Synbat (26 page)

1:56 P.M.

The back of the large van was now Lewis's field headquarters. Radios covered most of one of the walls and a small table occupied the center. Around the table stood the colonel, Riley, Merrit, and Giannini, peering at a set of old blueprints.
"Your suspects," Giannini said, giving Riley a small look, "are in an old set of tunnels that were once used as a freight system." She tapped the blueprints. "I got these from the Board of Underground in the City Transportation Department, but all they show is the sewer system and the subways. The system you went into is below those."
"You don't have plans for these freight tunnels?" Lewis asked incredulously.
In reply, Giannini flipped open her notepad. "I talked to this old guy at the Board of Underground for an hour after you all asked me to check on this. He told me there are no plans on record for those tunnels."
"Well, how far do they go?" Riley asked.
Giannini flipped a page. "When they were first built, they stretched under the city for a little over fifty-nine miles."
"What?" Riley exploded. "Fifty-nine miles!"
Giannini nodded. "I couldn't believe it either. Let me give you a summary of what this guy told me." She flipped back a few more pages. "All right. Let's see. Construction on these tunnels began back in 1898 and they were opened in 1904. They were originally built to carry coal to buildings downtown and reduce congestion in the streets. Apparently the soil down there is some sort of blue clay that's real easy to dig through. They'd have shifts working all night digging out the tunnels and then the day crew would pour concrete to make the walls."
She glanced up. "Here's something interesting. Did you ever read _The Jungle_ by Upton Sinclair?"
Lewis shook his head irritably and Riley just waited. He knew Giannini was pushing the colonel.
"Well, the main character in the book, Jurgis Rudkus, worked as a digger in these same tunnels." She shook her head. "It's funny, I've read the book, but I never thought those tunnels actually existed. Anyway, the last tunnel was built in 1954 for the Prudential Building, but it was never used. The system was shut down in '59. That was the year the Chicago Tunnel Company  --  the people who built and ran the tunnels  --  went bankrupt."
"Can we try and find some records from that company?" Riley asked.
"Nope. I asked."
"Who's responsible for the tunnels now?"
Giannini gave a weary smile. "The city. Who else?"
Riley sank down into a folding chair. "Does anyone have any idea where they go?"
Giannini pulled off the top blueprint and displayed a street map. "No one knows the full extent of them. Over the years, parts of the system have been blocked off or destroyed. When they built the subways, they cut through some of the freight tunnel system, especially when they built the State and Dearborn Street subway."
Riley looked at the map. "That's just north of here. You say these tunnels served downtown. Do you have any idea how far they extend in that direction?"
Giannini's finger made a loose circle, enclosing not only the Loop formed by the Chicago River and Lake Michigan, but crossing the river both to the north and west. "They're not only here in the Loop but they go under the river too."
"Does anyone use these freight tunnels?" Merrit asked.
"Yeah," Giannini said. "The city leases some of them to Edison, the power company, and to some cable companies, but they only use a very small portion  --  a couple of miles at most."
"So we have about sixty miles of tunnels down there where the suspects could be hiding," Riley summarized. "And we have no map of the system, so we have to go in blind and just wander around, hoping we run into them."
Merrit pointed at the map. "They stole the cart here, to the south. The cable crew was missing here, and as far as you can tell, you went almost a half mile in the sewer before you reached the point where they descended to the freight tunnel. I'd say that their hiding place is very far removed from where they go up to the surface."
"Detective," Lewis asked, "do you have any more information on the tunnels that might be of use?"
Giannini looked at her notebook. "Just some odds and ends. There are openings from the tunnels directly into the subbasements of many buildings  --  that way the coal could be run directly into the buildings. Almost all of those openings have been closed off; as a matter of fact, this old man told me that many of the owners of buildings in the Loop don't even know they were connected to this system or that it even exists." She shrugged. "That's about all I have."
"Thank you," Lewis said. "We'll contact you if we need anything else."
Giannini left without another word, glancing at Riley on the way out.
Lewis faced Riley. "Any ideas?"
"We need more people, sir. We've got more than fifty miles of tunnels to look through. That's going to take awhile."
"The Synbats might not even be in the tunnels themselves," Merrit noted. "They simply might be using them as their road system and actually be hiding in the basement of some building. I'm sure they've found a relatively isolated place to set up their base to take care of the young."
"All we can hope for," Riley said, "is to find some tracks and get lucky."
Lewis sighed. "All right. I'll call General Trollers and try to get some more people up here. Meanwhile, you start from where we know the Synbats were last and work your way north toward downtown."
* * * *

3:23 P.M.

"I've got tracks!" Trovinsky hissed, his low voice echoing off the concrete walls.
Riley moved up next to him and looked down at the thin layer of mud that covered this part of the floor. Two distinctive pad prints showed up clearly, heading down the freight tunnel.
"All right," Riley said. "Let's go that way."
He'd split his team in half, taking Trovinsky, Caruso, and Carter to the left and sending Doc Seay with three men to the right. The two four-man teams would break down once more to two-man teams when each hit the next intersection. Riley told Seay not to break down below two men, and even at that level he felt uncomfortable facing the Synbats. The FM radios would not work in the tunnels, so they had to rely on IR chem lights to mark their trail. Riley's greatest fear was that one of his teams would be attacked and he might not even know it.
The tunnel rose slightly and Trovinsky paused as the mud disappeared from the concrete floor. He pushed onto the next section of mud and then halted. "They're gone."
Riley looked over his shoulder. The mud was undisturbed. "We didn't pass any turnoffs. How can they be gone?"
Trovinsky looked about. "Remember when they took to the trees back at the Land Between the Lakes?"
Riley nodded.
Trovinsky pointed at the large tubes holding power and cable lines that were bolted to the side wall. "I bet you they're going along those."
"Shit," Riley muttered. "All right, let's keep moving. If they didn't double back on us, they've got to be ahead somewhere."
* * * *

5:56 P.M.

Doc Seay paused and signaled for his men to take a break. They'd been moving for more than three hours and had covered about three miles of tunnels. They'd spotted Synbat tracks once  --  the faintest impression in an isolated patch of dirt  --  but only once. They'd already passed sixteen side tunnels, but Seay had kept his party intact and on a straight course, due north by his compass. Looking at his map in the infrared glow of his goggles, he estimated that they were directly underneath the Loop and close to the river. For all he knew, they might have even gone under the river; it was hard to tell down here.
As Seay was contemplating his location, Bob Philips suddenly hissed for his attention. "Listen," he said, pointing to the next intersection.
Seay cocked his head, ears straining. At first he heard nothing, but then he slowly became aware of an intermittent, very low clicking sound bouncing off the walls  --  something striking the concrete floor. With hand and arm gestures, he indicated for his team to take defensive positions, oriented toward the intersection ten feet away.
The noise suddenly stopped. Seay held his breath and then the noise started up, louder and quicker this time, but heading away. Seay sprinted to the intersection and caught a brief glimpse of something low to the floor turning the far corner and disappearing.
"Let's go!" he yelled, and his men were behind him, sprinting down the tunnel. As they rounded the corner, Seay again caught sight of what had been making the noise, but it was too far away to make out clearly  --  almost fifty meters down the darkened corridor.
Seay flinched as a row of red tracers exploded past his right ear, the flat crack of the bullets echoing off the wall. "Cease fire!" he screamed as he rolled away from the rounds. The sudden silence was as abrupt as the shots. Seay slowly got up and turned to face his men. The team's junior engineer, Bartlett, stood there, rifle held in his hand, looking sheepish.
"Jesus, Bartlett, you just about took my head off!" Seay admonished. "Did you even see what you were shooting at?"
"I saw something running," Bartlett said.
"It looked too small to be a Synbat," Bob Philips commented. "Maybe a dog."
"A dog?" Seay asked. "How did a dog get down here? Maybe it was one of the baby Synbats."
"Merrit said the young ones wouldn't be able to move for a while," Philips noted.
"Merrit's been wrong before," Seay said. He pointed down the corridor. "Let's move out, but from now on, no one, and I mean no one, shoots across the formation." He turned his bulky goggles to peer directly at Bartlett. "Clear?"
"Clear, Sarge."
* * * *

8:12 P.M.

Saturday was Lester Karney's favorite workday. It was the one day when the City Hall was empty. Lester was thirty-eight, going on sixty. His body was whipcord thin, and his face lined and pitted from the ravages of alcohol.
Lester pushed his cleaning cart down the second floor main hallway to the freight elevator. He rolled the cart in and punched the button labeled B3. With a steady rumble the elevator descended, past the ground floor and the first two basement levels to the subbasement. The doors whooshed open, revealing a dark corridor that led to the furnace room and storage areas. Lester flipped on the set of naked light bulbs that lined the corridor and left his cart just outside the elevator doors. He slipped a paper bag from underneath a cleaning rag and stuck it in the large back pocket of his coveralls.
Lester walked past the double doors that opened into the furnace room, then took a sharp left turn in the corridor. He shook his head as he passed carton upon carton of papers piled haphazardly against the hallway walls. If the fire inspector ever came down here, there'd be hell to pay. But Lester knew that no one official had come down here in a long time. He'd poked through some of the boxes once and found papers dating back thirty-five years.
He heard the clink of a bottle around the corner and smiled. He entered a room lined with boxes, with a dilapidated desk in the center. Seated behind the desk was a skinny black woman of indeterminate age, her face crinkled up in a smile. "Sit down, Lester, baby."
Lester sat on the corner of the desk, pulled out his own bottle, and clinked it to hers. "Bottoms up."
He took a long swig. "So how goes the third floor, Liz?"
"Same as two," she replied, cackling. It was their little ritual every Saturday night. Lester took another slug and then set the bottle carefully on the floor next to the desk.
"You're in a little bit of a rush tonight, ain't you, Lester?" Liz said as he came around the desk.
"Been a long week, sweetie," Lester replied as he wrapped his arms around her from behind.
"Mmm," Liz replied, arching her head back and meeting his kiss. Lester lifted her out of the seat and turned her around. With smooth movements, he pulled her coveralls down around her feet. Pushing her down on the desktop, he began unfastening his own clothing.
He grabbed her legs and stretched them up into the air as he plunged into her. The two lost sight of the dinginess of their surroundings as they fell into the animal passion of the moment.
The clink of the bottle falling over on the floor was lost on Lester, but not Liz. Her eyes cracked open and looked past the form of the man on top of her. They grew wide as they took in the other occupants of the room. She screamed and Lester thrust even harder until he suddenly arched back, his face frozen in a grimace, his body shuddering. Liz screamed again and Lester smiled down on her for a brief second before a hand wrapped around his throat and another hand, holding a knife, cut across it, severing his jugular vein. Blood exploded out, pulsing over Liz, who was pinned to the desktop by Lester's dying weight. She pushed at him futilely as a grinning face dominated by two massive fangs loomed over Lester's body.
Liz closed her eyes and began praying to the God her mother down in Alabama had beaten into her. The prayers were interrupted by pain, and for a few seconds her agonized screams echoed unheard through the basement of City Hall.
* * * *

Fort Campbell

_9:00 P.M._
Hossey crumpled up the message that Powers had transcribed and stuffed it into his pocket. The sergeant major stood at Hossey's side as he looked out the window of the 5th Group headquarters, peering at the stars in the clear night sky.
"What do you think, sir?"
"I think this is a bunch of bullshit, Dan," Hossey answered. "I think Lewis is in over his head and Trollers is playing politics."
"They aren't going to find them, sir," Powers said. "Sixty miles of tunnels..." He shook his head. "Shit, in Vietnam we hit tunnels and it was always bad news. And we weren't going against anything like these things."
Hossey rubbed the back of his neck. "I know. I know. They need more men."
"I've got B Company standing by, sir," Powers offered.
Hossey sighed and pointed across the street. "See that car, Dan?"
"Yes, sir."
"What do you think?"
He took in the two men sitting in the front seat. Powers sighed in turn. "DIA."
"Yeah. The minute we alert Bravo, they'll be down on us. I'd need the choppers to lift them up to Chicago, but when I talked to Captain Devens ten minutes ago out at the airfield, he said that two of Trollers's people were out there. They'd never get off the ground."
"Shit," Powers muttered.
Hossey left the window and went back to his desk. "But if we can't do the job, I know someone who can. And they're a bit closer than we are."
"Who, sir?"
Hossey absently reached up and rubbed a finger across the Ranger tab on his left shoulder. "I talked to Colonel Luckert of the 1st Ranger Battalion earlier today and his Alpha Company is at Camp McCoy in Wisconsin right now. He told me I could use them."
For the first time that evening a smile crossed Powers's face. A company of Rangers. The smile disappeared, though, as he thought it through. "They'll bust you, sir."
"Yes. They will." Hossey picked up the phone. "But if I don't do it, people may die. I don't have much of a choice. I'm putting them on alert to move in."
* * * *