Shock (38 page)

"How about getting that chair?" Joanna said.

"Oh, sorry," Deborah said. She'd been distracted by her worries. She dragged the chair over to the mouth of the iron lung.

"Did you come up with any ideas about getting out of here?" Joanna asked as she extracted herself from the ventilator.

"I didn't," Deborah confessed. "Jammed in that tube the way I was, I couldn't think. What about you?"

"Something did occur to me," Joanna said. "The power plant could be the way to get out of this building."

"How so?" Deborah asked.

"If they're creating heat over there to heat this building, it's got to get here," Joanna said. "There's got to be a tunnel."

"You're right!" Deborah said.

"I noticed that the freight elevator control had six buttons,' Joanna said. "I hadn't given it any thought until I started thinking about a tunnel. This building must have a sub-basement. Maybe that should be our goal. The more I think about our trying to get to a phone in the Wingate Clinic the more risky I think it would be."

"But I haven't seen access to a sub-basement," Deborah said. "There wasn't any in the stairwell we used tonight when we got here, or the one I used this afternoon."

"Let's check out the freight elevator," Joanna said.

"We can't use that," Deborah said. "It's too noisy."

"I'm not talking about using the elevator itself," Joanna explained. "Usually they have a ladder in elevator shafts. I don't know why, I guess for maintenance."

"Where did you learn this?" Deborah questioned. She was impressed.

"It's thanks to Carlton," Joanna explained. "Mindless action movies are his favorite, and at one time or another I've had to suffer through watching most of them. There've been dozens of scenes in elevator shafts."

"I suppose it's worth a check," Deborah said. "Do you think we've waited long enough?"

"There's no way to know for sure, but since we can't stay here all night, we have to do it sometime. Let me check the hall."

"All right, you do that," Deborah said. "I want to see what this extra light is, coming through the front windows."

While Joanna cautiously made her way over to the archway leading out into the corridor, Deborah crossed the ward. Bending over at the waist to keep her head down, Deborah approached one of the windows. Slowly she raised her eyes above the sill and found herself staring into multiple automobile headlights positioned to illuminate the building. Although the cars were at a considerable distance down the lawn, Deborah quickly ducked out of sight to be sure not to be spotted. She'd caught a glimpse of several uniformed guards silhouetted against the lights. They had large dogs on leashes. The two men in black had called in reinforcements.

Deborah quickly joined Joanna who was waiting for her at the archway and told her what she'd seen.

"Dogs are not good," Joanna said gravely. "These people really mean business."

"I think we already knew that," Deborah said.

"It also means leaving the building underground is suddenly a necessity," Joanna said. She then opened her mouth to tell Deborah the main corridor was clear when the sound of a bullhorn coming from outside startled her.

NINETEEN

MAY 11, 2001 12:37 A.M.

MEISSNER AND Deborah Cochrane!" A voice echoed against the front of the building. "There is no need to extend this charade. Don't make us come into the building with dogs, which we will do if you don't come out on your own accord. The Bookford Police are on their way. I repeat! Come out immediately."

"So much for our carefully crafted aliases,' Deborah said.

"If I thought they'd turn us over to the Bookford police, I'd walk out of here in a heartbeat."

"They're not going to turn us over to anyone," Deborah said.

"That's my point," Joanna said. "Come on! Let's check out the freight elevator before I lose my nerve."

Gaining some familiarity with the building, the women retraced their route back through the fourth floor to the stairwell they'd used earlier. At first they tried to descend without turning on the flashlight but quickly realized the risk of knocking some of the unseen debris down the stairs was greater than the risk presented by the shielded flashlight. They turned it off again before they entered the third-floor corridor. While in the corridor they heard the bullhorn message again.

They had to turn the light on again in the freight elevator vestibule. The elevator was exactly the way they had left it with the doors half open. Joanna shined the light into the car. Through the wire-mesh of its back wall a ladder was visible attached to the brick of the elevator shaft.

"You were right about there being a ladder," Deborah said. "But how do you get to it?"

Joanna moved the light beam to the side wall of the elevator. Attached to the cab's wall were ladder rungs. The rungs led up to a wire-mesh trapdoor in the elevator's ceiling.

"All we have to do is climb to the top of the elevator,' Joanna said.

"Is that all?" Deborah questioned sarcastically. "Where are you finding this sudden chutzpah."

"I'm pretending I'm you,' Joanna said. "So let's do it before I revert back to me."

Deborah gave a short, derisive laugh.

The women stepped over the half-open lower elevator door. Joanna held the light while Deborah climbed the ladder rungs. While holding on to the top one, she pushed up the trapdoor. Just beyond ninety degrees it hit up against a stop and stayed open.

Joanna handed up the flashlight, and Deborah placed it on top of the elevator before hauling herself up. The elevator swayed slightly when she stood up, forcing her to grab the supporting cables, which were covered with grease the consistency of petroleum jelly. A moment later Joanna came up through the hole. She stayed on her hands and knees rather than standing up.

The ladder ran along the back wall of the shaft and cleared the elevator car by only twelve inches.

"Well, what do you think?" Deborah asked.

"I think we should give it a try," Joanna said. She shined the flashlight down the shaft. It wasn't strong enough to reach the bottom. The ladder merely disappeared into a murky haze.

"You first," Deborah said. "And you keep the light."

"I'm not going to be able to climb and hold the light at the same time."

"I know," Deborah said. "But you have a pocket, and I don't."

"Okay," Joanna said with resignation. She was accustomed to Deborah's being the leader in such a circumstance. Joanna turned out the light, plunging them into utter blackness. She pocketed the flashlight, then groped for the ladder. When she got a hold of it, she had to argue with herself to abandon the relative safety of the elevator, especially when the elevator swayed slightly during the transition. Gripping the rung of the ladder tightly with both hands, she tried not to think about being suspended on a vertical ladder four stories above a black hole.

"Are you doing okay?" Deborah whispered in the dark when she didn't hear any movement.

"This is harrowing," Joanna said.

"Are you on the ladder?"

"Yes," Joanna said. "But I'm afraid to move."

"You have to!"

Joanna lowered one foot to the next rung and then the other. What she had more difficulty with was letting go with one hand. Finally she did it, and then repeated the movement with the other hand. Slowly at first, and then with building confidence she descended between the elevator and the ladder. It was a tight fit, which made the process more difficult.

"Can you give me a little light so I can see where the ladder Deborah asked from above.

"I can't," Joanna said. "I can't let go for that long."

Deborah mumbled a few choice words as she reached blindly with one hand while maintaining the grip on the i:- -cable with the other. But the ladder was too far away. Eventually sat had to go down on all fours like Joanna and creep over to the e: of the elevator's cab. Finally she got a hold of the ladder, transfer herself onto it, and followed Joanna down.

The women moved slowly, particularly Joanna. Although she began to build up confidence, a new concern emerged from feel: . corrosion on the rungs. She began worrying that one of the rungs might have become so weakened from rust that it could give way under her weight. Before she put her weight on any rung, she kicked at it to get an idea of its integrity.

The blackness of the shaft aided Joanna, especially after passing below the elevator cab. Without being able to see, the height was only a mental problem, not a visual one.

Deborah had to slow herself down when she caught up with Joanna.

After a quarter-hour of climbing, Deborah was ready to reconnoiter. "Can you see the bottom?" she questioned in a whisper. The muscles of her arms were beginning to complain, and she imagined Joanna's were as well.

"You must be joking," Joanna answered. "I can't even see my nose.

"Maybe you should shine the light for a second. You could hook your arm around one of the rungs."

"I think I should just keep going until my foot touches the floor," Joanna said.

"Do you want to rest?"

"I really think I should keep going."

Another ten minutes passed before Joanna's outstretched foot touched litter-strewn pavement. She pulled her foot back. "We're here," she said. "Hold up!" Hooking her arm in a rung as Deborah had suggested earlier, she got out the flashlight and turned it on. The bottom of the shaft was filled with debris as if it had been a garbage dump over the years.

"Can you tell if we're at the sub-basement or not?" Deborah asked.

"I can't," Joanna said. "Come on down, and we'll see if we can get the doors open."

Joanna used her foot to push away some of the trash at the ladder's base before stepping onto the pavement. She waited for Deborah to come the rest of the way down, keeping her hand over the flashlight lens.

"Wow, it's freezing down here," Deborah said, rubbing her arms once she got off the ladder. "It certainly feels like a sub-basement."

The women gingerly made their way to the doors through the junk which was mostly paper, rags, and miscellaneous pieces of wood interspersed with a few cans. While Joanna held the light, Deborah reached up and got her fingers between the upper and lower doors. Try as she might, they wouldn't open.

Joanna put the light down on the floor and lent a hand. Still the doors wouldn't so much as budge.

"This is not good," Joanna said.

Deborah picked up the light and took a step back. She shined the light around the periphery of the doors. She stopped at a spring-loaded lever arm protruding out from the wall at the edge of the doors just above where they came together.

"That's our problem," Deborah said. "I haven't seen too many action movies, but that has to be a fail-safe mechanism to keep the doors locked until the elevator is in front of the doors."

"Meaning?" Joanna questioned.

"Meaning one of us has to hold it down while the other opens the doors."

"You're taller," Joanna said. "You get the fail-safe mechanism, I'll try the doors."

A moment later the doors cracked open, although it wasn't until Joanna leaned her full weight on the lower door that they opened fully. Deborah shined the light into the space beyond.

"It's a sub-basement all right," Joanna said. The entire floor was just intersecting supporting arches through which ran a tangle of clay sewer pipes and insulated cast-iron heating pipes. There were no doors or separate rooms. The walls were brick like the basement above, but the arches were flatter and the adjoining piers thicker.

A passageway with a vaulted ceiling higher than the rest of the sub-basement led from the freight elevator to intersect with a similar corridor that ran the length of the building. Bare electrical wire looped along the peak of the vault to lighting fixtures, but they were not lit.

The women stopped at the intersection and shined the light in both directions. In each direction the view was a study in perspective, with the arches marching off into the darkness as far as the meager light was able to penetrate.

"Which way?" Joanna questioned.

"I'd favor going left," Deborah said. "That will take us toward the tower section of the building. That's the center."

"But if we go right, we're going more in the direction of the power plant," Joanna said. "The power plant is off to the southeast." She pointed forty-five degrees off the axis of the main corridor.

"How are we going to decide?" Deborah asked, looking in both directions.

"Shine the light on the floor," Joanna said. She knelt down. The floor of the passageway from the freight elevator, as well as the main corridor, was paved in clay tiles whereas the rest of the sub-basement was paved in the same brick as the walls and arched ceiling.

"There's definitely more evidence of traffic going to the right," Joanna said. "The tile shows a lot more wear in that direction, which not only suggests to me the tunnel is to the right, but also that the tunnel was used for a lot more than just heat."

"My word," Deborah commented, looking down. "I think you're on to something. Is this another trick you learned from watching those action movies with Carlton?"

"No, this is just common sense."

"Thanks a lot," Deborah said sarcastically.

The women commenced walking rapidly to the south. Deborah kept the flashlight trained ahead. Their footsteps echoed off the concave ceiling.

"This is like a catacomb down here," Joanna commented.

"Perhaps I shouldn't ask, but what were you thinking when you suggested the tunnel was used for more than heat?"

"It occurred to me that the tunnel was probably the way they transported dead bodies from the morgue to the crematorium."

"Now there's a cheerful thought," Deborah said.

"Uh oh," Joanna voiced. "Maybe we spoke too soon. It looks like our footworn corridor is coming to an end."

About thirty feet directly ahead the flashlight beam illuminated a blank brick wall.

"We're okay," Deborah said after they'd taken a few more steps. "The trail is just turning to the left." When the women reached the wall they noticed that not only did the vaulted corridor take an abrupt left-hand turn around an arched pier, but it also fell away relatively steeply. Also joining the descending corridor was a large-diameter insulated pipe.