The World Beneath (Joe Tesla) (24 page)

Chapter 44

November 30, 9:15 a.m.

Tunnels under Grand Central Terminal

Ozan saw Tesla stumble. He’d hit his arm. He didn’t want to kill him. He had questions that only Tesla could answer.

“Stop!” called Ozan. He sent another shot just wide of Tesla’s head.

Tesla stopped. He held the wounded arm against his chest, but he wouldn’t let go of the case. Braver than he looked.

“I just want to talk to you,” called Ozan. “I want to know about what’s in that case.”

“It’s full of parasites called toxoplasmosis, Mr. Saddiq,” Joe said. “He was going to inject it into soldiers.”

Ozan wasn’t surprised that Tesla knew his name. The man knew everything. “Does it make you sick?”

“It gives you a fever, headaches, muscle pain.”

Ozan’s head throbbed. He’d had all those symptoms. He moved to a track next to the stopped train. “Then what?”

“It makes you reckless.”

He recognized that, too. This parasite was inside his body. Worry for Erol flashed across his mind. His brother would be alone without him. “Is it curable?”

The track points shifted with a clack. Ozan screamed as the bones of his foot were ground together. The train had been switched to the track on which he stood, catching his foot between the two tracks.

He dropped his gun and yanked at his foot. Hot pain flooded up his leg, but his foot didn’t budge. “Help me!”

Tesla put the case down and ran to him. He kicked away the gun before bending down to try to grab Ozan’s foot.

“Work the switch!” Ozan tried to push his foot straight back, but it was stuck tight.

The train rolled toward them, ready to go down the new track and run over him.

Tesla leaped up. He waved his arms over his head. Blood ran down his forearm from the gunshot wound.

Ozan looked up at the cabin to see if the engineer saw them. He could switch them back to another track and release his foot. The cabin was empty. The engineer must still be in the second car with Dr. Dubois.

There was no way to get his foot out.

And there was no way to stop the train.

Tesla saw it, too. He tore at Ozan’s leg with bloody fingers. Bones scraped together in Ozan’s foot when he lurched to the side. Panic tamped down the pain. He fumbled in his pants pocket. He had a knife in there. He could cut his foot off.

The train bore down.

Even as time slowed down, Ozan realized that there wasn’t enough of it. He straightened to face the oncoming headlights. The vision of Erol sleeping peacefully under his manatee blanket flashed through his head.

Tesla crouched next to him, still working on his foot. The man would die trying to save him. That was who Tesla was. The clarity that often came to Ozan on the battlefield came to him now. He grabbed Tesla’s shoulders and threw him away to safety.

Tesla sprawled on his ass and stared up at him with round eyes.

Ozan could trust him.

“Take care of my brother, Erol,” he called.

The train struck.

Chapter 45

November 30, 9:19 a.m.

Tunnels under Grand Central Terminal

Joe turned away, holding his bleeding arm. Ozan had been a bad man, but what a brutal way to die. His last thoughts had been for his brother. He’d trusted Joe to find him and look after him. And he would. His brother shouldn’t be made to suffer for Saddiq’s misdeeds.

A man in uniform shouted at Joe, but he ignored him.

He snatched up the case with his good hand and ran. Speed was all he had, and he poured it on. His legs fell into his familiar stride for running on train ties, but faster than he’d ever moved in his life. He gripped the case to his chest and ran.

Another shot. The cops must be shooting at him now.

A train bore down on him. Not the 9:07, the one after. Joe jumped the third rail and kept going.

Barking told him that he’d captured the dogs’ attention. And their handlers.

They all converged on him.

He fled toward the tunnel that led to his house. If he got in, he’d have only two guards to deal with. That sounded like a picnic compared to the mob around him.

He made it to his tunnel, punched in the code with his left hand, waited an eternity for the light to blink off, and turned the key. Once inside, he slammed it behind him.

Three figures ran toward him down the tunnel. Abbott and Costello. And Vivian. Oddly enough, fat Abbott led the pack.

“Freeze!” he called.

Joe froze, dropped the case, and raised his hands over his head.

Behind Abbott, Vivian lifted an arm, lightning fast, and drove something into Costello’s back. He pitched forward and lay still.

“Cuff Tesla,” Abbott called over his shoulder.

“Not today.” Vivian stuck what looked like a syringe in Abbott’s left buttock.

Eyebrows frozen in surprise, he half-turned before collapsing on the ground.

She bent and picked up his fallen gun. “Please tell me that whatever you’ve got in the case is going to save my ass.”

“Maybe.” Thumps sounded against the tunnel door. Joe felt light-headed. Was he losing a lot of blood?

“Where do you want to go?”

“Elevator,” Joe said. “Hold it open.”

She ran like a deer, easier and much faster than Joe ever could.

He straightened his backpack and ran after her.

She waited inside the elevator, holding the doors open with her hand. “Someone’s calling it to go up.”

Chapter 46

November 30, 9:23 a.m.

Tunnels under Grand Central Terminal

Vivian moved to the side as Tesla stumbled in next to her, clanged shut the gate, and activated the lever to send them up.

“Cops on the other end,” she said, calmly. “Lots.”

Tesla released the lever, and the elevator lurched to a stop. “Don’t let it start again.”

“Your arm is wounded.” He was losing blood out of what looked like a bullet wound in his forearm. He’d come into the tunnel with that. Nobody had got a shot off once he got through the door. That meant that, even though the men she’d disabled hadn’t raised the alarm, someone else must have.

“I know.”

He threw his backpack on the floor and pulled out his laptop. “Hot damn! Wireless!”

Vivian knelt next to him and pulled off her scarf. “Really? You’re going online now?”

“Give me one second.” He fumbled with the keyboard, typing slowly with his left hand.

“How about I bandage up the right one?” she asked. “It’ll only take a minute.”

He held up his hurt arm without looking away from the computer. She pulled up his sleeve and began to wrap the wound with her scarf. She had enough left over to tie around his neck as a sling.

“Can they override the elevator?” she asked.

“I checked on that once. They can’t.” He reached into his backpack. “The only way they can get us moving is by cutting the cables and dropping us down.”

He glanced quickly at the ceiling. She remembered the last time they’d been in the elevator together. He’d been nervous then. She hoped he didn’t lose it.

She helped him pull a brown leather box out of his backpack. It was an ancient briefcase, fastened with a modern leather belt. He tried to open it one-handed.

“Tell me what to do,” she said. “I don’t want them cutting the cables, either.”

He smiled gratefully at her. “If you could take out the papers in there and lay them out on the floor.”

He fiddled with his phone while she worked. The papers talked about a disease. Some were old, some new. She didn’t take time to read them.

Joe whistled, startling her.

“I’m in.” He struggled to his feet next to her and photographed the papers. He had to stand on one foot because something was wrong with his leg, but he wouldn’t let her look at it.

She put them away after he took the pictures and laid out new ones until he was done. He also opened the metal case with the biohazard stickers and took pictures of glass tubes inside of it. “Those pictures are going to save us?”

“Maybe not us,” Joe said, “but lots of other people.”

“Great,” Vivian said. “What about us?”

Joe sat cross-legged on the floor and pulled his laptop onto his knees. “Maybe.”

Vivian’s phone rang. Mr. Rossi. She put him on speaker.

“I’m up here in the concourse of Grand Central Terminal,” he said. “I’m with an agent named Connelly. Do you know Tesla’s whereabouts?”

“I’m in the elevator,” Tesla said. His fingers zoomed around the keyboard. Even left-handed, he was a faster typist than she was.

“Connelly would like to negotiate your surrender before anyone else gets hurt.”

“If I surrender right now,” Tesla said, “thousands of men will get hurt. Soldiers. American soldiers.”

“They say that they have dispatched a crew to cut through the elevator cables,” said Mr. Rossi.

That was probably a lie, she thought. But if it was true, and assuming they lived through the crash, she didn’t think the two agents at the bottom would be happy to see them.

She drew her gun. If Tesla had ever needed a bodyguard, the moment was now.

Chapter 47

November 30, 9:37 a.m.

Elevator

Joe looked up at the ceiling. It wouldn’t take long to cut through the cables.

“Please put that away, Miss Torres.” He pointed to her gun. “I think I have another solution.”

She holstered the weapon, but scowled while doing it. Clearly, she didn’t like being trapped here helplessly any more than he did.

His right arm hurt like hell, but he kept typing. “Danny, please put Mr. Connelly on the line.”

“Mr. Tesla,” said a deep voice a second later. “You’re in a world of trouble right now.”

Joe checked the upload bar. The pictures of the research papers were off to an online leak site. All but one of them. “I’d say that you’re in more trouble than I am.”

“Doesn’t feel like it. Let’s talk about what you need to do—”

“Let’s talk about what you need to do,” Joe interrupted. “You might not be aware that your agency is tied to a dangerous rogue.”

“If you mean that man who died in the tunnel a few minutes ago, you—”

“Ozan Saddiq is not the man I mean.” He typed in an encryption code with his left-hand. “Dr. Dubois is.”

A slight hesitation, then Connelly spoke again. “Who?”

“I have information linking your Dr. Dubois to a hundred murders in Cuba.” Not exactly true, but he kept going. “And a medical experiment that’s scheduled to infect thousands of soldiers tomorrow.”

“I’m not sure where you get your information, but—”

“I have uploaded all of it to a site similar to WikiLeaks. Journalists are even now being notified.” Joe tapped Send on an email, the one that might save their lives.

The elevator lurched to the side.

“Mr. Connelly,” Joe said. “But one page that I uploaded is encrypted so they won’t be able to read it right away.”

“Let’s talk about this up here.” Connelly was losing his bluster.

“I’ve given a friend the encryption code,” Joe said. “He’ll release it to journalists unless he hears otherwise from me personally.”

“Your life is in no danger, Mr. Tesla. There’s no need to be so dramatic.”

“Aren’t you curious about this last sheet of paper?” Joe asked. “It links the toxoplasmosis program to your agency and makes it impossible for you to disavow the actions of Dr. Dubois.”

Another pause. “A clever theory. I’d be very interested to discuss it. Up here.”

The elevator trembled. “Tell your men working on the cables to desist. Tell your men at my house to stand down. We can discuss your proposal in my home.”

“I think that would be an excellent way to de-escalate the situation,” Connelly said.

Diplomatic to the last.

A minute later, Connelly said, “I’ve stopped the men on the cables, can’t reach the men in the tunnels by your house. Are they all right?”

Joe pressed the mute button and looked at Vivian.

“They’ll be out for at least an hour,” she said. “I injected them with a sedative.”

He made a mental note to ask her why she’d been carrying two syringes of knockout juice around. Instead, he pressed the mute button again.

“They’re just napping,” he said. “See you soon!”

Joe packed up the case with the serum and the battered briefcase with its damning papers.

“What now?” Vivian asked.

“We go down.” Joe reached for the lever. “At the bottom, hold the doors open. I don’t want Connelly coming down here until I’m ready for him.”

He had one more thing that he needed to do.

Vivian helped to lift the backpack onto his back, threading it carefully over his wounded arm. It hurt with each heartbeat. He hurried to his front door, glancing at the two agents stretched out in the tunnel. Vivian had guided them down to lie on their backs, then rolled them onto their sides so that they wouldn’t choke. Thoughtful of her.

He entered his house, breathing in the familiar smells, and went into the parlor. He gritted his teeth against the pain and set up his laptop and phone, careful to make them both untraceable. Then he went to the iPhone database he’d used earlier and found phones in Times Square. He’d be sending more than a seagull this time. He turned his phone’s camera on his face. Vivian’s phone he set on the edge of his lap. He expected it to ring soon.

“I’m Joe Tesla,” he said. “And I have something to tell you.”