The Simeon Chamber (2 page)

Suddenly the flickering light of the candle flame reflected off a mound of broken and loose earth that marked the end of the tunnel. The earth was soft. Huber could see where some of it had broken free from the ceiling of the cavern.

For ten minutes he sat at the end of the tunnel and considered the project at hand. He would need some tools—a makeshift shovel, a short-handled pick, perhaps a pry bar. There were enough loose pieces of metal in the mill xxiii that would never be missed, especially now that he had a place to hide them. The logistics aside, his mind was troubled. Who had dug the tunnel—and left the candles? Had it been used for an earlier escape?

Huber quickly pushed the questions aside and considered his good fortune as he crawled back to his cell and replaced the slab over the opening. Within two days he’d gathered the short spans of metal needed for digging and transported them under his prison garb back to the cell. It took a bit longer to contrive the method of removing the newly dug earth from the tunnel. He fashioned two narrow tubes of jute cloth into crude sacks, which he wore inside the legs of his pants. Each night he would fill the tubes, and each morning at the mill he would pull the small pins from their ends and allow the previous night’s diggings to drop unnoticed along the insides of his pant legs onto the dirt floor of the mill beneath the loom, where he spread it with his feet. A small portion of the dirt was removed in this way while the balance was merely spread along the floor of the tunnel itself, leaving ample room for Huber to crawl through.

He stitched rough clothing from jute cloth so as not to soil his prison stripes and draw attention to himself. For ten nights he dug, spreading and carrying dirt. The improvised shovel cut through the soft earth like a jackhammer through potting soil. While Huber was no novice with a pick and shovel, neither was he a mining engineer. He never questioned that the digging was effortless or wondered why the earth was not more compacted. If the dirt moved easily, so much the better. The work proceeded with more speed and the day of freedom was that much closer at hand.

He fashioned a length of metal that exactly matched his normal walking stride. Each evening, using this metal rod, he measured the length of the tunnel, and every noon, in the exercise yard, he casually paced a straight line from the cell block across the yard, stopping momentarily whenever other convicts crossed or blocked his path.

Each day as he finished his journey the mountainous guard towers and granite block wall topped by strings of barbed wire loomed closer.

Then yesterday at noon Huber had marched across the yard, his hands casually in his pockets, his eyes downcast as he surveyed a xxv

straight line. He’d reached fifty-seven paces when his left foot came in contact with the base of the mammoth rampart. Huber nearly jumped in the air as he realized that the end of the tunnel was only two feet inside the wall. Calculating the thickness of its foundation and allowing for a slight increase in depth, he figured he would be on the outside in ten feet, an easy two-night dig.

He’d made more than five feet the previous night; and tonight, under the dark of a moonless sky, he would surface in the dry grass beyond the wall and disappear into the outside world.

His hands moistened with the sweat of anticipation as he passed the loom’s shuttle between the threads of the warp, knowing that it would be the last time he would ever have to endure the mind-altering tedium. Never again would he be forced to surrender his spirit to the monotony of the jute mill or to submerge his consciousness in the din of the steam-powered looms and the vaporous dust that filled the cold gray shed. For seven long years he’d toiled under the prying eyes of gumshoed guards and endured their witless oppression. Now, by the auspicious hand of fate, he would cheat them of the eighteen years remaining on his term. As the yard whistle blew, announcing the end of the shift, Huber eased himself off the bench and took one last look at the drab gray walls of the jute mill and the endless yards of cloth yet to be cut and sewn into sacks. He filed into line and fifteen minutes later was seated on his cot waiting for the dinner pail to be passed through the small opening at the bottom of the cell door.

The pail came and he sat quietly on his bed and ate. Then he curled up on the cot and closed his eyes. Tonight would be an easy dig.

He intended to meet the rigors of the outside world well rested and alert.

It was after one in the morning when he awoke. The cell-block clatter of early evening had died down. Quickly and without any wasted motion Huber changed his prison stripes for the jute cloth and repeated the ritual with the spoon. He lit three of the candles from the lamp, then extinguished it. Rather than moving the granite slab to the wall he merely slid it partially off the open shaft, then lowered himself and the candles into the hole. From inside he carefully slid the slab back over the opening and allowed it to settle onto the lip carved in the surrounding granite blocks. xxvii To anyone entering the cell from that moment forward it would appear that the convict Earl Huber had simply vanished. It would be days, perhaps weeks, if ever, before they discovered the shaft and the tunnel. By then he could be thousands of miles away, with a different name and a new life.

As before, the digging was effortless. Only this time there was no need to spread the dirt far, he merely piled it in the tunnel behind him, taking care to leave enough room in case he should have to crawl back to the cell for any reason. He was a cautious man. Seven years behind bolted doors had bred patience if not tolerance. If his departure required another day, so be it.

He’d dug nearly a foot and a half when he struck the object with the point of his shovel. It wasn’t solid, but emitted a dull thud as he stabbed the jerry-rigged spade back into the soft earth a second time. Using the shovel and his hands he uncovered it: a man’s boot.

Suddenly it all made sense—the stockpile of candles, the soft earth, the unfinished tunnel. Each had been a grim clue to what lay ahead. In his haste to flee Huber had not taken the time to read the signs. Now he was about to meet his predecessor, for whom the shaft had become a dark and horror-filled crypt—the convict Joaquin Sanchez. The rumors of his demise at the hands of guards had been planted by prison authorities to cover an apparent escape, to keep alive the myth that no one ever succeeded in breaching the foreboding walls. For now only the dead Mexican and Earl Huber knew the truth.

Huber studied the walls and the earthen ceiling overhead warily, then covered his mouth and nose with a portion of jute cloth. He was not a squeamish man, but with each shovelful of earth the stench of rotting flesh became more distinct in the confined chamber.

It took nearly an hour to uncover the body to its chest. He wrapped his hands around the ankles of the corpse and pulled. It didn’t budge.

He dug several more inches of earth from around the body and pulled again. This time it shifted, in one unified motion, with the rigidity of a board. He considered the revulsion of the task only for an instant. The cadaver had to be moved. It blocked his path—the way to freedom. Hunching over the dead man on his knees and turning his face away from the overpowering odor, he xxix placed his hands beneath the chest cavity and lifted.

He felt decayed flesh as it tore and came free in his hands. Huber squeezed his eyes tightly closed as he eased the body back in the tunnel, inch by inch, toward the mound of loose earth behind him. He did not open his eyes or turn his head until the task was completed. By then nausea and panic had nearly overwhelmed him. He crawled toward the end of the tunnel, taking only shallow breaths of the fouled air. He had to dig quickly. Freedom lay in this direction. And now the only other avenue of escape was retreat—

over the rotting corpse.

He dug savagely for nearly twenty minutes. The ground was hard now and the digging slower, but the labor brought purpose to his endeavor and calm to his mind. His face was covered with a solution of grime and perspiration when he finally rested his shovel and steeled himself to look upon the face of his dead companion. He shifted the light of the candle and aimed the flame back up the passage toward the mound of discarded earth and the corpse. The head was caked with dirt, the features indistinguishable. The left arm was outstretched, the hand locked in a death grip around what appeared to be a small brick—perhaps used for hammering the point of a pick or shovel into the harder earth that now confronted Huber.

Hesitating, he reached toward the dead man’s hand for the brick. The lifeless grip was like a vise and Huber had to move closer to the body and use both hands to pry the tool loose. With his fingers he scraped the caked earth from the edge of the brick for a better grasp. Suddenly he stopped. Under the grime-laden sweat Huber’s face was ashen. Blood drained from his head as full recognition of the object reached his brain. There, locked in the rigored grip of the dead man, was a brick of pure gold bullion.

Overhead and a hundred feet to the east in the prison stable Huber could not see the restless shifting of the draft horses or hear their whinnied cries. In the still night air an inexplicable ripple spread across the water in their trough and lapped at the edges.

In his subterranean passage Huber moved the candle closer to the hand of his grim companion and the gold bar locked in its clutch. The xxxi light caught the glimmer of a shiny round object in the dirt just beyond the outstretched, stiff arm. It was a coin of irregular shape but unmistakable specie. His eyes ran in a line toward the cavity left by the excavated body. A trail of gold coins carpeted the floor, disappearing into the impression left in the dirt by the man’s head and shoulders.

Huber moved toward the end of the tunnel and began to excavate the area. More coins appeared with every shovelful of earth, and with each stroke of the spade his excitement grew. He lost all track of time as he tore and ripped at the earth. The path of the tunnel veered sharply to the left, running laterally inside the prison wall, and took a sixty-degree plunge as he followed the course of the coins. Fatigue was overcome by frenzy. The mangled shovel and pry bar were abandoned in his wake, as hard dirt turned to mud and the odor of brine replaced the stench of rotting flesh. He continued to claw at the dirt with his hands and finally he uncovered the side of a wooden cask. Bashing at the staves of the barrel with the heel of his boot, he splintered the rotting wood. Instantly Huber found himself awash in an effluent of mud and gold coins.

The rumble began deep in the bowels of the earth, indistinct at first, then gaining momentum. Slowly the noise was transformed into motion, a slow gyration punctuated by more disturbing vibrations.

Five miles to the south, city streets buckled and brick chimneys collapsed through the roofs of houses, burying the occupants. Water mains ruptured like brittle straw, and the iron rails of the Southern Pacific twisted and writhed in a bizarre geologic dance. Unattended church bells clanged with an aimless and discordant din, and the ground wrenched as if in the grip of some horrific giant.

Huber never heard the first sounds or felt the initial movement. He was lost in a frenzy of discovery as he pulled the remains of the broken barrel from the dirt and unearthed a dark cavern at the end of the tunnel. He shifted the light of the candle toward the opening and stared in wonderment at the sight that met his eyes. It was an image to be fused in his mind for eternity, for an instant later the first shock wave struck. A xxxiii thousand yards of cubic earth rained down from above—

burying Earl Huber forever beneath a tortured and twisted landscape.

THE SIMEON CHAMBER 1

1

SAN FRANCISCO, 1975

The ancients long ago learned that the essence of a lie is to be found in its deception, not its words. It was an axiom the subtleties of which Samuel J. Bogardus was soon to comprehend.

But at that moment he carried on an animated monologue in the private chambers of his brain, a conversation that periodically slipped past the confines of his lips in the form of half-mumbled epithets.

Bogardus was angry with himself or, perhaps more correctly, with his aging mother. Angie Bogardus was relentless. It was not that he was busy. He had settled a case only two days before and thus had avoided the anxiety and drudgery of an eight-day trial. It was more the irritation of dealing with Angie’s “referrals,” as she called them—

doddering friends from one or another of her social clubs or charities, all with special problems, none of which were ever susceptible to legal treatment or solution.

This time it came under the rubric of an adoption case, a field of law about which Sam knew little and cared less. To his repeated chagrin Bogardus had learned years before that his skills of advocacy, honed during more than a decade of active trial work, were to no avail when matched against the dogged persistence of his mother. It was a contest he had long ago conceded, for Angie wielded the double-edged sword of authority and guilt with the guile of a samurai. Before Sam could hang up the phone he had committed himself to talking to his mother’s friend. To Angie it was the same as taking the case.

The sun’s rays found their way down through the canyons of the Financial District, warming the street against the light breezes off the Pacific. The balmy days of early fall blessed the city when the searing heat of California’s Central Valley faded and favored San Francisco by leaving the fog out over the ocean.

And while any longtime resident of the city could tell you that San Francisco weather was fickle, on this day at least, the place basked under crystal-clear skies in seventy-five-degree temperatures.

Bogardus walked the few blocks from his 3

apartment on Bush Street to the cable car, rode part of the way to Broadway and then boarded a bus from Broadway to his law office on the Embarcadero.

He was not an overly attractive man, though women were somehow drawn to him. The chiseled features on his face were dominated by an angular jaw and placid green eyes that danced with a roguish charm as he spoke. A shade under six feet tall, with a lean frame and thinning, curly brown hair, he moved at thirty-nine with the grace and self-confidence of a man who, while not wealthy, had attained a modicum of independence.