Underground Airlines(101)

In this world, in the real world, I am stepping off the elevator onto a thin green carpet. My shoes are black and highly shined, and my gait is confident and purposeful. I am a few minutes early for my appointment, here at the offices of Hugh Moorland Elevator and Escalator Company, a privately held corporation: established in 1927, annual sales of just under $1.2 billion, corporate parent to Murdock Elevators of Murdock, Louisiana.

“Good morning, sir. What can we do for you?”

“Hi. How are you? I have an appointment.”

The gentleman smiles. He invites me to have a seat. I sit and leaf through a magazine.

Martha and I have learned that elevator design varies widely between companies and involves a large amount of highly technical proprietary information: the mechanical functioning of the pneumatic systems, the tensile strength of cables, the interior electrics, the design and movement of the counterweights. Even the size and shape of elevator buttons, their response times, their relative luminosity when depressed.

You never know which of these details, if any, will prove relevant to your goal, which is, in this case—as one small part of a much larger plan—to simultaneously shut down elevator service in every building on a plantation that comprises thirty-two separate structures.

“Mr. Powell?”

“Guilty as charged,” I say. I hop up.

“Great to meet you,” the woman tells me. “Come on back.”

“You betcha,” I say, finding a voice, a happy midwesterner, road warrior, traveling salesman.

This is today. More plans are in motion. More ideas are in play. Every day is two worlds; every day we split into two.

A map of the Gulf Coast with the current location of all the rigs was hard to find, but we found one. A technical diagram of an individual rig such as the High Water is proving much more difficult to find, but difficult does not mean impossible.

Everything can happen. Everything is possible.





Acknowledgments




My first and deepest thanks go to my wife, Diana Winters, and to our children, Rosalie, Ike, and Milly. I love you.

I am so fortunate to have Jo?lle Delbourgo as my literary agent—and confidante and friend—and to have Shari Smiley and now Joel Begleiter watching my back on the West Coast. It was thanks to Jo?lle that this book ended up at Mulholland Books/Little, Brown and in the very good hands of editors Joshua Kendall and Wes Miller. Their sensitivity and enthusiasm were transformative.

Cheers to all my other new friends in the Hachette universe: Reagan Arthur, Pam Brown, Sabrina Callahan, Ben Allen, and their respective teams. I knew any organization that had Michelle Aielli in it was one for me.

I am very grateful to the artist Oliver Munday for creating this book’s beautiful cover.

I had a lot of help in Indianapolis. Thanks to my students, colleagues, and friends in the MFA program at Butler University (named for its founder, the noted Indiana abolitionist Ovid Butler); to Officer Daniel Rosenberg and his colleagues on the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department; to Paul Bacon and his family; to Wilma Moore at the Indiana Historical Society; to Charles Harris and his colleagues at Peerless Pump; and to Professor Antwain Hunter, also at Butler. My respect and gratitude also go to the Indy literary community, especially the Indiana Writers Center, the Indianapolis Public Library, and the staff and supporters of Indy Reads.

I also had help from Kevin Hastie; from Brooke Pierce; from Ian “Gee” Chu and his cousin Dan; from Dr. Jason Organ; and, on issues of constitutional law, from Professor Morton Horwitz, who was extraordinarily generous with his very valuable time.

Thank you to everyone at Quirk Books in Philadelphia, especially Jason Rekulak, for putting me on the path I travel now.

I have taken liberties with its course, but there really is a little river called Pogue’s Run and it really does travel for much of its length below the city. I am grateful to Stuart Hyatt for inducting me into its secrets. You can visit Monument Circle in Indianapolis, but there’s no statue there of Lincoln; the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, erected in the wake of the Civil War, was the first such edifice in America built to honor the common soldier.





About the Author

Ben H. Winters is the author of eight novels, most recently World of Trouble, the concluding book in the Last Policeman trilogy, a nominee for the Anthony Award and for the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. Countdown City was an NPR Best Book of 2013 and the winner of the Philip K. Dick Award for distinguished science fiction. The Last Policeman was the recipient of the 2012 Edgar Award; it was also named one of the Best Books of 2012 by Amazon.com and Slate.