It just might be possible to get to the morgue. Breaking in was another story.
Joe hated to go. The tunnels were full of men searching for him, at least one of whom wanted to kill him. He was safe here.
A train thundered next to him. The tiny clock on the lower corner of the laptop screen told him that they had eight minutes before the next train was due.
“Come on, boy,” he said. “We need to get a move on.”
He stood and shook feeling back into his feet. Edison stretched.
Joe closed the laptop and dropped it into his backpack, adding his makeshift Wi-Fi dish. He folded the blanket so that it would be easy to shake out and tucked it under his arm. Slowly, he backed away from Platform 36 and the cop who served so patiently there.
A few minutes later, Joe and Edison reached the locked door at the end of the maintenance tunnel that connected Grand Central Terminal, the train station, with Grand Central Station, the subway station. He already knew which key to use, as he’d hiked through there several times on his nightly wanderings. Thanks again, Great-Grandfather Gallo.
Once he reached the subway station, he followed the tunnel for lines four (green), five (brown), and six (orange) heading south. He got practiced at sweeping the blanket over them and going into a crouch to hide from trains because they ran through here at intervals of five minutes, more or less. He sometimes walked only a few feet before he had to go into hiding. This was why he routinely didn’t start exploring until the middle of the night. Today he didn’t have that luxury.
Every time that he reached a subway platform, he got on all fours and crawled underneath it so that no one in the station could see him. His knees were black and blue by the time he reached the Thirty-Third Street Station. If he ever got another chance to pack an emergency bag, kneepads and gloves were going in it. Edison had no such problems.
At the Thirty-Third Street Station, he switched to an old Amtrak tunnel heading east, sweeping his flashlight along the wall every few feet, looking for the door that would lead to a steam tunnel but finding only neat rows of wires fastened to the wall.
He was almost on top of it when he realized that he could have found it without the light. The temperature in the tunnels usually stayed in the midfifties, chilly but comfortable with his hoodie, but the air felt much warmer here. At the warmest spot, his light illuminated a simple metal door.
Would his bundle of keys include the right one? Great-Grandpa Gallo had demanded full access to all parts of the subterranean world, but Joe worried that the various underground authorities hadn’t always bothered to send updated keys every time they changed a lock in the last century. He fished through his keys, trying first one, then another, and another. The fourth key did the trick. Sometimes, bureaucracy worked.
He pushed the door open with the toe of his sneaker, and a blast of hot air flowed across his face. Inside, it felt like a sauna. Sweat coated his body, and Edison began to pant. Joe put the temperature at around ninety degrees. A big change from the air outside, but bearable.
He peeled off his hoodie and looked around for a light switch. As expected, he found one, and lights flickered on down the tunnel. He clicked off his flashlight, glad to spare the batteries.
On his left ran rusty steam pipes with massive wheel-operated valves. He supposed they still worked, even if they looked rusted shut. Rust flakes littered the floor like decayed snow.
On his right was a long, whitewashed wall. Power cables hung on the ceiling that powered, probably among other things, the fluorescent lights. The tunnel stretched ahead in a straight line.
He stuffed his hoodie and the blanket into the backpack and shouldered it back on so that his hands were free. He didn’t expect trouble, but he had to be wary. He walked forward, Edison at his heels.
Steam rushed through nearby pipes with a rattling sound, like rain on a tin roof, and an occasional burble. Heat radiated off the metal. If even a pinhole opened up in one of these pipes, it would cook him and Edison like prawns.
He broke into a quick jog. Sweat poured off him, but he didn’t slow down. It wasn’t far, less than a half-mile, and he wanted to get through it as fast as he could. It gave him the creeps knowing that he could be cooked alive at any second.
Chapter 26
A train drove Ozan back away from the blanket-covered form, and he lost precious time identifying himself to a passing patrol. Cursing his luck, he hurried back toward the platform, only to find that the gray lump had vanished. There was nothing on the ground but the pull tab of a beer can. He hesitated. Maybe it had been a drunk curled up under a blanket to sip a beer and rest within sight of other people.
He shone his light in a circle. There it was. A dog’s footprint.
At a jog, he followed the direction taken by the dog. They were heading away from the platforms and deeper into the tunnels. It felt as though they had a specific destination in mind.
Within a few minutes, he saw his quarry far ahead. He slowed, barely keeping the man and his dog in sight. He wanted to move closer, but feared that the dog would notice him.
He almost lost them each time that he and they had to flatten against the wall as trains passed. Even if it meant that he might get caught, he had to close the distance between them. If the dog spotted him and things went south, he’d kill them both right here.
When the man opened an underground door, Ozan ran to catch it before it closed, holding it open less than an inch. He counted to fifty, then eased open the door.
The man and dog were jogging away from him. He followed, wishing for cover, but it was one long, well-lit line. He kept his pistol drawn and ran behind them, not worried about noise. The clanking of steam pipes drowned out any small sound he might make.
When the man stopped at another door, he knew he’d never make it in time before it closed. Instead, he flattened himself against the white wall, knowing that the man would see him if he merely turned his head. He didn’t.
Once the door closed, Ozan walked up to it. Stenciled on its gray surface was an address: 520 First Street. He knew what could be found at that address. The medical examiner’s office. He’d identified his parents’ bodies here years before.
Ozan remembered the brain sample he’d taken from Subject 523 and settled down to wait. Tesla might be searching for the same answers that he was. Dubois’s request for brain tissue was too odd. If Subject 523 was contagious, Ozan didn’t trust Dubois to have warned him about it. The sample he’d scooped from Subject 523’s crushed skull made sense only if something horrible had been done to the man.
And what if it was a disease Ozan himself had caught? He’d come in contact with the man’s blood — it had even splashed into his eyes. Maybe that had made him sick, made him reckless.
He hated to think that what had been done to him might affect his judgment. His cool and collected brain was the thing that he prized most about himself. Without it, he could not do his work. Without it, he wasn’t so different from Erol.
He’d wait for Tesla to come back out and ask him questions. Tesla would have to come back through here eventually. It wasn’t likely that there were other underground exits to the building. And Tesla had to stay inside.
The heat made Ozan drowsy, and the rattling pipes aggravated the pain in his head, but he stayed in position. Sweat broke out all over him. He’d felt terrible since a few hours after the murder, and he had to have answers.