Children of the Underground Page 12

  “We’ve been following the two of you. It’s standard protocol when people leave us without accepting our help. We need to make sure that they aren’t turning us in.”

  “So you’ve been following us the whole time?”

  “Not me,” Dorothy said, “but someone.” I felt a chill run down my spine. We had tried to be careful. No matter how careful we were, it wasn’t enough.

  “Why are you here?” I asked Dorothy again. I hadn’t expected to see her again, ever. I hadn’t expected to see any of them again. Once they said they couldn’t help me, I believed that was the end of it.

  She was looking out the windows of the apartment into the windows of the adjacent buildings. Satisfied with what she saw outside the window, Dorothy sat down at the kitchen table. “We want your help.”

  “My help?” I asked, too confused to be offended yet.

  “We want you to help us hide someone.” Before I had a chance to respond, she continued. “He’s nineteen years old. He’s your age, Maria. He doesn’t want to become a killer, so we’ve reached out to him.” I tried to think of something to say, some way to object. “We need a way station,” she said. “Six days at most.”

  “Why me?” I asked.

  “Neither side knows where you are. You’re off the radar. Besides, we thought you might be sympathetic given your situation. This kid is basically Christopher in eighteen years. Wouldn’t you want someone to help him?”

  I looked at the clock on the stove. It said eleven thirty. If everything went according to plan, the fat man was dead. “Do you smoke?” I asked Dorothy.

  “No,” she answered.

  “I haven’t had a cigarette since you guys found us in D.C. It was one of Michael’s conditions for agreeing to help me. I still carry a pack wherever I go, though.” Dorothy’s features softened. She looked more like the woman who brought me breakfast a week ago. “I never smoked before they kidnapped my son.”

  “If you need a cigarette, I’m not going to judge,” Dorothy said.

  I shook my head. “I’m saving them.”

  “For what?” Dorothy asked.

  “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. The still, hot air in the apartment was stifling. “What does it mean to help you hide someone? What would you need me to do?”

  “The kid needs a place to stay. We need to find him someplace in the city that’s safe so that we can make a plan for him. The process of cleaning someone isn’t simple. We’ve just made contact with the kid. It takes time. We knew you were here. It seemed to make sense. All you have to do is let him crash here.”

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  “That’s all. When we’re ready to take him to his next stop, we’ll come get him.”

  “How do I know I can trust him? How do I know that I can trust you? You guys wouldn’t even help me.”

  “You don’t. I will tell you this, though. If you help us here, we may be able to help you in the future.” I paused at this last statement. I nearly forgot everything else that she’d said.

  “Are you telling me that if I do this, you’ll help me find my son?”

  Dorothy shook her head. “I can’t make any promises, but I do have some influence with Clara.”

  I looked at the clock as I thought about it. Hopefully, Michael was on the road, driving home. “What side is the kid on?” I asked.

  “Does that matter to you?” Dorothy asked.

  “It’s going to matter to Michael,” I said. Dorothy looked disappointed. I didn’t care. She wasn’t the one putting her life on the line for me. “If it matters to Michael, it matters to me.” I thought about the photo of your father that Michael had given me.

  “He grew up on Michael’s side, but hopefully he won’t have to worry about sides ever again.” Dorothy watched me think. “His name is Joe. You’ll be saving his life.”

  I already had the fat man’s death weighing on my conscience and I wasn’t even sure he was dead yet. There would be more too, more bodies left in the wake of my mission to find you. I liked the idea of saving someone to balance out the karmic scales. But what about Michael? “If I agree, how do we do this? How do I find the kid?” I asked.

  “The day after tomorrow,” Dorothy said. “Meet me at noon in Tompkins Square Park. Do you know where that is? It’s close to here.”

  “I can figure it out,” I said, agreeing to help her before I even realized I’d consented.

  “I’ll have Joe with me,” Dorothy finished.

  I took a long breath, the same type of breath you take before diving into deep water. I looked at the clock again. It was almost midnight. “Okay,” I said. I wasn’t being naive. I understand the risks, but everything has risks. I simply have to hope that they’re worth the reward. “But don’t forget that you guys owe me.”

  Dorothy smiled a genuine smile. “I knew you were a good person when I met you. I knew that we’d be able to count on you.”

  She had an enthusiasm in her voice that I didn’t share. “I didn’t expect anything like this,” I said to Dorothy as she stood up from the table.

  “What did you expect?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I just want to find my son.”

  “Things rarely happen the way we expect them to, but they happen anyway,” Dorothy said before turning and walking toward the door.

  “Dorothy.” I stopped her before she let herself out. She turned back to me. “When this is done, after I’ve found my son, will you try to convince Michael to leave the War again?”

  “We were already planning on it.” Dorothy opened the door just wide enough to slip out. “See you at noon on Tuesday,” she said, and then she was gone. Everything is happening so quickly now. I rehooked the chain lock after Dorothy left. Michael is supposed to be back at his hotel in less than two hours. What am I getting myself into?

  Twenty

  I ran through the dark city streets as fast as my legs would carry me. It was four in the morning. The city was almost quiet. I wondered if I was still being followed. I questioned every movement that I saw around me and the motive of every person who was out at this hour. I knew my motive. I needed to know that Michael was okay. I had waited until three in the morning to call the first time. I just wanted to hear his voice. He should have been back at the hotel for hours by then. He didn’t answer. I called again and again. Still no answer. Then I’d decided that I’d had enough waiting.

  I’d never run so fast. I could feel the blood pumping to muscles in my legs; new muscles that I’d developed from my new exercising regimen. I could feel the extra air in my lungs. It took me less than twenty minutes to get to Michael’s hotel. I didn’t see anyone following, but I knew how little that meant. I knew that what I was doing was dangerous, but I felt compelled to do it anyway. I couldn’t take losing another person that I cared about. The hotel lobby was quiet. One man was working the lobby. He looked up at me as I walked through the door. I put my head down and walked like I belonged there. The man buried his head back in his newspaper and didn’t say anything to me. I knew where Michael’s room was. I took the stairs. They seemed safer, less conspicuous. I bounded up the stairs, skipping a stair with every few steps, stopping at the door with the number 3 on it. The door was solid. It had no window to look through. I had no way to tell what lurked on the other side. I put my hand on the door handle and pushed the door open a crack. The hallway was empty. I could see the door to Michael’s room. It looked exactly like every other door in the long hallway: closed and quiet. I stepped into the hallway. I stepped as softly as I could, trying to avoid making any noise. When I got to Michael’s room, I knocked. I tapped lightly at first. Each knock was answered with silence. He had to be there. I knocked louder. He had to be inside. I spoke Michael’s name into the door. I reached down to the doorknob and tried to turn it to see if the door would open. “Michael, are you in there?” I spoke into the do
or. The words felt too soft and too loud at the same time. “Michael,” I almost shouted. I’d reached my limit. I couldn’t risk waking up the people in the other rooms.

  Then I heard a noise. It wasn’t coming from behind the door. It was coming from the far end of the hallway. It was almost five in the morning now. My first instinct was to run. It’s what I’d been taught to do. I was somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be and I was going to be caught. I tried to stay calm. I took my hand away from the door and turned, ready to walk away, to run if I had to. I could hear footsteps behind me, coming toward me. They were loud and strange, like whoever was behind me was dragging one foot across the ground. I made it about halfway from the door to the stairwell when the voice stopped me.

  “Maria?” it said, somehow finding that soft-versus-loud balance that had eluded me. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  I turned back around. Michael was standing in the hallway. He had his key in his hand and a duffel bag over his shoulder. I could see dark maroon specks on his hands. He wasn’t putting any weight on his right leg. “I couldn’t wait anymore. I was worried,” I answered.

  “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “I know.”

  “Get inside,” he said. He slipped the key in his door. I stepped into his room. I could see out the window. It was still dark outside, but the light would be coming soon. Even if I couldn’t see it, I could feel it. Michael followed me inside, limping badly.

  “What happened?” I asked. “You were supposed to be here three hours ago.”

  “Things didn’t go exactly as planned,” he answered.

  “What happened to your leg?”

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Michael said again. “What if they come and check up on me? What then?”

  I had no answers to his questions. “We need to get you cleaned up and you need to tell me what happened,” I said instead.

  “Why do you need to know what happened?”

  “Because the details are important,” I said. I looked down at Michael’s injured leg. His pants were taped to his leg with duct tape. Beneath the tape, his pant leg was torn to shreds.

  “Why are the details important?”

  “Because I need to learn. Joe tried to shield me from things and, when he and Christopher needed me, I was useless. I need you to teach me what Joe wouldn’t so that I can protect Christopher next time. I need you to teach me so that I can help to protect you. I need to know everything.”

  “Okay,” Michael said, “but not here. There’s a first aid kit in the bathroom. Grab it. We’ll go to the roof.”

  The first aid kit was on the counter in the bathroom. It was brand-new. Maybe Michael was more prepared than I gave him credit for. I stepped back out of the bathroom. “Let’s go,” I said. “You can lean on me on the way up.” We took the elevator up to the top floor and then walked the one flight of stairs to the roof. A Do Not Enter sign hung across the door to the roof, but Michael assured me that the door wasn’t locked. I pushed it open. We were alone, eight stories above downtown Manhattan. The city was quiet. The sky was a deep purple.

  We found a spot where Michael could sit down. I kneeled in front of him and started pulling the tape off his leg. I could see the blood. It was caked into his pants. “Whenever you’re ready,” I said. I opened up the first aid kit and took out the alcohol to clean out his wounds. “Tell me what happened.”

  “I pulled my car into the woods about a mile from the mark’s house,” Michael began with a nod, “so that no one driving by would see it. Then I took out the flashlight and headed into the woods. The woods were dark. The flashlight gave off just enough light for me to dodge tree branches. I pointed the light toward the ground in front of me, trying to make sure I didn’t walk off a cliff. Every once in a while I heard something, leaves rustling or twigs snapping, but I could tell that the sounds weren’t being made by people. Still, I held my knife in my right hand in case whatever was in the darkness attacked me.

  “Eventually, I could make out the jingling of the dogs’ collars above all the other sounds, so I knelt down and opened my backpack. I took out the meat and the drugs and molded two big meatballs full of roofies. Then I turned off the flashlight and started following the sounds of the dogs. Everything was on schedule. When I got near the fence, the dogs started going ape shit, barking and jumping. I knew I had only a few seconds before the fat man realized they weren’t barking at squirrels, so I ran up to the fence and threw one of the drug meatballs over the fence. Both dogs ran for it, but once the first one got to it, the other one ran back at me. When he did, I threw the other meatball over the fence near him. Then I hightailed it back into the woods to wait for the drugs to kick in. I got a good hundred yards away and I listened. At first, everything sounded the same. I could still hear the dogs’ collars through the darkness, but I could hear their movements start to drag as the drugs kicked in. I took the wire clippers and the rope out of my bag and I waited. When I was sure that the dogs were out, I walked back to the fence.

  “There wasn’t a lot of light in the back of the house, but there was enough for me to see the dogs. They were unconscious, lying about ten feet from each other, breathing deep, hard breaths. I took out the wire clippers and cut a hole in the fence just big enough for me to crawl through without catching my clothes. I was inside. So far, so good.”

  I had gotten all of the tape off of Michael’s leg. Most of the blood was dripping down from around his knee. I lifted what was left of his pant leg up so that I could see the wounds. The sky was still too dark for me to get a good look. It was getting lighter, though. The city was waking up. I could hear it. We were running out of time. I wanted to hear the rest of Michael’s story. I dabbed the alcohol on Michael’s leg. I expected him to flinch when the alcohol hit his wounds. He didn’t.

  “So I go over to the first dog and I poke him with my foot to make sure that he’s really out. The dog doesn’t budge, so I figure I’m safe. I scoop the dog up in my arms and carry him away from the hole that I cut in the fence. I lie the dog back down on the ground and tie one end of the rope to the dog’s collar and the other end to the fence. Then I go back for the second dog and do the same thing. This one makes a little noise when I nudge him, kind of a low growl, but other than that, he doesn’t budge either. I carry him to the fence but on the other side of the hole, far away from the first dog. I could feel the dogs’ body heat as I carried them. I could feel their hearts beating. They seemed so harmless, knocked out like that. I don’t know how you teach a dog like that to be that vicious.

  “Then I walk up to the house. I take that little crowbar out of my bag and I head to the basement window that we talked about, the one with the rotting wood in the frame. I start digging into the rotten wood with the crowbar. It was even more rotten than we thought from the pictures. Digging around the window frame was like digging a hole in soft dirt. It took only about ten minutes before I had dug out enough of the rotten wood to be able to pull the whole window frame out with my hands. So I take the window out and I slip quietly into the basement, trying not to rouse the other dog. I turn the flashlight back on. I take the hood for the dog out of my backpack. Then I walk over to the power box and I find the wires for the power and the phone. The power’s the big deal, but I cut the phone line too because, what the hell?

  “Then I tuck my knife into my belt and head for the stairs. I’ve got the flashlight in one hand and the hood in the other and, for the first time, I start thinking that we didn’t think this through enough. I had felt the muscles on those dogs outside. There was no way I was going to be able to wrestle that dog into the hood. Every job has one of those moments where you suddenly feel like you’re in over your head—even the easy jobs. It was too late to turn back, though. So I walk up to the top of the stairs and I put my ear against the basement door, trying to see if I can hear the dog. Nothing. I don’t hear a sound. I turn off the flashlight and put i
t in my backpack so I can get two hands on the hood and still get to my knife quickly if I need to.

  “Slowly, I start to push the door open and look around. The basement door opens into the kitchen. From there I can look to my right into the living room or to my left into the dining room. Both rooms look empty. I figure that the dog must be upstairs. Then I hear a low rumbling sound right in front of me. It sounds like a truck. So I look straight ahead of me into the kitchen for the first time and realize that the fucking dog is standing right in front of me. I can see its eyes shining in the darkness. The growl’s so deep that I can almost feel it in the floorboards. The dog couldn’t have been more than five feet from my face. I froze. I had the hood in my hands, but I had no idea how I was going get the hood on the dog’s head. The dog’s growl kept getting louder and louder, and I could see its teeth now. Then it leapt straight for my face. I moved about a foot to one side and put both my hands up to block the dog from ripping my face off. My hands hit the dog in the chest, and I just kind of push him with everything I’ve got.” I looked up at Michael. He was enjoying telling the story now. It had been a long time since Michael had someone to tell his stories to. He kept going, pretending not to notice that I was watching him.

  “I get lucky. I push the dog through the open basement door. The dog flies through the air and down the steps. Before I even hear his body hit the ground, I get out and close the door behind me. The dog rolls all the way down to the stairs to the bottom of the steps but it doesn’t even faze him. In a second, the fucker was back up the stairs, scratching against the other side of the basement door like he’s trying to dig his way through. So I grab a chair and prop it up against the door to make sure the dog’s trapped. The dog is barking like crazy now, so I know that my cover is blown.”

  “Were you nervous?” I asked, wondering what it felt like to be on the verge like that, to be hunting.

  “It’s always safest to surprise people, but I wasn’t nervous. I wasn’t afraid of the fat man. I knew I could take him. So I run up the stairs as fast I can. I know that the quicker that I can get to his room, the less time the fat man has to calm himself down. As I’m running up the stairs, I pull the flashlight out of my backpack so that I’m holding the mask that I meant to use on the dog and the flashlight in the same hand. I can see the mark’s door now. It’s closed, so I know he’s still inside, and I have to assume he’s aiming a gun at the door.” Michael caught me watching him. He held my eyes, watching me back, testing to see how I reacted to the rest of his story.