Page 54 of Sinner's Salvation

“Anna,” Evan said, using a tone that was harsher than any he’d used with her. “Let go. I can distract them.”

“No,” she said, in a tone that clearly indicated she thought he was an idiot.

The growing quiet was suddenly broken by excited voices coming down onto the platform. A lot of excited voices, and the language they were speaking wasn’t English. It was Mandarin.

A couple of seconds later, several streams of Asian people, each led by one person holding a pole with different color flags on them, threaded their way through the crowd. They took pictures of everything, and several of them rushed the police officers, posing next to and in front of them, while others took their pictures.

Several of them had clusters of helium balloons in their hands, but when they saw the police in uniform, they clapped in excitement, their balloons floating upward to the ceiling.

There were so many, the police came to a complete stop, and started shouting at them to move out of the way, but it didn’t accomplish anything.

Anna tugged on Evan’s hand, pulling him along as Baz walked right up to the wall at the end of the platform and jumped down next to the tracks. He moved off into the darkness of the tunnel.

Evan and Anna followed Brian, and they hurried to catch up to Baz and Nika.

In front of them, the sound of an approaching train made Evan more than a little concerned they were about to get flattened.

“Um, Baz,” Brian shouted, his voice tight.

Baz hopped up on a lip of cement along the edge of the tunnel and opened a small metal panel installed in the wall. He did something inside it, and a door popped open. He pushed it open and went through it.

“Oh, thank God,” Brian said, running to go through the door.

Anna and Evan were right behind him. The oncoming train swept by a couple of seconds later.

Evan closed the door, which clicked when it was flush with the wall. It didn’t have a doorknob. It was completely controlled by the panels on the walls.

There wasn’t a lot of light, just a couple of yellow emergency lights spaced out along the top of the wall.

“What is this?” Brian asked. “Another secret escape route?”

“Why are you surprised?” Nika asked. “You’ve known Yvgeny long enough to know he’s just a little bit paranoid.”

“This is the subway. He would have had to have been here when it was being built to create something like this.” Brian stopped talking just long enough to think it through. “Shit, hewashere when it was being built.”

“You have a secret lair?” Evan asked, shaking his head. “Do you have a superhero name too?”

Baz grinned. “Yeah, I’m The Asshole.”

Evan laughed out loud.

“Come on,” Baz said. “It’s a few blocks to the hotel from here.”

They walked down the dimly lit tunnel until they reached a fork in it.

Baz pointed left. “Go that way and you’ll end up at the docks near the ferry terminal.” He gestured to the right. “This way goes deeper into Manhattan. There are a couple of other exits besides the hotel.” He took the right-hand tunnel.

“The city has no idea these tunnels are here?” Nika asked.

“They might show up on some older blueprints,” Baz said. “I’ve seen the ones the city has on their computers. This set of tunnels isn’t on them.”

“How did you manage to do that?” Nika asked.

“Yvgeny.” Baz pulled her closer and whispered in her ear.

Evan frowned and examined the walls, looking for any evidence of cameras or anything like another doorway.

“What is it?” Anna asked.

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