Every time she passed an entrance on her wall she nosed her Glock in, but each time the platform was empty. She kept her aim mostly to her left, covering the other side and the entire concourse, along with the various gaps behind bars and tables where someone could hide.
A restaurant loomed on her left: Oyster Bar Restaurant read the script on the arch above. The glass doors were closed: breaking them would make enough noise to alert every soldier in ther terminal.
She considered asking Aviary to check her phone again but didn’t want to be in the open any longer than they had to be. She kept her Glock aimed down the concourse as she crossed from one side to the other, Aviary three paces behind. They reached the first archway, which gave them concealment from most of the concourse.
Nasira peered through into the century-old subterranean restaurant to see if anyone was inside. The cream-tiled arches divided the restaurant into smaller partitions with vaulted ceilings. The ceilings were lit along the arches with white fairy lights. The restaurant looked untouched; the tables were set with red and white checked tablecloths and napkins.
She gave Aviary her pistol and went for her lockpicks. The lock was sticky but she seated the pins without much trouble and unlocked the door. She took her pistol back and entered first. She found it easier to hold the Glock with one hand and sweep both sides than to transition between her right and left hand. When she was sure there was no one in the restaurant she nodded to Aviary.
Aviary took cover behind the bar and checked her phone. Nasira let her do her thing while she moved back to the restaurant entrance and locked the door.
‘No wifi,’ Aviary said.
‘You’re fucking kidding me,’ Nasira said. She stopped when she realized how easily her voice travelled along the vaulted ceiling above. She moved toward the bar.
Aviary’s hands balled into fists. ‘I … I don’t know where the hell the modem is. Or if they even have one.’
Nasira jumped over the bar and started opening everything. Soon she drew the same conclusion. There was no modem.
‘Fuck,’ Nasira said. ‘Sure there’s no wifi?’
‘I’m not lying!’ Aviary shoved the phone into Nasira’s hands.
The phone buzzed in her hands. ‘It just vibrated.’
Aviary looked. ‘No it didn’t. There’s no message or anything.’
Nasira stared at it for a moment. She ripped off the soft rubber case and ran her hand over the back. The phone hummed, prickled her fingertips.
‘Is there something spinning inside these phones?’ Nasira said.
Aviary was just staring at her. ‘Are you serious? It’s not a Nokia 3210. Nothing spins,’ she hissed.
‘Just answer the question!’ Nasira whispered back.
‘I just answered the question!’ Aviary said. ‘It’s not my fault you’re deaf!’
Nasira looked at her.
‘I’m sorry,’ Aviary said. ‘That was too far. You’re a very good operative and you’re good at everything.’
‘No, wait,’ Nasira said.
Nasira placed the phone on the counter and started running her hands slowly across the surface from one end of the bar to the other. She stopped near the end.
‘Something sharp,’ Nasira said. ‘Bright. It gets kind of serrated. Little spikes.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Aviary’s eyes widened. ‘You can—’
Nasira opened the cupboards underneath and pulled everything out. Before her was a flat white modem with blinking green lights. ‘Found you, motherfucker.’
‘Whoa,’ Aviary said. ‘That’s better than being a human compass.’
‘What the hell did you just say?’ Nasira said.
‘Uh.’ Aviary clutched the modem and pulled it onto the counter. ‘I said that’s better than a huge wireless.’
She watched the redhead remove something from her ruck. It was like a miniature version of the antenna she’d attached to the tunnel wall.
Aviary attached the tiny antenna to an ethernet port on the back of the modem: it was giving them a wireless internet connection. She was already on her phone, fingertips tapping excitedly.
‘Got it,’ Aviary said. ‘Blueprint of the terminal.’ She squinted at the screen. ‘No mention of the base though.’
‘Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me,’ Nasira said, watching the restaurant entrance. ‘That DC guy can work it out for us.’
‘You don’t like him, do you?’ Aviary said.
‘Not since he fucked Sophia over, no,’ Nasira said. ‘Not his biggest fan.’
‘OK. So I’ll send the blueprint to her now,’ Aviary said. ‘Hopefully I can hit that relay in the tunnel.’
‘Whatever,’ Nasira said, pulling the lid on a bottle of whisky. ‘Just hurry it up.’ She helped herself to the bottle.
Chapter 26
Jay had barely made it to Track C with Damien when he noticed movement ahead, in infrared. It was just a sliver of color, obscured by something in the tunnel wall. He held his hand out behind him and a moment later Damien’s chest touched it. Damien stopped, clicked off Sophia’s torch — which was only shooting a tiny shaft of red light through his fingers — and waited.
Jay turned to Damien and spoke very softly. Softer than he himself could hear, but he knew Damien would.
‘One person ahead, two hundred feet,’ Jay said.
Damien nodded in response. In infrared, his head was a swirl of red and orange inside a circle of green.
Jay watched the tunnel. Another figure appeared even farther ahead, around a slight bend in the track. There was a subway station a little way along.
Jay could barely see the figure but it was running with purpose and seemed to have a pistol in one hand. The walls ranged from light blue to dark blue and purple — the occasional splotch of green where warmth emerged from a power conduit. Then the closer figure emerged: a colorful mix of green, orange and red.
‘Two incoming,’ Jay said again, softly.
Damien nodded again, reaching for a pistol he didn’t have. Jay remembered they were unarmed.
Jay led the way, heading back through Track C, the way they’d come. With Damien in tow, he ran the tunnel with lights off. Damien was struggling to keep his footing and stay silent at the same time, but didn’t complain and just followed in Jay’s footsteps.
They have to be operatives, Jay thought. Just two of them, coming up the tunnel like that with only pistols.
Jay passed their previous tunnel on the left, Ladder M. There would be another, he hoped. With more options. They just needed to put some distance between them and confuse the operatives about their position. He didn’t know how accurate the tracking was for the rock on Damien’s back but even if it was quite accurate, he still hoped their unpredictable route would buy them enough time to get to the surface and find some wheels.
They approached another junction, this one more complex. A light splashed across one wall. It was just one of the subway tunnel lights, he realized, when he shifted back to seeing visible light. The junction opened up before them and he started to move more carefully. Additional tunnels sprouted off, three ahead and a fourth on their right.
Damien pulled at the back of Jay’s tuxedo. Jay stopped and looked to see Damien holding up a hand, signaling to stop. Damien gestured to his ear and pointed ahead. Jay listened but he couldn’t hear what his partner was hearing. It frustrated him that he had the enhanced vision while Damien had the enhanced hearing. Couldn’t they each have both?
Then he saw it.
Two operatives moving through the junction. Right toward them.