Donahue looked away.
‘I’m not an executioner. I’m not going to sit here and pronounce a death sentence. You’ve got a free hand, all right? Do whatever you have to do. But I don’t want to be involved.’
Lupe sipped water. She gestured to the scrolled charts spread on the table.
‘Is this everything? Are there any other maps?’
‘There’s a bag under the table. Might be a couple more utility schematics. Power-lines, I think. Con Ed.’
Lupe dragged a holdall from beneath the table. She unzipped, and pulled out a cardboard tube. She popped the cap and unsheathed a couple of charts. She smoothed the translucent sheets over the tunnel map, lined up the surface grid.
‘Get over here. Take a look at this.’
They leaned over the maps.
‘Fresh city plan. Can’t be more than a couple of years old. See? New infrastructure. Some kind of pipeline running the length of Lower Broadway, directly beneath the subway. City Water Channel Number Five. An aqueduct. Big son of a bitch. Wider than the Holland Tunnel. Looks like it drains Lower Manhattan. Must be working overtime right now. All that shit running down from the Catskill watershed. A huge volume of water drained into the harbour.’
‘I’ll be damned.’
‘Maybe there is some kind of inspection shaft, a way of dropping from the subway to the channel beneath.’
‘Nothing on the map.’
‘Doesn’t mean it’s not there. They have to scour the floor of that tunnel, hands-and-knees if that’s what it takes. Maybe they’ll find a manhole lid, a maintenance hatch. But they have to do it before their flashlights fail. Once those lights give out, they’re good as dead.’
‘I’ll tell them to haul ass.’
Tombes crouched by the bed. He stared at Ekks, watched his chest gently rise and fall.
‘He’s breathing. Shallow. But he’s breathing.’
‘Hear that?’ said Cloke. ‘Doesn’t sound too good.’
‘Yeah. Fluid on his lungs.’
‘Want to sink a drain or something?’
‘Very last resort.’
Tombes unzipped a clamshell IFAK. Medical gear stuffed in mesh pockets. He leaned over Ekks, snipped his shirtsleeve wrist-to-shoulder, and slapped a vein. He tore open a sterile wrapper, swabbed, and pressed a catheter into the crook of the man’s elbow. He hung a bag of saline from a ceiling grab rail.
He checked pulse. He checked blood pressure. He pulled back eyelids, shone a penlight and checked for dilation.
‘Well?’ asked Cloke.
‘Dying, sure enough. Acute radiation poisoning. Coming apart on a cellular level, like Wade and Sicknote. And he’s malnourished, severely dehydrated. He’s been lying here for days. Should be dead already. Must be a tough son of a bitch.’
‘Will he wake?’
Tombes shrugged.
‘I treat burns, breaks and bleeding. House fires and car wrecks. Radiological damage? Not part of my working day.’
‘Can you keep him alive? Long enough to get him back to Ridgeway?’
‘Maybe.’
‘He has to talk. Wake up and talk. We have to keep him alive long enough to get him in front of a microphone. We need to hear what he knows.’
Cloke took out his Geiger counter. Harsh crackle. He shook his head.
‘Fried.’
‘What about us?’ asked Tombes. ‘What’s our current dose?’
Cloke scanned himself. Then he scanned Tombes.
‘Bad?’
‘Won’t kill us outright, but it might bite us on the ass a few years down the line. Cancer. Leukaemia. Not much fun in a world without hospitals.’
Tombes held out the notebook.
‘Ekks had this in his hand. Damn near broke his fingers persuading him to let go.’
Cloke examined the book. Letters and symbols, page after unbroken page.
‘What the hell is this gibberish?’
‘Maybe the guy went nuts.’
He held up a random page.
‘This thing is longer than Lord of the Rings. See how the ink changes? He burned through three pens.’ He flipped more pages. ‘See the letters? The handwriting? He took time over this stuff, wanted to get it right. And see here? He struck through a couple of lines, corrected himself.’
‘So what?’ asked Tombes. ‘Seen anything like it before?’
‘No. Any other documents lying around? Did he have a laptop?’
‘Nothing. Just that notebook.’
‘Looks like code. Can’t think what else it could be. Might be some kind of weird DNA sequence, I guess.’
‘We’re going to have a hard time moving this guy. What if we have to re-enter the water? Maybe we could strap him to the backboard, try to keep him rigid.’
‘That kind of presupposes there is actually a way out of here,’ said Cloke.
‘And we only have two suits. That’s the hard truth. If Ekks is going to make it back to Fenwick, one of us will have to stay behind.’
Lupe radioed Cloke.
‘Come on, man. Pick up. Talk to me.’
No response.
She stood in the office doorway and surveyed the ticket hall.
Sicknote crouched on the floor scribbling his strange phantasmagoria. Swirling vapours. Screaming faces. A black, viscous puddle of madness slowly spreading across the tiles.
Wade sat on the bench, head thrown back, snoring in his sleep. His face was pale, skin glazed with sweat. He mumbled like he was sinking into a fever.
Donahue sat on the platform steps, staring down into subterranean darkness.
Galloway lay unconscious on a pile of equipment bags, bandaged stump spotted with blood.
‘Have you all given up?’ shouted Lupe. Her voice echoed through the ticket hall. ‘Are you all just going to sit here and die?’
They ignored her.
Lupe returned to the IRT office. She stretched, swung her arms, poured water over her face.
She took Donahue’s radio from the table.
‘Cloke. Switch on your radio, dammit.’
Cloke’s voice:
‘We found Ekks.’
‘Is he alive?’
‘Just.’
‘Talking?’
‘Unconscious, but breathing.’
‘Can he be moved?’
‘I didn’t come all this way to leave him behind.’
‘Any other survivors?’
‘No. We’re going to look around one more time, try and find a way out. Maybe there is some kind of maintenance access, something we missed. Stairs that will take us up to street level.’
‘Check the tunnel floor. Walk the tracks, make a thorough search. Every inch.’
‘Did Donnie spot something on the schematics?’
‘Maybe. Look for some kind of manhole, some kind of inspection hatch that will take you down to a lower level. Look hard. It could be your only chance.’
Cloke checked beneath each subway car. He ducked between the wheel bogies and inspected the track bed. Rats stared back at him. He made shoo gestures. They stood their ground.
‘Give me your lighter.’
Tombes handed over his shamrock Zippo.
Cloke set the lighter to high-flame and wafted fire at the savage-looking rodents. Flame reflected in mean, black eyes. They turned and scurried away.
Tombes stood guard. He scanned tunnel shadows. He shook his flashlight to coax the last power from dying batteries.
‘Anything?’
‘Yeah. Think I’ve got something.’
Cloke crouched on hands and knees, flashlight trained beneath a coach. He unhooked his radio.
‘There’s some sort of grating beneath one of the cars.’