Read Online Three Can Keep a Secret by Archer Mayor - Free Book Online
Authors: Archer Mayor
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what happened to the doors' electronics?"
The cops nodded, not bothering to shout against their shrouds.
However, at the door in question, separating the facility's inner core from access to the underground passages, Joe asked in a loud voice, "Why is this even available to people in this building?"
"Convenience, laziness, habit. You name it. The tunnels went in when the complex was built. They've ended up serving every purpose you can name, from supplying overflow office space to giving people a shortcut to the cafeteria in winter. Not to mention plumbing, electricity, the Internet, heating pipes, and whatever else. To a certain extent, I don't think anyone's ever thought about the security aspects." He pushed open the unlocked door and ushered them through. "And I never heard of anyone ever escaping this way, either, until now."
Joe understood that the power was out and the place trashed by recent events, but even so, he found what lay ahead to be dark and threatening, and could only imagine that someone whose paranoia or mental illness was already in high gear wouldn't want to venture too far down these earthbound corridors.
Teater switched on the lamp attached to his hard hat, prompting them all to do likewise. The sudden darting of lights suggested a mixture of fanciful images: a mud-floored, buried passageway to some long-forgotten burial chamber; a battlefield-blasted building interior, redecorated with the detritus of a full-fledged firefight. The reality amounted to a dank, stagnant, gluey obstacle course, blocked by office furniture and the same stationer's fodder they'd encountered in the lobby.
"This should be fun," Lester said with false cheer. "Like a boot camp obstacle course for astronauts."
Already, Teater was setting the pace, scrambling over the tangle with the ease of years of practice. Joe followed next, feeling clumsy and amateurish, aware of Lester and the utterly silent fourth member of their party standing patiently in line. It was during situations like this that Joe felt his age the most, and was reminded of the decades that he'd spent in this physically challenging job, at first as enthralled by the challenges as were his three younger colleagues right now. He rued the toll it had all taken on his body.
Still, as Teater had promised, it didn't take long to get used to the awkward suit and forget its restrictions, in the face of simply trying to keep moving.
The piled barriers weren't the only challenge. They had a double mission here: to find Carolyn Barber's dead body, and if not that, any evidence that might tell of her fate. The first demanded the shifting of heavy objects and mucking through any slime deep enough to hide a body. The second called for an opposite set of skills — more delicate and interpretive, less disruptive. Here, Joe or Les would briefly stop one of the techs from tackling a desk or file cabinet, in order to quickly read the scene before them.
Like a single blue slipper, shaped for a small left foot, found about an hour into their expedition.
Joe held it up before Teater's lamplight. "You're familiar with the hospital's workings," he said. "This look like something the patients wear?"
"Sure does," was the answer. "Standard issue."
Joe reached into the kit he had slung over his shoulder and extracted an evidence bag into which he placed his discovery.
To their frustration, that single slipper marked their only success for another three hours, during which they covered about half the campus, often traveling down routes that either ended at sealed doors or simply dwindled in diameter to make further progress impossible. More than once, Joe made a point of thanking Teater for his guidance — without which he became convinced that he and Spinney would have gone missing as well.
Finally, mirroring the topography overhead, they began seeing signs of the ground ramping up and the water having leveled off, to the point where the damage became reduced to a thin
The cops nodded, not bothering to shout against their shrouds.
However, at the door in question, separating the facility's inner core from access to the underground passages, Joe asked in a loud voice, "Why is this even available to people in this building?"
"Convenience, laziness, habit. You name it. The tunnels went in when the complex was built. They've ended up serving every purpose you can name, from supplying overflow office space to giving people a shortcut to the cafeteria in winter. Not to mention plumbing, electricity, the Internet, heating pipes, and whatever else. To a certain extent, I don't think anyone's ever thought about the security aspects." He pushed open the unlocked door and ushered them through. "And I never heard of anyone ever escaping this way, either, until now."
Joe understood that the power was out and the place trashed by recent events, but even so, he found what lay ahead to be dark and threatening, and could only imagine that someone whose paranoia or mental illness was already in high gear wouldn't want to venture too far down these earthbound corridors.
Teater switched on the lamp attached to his hard hat, prompting them all to do likewise. The sudden darting of lights suggested a mixture of fanciful images: a mud-floored, buried passageway to some long-forgotten burial chamber; a battlefield-blasted building interior, redecorated with the detritus of a full-fledged firefight. The reality amounted to a dank, stagnant, gluey obstacle course, blocked by office furniture and the same stationer's fodder they'd encountered in the lobby.
"This should be fun," Lester said with false cheer. "Like a boot camp obstacle course for astronauts."
Already, Teater was setting the pace, scrambling over the tangle with the ease of years of practice. Joe followed next, feeling clumsy and amateurish, aware of Lester and the utterly silent fourth member of their party standing patiently in line. It was during situations like this that Joe felt his age the most, and was reminded of the decades that he'd spent in this physically challenging job, at first as enthralled by the challenges as were his three younger colleagues right now. He rued the toll it had all taken on his body.
Still, as Teater had promised, it didn't take long to get used to the awkward suit and forget its restrictions, in the face of simply trying to keep moving.
The piled barriers weren't the only challenge. They had a double mission here: to find Carolyn Barber's dead body, and if not that, any evidence that might tell of her fate. The first demanded the shifting of heavy objects and mucking through any slime deep enough to hide a body. The second called for an opposite set of skills — more delicate and interpretive, less disruptive. Here, Joe or Les would briefly stop one of the techs from tackling a desk or file cabinet, in order to quickly read the scene before them.
Like a single blue slipper, shaped for a small left foot, found about an hour into their expedition.
Joe held it up before Teater's lamplight. "You're familiar with the hospital's workings," he said. "This look like something the patients wear?"
"Sure does," was the answer. "Standard issue."
Joe reached into the kit he had slung over his shoulder and extracted an evidence bag into which he placed his discovery.
To their frustration, that single slipper marked their only success for another three hours, during which they covered about half the campus, often traveling down routes that either ended at sealed doors or simply dwindled in diameter to make further progress impossible. More than once, Joe made a point of thanking Teater for his guidance — without which he became convinced that he and Spinney would have gone missing as well.
Finally, mirroring the topography overhead, they began seeing signs of the ground ramping up and the water having leveled off, to the point where the damage became reduced to a thin
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