Past Tense (25 page)

With a groan of bending nails loosened by years in the damp air, she managed to pull a length of wood free. Jumping down, she handed it to Tony. “Will this help?”

He weighed it between his hands. Short and not too sturdy, but perhaps it would do. “We’ll give it a try.”

He inserted it into the hole where he judged the planks to be weakest. At first the wood resisted, but then a narrow board gave way, sending Tony backward to sit down hard in the mud.

When he made no sound, Sam quickly lit a match. “Are you all right?”

He held the broken end of his lever, staring at it ruefully. “There goes our equipment.”

She pulled at the board he’d loosened. It broke free. “Here’s a replacement. Sturdier, too.”

Working with the larger piece of lumber, they pried loose several more boards. Within minutes the hole was large enough to crawl through. On the other side, a tunnel, shored up by ancient brick arches seemed to stretch to infinity. There was a good deal of standing water, but along the sides a brick path remained dry except for seepage.

“Now what?” Sam couldn’t keep the triumph from her voice.

Tony hugged her close for an instant. “Now, my sweet, we walk, and since there’s only one direction, we don’t even have to draw straws.”

In order to conserve the few matches left, they navigated by sliding a hand along the wall as they walked. Not a pleasant process as moss and lichens grew richly on the damp porous brick.

The tunnel soon connected to another, going off to the right. Here they lit a match. The new passage was narrower, but its construction looked newer. “What do you say, Sam?”

The flickering light turned her pale skin to gold, mercifully disguising most of the muddy smudges. “Follow the new one.”

It proved a bad choice as it had more connecting tunnels. After a couple of hours they both admitted they were lost, with no idea where the original tunnel lay. For a second Sam gave into despair, picturing them wandering for the rest of their lives in an endless maze of underground passages. She laid her forehead against Tony’s shoulder, fighting tears.

Warm air caressed her cheeks, ephemeral as a spring breeze. Sam lifted her head. “Tony, it’s warm.”
Warm, warm, warm
. Her voice rebounded from the curved ceiling.

“Warm?”

“Yes, there’s warm air from some place.”

Tony put up his hand, a smile breaking through his discouragement. “You’re right. It must be from one of the ducts carrying steam or hot water. There are thousands of them under the city.”

He took her hand. “Come on. We should be able to find a dry spot to sit down.”

She forced her tired feet into motion, the scrape of her shoes echoing eerily around them. Her stomach growled, cramping painfully. She hadn’t eaten since her light snack at lunch, and it was now after midnight.

“Isn’t this the sort of place Jack the Ripper hid out?” Sam said at one point.

Tony looked at her, smiling despite his own fatigue and hunger. “I don’t think we need to worry about him. Even if he were still alive, he’d be pretty old.”

Another intersection, another passage that beckoned. Old rusted rails lay along it, coming to a dead end near a low brick wall. Above them large ducts that looked almost new gave off cracking sounds as the joints expanded and contracted. The air was balmy as the dry heat warmed a little alcove that must once have served as an escape hatch for the subway workers.

Tony led Sam into the shelter, swiping briefly at the dusty floor. He lit a match, checking for crawling things. “It looks all right.” The flame went out, leaving them in darkness that seemed even denser by contrast.

Tony sat down, pulling Sam in close beside him. “We’ll stay here until morning,” he said quietly. “Maybe when it’s light out, we’ll be able to spot a manhole cover or something.”

“At least it’s warm.” Sam’s voice was husky. She coughed, shivering, aching in every bone. The warmth enveloped her. Her clothes were already feeling less wet and clammy. Struggling out of Tony’s embrace, she sat up and unbuttoned his jacket. “Tony, take your jacket.”

He held her fingers, keeping them still. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” she insisted, taking it off. “Here, if we spread it out over us, we can both use it.”

Huddled under the jacket and with the warmth overhead, they were as comfortable as they could get sitting on a hard floor, against a rough brick wall. Better than the hole where Bennett had left them at any rate, Sam thought.

* * * *

She was tired, but sleep eluded her. The rhythm of Tony’s breathing told her that he, too, was awake. “Tony, you dropped everything to come when I called. Did you think I had killed Dubray?”

“Not a chance. No weapon was found near the body. You were completely out of it. But the real clincher was when you said you’d found a big knife. Dubray was killed with a small knife, like a stiletto, by someone who knew exactly what he was doing. No, I came because I knew you were in danger. Someone had left that knife for you to find, which meant they were expecting you to come back to your flat. They had to be nearby.”

“Jason Wheeler,” Sam mused. “I never liked him, but it never would’ve occurred to me that he was a killer. He seemed like a sleazy little con man, no personality.”

“Killers are often like that. Makes it easy to blend into the crowd after they’ve made their hit.”

Sam shivered again. “The assassination, if there’s going to be one—we have to stop it. How much time do you think we have?”

“The first meetings start this afternoon. At the Regal Arms. Then there’s a banquet and more meetings.”

“A bomb would do the most damage, wouldn’t it?” Sam suppressed a shudder. “They could take out several people at once as long as it was properly placed. With inside help—” She broke off, her fingers gripping Tony’s arm. “Aunt Olivia—is it possible that she’s the inside contact? Oh, Tony, I just can’t see it.”

Tony’s arms tightened. “I don’t think she is. This has been planned for some time, and Olivia only came to work with the delegates yesterday. Besides, as a volunteer, even with her security clearance, she’s still not in on the arrangements, nor is it likely she’d have access to the security office. No, Sam, it has to be someone else. Someone who’s been working in this for a long time, and who is impeccably trusted, beyond suspicion.”

He clenched his fist. “Damn it, if we knew who the target was, it would help.”

“I would guess the Québec premier,” Sam said. “Paul Messier is already opposition leader in Québec. Bennett indicated that he has a good chance to win if there were an election. With the premier out of the way, it would be easy.”

“Perhaps.” Tony sounded doubtful. “It’s true he’s not very well liked at the moment. And it would certainly disrupt the conference. I guess we’ll just have to warn security and do the best we can.”

He shifted her to a more comfortable position. “There’s nothing we can do tonight.” His voice was gentle. “Sleep now, Sam.”

To her surprise she did, waking up cramped and chilly. Her clothes had dried and felt scratchy and stiff. Tony’s head rested against her shoulder. She only had to turn her face slightly to lay her cheek against his. She smiled faintly. His skin was rough with his growing beard, like velour stroked the wrong way.

He woke with a start, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. Odd ribbons of light seeped into the tunnel from somewhere, carrying wavering echoes of sound. “Sam, do you hear that? Voices.”

They walked toward the sound, their joints gradually losing the stiffness caused by sleeping on a brick floor. Water gurgled down the abandoned subway tracks.

Above them they could hear a steady muted hum. “Cars on the roads,” Tony guessed. Once they jumped as a loud roar echoed through the passages.

“We must be near one of the Tube lines.” He grinned at Sam, the tired lines of his face smoothing out. “Sam, we’re going to get out of here.”

A pile of fallen bricks blocked their path. They retraced their steps and tried an adjacent tunnel. A bright light beckoned them on, and the unmistakable sound of voices.

“What’d you get today, luv?” a woman called to a man whose silhouette showed starkly against a bonfire set in the middle of the abandoned track.

“Not a lot. I’ll try again tonight.”

Sam and Tony glanced at each other. People lived here? “It’s warm and dry, which is more than you can say for outside in winter,” Tony whispered.

They walked forward, not without some trepidation. No doubt it was illegal to live in the disused tunnels—they couldn’t be sure of their reception.

Although the man and the woman stared, they must have taken them, in their mud-streaked clothing, for another homeless couple.

“Hallo,” the woman greeted them. “Fancy a cuppa?”

Sam eyed the smoke-blackened pot dubiously, but accepted the tin cup, sipping gratefully. In her empty stomach the caffeine hit with a jolt, pouring energy into her tired muscles.

“Thanks,” Tony said. “Can you show us the way out? I’m afraid we’ve gotten lost.”

If they were surprised at his accent, they didn’t show it. The tea finished, the man gestured for them to follow him.

Another mile or two of tunnels passed under their trudging feet. The rails began to look less neglected, the steel still shiny, the gravel base dry and free of the weeds that thrived in dampness.

When at last they reached a wire-mesh gate, the man silently and deftly slipped the pin from the hinge and held it open for them.

“Goodbye,” he said after he’d refixed it. “Good luck.”

He turned and within minutes had vanished down the long dark passage.

Chapter Seventeen

A short walk took Sam and Tony to a lighted Underground station, obviously in a poor district since their ragged appearance seemed to attract little attention. Tony spent a moment studying the posted map. He turned and took Sam’s hand. “Okay, I’ve got it. Only two changes.”

“Wouldn’t a taxi be better?” Sam asked.

“At this time of morning? It’s rush hour. The Tube’s quicker. We’ll come out only a block from the hotel.”

The trains were crowded. Sam felt distinctly out of place by the time they made the second change and shared the cars with bankers and stockbrokers in neat, three-piece suits.

She intercepted more than one grimace of disgust. If it hadn’t been for the urgency of reaching their destination, she might have seen the humor in it. The windows reflected back an image of tangled hair and clothes whose original color was largely obscured by mud and other nameless stains. At least her face was clean. She’d nipped into a public toilet and given it a quick scrub.

Tony looked no better. His suit would never recover, and looked ready to walk away by itself, stiff with dried mud.

Inside the Regal Arms nothing was happening. Samantha barely restrained herself from gaping. Somehow she’d expected chaos. What? she asked herself, an assassination scene right before our eyes?

The lobby was virtually deserted, the morning desk clerk presiding behind the oak counter as if it were any normal workday, as indeed it was, for him. He looked up as Tony and Sam walked past.

“Eh, you can’t come in here like that.” Running around the end of the counter, he made as if to restrain Tony by force. He jerked to a stop, his face taking on a comical look of astonishment as he recognized Tony. “Oh, sorry, sir.”

Sam could see he was dying of curiosity, but was too polite to ask what had happened to them.

“Have the delegates checked in yet?” Tony asked.

“Yes, sir. The first meeting’s scheduled for one this afternoon.”

“Okay.” Tony paused for a moment. “I’ll be in my office. Could you send up some food, a complete breakfast for two, I’d say?”

He glanced at Sam, who nodded. “And have the boutique send up some clothes for Miss Smith. The clothes right away, the breakfast in half an hour. And notify the chief of security to come to my office as soon as possible.”

Tony’s secretary nearly fell on his neck when he walked into his outer office. “Mr. Theopoulos, where have you been? You just disappeared.”

“I’m sorry, Marcia. I couldn’t get in touch with you. But I see you managed all right.”

Her plain face flushed at the praise. “Thank you, sir. Here are your messages.” She handed him a stack of pink slips.

He took them but the look on his face told Sam he was thinking of tossing the lot into the waste bin.

“Please take messages for a little while longer, Marcia,” Tony said, unlocking the door of his private office. “I want to clean up and eat breakfast. But when Bob arrives, let him in at once.”

“Why don’t you shower first, Sam,” Tony suggested as he showed her to the fully equipped bathroom connected to his office.

“Very nice,” she said. “Another perk?”

His grin came and went. “Yeah, another perk.” He gave her a little push. “Be quick, will you? There’s a robe on the door that you can wear until your clothes get here.”

Within twenty minutes they were both clean and dressed, and Tony had sent the mail boy down to the incinerator with their ruined clothes. Food had never tasted so good, the bacon crisp and savory, the coffee fragrant with the aroma of freshly ground beans.

Bob Green, the security chief, came in just as they were finishing. “Are you all right, Mr. Theopoulos?” he said briskly. “We missed you yesterday.”

“I was unavoidably detained yesterday, but I’m here now,” Tony said with dry emphasis. “First of all, we’d better have the building searched from top to bottom in case there’s a bomb.” Briefly Tony sketched their speculations.

Green reached for the phone, speaking as he dialed. “We’ve already done a search, but we’ll go over it again.” He spoke into the phone, giving quick, succinct orders.

Tony turned to Sam. “Samantha, would you use the other phone to call Inspector Allen? Tell him about Bennett and Wheeler, the kidnapping yesterday, the old lady’s death, everything.”

“Right.” Glad of something to do, Sam sat at the small desk in the corner and pulled the phone over.

To her frustration, however, Allen was not in. The situation was too complicated to explain to anyone else, so she left a message for him to call her.