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Bagger studied the map using his own flashlight. Somewhere back down the tunnel there was a soft clang of metal, followed by a sustained hiss of either steam or compressed air, which shut off after ten seconds. They looked at each other.
"Company?" Bagger asked softly.
They stood there and listened. Sounds carried down the concrete walls, but there was no way to tell how far away they were. Or what they were. They both switched off their flashlights and listened some more.
Another soft clang of metal, then a sound they couldn't identify. Because of the S-turn, they couldn't see back down the main tunnel, and every sound was being reflected against the background hum of power lines and water pipes. Jim thought he felt a slight change in the air pressure. Bagger had his eyes closed, listening.
Another noise, unrecognizable. Then a sputtering sound. Jim tried to place it. Sputtering. Like a - fuse? Bagger heard it, too, and was looking at Jim. Jim mouthed the word 'fuse', saw Bagger comprehend it, and then there was an explosive roar from the main tunnel, a roar that was approaching very quickly.
Before they had time to react, a red glow lit up the tunnel behind them and the roar doubled in volume as a rocket of some kind came around the corner, ricocheting off the walls and then right at them, waist high. They barely had time to dive to the deckplates before the thing went blasting over their heads, screaming down the tunnel, where it slammed into the flat concrete wall of the next turn, some thirty feet beyond them. There was a flash of bright green light and a loud bang when it hit. The tunnel disappeared in a cloud of dense white smoke that stank of sulfur, and they had to stay down on the deckplates just to find breathable air. From somewhere behind them in all the smoke they heard a nasty laugh echoing through the smoke and then the pronounced clang of a metal door.
"What the fuck," Bagger muttered, trying not to cough as the dense trail of smoke drifted down towards the deckplates.
Jim had pulled his Glock. He crouched just beneath the thick layer of smoke, and was waving it out of his face. "Fireworks," he said. "Some bastard lit off a fourth of July rocket and sent it down the tunnel."
There was definitely a change in the air pressure now, a sudden feeling of release, and, amazingly, the smoke began to retreat, almost as if it were alive, back down the tunnel from which the rocket had come, like a film being run in reverse. Jim saw a blinking red light pulsing through the smoke from just around the corner.
"Smoke detector," he said. "The evacuation system's fired up. We're gonna have company."
They stood up as the smoke shrank back around the corner like a fleeing ghost. They followed it. Just beyond the three-way junction an exhaust fan in the ceiling was running noisily at high speed, sucking the air from the tunnel and now beginning to squeeze their ears. A red light was flashing on a sensor panel high in the tunnel ceiling.
"Let's go get the rocket," Bagger said. "Before the firemen show up."
They turned around and went to the end of the passageway. The rocket body was crumpled up against the door of a telephone equipment vault. It appeared to be made of thick cardboard, two and a half feet long and two inches in diameter, with badly burned fins at the back. The lower part of the rocket body was blackened, and what was left of the front end was smashed flat and also burned. The stink of sulfur was almost overpowering. Jim picked it up and promptly dropped it.
"Ow! Hot motor-scooter," he said, waving his hand in the air. "Gunpowder?"
"Yeah, I've seen these. Commercial fireworks. You saw that green flash."
"Still do," Jim said. "Every time I blink."
"How do midshipmen get their hands on commercial fireworks?"
"Brigade activities committee maybe. You know, for football games. They've got that touchdown cannon. I don’t know, though. First spray paint, now this. That thing would go right through someone, going that fast."
"No shit," Bagger said, examining the charred tube. "I think we've flushed our sick puppy."
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