Something scampered along the wall. Vail hoped it was only rats. But then he thought about how if he had landed on the nails, he would now be leaving a bloody trail for whatever it was to follow. Up ahead, he could see another of the Pentad’s luminescent arrows, leading to, he was relatively certain, some other unpleasantry.
“HE’S LEFT THE 110 and is taking the 101 west,” the tech agent called over the major-case room’s radio.
“One-one, do you have him?” Kaulcrick asked.
“I think so. It’s a dark green pickup truck. There appear to be two white males inside the cab.”
“Can you see Vail?”
“Not from this distance.”
“Crossing Santa Monica Boulevard,” the tech agent called out.
“That’s the right vehicle then,” the surveillance supervisor said. “We’re right there.”
“Then stay on him.” Kaulcrick leaned back uncomfortably in his chair.
“We’ve got to make sure that’s Vail,” Kate said.
“Who else could it be?”
AFTER ANOTHER HUNDRED yards Vail found the next arrow and continued to follow it farther into the tunnel. He could now see the next glowstick in the distance, but it didn’t appear to be an arrow. It was an X placed on another cinder-block wall. Vail calculated that he had not come more than half a mile, so the tunnel must have been previously sealed off in sections. When he got closer, he could see that the X was attached to a thick nylon rope, the kind used by mountain climbers. It had a snap-link tied to the end. A note simply said to place the extortionists’ radio inside the moneybag and attach the bag to the rope.
The rope disappeared into a square hole cut in the base of the wall just large enough for a person to squeeze through. Vail got down on the floor and tried to look into the hole, but it was pitch-black. Out of the side pockets, he took the flashlight, folding knife, and monocular before placing the radio inside the bag and looping the rope through both of its straps, locking the snap-link back onto the rope.
Feeling the movement on the rope, someone started pulling it almost immediately. Vail let it go, knowing it would not go through the hole without his help. The bag turned slightly sideways and couldn’t get through. The rope strained and then went slack as whoever was pulling on it tried to free the bag. Finally Vail turned and pushed the canvas container, guiding it through the two-foot-square hole.
Once it was through, he could see a small amount of light coming in from the upper part of the other side of the opening that the money was pulled through. Whoever was up there was using a concentrated-beam flashlight, he supposed, to ensure the bag was not getting hung up anywhere else. As he watched the money disappear, Vail noticed a newspaper on the floor, half opened and standing tented about four feet directly in front of the hole. It seemed odd that it would have remained upright during the years that the tunnel had been sealed. He looked a little more closely at it. It was not yellow or faded. He couldn’t quite make out the date at the top or the headline.
Then he thought he saw a smaller cord being pulled up after the bag. The last thing Vail noticed before it went dark was a two-foot square of plywood on the other side of the opening lying flat on the floor butted up against the hole cut in the wall. Then he heard the same sounds he had when he descended into the tunnel: the hatch being shut and padlocked, followed by the scraping of dirt and rock to cover it over.
“WHERE ARE THEY NOW?” Kaulcrick asked.
“Just passing the Encino off-ramp.”
Kate pulled the microphone away from Kaulcrick. “Can you get someone up there to make sure it is Vail?”
Kaulcrick grabbed the mike back. “Hold off on that, One-one.” He turned to Kate. “You’ve got to calm down. If they get burned, this could all be for nothing.”
“You don’t know if it’s Vail, which means you don’t know where the bag is.”
Her words set off panic in Kaulcrick’s eyes. “Okay,” he said, and keyed the mike: “One-one, maybe you had better get someone up there and make sure it’s Vail.” He shot a bitter sideways look at Kate. “Very discreetly.”
VAIL RESTED with his back against the wall, trying to figure how he was going to get out of there. That’s why they had insisted that he could not bring a gun; he might have been able to shoot through the hatch and destroy the lock that sealed it.
He heard something again along the tunnel’s walls, getting closer, apparently attracted by his scent and lack of movement. He decided that the rats weren’t necessarily meant to attack him, but to provide a constant distraction with the possibility, keeping him from thinking about any other traps that might have been set.
Maybe he should just wait for the cavalry. But they wouldn’t know about the photocell-triggered explosives—if there were any. The irony of them opening the hatch and detonating it with their flashlights would certainly appeal to whoever was doing this, plus it would destroy any evidence. Then he thought of something even more alarming: they had him leave the wallet GPS so they could use it to draw the surveillance away from the tunnel. With both entrances covered over, he was virtually buried alive, and no one had any idea where.
The only choice left to him was to crawl through the opening and see if he couldn’t somehow get that hatch open. He eased his shoulders into the hole, being careful not to break any planes on the other side. Pushing out on his shoulders and bringing his arms up to the sides to fill the opening as much as possible so no light would leak back into the section he was in, he snapped on the flashlight. The chamber was no more than five feet to the opposite wall, which was also constructed with cinder blocks. Against it sat the newspaper that was open along its center fold and sat, inexplicably, in a foot-high tent on the dirt floor. Its newness reminded him that it had to be hiding something. Then Vail noticed that the dirt around it wasn’t hardpacked like everywhere else in the tunnel. It had been dug up and then hastily tamped down again. A small spine of dirt led from the newspaper back to the plywood board, which was now less than an inch from the tip of his flashlight.
And the plywood wasn’t completely level. Something was underneath it. Because of the telltale rise in the dirt that ran from the newspaper to the board, he had an idea what might be under the paper—a Claymore mine. Claymores contained hundreds of steel balls and C-4 explosive, and were completely directional. Someone struggling through that small hole headfirst and leaning on the board that covered the plunger would have their head vaporized. It seemed like something that the Pentad would consider a perfect ending.
“THEY’RE STILL WEST on the 101. Going through Thousand Oaks,” the tech agent said, now sitting at the monitor tracking the GPS’s movement.
Finally one of the surveillance units said, “I went by and got a good look at the two occupants. Neither of them is our guy.”
Kate looked at Kaulcrick, who appeared to be frozen by indecision. She leaned over him and keyed the mike. “One-one, have your people stop that pickup and search it.”
FIVE MINUTES LATER, the surveillance supervisor came up on the air. “Command, someone tossed the wallet GPS in the back of the truck, probably when it was stopped at a light on Second Street in West Hollywood. There’s no bag and both of the occupants look like working humps.”
Kaulcrick slammed both of his fists down on the radio console. “Okay, One-one, have someone bring them both to the office to be interviewed,” Kate said. “The rest of your people I want back to that railway yard. Use that wallet GPS, and we’ll guide you to the spot where we lost contact with the bag.”