‘Christ.’
‘The rescue went bad. Could happen to any of us. Comes with the job.’
‘What about the guys?’
‘Trapped. No way back.’
‘So who’s in charge of this cluster-fuck?’
‘Cloke. The mission was his idea.’
‘So I guess that makes you the boss right now.’
‘Yeah,’ sighed Donahue. ‘I guess it does.’
‘Sorry,’ said Lupe. ‘Sorry about your friend.’
They examined a tunnel schematic.
‘Can they walk north to Canal Street?’ asked Lupe.
‘They can try. But I doubt they would get far. If that section of tunnel is dry, it must be sealed both ends. The blast probably collapsed Canal Station. Our guys are trapped in an air pocket. No maintenance exits, no junctions. No way out.’
‘Do they know?’ said Lupe.
‘Of course. They’re screwed. They’ve got no food, or water. Their flashlights are good for a few hours. After that…’
‘Fuck that shit. Give me the map.’
Lupe grabbed the scrolled chart. She checked the legend.
‘Department of Transport. City engineers schematic. This thing is twenty years old. Plenty of underground construction since then. Give me everything you’ve got.’
Cloke and Tombes kicked off flippers. They unzipped and stripped out of their drysuits. They left their dive gear piled on the tunnel floor next to their tanks and helmets.
They shivered in T-shirts and shorts.
‘I wish we had time to say a prayer,’ said Tombes.
‘Nariko?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Maybe there’ll be time, later.’
Cloke crouched by the stretcher. He cut ropes and opened a holdall. Combat fatigues taped in polythene.
They ripped the bags with their teeth. They dressed. They jumped and swung their arms to get warm.
Cloke unzipped a canvas tool bag. He took out a couple of hammers. He tossed one to Tombes.
‘Tuck this in your belt.’
They laced boots, shouldered equipment and headed down the tunnel.
Cloke took a Geiger reading.
‘We better watch the numbers. Closer we get to Canal, more chance of a radiation spike. If the tunnel is ruptured, open to the street, we might have to mask-up in a hurry.’
Their breath fogged the air. Their footfalls echoed in darkness.
Distant rustle.
‘You hear that?’ asked Tombes.
‘Relax. It’s just rats.’
‘Hello?’ shouted Cloke. His voice reverberated through the cavernous tunnel space. ‘Anyone down here?’
He listened. Silence.
‘Hello? Anyone?’
Nothing.
They kept walking.
‘What about that kid on the radio?’ asked Tombes.
‘Maybe he was a recording. Think back. Did he actually talk to Nariko? Answer questions? Did they properly interact?’
‘I don’t recall.’
Their flashlights lit a track-bed scattered with garbage.
A dead rat.
Cloke crouched and examined the rodent. He prodded the rat with his hammer.
‘Strange that this strain, this parasite, never jumped species. Won’t attack any other mammal, any other primate. Pops out of nowhere. Super-evolved. Super-lethal. Almost as if it were created with humans in mind.’
‘Honestly? I don’t give a damn any more. Escaped bio-weapon. Weird-ass flu. Kind of academic at this point. The disease won. Game over. It owns the planet. We should have made for the hills. A damn sight more sense than this hero bullshit. Nariko buried for ever under a pile of rocks back there. For what? Because the Chief gave an order.’
They kept walking. Their flashlights lit ancient brickwork.
‘Over there,’ said Cloke. ‘Human remains.’
A jumble of burned bone by the tunnel wall.
‘I count three, four skulls. Army fatigues. Couple of lab coats.’
‘Infected?’
‘Can’t tell.’
‘Let me take a look.’
Cloke crouched by the jumble of scorched bone.
‘Got a knife?’
Tombes handed him a pocket knife.
Cloke flicked open the blade and probed the ashes. He lifted a wide, metal bangle from the debris. Cyrillic lettering stamped into the ring.
‘What’s that?’ asked Tombes. Cloke ignored him.
A steel box. Cloke scraped ashes from the metal. A weird half-skull symbol embossed on the lid.
‘Give me the backpack.’
Tombes passed him the pack. Cloke unzipped a side pocket and pulled out a digital camera. He took pictures of the box. Each flash lit the tunnel like lightning.
Tombes kicked a skull.
‘Ekks?’
Cloke shook his head. He lifted a scorched scrap of lab coat with his knife.
‘Ekks didn’t wear a coat. Insisted his team wore pristine medical whites, even down here in the tunnels, but he always wore a linen jacket like he’d been sipping mint juleps on a Hampton veranda. Kept his hands clean. Gave orders. Let his guys do the work.’
‘How will you recognise him?’
‘Fifties. Grey hair. People say he wore a silver ouroboros ring. A snake eating its own tail. Never took it off.’
They walked further into the tunnel.
‘Check it out,’ said Tombes. ‘Something big up ahead.’
Glint of silver. Something large blocking the passageway.
The steel hull of a subway train.
Cloke trained his flashlight on the motorman’s cab. Cracked windshield glass. A red line designation: 3.
‘Guess we found them.’
Cloke examined the carriage frame. ‘Blood all along the front here. Bunch of hair on the nose coupler. Guess she ploughed through a crowd at some point. Ran a bunch of people down.’
‘Nice,’ muttered Tombes. He checked the tunnel behind them, jittering sweeps of his flashlight as he scanned buttressed archways, made sure nothing lurked in shadow.
‘Wait here,’ said Cloke. ‘Let me check her out.’
Cloke walked the length of the train. He shuffled the narrow space between the tunnel wall and the cars. His flashlight lit windows blacked out with garbage bags. A route board: BROADWAY.
He crouched and shone his flashlight between the wheel bogies.
‘The last coach is buried under rubble. Looks like Canal pretty much imploded.’
‘Why did they come this far north? Why not stop in the tunnel?’
‘Because the driver screwed up. Panic. Confusion. Darkness. Hard to blame the guy.’
Cloke took a Geiger reading. He scanned the hull of the train. Fierce crackle.
‘Heavy gamma. She got pretty cooked. Bedrock didn’t give much protection.’
‘There are bodies on board,’ called Tombes. ‘I can smell them.’
‘Let’s hope they’re dead. That Cav officer floating downstream was infected. Doubt he was the only one to get bitten.’
He cupped his hands.
‘Hello?’ Heavy echo. ‘Anyone down here?’ He pounded his hammer on the side of a carriage. ‘Anyone home?’
‘Might not be such a good idea,’ called Tombes, glancing round the tunnel, checking shadows.
‘If there are any prowlers down here, let’s draw them out, face them head-on.’
‘We got problems enough.’
Cloke returned to the front of the train.
‘You’re right. Doesn’t smell too pretty.’
‘Let’s get these doors open.’
Cloke reached up, pressed his fingers into the rubber door seal and tried to prize it open.
‘We could use a crowbar.’
Heavy thud.
They jumped back. They trained their flashlights on the door above them. A bloody, tumourous hand pressed against the window, sliding down the glass leaving bloody finger-smears.
‘Fuck,’ muttered Tombes.