Tunnels 04, Closer

carpet had been removed from the entrance lobby, leaving just bare concrete. As they went further in, their Berettas held in front of them, they found the floor of the main room was exactly the same. "He's done a runner, and taken it all with him," Drake said in a low voice. The room was a bare shell -- the table with the Waterloo battle scene, the bank of CCTV monitors, every stick of furniture, and even the wallpaper, had been stripped out.
    But something remained on the bare floor in the middle of the room, and Drake and Chester's eyes were on it as they stepped closer.
    The shape stirred.
    "DAD! It's DAD!" Chester shouted. He tore over and removed the gag from his father, who was bound up with rope.
    "Chester! Thank God it's you," Mr. Rawls spluttered. "I don't know what happened! I just woke up like this."
    "Don't worry, Dad," Chester said, checking his father over for any injuries as he loosened his ties. "He's okay. Eddie hasn't hurt him," he called over to Drake, who had gone to the far end of the room to investigate the bedrooms.
    Drake was back within seconds. 'Nope. Nothing left." He raised his eyebrows. "I have to give it to him -- pretty impressive at such short notice."
    "But how did he manage it?" Chester asked, as he undid the last of the rope from around his father's ankles and helped him to his feet.
    "Perhaps he had a band of little helpers -- some elves -- to shift it all out for him? Who knows?" Drake chuckled. "I'm just relieved Jeff here is unharmed." As Drake glanced at Mr. Rawls, he noticed something. 'Hold on a tick," he said. He reached across to Mr. Rawls' breast pocket and took out the not tucked into it, then unfolded it.
    " A gesture of goodwill for the future. Your friend ," Drake read aloud.
    Chester frowned. "Sounds like it's for you, Drake. So did he expect you to make it out of the Colony?"
    Drake looked amused. "Maybe. Maybe he's not as black and white as I thought he was. After all, he was prepared to leave that Colonist policeman to die with the rest of us in the explosion, but he still saw fit to spare Jeff here."
    "Explosion? Policeman? What on earth have you been doing?" Mr. Rawls demanded, looking from Drake to his son.
    "Why don't you take him out to the car, where you can fill him in?" Drake suggested to Chester. "I'm going to drop you all off somewhere, then go back to the hotel to find out if your mother's shown up." HE thought for a second. "But, first, there's something I need to see."
    Drake left the flat to descend the stairs. As he was making his way through the warehouse, he spotted something on the ground. He nudged it with his foot. It was a slug of gray material, not dissimilar to old porridge. There was no sign of the motorbikes, but he didn't expect there to be as he and Eddie had left them in Westminster.
    He saw the scaffolding frame draped with thick sheets of polythene was still standing in the corner of the warehouse. On his way over to it, Drake didn't stop to press the red button on the lathe's power panel and disarm the explosives -- he already had a good idea what he was going to find.
    As he lifted the sheets aside, he saw that although the concrete surround in the floor remained, the metal door had gone. Three or four steps of the stairway was still visible, but then the entire opening was filled with a gray slurry -- it was the same substance that had been spilt on the factory floor. Drake hunted around until he found a length of wood, which he rammed into the dense slop, then pulled out again. He touched some of the material left on the wood, rolling it between his fingers.
    "Quick-drying cement," he said, and glanced down at the blocked opening, nodding to himself. "So the whole cellar is pumped full of it... clever. You certainly made sure no one's going down there again... but I bet you took all that Styx equipment with you, didn't you, Eddie?"

Part Five
    Reunion

32

    Will was showing Elliott around the harbor when they came across Bartleby, who had settled down on the concrete pier with one of his recent kills gripped between his paws. He was chewing noisily on either its head or rear end -- Will couldn't tell which from the state of the gored carcass. Just like any cat, the Hunter was totally engrossed in his prey, to the exclusion of all else. He didn't even bother to lift his head to glance at Elliott as she wandered down the side of the pier and inspected the wreckage of the sunken boats in the bottom of the clear water.
    Will had been