The Accident Man

A dozen paces down the tu

There was no one there. In front of Carver stretched another, much bigger tu

Carver stepped back into the cross tu

Up ahead, a massive pipe hung from the ceiling, banded with striped warning tape to prevent people from banging their heads. Beyond it was another junction, where the tu

Carver went on, shifting the dazzler beam forward and back, listening intently for any sound of human movement. He almost fell into the huge open space at the end of the tu

He shone the dazzler back the way he had come. No one there. He turned again, hands together, stepped out into the space, and… nothing, just a cavernous emptiness. He stepped forward a few more paces. The beam of the dazzler caught a vast black ball in its alcove and the splintered body of a half-open red wooden door, through which Carver could see stairs curving up to ground level. That was how his enemy had got in, but where the hell were they?

Carver stepped forward, stopped, then began a slow, deliberate rotation, sweeping the whole space with light, his gun following the dazzler all the way. He was halfway around when he heard a grunt behind him, a human sound, like a weightlifter struggling to shift a massive load. It was immediately followed by the creaking of wood under pressure. Carver spun around just as the massive spherical mass came free from its housing and started rolling toward him. He fired four shots straight at the giant black ball, but the bullets ricocheted off the wood, leaving barely a mark on the rock-hard surface, the reverberating gunfire mixing with the deep, hard rumble of the ball against the concrete.

He turned to run back toward the mouth of the narrow tu

Frantically, he started ru

He reckoned the tu

Carver looked left and saw a faint flashlight beam emerging from the darkness. It was sweeping from side to side as the man behind it searched for him. He turned toward the opening of the other tu

He could still make this work. He turned again, reached for the wall, and ran on into the blackness.

Kursk was on the offensive. He had forced his enemy to retreat and smashed his most important weapon. Without the dazzler to light up his target, the Englishman’s gun was far less of a threat. Now Kursk had to press home his advantage.

He had gone no more than five paces down the other tu

Kursk flung himself to the ground as three bullets ricocheted off the walls around him. The moment he hit the ground, he switched off the flashlight, making himself invisible again.

He heard the Englishman’s footsteps moving away from him, fast. Kursk turned the flashlight back on and kept going to the end of the tu

Ahead on the right, Kursk could see the arch of another tu

As the echoes of gunfire faded away, Kursk thought he could hear something over the sound of water: a scuffling movement in the darkness, then a louder bang and a muffled curse. It was all he could do not to laugh. The poor bastard had bumped into something, trying to run away in the dark.

Okay, time to see where the Englishman was hiding. Kursk got to his feet, then sprinted back across the open archway, holding his gun away from him, so that anyone aiming at the flashlight would not hit him. This time, he looked down the tu

He switched off the flashlight. Now they were both blind. He slipped to the floor and slid on his belly to the center of the archway. Then he moved forward until he could feel the surface beneath him change from concrete to metal. A blast of chill, damp, fetid air hit him from the sewage water racing beneath him. He reached forward and felt the first wire, as taut as the guy rope of a tent, holding a Plexiglas display case in place. Slowly, silently, he slithered underneath the case, making his way through the tangle of wire securing it to the floor.

When he came out the other side, into the gap between the cases, he paused, listening for any sound of the Englishman. Where had the bastard gone? Kursk darted his head from side to side, cocking his ear, suddenly nervous that the Englishman was nearby. The two men could be centimeters apart. With the darkness, and the noise and smell of the water, they’d never know it. He willed himself to wait, be patient. This was a matter of who lost their nerve and made the move that gave away their position.