Page 47 of Mastermind

The chimpanzees vanishing was a miracle because people made either one assumption or another. The chimps escaped of their own accord yet somehow managed to go undetected in the larger world. Or they were stolen from the enclosure.

The truth, I now believe, is neither. Someone stole the chimpanzees by creating an opportunity for them to escape. That opportunity is the storm drain I’m now standing in.

Its entrance is a metal grate that had been covered with weeds and rocks. The reason Jack’s handlers didn’t consider this is because there was a large rock on top of it and a lock on the grate that I picked while pretending to tie my shoe after sliding the boulder to the side.

“Jessica?” Jack calls out above me. “Did your friend go back inside?” he asks Theo.

I can see a shadow walking past the crack in the grate. I can visualize Theo standing there. Is he using the same method I did? The method that he demonstrated when we arrived at the enclosure?

Smell.

That’s what tipped me off. Even though the zoo staff must have washed the rocks off on a regular basis, plenty of chimpanzee poo and urine slid down here. It’s why the smell is unbearable and I’m seriously questioning how far I’ll go to prove a point.

The grate opens, and sunlight pours down. Theo is looking down at me. “Clever. Very clever.”

Jack pokes his head over. “This isn’t supposed to be here. They told me it had been filled in!”

“Somebody unfilled it,” I reply, imagining chimps smuggling rocks out in their chimp pants.

“Or they made it look like it was sealed,” says Theo. “Someone on the inside helped.” He calls down to me. “Jessica, you want to come back up?”

I look down the dark tunnel at the bottom of the pit. “Yeah. We should get some flashlights. And nose plugs.”

“And tranquilizer guns,” adds Theo. “We need to make sure none of our little friends are still down there.”

“Oh shit,” says Jack.

“She’s fine,” Theo replies, probably more to calm me down than to state an objective truth.

I start climbing the rungs, slowly, then faster when images of chimpanzees pulling me into the darkness fill my mind.

I reach the top, and Theo helps me out, then shuts the grate, snapping closed the lock I picked. “That was . . .”

“Stupid?” I reply.

“That, too. But interesting. Jack, can you get a couple of your people here so we can see where this little tunnel goes?”

“I’ll get right on it,” Jack says, then pulls his phone out and starts speaking in Thai.

“Is there a back exit?” I ask.

“That way.” Jack points to a line of trees that ends at a wooden fence.

Theo and I make our way out of the enclosure and toward the back exit. He already understands what I’m thinking. Instead of waiting for them to explore the tunnel and possibly meet certain death if there’s a cult of chimpanzee doomsday preppers waiting to bite off any noses that come poking around, we can follow the general path of the tunnel and see where it surfaces—assuming that it follows a straight line and actually ends somewhere.

We reach another door, where I pick the lock instead of asking Jack to assist. Before I can push it open, Theo stops me.

“What?” I ask.

“Listen first,” he says. “General precaution.”

“Oh, good point.” I put my ear to the metal door. A noisy truck passes. I’m pretty sure this is the street. When I push the door open, we’re facing a street and a row of industrial buildings on the other side.

We run across the road, dodging small cars and motorcycles, and reach an alley on the other side, where we find a concrete manhole cover. I take out my phone and look at where we are in Google Maps.

“Does it line up?” asks Theo.

“Yep.”