Maya scrambled over the wall and climbed down the ladder to the grate. Using the bolt cutters, she cut off a rusty padlock, pulled open the hinged grate, and stepped into the culvert. Mother Blessing had always insisted that
Moving the light beam back and forth, Maya studied the culvert. She had expected to find a large concrete pipe, but the Fleet was contained within a brick-lined tunnel about eight feet high with a level floor, curving sides and an arched ceiling. Although London ’s citizens took the Tube to work, they rarely thought about what was underground. The River Fleet had flowed through London during riots and wars and the Great Fire. It had existed in Shakespeare’s time and in the Roman Era. Perhaps it had drained the melting glaciers from the last Ice Age. All that was past, and now the river was held captive. The lower part of the tunnel was covered with algae, and the rest of the tunnel had a white crust that reminded her of toothpaste left in a sink.
Knee-deep in the cold water, she took her first step forward. Ripples appeared and waves sloshed against the walls. The base of the culvert was covered with silt mixed with gravel. When her boots sunk six inches into the muck, she realized it would take time and effort to reach Ludgate Circus.
Her shadow glided across the walls as she headed up the tunnel. Ten minutes later, she saw the glow of green light coming from a drain pipe that emptied into the tunnel. At least she was moving in the right direction. There was a “Y” juncture about twenty yards north of the light. Using a can of spray paint, Maya made a diamond sign on the wall. She went to the left, following the river where the current felt stronger.
She couldn’t find the white flashlight near Blackfriars pub, but continued onward. The culvert became smaller-about five feet high-and her hard hat scraped against the rough brick surface. Fiber optical cables appeared, fastened to the top of the culvert with brackets. The communications companies who wired the city for the Internet had realized that ripping up the streets would cost millions of pounds. Somehow they had persuaded the city authorities to give them free access to the Fleet. Maya wondered if Internet cables followed the routes of the other lost rivers.
Throughout her journey, she had passed through pockets of sewage. When the culvert turned right, she smelled an even stronger odor. Grease. Cooking oil. She was walking beneath a London restaurant that was draining its waste into the river.
A rat-about eight inches long from nose to tail-scurried across the bricks. As the cooking smell grew stronger, more rats appeared, and she felt sick to her stomach. Some of the rats ran away from the light, but others stayed frozen on the sloping sides of the culvert. Her light made their eyes look like little red beads. The culvert angled left, and when she came around the corner she saw hundreds of rats clinging to the wall. The light caused a panic, and some of the rats leaped into the river, making high-pitched squeaks as they splashed over to the other side.
The river current pushed the rats toward her. The water was high now, almost to her waist, and she could see the rats’ sharp noses and thin tails. Maya drew her sword and used the tip of the blade to flick the rats away. The grease smell was almost unbearable. A drop of water fell on her forehead.
After twenty yards of culvert, the rats began to disappear. A few stragglers scurried away when she sloshed up the tunnel. She found the blue light near a Y-juncture, but there was no indication about which way to go. She took the right fork and was relieved to see the red marker.
How far to the Evergreen building? Was it thirty yards? Forty? She continued up the culvert until she found two fiber optical cables that ran into the culvert from a maintenance pipe in the ceiling. The pipe was about three feet wide and sealed with a hinged steel plate. When Maya tapped the plate with her knuckles, she heard a hollow sound.
Water swirled around her and white foam clung to the waders. Trying not to slip and fall, she loaded one of the breaching rounds into the shotgun. Then she held the weapon close to the plate and fired. The noise echoed down the tunnel. It was so loud that she almost fell backward. A six-inch hole had appeared in the plate, and she used the bolt cutters to hack through the steel.
