The Prisoner - Carlos J. Cortes [40]
“Right,” she announced, and swung her flashlight into the opening.
The smaller tunnel looked newer; it had smooth concrete walls, weeping as if suffering from ineffable sadness. They climbed onto a narrow sidewalk and slogged one hundred yards before reaching a domed vault with four smaller openings. Laurel pointed to the one on their far left and tramped across, giving wide berth to large clothed lumps arranged in the center. She shivered to think what lay inside.
Obviously, Shepherd had planned a circular route to thwart any attempt to track them through the sewers. After changing course at each new intersection at least a dozen times, she guessed it would take a large force to find them. Infrared sensors wouldn’t work: too many hot spots of decaying matter. Motion detectors wouldn’t be of much use either; large objects moved continually through the sewers, particularly in the wider tunnels. That left sound, but their splashing noises were swallowed by cascading water and the intermittent thumps when larger objects fell from side pipes or when rats, some as large as cats, dove into the filth.
“It seems you were right; there’s nobody here,” Nikola said.
Jeremy had the sense to press his lips together instead of offering an excuse.
Nikola panned the shower room, wrinkling his nose at a pile of discarded oilskins and filthy rubber boots. He nodded to an FDU soldier blocking the door. “Get hold of your scientific officer.”
Nikola peered at the torn remains of a lead apron. So this is how you did it. Most enterprising. He sniffed. Under a strong smell of disinfectant, he caught the sweet odor of lanolin. Again, he turned to the FDU officer, who shadowed him like a ghost. “Seal this floor and the ones below. Have a forensics team run over it.” He nodded to the machines. “I want the data from those.” After a last look around, he turned to the young man in charge of the Nyx security detail. “Is there access to the sewers, Jeremy?”
“You mean our waste-treatment plant?”
“No, Jeremy. I mean the city sewers.”
“Two floors down, sir.”
“Lead the way.”
Nikola followed Jeremy down emergency stairs to a service floor crammed with machinery, then down more steps to an unkempt cellar of bare concrete pillars and crates piled high everywhere: a storage area. “How do you move these about?”
Jeremy pointed to large steel doors at the end of the room. “Through the cargo lift, sir.”
After a cursory look around, Nikola strode to a sizable door on solid hinges, its security lock pried open. A crowbar was leaning against one wall.
“The sewers?”
Jeremy nodded, his face pale as an alabaster statue. With a little more character, his face would have been perfect. But perfection, as the old Greek proverb warned, was incompatible with good and truth.
“Open it up.”
“Jeremy Clark, twenty-five,” Nikola’s ear set droned. “Five-ten, college dropout, at Nyx for five years. One year in charge of the night shift. Married, three kids.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. They were fined heavily for the third child.” Nikola pictured Dennis accessing court records. After the 56th Constitutional Amendment, producing more than two children was a serious offense. “He explained to the judge it was an accident; condom interruptus.“
“See to him,” Nikola said in a low voice.
“How long?”
“Until this is over.”
“Will do.”
Jeremy yanked the door open, letting in a waft of almost tangible stench. “You said something, sir?”
Nikola reached to Jeremy’s face and drew the tip of his finger lightly across his fine jaw before clapping a friendly arm around his shoulder.
“Nothing, son. Nothing