Into the Specter

Chapter 14

Nico wishes you were here. He's telling himself you'd have found a way in that wasn't through the sewers as he narrowly avoids hitting his head on a broken pipe.

"How much further, the smell is getting to me," whispers Belgrade, holding his left hand over his nose and mouth.

London pulls out the device she has clipped to her chest. The green lines blink slowly, pointing straight ahead. "Fifty feet," she whispers back, crouching under a pipe that cuts through where they're walking. She's in front, leading the crew through the rat-infested sewer system in downtown Denver.

Nico is holding back his nausea, sloshing through the murky water. Even though they're all wearing waterproof wading pants, he's sick to the stomach thinking of how much of his body is submerged in the nasty water. Once London found out this happened to be the only sewer pipe in the metro area big enough to fit a person, the plan was set. But it's insanely cramped. Warsaw has to bend over especially far to not hit his head.

They come to a stop underneath their target. The bathrooms of the Wells Fargo bank.

"Dallas, you're up," says London, moving out of the way so he can pull the demolition charges out of his pack.

Nico already scouted out and planted wires along the tile grout yesterday, but two sets are needed to fully break apart to solid concrete that will lie between them.

He swings around his backpack and unzips it, pulling out a mess of wires and explosives. Though it may look like a chaotic mess, he knows exactly where each wire is and where it leads.

"Sanders had the good stuff," he mumbles to no one in particular, molding the plastic explosives with his gloved fingers to the layer of concrete above them.

"Fuck yeah, he did," Belgrade says, cocking his semi-automatic rifle.

"If that gun goes off right now, I'll kill you faster than a ricocheting bullet could," says London, leering at him. Belgrade raises his hands in surrender and grins while letting the rifle drop, held from dropping by a strap around his shoulders.

A few moments of silence go by, anticipation ripe in the air. "You think they'll actually bring him?" Nico asks, voice muffled. He's holding a wire in his mouth, both hands busy connecting the detonator to the charges. Leaning backward so he can reach the exact points he needs to set the explosives.

"If we play it right, yeah," London says, carefully watching him. "The detective's most likely to know what happened to Phoenix."

Nico grits his teeth, pulling the wire out of his mouth and attaching it to his remote. As far as they know, you escaped. Or were kidnapped. Or murdered. He's been a mess of nerves since the security cameras were cut. They've all been. The last thing London said she saw was a man in a dark coat headed towards the front entrance. The system was cut, totally reset, forcing her out. The virus only worked undetected if the connection went uninterrupted.

The last they saw, you appeared to be working with Detective Zimmerman. There's been nothing in the news. Your 'wanted' status hasn't changed but Nico can only assume the worst. Look for the target at this bank, and then go get you. That was the plan.

He steps down from the ledge he was perched on with a sigh. The red numbers on the remote are counting down from a minute. He shoves the extra wires into his pack and points down the tunnel.

"You're telling me we have to wait for an entire minute?" asks Belgrade, gloved hand back over his face.

"Oh, you'd rather be blown up because you didn't move back far enough?" London says, wading to where Nico pointed. Belgrade chuckles under his breath and follows her.