23. Chapter Twenty-Three #2
“What else do you have in the back?”
“The usual. Car jack, screwdrivers, hammer, pliers, box cutter.”
“A torch?”
“Sure.”
“Good. Go and fetch that, and if you have a penknife, that might come in handy.”
“Nothing else?”
“No.”
Coleman returns shortly after, holding out the two items to me.
He also sports a small backpack that he tells me has helpful items like water, snacks and waterproofs in case we are going to be out for some time.
The penknife is a solid, multipurpose Swiss Army knife, while the torch is a heavy-duty rubber one.
Out of habit, I check to confirm there’s a solid beam.
I notice Coleman digging into his rucksack for something.
“Do you want this?”
I gawp when he brings out a small device that looks like another torch. But I recognise the design.
“Coleman. What the fuck are you doing with a mini Taser?”
“Self-defence. You can never be too careful. I call her Honey, ’cause she stings like a bee. Beautiful, eh? Brought this baby back from the States.”
“You do know they’re illegal over here, don’t you?” I say, and wait until he pushes the device beneath his shirt, into the waistband of his trousers. “Better still, why don’t you wait by the car for me to return. Or call it in, in case I don’t. I shouldn’t be more than an hour.”
“Hell, no. I’ve come this far. Besides, I’m supposed to be taking photos of the grounds for your scrapbook. Or whatever.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure, I’m sure,” he says, strapping on the backpack. “You’re not having all the fun.”
“Follow me, then.”
I search a few hundred yards to our right, skirting clumps of thick gorse bushes hugging the fence, until I reach a post that has a barely visible white rim around the base.
The sight is distantly familiar, another gentle nudge telling me that I am on the right track.
I stop to check my bearings and notice Coleman has followed me, looking understandably bemused but snapping photos.
Using the post as my guide, I back up five steps from the fence until I feel a metal plate beneath my trainers.
“Give me a hand,” I say, kneeling to the ground.
Although weeds have grown over the cover, there are two weathered rings attached and, with Coleman’s help, we lift the heavy plate.
A square cavity of industrial concrete is revealed.
Earthen odours rise from within and a metal ladder leads down into darkness.
“There may be residual rainwater at the bottom, but it shouldn’t be deep,” I tell Coleman.
I lead the way, climbing carefully down the cold, damp metal rungs, using daylight to guide me, until my foot lands in shallow water.
Only then, once I’ve taken a few steps into the tunnel, do I turn on the torch.
I hear Coleman behind me, muttering an expletive as his foot splashes into the water.
The tunnel is straight and narrow, built from precast concrete slabs.
I shine the light ahead and tread forward carefully.
After around five minutes, the ground begins to slope gently upwards.
The tunnel ends with another set of metal rungs leading up to a metal hatch.
I pass the torch to Coleman and climb to the top.
“Keep the beam on me. If my memory serves me correctly, we’ll come out into an old storehouse with no windows. We’ll need the light to find our way out.
When I reach the top and push, I’m relieved when the covering opens after a couple of shoves. Up until that point, everything has felt familiar, everything but emerging into daylight.
“This hatch used to be housed in the floor of a storeroom,” I say, partly to myself and partly to Coleman, whose footsteps I hear on the rungs.
Once I’ve climbed out, I see what’s happened.
The ground is still tiled in nondescript grey industrial square ceramics, with weeds growing through the cracks, but a few random bricks are all that remain of the walls.
Everything else has been knocked down and cleaned away.
As I move forward to where the door would have been, I see further evidence of dwellings that have been demolished.
I sense Coleman come to stand next to me.
“Are you telling me you could have escaped this place at any time?”
“Escaped to where?” I answer. “This was the only home I would have known. According to Leblanc, whenever we went on assignment, we were conditioned to return here.”
“Fair point.”
“Only the Knights were told about the tunnel. If we needed to slip in late at night, rather than disturb security guards at the front gate, that’s what we used.”
Coleman walks over to a corner of the building where a section of the wall is still shin-high.
After checking the bricks for stability, he jumps up and starts inspecting the area, snapping more photos.
From my vantage point, all I can see are similar tiled areas stretching over the length of seven or eight football pitches upon which now-demolished buildings used to stand.
The only structures still standing are a large water tower painted sage green to blend into the landscape and a similarly camouflaged single-storey arrangement of modular buildings used by command.