motor, but the sound was drowned out by Halladay stepping out from behind him and firing about five rounds right next to his ear.
“Frank!” Jon shouted, batting at his partner’s arm and pulling his shoulder backward. “What are you doing?!”
“Shooting the bastard,” Halladay shouted back. “Whaddaya think I’m doing?”
“You’re too far away to ensure a wound shot, and we don’t want to kill him.”
“I do,” the bigger cop said, glancing down at the blood on his shirt.
“We need him to talk.”
Jon pointed the flashlight around the corner again just in time to see the little boat passing out of view down the flooded tunnel. He and Halladay both stepped out into the opening at the end of the bridge and shined their lights around to see if there was another craft like the one Shinsky had taken. There wasn’t, so they gave up on any pursuit and headed back down the passage to the Below, which was easy to find because the yellow light from inside the room was still shining through the open door.
They checked Natalie’s body for any signs of life and found none. Shinsky had put at least three rounds into her.
A brief inspection of the Below revealed that it had obviously been serving as Shinsky’s headquarters for the crimes he had committed during the brief stretches of daylight, and for whatever he was planning to do when Dayfall arrived. In addition to the cell booster and wireless router in the corner of the room, there was a TV hooked up to the router, a stock of food and water, a cot for sleeping, and meth paraphernalia in one of the tall lockers along the back. In another there was some clothing, including a long leather coat like the one worn by the killer they had seen on the video from the office building murders, with custom slots inside to hold an array of knives and other cutting weapons. A third locker contained the weapons themselves, an impressive collection containing everything from switchblades to bowie knives to even a couple of small axes.
“Look at this,” Halladay said from next to a small card table in the middle of the room, where Shinsky had apparently been sitting when they arrived. The big cop was flipping through a sketchbook with elaborate drawings of trees, flowers, animals, and other innocuous subjects. “He definitely ended some people, but I don’t get the impression he was into it like the killer at the office building. That one mutilated the women and threw the guy’s junk across the room.”
“Maybe the other one enjoys killing,” Jon said. “But this one is just doing his job, so he can pay for the drugs. The question is, who’s he working for?” He looked at Halladay. “Let’s see how well the cell booster works.”
He dialed Render’s number and found the signal was good enough to reach the GS boss.
“What’d ya find out?” Render said when he picked up.
“One of the killers was using a Below as his base of operations.”
“What? Was he one of mine?”
“Apparently not,” Jon said. “An independent hiring himself out to support a meth habit.”
“Did you get him?”
“No, unfortunately he escaped, using some kind of small boat to travel in the flooded subways.”
“A dinghy,” Render said thoughtfully. “We put them down there, but they require the same key as the doors.” The older man paused for a few seconds. “And you’re not insisting that he’s working for me?”
“He didn’t know we were coming,” Jon said. “He was surprised. So you didn’t alert him, like you said you wouldn’t.”
“Damn right I didn’t, and I didn’t tell anyone else, either. Hold on a second.”
Jon heard the click of the phone as Render made another call, then came back on the line.
“Gant doesn’t know anything about this, either,” the GS boss said, “but he was pissed about me not informing him, just like I said he’d be.”
“You’ve earned some trust from me, sir,” Jon said. “But we’ll need more of your help. Is there anyone else who has access to the keys for the underground?”
“Hmmm… I’m not sure, but I think part of the deal when we secured it was that we had to give some to the Mayor’s office. That’s all I can think of right now, but I’ll check on it.”
“Thanks, and one more thing,” Jon said, after thinking a little. “I’m sorry to say that the agent you sent to meet us was killed by the perp, so you’ll have to send another to let our cleanup crew in.”
“Awww…” Render responded, swearing under his breath. “He was a good man.”
Jon hung up, noting the male reference and figuring that Natalie’s transition was a recent event. He knelt down and felt through her pockets until he found the underground key that had been used to open the door. He put the key in his own pocket and noticed again the blood from the shooting that had sprayed onto his shirt and neck, making it look like the wound below his chin had reopened. He and Halladay, who was also wearing some unwanted red, washed themselves off in the Below’s bathroom and borrowed a couple of shirts from Shinsky’s locker. The one Jon put on was obviously several sizes too big for him, but he really didn’t care at this point.