Chapter 5 #4
Thankfully, most of the collapsed section was several feet away. Small chunks of concrete had fallen on top of them randomly so they’d just end up with just some minor bruises.
“No,” she responded. “Jimmy?” she called out to her partner in crime.
Beckett heard some muffled sounds a few feet away and hurried over to help the guy. A slab of the concrete wall had fallen on top of him. He was lying face up, features contorted with pain.
“Fuck!” Beckett bent down, placing his hands under the slab, and tried to shift it, but it didn’t move. “Can you breathe?”
The man nodded in response but didn’t speak.
“Thérault! Thérault! Come in goddammit!” The radio in his back pocket suddenly came to life. He heard that brief exclamation from Hayes then nothing but static. Beckett gave it a whack against his leg to knock off the dirt.
“We’re alive,” he responded, as he moved around the trapped thief to try another way to move the slab. The woman was crouched near Jimmy’s head, talking to him soothingly. She’d started crying again. Oh, joy.
“Piece of the tunnel fell on one of the perps. I’m gonna need a little help,” Beckett said as he took a deep breath and looked around.
Lighting down here sucked, so nothing new there.
The passageway was littered with debris.
He could see only a few feet in the direction he’d come from originally.
He turned to see if he’d be able to go the other way, but the tunnel had collapsed there as well.
“Roger that, Thérault. Rescue team is working on stabilizing the tunnel right now—we’ll be digging you out in a few.” The voice was unrecognizable and could barely be heard over the static.
“Roger that,” he said, because what the hell else was he gonna say?
He pushed the radio back into his pocket and searched in vain for something he could use to lift the slab.
“Alright, Suzy—I’m gonna need you to help me out,” he said, seeing no alternative but to get her to pitch in.
“How?” she asked, clambering to her feet.
“We’re gonna try and lift it off,” he told her, with all the confidence he could muster.
“What?” she asked, sounding puzzled.
“Listen, pretty soon he’s not going to be able to breathe.
We have to slip him out from under it. At least partially.
” There was a fair chance that while they struggled to lift it, Jimmy might manage to maneuver himself at least some of the way out from under it before they dropped the damned thing.
If that happened, the concrete slab might crush his limbs in the process.
Wisely, Beckett chose to keep that information to himself.
“Come on,” he said, gesturing towards the opposite corner of the slab. Suzy made her way over, tears still running down her face. Her hands were still zip-tied behind her back, so he got out his switchblade and cut the ties.
“Alright—when I say go, you lift up. Jimmy, you’ll have—just a few seconds to get yourself free, got it?” he told the trapped man whose eyes were wide with fear, but to his credit, he gave a quick nod.
Beckett bent his knees and grabbed the underside of the slab. Suzy mimicked his actions. He looked at her and smiled encouragingly.
“Ready?” he asked her.
“Yes.”
“One, two, three, go!” He strained every muscle in his body to lift the slab. To his absolute amazement, they managed to lift it about an inch, which was just enough for Jimmy to start sliding out from under it.
“I can’t—” Suzy said a second or two later, her entire body shaking with the effort of holding up her side of the slab.
“Move it, Jimmy!” he yelled at Jimmy as he kept trying to wiggle free.
“I’m gonna drop it!” Suzy screamed one second before she lost her grip on the slab. There was no way for Beckett to hold it up all by himself. As soon as Suzy let go, he was forced to do the same, sending the slab crashing to the ground, just as Jimmy scooted away from the damned thing.
“Fuck!” Jimmy cursed weakly as he pressed himself against the opposite wall of the tunnel. He looked a tad worse for the wear—the bullet wound had started bleeding again, and his shirt was in tatters.
“Are you still in one piece?” Beckett asked.
“I think I broke some ribs,” he said, as he pressed a hand to his chest and winced with every breath.
“D’you think it was the giant rock that fell on you or—?” Beckett teased. Jimmy did not look amused.
“Now what?” she asked.
He’d freed her hands so she’d be able to help him, so he stumbled over and without any warning, fastened a new zip tie around them.
“Really?” She looked at him like he was crazy. “We’re in a fucking tunnel with no exit!”
“Like that would stop you from knocking me out and trying to make a run for it,” Beckett responded with a snort. He sat down on one of the stone slabs. It was warm in the tunnel—far warmer than it should have been in December.
“What happened?” Jimmy asked.
“You don’t remember?” the woman asked, startled.
Jimmy hesitated, scratching the top of his head.
Beckett decided to jump in at this point and provide some “helpful” information.
“Your name is Deborah—you’re a nun on the run—you met Suzy here last year, and you both decided to run away and start an excavation business together. We were working on excavating the local YMCA’s sex dungeon when the structure collapsed.”
“What the fuck?” he exclaimed, frowning at Beckett. “I’m not that confused!”
“Ah—so you do remember the nunnery!”
Jimmy ignored him and turned to look at the female thief.
“I thought he said the tunnels were safe,” he told her.
She shrugged helplessly.
“Not like he built them—they’re really old. Maybe the structure had some issues and when we dug—”
“Dug?” Beckett asked, interrupting her. “What do you mean, dug?”
The woman seemed reluctant to respond, but Jimmy looked as if he didn’t care what happened to him now. He was either resigned to his fate or plain stupid.
“The tunnel used to lead to an old bowling alley—but it closed a few years ago. The owner got bought out by a Chinese restaurant chain, and the original entrance was blocked off during remodeling. We had to dig a new one in the basement of the new business.”
“Wait—so, you dumb-fucking geniuses, built a new entrance to a hundred-year-old secret tunnel? No fucking wonder the ceiling fell on us!”
“Calm down,” the woman snapped at Beckett. “It was a tiny hole—like three feet wide, it didn’t—”
She didn’t finish because the ground began to shake again.
“Shit! Brace yourself!” Beckett yelled, as he helped Jimmy stand up and she supported him from the other side.
The shaking lasted a few seconds. At first, nothing happened, but then as the tremors ceased, a whole section of the wall to his right began to crumble.
By sheer luck, Beckett managed to maneuver himself, along with his two wards, to the left side to avoid getting hurt.
Dust filled the tunnel immediately thereafter and Beckett called out a warning that they needed to stop breathing until the dust settled.
After a minute or two, he could see that most of the tunnel was still intact, although the wall to their right had lost a significant portion of its smooth concrete facade.
The wall behind it was built with rough, crudely carved stonework.
“Everyone alright?” Beckett asked as he held his t-shirt over his face.
“It didn’t feel the same that time,” Suzy commented, clearly shaken up.
There was a burst of static from the radio in his back pocket and Beckett reached for it with his free hand. “Beckett?” He could tell from Hayes’ anxious tone that he was too distraught to bother with codenames.
“Still kicking, still handsome,” Beckett reassured him. “Everyone else is okay, too.”
“Good,” Hayes said briskly. “Part of the road behind the school has collapsed—probably over top of the tunnel,” Hayes explained coldly, as if this situation was doing nothing but pissing him off.
“Any chance we’re getting out soon? Call me a spoiled little princess, but I’m not keen on live burials!
” He laughed, trying to keep things light.
As he spoke, he moved towards the part of the wall that had fallen.
He ran his hands along the side and peered a little closer, finding several seams in the wall.
“Unclear,” Hayes responded tersely.
Beckett pitied those stuck working with Hayes right now. His boyfriend wasn’t known for his sunny disposition when someone he loved—aka, Beckett—was in danger.
“If it’ll get the brass moving faster, I technically shot one of the perps—and he’s technically still bleeding,” Beckett said. He was pretty sure Jimmy wouldn’t die from the bullet wound—but—
“Agent Thérault, come again?” Agent Cho snarled, nowhere near being as pleasant as Hayes.
“There was a bit of a—bullet brawl, and I may or may not have shot one of the perps. It’s a flesh wound, and he’s not like—dying, and it looks as if he broke a few ribs when part of the ceiling fell on him, so you know—if you want him alive—well, let’s just say the cat’s running out of lives,” Beckett explained rather distractedly.
He could definitely feel a seam in the rock, like someone had cut into the rock to make a door or—
“You said they were fine!” Agent Cho exclaimed angrily.
“Yeah—fine, as in—alive and not actually dying! At least, not for the time being!”
He had a sudden visual of her losing her shit, and couldn’t help but laugh.
“Pack the wound and stop the bleeding as much as possible. We’re working our way to you,” she barked, sounding like a drill sergeant.
“Roger that,” Beckett responded automatically, then cut the connection.
“Can’t they just—break down the wall?” Suzy complained as she grew increasingly alarmed.
Beckett thought she had good reason to be worried. The dust had settled, but it smelled like mold and death in the confined space, which did nothing to ease his sense of impending doom.