The Prisoner - Carlos J. Cortes [65]
“I doubt it,” Nikola said.
“Why?”
“The rodent could follow them or go in their same direction. I doubt they would risk it. No. The rat must have been planted.”
“It says here,” Dennis pointed to a screen, “that the animal was inside a narrow pipe, surrounded by what seemed like a nest.”
Nikola nodded, his mind working overtime. “Are rats territorial?”
Dennis addressed a database. “Brown rats in cities tend not to wander extensively, often staying within around sixty feet of their nest if a suitable concentrated food supply is available, but they will range more widely where food availability is lower.”
“More widely can mean anything, but my guess is the animals don’t wander far from their burrows. It was planted. I still think they’re moving north.”
Dennis continued flicking through screens. “You mean reverse psychology. They want to move the heat south so they can move north.”
“That’s the idea. Keep your ear to the ground. I need a shower and a nap. Give me a shout if anything develops.”
chapter 24
12:03
The group made excellent progress during the better part of an hour, never leaving the disused railway tunnel. Henry marched point with Barandus, followed closely by Jim and Charlie. Susan, perhaps in her early forties—although it was difficult to guess what lay under the grime—closed the group’s rear with Raul and Laurel. Raul plodded next to Laurel in silence, and Susan didn’t speak much. No, Susan didn’t speak at all but simply stared ahead as though preoccupied. Keeping her LAD flashlight dimmed, Laurel used their so-far-uneventful journey to peck a few lines into her Metapad, outlining their status, and sent it off to Shepherd. Although the account was far from enthusiastic, it would keep him from guessing.
“How deep does that thing work?”
Laurel started, and her Metapad would have slipped out of her hands but for the cord looped around her neck. She glanced at Henry’s hulking figure, cursing inwardly. She’d not noticed his approach.
“Er—about one hundred feet, depending on the substrata.”
Henry nodded. “Checking in with your Shepherd?” There was a trace of irony in his voice.
“Just an update.”
He nodded again. “Tell him we’re paying Santos Hernandez a visit.”
Before she could ask who Mr. Hernandez was, Henry had returned to the head of the line.
Susan drew a misshapen cigarette out of a pocket, lit it up, and consumed almost half of it with the first drag. The air thickened with the pungent smell of grass.
Raul drew closer. “Know where we’re going?”
Laurel cut a step short to add a little distance from Susan. “I have a general idea of what he’s after, but he hasn’t said anything of where or how.”
“Weapons?”
“I don’t think so. Explosives.”
Raul was silent for a while. “I hope he knows his sewers.”
“Why?”
“I bet the sewers under government buildings have security measures—sensors or whatever. It would be reckless if they didn’t. Any twopenny terrorist could blow up the White House.”
“I don’t think he would consider something that drastic. Still—”
“Where would you find explosives in Washington, D.C.?”
“Nowhere outside military installations.”
“Yup. That’s my guess too, and one would think these sites are secure enough to thwart an invasion from the netherworld.” Raul sniffed. “As I said before, I hope he knows his sewers.”
Just ahead of them, Susan took a final drag from her joint, produced a small tin, and saved the remaining half-inch stub. “He fucking does,” she declared in a voice devoid of air as she exhaled the last of the grass from her lungs.
A short while later, the men in front of the line veered to the left and stopped.
When the group gathered, Henry nodded to Barandus. From somewhere inside his coat—the man must have had it dangling from his belt—Barandus produced a crowbar and bent down to wedge the tool into the edge of a large rectangular utility cover. Henry nodded to the other men and, when the gap was wide enough, they wrapped their fingers under the rim. The iron slab must have weighed more than two hundred pounds, and their display