Jon was now stuck in his hiding place, far from the dinghy and with no way to reach it before the man finished and drove it out the other way. Not knowing what else to do, he said, “Hey!” really loudly and ducked back down to where he couldn’t be seen.
He heard the GS agent call for backup and start the dinghy’s motor again, and then prepared himself as it started moving toward him.
29
Jon hoped the dinghy would pass on the other side of the boring machine from the one he was clinging to. He got his wish, and he was able to stay undetected until he heard it move beyond his position.
He pushed himself up and over the top of the big cylinder, hoping his foot wouldn’t get caught in the array of machinery up there, and saw that the man was facing the other way, holding his flashlight in front of him and scanning the water and tunnel mouths in that direction. Apparently it hadn’t even occurred to him that someone might be on top of the big machine, so Jon had the few seconds he needed to launch himself toward the man before he could figure out what was happening and pull his gun.
Jon wanted to hit him with his whole body, but missed slightly, so he had to grab him and pull him down. The momentum spilled both of them off the side of the dinghy, which kept purring slowly along its path as the two men thrashed about in the water. The GS agent must have gotten more of the rancid liquid in his mouth because of his surprise, so fortunately for Jon he had to surface quicker and gasp for air, and even more opportunely, he happened to surface right next to the side of the big machine. Jon simply stood up beside him, and while the man was coughing out water, grabbed his head and slammed it with full force into the iron casing. The man immediately stopped moving and slumped face-first into the water.
Jon wasn’t sure whether the GS agent was dead or just unconscious, but didn’t have time to find out. He wedged the man’s arm in between some of the nearby tubing on the side of the boring machine, so he wouldn’t drown if he was still alive. Then Jon made for the dinghy—he could tell by the sound that it had motored over to the side wall of the cavern and was stuck against it. As he did, he heard two more similar engine sounds deep in one of the two tunnels to his left, coming from the north, and could see their lights in the distance.
He climbed into the little boat and pointed it toward the other end of the cavern, turning the throttle up as high as he could while still being able to control it. By the time he reached the other end of the big chamber, he had pretty much figured out how to drive it at full speed, as the other two GS dinghies streaked out of the tunnel and into the cavern.
As Jon had hoped, one of them stopped so the driver could tend to his unconscious comrade, but the other dinghy continued in his direction. Jon fired his ride into one of the two big holes on the south end, driving it in the very center of the tunnel for a few moments until he was confident he could keep it going straight, and turned off all the lights, both front and rear, so his pursuer wouldn’t have a target to shoot at.
The same bizarre, fearful feeling caused by total darkness hit him, but even worse now because he was moving at a high speed and could smash into a wall on either side if he wasn’t careful. He also realized, too late now, that there could be some kind of abandoned equipment, like another boring machine, blocking the middle of the tunnel somewhere up ahead, which could abruptly end his trip. But he was banking on the fact that the first GS agent had come through this tunnel himself, and had been moving at a pretty high speed.
By the time the pursuing craft was in the tunnel behind him and shining its headlight in his direction, Jon could see that he had arrived in another cavern, about half the size of the one he’d just left, except this one had no tunnels at the south end—just a big wall covered in yellow tarp. It made sense to him now that these structures were dug for the East Side Access, which he had seen on the underground map. That system had been meant to stretch north to Queens, so this was the southernmost tip of it, and this cavern was probably the maintenance space where the trains would be laid up and worked on.
As Jon proceeded into the cavern, he moved the dinghy to the left so the pursuer’s headlight wouldn’t be hitting him anymore, and he soon discovered another tunnel veering off into the wall on that side, smaller than the other ones but big enough that he could navigate it with the dinghy. He turned his front light back on to make sure it wasn’t sealed up ahead, which it wasn’t, and he gunned the engine to put distance between him and the other boat, in the hope that its driver wouldn’t realize right away where he’d gone.
Not too far into this smaller tunnel, he found a platform with stairs and a freight elevator leading up, and he was able to turn off the dinghy’s motor and listen to see if the other one had entered it. Not hearing anything, Jon headed up the stairs, not wanting to test the elevator or possibly get trapped in it if someone was at the other end.
The long stairway ended at a concourse in the south end of Grand Central Station, and Jon looked at it through a small window in the door. There were fewer people here, and no Gotham Security guards to be seen, at least in this particular spot. The signs said that the entrance to the platform for the 6 line was just across the concourse, so that meant the unused 4 and 5 were somewhere on this side of it.
He checked through the window one more time to make sure he couldn’t see any security personnel, and then stepped out of the door and moved along the wall to the right, scanning for any possible access to the old unused lines. Now that he was visible to the few commuters who were in the concourse, he became conscious of how wet, dirty, and smelly he was, and how much his body ached from jogging, climbing, and fighting—not to mention all the nervous tension. The dirt and smell actually came in handy once along the way, however, when he saw a GS uniform coming toward him and he joined a couple homeless men next to a shoeshine stand, quickly sitting down in the midst of their rags and bags. He lowered his head, not just to conceal his face but also to hide the blood that had dripped on his shirt earlier from the bottom of his chin.
The guard walked by without noticing him.
No one else noticed him, either, before he was able to find a roped-off, disabled escalator with the sign above it removed, and head down it. There were a few lights hanging at broad intervals in the tunnel at the bottom of it, enough for him to find the catwalk on the far right side of the tracks, but not enough for him to be seen as he started walking south on it. The catwalk was perfect, because there would likely be no obstruction to collide with on the darkest parts of it, and the far right side was perfect, too, because that’s where the access to the Flatiron Building would be.
As his eyes adjusted and he found nothing to stumble on in his path, Jon started to jog again, reflecting bitterly on how royally he had been shafted by Render and the Mayor. Then he thought about Amira and Halladay and Mallory and started to jog faster. In less than ten minutes he passed the old platforms of the Thirty-Third Street Station, and in another ten, having slowed to a walk for a while to catch his breath, he went by the Twenty-Eighth.
If he remembered correctly, the Flatiron Building and Madison Square Park would be coming up on his right soon, before he got to the next station, so he started looking for the access point he had seen on the map. He had passed several others along the way, which probably led to the basements of other buildings on Broadway or Madison Avenue, and he was assuming that the one he wanted would look the same. There was usually a small tunnel, like a hallway, that had been dug by GS engineers and ran perpendicular from the main subway, with the access door requiring a key at the end of it. The length of those passageways depended on how far they needed to go to reach the various buildings to which they wanted access.