Children of the Underground

  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 sur
vivors. He didn’t know we weren’t part of his War.

  “Your mouth,” I said to the man.

  “Huh?” the man looked at me as if he’d forgotten that I was there.

  “Close your mouth,” I ordered him. Without asking any more questions, he closed his mouth and I wrapped tape twice around his head, covering his closed lips.

  “Done?” Michael asked when I cut the last piece of tape.

  “Done,” I answered. I looked down at my handiwork. All that the guard could move was his eyes, which darted back and forth between me and Michael. Michael reached down and grabbed the man by the collar. Michael dragged him into the bathroom, pulling him into the stall farthest from the door. When Michael got back from the bathroom, he holstered his knife. “We need to disable the stairwell alarm,” he said.

  “And then the fifth floor,” I said.

  “And then the fifth floor,” Michael echoed. We made our way to the box next to the stairwell door. Michael took his knife back out and popped open the box. A time existed when disabling the alarm would have been difficult. When it was originally installed, the control box contained numerous trip lines so that even the slightest mistake would have triggered the alarm. It would have taken hours to disarm the alarm if the trip lines were still in place. Lucky for us, the guards had more than hours. They’d had days, weeks, even years. They had already done the hard work for us, jerry-rigging the alarm so that they could easily disarm it before entering the stairwell. They had set up a system of switches that could be flipped on or off from any floor. Palti showed us how we could use their handiwork to easily pull the whole thing apart. Michael peered inside the box. I looked over his shoulder. I could see the two wires connected at the top. Michael reached out, still careful not to touch any other part of the box. He grabbed the wires and twisted their connector counterclockwise. The connector came off after only three turns. Michael pulled the wires apart. Everything was quiet. We wouldn’t have to worry about the door alarms anymore. Michael, still holding the separated wires in his hand, looked at me and smiled. “You ready?” he asked.

  “Let’s go,” I said, walking past him to the door. I stopped at the door for a second, took a deep breath, and pulled open the door. It swung easily. The stairwell was silent. The alarm was dead. Michael followed me into the stairwell. We stood together in the darkness for a minute, letting our eyes readjust. Then we started up the stairs in unison.

  We ran past the door to the third floor. I could feel it pulling me toward it like a magnet. The answer to everything that mattered in my life was on that floor, but we couldn’t get it without getting the key first. We kept running. We ran past the fourth floor and kept running. I figured that we had only forty minutes before the next shift change. In forty minutes we had to get to the fifth floor, disable the guard, get the Historian’s key, get back to the third floor, disable the guard on the third floor, find the information, and escape. It wasn’t a lot of time. It was going to be close. I put my head down and ran faster, taking the dark steps two at a time, jumping ahead of Michael and his lame leg.

  I made it up to the door leading to the fifth floor and waited for Michael to catch up. I counted in my head, once second, two seconds, three seconds. He was standing next to me in three seconds. Even so, it felt like wasted time. I gave Michael a quick look to make sure he was ready and not too winded. He nodded to me before we jumped through the door, much like we had done the last time. Everything you do is practice for the next thing you do. Like before, the hallway in front of us was empty. We didn’t have to guess at the guard’s location this time. We heard someone laughing at the other end of the hallway, around the corner from us, in front of the archives. We moved toward the sound, each of us holding our weapons in front of us, trying not to make any noise. We didn’t have time to think about a plan. We knew what we had to do. Move more quickly than the guard does. Don’t hesitate. Don’t doubt. Just go.

  We rounded the corner, still in unison. The moment we rounded the corner, I keyed in on the guard. He didn’t suspect anything. He was facing away from us, looking into the archives, breaking protocol by talking on his cell phone. We didn’t worry about what he was looking at. Despite his leg, Michael moved instinctively. He knew that the guard was in a vulnerable position. He got to the guard before the guard had a chance to turn around. He beat me there by two steps. By the time I reached the guard, Michael was already clutching the guard’s left wrist, twisting it. If the guard had been smart, if he had been properly trained, he would have reached for his gun with his free hand. Instead, he turned and tried throwing a punch. As the guard swung, Michael grabbed the guard’s right wrist. Michael now had both of the man’s wrists in his grasp. Michael was about to either kick or knee the man to try to get him to the ground. That wasn’t necessary. Instead I walked up to the man and placed the nozzle of my gun against his temple. “Don’t move,” I said in a voice I hoped would keep the guard calm. The guard turned his eyes toward me without moving his head.

  Michael took the man’s cell phone. He hung up the phone and threw it across the room. Then Michael reached out and unbuckled the guard’s belt, taking the guard’s gun and the button all at once. Michael stepped away from the guard and dropped the guard’s belt behind him. I took two steps backward as well, trying to move to a safe distance from the guard. A bullet to the head would be as effective from two feet as zero. The guard stayed still, not taking any chances with his own life.

  “What do you want?” the guard asked Michael.

  “Him,” Michael said, pointing into the archives. I hadn’t even looked toward the archives. The walls separating the hallway from the archives were glass. We could see into the archives. We could see shelf after shelf full of bound papers sitting on top of dozens, if not hundreds, of file cabinets. I looked through the glass. Standing no more than ten feet away from us behind the glass was a short man with gray hair and a pair of small, round eyeglasses. He wasn’t moving. He was staring at us, a look of shock and fear on his face. We didn’t worry about sneaking up on the Historian. The Historians weren’t armed. They didn’t carry buttons. He had no way to sound the alarm. The only things we had to fear from the Historian were stubbornness and loyalty.

  “The Historian?” the guard asked, dumbfounded. Michael nodded. “I don’t have a key to get inside. He’s the only one with a key.”

  “Does he like you?” Michael asked the guard. His tone of voice scared even me.

  The guard’s confusion was growing now, being fed by his fear, like oxygen feeding a fire. “We don’t talk. I don’t know,” the guard stammered. Michael thought for a second. He was trying to decide what card to play next. Michael pulled out his gun. He aimed it at the guard. Now both of us were pointing our guns at him.

  “Get on your knees,” Michael ordered the guard. I could feel my stomach churn, unsure of how far Michael would be willing to take this charade. The guard hesitated for a second. Then he got on his knees. “Face the glass,” Michael ordered him. The guard moved so that he was facing the glass, facing the still-frozen Historian. “The fucker puts names on papers and files them in columns for the living and the dead. He studies this history but he doesn’t see the blood,” Michael muttered to himself, just loud enough for the guard to hear. I could see the words register in the guard’s face. That was Michael’s goal. We didn’t merely need the guard to be afraid. We needed him to sell his fear. Ultimately, the guard was irrelevant, a means to an end. We needed to get to the Historian.

  Michael turned and looked through the glass directly at the Historian. He held his gun out to his side, pointing it at the guard’s temple. “Come out,” Michael yelled to the Historian. “Come out and nobody gets hurt.” The Historian’s hands were shaking. He looked frail and old. I wondered if he and Palti were friends. They must have worked together. The Historian looked down at the guard as Michael spoke, leaving no doubt that he could hear Michael through the glass and understood
what was happening.

  The Historian didn’t reply. He barely moved. His eyes drifted from the guard, over to me, and back to Michael. The charcoal smeared on Michael’s cheeks made him look menacing and more than a little crazy. The Historian shook his head slowly from side to side. Michael yelled again. “If you come out, we won’t hurt you but if you don’t come out, we will kill him.” Michael pushed the nozzle of his gun into the guard’s forehead. “Ask him for help,” Michael whispered to the guard.

  The guard stared at the glass in front of him. “Please, Seymour,” the guard said as loudly as he could muster.

  “Come on, Seymour,” Michael echoed. “Don’t let this man die for no reason.”

  Seymour stepped closer to the glass. He put one hand on the glass in front of him and stared down at the guard. “What happens if I come out?” he asked. The words were barely audible through the glass.

  “We just want your key,” I said, stepping forward between the kneeling guard and the glass. “We need it. We don’t want to hurt anyone.” I felt the mistake in my words as soon as I spoke them. I didn’t need to see the pained look on Michael’s face, like someone punched him in the gut, to know it was a mistake. We needed the Historian to be afraid of us. If he wasn’t afraid, he wasn’t going to open the door. My telling him that we didn’t want to hurt anyone made him less afraid.

  “Now we have to scare him again,” Michael whispered to me. Our clock was running. I stepped back again so that the only thing between Michael, who was standing with his gun pointed at the trembling guard, and the Historian was a one-inch-thick piece of bulletproof glass. “You have ten seconds to open the door,” Michael called out. Then he started counting down. “Ten. Nine.” I watched the Historian. Michael was right. He wasn’t afraid anymore. “Eight. Seven.” He didn’t believe that we’d go through with it. “Six. Five.”