“Yep.”
“There’s no lights, no power down there. The air exchange may not have reached the magazine alcoves. You start getting dizzy, have trouble breathing, you back out.”
“Okay.”
“There’s a liquid manometer outside the main magazine chamber. If there’s water visible in the manometer, then that’s the level of the water in the magazine. Don’t open the doors.”
“Big magazines?”
“Big enough: fifty by fifty, arched dome, twenty-foot ceilings.”
“No ammo or guns, I take it?”
Carrick laughed. “Long gone. If there was powder down there, it would be marvelously unstable. No matches or flames down there, by the way-there could be methane. That Maglite is okay.”
“I’m having serious second thoughts,” Jim said.
“You want to quit now, no hard feelings.”
Jim took a deep breath, wondering if it was going to be his last. But he had to go. Those scratches on the lock had been deliberately obscured. Had to be a reason for that. Even if the magazine itself was flooded. He shook his head. “No, I have to take a look.”
“Suit yourself. I’ll have two guys stand by while you’re down there. They hear a rumble, they’ll start air into the hose and get the recovery crew in. Here’s your air hose, and here are those spare keys you requested.”
He handed Jim the antique iron keys, the tunnel diagrams, and the end of a reinforced air hose, which had a tiny sound-powered telephone wire wrapped around the outside. “The hose is graduated,” Carrick said. “If you get a cave-in, it’ll tell us how far into the tunnel you are. That there is a microphone where we can talk back and forth, assuming you survive it.”
Nobody was smirking, Jim realized. These guys were obviously taking the possibility of a cave-in seriously. “Don’t bother to bring the air hose out when you come back; we’ll use the cable reel to retrieve it. How long you going to be in there?”
“Half hour, max,” Jim said. “I want to make a quick tour, see what I see. I’ll back out as soon as possible.”
“You back out if you think the structure is giving way. Don’t stop. Don’t think. Run like a striped-assed ape.”
“I think you’re scaring me.”
“That’s the idea. And good luck.”
Jim took the end of the air hose in hand and went down the stone steps into the left-hand tunnel. Behind him, the PWC crew unreeled the hose for him. By the diagram, the right-hand tunnel led directly out toward what had been the original banks of Spa Creek, which in turn fed into the Colonial harbor of Annapolis. Subsequent landfills to expand the Academy grounds had long since buried the original shoreline, but Fort Severn’s foundations were supposedly still there, along with these underground facilities.
The left-hand tunnel, on the other hand, branched back toward Bancroft Hall. If their runner was using it, this would be the one. The diagrams might not be that accurate, so there could be a tie into the basements.
The Maglite threw bobbing shadows along the brick walls as he walked forward. The arched tunnel ceiling was barely an inch above his head, increasing the feeling that he was taking a walk in a burial vault. The air was musty, smelling of old lime. Tiny little avalanches of mortar dust trickled down from between the odd-shaped bricks in the side walls as his footfalls disturbed the silence. He shuddered when he realized the entire massive weight of Dahlgren Hall was pressing down on all this crumbling ancient brickwork right above his head.
The floor appeared to be hard-packed dirt until he scuffed it with his toe and uncovered more brickwork under an inch-thick layer of white dust. Mortar dust, he realized. Good deal. The joints between all the bricks were recessed at least a quarter inch. He thought about testing one to see if it was loose, then thought better of doing that. Hate to find out I’m right, he thought. He kept tugging on the air line until he reached the first intersection, about two hundred feet from the alcove entrance. One tunnel went left and sloped down. The other, presumably the gun pit tunnel, went straight ahead and then branched left. He stopped fifteen feet back from the intersection, squatted down on his heels, and examined the dust.
There were regular depressions in the fine dust. Not exactly footprints, but spaced at about the right intervals. He realized he should have come down here sooner. The mortar dust was the consistency of confectioners’ sugar, so it didn’t hold the definition of a footprint or the ridges of a sole or heel pattern. But the depressions in the dust were regular, about two feet apart. He put the Maglite down on the tunnel floor, but that didn’t help. Still no definition.
Just then he heard a low, ominous rumble echoing down the tunnel, and his heart jumped. But then he recognized it: thunder. The storm must be overhead. As he worked to control his breathing, there came another clap of thunder, louder and more pronounced. He shone the light back down the tunnel. The tiny metal bands that bundled the air hose and the phone cable winked back at him through a fine mist of falling masonry dust. A third thump of thunder, and the mist thickened momentarily. He swallowed and wondered if he ought not to give this shit up right now. But there had been thunderstorms before, and the tunnels were still standing. He decided to go on.
Then he realized that the intersection was actually a three-way junction. The left turn went down to the magazines. Straight ahead were the blocked-off gun pit tunnels. To the right was another oak door, smaller than the main entrance. He pushed on it, but it was locked. He tried the keys, and one worked the lock. This had to be the cross tunnel. He relocked it, turned around, and took the left turn down toward the magazines. The tunnel floor sloped down noticeably, and he wondered how far underground he was. He should be beyond the massive granite bulk of Dahlgren now, and approaching the right-hand edges of either the sixth or the eighth wing of Bancroft Hall. Or maybe even the tennis courts. He voted for the tennis courts. The air hose was getting much harder to pull, and he was tempted to leave it. The magazine doors were visible twenty feet away, framed by an arched alcove. It looked as if they were made of cast iron, not steel, with rivet heads visible in the harsh white light of the Maglite. There were wheels under the doors, and, based on iron semicircles embedded in the floor, they apparently swung outward against the alcove walls. He checked for more depressions in the dust, but they weren’t as obvious on the sloping floor of this tunnel.
When he reached the doors themselves, he found the manometer to one side. It was a thin vertical glass tube about four feet long and an inch in diameter. It was supported by a bracket at each end, and there were tiny brass valves above and below the brackets. Small pipes led through the masonry at top and bottom so that the water level in the tube would always match the water level inside the magazine. And there was definitely water, right up near the top of the manometer.
Okay, so much for that. Based on where the manometer was mounted, the magazine was flooded at least eight feet up from the bottom sill of the doors. So nobody could be in there. He’d have to ask the PWC manager if the water level varied, but it probably didn’t. The magazines were simply sealed underground chambers that had been abandoned for over a hundred years. Okay, then what were those depressions? Then it hit him: They said they inspected the tunnels every five years or so. Those were the footprints of the last inspection team. There had been nothing to disturb them once the men had backed out. Another rumble of thunder echoed down the tunnels. More mortar dust. He imagined he felt the earth itself shifting under his feet. Then the steel doors in front of him moved.