The light from his torch suddenly seemed brighter and Mercer whirled to look behind him. He saw two bright spots waving in the tunnel he’d just escaped. The gunmen had made up ground. He began running across the countless dead, desperate not to join them. A yard short of the hole, Mercer dove headlong as the beam from a flashlight swept the charnel room. The rough stone tore across his chest as he tumbled through the opening. He began rolling down a packed dirt slope with his case clutched to his chest. He heard a startled exclamation from one of the gunmen and the spit of a hastily fired shot.
Mercer came to a stop in a shallow pool of foul-smelling water. His flashlight lay a few feet away, its glow focused on a half-submerged skull. This one was connected to the body that once carried it, a body still dressed in the remnants of jeans and a sweatshirt. It was a catophile, as illegal explorers of this underground crypt called themselves, who’d become lost and died. Judging by the decomposition, he or she had been down here for years. The empire of the dead continued to claim new members.
He thought briefly of abandoning his sample case here. The gunmen weren’t likely to continue the chase once they had the Lepinay journal. But the idea died as soon as it formed. His anger remained stronger than any instinct of self-preservation.
He jumped to his feet and started running. This passage wasn’t part of the Roman mines. It was a more modern, brick-lined tunnel. It took Mercer a minute to realize that he’d broken through into Paris’s extensive sewer system. Built by Napoleon III’s municipal engineer, Baron Georges Haussmann when he redesigned Paris beginning in the mid-eighteenth century, the sewers were a thousand-mile labyrinth of tunnels that exactly duplicated the streets above. Fortunately the storm runoff from the heavy rains had swept away much of the human waste generated by the millions above. Still, the stench rising from the channel in the center of the tunnel was overwhelming. Mercer’s lungs began to burn after only a few paces.
The bottom of the tunnel had silted up with a clinging morass that sucked at his shoes. He vaulted up to the ledge that ran along the side of the passage. Overhead, he could hear raw sewage coursing through the two-foot-wide pipes that were bolted into the vaulted ceiling. Strings of offal drizzled from poorly fitted seams. At least here there was an occasional lightbulb along the roof of the tunnel.
Had his lead been greater, Mercer would have climbed one of the ladders he came across that presumably led to manhole covers on the street, but he guessed the gunmen were only a minute behind. He continued to run as hard as the fouled air would let him. He paid no attention to the dozens of rats or the jaunty porcelain street signs placed at each intersection. He simply chose a direction and continued on, realizing that the flow of water in the tunnel increased the farther downstream he ran. He rounded a sharp corner and suddenly was knee-deep in water. A snarl of tree limbs had created a dam across the tunnel, and back pressure was quickly filling the gallery.
Mercer clambered over the pile and fell into the water that drained from between the limbs. Clearing sewage from his face, he flicked aside a dead rat that had become entangled. Through a small opening in the mound he saw the gunmen as dim shadows behind their probing lights. He was certain he could take one and hoped that he would get both. If he didn’t, the downstream side of the dam was much shallower and he would be able to gain a few minutes on the survivor. The Beretta came up and he was surprised to see that his aim held steady.
Either alert for an ambush or extremely well trained, the gunmen split up as they approached the dam. One held far back, covering as his partner took up a position behind a huge valve. Realizing he’d never get both, Mercer concentrated on the closer assassin. The range was about twenty feet, an easy shot for him, but the gun was unfamiliar and he suddenly began to shake from the cold water.
No sooner had the gunman started to edge from around the valve than Mercer pulled the trigger. The gun jammed and the unnatural sound carried over the liquid whir of water sieving through the dam. Mercer didn’t have time to clear the pistol’s fouled breach before return fire raked the makeshift obstruction. He wiggled out of his burrow and ran through the ankle-deep water behind the dam, his loafers kicking up small clots of unidentifiable filth.
He reached a four-way intersection and turned the corner as a bullet destroyed a chunk of brick near his head. Dust scoured his already tearing eyes. The water grew deeper. Rather than leap onto the catwalk, Mercer pushed aside his revulsion and dove in. By feel, he cleared his jammed gun and dug his heels into the silt on the bottom of the channel. His case was wedged under his legs. Polluted water surged around him and unspeakable things brushed past him in the current. His lungs began to protest the foul air he’d drawn and he could taste the water on his lips as it tried to invade his body.
What was that old joke Harry had mentioned once? If Moscow is full of Muscovites, wouldn’t Paris be full of Parasites? This part was, he was sure. Through force of will, Mercer remained on the bottom, waiting in an ambush the Chinese couldn’t possibly anticipate.
His chest began to heave involuntarily as it used up the last of the oxygen, and behind his tightly closed eyes, sparks shot across his lids. Still he waited, knowing that he could draw this out for another few seconds. A gnarled branch hit his shoulder and bubbles dribbled from his lips, becoming a rush as his lungs emptied. He came to the surface, shielded partly by the few leaves remaining on the limb. His hair was plastered to his skull and the water burned his eyes before he could wipe them. One of the gunmen was ten paces ahead, cautiously stalking along the platform adjacent to the river of sewage. Mercer allowed the current to spin his body as he searched for the other.
The second assassin was far down the tunnel, exploring a section of the sewer on the far side of the last intersection. Mercer could only see him by the play of his flashlight against the dank ceiling.
Turning his attention to the closer man, Mercer felt no distaste at shooting him in the back. Being forced to kneel in a stream of waste precluded any thought to honor or fair play. Mercer double-checked his weapon and raised it, but realized he couldn’t fire. Son of a bitch.
“Hey, buddy, can you spare some toilet paper?” The assassin turned faster than Mercer could have imagined. His gun was ready, twisting in an arc tighter than his body, and he got a shot off just before his aim centered on Mercer.
Mercer gave the Beretta a double tap. His first shot hit the gunman in the shoulder, continuing his spin, and the next blew out a chunk of bone at the top of his spine. The Chinese killer dropped even before the expended brass from Mercer’s gun pinged against the wall of the tunnel. He jumped up onto the platform, certain the unsilenced shots would draw the second assassin. So far his briefcase didn’t feel any heavier, meaning its seal was still keeping out water and protecting the old diary.
Farther under the city he moved, jinking around corners, leaping across the torrents that rushed through the center of the larger tunnels and getting himself so thoroughly lost that if he managed to elude the last gunman, he’d never be able to retrace his steps. Every time he thought he’d finally lost the assassin, he’d see the flickering light of his dogged pursuer.
Ahead, Mercer saw another of the ladders that led to the surface and judged his lead large enough to chance the unprotected climb. The steel rungs were slick with filth. He stuck his pistol into his waistband as he started up. Once he reached the top, he found that the airtight plug that kept the smells from overpowering the streets was frozen solid. He hammered at it then shimmied back down. He couldn’t waste the time. Back in the sewer, the gunman’s light was a hundred yards back. Too far for a pistol shot to be effective without a heavy dose of luck or a Hollywood scriptwriter.