Two sets of tracks separated by concrete pillars ran up ahead. If he hurried, he could take cover behind a column on the side away from the approaching train. Good enough. Not caring about his fever or his weakness, he ran and ducked behind a pillar before the train’s headlights came into view. He leaned his back hard into the cool concrete.
The sound and shaking reminded him of night combat, of the aftermath of an IED, except that this went on and on, noise and light and the ground heaving under his feet. He’d fallen to his knees by the time the last car passed, the faces of dead friends swimming before his eyes as the red taillights winked out in the distance.
He fought back against the memories and forced himself to his feet. He was in New York, not Afghanistan or Cuba. His buddies weren’t here. And he had a lot of tunnel to walk tonight. Hours.
He would not think about how he was searching for objects that might not exist.
According to the papers in his pockets, the scientist who’d done the first experiments after World War II had last been seen on a train heading from Washington, DC, to New York, but the car had never arrived. The official version was that he’d escaped with the files and taken them back to Europe to sell to the highest bidder. The project had been shut down after that, deemed too risky to continue even with another scientist.
But Rebar didn’t believe the doctor had fled. He would not have fled. The United States was the safest place for him to be. Someone had taken the man before he’d arrived and silenced him. And, if he had gone back to Europe, what had happened to the train car? No, a bad thing had happened to him on the way to New York.
If someone had taken that car from the open tracks between the cities, Rebar would never find it. So his only hope was that the car had been abandoned underneath the city. He had a map on which he’d marked potential tunnels in red and crossed them off in black after he’d cleared them. For weeks he’d been walking through old passages, checking walls, seeking decades-old clues. It was crazy, but no crazier than anything else.
And his best chance lay up ahead. He knew it. Sometimes, he forgot what he was looking for, but not today. Today he was looking for answers.
He felt stronger than he had minutes before and whistled as he walked on the train ties, stepping on every other tie as if it were a game that he could win. The lantern didn’t weigh much, and even the sledgehammer didn’t slow him down anymore. Today was a good day.
Chapter 6
Joe closed the heavy metal door behind him and moved through the dark tunnel. He donned his night-vision goggles, settling the strap behind the back of his head. The round contours of the tunnel jumped into sharper focus. He ran his fingers along the rough stone wall. In a few yards it would join with an active train tunnel, and he could already make out the lighter entrance where they met.
“Ready for another night out?” He looked down at Edison’s bright shape.
The dog didn’t seem to hear him. He stared off to his right, his head cocked to the side as if he were listening to a far-off sound. Joe stood still, straining his ears. He heard only the wind through the tunnels and the faraway rumble of a single train.
Whatever it was, it bothered Edison, so Joe might as well check it out. It might be the person whose boot prints he’d begun to see in the tunnels. Joe felt proprietary about the tunnels, as if they belonged to him, instead of just the house and the small tunnel that ran between the two doors.
“Find it!” he ordered Edison, and the yellow dog trotted forward. He didn’t put his nose to the ground, but instead held his head up and his ears pointed forward. Whatever he was tracking, he was tracking it by sound instead of scent.
After a few minutes’ walk, Joe heard it, too. A thud echoed down the tunnel. It wasn’t a train — too slow. It was rhythmic, like the beat of a sad song. He’d never heard a sound quite like it, and he wanted to know what it was. It might be dangerous, but he had to know.
He trotted forward for about a quarter mile until the tunnel ended at a vast well-lit chamber where the tracks came in from outside and merged toward Grand Central Terminal. He and Edison often played fetch here.
The thuds changed to a clanking sound. It drew him to the left, to an unlit siding. A quick glance at the ground told him that this was the person who had been leaving the footprints. Feeling like one of the children who followed the Pied Piper to their death, Joe turned sideways and slipped between black-painted columns.
He had to know, and he had to share knowledge. This trait had cost him dearly at Pellucid when the CIA began to insist that only they should get the high-powered version of the facial-recognition software, while the rest of the world got a dumbed-down version. The demand, a veiled threat really, had resulted in bitter discussions between Joe and the other chief executives at Pellucid. They were all for giving the CIA what they wanted and not risking the IPO. That way everyone could make money and be happy. Even dumbed down, the software was still the best on the market. But Joe had insisted that the software was too powerful to leave in the hands of a single agency — if they were going to release it, everyone should have a right to use it.
His insistence on making the knowledge free to everyone had alienated everyone except for Sunil, but Joe had the majority shares, so they had to go along with him. In the subsequent legal battle, Pellucid had prevailed, at least for now. The upshot was that Joe had lost his closest friends. Still, he’d been right.
He hefted his heavy metal flashlight in one hand. A weapon in a pinch.
He crept forward, trying to make as little noise as possible, keeping to the wooden ties. A yellow glow led him on. A minute later the source of the sound was illuminated by a battery-powered lantern set on the rocky ground — a scarecrow of a man pounding a brick wall with a sledgehammer. With each stroke, he mumbled a word. Gradually, Joe realized that he was counting. A man after his own heart.
The man’s ragged pants and filthy jacket resembled desert-style camouflage, although it was hard to say through the thick coating of dirt and soot. The man struck the wall again, back straight, form perfect. His posture said that he was military.
Whoever he was, he was taller than Joe, and looked stronger, too.
Joe debated leaving him alone. The man was only damaging an old wall, and the wall wasn’t Joe’s business. No point in messing with a man with a hammer. But Joe had to know why.
Before he could decide what to do, the man wheeled around, hammer held high. Edison growled a warning.
“It’s just me,” Joe said, as if the hammerer knew him.
The man’s glassy blue eyes came into focus. His eyes were set farther apart than average, one a few millimeters higher than the other, and his face gleamed with sweat. “They call me Rebar. Or Subject 523.”
The numbers flashed in Joe’s head: brown, blue, red.
“Joe,” he offered, trying not to let on that he was frightened. “Nice to meet you.”
Rebar lowered the hammer, and Joe relaxed. The man stood well over six feet. Joe bet he could do serious damage if provoked. Even without the hammer.
Rebar put the hammer head on the ground and leaned the handle against his baggy pants. His clothes hung on him as if he were a coat hanger instead of a man, as if he’d lost a lot of weight over a short time. His pockets bulged with dirty papers.
“Interesting wall you got there, soldier,” Joe said, inanely. How did you strike up a conversation with a crazy man in the middle of a dark tunnel in the middle of the night? You didn’t. You ran. But the unsolved problem kept him there.