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of a chest X-ray.’
    ‘Twenty-four hours until the chopper picks us up.’
    ‘We should be okay if we stay below ground.’
    ‘We’re on our way down.’
    ‘Ten-four,’ said Nariko.
    The elevator hummed and rattled. The floor indicator counted down from
6
to
Sub.
    Lupe and Galloway slowly descended into view.
    Nariko pulled back the rusted gate. Metal shriek.
    Jab with the shotgun barrel.
    ‘Move.’
    Lupe shuffled out into the ticket hall. Her ankle shackle forced baby steps.
    ‘Stand still, both of you,’ said Cloke.
    He hosed them head to toe.
    ‘All right,’ said Nariko. ‘You can take off your masks.’
    Galloway pulled back his rubber hood and peeled off his respirator.
    Nariko loosened head harness straps and removed Lupe’s mask.
    ‘How you doing?’ asked Nariko.
    Lupe held out her hands.
    ‘You folks going to uncuff me, or what? I got nowhere to run.’
    Galloway unzipped his NBC suit. His armpits were blotched dark with sweat. He unclipped cuff keys from a belt ring. He threw them to Nariko.
    Nariko released Lupe’s shackles. Galloway stood back, shotgun raised.
    ‘Pull any shit, I’ll blow your fucking legs off.’
    Lupe stretched, slow and defiant. She looked around.
    ‘Take off your gear,’ said Galloway.
    ‘Freezing in here.’
    ‘Take it off.’
    Lupe unzipped the heavy rubber suit and stepped out of the overboots.
    ‘Hold out your hands.’
    ‘What the fuck, dude?’ protested Lupe.
    ‘I said hold out your hands.’
    Nariko re-cuffed Lupe’s wrists. She looped a chain round a pillar and padlocked Lupe’s ankle.
    ‘Down,’ said Galloway. He prodded her shoulder with the shotgun barrel. ‘Down on the ground.’
    Lupe sat cross-legged on the floor.
    ‘There’ll be no warning shot, all right? If you mess with me, I’ll waste you.’
    The freight platform juddered back into view. Donahue and Tombes. Quick decon drill. They stripped off their suits.
    They both wore RESCUE 4 – TUNNEL RATS shirts.
    They struck a fresh flare and unloaded the elevator. A pallet of holdalls and equipment trunks. Rescue gear, trauma bags, coils of polypropylene rope. They threw them skidding across the floor.
    Lupe sat with her back to the pillar and watched them work.
    ‘Anyone got a smoke?’
    They ignored her.
    ‘Give me a drink, at least.’
    Nariko crouched beside Lupe. She held bottled water to her lips. Lupe swigged.
    ‘So how about it?’ asked Nariko, gesturing to the cavernous shadows of the ticket hall. ‘Where is he? Where’s Doctor Ekks?’

13
    Radio crackle. Cloke’s voice:
    ‘Anything?’
    A light-dome on the ceiling flickered and glowed weak orange. A cluster of sodium bulbs behind an opaque bowl of leaded glass.
    ‘Yeah,’ said Nariko. ‘We’ve got light.’
    She looked around the ticket hall. Palatial dereliction. Cracked tiles. Scuffed dirt. Broken glass. Arch spans draped with a delicate lacework of dust and webs. Ghosts of the jazz age. Plutocrats at the height of their reign. Astors, Morgans, Vanderbilts.
    The superintendent’s office.
    Nariko shook open a five borough street map and smoothed it over the table.
    She blew to warm her hands. Steam breath. She was wearing her Nomex turnout coat, black with hi-viz trim, collar raised against the cold.
    ‘So where the hell is Ekks?’ asked Nariko. ‘He should be right here. We made brief contact just before the bomb dropped. There wasn’t time to organise an airlift. So we told them to stay below ground, get as deep as they could. Ride out the blast and wait for the rescue party.’
    ‘Doesn’t make sense,’ agreed Cloke. ‘There’s no way off the island.’
    ‘How about the Battery Tunnel?’ asked Nariko.
    ‘Battery. Holland. Almost certainly ruptured and flooded.’
    ‘The Marina?’
    ‘Forget it. Anyone with a yacht or sports fisher took off months ago. Packed a couple of suitcases and sailed south, soon as the outbreak began. Must have looked like a big-ass regatta, all those rich fucks heading for the