Into the Black (10 page)

The noise of an explosion, like a car backfiring, roared in his ears and reverberated in the confines of the underground room.  A bullet kicked up a small puff of dust, just behind him and left a tiny pockmark in the stone floor.

"Damn," he exclaimed, darting away from the remains of the ladder.  Irene was already up and moving, seeking cover from the gunfire, which was quickly becoming a hailstorm of bullets.  Kismet reached her side and seized her hand, then guided her toward the place where she had earlier been held captive.

They quickly passed out of the broad, cone shaped area where they were in the most danger of being wounded, but Kismet knew that the seconds he had gained by destroying the ladder would be lost by any delay on their part.  With his free hand he took out and opened his knife.

"How are we going to get out of here?" Irene asked frantically.

"Back door," muttered Kismet, releasing her hand and sprinting ahead.  He was dimly aware that she had stopped running, but he did not slow down.  Instead he aimed himself at the wall, focusing on the heart of the enormous tapestry mounted there. The center of the woven shield was like a bull's eye on a target and the blade in his hand was an arrow intent upon piercing it.  As he got closer, he raised his arm and brought it down, slashing at the fabric of the great tapestry.  The knife cut a long gash in the old cloth before entangling in the fibers.  Kismet's momentum caused him to fall forward, into the middle of the ornamental weaving, where he hung momentarily like a fly in a web.  As he moved to extricate himself, his weight broke apart the remaining threads, and the tapestry tore in two all the way to the floor, dropping him into the darkness beyond.

Irene approached and looked at him in stunned amazement.  Kismet's gambit had revealed a secret passageway.  "How did you know about that?"

He got up, wincing from pains old and new. "A guess.  Earlier I saw that the fabric was moving, almost like it was being rustled by the wind.  I assumed that the tapestry was put up to cover an opening."

"If you had been wrong, you would have run into a brick wall."

Kismet knelt and retrieved his Balisong from the twisted remnant of the tapestry and flicked it shut.  "Good thing I wasn't."

"And this will lead us out of here?"

The sound of a shot rang suddenly in the underground chamber, impacting the wall that framed their escape route.  The shot had been fired from ground level; Grimes' men had found a way down.  Kismet didn't look back.

"It had better," he shouted over the din.  "Get going."

"You can't be right every time," retorted Irene.

"Can we discuss this later?"  He pushed her into the dark tunnel then turned to face the unseen shooters, his revolver drawn.  He pumped three shots randomly into the gloom behind them, hoping not so much to find a target as to give the pursuers one more reason to hesitate.  Saving the remainder of the ammunition for future encounters, Kismet shoved the smoking gun into the pocket of his suit coat, turned and plunged into the mysterious opening.

The air in the passage was cool and slightly musty, but it did not have the stale quality of a tomb or crypt, leading Kismet to deduce that there was another means of access and that it was used at least once in a while.  His greatest fear was that Grimes might also know about this passage and would already be sending his men to cover the exit.  There would be no allowance for delays, wrong turns or dead ends.  He kept an outstretched hand in contact with the wall, a blind man's guide through the artificial night.  The tunnel was short and quickly opened into a much larger room.

Irene spoke from out of the darkness.  "I've run into something.  It's a box of some kind."

"Probably a coffin," remarked Kismet, trying to estimate where she was in relation to himself.  "Old churches like this usually have catacombs where prominent clergymen are interred.  Try to follow the sound of my voice.  I think I'm just a few steps away from you...right behind you."

"A coffin?" was the distasteful reply.  She was moving, getting closer.

He didn't elaborate; he had been half-joking, but it was as good an explanation as any.  Reaching out, he began groping in an arc all around until his fingers grazed something soft.  "Don't move."

He eased away from the wall long enough to touch her.  His fingers barely caressed her hair, but starting from that point he was able to find her shoulder, and then take her hand.  "If we follow the wall, we should be able to move around the perimeter of the room and find another passageway."

Their haste to escape led to more than one minor collision; although it took only about a minute for them to grope along the wall and find a way out of the vault, the irregularities of the room and the arrangement of invisible impediments proved to be a precarious obstacle course.  Kismet barked his shins twice, and caught the corner of a protruding piece of stonework squarely in his chest. Notwithstanding this, they reached the opposite side of the room and found a recess that led to a flight of worn stone steps.  The treads were irregular, forcing them to proceed slowly.  At the top of the stairs a thin strip of light was visible, burning through the space between the threshold and the bottom of an unseen door.  Kismet explored the door with his fingertips and located an archaic slide latch that could be worked from either side of the door.  "Thank goodness for that," he whispered, and worked the bolt.  With the revolver poised, he pushed the door open.

The light beyond was by no means brilliant, but even its dim glory was more than their eyes were used to.  Squinting and shading his gaze with a cupped hand, Kismet scanned the area for any movement.  Seeing none, he took the last step out of the underground chamber.

The room into which they entered was a pantry, lined with several shelves of canned food.  A single electric light bulb hung from the ceiling.  Kismet pulled Irene out of the dark stairway and closed the door behind them.  It was a sure bet that at least some of Grimes' men were pursuing them through the darkened passage, but Kismet saw an opportunity to cut off that pursuit.

After guiding Irene out of the way, he insinuated his fingers into the space between the wall of the pantry and the upright shelves.  The shelf unit was heavy, built of sturdy hardwoods, likely a century before by a craftsman who knew his business.  Fortunately, the carpenter had not integrated the shelves into the wall, but left them standing free.  Sensing his purpose, Irene offered her assistance to Kismet's endeavor.

He felt his muscles growing fatigued before the shelves moved even a millimeter.  Yet, as the cabinet began to tilt, its own weight began to work for them.  With a loud grunt, he redoubled his efforts and kept pushing until it went over.  Jars of preserved fruits and vegetables exploded on the pantry floor, only to be buried by the cabinet as it fell on top of the debris.  The shelves fell directly in the path of the door through which they had escaped.  Kismet reckoned that it would be impossible to open the door more than a couple inches.  "That ought to slow them down," he observed.  "But my guess is that some of Grimes' men stayed topside.  We have to keep moving."

From beyond the pantry, they heard sounds of shouting.  Kismet concluded that their foes had not initially been aware of the alternate exit from the underground chamber, or were at least in the dark as to where it came out.  The priests and nuns who resided at the church however, doubtless unaware of the mob's murderous intentions, would almost certainly be able to give them the details.  Kismet opened the pantry door and looked out.  The hallway beyond was deserted.  Two other doors opened off the corridor, and a third doorway was framed at the far end, presumably the exit.  Kismet realized intuitively that they were no longer in the main church building, but in a satellite structure.

The door at the end of the hallway opened into a large kitchen facility, already washed for the evening and put in order for the next day.  He moved through the cooking area and peered carefully through the windowpane in the exit door.  A large, indistinct object obscured the landscape outside, blocking the dim light of the street lamps as well as Kismet's view of the church courtyard.  Fortunately, it would also give them cover for their escape.  He opened the door and together they ventured outside.

The object eclipsing the street was the sanitation truck Kismet and Lyse had passed during their initial approach.  The vehicle stood at idle, the extended lifting forks slotted into the channels on either end of a medium-sized garbage dumpster.  The truck's operator, a pot-bellied fellow with an unlit cigar clamped between his teeth, was standing near the rear of the vehicle seemingly oblivious to the smell.  The middle-aged priest with whom he was animatedly conversing did not appear to have the same immunity to the stench, but like the driver was captivated by the commotion that was blossoming around them as black suited men poured out of the main church building and spread out across the grounds.

As Kismet watched his mind turned with possibilities.  Then it dawned on him what good fortune had provided for them.  Grinning, he faced Irene, put a finger to his lips, and then led the way toward the truck's cab.  He opened the passenger door, wincing as the hinges creaked, and climbed inside.

Apparently, the noise had not been loud enough to raise an alarm.  The driver's shoulder was just visible in the large mirror mounted on the left door, and it seemed he had not heard the sound over the idling engine.

When Irene was seated beside him, Kismet depressed the clutch and shifted the transmission into gear.  There was an audible clanking sound in the differential and an instant later, the driver's face appeared in the mirror.  The man's expression was one of confusion and disbelief, which gave way to anger as he realized someone was stealing his truck.  Kismet hit the lock with his elbow, and then punched the accelerator.  The garbage-man jumped onto the running board and made a vain attempt to open the door while shouting rare curses known only to truck drivers and longshoremen.  The enormous machine lurched forward and commenced a broad turn under Kismet's guiding hands that spilled the enraged man from his perch.

Unfortunately, the screams of wrath drew the attention of Grimes' men, who raced to intercept the commandeered vehicle.  Kismet checked to be sure that the fallen man was clear of the truck's massive tires, then accelerated, working through the gears as he steered the truck toward the open gates of the church compound. Several of their pursuers were visible behind him, but none were in a position to blockade the exit.

The truck shot out into the street, and Kismet whipped the steering wheel hard to the right.  Irene slid across the seat, colliding with him as she fought to get a handhold on her own side.  The back end of the truck fish-tailed and Kismet fought to regain control, slamming into parked cars, and causing two pedestrians to drop their parcels and dive for safety.  He wrestled the steering wheel back and bore down on the accelerator once more.  The forward movement pulled the truck out of its thrashing and at last, control was restored.

Despite her earlier terror, Irene now seemed almost to be enjoying the wild ride.  Kismet flashed her a grin, then saw in the side view mirror Grimes' thugs pouring into the street and crossing over to the cars his exit had damaged.

"I don't think we're in the clear yet."

Irene craned her head around to look, but the mirror on her side had been knocked askew during their escape.  She began rolling down her window, but Kismet forestalled her with a restraining hand and a shake of his head. She frowned in mock disappointment. "So what now?"

"I'll try to lose them.  Outrun them or something.  This truck sticks out like a sore thumb."  He glanced in the mirror, noting the caravan of Buick Skylark sedans that was closing the distance between them.  "Better keep your head down in case they start shooting."

Though he lived in New York and walked its streets often, Kismet neither owned a car nor had occasion to drive around the city.  He knew approximately where he was, but lacked the familiarity needed to elude the ruthless men pursuing them.  He was going to have to equalize the situation; it was time to slow them down.

The street they were on eventually began crossing the main avenues, and Kismet swung the behemoth onto the first one that afforded easy access, driving north through the heart of Greenwich Village.  Traffic was light, but this advantage did not compensate for the truck's lack of maneuverability.  Rather than dodge in and out of the flow, he picked the center lane and stayed there, shifting the truck into a higher gear and flooring the accelerator.  Cars in his lane hastened to flee before the imposing juggernaut that rolled unstoppably through red lights while blasting its horn like a herald of doom.

Even in this, Kismet realized, they were gaining nothing.  The traffic that parted grudgingly to allow them past left a wide-open trail for their pursuers to follow.  In the mirror he could see the train of lights racing toward them, and several blocks behind them, the flashing beacons of a police car that had joined the chase.

One of the sedans disappeared into Kismet's blind spot, but before he could act on his sudden inspiration to hit the brakes, forcing a collision, the car reappeared in his mirror, sidling alongside the truck's left flank.  A dark silhouette leaned out the passenger side, carefully aiming a pistol up at Kismet.

"Fool," Kismet rasped to no one in particular.  If the gunman shot him, the truck would veer out of control, probably killing the inhabitants of the sedan as well as countless innocent pedestrians.  Either the man with the gun was too dense to realize that, or too callous to care.  With a shake of his head, Kismet took a preemptive measure.

Jerking the steering wheel to the left he crossed several feet into the path of the Buick.  The other driver reacted without thinking, braking and swerving reflexively away from the truck.  His impulsive response proved disastrous.  The sedan slammed into a parked car, jackknifing both vehicles, then plowed onto the sidewalk, stopping only when its front end wrapped around a sturdy light pole.  The man with the pistol was catapulted from his window perch, and Kismet caught a brief glimpse of his body rolling like a tumbleweed, into the path of the other pursuing vehicles.