Children of the Underground (31 page)

I stepped inside the stairwell. No light leaked through the cracks around the doors to the stairwell. It was pitch-black inside. Michael followed me and, as gently as he could, closed the door behind us. When the door closed, I saw the first flicker of light. It was a single flash like a silent bolt of lightning from over the horizon. Then it vanished. A second later, it flashed on and off again. Michael saw it too. We looked up the dark stairwell. Each flight of stairs between floors snaked around and ascended in the direction opposite from the flight below it, so the stairs leading from the second floor to the third floor were directly above our heads. This created a small platform at each floor where the stairs changed direction. The door to each floor was on this platform. We looked up. We could still hear the footsteps on the stairs. Whoever was walking down the stairs was carrying a flashlight and swinging it as he walked, creating the flashes of light and making the shadows in the stairwell dance. The footsteps were getting louder. “He has to be at least two stories up,” I whispered to Michael. Michael nodded. I could barely make out the movement of his head in the darkness. The plan was an intricately timed dance. For it to work, we had to silently get to the top of the first flight of stairs, near the door to the second floor, before the guard from the third floor reached the second floor.

We moved up the stairs, side by side in the darkness, as fast as we could without making any noise. I could almost feel the weight of Michael's injured leg as we made our way up. He couldn't limp silently, so he refused to limp, gritting his teeth and ignoring the pain. I moved in front of him. We made it to the top of the first flight of stairs. We stopped only three or four steps below the second-floor platform. As practiced, we leaned our backs against the wall to the stairwell. I looked down at Michael. He was standing two stairs below me. I could see his shadowy silhouette in the darkness. He had one of his knives in his hand. I held my gun in front of me. We didn't want to be seen, but we were ready in case we were.

The footsteps that we'd heard were the footsteps of the guard on the fourth floor moving down to the third. Once we stopped moving, we heard the sound of the door on the third floor being opened. As it opened, light flooded the stairwell. I looked down at Michael again. He looked ridiculous in the light, standing with his back against the wall, hiding in plain sight like a toddler who doesn't yet understand the game of hide-and-seek. In the light, we were the most obvious things in the world. The only chance we had was that no one would look at us in the light and no one would notice us in the darkness. Michael had questioned this part of the plan when we mapped it out with Palti. “So, we're just supposed to stand there and hope no one looks at us?” he asked. Palti nodded, explaining the shape of the staircase again, explaining that there would never be any reason for anyone to look in our direction. “It's not that you have to hope that they don't look at you,” Palti told us. “They won't look at you. They won't look at you because they don't want you to be there. To look is to suppose you might exist.” The door to the third floor closed again, swallowing the light. Then the third-floor door opened one more time, this time so that the relieved guard on the third floor could come down to the second. We heard his footsteps. We saw the beam of his flashlight hit the second-floor platform above us. The guard was whistling. I recognized the song. It was a song that my father used to play for me on the jukebox at my favorite diner when I was a kid. I squeezed the handle of my gun with both my hands, trying to stay focused.

The guard reached the second-floor platform. He was so close to us. If I reached out, I could touch him. As Palti predicted, he didn't turn toward us. He didn't shine his flashlight in our direction. The guard reached out and pulled open the door to the second floor. Once again, light flooded the stairwell, this time shining directly on Michael and me. If the guard had turned around, it would have all been over. Instead he walked through the second-floor door, letting it close behind him.

“Now,” I whispered to Michael. We had to move fast. We had to get out of the way before the guard on the second floor walked down to the first. As quickly and quietly as we could, we climbed up to the second-floor platform, past it, and then up three or four more steps. If the guard took the stairs, he'd have no more reason to look up at us than the other guard had to look down. Plus, as long as he was on the stairwell, we'd know that the alarm was disabled. We could watch him walk down toward the first floor and, when he walked through the first-floor door, we could slip through the door to the second floor before he had time to reactivate the alarm. Then we could end our little ballet, for an hour at least, and get down to work.

After only a minute or two, I saw the door open and the final guard step onto the stairwell. Though we'd already heard the footsteps of three of the five guards, this was the first one that I saw. It was a woman. She wasn't large but she wasn't small either. Her shoulders were broad compared to her waist. She let the door close behind her without looking up toward us. She stood there, waiting for the darkness before she flicked on her flashlight. Then she began walking down the stairs toward the first floor, chasing the beam of light in front of her.

Michael and I waited again, not saying a word, not needing to. So far the plan had worked perfectly. It worked exactly like Palti, Michael, and I had diagrammed it, exactly like Michael and I had practiced it. Unknowns stood in front of us, though. We had to walk through that door to the second floor with no way of knowing where the guard patrolling the second floor might be. We had to be ready to attack. We hadn't found any other way. We looked. Believe me, we looked. Violence was simply inevitable. Then, after dealing with the guard, we would have to start our search for the Historian. He was the only one who could get us inside the archives where your information was. The Historian literally held the key.

The female guard stopped halfway down the stairs leading to the first floor and turned back toward us. Had she heard something? She flicked the beam of the flashlight around the empty stairwell. I readied my gun. We were on the next flight of stairs. She couldn't see us from where she was standing, but if she came back up, we'd have to do something. I listened for the footsteps. Michael took a step closer to me. I reached back and put my hand on his chest, stopping him. The light turned away from us again. The guard began walking back down the stairs like she was supposed to.

Michael relaxed. We waited for the sound of the door. We knew the procedure. The female guard would relieve the guard on the first floor, who would take the elevator up to the fifth. In an hour, the whole thing would start all over again. Palti had shown us how to disable the stairwell alarms once we got onto the second floor. So that gave us an hour—one hour before the guards began switching places again, one hour before they'd realize something was wrong. We had one hour to find the Historian, get his key, and find your file. It would all be over soon, for better or worse. The female guard pushed open the door on the first floor, the door that Michael and I had entered through only minutes earlier. We saw the flash of light caused by the opening of the door and then the subsequent darkness. We had only a minute, maybe two, before the alarm was enabled again. Michael stepped down the stairs, pulling the door to the second floor open, holding his knife out in front of him like a hunter. I followed behind him, holding my gun in front of me. We walked through the door, nearly in unison, careful not to make a sound. The guard could be almost anywhere. If he saw us, we'd have to get to him before he could press his alarm or reach for his gun. Once through the door, I turned right and Michael turned left exactly like we'd practiced. We scanned the hallway. The element of surprise would buy us only a few seconds.

The hallway was empty. Either the guard was around the corner by the elevator bay or he was in the bathroom. Either way, we had a moment to position ourselves for our ambush. It was better this way, better with even a minute to prepare. Maybe we wouldn't have to kill him. We made our way down the hallway toward the elevators, walking in the same direction, communicating silently through looks and hand signals. If the guard was in this direction, we'd surprise him. If he was in the other direction, we'd set a trap for him. Either way, we were ready and unafraid. According to Palti, the guards were lazy. But they weren't really lazy. I knew that. Michael knew that. They simply didn't care—not about this. They cared about this only as much as other people made them care. Outside these walls, they had families to care about, lives to care about. I wonder how many people in this War are like Michael or Jared or your father, and how many people are like those guards.

We made it to the corner at the end of the hallway. Around the corner were the elevator bay and the second-floor archives. I let myself get excited for a moment, thinking that the Historian might be on this floor, might be right around the corner. We stopped before turning the corner and listened. Silence. Then I heard something, the rustling sound of movement. It wasn't coming from around the corner. It was coming from behind us. I reached out and tapped Michael on the shoulder. “He's in the bathroom,” I whispered to Michael. “Should we go around the corner and wait for him?”

“No,” Michael answered. “Let's jump him when comes out. He'll be more vulnerable then.” I followed him as he jogged back past the stairwell door toward the bathroom. When we got closer, Michael motioned for me to stand on the other side of the bathroom door. I nodded and positioned myself. We had the door surrounded, each of us on one side with our backs pressed against the walls. We'd wait until he was outside the bathroom and then we'd take him. I knew my job. I'd block the door to the bathroom so that he would have no escape route.

We stood there for what seemed like a very long time. My internal clock kept reminding me that we had only an hour. I wanted to look at my watch to see how much time had passed, but I didn't dare sacrifice any of my concentration. Then we heard it: the sound of water running from a faucet. He was washing his hands. My body tensed. The door began to open. The hinge was on my side, so my view of the guard was blocked by the door as he stepped out into the hallway. I heard a sound like a gasp or a grunt. Then the door swung closed again and I could see. Michael had grabbed the man, pulling him forward, out of the doorway. By the time the door was closed, the guard was already down on his knees in front of Michael. Michael was holding his knife near the guard's chin. The guard's hands were held out, both pleading and showing Michael that he wasn't holding a weapon or the button. No one said a word. No one needed to. Everyone knew what was going on.

When the door closed, Michael looked up at me for a split second. The guard didn't move. He was too busy looking at the blade on Michael's knife. “Where's the Historian?” Michael asked, somehow shouting in a whisper.

“What?” the guard said, looking in my direction for a second, hoping I might have an answer that would chase away his terror and confusion. I could see his chest heaving up and down.

“The belt,” I reminded Michael. “Don't forget the belt.”

Michael nodded and turned back to the guard. “Give us your belt,” he ordered. “Now!” Minutes were passing too quickly.

The guard reached down and unclipped his belt. Both the holster of his gun and the red button were clipped onto it. The button was exactly as Palti had described it: a small red button on a yellow, radio-enabled box with a clear plastic cover over it. I looked at the button and remembered Palti's warning. “Hand it to me,” I said to the guard. I reached one hand out for the belt, aiming my gun at the guard's forehead with the other hand. I wanted him to see where I was pointing the gun. If he made a move toward the button, I would pull the trigger. He handed me the belt.

“Okay,” Michael said. “Now where's the Historian? What floor is he on?”

“I don't know,” the guard said. All the blood had run out of his face.

“I don't think you want to play games here,” Michael told him, pushing the knife closer to his face. “You answer a few questions for us, and I promise you that you'll get to go home in one piece. Is the Historian on this floor?”

“No,” the guard said quickly, somehow stammering over a single syllable. “He's not here.”

“Then where is he?” I asked lowering the gun and looking into the guard's eyes.

“He was on the fifth floor when I was up there, but that was hours ago. He could have moved since then. I really don't know.” The words were an apology, spilling out of the guard's mouth uncontrollably.

“Does he normally switch floors?” Michael asked.

The guard thought about the question for a minute. Then he shook his head. “Not this guy. He usually stays on one floor. He only moves when he's ordered to.”

“Fifth floor?” Michael asked again. The guard nodded. “Get the tape,” Michael said to me. I reached inside my backpack for the duct tape.

“What are you doing?” the guard asked.

“Keeping you safe,” Michael answered.

“Put your hands behind your back,” I ordered. Michael taught me how to tie a person's hands and feet with the duct tape so that escape was nearly impossible in any less than a few hours. I wrapped the tape tightly around the guard's hands, taping them together behind his back, twisting the tape so that it tied from multiple directions. Then I taped the man's legs together. He didn't say a word. He simply stared at Michael's knife. Finally, I pulled the man's hands down and taped his hands and feet together behind his back.

“What are you going to do with me?” the guard asked when I finished.

“We're going to put you in the bathroom,” Michael said, “and you're not going to try to get out until someone comes and gets you.” I don't think he believed us. I think he thought we were going to kill him. People in his War didn't leave survivors. He didn't know we weren't part of his War.