"My father… my father…father…"
"Heather," he whispered. He pictured himself standing in the middle of the tunnel, emptying the gun into the darkness with the intent of killing whoever might be there.
And he would have killed someone.
He would have killed Heather.
Dropping the rifle, Jeff Converse stepped out into the tunnel.
Keith heard the sound of someone moving in the darkness just beyond the range of his vision. He reached for the rifle he'd retrieved from the pool of blood beneath Viper's corpse and raised it to his shoulder after releasing the safety and putting the firing mechanism on automatic.
He peered into the scope and saw the silhouette of a man against the utility light that glowed in the distance. His finger began to tighten on the trigger, but as the figure took another step, he hesitated.
"Jeff?" he whispered, the name barely audible.
But it was enough for Heather. She was already racing down the tunnel toward Jeff, calling his name. Keith's impulse was to drop the rifle and run after her, to be with her when she threw her arms around his son. But he changed his mind.
Better to let them have their moment.
Putting the rifle aside, he reached into the backpack he'd taken from Vandenberg and took out the radio. Turning it on and putting the tiny headphone in his ear, he heard a voice.
Eve Harris's voice.
"This is Control. Report, Viper."
Keith raised the radio to his lips and spoke slowly and distinctly. "This isn't Viper," he said. "This is Keith Converse, Ms. Harris. Viper is dead. So are Mamba and Adder and Rattler. Maybe you can still save Cobra, whoever he is."
Dropping the radio back into the backpack, Keith moved down the tunnel to join his son.
CHAPTER 39
Eve Harris glared furiously at the radio in her hand. It wasn't possible-Converse was trying to trick her! They couldn't all be dead-there was no way he could have beaten five perfectly armed men.
No-not five.
Only four.
Cobra-Arch Cranston-was still alive out there somewhere. So the two of them would finish the job the other four had botched.
Her eyes shifted from the radio to Malcolm Baldridge, who stood near the door to his private workroom. He was so still, she could almost mistake him for one of the trophies to which he'd so expertly applied his skills. "Get me a pack and a rifle!" she snapped.
Baldridge made no move until she took a step toward him, radiating fury, her eyes flashing dangerously.
"You can't-" Baldridge began, but she cut him off.
"Do what I tell you," she commanded, her voice low, but carrying enough danger to send Baldridge scurrying into the next room. While he was gone, she stripped off her street clothes and changed into a black jumpsuit that was only slightly too large for her. By the time she was dressed, Baldridge was back, carrying a backpack in one hand, a Steyr SSG-PI in the other.
"It has an infrared sight and-" Baldridge began, but Eve Harris didn't let him finish.
"I know what it has," she hissed, snatching the rifle from his hands and quickly checking it over. "And I know how to use it." She quickly rifled through the bag, replacing the radio with her own, setting its frequency to match Arch Cranston's. Finally, she put on a pair of night vision goggles, opened the door to the tunnel, and stepped through. As Baldridge closed and locked the door behind her, she switched the goggles on, the blackness of the tunnel giving way to a greenish glow. She moved her head slowly around, studying the tunnel in both directions.
Except for a large rat creeping along the wall to the left, the tunnel was empty. She reached into her backpack, groped until her fingers closed on the radio, then turned it on, pressed the transmit button, and whispered into the microphone.
"Cobra, this is Control. Come in."
When there was no response, she repeated her words, then swore under her breath as she dropped the radio into one of the pockets of her black jacket.
In her mind, she reviewed the maps of the tunnels the men had made over the years. The range of the radios was short, which meant that Converse was probably still closer to her than Arch Cranston, assuming Cranston was still alive. But could she assume that?
What if Converse was lying? What if Cranston was dead as well?
But Converse could just as easily have been lying about who was dead. Perhaps it was only Vandenberg! She picked up the radio again and quickly tried to reach the other members of the team.
Silence.
She swore again, then made up her mind. The last time he'd reported, Viper had been in Sector 3, on Level 2. Eve Harris visualized the map, and could picture Vandenberg's favorite ambush as clearly as if she were looking at a page in the back of his notebook. The radio back in her pocket and holding the Steyr, she set out.
What's going on?" Heather asked as one after another the radios in the backpack came alive.
"She's trying to figure out if I was telling her the truth," Keith replied. He pulled McGuire's radio out just in time to hear Eve Harris's voice demanding a response. The voice was clearer than it had been only a few moments ago, when he'd spoken to her himself over Vandenberg's radio.
"I think she's in the tunnels," he said.
"Where?"
"Behind us," Jeff replied, his eyes still fastened on the map in the back of Perry Randall's notebook. "Look," he said, as Heather peered over his shoulder at the page that was illuminated by a flashlight. He placed a finger on a mark on the thickest line on a page headed level 1, section l. "I think that's where they come in." He flipped a couple of pages, and placed his finger on another spot. "And this is where we are."
"But how do we get out?" Heather asked.
"What about one of the subway stations?" Keith asked.
Jeff shook his head. "They've got guards at all of them."
"And we've got guns," Keith replied, his voice hard.
Jeff looked up at his father. "And if we start shooting in a subway station…" His voice trailed off, but there was no need to complete the thought. The rest of them knew as well as he did what would happen if they started firing automatic rifles in a subway station. In a couple of seconds a dozen people could be dead, and twice as many wounded. Jeff's finger moved to another spot on the map. "Here," he said. "I think we can get out here, if we can just make it that far."
The three people huddled around him stared at the spot he was indicating, and it was finally Jinx who said what everyone else was thinking. "There's nothing there-it doesn't show any shafts or passages or anything."
"Exactly," Jeff said. "That's just what we need-a place where there's nothing at all."
Closing the notebook, he picked up one of the guns and bags and headed west, picturing what he'd seen only a week before he'd been arrested.
Maybe, if they were lucky, it was still there…
It's all right, Eve Harris told herself. I'm just imagining it.
But she wasn't imagining it-she wasn't imagining it at all. The green light in the night vision goggles was definitely getting dimmer.
Not a problem, at least not yet-there would be a flashlight in the backpack! Slipping it off her shoulders, she zipped it open and plunged her hands into its depth.
No flashlight!
But there had to be!
Now she opened the bag wide, searching it thoroughly, peering into its depths with the goggles.
No flashlight, not in the main compartment or any of the auxiliary pockets, either. Damn Baldridge! Why hadn't he checked the pack?
Then she'd just have to do without light for a while. Slinging the pack and rifle back on her shoulders, she switched the goggles off and pulled them away from her head. She waited for her eyes to get used to the dark, but it was far blacker than she'd thought it would be, and as the darkness closed around her and her irises opened as wide as they would go, she felt the first tendrils of fear reach out toward her.