Ghost of a Chance

The sounds of sledge hammers came next as the thieves broke open the hole.

“That’ll do it,” Jersey accent said. Alex could hear him enter through the hole. “Bring the flashlights and spread out. Focus on the small stuff and find the entropy stone.”

Men began to move into the room, opening the nearest crates full of ancient American gold. Danny flexed his hand, tightening his grip on his service .38. Alex wondered if Callahan could see what was happening. He’d deployed his men well back from the wall that faced the subway tunnels, but if he let the thieves get too far in, they were bound to stumble across some of his men.

“Hands up!” Callahan’s voice boomed through the room. At the same moment all the lights in the room were turned on. “Stay where you are.”

Danny and the other officers and detectives rushed the room, leveling their weapons at the startled men with flashlights.

“Cops!” Jersey yelled, still in the back by the hole.

A couple of the thieves rushed the cops and gunshots erupted in the space. Jersey turned and ran.

“Where are you going, Jimmy?” Alex yelled.

The man turned back, and Alex confirmed that it was Jimmy Cortez, the big floor manager for Barton Electric. Alex had wondered how the thieves knew enough about the traction motor to steal it.

Jimmy snarled, but his eyes went suddenly wide and he darted away through the hole. An instant later a bolt of blue energy raked the wall where he’d been.

“Traitor!” Barton yelled in a voice that echoed unnaturally off the walls.

“After them,” Callahan yelled, charging toward the hole at the back.

Danny took off running, with Alex right behind him. They reached the hole right before Callahan and a dozen cops, pushing through into the crude tunnel beyond. It had been dug out tall enough for a man to stand comfortably and wide enough for two men to pass each other. The walls and ceiling were supported by beams made of two-by-fours that had been lashed together and placed every four or five feet.

The tunnel ran straight for about twenty yards, then opened out, into a dark space that had to be the abandoned subway.

“Which way did he go?” Danny shouted, as they neared the end of the tunnel.

“Left,” Alex answered. “Watch yourself.”

Danny skidded to a stop and ducked around the corner for a quick look around.

“It’s clear,” he shouted, running out into the tunnel.

Alex followed.

The tunnel was lit with magelights that had been hung along one curving wall. Barton’s traction motor, mounted on a wheeled cart and sporting the massive boring bit, sat just outside the tunnel. Farther away to the left, Alex could see half a dozen men taking cover behind piles of dirt that they’d obviously removed when they made the tunnel.

As Alex looked for cover of his own, a man in a pair of dirty overalls stepped out from behind a stack of empty crates. Alex recognized the round magazine and forward grip of a tommy gun as the man leveled it at Danny.

“Get down,” he yelled, charging forward as the gun spat fire. Alex caught Danny by the shoulder, throwing himself in front of the detective. Pain tore through his left hand and he felt the impact of bullets against his back as his shield runes did their job.

He and Danny went down in a heap and Alex put his arm up to cover his head as best he could with his reasonably bulletproof coat.

Assuming you didn’t just use up all your shield runes.

“You all right?” he whispered to Danny as the tommy gun barked again, and cops behind them began to return fire.

“Not really,” Danny gasped. His breathing was shallow and rapidm and his face was pale.

The firing continued over their heads and all Alex could do was act as a human shield.

“Where are you hit?” he asked.

“Side,” Danny gasped.

Alex tried to hold himself up, so his weight wasn’t on his friend.

“Enough!” Barton’s voice boomed down the tunnel.

The tommy gun fired again, but this time it was met with a crackle of electricity, and the gunman screamed. A moment later the tunnel went silent and the smell of ozone filled the air.

Alex rolled off Danny and reached for his handkerchief, intending to press it down over the spreading bloodstain on the detective’s side. He stopped when he saw the red handprint on Danny’s lapel. Blood ran freely from Alex’s left hand where one of the bullets from the machine gun had passed right through the back of his hand and out his palm.

Cursing, Alex tied his handkerchief around the wound, using his teeth to pull the knot tight.

“Come out of there with your hands up,” Callahan roared. “Or we’re coming in to get you.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Jimmy Cortez said. He stepped out from behind a mountain of dirt. He held a lighter in one hand and a piece of paper in the other.

“Everybody hold it,” Callahan barked.

Alex pulled Danny’s handkerchief from his coat pocket and pressed it down over the bullet wound in Danny’s side.

“This rune is linked to another that’s just over our heads,” Jimmy said. “If I light it, it will blow up the tunnel and kill us all.”