Our destination was Sub-Level 3. Rumor had it the guard posted at Sub-Level 3 was not from Ted’s temp agency. I doubted Ted even knew of the Sub-Level 3’s existence. But it was there, and, according to the map, the shuttle train was there too. Dr. Wright must have taken the train a time or two. The ceramic card we’d gotten out of his briefcase worked on every door we passed.
At the end of a winding steel stairway, the plain white door marked “S-3” opened into a waiting room, equipped with enough lounge chairs and magazine tables to accommodate about fifty people. There were monitors in the walls and something like a bar counter, for god knew what occasions, in the corner to the right. Presently, the room was empty, aside from the white-clad security guard in the glass booth by the single door on the opposite side.
As we entered and advanced across the room, chatting loudly about new golf clubs, the guard got up, placed a white helmet on his head and casually pointed a sub-machine gun at us. The helmet’s black visor concealed everything but his chin. The sight of it was almost as distressing, as that of the gun in his hands. We were forced to switch to plan B, and me distracting the guard while Paul knocked him over the head had been a pretty shaky plan A to begin with.
We kept walking, loud, confident-looking, and clueless. I contemplated grabbing the guard’s weapon, but that plan also failed before it started. When we were about ten feet away, the guard said abruptly, “That’s far enough. Another step and I open fire.”
“Fire?” I echoed incredulously. “Surely you know who I am…”
“Shut up.” He lifted the weapon. “You, with the gun. Pull it out and lower it to the floor. Slowly.”
I turned to Paul. “The gun?” was all I could muster. Our trip was over. And we hadn’t even reached the place. “Jeffrey? What is he talking about?”
Paul gave me a sour look. I turned to face the guard, stepping in front of Paul for a moment. “I’m sure there’s been a mistake. This is Jeffrey Sloan. He’s been my assistant for six years. I can assure you—”
“Out of the way!” the guard shouted, and suddenly an arm was wrapped around my neck. Pretty damn tightly, too. Something cold pressed against my temple.
“Drop the gun or I’ll blow his brains out!” Paul yelled, pressing the barrel farther into my skin. The metal case I’d picked up from the garage together with the make-up kit fell on my foot. I didn’t even have to act scared. Sure, it was my friend behind me. But when the barrel of a real gun, from which someone has been shot to death, by the way, is pressing into your head, suddenly nothing is certain. Don’t be a fool, I reassured myself. He’s not going to shoot you. What if he gets scared, and his finger slips? I stared at the guard’s visor, silently appealing for help.
“Like hell I will,” the guard replied a year later. He took half a step back into the glass booth, leaving only the gun and half of his helmet outside. I was willing to bet the glass was bulletproof. Thoughts raced through my head. One of the more coherent ones was: Oh, no. He must have seen that episode of “Barlow and Warden.”
“I’m not joking!” Paul shouted.
“Put the gun down, turn around and get on the floor. Now!” The guard sounded dead serious, but he still didn’t open fire.
“I am going to count to three…”
“Don’t put your gun down,” I whimpered to the guard. “He’ll kill us both.”
“Shut up, Doc.” Paul tightened his grip around my neck, and I started feeling a little short of breath. “Listen. No one needs to die here. I got what I came for. Now I just need to get on the train.”
“Like hell you are,” the guard said, stern as ever, but I imagined he didn’t sound entirely resolved.
“What?” I breathed, eyes dropping towards the case on the floor. “You mean… You made me carry it for you? You son of a—”
“One more word out of you, and someone might die after all,” Paul said with a nudge of steel to my head. Grimacing sincerely from pain, I noted the tiny camera filming us from the top of the door.
“I give you one last chance…” I heard the guard.
“He’s got nowhere to go,” I mouthed the words, hoping he could read my lips. “Please.”
There was a long pause, at the end of which the guard’s gun clattered to the floor. I almost passed out from relief.
“All right, push it towards me with your foot,” Paul ordered.
The guard complied.
“Good. Remove your helmet, turn around and put your hands behind your back.”
“You got nowhere to go,” the guard said when his helmet was off. He was bald and wore a bearded sneer. “The train won’t help you. It doesn’t go to Union Station.”
“Let me worry about that,” Paul said, pushed me aside and squeezed the trigger. Both, the guard and I ducked. The first bullet took a chunk out of the white wall, revealing gray concrete underneath. The second smashed the camera, casting a rain of glass and plastic over the guard’s hunched shoulders. The guard turned around slowly, face as white as the wall, aside from a thin trickle of red that escaped from a cut on his forehead, getting lost in the bushy left eyebrow.
“Yes, you’re still alive. Turn back around and get on your knees,” Paul commanded. When the guard, breathing loudly through his nose, turned away and lowered himself slowly to the floor, Paul winked at me, hid the pistol and picked up the discarded machine gun.
“You don’t even know what kind of trouble you’re in,” the guard was saying. “When they catch you—” He didn’t finish what promised to be an interesting phrase. Paul walked up to him and slammed the stock of the submachine gun into the back of his head. The guard fell face first to the floor. For a moment, I thought he was dead.
In the silence that followed, I heard a distant but urgent chatter coming from the white helmet. I strained to understand what was said; I suddenly was very curious.
“We have to hurry,” Paul said, startling me into senses. “Running late already. Plus the damned camera.” He gestured at the helmet with the gun. “Want me to shoot that thing?”
“No!” I exclaimed, adding in a softer voice, “just leave it for now. Change clothes with him.”
Paul hesitated, but soon nodded. “We’re talking him for a ride?”
“We have to,” I said, rubbing the right temple. From the case on the floor, I removed a roll of tape.
The train was about sixty feet long and consisted of a single passenger car, with drivers’ cabins on both ends. We dragged the guard inside, and I held the gun, while Paul helped him out of his suit. After Paul’s clothes had moved to reluctantly conceal — they were of approximately the same height, but Paul was a couple of sizes smaller — the guard’s under-suit, I taped his wrists, ankles and lips. We left him there on the white leather couch. These guys, whoever they were, clearly had a thing for white.
While Paul dressed, I went to the cabin. The controls were pretty simple: ON, OFF, NEXT STOP, DOORS LOCK/UNLOCK, and a FAST-SLOW-STOP lever for manual drive. I pressed the ON button. CABIN ACTIVE sign lit up above my head. Shrugging, I almost sent us to the NEXT STOP, but froze midway to the button, realizing I had no idea what direction our next stop was. I tried to recollect the North by reversing our itinerary from the compound entrance, but there were so many turns and stairs, that it seemed impossible to be completely certain. I wished I had my phone. Staring into the curving tunnel, I considered waking the guard.
Paul put his head in, zipping up the suit.
“I’m keeping my shoes,” he announced. “What’s up?”
“I think we have to guess which way to go. And if we guess wrong…”
He stared forward, looked back over his shoulder and laughed.