Jeffery Deaver - The burning wire

"Nothing more, Sachs."

"I'm going in now."

She disconnected before he responded and she and the officers followed the worker to the door that led to the basement. The electricity was off in the building, but emergency lights glowed like red and white eyes. The worker started for the door.

"No," Sachs said. "You wait here."

"Okay. You go down two flights and you'll see a red door. It'll say 'Algonquin Consolidated' on it. That'll lead to stairs going down to the service tunnel. Here's the key." He handed it to her.

"What's your partner's name?"

"Joey. Joey Barzan."

"And where was he supposed to be?"

"At the bottom of the access stairs, turn left. He was working about a hundred feet, hundred and fifty, away. It'd sort of be under where the hotel is."

"What's visibility down there?"

"Even with the juice off, there'll be some work lights on battery power."

Battery. Great.

"But it's really dark. We always use flashlights."

"Are there live lines there?"

"Yeah, it's a transmission tunnel. The feeders here are off now, but others're live."

"Are they exposed?"

He gave a surprised blink. "They've got a hundred and thirty thousand volts. No, they're not exposed."

Unless Galt had exposed them.

Sachs hesitated then swept the voltage detector over the door handle, drawing a glance of curiosity from the Algonquin worker. She didn't explain about the invention, but merely gestured everybody back and flung the door open, hand on her weapon's grip. Empty.

Sachs and the two officers started down the murky stairwell-her claustrophobia kicked in immediately but at least here the disgusting smell of burned rubber and skin and hair was less revolting.

Sachs was in the lead, the two patrolmen behind. She was gripping the key firmly but when they got to the red door, giving access to the tunnel, she found it was partially open. They all exchanged glances. She drew her weapon. They did the same and she gestured the patrolmen to move forward slowly behind her, then eased the door open silently with her shoulder.

In the doorway she paused, looked down.

Shit. The stairs leading to the tunnel-about two stories, it seemed-were metal. Unpainted.

Her heart tripping again.

If you can, avoid it.

If you can't do that, protect yourself against it.

If you can't do that, cut its head off.

But none of Charlie Sommers's magic rules applied here.

She was now sweating furiously. She remembered that wet skin was a far better conductor than dry. And hadn't Sommers said something about salty sweat making it even worse?

"You see something, Detective?" A whisper.

"You want me to go?" the second officer asked.

She didn't respond to the questions but whispered back, "Don't touch anything metal."

"Sure. Why not?"

"A hundred thousand volts. That's why."

"Oh. Sure."

She plunged down the stairs, half expecting to hear a horrific crack and see her vision fill with a blinding burst of spark. Down the first flight of stairs, then down the second one.

The estimate was wrong. The journey was down three very steep flights.

As they approached the bottom, they heard rumbling and hums. Loud. It was also twenty degrees hotter down here than outside and the temperature was rising with every step of the descent.

Another level of hell.

The tunnel was bigger than she expected, about six feet across and seven high, but much dimmer. Many of the emergency lighting bulbs were missing. To the right, she could just make out the end of the tunnel, about fifty feet away. There were no doors Galt could have escaped through, no places to hide. To the left, though, where Joey Barzan was supposed to be, the corridor disappeared in what seemed to be a series of bends.

Sachs motioned the other two to stay behind her as they moved to the first jog in the tunnel. There they stopped. She didn't believe Galt was still here-he would get as far away as he could-but she was worried about traps.

Still, it was a belief, not a certainty, that he'd fled. So when she looked around the bend she was crouching and had her Glock ready, though not preceding her, where Galt might knock it aside or grab it.

Nothing.

She looked down at the water covering the concrete floor. Water. Naturally. Plenty of conductive water.

She glanced at the wall of the tunnel, on which were mounted thick black cables.

She remembered the Algonquin worker's comment a moment ago about the voltage.

"Clear," she whispered.

And motioned the officers along behind her, hurrying. She certainly was concerned about the Algonquin worker, Joey Barzan, but more important she hoped to find some clues as to where Galt might've gone.

But could they? These tunnels would go on for miles, she guessed. They would have been a perfect route by which to escape. The floors were dirt and concrete, but no footprints were obvious. The walls were sooty. She could collect trace evidence for days and not come up with a single thing that might yield a clue as to where he'd gone. Maybe-

A scraping sound.

She froze. Where had it come from? Were there side passages where he might be hiding?

One of the officers held up a hand. He pointed at his own eyes and then forward. She nodded, though she thought the military signal wasn't really necessary here.

But whatever makes you comfortable in situations like this…

Though not much was making Sachs comfortable at the moment. Again, the bullets of molten metal zinged, hissing, through her mind's eye.

Still, she couldn't pull back.

Another deep breath.

Another look… Again, the stretch of tunnel ahead of them was empty. It was also dimmer than the other. And she saw why: most of the lightbulbs were missing here too, but these had been broken out.

A trap, she sensed.

They had to be directly beneath the hotel, she figured, when they came to a ninety-degree turn to the right.

Again she took a fast look, but this time it was hard to see anything at all because of the greater darkness here.

Then she heard noises again.

One patrolman eased close. "A voice?"

She nodded.

"Keep low," she whispered.

They eased around the corner and made their way up the tunnel, crouching.

Then she shivered. It wasn't a voice. It was a moan. A desperate moan. Human.

"Flashlight!" she whispered. As a detective, she wore no utility belt, just weapons and cuffs, and she felt the painful blow as the officer behind her shoved the light into her side.

"Sorry," he muttered.

"Get down," she told the patrolmen softly. "Prone. Be prepared to fire. But only on my command… unless he takes me out first."

They eased to the filthy floor, guns pointed down the tunnel.

She aimed in that direction too. Holding the flashlight out to her side at arm's length so she wouldn't present a vital-zone target, she clicked it on, the blinding beam filling the grim corridor.

No gunshots, no arc flashes.

But Galt had claimed another victim.

About thirty feet away an Algonquin worker lay on his side, duct tape over his mouth, hands tied behind him. He was bleeding from the temple and behind his ear.

"Let's go!"

The other officers rose and the three of them hurried down the tunnel to the man she supposed was Joey Barzan. In the beam she could see it wasn't Galt. The worker was badly injured and bleeding heavily. As one of the patrolmen hurried toward him to stop the hemorrhaging, Barzan began to shake his head frantically and wail beneath the tape.

At first Sachs assumed he was dying and that death tremors were shaking his body. But as she got closer to him she looked at his wide eyes and glanced down, following their path. He was lying not on the bare floor but on a thick piece of what looked like Teflon or plastic.