by Amy Vansant
Declan wiped his brow. “This is slow-going. There must be two layers of brick here.”
Charlotte craned her neck to survey the bar. She remembered seeing something that might help. Columns. Jackie had some decorative Greek columns stacked in a corner of the dancefloor.
“I have an idea, but I need to know if those columns over there are real.”
Jackie followed where Charlotte pointed and nodded. “Yes, they are. They weigh a ton.”
“You’re thinking we could use them as a battering ram?” asked Seamus.
She nodded. “There isn’t a ton of room to get it swinging with the rest of the bar here, but I’m thinking maybe the shorter one?”
Declan and Seamus moved to the dance floor and returned with the shortest column. The two men held the cement column low and after a few practice swings, pounded the wall as hard as they could. Charlotte heard some of the internal bricks fall to the ground, and soon they had a hole big enough for even the broadest of them to fit through.
“What are you doing in there?” roared Pirro from outside.
“We’re bored. Decided to redecorate,” returned Stephanie.
“Flashlight, hurry,” said Declan.
Jackie ran into her office and appeared with a large LED flashlight. Everyone in Florida always had a good-sized flashlight handy. Electric lines and Florida storms constantly wrestled for the belt.
Declan pointed the light into the tunnel, only to find another brick wall stood four feet into the hole.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” mumbled Declan.
“We’re going to die,” said Mariska.
“Wait—” Declan dropped the beam downward. “There’s a ladder here. It’s like we’re at the top of a manhole.”
“Right, we’re too high here. The tunnel has to be below the foundation.”
“But you said that’s impossible in Florida,” said Darla.
Declan crawled through the hole they’d created and climbed down the ladder.
“It’s a giant pipeline down here,” he called back to the group.
“All good?” asked Seamus, his head stuck through the hole in the wall.
There was a pause. “Looks good. Start moving people.”
Seamus helped Darla, Jackie and Mariska through the hole.
A loud crashing sound echoed from the front of the building. Apparently, Pirro and his men had decided they’d waited long enough to break down the door. Charlotte could see the building shake with every crash. Whatever they were using as a battering ram, it was more effective than Seamus’s rubber mallet. Charlotte suspected it was a vehicle they’d been waiting to arrive. This reinforced her hunch—Pirro had needed to delay as much as they did.
“You’re next,” said Seamus to Charlotte.
Declan called up the ladder. “Seamus—get Stephanie’s gun. We’ll need protection front and back.”
Seamus looked at Stephanie.
“Good luck with that,” she said, gun in hand.
“You want to protect the back?” asked Charlotte.
Stephanie opened the revolver, counted her remaining bullets and slammed it closed. “I’ll stay here.”
Charlotte scowled. “You couldn’t have more than five bullets in there.”
“Four.”
“They’re going to kill you.”
Stephanie shook her head. “Pirro wouldn’t dare.”
“We can’t just leave you here.”
Stephanie smiled. “Just go, Susie Sunshine.”
Charlotte looked to Seamus, but he only shrugged and ushered her to the tunnel. With one last glance back at Stephanie, she stepped through the hole, turning to negotiate the ladder. She needed to concentrate on keeping her footing, but her mind swirled with the endless possibilities awaiting them at the end of the tunnel.
What if the other side was bricked off as well? We’d be sitting ducks in a tunnel.
Nothing about their plan seemed certain.
There was another crash at the front door.
Time to move.
Charlotte climbed down the ladder. At the bottom she saw the others huddling inside what appeared to be a long metal tube, empty and smooth but for where the lip of one section met the next.
Declan held up his gun for Charlotte to see. “I’m going to lead the way for now.”
Seamus climbed down.
“Do you have the gun?” asked Declan.
“Procuring madam’s weapon was easier said than done.”
“Is she coming?”
“She is not.”
“We can’t leave her up there.”
“She says they can’t kill her.”
“Why?”
Seamus shrugged.
Even in the dim light Charlotte could see Declan wasn’t happy. Another crash echoed from above.
“Okay. We don’t have time. Let’s go. Watch the back Seamus. First sign of anything let me know.”
Declan squeezed past the ladies and led the way.
Chapter Twenty-One
They hustled through the alien landscape of metal tubing for ten minutes before Declan motioned for them to stop. From the back of the pack, Charlotte could see his flashlight rise into the air and illuminate bars protruding from the wall. He’d found another ladder.
They clustered close as Declan mounted the rungs, flashlight beneath his arm. He struggled to open the hatch.
“I’ll hold the light on it,” suggested Charlotte.
He handed down the flashlight and she directed the beam on the hatch, revealing a metal pin on a chain tucked along the edge. Declan removed it to release the lock. The hatch swung up and open. Sunlight flooded into the tunnel, the group collectively shielding their eyes from the glare.
Declan pulled his phone from his pocket and attempted a call. A moment later he descended again.
“Swamp. I think we’re better off continuing through the tunnel.”
“No signal?” asked Darla, though they all knew his response.
“Nothing yet. I suspect these escape hatches are scattered along the way. Emergency escape routes.”
“Isn’t it safer out of this pipe?” asked Jackie.
Declan shook his head. “You know the hellish bogs the news shows in the background whenever they run a story about the guys hunting pythons in the swamp?”
Mariska grimaced. “Gotcha. Think I’ll take my chances in here.”
“Isn’t disappearing into the muck better than being mowed down by druggies?” asked Jackie.
“I think druggies are the people who take the drugs, not the people who sell them,” said Mariska.
Jackie’s eyes grew wild. “You know what I mean!”
Seamus moved to put his arm around his girlfriend. Charlotte didn’t need the glow of Declan’s flashlight to see Jackie had run out of coping mechanisms. The woman was having a monumentally bad day.
Declan did his best to move past the tension. “It’s too dangerous out there. Too easy to get lost. Let’s hope the next exit has a path to civilization.”
“And a phone signal,” muttered Darla.
They continued their hurried walk down the pipeline. A few steps into their travels, Charlotte did an about-face and jogged back to the ladder. In the dying glow of the far-off flashlight, she peered at the hatch deep in thought.
“Don’t dally,” called Seamus, comforting a now sobbing Jackie at the back of the pack.
“Just taking a quick peek. I’m right behind you.”
She climbed the ladder and opened the hatch. As soon as her eyes adjusted to the light, she knew Declan hadn’t been exaggerating. They wouldn’t last two minutes in the swampland surrounding this exit.
She was about to descend when gunfire erupted to her left.
Pirro’s men had breached the disco’s door.
It wouldn’t be long before armed men came running down the tunnel. Even if Stephanie could negotiate her release, she probably didn’t have the pull to change all the thugs’ plans. They were still in
danger.
To her right, she heard the group yelp with fear and break into a panicked trot.
A final few pops of gunfire echoed from the direction of the disco.
Had they not spared Stephanie?
Without knowing what lay ahead of them, the others would be sitting ducks once Pirro and his men made progress down the tunnel. The ladies weren’t speedy joggers.
I have to do something. Think.
Charlotte’s gaze rose to the hatch.
It’s a longshot...
Scurrying up the ladder, Charlotte hauled herself into the swamp. The mud squished around her flip flops, claiming them as its own the moment she tried to walk.
Balancing the hatch open she decided the easiest direction in which to travel. It seemed more wet to the west. The east had more trees.
West it is.
She mucked her way through the worst of the mud, taking a multitude of steps, back and forth along her own trail, until it appeared a large group had made their way in that direction. She broke every branch and smooshed every reed she could find. She retrieved and tossed her flip flops in that direction.
Returning to the hatch a final time, she stuck her head inside. Voices. She could hear men coming.
There wasn’t any time to lose.
She worked her way east to the trees, covering her tracks with her toes and hands as she went, like a baker smoothing the icing on a cake. The mud seemed eager to help her, swallowing every footprint with the smallest provocation.
Reaching a large, lonely cypress, she ran to its opposite side and put her back against it, panting.
“It’s like a swamp,” said a voice a moment later.
Charlotte caught her breath and then almost immediately had to continue panting quietly through her nose. Her lungs burned.
I really have to work on my stamina.
She peered around the tree and spotted a head sticking from the ground. Pirro’s men had arrived.
There was another voice, muffled. She couldn’t make out what the other person said, but the man above ground replied, “Yeah, I can see the way they went but it’s nasty out here, Pirro.”
Looking miserable, the man climbed from the hole. Two others joined him, including the one with the strange red hair Charlotte had watched shoot his friend.
She could hear her own heartbeat, banging in her ears. She couldn’t believe the men couldn’t hear it.
She peeked again as the men headed west through the muck. One of them rattled off something in Spanish but she only recognized the curse words. They gave her a general idea of the speaker’s frame of mind.
They were pissed.
Charlotte pressed her spine against the tree. Something mosquito-y bit her shoulder and she slapped at it without thinking.
“Ow!”
Oh no.
She froze, wondering how loud she’d been.
The mucking noise of the men’s shoes being swallowed by the mud stopped.
Squatting, she peered around the tree, hoping if they were looking in her direction, they wouldn’t be looking that low.
Six eyes trained on her from the far side of the marsh.
“There!” yelled one, pointing.
Whoops.
The men hollered and launched into a flurry of action, arms flailing, knees rising, hampered by the depth of the mud, sloppily running towards her.
Everything in Charlotte’s body told her to bolt away from them.
Her mind said, ‘no.’
Her mind said, ‘Get in the hole.’
Stupid mind.
It isn’t easy listening to a brain when the rest of the body is screaming for an opposing idea. And it isn’t easy getting a body to do something it doesn’t want to do. But a moment later, Charlotte found herself sprinting toward the men.
They were so stunned they stopped for a moment.
Then they realized she had no weapon.
She was just closer to the open hatch than they were.
Releasing another string of profanities in at least two different languages, they began slopping forward again.
The lead man wrestled to pull a pistol from the waistline of his baggy jeans.
Guns. I forgot about the guns. How did I forget about the guns?
Charlotte faltered. There was nowhere to hide from bullets.
The lead man tripped and fell forward to his knees, sinking his gun deep into the mud as the men behind him fell over him, scrambling to get around their fallen comrade. They hadn’t yet pulled their guns, but now they grabbed for them.
Charlotte silently thanked the lead man’s wet jeans for dragging him into the mud and planting his gun where it couldn’t hurt her.
She dove for the hatch as the first usable gun fired. Sliding like a baseball player through the mud and reeds, she grabbed the edge of the hatch to stop her momentum and swung her legs into the hole. Her instincts told her to skip the ladder and drop to the floor but she knew she had to lock the hatch. As she fell, she grabbed a ladder rung and hung, suspended in mid-air for a moment.
Her wet fingers began to slide off the rung.
Flailing, she found another rung with her feet and grabbed the hatch with her free hand. The men were three feet from her now.
She slammed it shut.
Please, Please let me find the lock.
She’d forgotten closing the hatch would plunge her into total darkness. Panic rose in her chest as her fingers searched for the bolt that would seal the clip.
She’d had to release the bolt to open the hatch on the way out and knew it was hanging from a chain. It banged against her fingers, taunting her. Someone slammed against the hatch. In a moment they would jerk it open, wrenching it from her hands...and probably shoot her in the head.
Another tap on her fingertip by the bolt and then—
Got it.
Her digits encircled the bolt and she slammed it into place. She didn’t know how she found the slot so fast. She imagined the feeling was akin to Luke Skywalker watching his bomb shoot through the Death Star’s thermal exhaust port.
The hatch rattled as someone yanked it. Out in the swamp, the cursing began in earnest.
Charlotte felt her way down the ladder, slipping when a gunshot exploded above her, followed by what sounded like the ringing of a bell. She fell to the ground and covered her head, curled in the fetal position.
Someone screamed. More cursing.
The bullet hadn’t penetrated. If she had to guess, it had ricocheted and hit someone.
A beam of light struck her body, and she jerked, covering her head again, sure the hatch had opened.
They must have found a way to shoot the lock. Stupid idea—
“Charlotte!”
She peered from beneath her arms. Declan ran towards her, flashlight in hand. He knelt beside her.
Dirty and half-covered in shadows, he had never been so gorgeous.
“Are you okay? What happened? Seamus said you were right behind him and then you weren’t.”
Charlotte uncurled and sat up, her hand still on her beating heart. “I’m fine. We should get out from beneath the hatch though, just in case.”
More muffled screaming echoed from above. Someone screamed Freedom! at the top of their lungs. Declan stared up at the rattling hatch.
“Who is that and why does he sound like the end of Braveheart?”
“It’s Pirro and his men. They breeched Jackie’s. I heard gunfire and knew they were coming. So I made it look like we went up there.”
“And they followed you?”
She nodded. “I led them one way and hid the other. When they followed what they thought were my tracks I ran back to the hatch and closed it.”
Declan’s mouth gaped. “That was insane. You could have been killed.”
“We would’ve all been killed if they came down the tunnel.”
Declan scooped her up in his arms and pressed her against his chest.
“Charlotte. They have guns. You can’t do things
like that.”
“Sorry,” she mumbled, her lips pressed against his neck. He smelled good. Maybe anything smelled good after the methane stench of the swamp.
When he released her she found her eyes had watered either from relief or adrenalin. She sniffed and took a deep, calming breath. “Where are the others?”
“There was a door at the other end that led into a little diner in the middle of nowhere. We opened it and found ourselves staring at empty orange crates.”
“A friendly diner?”
“Seems to be. I guess Louis hadn’t made a move on them yet. They let us call the police.”
Above, the rattling had stopped.
“They quit trying to get in,” said Charlotte.
Declan helped her to her feet. “That means they’re probably on their way back to Jackie’s or the diner, if they know about it.
Charlotte gasped. “Stephanie. Did you call an ambulance?”
He nodded. “I’m sure there are police on their way there as well.”
“Stephanie’s still there.”
“I’m sure she’s long gone. She’ll have talked her way out—”
Charlotte shook her head. “I don’t think so. I heard gunfire.”
Declan frowned. “You follow the tunnel to the diner. The cops will be there any second. I’ll go check on Stephanie.”
Charlotte grabbed a ladder rung to pull herself to her feet. “No way. I’m coming. Let’s go.”
Declan opened his mouth to argue.
“I’m coming,” she repeated, before he could speak.
Declan pointed to the ceiling. “It won’t take those men long to get back to the disco.”
“Yes it will. It’s all swamp up there. It will take them forever to slog back, assuming they’re not eaten by an alligator or a python. We can run. The cops will be at Jackie’s by the time those men get close.”
“What if they left men back at the club?”
Charlotte considered this. “I’ll let you and your gun go in first.”
Declan sighed. “Fine. But stay behind me.”
“Because you’re a big bad soldier?”
“Because I know I’ll never talk you out of going.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Declan poked his head through the wall into Jackie’s bar. Clinging precariously on the ladder behind him, Charlotte strained to get a view of her own.