John Hawks - The GoldenCity

When the taxi reached Chiswick, she got out near a school, and then walked three blocks to a street lined with tidy row houses. There was a faded Harlequin lute chalked on the pavement in front of the second house from the corner. The Free Runners had been living in the ground floor flat for the last few months.

Simon Lumbroso had already arrived and was sitting gingerly on a saggy couch in the living room. He seemed out-of-place amidst the cast-off furniture and the rubbish bins overflowing with crushed beer cans and fast-food cartons.

The only neat and organized area was a long work table with three monitors attached to a homemade computer. One monitor showed cars driving past the entrance to Wellspring Manor-the country estate owned by the Brethren. Another showed the entrance to the Evergreen Foundation office building near Ludgate Circus. The third was the main page of a secret website set up by the Polish Free Runners; their Internet team had accessed the security cameras near other properties owned by the Foundation. Six small boxes on the monitor displayed street scenes in four different countries.

Roland, the quiet young man from Yorkshire, sat at the table answering email while Jugger bustled about the room. His appearance hadn’t changed since joining the Resistance; his T-shirt was too small and revealed a patch of his flabby stomach.

“Tea?” he asked everyone. “How about a nice cup of tea?”

“Not right now.” Maya sat down on the couch. “Tell me what you’ve learned about Alice Chen.”

“Yesterday afternoon, I talked to the nun who was traveling with Alice,” Simon said. “Apparently, a man and a woman got on the train at Crewe and entered the compartment. They injected the nun with a powerful sedative right before they arrived in London The man wore a tweed suit and had a Welsh accent. They were carrying a large rolling suitcase.”

Jugger scratched his stomach. “After Simon gave us that description, we searched through the images taken by one of the City of London traffic cameras near the Evergreen Foundation office. Go ahead, Roland. Show Maya what we found.”

Black and white images appeared on the screen along with a time stamp at the bottom right hand corner. The city-owned camera took a photograph every five seconds, but most the images only showed the street and the entrance to the Foundation building. As Roland searched through the images, Maya noticed that several of the foundation employees had been tagged with nicknames and other information. “Susie Secretary arrives at 8:20hrs. Friends with Mr. Bald Head.”

“This is the feed two days ago when the little girl was kidnapped,” Roland said. “I remember these people because of their suitcase.”

The image on the monitor showed that a London taxi had stopped in front of the entrance. A middle-aged woman wearing a rain hat stood on the curb watching a man lift a black suitcase out of the trunk.

“I recognize them,” Maya said. “When I arrived at the station, they had just left the train with the other passengers.”

In the next five images, the couple maneuvered the rolling suitcase onto the sidewalk and pushed it into the building.

“Return to the third image,” Maya said. “No-the one after that.”

The monitor showed the man using two hands to pull the suitcase onto the curb.

“See that? It’s heavy because Alice is inside. That’s how they got her out of the train.”

“We’re fairly sure that she’s still in the building,” Jugger said. “None of the subsequent images show either a child or a large container being removed from the area.”

“Where’s Nathan Boone?” Maya asked.

“We hacked into the computer of the woman who handles travel arrangements for the Evergreen Foundation,” Roland said. “Boone traveled to Thailand on a commercial flight six days ago.”

“Boone wants to question the child,” Maya said. “They’ll keep her alive until he returns to London.”

“So what are you going to do?” Jugger asked. “Ever since the attack in Berlin, the Tabula have increased their security. Even at night there are at least four armed guards in the Foundation building.”

“Alice Chen is the only surviving witness to what happened at New Harmony,” Maya said. “But there is a larger issue. When Gabriel met the Nighthawk, he said that the Resistance is more than just destroying the Vast Machine. We need to believe that each individual life has value and meaning.”

Jugger nodded. “Sure. I think that’s right.”

“ Alice ’s life has value and meaning, and that means we’re going to save her. I’ll need your help to break into the Foundation building.”

“Sounds like you’re talking about Harlequin business,” Jugger said. “We don’t go around fighting people.”

“I saved your life, Jugger. I pulled you and Roland and your friend Sebastian out of a burning house.”

“Yes, and we-we appreciate that,” he stammered.

“You have an obligation.”

“We’re grateful, Maya. Everybody’s grateful. All I’m saying is that we’re not like you and Linden. I’ll go on the Internet and organize people, paint slogans on walls-things like that. But I’m not going to be part of an attack on a Foundation building. That could bloody well get us killed.”

The anger she had felt all morning surged through her body and she jumped up from the couch. The heels of her boots clicked across the floor as she approached Jugger and pointed her finger at his face.

“I just said something. But I guess you didn’t hear me.”

“I’m-I’m listening.”

“Good. Because when a Harlequin says ‘you have obligation,’ that does not mean that there’s a choice. I’m not wishing for your help. I’m not hoping for some benevolent impulse. I’m expecting your help now.”

“Right. No problem. Glad to be helpful.” Jugger was sweating. “But it’s going to be difficult to get into the building with a weapon. After you pass through the door, there’s an L-shaped hallway that leads to the security desk. I’m sure they do a backscatter scan of all their visitors.”

“If we can’t go in the front door, then we’ll have to break in from the top, the bottom or the sides.”

“The walls are too thick,” Simon said. “And we would have to gain access to a nearby building.”

“What about a hot air balloon?” Jugger seemed desperate to offer a solution. “You could float across the Thames and land on the roof.”

“Underground?” Maya asked Simon.

“Possibly. This is an old city-like Rome.”

“Hold it! Wait! I know what you need!” Jugger said. “You need an incredible disguise.”

“A few months ago, this old lady was at the Hope Pub,” Roland said with a solemn voice.

Jugger looked annoyed. “We don’t want to hear about some old lady. We’re trying to solve a problem here.”

“She was handing out pamphlets-about freeing the rivers.”

“What rivers are you talking about?” Simon asked gently.

“The lost rivers. The ones that flow under the streets.”

“So where are they?” Maya asked. “Any underneath Ludgate Circus?”

Roland shrugged his shoulders. “Can’t tell you that. And I won’t say something that’s not true.”

“We called her Crazy Nora,” Jugger said. “She had maps…”

A quick Internet search gave them an address in Finchley, and a few hours later Maya and Simon were walking past the cricket grounds on Waterfall Road. There appeared to be a great many parks and playing fields in Finchley. Jamaican nannies with phone headsets pushed baby carriages while schoolboys kicked a ball. But the largest space in the neighborhood was taken up by the weeping angels and mausoleums of the Great Northern Cemetery. Maya had a vision of thousands of dead Victorians traveling on a ghost train to this final resting place.