The round circle of light from the headlamp cut through the darkness and lit up the black plastic bag that was hanging from the large conduit that ran through the tunnel. The Governor removed the leather gloves and tucked them in his pocket before grabbing the dust-covered bag.
They had been planning this for over a year and placed the controller here almost six months ago in preparation for this moment. The Governor wasn’t even sure that the equipment was still in place. He had kept himself from checking on it until a month ago. He couldn’t believe he was standing in front of it now ready to end the wait. He tore open the bag and carefully removed the controller. Made up of a small computer screen with a thicker, plastic shell behind it, everything appeared intact. He pulled a small, flexible computer keyboard from his pocket, unrolled it, plugged it into the port on the side, and said a small prayer. Then he flipped a switch and watched the screen come to life. He was ready to make himself rich.
They pulled another table over next to the one that had the Federal Reserve blue prints laid out on it. Two men wearing stained overalls and worn leather work boots stood among the group, looking out of place among the clean tile floors and cafeteria tables and chairs.
“I’m Jack, Special Agent Miller.” Jack stuck out his hand and looked into the eyes of the man closer to him, the man with his hands in his pockets. “With the FBI,” he finished, grabbing the wide, strong hand of the man and shaking it. The hand felt rough and calloused. Jack glanced down and saw that splotches of dirt and rust colored the skin on the knuckles. The fingernails were uneven and dirty underneath and around the cuticles. The first two fingers had tobacco stains mixed in among the dirt and rust. “The other two here are Special Agent Fruen and Officer Granowski with the Federal Reserve.”
The man finished the handshake and put his hand back in his pocket. He was in his fifties, with a shaved head and a short, grey goatee. He had a cigarette tucked behind his right ear. “I’m Mike. This here’s Jimmy.” He tipped his head back at his partner standing behind him. “No titles, just Mike and Jimmy.”
Jimmy was mid-twenties, a little over six feet tall, and lean. He smiled and squinted his blue eyes quickly at Mike’s comment. He had a faded Minnesota Wild baseball hat on his head. It looked like it had fallen in the sewer more than once. He stood behind Mike and held rolls of yellowed paper in his arms.
“What’s going on?” Mike asked.
“Those are maps of the sewers?” Jack asked in response.
Jimmy nodded.
“Put them on this table and we’ll tell you what we need.”
They stood around the table looking down at the maps of the sewers that Mike and Jimmy had brought. The corners of the paper were held down with salt and pepper shakers to keep the map from curling closed. “This one covers most of the area around here on this side of the river,” Mike said.
“So we found them somewhere around here.” Jack pointed to a spot on the map where the three diggers had been working their way towards the vault when the explosion happened. “It wasn’t a sewer, but more of a tunnel. Those aren’t on the maps?”
Mike placed his palms down on the maps and leaned in with his unlit cigarette held in his right hand between his pointer and middle fingers. “No, but we’ve got notes or know about most of the tunnels under the city here. The sewers and tunnels are all tied together one way or another.” He flipped his thumb at his partner. “Jimmy is the one that knows what it’s like down there. I used to go down, but now I’m senior so I stay up and operate the truck and equipment and Jimmy goes down for inspections.”
“If a guy was down there and knew his way around, where could he come out?” Jack asked.
“And he doesn’t want to be noticed,” Ross added.
Mike leaned over the drawings. He put the cigarette between his lips and put on a pair of reading glasses. “I’ve got a couple of ideas.”
Jimmy spun the baseball hat around backwards on his head. “Here, here,” he stabbed at the map. “Maybe here.”
“Fuck, Jimmy.” Mike looked at Jimmy with a look of frustration. Then he looked at Jack. “Pardon my French. I don’t know what Jimmy’s thinking.” He stabbed the cigarette at the paper. “He started here. He could go three ways from there.”
“He’d go one of two ways,” Jimmy interrupted.
“Like I was saying, he could go three ways.”
“But he wouldn’t head towards downtown, would he?”
Mike inhaled deeply. “Jimmy, just shut up. We’ll work through this.”
“You just need a smoke.”
Mike looked at Jack. “He’s young.”
Jack nodded towards Ross. “I know how it goes. Do you want a smoke while we talk through this?”
Granowski interjected. “He can’t smoke in here.”
“Just one,” Jack answered.
“Everybody smokes now?”
“Light ‘er up, Mike,” Jack said while he looked at Granowski. Then he leaned back over the map. “We need to hurry, guys. If the man we’re after is still down there, where should we look? Give me your three best guesses on his route and where he could get to in, what?” Jack looked at his watch. “Ninety minutes.”
Mike inhaled deeply and blew the smoke towards the ceiling. “OK, I’m thinking here by the Stone Arch Bridge,” his stubby finger jabbed at the map, “or north of the train bridge here, there’s a sewer that empties into the river.”
“That’s it?” Jack asked.
“Where else do you think?” Mike asked, looking at Jimmy.
“Those two are the easiest, most direct paths.” Jimmy put his dirty finger on the map at the point they’d found the tunnelers. “If they said he went this way, he came to here.” He traced the path on the map. “From here he could go three ways to start with and then depending on which way he went it branches out multiple ways from there. Your guess would be as good as mine.”
“So it sounds like we need to start there,” Jack said.
“Maybe if we get down there we can tell which way he went,” Ross said.
“Junior, you’re in no shape to go down there with one arm in a sling.”
“Who’s going? You?” Ross asked.
“There’s nobody else,” Jack said.