First Strike (45 page)

The rope went tighter. He clutched it as they pulled, trying to squirm. For half a minute, they pulled. His arms felt like they might rip off at the shoulders. Dewey made a low, guttural groan. The pressure ceased for a few moments, then started again. He felt his shoulders move, no more than an inch, then another. Then his shoulders reached the part of the tunnel that Katie had covered in oil. Slowly, Smith, Tacoma, Katie, and the Plumber pulled Dewey through. It took them twenty minutes to get through the final feet.

Dewey's hands emerged first, covered in oil, then his arms, and finally his head. He was filthy, most of his face wet black. He panted in rapid, desperate gasps.

Katie was in front, climbing gloves on. Tacoma was behind her. Smith had the back of the rope. The Plumber was seated on the ground, studying a diagram. All of them were filthy, but compared to Dewey they looked clean.

Dewey climbed out of the opening, his body mostly covered in oil. He found his duffel and pulled his pants back on, not bothering to wipe off the oil; it would've been pointless. Then his socks and shoes.

Dewey reached around to the cut at his back and touched it gingerly. He looked at his fingers. Intermingled with oil was blood. He couldn't tell if he would need stitches, but it didn't matter now. That was a question for later. He pulled on his shirt.

The Plumber held a portable lantern, dimly lighting the old water main. It was massive; concrete, fourteen feet high, large structural cracks and hunks of concrete dangling in places. A small pool of stagnant water covered the floor. There were rats, hundreds of them, on either side, remaining away from the group, but visible, scurrying around in the water like fish.

Dewey wiped his face and looked at Smith, who couldn't hide his shit-eating grin at the sight of Dewey, head to toe in oil.

“Tell me we're close,” said Dewey, glancing at the Plumber, who looked up from a piece of paper—a copy of an old map—that he was studying.

“We're close,” he said.

“Why do you look worried?” said Dewey.

“There is a small problem,” said the Plumber, sweeping his eyes across their faces.

 

63

CARMAN HALL

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Sirhan was on the twelfth floor, standing just inside one of the bedrooms, the campus visible in the distance. He powered up his cell phone.

He remembered Nazir's words as he explained the operation to him. It had been two years now. “
They will shut off all your communications devices. But you already know what to do. Every hour, a student must die, until they are all dead, or you are dead. There is nothing I can tell you, Sirhan, that you don't already know. In the moments just before victory, fear, intimidation, violence, brutality must be doubled, tripled, quadrupled. It is not because you are evil. It is because this is how countries are born.
”

Munich.

As he waited, he looked around. He saw a menu for a Chinese restaurant. He dialed the number for the restaurant and hit Send. He waited for more than a minute, but the call didn't go through. He wasn't surprised, and he shouldn't have been angry, but he hurled the phone at the wall, smashing it to pieces.

*   *   *

Daisy was asleep when the gunman entered the room. She didn't mean to fall asleep, but it happened. What awoke her was Andy, stiffening. Daisy glanced at her. Andy was staring at the terrorist.

“
Stop staring,
” she whispered, elbowing her.

But the gunman had already noticed. He stopped his perfunctory scan of the dorm room and stepped toward Andy. He aimed the rifle at her.

He was tall, with black hair that looked wet with sweat or because he hadn't washed. He looked like anyone. In a different shirt and pants, he could've been a student.

“Do as he says,” whispered Daisy.

The terrorist leaned forward and grabbed Andy by the hair. He yanked it sideways and she screamed. He lifted her up, dragging her from the wall.

Daisy lurched for his leg. “No!” she pleaded.

But the gunman held her.

Andy was screaming.

Daisy stood up. She followed the gunman. Near the window, she pushed herself between the terrorist and Andy.

“Take me,” she said.

The gunman ignored her as he continued dragging Andy, who was hysterical now.

Daisy wrapped her arms around the terrorist's neck, trying to stop him.

“Take me!”

 

64

UNDERGROUND

NEW YORK CITY

“What do you mean, ‘problem'?” asked Dewey.

“Not everything is easy, you know. There was bound to be at least one problem.”

“So crawling through a fucking hole that's tighter than a nun's ass wasn't a problem?”

“That was a minor inconvenience,” said the Plumber. “This is slightly bigger. In any event, we don't reach it until we're closer to the building. We need to move.”

They followed the Plumber down the tunnel. They moved at a fast clip, jogging through the pool of foul-smelling water, sloshing fetid, muddy, rat-infested sludge as they pushed on. In places, the filthy water came all the way up to their thighs.

Everyone except the Plumber had on a headlamp. The Plumber gripped the portable lantern. Shadowy silhouettes danced along the walls as they moved. After twenty minutes, the Plumber stopped and held up his lamp. A few feet ahead, the tunnel stopped at a large steel door. It looked like a bank vault, covered in rust, with a round wheel for opening it.

The Plumber removed a stethoscope, which had been wrapped around his neck and tucked inside his shirt. He stepped to the steel door and listened.

“Just as I thought,” he said.

“Where are we?” asked Dewey.

“Directly beneath the building.”

“So what's the problem?”

“When they built the dormitory, they upgraded the university's electrical grid, how they connect and what they connect to. In order to do that, they also needed a tunnel for maintenance. A way for the workers to move up and down as they constructed the new infrastructure—cables, circuitry, diagnostic equipment, redundancies, et cetera. That tunnel provided access to the smaller electrical tunnel. The workers could work on the wiring through side hatches. That tunnel is right behind that steel door. It leads up into the basement of the building. It's big, with ladders on both sides, and, I'm guessing, still has some lights that work.”

“Sounds perfect. What's the problem?”

“The problem is, access to that tunnel is on the other side of the door.”

Dewey stepped toward the steel latch. He put both hands on the wheel and started to turn.

“I wouldn't do that.”

“Why not?”

“It's filled with water. That's why there's a big steel door there. It's why there's a little water in here. It leaks through.”

“So we get a little wet.”

“It's a lot of water.”

“How much?”

“At any one time, we're talking about several
thousand
tons of pressure,” said the Plumber. “Imagine being hit by a tidal wave, then multiply that by about a hundred. Like a freight train made of water.”

Dewey stared daggers at the Plumber.

“So why the fuck did we bother going through all this?” he asked. “What's the point? You said we could get into the building.”

“Oh, we can,” said the Plumber. “You see, the tunnel on the other side of the door is what we call a switch pipe. It's one of about twenty places where the water department alternates among the reservoirs that feed into the city's water supply. It's automated. Like clockwork. At precisely fifteen minutes after the hour, one supply main gets shut off and the other gets turned on. During the switchover, the pipe is empty. That's when we can open the door, go to the worker tunnel, and climb up without getting killed.”

Dewey looked at his watch. It was ten after four.

“How much time do we have?” asked Smith.

“To open the door, move through, close the door, go about ten feet, open the hatch to the worker tunnel, climb up, then shut the hatch behind us,” said the Plumber, “we have exactly one minute.”

“One min—” Tacoma started, eyes bulging, incredulous.

Dewey glanced again at his watch.

“What time do you have?” he asked the Plumber.

“Four thirteen.”

“How close is that to the clock the water department is on?”

“Down to the second.”

Dewey tightened the weapons ruck on his back and stepped to the steel hatch. He gripped the wheel and turned to Smith, Katie, and Tacoma.

“I'm going. If you don't want to, I understand. You need to decide on your own. But it needs to happen right now.”

“I'm in,” said Katie.

Smith and Tacoma nodded without saying anything.

“You stay here and close the door after we're through,” Dewey told the Plumber. “That'll buy us a few seconds.”

“I want to help,” said the Plumber, though a nervous grin belied his words.

“You already have. But unless you have close-quarters combat experience, you'll get in the way.”

The Plumber looked relieved. He nodded and looked at his watch.

“You have fifteen seconds.”

Dewey looked at Tacoma, who was tightening his duffel to his back.

“I'll open this door. You go first. Get the hatch open—”

“Ten seconds,” said the Plumber, who moved to the side of the door and listened through his stethoscope.

“… and climb like a motherfucker,” continued Dewey. “Katie, you go next—”

“
Five.
”

“… then you, Damon.”

“
Three, two, one,
” barked the Plumber. “
Go!
”

Dewey tugged with all his might on the wheel that secured the door, but it didn't move. Smith joined him, then Tacoma. A high-pitched squeaking noise followed a few seconds later. The wheel moved imperceptibly.

“
You need to hurry!
”

The three men struggled harder. The squeaking grew louder and steadier.

“You only have forty-five seconds,” said the Plumber. “Forty.
Wait until next hour!
If the hatch door doesn't open—”

Dewey ignored him, and like peer pressure on the playground, his continued struggle with the door made Tacoma and Smith continue turning. Suddenly, the wheel turned more quickly, then spun. The steel hatch burst open. A small wave of water followed, waist high, which splashed across the five as the door opened fully.

“Thirty seconds,” screamed the Plumber as Tacoma charged through the water and into the tunnel. “I'll keep the door open until ten seconds. You must hurry!”

Katie followed, then Smith, then Dewey.

“Twenty-five seconds,” said the Plumber. “
Hurry!
”

Tacoma searched the ceiling of the tunnel with his headlamp, trying to find the hatch.

“
To the left!
” yelled the Plumber “
Lower!
You have twenty seconds!
Come back!
You'll never make it!
”

Tacoma searched desperately, scanning the ceiling.

“
Lower!
”

He finally found the hatch; it was at ten o'clock, a round section of the tunnel with a smaller latch, which also opened and closed with a wheel.

“
That's it! Turn it! Quickly! You only have ten—
”

Dewey turned, watching as the big steel door closed.

“
Hurry, Rob!
” said Katie.

Tacoma, grunting loudly, turned the hatch wheel.

Then they heard it—in unison, all four heads turned: a low rumble echoed from somewhere up the tunnel.

“
Oh, my God!
” screamed Katie.

The rumble grew louder. A horrifying sound, like thunder, and the ground shook beneath them.

Tacoma loosened the wheel, spun it, pushed up the hatch, and leapt up into the open compartment. Katie jumped immediately after him as the echo of water—massive amounts of water—grew louder and more ominous, like the seconds after lightning strikes and the explosion of thunder is about to occur. A drumroll with deathly power.

The ground kicked and thrashed violently.

Smith and Dewey looked down the tunnel as the first wave of water splashed a dozen feet away. Smith pulled himself up just as the front wave of the water barreled down the tunnel at Dewey. It was a black wall, moving fast, the water level rising. Just as Smith climbed through the hatch, the front part of the wave hit Dewey. The pressure struck his legs first, like being tackled. He leaned forward, arms reaching out to the hatch. Across the knees was where the first crest hit, then the torso, and soon he felt himself being thrown backward, down the tunnel, as the water hit his head …

Something prevented him from being thrown back. Above him, he saw only darkness and the blurry yellow of halogen. Hands gripped his wrists—strong hands, like vises—and then his feet left the ground and he was being pulled. His head suddenly breached the water; he was inside the hatch. Above, Katie was looking down from higher in the tunnel. Tacoma was standing, legs spread across the tunnel, feet on steel rungs, and in his arms were Smith's legs from the knees down. Smith was upside down, and Tacoma was clutching him at the knees so he could dangle down into the oncoming deluge and grab hold of Dewey.

Dewey coughed water, then registered Smith, directly in front of his face, still holding his wrists, panting, his face beet red and drenched.

“
Grab the ladder!
” Smith yelled.

Dewey reached for the wall, feeling for the steel as rushing water tried to yank him back down into the main. He climbed onto the ladder. Smith pushed the hatch down and twisted it shut. Tacoma lowered him slowly to the ground.

All four remained silent for almost a minute, Dewey and Smith trying to catch their breath.