James Lilliefors - Viral

“What about the razor?” Charlie said.

“That’s a problem. Make it Plan C. Plan B would be blowing a hole in the wall. It’s mud brick; we could easily blast a hole in it with one of the remaining explosives.”

“But we’d be announcing our arrival,” Nadra said.

“Yes. That’s why it’s Plan B.”

“What’s Plan A?” Charlie asked.

“Going in through the storm drainage pipe.”

He pointed to the aerial, to the corner where the pipe protruded from the outer wall. “It appears to be about three and a half feet in diameter. Wide enough to crawl through. Drains storm-water out into the river. There’s probably a grate inside. Whether it’s secured or not, we don’t know. It’s not a sure thing by any measure. But it would be the least obvious.”

Mallory nodded. “Why is it a three-man operation?” he asked.

“Nadra and I will create the diversion once you get in.”

“How?”

“Explosives at the front. Plan B.”

AT 4:39, CHARLES Mallory came out of the woods and walked across the shallow river through the speckles of afternoon sunlight. He moved in a crouch along the opposite bank, looking for sensors or cameras, anything they might have missed from the aerials. But he saw nothing.

He was dressed in jeans and a dark sweatshirt, wearing cotton gloves, carrying a flashlight in his right hand and the 9mm handgun in the right pocket of his sweatshirt. The first problem he had noticed from across the river: The pipe did not end at river level as it seemed to in aerials. The opposite bank had eroded, and the pipe was a good five feet above the ground, maybe more. He wouldn’t just be able to crawl into it.

Charlie came to a spot directly below the opening of the drain pipe and looked both ways along the rust-colored mud-brick wall. Nothing. He stood and reached, closing his fingers on the bottom of the pipe entrance, the flashlight still in his right hand. Felt the gritty, rusted iron. He lifted himself up like he was doing a pull-up, raising his head above the bottom lip of the pipe: pure darkness, no light at the other end. He tossed in the flashlight, then pulled himself as high as he could and jammed his right elbow up into the pipe. Held on, used it as a lever to yank his left elbow in. Tried to move from side to side, pulling himself up and in. It almost worked.

Then his right elbow lost traction and he fell back, felt his left forearm scrape across the rusted edge of the pipe opening, and he was out, the metal tearing a cut through the sleeve of the sweatshirt.

He tried again, pulling himself up. Planting his right elbow and pivoting his left arm into the pipe. Using his elbows to lift himself in. Moving in tiny increments this time, until his center of gravity was up inside the pipe. He lay still for a moment, breathing deeply. The pipe was three and a half feet in diameter, as Jason had said. It smelled damp, an old and slightly unpleasant odor. Charlie began to crawl forward into the darkness, rocking from side to side, advancing his elbows several inches at a time. Within three or four minutes, he was engulfed in darkness. There was no light behind him anymore, none in front. He lay for a moment on his belly and listened. The sounds were faint and distant: what seemed to be a periodic scratching sound that might have been the footsteps of animals, or something catching in a breeze, and a persistent low buzzing that he couldn’t identify. He began to crawl again. Ten yards. Fifteen yards. Twenty yards. He stopped to rest. Started again. Estimating how far he had gone, picturing where the pipe would come out inside the prison building. Moving side to side, inches at a time.

Then his elbows came into something softer. Some kind of sludge covered the bottom of the pipe. He crawled through it, using his elbows to pivot himself forward, but he was getting less traction now. The pipe tilted slightly upward, making the crawl more difficult. His elbows slipped. He stopped. Tried again. Couldn’t move. He had come to an impasse. Couldn’t go forward any more. He was going to have to quit.

Charles Mallory closed his eyes. He breathed the damp, foul-smelling air, his thoughts shuffling—Franklin’s deception, his brother’s trust, the millions of people who might die tonight.

Improvise . He gathered his strength and tried something different, jamming his hands against the sides of the pipe and using them to thrust his body forward. It got him another several inches. Again: the sides of the pipe were less slippery than the bottom. He went a third time, using his hands and legs to lever his body forward. Two inches, four inches. He kept it going for several minutes. Then his arms began to tire, and he collapsed, realizing he wasn’t going to make it much farther. He lay belly down in the sludge for a moment, breathing in and out heavily. Sweating in the dampness. He felt the pipe again through the sludge and tried to crawl. Jerked his elbows forward. One, and the other, his feet pushing off the sides of the pipe, his body advancing in tiny increments again, two or three inches each time. Resting, moving forward, resting. And then suddenly he felt air against his face and stopped. There was no more tunnel. His hands felt a wall. He took a deep breath and looked up. Saw dim, abstract shapes above him. Something distinct from the darkness. A grate.

JON MALLORY HEARD the footsteps again. Deliberate, dull. Shoe soles on stone. And a rumbling distant sound of an engine. He was less groggy now but could summon no clear recollection of what had happened, just confused images. Explosions. Men rushing in. A bright light. Someone pushing him to the floor.

Help!

He tried to scream the word again. But he couldn’t. He tried to speak, to just say the word. And then to say his name. But he couldn’t do that, either. His brain still wasn’t working right. He was unable to say anything. Unable to make a sound.

THE GRATE WAS iron, circular, with a series of narrow slats where the water drained. Charles Mallory saw the dim outlines of other pipes above it, which fed water from the roof to the drain. He pushed his fingers up into the grate, felt it give, and let go. That was good. But he couldn’t get enough traction with his feet in the pipe to push it up and climb to the surface. He took a deep breath. Imagined going all the way back through the pipe, crawling a hundred and fifty feet backwards down to the entrance. Decided he didn’t like that option.

He lay in the pipe, gathering strength, listening. Thinking about Hassan. What they had done to Paul. Heard a distant rustling again, the feet of small animals on stone. Then nothing. But there were human smells here. He reached up and pushed again, felt the grate give. Then he jammed his fingers onto the edge of the opening and breathed in and out several times. Summoned all of his strength to pull himself up again. He slammed his elbow and shoulder into the grate so that it spun up from the casement, clattering onto the stone, the sound echoing for several seconds. He used both hands, then, to pull himself through, planting an elbow and lifting himself the rest of the way in. Tossing the flashlight ahead of him with his right hand.

He was in a narrow corridor, maybe three times the width of the pipe. It was dark, and he breathed the rank smell of standing water and urine, and something worse. He felt along the cold wall and came into a larger corridor. Pitch dark. He flicked on the flashlight and moved it left and right, his eyes smarting from the sudden brightness. He was in a corridor that separated a procession of prison cells. Two levels, forty-five-square-foot cells, he guessed. Rusted iron bars, most of the doors ajar. The corridor continued in front of him for about sixty yards.

He heard human sounds, then, and froze. What seemed to be breathing. And moaning. From several sources, it seemed. More remotely: footsteps. Then the sounds stopped and he wondered if he had really heard anything.