Oath of Fealty Read online

  And there sure as hell wasn't anybody in that tunnel this time of night. What could Mr. Three-piece want? Take a pee? Meet somebody? While he was wondering about that, by God here she came! A hell of a looker, well dressed in an expensive pantsuit, and she was alone too! She went in the same door as Three-piece, and Vinnie snickered. She'd get a surprise ... Once again he congratulated himself. Heaven couldn't offer more attractions.

  She'd locked the door behind her, but it didn't take Vinnie's knife long to take care of that. He went through quickly and pulled the door closed. The corridor in front of him was empty, but he could hear rapid heel-clicks around the bend ahead of him. He could also hear sounds of machinery coming from down the tunnel. Somebody was working overtime here. Well, that didn't matter, he'd just have to be quick, although that was a shame, the chick was a real looker and it'd be something to get into that. He could imagine her look of fear, and feel her writhing in his grasp, and he quickened his step to catch up to her. She'd be just around this bend in the tunnel- He rounded the bend. There were half a dozen people there, all in expensive clothes. They looked up at him, first in surprise, then in annoyance.

  Too many, Vinnie thought. But they looked like money, and he had his knife and a blackjack made of a leather bag of BB's and if he did this right - Feet scuffed behind him.

  He was trying to turn, to run, when a bomb exploded under his jaw. Lights flared behind his eyes, but through the blaze he saw his vision again: fluffy razor-cut hair, and a broad, smooth-shaven face snarling with even white teeth, and a polished gold ring on a huge fist.

  "Gin," Rand said. "That's thirty-five million dollars you owe me." He stared at his watch. "And now we go to work."

  Lunan grimaced. So far they hadn't done anything. Well, nothing that would send you to prison. God knows what crime it might be to dig a tunnel under the County Jail (reckless driving?) but so far no harm done. Now, though.

  Rand handed him a heavy tool and Lunan took it automatically. It was a large drill with a long, thin bit. Trickling sweat stung his eyes.

  Rand was sweating too, and after a moment the engineer removed his shirt. "Damn Delores," he muttered.

  "Eh?"

  "Oh. Nothing." Rand threw his shirt down the tunnel. Then he lifted the microphone. "We're starting in now," he said. "Everything all right at your end?"

  "Yeah, barring three surprised muggers. Have at it."

  "Roger." Rand hung up the mike and turned to Lunan. "Okay, let's get at it." He took a strip of computer readout from the console in front of him, then manipulated controls. A very bright spot of light appeared on the tunnel roof above them. "Drill right there," Rand said.

  The ceiling was concrete, very rough. Lunan thought the drill bit too thin and weak for the job, but when he applied it and pulled the trigger, the drill ate in quickly. And quietly, Lunan noticed. After a while the bit went in all the way.

  Rand took the drill and changed to a longer bit. "My turn," he said.

  "What do I do?" Lunan asked.

  "Just stand by." Rand drilled at the ceiling. When the bit was all the way in, he took out still another, this one a foot long, still very thin. He drilled cautiously, withdrawing the bit often. Then he saw light, and pointed.

  "Mask time," Rand said. Lunan handed up a gas mask, then put on his own.

  The hole in the ceiling was no more than a pinprick, which was what Rand had told Lunan to expect. When he had his mask on properly, Lunan went over to a large red tank. There was a hose attached to it, and Lunan handed up the hose and watched as Rand put it to the hole and sealed it in place with aluminized duct tape. "Crack the valve," Rand said, and Lunan turned the valve handle. There was a faint hissing. Rand pointed to the microphone.

  "Phase two," Lunan said into the mike. "Hope we're in the right place-"

  "All quiet here. Out," the radio answered.

  Lunan replaced the mike. Quiet there, which was the tunnel entrance. Just one entrance, guarded by TS executives, which meant Lunan and Rand were safe. Of course it also meant there was only one exit. Unless they wanted to dig a new one, fleeing the law at a few dozen feet an hour.

  Rand waved and made cutting motions, and Lunan shut off the sleepy gas. He worried about that gas. Rand said the stuff was the safest he could find, unlikely to harm anyone except possibly a heart patient; but there was no way they could control the dosages. This was the trickiest part of the maneuver- Rand had removed the tube and widened the hole slightly. Now he was trying to insert the tiny, thin periscope, and cursing.

  "What?" Lunan asked.

  "Blocked," Rand said. Swearing terribly, he moved two feet away and tried the drill again. When light showed, he inserted his periscope and looked. He turned it this way and that, then chuckled and motioned for Lunan to come look.

  Concrete floor, something overhead, all very dark. Tom Lunan adjusted the light amplification and rotated the periscope.

  Aha. Foreground, a pair of feet showed under a very low ceiling. He was under a bunk. Beyond, a mouse's-eye view of a jail cell: concrete floor, toilet, sink, and a middle-aged felon in fine physical shape sleeping peacefully on Tony Rand's first periscope hole.

  While Tom looked, Rand brought up the gas tube and put it to the new hole. "Body blocked the flow," Rand muttered, and went back to open the valve on the tank.

  He let it run another minute, then disconnected the hose and brought up the periscope again. Meanwhile, Lunan had attached the electronic stethoscope to the floor. He put on the earphones. At highest sensitivity he could hear the sounds of breathing and a heartbeat. Otherwise nothing. He made the "OK" sign to Rand.

  Rand nodded and turned to the control console. When he twisted dials, a large jack ascended from the top of the vehicle and rose until it touched the ceiling. Another control sent up a large saw and spray hoses. The saw began cutting in a circular pattern around the jack.

  It wailed like a banshee. Lunan felt real terror. Surely someone would hear that, the horrible rasping sound that proclaimed "JAILBREAK!" Evidently it worried Rand too, because he rigged up the tank and sent more sleepy gas through the hole.

  The saw cut on a bias, a concrete disk larger at the top than at the bottom. Eventually the cut was made, and Tony used the jack to lift the plug until it was two feet higher than the cell floor. Lunan helped him set up a newly bought aluminum stepladder. Rand scrambled up it and disappeared, while Lunan arranged Therm-A-Rest air mattresses on the flat top of the vehicle. Then he climbed up, squeezing under the concrete plug. There was a moment of terror when he dislodged his gas mask, but he got it back on without breathing.

  Preston Sanders was on his side in the lower bunk, with his feet hanging over the edge. He'd lost weight since Lunan had seen him in a courtroom, but he was still heavy. They lifted him and Rand slid down through the hole again, leaving Lunan to lower Sanders down like a sack of potatoes, with Rand to catch him and let him down onto the mattresses.

  Now they had to work fast. Rand smeared the concrete plug with epoxy and lowered it into place. Then he filled the periscope holes. While he did that, Lunan manhandled Sanders into the cabin of the machine, and thought about the origins of that picturesque verb. Man-handled. Yep.

  "Got it," Rand said.

  "Won't they be able to see the hole?"

  "Yeah, sure, I couldn't make the join perfect, especially working from the bottom-but they'll never get that plug out without jackhammers and such. Let's get out of here."

  "Get your shirt," Lunan said.

  "Shit, oh dear. What else have we forgotten?"

  "The ladder, and the mattresses, and-"

  "That's okay," Rand said. "They can't be traced." He chuckled. "Well, not profitably, anyway."

  "Hey, I'm supposed to get the whole story."

  "You've got all the story," Rand said. "My instructions are to see you off before Pres wakes up. I make that to be about ten more minutes."

  "Yeah. All right," Lunan said. So. The adventure was coming to an end. Ye gods, what he'
d seen! The top brass-the TOP BRASS-Of Todos Santos involved in felony jailbreak. Not that he could tell anyone, or even hint that he had certain knowledge. Rumor. All rumors ... Lunan sighed. It was a hell of a story. Now all he had to do was figure out the best way to use it.

  They drove away at the Mole's contemptible top speed.

  Pres woke up twenty minutes later. He blinked and focused on Tony Rand, stared for a moment, and said, "We were just talking about you."

  "Oh?"

  "True. What's going on? Where am I?"

  "We're roaring away in our trusty getaway vehicle, seconds ahead of The Law."

  "Yeah, I can hear the roaring, anyway. It matches my head." Pres pushed himself up and looked back down the tunnel. "Good Lord. Tony? Is it the digging machine, the one that's making the subway under City Hall? Shit, are we really making our own tunnel?"

  The Mole surged forward. Needles spun on the panel, and the automatics cut off the hydrogen flow. Without melted rock to carry heat away from the nose, the nose itself would melt. Half-fused rubble slid past the cabin. Then the Mole lurched into the open night. Tony lifted the microphone from the console panel.

  "We're loose." He put down the mike and turned to Sanders, grinning. "Most of the time you were asleep we were running back along an already-made tunnel. Then just before you woke up we started boring again. Now come on. You know, Pres, we might actually make it?"

  Sanders was still groggy, but recovering. "Where are we now? Did you really break me out of jail?"

  Tony led him out of the Mole and walked him through the night. Where was that stairway? "The OK Corral will never be the same. We've reached either the famed concrete banks of the Los Angeles River, or the equally famous Hoover Dam, depending." Ah. There were the stairs. "We go up, now."

  "You gonna just leave the digger?"

  "Jesus! Stay here." Tony sprinted back to the Mole and came back uphill more slowly, carrying his shirt and the gas canister. "This could be traced. The rest of that garbage was all bought today, by credit-card number and telephone, delivered to a blind drop. It was charged to one Professor Arnold Renn. That might cause a bit of confusion."

  "Renn? He's Fromate, isn't he?" Pres started to laugh.

  "Art says he was the advisor to the Planchet kid," Rand said.

  "Oh." Sanders was silent a moment, then laughed. "Hey, they'll think the Fromates got me!"

  "Not for long they won't, but it might slow down the opposition."

  Sanders stopped. "Tony, I don't like this much. I mean-you broke me out of jail. We're both wanted by the law. Where can we go?"

  "We're going home, I hope."

  "Yeah, but-look, Tony, Art must have put you up to this, and don't think I'm not grateful, but dammit, Art doesn't own Todos Santos! He can't hide me forever, the management council has to know, and some of them don't like me. Somebody'll turn me in, for sure ... "

  His voice trailed off when he realized that Rand was only half listening. Tony was trying to orient himself. Where the hell was the street? Where the hell was anything? They stumbled onward. Then, ahead, car lights flashed twice and went dark.

  "Thank God," Tony said. "Come on, Pres, just a little farther. Ah. Good, they remembered to cut the fence. Here, through right here, and we go the rest of the way by taxi. Swallow your pride and climb in."

  An ordinary Yellow Cab stood waiting for them. The driver didn't speak.

  Sanders tumbled into the back seat, still rubber-limbed, and thrashed to right himself as Tony tumbled in beside him and the taxi took off. Pres complained, "Hey! The speed limit! My pride wouldn't take it if we got pulled in for reckless driving."

  The cab slowed at once. Tony asked, "How do you feel?"

  "Fine. No more headache. No hangover." Sanders settled back in his seat. "I feel great! Of course they'll find us-"

  "Maybe not," Rand said.

  The cabbie said, "Where to, sir?" and turned around.

  "Mead? Frank Mead?"

  "Did you think we'd leave you for the eaters? Welcome home. In a half hour you'll be wolfing a midnight snack and drinking genuine Scotch. No, brandy's your drink, right? Remy Martin, then."

  "Frank Mead. Sheeit! I thought ... never mind what I thought. Listen, Tony, if I'm awake now, so is anyone else you dosed, right?"

  "It'll take them awhile to get their act together," Tony said. "They won't know how you got out or where you went. I sealed up the hole. It's a locked-room mystery, secret passage and all."

  "That's all right, then." Sanders started laughing.

  George Harris woke with a mild headache and a feeling that something was wrong. That was confirmed when he heard the guards running up and down the corridors. "Head count!" they were shouting. "Everybody stand by your bunks!"

  "Pres, what the hell is all this?" George demanded. "Pres?"

  When there was no answer he looked around the cell. "Jesus H. Christ!" he shouted. Now what? And how had it happened? He remembered the tiny hole he'd seen, and looked down at the floor, but in the dim light he couldn't see anything at all. Should he tell the guards? Tell them what, that his cell-mate was missing? To hell with those bastards! But if he didn't cooperate, they'd nail his arse to the wall.

  George grinned faintly to himself and lay down on the lower bunk. It wasn't hard at all to go back to sleep.

  "Uh?" George woke to bright lights and a dozen deputies in his cell.

  "What? Where's Sanders? Where'd he go?" the fat jailer shouted over and over.

  "Uh? Pres, tell these buzzards to buzz off-"

  "Where is he?"

  "That'll do, Winsome. Mr. Harris, I remind you that aiding an escape from lawful confinement is a felony. Now, are you willing to cooperate?"

  "Sure," George said.

  "Excellent. What can you tell us?"

  It was hard to keep from giggling, but George managed a straight face. "Nothing. Not one thing. I went to sleep talking to Preston Sanders and I just woke up." He rolled out of his bunk and looked into the upper bunk. "Pres?" He lifted the blanket. Nothing. "Shit fire."

  "Hal? Hal, it's the telephone."

  Donovan came awake as from beneath a deep, stagnant pond, vaguely aware that Carol was speaking to him. Gradually he understood. "Okay, honey. Thanks." He took the phone and listened.

  Carol watched from her bed. Her blue negligee fell open and Donovan winked at her. His pretense was that she always turned him on. She did, often enough.

  When he put the phone down and reached for his pants, she

  looked resigned. She'd long since stopped asking questions. He'd either explain or he wouldn't.

  "Not a new murder," Donovan said. "Maybe not even my case. But it was my prisoner." Even that didn't get a rise. She looked at him expectantly, even with interest, but she wasn't asking questions.

  "Preston Sanders," Donovan said. "Technically my case and my prisoner. He's escaped from the county jail."

  "Escaped? Great heavens, Harry, how?" Carol Donovan demanded.

  "Nobody seems to know, just at present," Donovan said. "I suppose they'll find out."

  "So you're going down to the jail?"

  "I'll start there. Just to see how they did it."

  "How they did it?"

  "Sure. I don't have to know what happened to know Todos Santos has made their move. I just hope it doesn't mean all-out war."

  When Donovan arrived at the County Jail, a team of workmen were breaking through the floor with jackhammers. The officer in charge, Sheriff's captain Oliver Matson, was an old friend. One of Matson's deputies handed Donovan Polaroids of the cell floor taken before the jackhammers started. There was a thin circular line showing clearly on the floor.

  "He went out that way, all right," the deputy said.

  "Here," a workman said. "Hey! Watch out!"

  "What is it?" Matson asked.

  "It's all hollow under there. A tunnel."

  "Tunnel," Donovan said. Of course there had to be a tunnel. How else could Sanders have got away? But how had the tu
nnel got under the County Jail? "Holy shit!"

  "What?" his friend demanded.

  "The digging machine! The Mole!" Donovan shouted. "That's how they did it, they dug a subway tunnel with the Mole, that big damned digging machine of theirs-any minute now they'll report it stolen. Anybody want to bet they won't?"

  "Oh, crap," Matson said. "Jesus. That's acting on the grand scale."