Chapter 4

"Hey Thomas!" said April, brightly, putting down her magazine.

I was naked but at that moment, I didn't give a damn.

"Where's Megan?" I demanded.

"And a good morning to you too! Umm, Thomas, while I'm sure you've made Megan very happy with that," she said, pointing at my dick, "I'd appreciate it if you put on some pants. There are things I have to tell you."

I wasn't happy, but I went and put on some pants and a t-shirt and rejoined April in the sitting room.

"There. All better. Not so cold either," she grinned. I supposed she was making some joke about dicks shrinking in the cold, but I really wasn't that interested in humor right then.

"Where is she?" I demanded, louder this time.

"OK, calm down. I know you grew close to her, but please, understand, she has a job to do, just like I have. Don't get too close to the fire Thomas. It's fine to warm your hands by it, but if you stick them in, you'll get burnt."

She paused to look at me. I could see genuine concern in her face, but I also really considered it to be None. Of. Her. Business. Whatever Megan was to me, it was to me, not her.

"Megan had to return to Boston. Well, she chose to return to Boston, actually. No one forced her. There's unfinished business there, and she's required to end it. You should be happy, because it's all coming to a head now. One way or another, things will be resolved, and you can go home."

"How?" I said, flatly.

April looked away. "I don't really know how much Megan told. We didn't get that long to chat. But know I can't tell you much, and more to the point, I don't know that much anyway. All I know is that she saw some people while she was working, and the FBI needs her to identify them."

"She could have done that over Skype," I said, hotly.

April shrugged. "I don't know. I don't make a habit of telling the feds their business. They needed her, and in person. So she went. She said that if there was any chance of this all being sorted it out, the bad guys getting locked away, she was going to take it. If only for you."

I nodded. It sounded like something Megan would do. I was still stiff and not happy – I get up after sleeping and find that the only woman who had ever been nice to me; the one who had stolen my heart; the one woman I'd ever love – had disappeared overnight. April could see it.

"Look, lets make the best of this, Thomas? I owe you as much as she does. I can be good company too. She just needs to get this done, OK?" she said, softening her tone.

"Yeah, I know, it's just..." I was frustrated and so I turned to the coffee maker in the room. At least April had already started it; there was fresh coffee in it. I tried a cup and strangely, it was terrific.

April noticed and smiled, "I bring my own coffee. It's Jamaican Blue Mountain. Although anything is better than the crap they put in hotel rooms."

"So, planning on being here a while then?" I said, probing.

April laughed – she did have a pretty smile when it was genuine. "Good one, Thomas. I don't know. Best to be prepared you know? Like a good girl scout."

I considered that, and said, "I'm having trouble imaging you as a girl scout."

"Well, you go in there, take a shower, imagine me as a girl scout, and then get dressed, and we'll be on our way, OK? We need to move."

I laughed. I would be indeed imagining someone as a girl scout while in the shower, but it wouldn't be April.

When I was done in the shower, I was getting dressed, and pulling together what little I had to take with me, and I could hear April on the phone in the other room.

She was walking, and I could only get snatches of her side of the phone call.

" ... smitten, obviously ... Stockholm syndrome ... classic transference ... Are you sure about this, Megan? I mean seriously ... he's a job ... Yeah, I know. Yeah, him writing you music is very romantic, but still ... They are doing what? Yeah ... Yes, I agree ... Oh ok, I won't touch. I won't be playing with your toys. No ... don't worry."

Even though I only heard bits of it from one end, the jist was pretty obvious.

I made a production of opening the door and coming through, and April turned and saw me, smiled at me and pantomimed being on the phone. I nodded and did a final check of the room.

We hung out for three days, lazily making our way south east, towards Salt Lake City, of all places. Each night was another out of the way bed and breakfast – always with two rooms. April was way more prim and proper than Megan was.

And she was fine company. She was no Megan, but then no one was Megan except Megan. April kept her distance –physically and emotionally - way more than Megan did, and just didn't have the same gregarious sense of humor that Megan did. April walked into a room and sized it up, looking at the people and where they were standing, and the ways out and all the rest of it. She positioned herself in the room where she could see everyone and had her back against a wall.

Megan walked into a room and sized everyone up too, but to see who the fun ones were, and navigated herself towards them.

April was a secret agent and Megan was a stand up comedian. But both had wariness, a way of speaking by asking questions. But with Megan, you knew when she was not being serious. With April you were never quite sure. You could see how they made a good team. They had very complimentary attributes, that overlapped to a large extent but each was stronger at certain things than the other.

Still, April was a beautiful woman, and did I bask in being her date when we went to eat? You bet I did. I just wished it was Megan instead.

On the third morning, when we were in a small town just south of Boise, I got up early, and played the violin, looking to recreate music I played the night before Megan left. Jace had actually reached out and sent me a copy of the video he'd taken on his phone, which I was eternally grateful for, because it gave me something to work with, but I just couldn't generate the same passion. I could play the notes, but it just didn't sound the same.

And I was seriously starting to worry about what was going to happen at the end of all this. Megan had a job to do, and it was very important to her. And given what the job entailed, there was little chance of an ongoing relationship with her. Plus, I was a job – April had spelled that out, and she was quite correct. I wouldn't have been able to function knowing what she would be likely doing when she went off to work, so that was just not going to happen. The war between emotion and intellect was being waged again. I knew what I knew, but I felt what I felt.

So here I was, desperately in love with her. The first and only woman ever. How was I supposed to move on from this? She'd been gone three days and I missed her desperately. We'd spoken once on the phone, when she called to reassure me that she'd gotten back to Boston OK, and she was now working closely with the FBI. She didn't have long to talk, but it was just great to just hear her voice.

If I was this messed up when she'd been gone three days, and I KNEW I'd see her again soon, how was I going to react when this was all cleared up? When she and April and that Dermot guy rode off into the sunset? I mean, don't get me wrong, I was eternally grateful. She'd helped me deal with the nightmares of what I'd done to keep her and April alive, she'd helped me face and deal with the accident – teaching me the rejuvenating power of forgiveness, and she'd given me sexual experiences the like of which I dreamed could exist. She'd helped me see a little of America; introduced me to some interesting people; helped me to stretch my boundaries; I knew I would never be the same again. And that's awesome. More than awesome. But along the way I'd gone and done something really stupid and fallen in love with this woman. There. I'd said it. Oh, fuck.

The door to the patio of our small room opened and April came out. She was solemn, and held a cup of coffee in her hand. She reminded me of how this started, with Megan, in San Diego.

"Thomas, we need to talk. About several things," she said, seriously. "The first priority should be this huge emotional feeling you have about about Megan."

I just looked her, my bow and violin in hand. Was she telepathic or what? Was I that transparent.

She smirked and proved she was telepathic when she said, "Yes, it's that obvious. You think you are in love with her, don't you?"

I put down the bow and violin and sat down. "I..."

"Yeah, I know. She's an easy girl to love. But, she told me that you have an idea of what she – what we – do for a living. And ... how we do it. You've got to understand, there's no future in that relationship? I mean, I really don't want to be the wicked witch here, but I think someone needs to be the voice of reason."

I stared at the violin in my hand, and then looked up at her, a tear on my cheek.

She looked at me, winced and sighed. "Oh, you've got it bad, haven't you?'

"I'm so sorry, Thomas. But someone has to point this out. Whatever she feels for you, relationships with field agents never work out. Trust me, been there, done that." She muttered the latter bitterly, more to herself than to me.

"When we finally get back to Boston, I'm going to have a word with Dermot. We've screwed with you enough, and need to find a way to put this genie back in the bottle. It's no good doing other stuff for you if all we leave you with is a broken heart."

I hadn't said more than one word yet, but I knew she was right. Intellect was going to win. Dammit. I was rooting so hard for emotion.

She sighed again. "Which makes the next news even harder to tell you."

My head snapped. "What?" I demanded.

April rolled her lips over her teeth, trying to decide how to break it to me.

"Megan has been ... taken. We still aren't sure how. She was with a couple of FBI agents and they were doing some tailing and identification, and, well, they lost her. We have not seen her two days. We didn't say anything because we just didn't know anything. But this morning, we got confirmation that they have her. We don't know where. Apparently, they want to know about ... you. They still think you are the brains of the operation."

If I'd been standing, I'd have sunk into the chair. As it was, I sat harder.

"Fuck," I muttered.

"Yeah," empathized April. "Right now, the FBI – and our guys – think you are safer out here. They are still looking for you, but they think you are in Boston, because Megan is. We think their getting her was dumb luck. She was seen and recognized by chance and they took advantage of the opportunity. That's what the smart money is thinking, anyway."

"What can we do?" I asked, giving her a very worried look.

"Right now? Nothing. They will keep her alive right now because they want you. She's their only link to you, so they'll keep her ... intact."

"They want me?"

She shrugged. "It sure seems that way from the chatter we heard on the last bug we have in their HQ. It's a union shop. But they won't keep her there. This is the Boston Irish Mob, they have places all over the city. If the FBI knew where she was, they'd have gone in guns-a-blazing by now. But they can't afford to make a mistake and storm the wrong place – that would end her life and destroy any ability they have to catch these scumbags."

Fuck. Fuck! Double Fuck! Well, there was only one thing to do. It was obvious. To me.

I stood up and walked into the small 2 bedroom rental going straight to my room.

"What are you doing?" asked April, following me in.

"I'm going back," I told her, flatly. I pulled out the violin case and put the violin away. Then I pulled out the suitcase and put in it the little amount of stuff I'd gotten out of it the night before. I was packed in less than two minutes.

April was alarmed. "No, we can't do that. That's not good. If they get you, they don't need you."

I turned and looked at April, giving her my implacable look. I think it was implacable. I hoped so. I have no real idea.

"April, I am going and I am not discussing it. How are you going to stop me? You going to use that martial arts training to make me stay? You going to hit me?''

April was clearly uncomfortable with my direct question.

"Of course not. But the FBI..."

"I don't give a shit what the FBI thinks. If they want me, they can have me. As a trade. Megan for me."

April was shocked. "You can't do that. That's not right. You are only in this because of us..."

"So? I am in this now. And so is Megan. And I'm going to get her out, one way or another. As you so correctly point out, there's no future for me with Megan anyway, so I've really got nothing to lose, have I?"

I was being cold as I said this and April was staring at me, open-mouthed.

"I just..." started April and I picked up my bag.

"I'm going to the airport. You can do what you want."

The flight cost an arm and leg. Have you ever just gone to an airport and tried to buy a ticket for a flight, there and then? It's like they have a multiplier they put on a normal fair and apply that. The multiplier in this case was about 5x. And that was economy. God knows what business class would have been. There was no direct flight from Boise to Boston, so I had to connect in Denver. It took most of the day.

As it was, April came with me. I guess she kind of had to, since there was no point in her staying in Boise, or going on to Salt Lake City. As it was, she was able to use the corporate credit card for the extortionate airfare. She spent the whole drive to the airport on the phone with head office, trying to explain what we were doing. It was clear she was not happy with me. I didn't care. Not at all.

At one point she had made some comment on the phone and turned towards me and glared at me, and I just snapped.

"Hang up the fucking phone, April. Hang. It. Up."

She looked at me, carefully gauging me, the annoyance morphing into concern. She whispered, "I'll call you back in a bit," into the phone and then ended the call.

"You know, for a fucking trick cyclist, you guys are fucking slow on the uptake. Yeah, I love her. You knew that. What did you fucking think I would do, given this news? Sit here and tremble and hope? I mean, for god's sake. You saw what I did when I barely knew you and her. You were there. If I did that for strangers, how could you think I'd do nothing for Megan now?"

She took a deep breath and then said, calmly, "Yes, I know. But decisions taken in stressful emotional situations like this are more often than not the wrong ones. You are making a knee jerk reaction. I don't want to see you get hurt for a situation we put you in. None of this is your fault. I just want you to be safe."

"Well, it's too fucking late."

She actually smiled then and said, "We on a 'fucking' bender, are we?" emphasizing the word 'fucking' and even I had to smile back.

"Yes, I fucking am," I replied, some of the annoyance bleeding away.

"Fine. Ok, well the FBI is going to be there to collect us in Boston. There is a fair chance we'll be recognized there, and they don't want to lose anyone else. Or everyone is fucked."

"Fine," I said, ending the conversation and staring out of the window.

We arrived back in Boston in the early evening, and it was surprisingly mild for the time of year. There were, as promised, FBI agents waiting for us at our gate. It was then that I began to get an inkling that there was not a wonderful relationship between the FBI and the Ingrams people. These guys were clearly pissed that they were on pick-up duty and I got a distinct sense that they were extremely unhappy about the whole situation. They were very careful to call us "civilians" and said"this was a highly volatile situation that had spun beyond what the investigation called for, because of the intervention of civilians."

April didn't respond. Obviously she'd encountered this attitude before and she just let them vent. I decided to follow her lead, even though I was desperate for news on Megan.

They took us to the main FBI offices in Center Plaza, where we were given guest badges and escorted to the "incident room" where the action was.

No one gave us a second look.

When we got into the incident room, with maps all over the walls, I stood there taking it in. A grizzled older guy with open collar and tie yanked down was standing talking to Dermot, in the corner. The older guy saw us come in and hustled over to us.

"Hello April. You must be Thomas?" he said, sizing me up. I turned my attention to him, he was shorter than me, but then everyone was. He was solidly built, and wore a nicer suit than I expected. "I'm Agent-in-Charge John Trubas. That's Special Agent Marcus and Special Agent Roman," he said, nodding at the two guys who'd brought us in. They had headed off to get coffee from a machine in the corner.

"So. You are the guy who took out three button men, eh?" grunted Trubas. He was obviously not impressed.

I shrugged.

"Well, that's three less scumbags on the street as far as I'm concerned, so good work. Don't make a habit of it, though."

I tried smiling and, attempting humor, I said, "Well, it takes a while for the methane to build up in that section."

It was clearly the wrong thing to have said, although looking back, I don't think there was anything I could have said that would have been right.

"Look Bub. I don't much like people who kill other people on my streets. Or under them, either. The only reason you aren't clapped in irons is that the douchebags you took out richly deserved it, and you have highly connected friends," he said fiercely, nodding at Dermot. "So a little less of the jokes and perhaps a little more with the information."

I had been rebuked, and I felt April take my hand next to me. It was nice to have some support. He was obviously even less impressed with me than he was with April, and from the way he'd greeted her, she wasn't going to make his Christmas card list either.

"What do you want to know?" I asked, weakly.

"I dunno Bub. What do you know?" he asked, staring at me.

"Well, umm, I, you see..." I started to say.

"Yeah, I didn't think you knew jack shit," he cut me off. "I just wanted to get a look at you, and see if you had any clue."

He nodded at the maps on the wall. There were six high-resolution satellite maps on the wall, with markers highlighted on each. All were different parts of the city.

"She's in one of those places, we are virtually certain. We just don't have a clue which one. We are watching all of them, but apart from normal comings and goings, we haven't seen anything. No large amounts of takeout food, or any of the things that indicate someone being held there. I just wondered if you might know where she is."

"Why don't you just storm all of them?" I asked what I thought was an obvious question.

"Well, at this point, we don't really have much choice. It looks like will have to do exactly that. But we really don't want to. It's very high risk, with massive chance for unexpected results. It requires almost perfect organization. You have to hit them all at exactly the same time, and basically get through each house at the same time. If one takes longer to get into and has more resistance, they are on the phone to the other places. Plus, if we don't find her immediately, then they'll have enough time to get rid of her. Trust me, they'll have a plan to make her disappear at the drop of a hat. That'll make this entire investigation for nothing."

The frustration in his voice was tangible.

"I was against bringing your little band of hookers into this in the first place," he said, directly to Dermot's face, "and now your little band of amateurs has really fucked things up. I'm very pissed, - we all are – but we have to clean up your mess now."

Dermot ignored this, turned to April and me and said, "As you can tell dear, tensions are a bit high here. Hello Thomas, nice to see you again, although I wish it wasn't under these circumstances."

I was staring at the maps on the walls, and realized he was talking to me. "Oh yes, glad to see you too, Dermot."

"Get these idiots out of here Roman. And you..."said agent Trubas, looking right at me, "You go back to your little cave and you fucking stay there, right? There are people looking for you and if they find you, it'll go worse for you. If stick your head out and they don't take you apart, I will. We'll deal with this. You just stay out of our way. Before you go, take this..."

He thrust out his card to me, and I took it.

"If you see anyone, or hear anything, you call ME, ok? I want to hear it." He put special emphasis on the word "me".

"But, I don't really want to hear from you at all unless you do see something. Capiche?"

His attention was already focused back at the main table, with its documents strewn around, not at me. I'd been dismissed.

I looked back to the maps, trying to memorize them, even as we were hustled out of the room. I knew how to find her, if only she remembered the story I had told her. And if she had access to a toilet. I just needed to get back to my tunnel apartment and start looking, and thanks to the FBI, I knew where to start.

I didn't say anything to April. If I had, she'd have just told Dermot, and he'd have told the FBI and then they'd have gotten on my case, and I – and Megan – didn't need that. I just needed to work alone. I knew I could find her, if she remembered my story. I needed to do it. I even had a few ideas about what to do if I did find her.

The immediate problem though, was to get back to my little office/apartment in the tunnels, and not be seen doing so. From what the FBI had said, I had little doubt it was being watched. But, as with most things, the people watching it would not really be thinking about what it really entailed. The apartment was part of the tunnels. Tunnels. Which, by definition, led somewhere.

All I really had to do was get in the tunnels elsewhere, where no one was watching, and I could make my way to the apartment through those tunnels, and those watching above ground would have no idea I was there. I was assuming they hadn't actually stashed someone in the apartment itself, like they did in the movie 'Pulp Fiction'. I had to hope they hadn't. I had to get into the apartment – or at least the storage in the cabinets stashed outside – because that's where my portable SRI gas chromatograph machine was stored. And it was custom made – all the chromatograph machines made by SRI were custom, so its not like I could just stop by Best Buy and pick up another one. Plus, there were some other things stored in the storage room outside my apartment that I'd need. In all honestly, that's what the apartment really was meant to be – storage rooms for stuff used in the tunnels. It was only really converted to an apartment by my predecessor. But some of the rooms were still storage – for stuff the EPA uses, things I used in my work, and some storage of items that other people who occasionally used the tunnels required. The University of Boston for example. They constantly had gaggles of students in the tunnels, doing research of some sort or another. We'd given them one corner of a storage room to stash stuff they used frequently; stuff that was cumbersome to pull up and down the stairwells that led down to my little domain. And I would need some of that stuff, if my plan to find Megan worked. So either way, I needed access to my apartment. And I had to hope they hadn't left someone in there, because if they had ... well, I had no idea what I'd do.

But first, I had to get there. I know I've given the impression that everything that happens around the Boston tunnel system is built around my little apartment, but that's not even close to the truth. I'm not the only employee that runs around in the tunnels – there are quite a few others, and they are based at various depot locations around the city. We have vans, stashed with equipment for us to go down into the tunnels – some are even portable labs. They have hazmat suits, little powered winches, generators for lighting, ladders, all the stuff you'd need to go and work in the tunnels.

I didn't spend much time at these depots but I knew them and had a passing acquaintance with some of the people working at them. So off I went to the one nearest my place. I got April to drop me off, after she'd checked us into some safe house the FBI had set up for us. Far too dangerous for us to check into a hotel in Boston – they'd be looking for us there. When she asked what I had planned, I mentioned I needed to check into work, and this was the safest way to do it. I told her I'd make my own way to the safe house later – that I couldn't just sit around and wait for the FBI to maybe, perhaps, possibly do something. I needed something to do in the meantime, and maybe trumping around in the tunnels was that thing. It wasn't completely a lie either. I had learned something from Megan and April about telling a fiction based on fact.

She sat in the car, looking at me suspiciously. I could see her debating with herself about what to do and in the end she just shrugged and told me to be careful, and then drove off.

I signed in to the local depot and then signed out a van – no one cared what I was doing there, or that I was on sabbatical. Only my boss knew that anyway, and no one at the office would even consider calling him. Why would they?. I made sure the van was equipped with sample taking equipment. I then drove it to a road junction that was close to where my apartment was, but still several streets away. No point in taking risks for the sake of it.

I clambered out of the van, parked on the edge of the road, then put up my cones and work horses around the drain – I wasn't too worried, because it was a wide two lane road, and the manhole cover was in the middle of the junction, so it wasn't too hard for cars to go around it, and wouldn't disrupt the flow too much. I then levered up the manhole cover – which is harder than it sounds. Those things are heavy and designed to not come up unless you have the right tools. Once that was done, I put on a hazmat suit and clambered my way down. There was a handhold metal ladder built into the edge of the hole making it easy-ish to go down.

It took me about thirty minutes of swishing through the crap in the tunnels to get to my apartment, and while I was on my way, I couldn't help but notice the levels were slightly higher than they should be. There was a blockage somewhere and I knew that once this was over, I'd have to look into that.

Once I got to the apartment, I debated going in. I didn't actually need to – everything I needed was just outside in the storage rooms. And if I was quiet, even if there was someone waiting in my place, they would never know I was there. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, I did my best to be as quiet as possible. Luckily the locks on the door were combination locks, so keys weren't required.

It took me two trips to get what I needed – the chromatograph and the other stuff. The other stuff – tanks and the pump – were awkward to move through the tunnels, but I got it done. It took a couple of hours, but it was worth it. I was ready to start the search.

I debated going back to the safe house for a shower, since even though I'd been wearing the hazmat suit, I was pretty sure I still stunk. Running around the sewers and carrying heavy stuff for two hours will do that. But then I decided not to. Megan was depending on me. I needed to see if I could figure out where she was as soon as possible.

For the next three hours, I drove around the city, stopping at drain entrances relatively close to each of the houses marked on the FBI maps, and taking samples, to see what I could find using my portable chromatograph. I made sure the manhole covers I chose were far enough away from the houses that I wouldn't be seen. This would give me the chance to move closer to the houses if I found anything. I would track it back, take other samples and be sure it was coming from one of those houses. I couldn't pinpoint the exact house, because the way drainage is set up, multiple houses share the same pipe, that leads to the larger pipe, that then combines to larger pipes and so on. Where I was looking, I couldn't really go deep into the tunnels because the pipes were too small, with radius of barely two feet. I could get in there, but I would have to be on one of the small-wheeled platforms we use to navigate those tunnels. No opportunity to turn around, and if there was a lot of shit in the tunnels, you were Shit Out Of Luck. That's tunnel humor. I know, not that funny.

It took me four stops before I hit paydirt. I found Ammonia Hydroxide in the samples. There's no reason why that should be there, and to be sure, I moved the van slightly closer to the row of houses, to confirm that the concentrations of Ammonia Hydroxide were getting higher, so I could be sure that what I was tracking really did come from those houses. It did.