Except that right now Perry Randall had the distinct feeling that something odd was happening.
He pressed the transmitter again. "This is Rattler. Come in, Control. This is Rattler." He released the button, listening.
Still nothing.
As he was about to try one more time, the quiet of the tunnel was shattered by a blast of gunfire.
Not a single shot, but a burst from a semiautomatic rifle.
His nerves suddenly tingling with the excitement of the hunt, Randall jerked the tiny plug from his ear and listened for another burst from the rifle so he could be certain of the direction from which it came.
Putting on his night vision goggles, he peered through the greenish haze of amplified light.
Three rats, invisible only a moment ago, could now be seen scurrying along the tunnel's floor, searching for any kind of edible scrap. As Randall watched, two of them caught each other's scent, froze, found each other, and hurled themselves to the attack, each determined to drive the other from its territory. Randall felt a twinge of excitement as he watched the rodents tear at each other, and when one of them finally gave up and scuttled up the wall to disappear into a wide crack near the ceiling, he felt a sense of disappointment.
The fight should not have ended that way, with one of the combatants fleeing the battleground.
The loser should not have been allowed to escape.
The loser should have died.
And today, the losers would die. Flush with anticipation, Perry Randall turned his full attention back to the hunt.
He heard another sound, this time that of running feet, and whipped around with the speed of a striking rattlesnake, peering deep into the greenish haze.
Even with the help of the night vision goggles, he almost missed it.
Almost, but not quite, for Randall's eyes were every bit as sharp as his mind, and though the shape in the distance had disappeared almost before he was aware that it was there at all, he caught it.
A man had gone into the cross passage ahead of him.
A rush of adrenaline sent a tingle through his nerves as Perry Randall started after the vanished figure.
He was certain the hunt would soon be over.
CHAPTER 38
Jeff could hear footsteps pounding somewhere behind him, but didn't dare to pause long enough for a backward glance. If it was one of the hunters, he'd be a dead man as soon as he stopped. If he and Jinx were to have any chance of escaping, they had to keep going, zigzagging back and forth across the tunnel in a pattern that wouldn't give whoever was behind them an easy shot. Ahead, he saw a narrow passage leading to the left. Sprinting to attract Jinx's attention, he came to the branching passage, turned quickly into it, and grabbed Jinx as she followed him in. He clamped his hand over her mouth so she couldn't cry out, wrapped his free arm around her and pressed his lips close to her ear. "We'll stay here," he whispered. "If they don't hear us, we can get them before they get us."
When Jinx nodded that she understood, he released his grip on her. His heart pounding, Jeff quickly looked around. The passage he'd turned into was far narrower than the tunnel they'd just left, and one of its walls was covered with rank upon rank of electrical conduits. The only illumination came from the faint glow leaking into the passage's entrance from a utility light a few yards farther down the main tunnel. Pulling Monsignor McGuire's night scope out of the backpack, Jeff switched it on and peered into the passage's depth.
The narrow shaft appeared to come to a dead end no more than fifty yards ahead. As he was scanning the walls and ceiling for a means of escape, Jinx's hand closed on his arm.
"Listen!" she whispered. "They stopped."
Lowering the night scope, Jeff turned back around, his head moving as he strained to hear something-anything-in the sudden silence that had fallen over the tunnel. The sound of racing feet that they'd heard only a moment or two ago had indeed stopped.
The hush was broken by the faint rattle of an approaching subway train. But even as the sound grew louder and the concrete beneath his feet began to vibrate, the familiar noise remained oddly muted, and then Jeff realized why-the train was above them by at least one level, maybe even two.
Which meant that if they were going to escape, they would have to get closer to the surface. But how?
If there was no escape from the passage he'd ducked into, then they had no choice but to return to the tunnel from which they'd fled only a moment ago.
Dust from the trembling ceiling of the passage settled down on them as the train passed overhead, and then its sound died away.
Jeff listened to the ensuing silence, which seemed even more frightening than the pursuing footsteps had only a few moments before.
Now they were no longer being chased.
Now they were being stalked.
Heather Randall shuddered as she stared at the corpse that projected grotesquely from a shelf just below the tunnel's ceiling. From where she and Keith stood, they could see only the body's head, shoulders, and arms. The head, covered with a shock of gray hair matted with blood, was hanging downward at an angle impossible in life. She watched as a fresh drop of blood fell into the puddle on the floor beneath the corpse.
The arms hung straight down, the hands outstretched, almost as if reaching for the body's lost blood-or perhaps the rifle whose stock lay half submerged in the puddle.
Struggling to control the nausea rising in her belly, she instinctively reached out to grip Keith's hand. They edged around the pool of blood until they could see the other side of the corpse's head, and the wound that had caused the man's death.
It looked as if the man had tried to turn away from the fusillade that had been fired at him, but given what they'd heard, Heather knew he hadn't stood a chance; the bullet that killed him had ripped away the right half of his forehead, leaving the pulpy mass of his brain exposed. In the dim light of the tunnel, the whole scene seemed impossible-it was obvious the man had been setting up a well-equipped ambush. What had gone wrong?
"Hold this while I take a look," Keith said quietly, handing her the rifle they'd taken from Carey Atkinson's corpse.
As Keith pulled himself up to the shelf on which the body lay, Heather continued to stare at the corpse.
How had he ended up getting shot himself?
Then her eyes fell on the rifle. It was exactly like the one she now held in her own hands.
When they'd found Monsignor McGuire, he hadn't had a rifle.
"Here's his bag," Keith said, pulling a backpack exactly like Atkinson's off the shelf, then dropping back down to the floor. As he was about to open it, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. "I think someone's following us," he whispered so softly that his words died away in an instant. "Start walking, and don't look back."
Heather did as Keith instructed. Pausing only long enough to pick up the dead man's rifle, Keith quickly followed.
Perry Randall watched the two figures through his night vision goggles. The images were clear-a man and a woman- but not clear enough for him to identify. Yet despite the haziness in the greenish light, there was something familiar about both of them.