GOING UNDERGROUND

'I THINK I might know a way.'

Purna and Sam looked at Xian Mei. Once again, they had parked in the car park at the back of the supermarket, having needed to find somewhere quiet where they could talk over what to do.

In the back of his mind, Sam had been worried that Purna might take the hard line, dismissing Jin as a casualty of war and proclaiming that, though the situation was regrettable, it was not worth risking all their lives simply to rescue a girl who was not even prepared to handle a weapon.

However, he had underestimated her. Unless she had some ulterior motive (the stash of weapons in the armoury maybe?), she wasn't entirely the hard-nosed pragmatist he had taken her for.

True, she had told them earlier that she had joined the police force because she wanted to help people who couldn't help themselves, but Sam had assumed her noble aspirations had waned in the wake of her dismissal from the force and the general disillusionment with life that she had suffered since.

It was good, therefore, to see her so outraged, so impassioned, so concerned for Jin's fate.

'We've got to get her out of there,' she had said. 'If those fucking animals harm her I'll never forgive myself.'

When Xian Mei said she thought she might know a way to get into the police station, Purna leaned forward eagerly.

'How?'

'In the hotel where I worked,' Xian Mei said, 'there was an old sewer outlet in the basement laundry.

Someone told me that the tunnels ran right under the main street, and that at one time you could gain access to every building from below if you wanted to.'

'At one time?' repeated Purna. 'You mean you can't anymore?'

Xian Mei shrugged. 'I don't know. I'm not an expert. But this is the old sewer system we're talking about.

I guess whoever's in charge of these things eventually decided it was unsanitary to have sewage constantly flowing directly underneath people's homes and either diverted the flow or built an entirely new system.

It could be that the old tunnels are impassable now. They could have been blocked up or the access to certain buildings might have been sealed.

There have been a lot of renovations to some of the buildings over the years. Extensions, new walls and floors, maybe even new foundations in some cases …'

'It's worth a try, though,' Purna said. 'The vulnerable parts of buildings are always either above or below.

And unless you can climb walls like Spiderman or you've got access to a helicopter …'

She let her words hang in the air. Sam nodded. 'Let's do it.'

'We might be able to gain access from the supermarket,' Xian Mei said. 'We should look for the lowest point.'

It took them less than five minutes to find what they were looking for.

The warehouse floor was concrete, but inside the supermarket itself they found a fire exit tucked away behind the frozen foods section.

Beyond this was a short corridor leading to a door that led outside and a set of stone steps to a basement area, which had not been used in a long time, except as a dumping ground for some old and rusting shelf fixtures.

A couple of minutes' searching resulted in the discovery of a circular iron manhole cover in the corner of the stone floor, crusted with moss and gunge.

Sam tried to lift it, but it was fixed solid. 'We need something to lever it up,' he said.

Xian Mei walked over to the shelf fixtures and dragged out a meter-long V-shaped metal bracket. 'What about this?'

'Perfect,' said Sam. 'There any more of those in there?'

Xian Mei found another two, and they set to work, first scraping away as much of the slime and moss as they could from around the rim of the manhole cover, then ramming the metal edges of the brackets into the thin gap between cover and floor and applying their collective weight to the other ends.

After ten seconds, there was a creaking groan and the manhole cover started to rise. As the gap widened, they rammed their brackets in further to gain more purchase, and suddenly the cover tilted up and over like a hinged lid, clanging to the ground with such force that Xian Mei had to jump out of the way to prevent her foot getting crushed.

They all recoiled from the fetid smell that rolled up from the hole in the floor. 'Jeez!' Sam exclaimed, clamping a hand over his nose and mouth. 'You think any of those things are down there?'

'Don't see how they'd get down there, or why they'd want to,' said Purna. 'They only tend to go where the fresh meat is.'

They peered into the hole, but it was pitch-black. 'Anyone got a flashlight?' asked Sam.

Purna pulled a face and shook her head. 'They'll probably have them in the store upstairs. Damn, I should have thought of that.'

'Don't beat yourself up about it,' Sam said. 'You can't think of everything. I'll go get one. Be right back.'

'Don't say that,' said Purna.

Sam raised his eyebrows. 'Why not?'

'Because that's what they

always say in horror movies just before …' She made a sharp *crrrk* sound and drew a finger swiftly across her throat.