“The guy works for an arms terrorist. I’m pretty sure he didn’t need to resort to homemade bombs.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” I say, but I’m not convinced. I’ve seen a truck from one of those lawn fertilizer companies come out and spray the stuff in liquid form here. If these bags weren’t stacked with plans to make Carlisle’s grass as green as it is in the brochures, or to create bombs, then they were put here for some other purpose. “There’s so much, though. It’s like a wall of fertilizer. Maybe something’s behind it?”
The top half of the last stack of bags has fallen over—or has been knocked over—allowing me just enough space to squeeze between the fertilizer wall and the real one.
“You can stop fussing with those bags,” Katie says. “I found a screwdriver set. Perfect for opening vents. And for stopping bad guys from a distance if thrown with enough velocity and the right trajectory.”
“I found something even better.”
“Real weapons?”
“No, a trap door,” I say.
After she presses through the narrow space to join me, Katie asks, “Why would the school put a trap door in the groundskeeper’s shed?”
“I don’t think they did. The door looks newer than the rest of the floor. This has to be the groundskeeper’s doing.”
Like a Girl Scout, Katie whips out a full-size Maglite and shines it down into the hole revealed by the opened trap door. It’s probably three feet in diameter, just wide enough to let a man who bench-presses railroad ties fit through.
“It doesn’t look like he got the chance to finish it.” Katie gives me a look like she knows what I’m about to suggest, and is very afraid. “It’s just a hole in the ground.”
“Depends on where it leads. You were right when you said he smelled like the outdoors. He had a way to move in and out, even during the lockdown. He didn’t need it to be pretty. He just needed to get from point A to point B undetected. Like we do.”
Katie looks horrified, like I just asked her to jump into a pit of poisonous snakes.
“I really want to help you find this hacker and your best friend, but you’re crazy if you think I’m going down there.”
“And your asset. We’re looking for him, too.”
Katie considers this and looks like she might go along with the program, but then says, “It isn’t even reinforced, and it’s probably unstable. The earth could shift, and next thing you know, we’re in our graves. Sorry, but no.”
It’s the first time I’ve seen Katie afraid of anything. She usually plays it so cool, but right now, she sounds the complete opposite, her voice climbing higher with every word.
“You’re claustrophobic?”
“I am not.”
“You have a fear of tunnels?”
“No, I have a fear of dying,” Katie says, looking a little wild-eyed.
“That’s a fear all field operatives learn to manage or we’d never go to work in the morning. How did you manage to get through the class on tunnel countermeasures?”
Katie looks at me like she’s thinking of a lie to tell, but then decides on the truth. “The instructor was a young officer and I was—well—I flirted my way out of the class. Look, I’m not proud of it. And I’m also not going into that hole.”
“It’s okay. Don’t worry—” I start, but stop myself because I know those are fighting words with Katie. “You stay here. I’ll see where it leads. If I’m not back in five minutes, you’ll know it led me inside Carlisle. If I’m not back in an hour, you’ll know I’m worm food.”
Katie punches me in the upper arm. Hard.
“Don’t even joke like that. You’d better be back in five minutes, or I’ll go to Berg. Take these,” she says, removing a couple of the screwdrivers from the set she found in the shed. “I hope your throwing skills are good. You may need them.”
We stare at each other for a moment, and I remember our one date, our first kiss, and I want to kiss her again because maybe I’m not wrong about the tunnel and the worm-food thing. But that’s a distraction I don’t need right now.
I step away because I can tell she’s distracted too, and before she can mount a protest, I let myself fall down into the hole.
CHAPTER 26
Now I understand the groundskeeper’s fascination with railroad ties. He wasn’t using them just for weightlifting or landscaping. He was using them to brace the dirt walls. But even knowing the tunnel is somewhat reinforced, I have to agree with Katie—this is not my favorite place. I try to think of it as no different than scrambling through an air shaft, but now I’ve got Katie’s words in my head about the whole thing collapsing and becoming my grave.
Especially when I hear a sudden rumbling noise overhead. For a second, I’m certain it’s an earthquake and I’m about to die. Then I remember they generally don’t have earthquakes in Colorado. I must be underneath a road, which doesn’t make me feel better. Two-ton SUVs driving over a makeshift tunnel can’t be good for it. To keep from losing my nerve, I remind myself that I’m doing this for Bunker, and it isn’t that far of a distance between the tool shed and the main building—and that I refuse to lose face after talking smack to Katie about her tunnel phobia—and I just keep moving forward.
Forty-five seconds later, I’m relieved to still be among the living when I find the tunnel ends at another trap door only a foot above my head. I have to hope that wherever I am, one of Berg’s rescue team isn’t. Or that I can even open the trap door at all. It might be covered with bags of fertilizer.
I lift the door just far enough to see if the room is occupied. I’m hella relieved to find it isn’t.
Once I open it completely and pull myself up into the room, I see that it’s—no surprise here—the janitor’s office. The door was hidden by a rug. The tunnel must have been some kind of escape route in case things went bad. From here, I just need to go a few steps to reach the stairwell to the sub-basement.
I have no idea where the hacker will be down there. The only weapons I have are my hands, feet, and the screwdrivers Katie gave me. Any of them are deadly in hand-to-hand combat, but I’m hoping I don’t have to get that close. Even if the hacker’s been trained by the Russians and is the most skilled level-five Spetsnaz fighter ever, I have nearly a hundred pounds and more than a foot on her, and I ain’t too bad at the kickass myself. But if Koval is still on campus with her … I don’t ever want to go hand-to-hand with that guy again. The tools could be used as throwing weapons, but you need the right amount of distance to throw with enough velocity to make them lethal.
At the door I hesitate, preparing myself just in case Koval is behind it, along with the hacker and Bunk.
“What are you waiting for, Peter? The door is unlocked,” the hacker says from the other side of it.
I look up to find a security camera mounted on the wall behind me. Right. She’s probably been watching me since I hit the stairwell. I’ve lost the element of surprise, but I’m glad I didn’t take out the screwdriver that’s hidden inside my sleeve, in preparation for an attack. At least she doesn’t know whether I’m armed.
When I open the door, the first thing I see is Medusa standing behind my best friend, one hand waving her smartwatch at me, the other pointing a rifle at his back. She has him gagged so he can’t say anything, but I can tell from his eyes that he’s terrified.
I have never hated anyone, even Duncan before he morphed into a human. But this girl? She ought to be glad I’m not armed or she would be so dead right now.
“Aren’t these things the best?” she says. “I could monitor your approach even with my hands full. I’ll admit I was a little worried there for a minute.”
“Like you’d ever worry about Bunker.”
“Bunker? Oh, you mean him,” she says, jabbing the barrel of her rifle into his back, making his eyes widen beyond what you’d think humanly possible. “Of course not. I was worried about me. Or more specifically, I was worried about my plan. But you made it to the party. I didn’t think you would after that Berg person had you locked up.”