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the tunnel there, under the bay, his Gets would be well hidden from us."
"I saw a documentary on how they built these tunnels," Indigo said. "They
actually built large tubes down in Baltimore, floated them up the harbor, and
sank them to make these tunnels. It seemed like an insane way of doing it to
me."
"The transmitter's particle tubes need precision you're not going to get
tunneling through rock."
Rennie tapped the map at VB6. "But there were no Ontongard with Ice at this
building."
"If it's number six," Atticus said, "there's at least five others."
"One on each end of the tunnel." Kyle spoke without looking up, searching
through files on his laptop.
"So what if, knowing that he couldn't get Loo-ae into this building" Atticus
pointed to the far end of the Ted Williams Tunnel "he put it in this one and
counted on the poison being sucked through?"
Rennie went still, but Atticus could feel him expanding outward, becoming all
of the Pack, tapping their memories. "That peninsula is all man-made land in
the last few decades. We forget it's there.
They made it to build Logan Airport. We've always had little need for planes.
Wolves are meant to run on the ground. None of us have been out to that part
of the city."
"So they've hidden the control center someplace out here." Atticus ran his
finger along the runnel and up to the man-made land. "We need to find it and
destroy it."
"In a nutshell, yes," Shaw said. "One very big and hard nutshell and the clock
is ticking."
Kyle made a noise of frustration. "There's a ton of info on the Big Dig, but
for as-built drawings and actual information on access doors and security
protocols and locations of cameras . . . we're talking hours for me to get
anywhere."
"Then let's go to the source." Ru grinned. "DEA with FBI backup? We can glide
into anything tonight."
***
Operations Control Center, nicknamed OCC, was in South Boston. Flashing
badges, his team and Indigo bullied their way into the building, sans any of
the Pack but only after being sure it was innocent of Ontongard. The bulk of
the building was dedicated to keeping watch over the intricate roadway. In one
huge room, employees sat bathed in the glow from over a hundred monitors,
dominated by blue images of light gleaming off ceramic tiles lining miles of
tunnels. It felt like walking into a missile command center. It was running on
a skeleton shift of three employees.
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"I don't understand," the nominal supervisor stuttered as Kyle made nice with
the two techno geeks. "What exactly is the nature of this alleged emergency?"
Obviously this guy was in charge because he had a degree in political babble.
"We've been dealing with a dangerous religious cult, the Temple of New
Reason." Ru wove his half-truths. "We believe they're linked with the bombings
that took place earlier today. We've learned they might have plans to attack
the tunnel system."
The man gasped and waved toward a bank of monitors, all of which seemed to be
dead. "The camera system on the ventilation buildings went out this morning.
We've been running diagnostics on it all day. It looks like some kind of
virus."
"There's a possibility, then, that they've gotten into the maintenance access
areas," Ru said, as if he knew for certain there were such things.
"We've pulled together some undercover agents who are familiar with the MO of
these perps,"
Atticus said, using copspeak to confuse. "I'm going to lead a team of them to
sweep for signs of forced entry and sabotage. We're going to need your full
cooperation."
"Yes, of course."
Kyle held out a headset to Atticus. "Here, this is ready to go. I've added a
low-light camera to our two-way radio, in case I need to see what you're
looking at."
Atticus clipped the headset onto his ear.
Indigo took a sharp breath, but said nothing.
What was that about? No time to ask, though.
Ru walked him to the door, murmuring, "I still say I should come with you."
"Ru, if these were humans, I'd want you with me. But these monsters it's like
trying to stop floodwaters with bullets. You'll be in over your head and dead
without making a scratch on them."
Ru looked away so Atticus couldn't read any hurt or resentment on his face.
"Ru, you're a last line of defense here. I think Indigo kept silent all this
time about what she knows because of my brother, but I don't want to count on
her alerting the right people if the shit hits the fan. Kyle wouldn't be able
to do it. You'd be able to make people listen to you."
Ru looked at him then, eyes full of pain.
"Besides," Atticus forced himself to joke, "you know how Kyle is at giving
directions."
And Ru forced himself to smile. "Yeah, there is that."
***
They avoided the Ted Williams Tunnel so as not to give warning to their
approach, instead going the long way around the bay. The Pack raced before him
on motorcycles, like hounds before the hunter, while Ru murmured in his ear.
"OSHA inspections got to love them. Apparently our friends haven't been able
to infiltrate them or block them, so the inspectors had full access to the
construction site. After every inspection, new areas are added onto the
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