“Of course,” she said, bowing her head.
Once El-Hashim was propped between Marie and Alex, they headed out. As much as they all wanted the trip to go as quickly as possible, they had to keep up the appearance that El-Hashim was ill, which necessitated a much slower pace.
With known prisoners now in their party, two of the guards stayed with the group as they reentered the general population section and slow-walked their way to the administration building.
Passing through the checkpoint was much easier this time, the attention of the gatekeepers directed at Marie and a groaning El-Hashim.
Rather than take the stairs, the group squeezed into a small, rarely used elevator, and took it up one floor to the infirmary level. As they were exiting the car, the infirmary door opened down the hall, and Irina stepped into the corridor, looking nervous.
Something was wrong.
While Alex, El-Hashim, and Marie maintained their slow pace, Teterya rushed ahead. Irina started speaking to him before he reached her. Teterya looked past her into the infirmary, and glanced back at Alex and the others.
There was concern in his eyes, but he was trying to hide it.
Alex hoped the guards didn’t notice.
Addressing El-Hashim, he cleared his throat and said, “Another inmate is sick and come here while we getting you. Is okay. Not problem. We still have room for you.”
Alex glanced at El-Hashim and Marie, and saw the questioning looks on their faces. She smiled, trying to put them at ease.
As they entered the infirmary, Alex saw that a curtain had been drawn around one of the examination stations, and sitting on a chair in front of it was another guard, reading a newspaper.
But it wasn’t just any guard.
It was the one with the birthmark. Who knew her by name.
Wonderful.
Teterya spoke to her in Ukrainian and gestured. Alex nodded, and she and Marie guided El-Hashim toward the back room.
The problem was, they couldn’t get there without passing the guard. And the way they were positioned—with El-Hashim between them—Alex was on the guard’s side of the aisle. There was no way she could switch sides without calling attention to herself.
The knot in her stomach returned.
As they neared the guard, Alex moved half a step in front of the others and twisted her body slightly, so that her back was partially toward him. They were only a few feet away when the guard peeked over his paper, then jumped to his feet to give them room as he said something to Alex, sounding annoyed.
Keeping her back to him as much as possible, she made a grunting sound that she hoped would convey her thanks, but he repeated himself as if expecting an answer.
Fuck.
Alex had no earthly idea how to reply to him. But before she could grunt again, she heard Teterya call out and the guard suddenly turned away from her, his footsteps clacking on the tile.
Relieved but still tense, Alex picked up her pace, forcing the other two to also speed up. The moment they stepped into the back room, she swung the door shut.
“Off to the side,” she whispered, motioning them away from the door’s window.
Once out of the line of sight, El-Hashim scowled at Alex. “What is going on? Who is this other pri—”
“Shh,” Alex said, raising a finger to her lips.
Without explaining, she tiptoed over to the room Frida was in and peeked inside. The girl was still asleep. Alex shut the door and turned back to the others.
“Another one?” El-Hashim said incredulously. “Who is in that room?”
Alex held up a hand. “Relax, it’s just a patient. No one who will be a problem.”
El-Hashim didn’t look reassured.
“And the one behind the curtain?” Marie said. “Who is she?”
“I don’t know,” Alex whispered. “But again, not an issue. The doctor will take care of her, send her back to her cell, and then we’ll be out of here.”
She moved over to the main door and peeked through the window. While the guard with the newspaper had returned to his chair, the ones who had been part of their group seemed to have left.
She wanted to go out there and find out what was going on, but she knew the minute she stepped through the doorway, the guard would recognize her for sure. So she was stuck in here until he left.
Glancing around, her gaze landed on the two small stacks of clothes on a shelf just outside the isolation room she’d been using earlier.
No sense in wasting time.
She grabbed the clothes and gave one set to El-Hashim. “Put these on.”
“Why?”
“That gray dress marks you,” Alex said. “When we get out, that’s the last thing you want to be wearing.” She gestured toward the empty isolation cell at the far end. “You can change in there.”
With a brief hesitation, El-Hashim carried the clothes into the cell. Alex went into her temporary cell, shucked her nurse’s garb, and changed into the pair of dark pants and black, long-sleeve T-shirt that Irina had provided. When she stepped out again, El-Hashim was waiting for her, dressed in a similar outfit.
There was one problem, however.
“You’re gonna have to lose the scarf,” Alex said.
Involuntarily, El-Hashim put a hand to her cheek. “No. Impossible.”
“Do you want this to work or not?” Alex said. “You wear that thing, you’ll be a neon target. You’ll be spotted and taken back in before you even get a chance to breathe free air. Besides, I’m told the route we’re taking gets pretty tight. I can’t have you choking to death if that thing gets hung up on something.”
“It stays on,” El-Hashim told her.
They locked gazes. “It comes off, or you’re not going.”
El-Hashim was the first to blink. “A compromise. It stays on until it needs to come off.”
“It needs to come off now.”
“No, it doesn’t. You know that.”
Alex pressed her lips tightly together, then said, “Fine. But when I say it’s time, it’s time.”
“Very well.”
Alex was about to check the window again, when she heard footsteps heading their way. “Get in the cell,” she said. “Both of you.”
The two women moved hurriedly into the isolation cell that El-Hashim had used to change clothes, Alex right behind them. Making sure the door’s observation window was open, Alex pulled the door shut behind her, stopping short of engaging the latch.
She looked through the narrow window. Across the room, Teterya entered and looked around, confused. “Powell?”
“Wait here,” Alex told El-Hashim and Marie.
She exited the cell, and met Teterya near the center of the room.
“We have problem,” he said.
“What now?”
He tilted his head in the direction of the examination area. “Prisoner having pain in head and chest.”
“Well, give her something for it and send her back to her cell.”
“She complain very strong, you know? It not look good I send her back. Guard will think something wrong. Better she stay here.”
Alex thought for a moment. This was more a nuisance than anything else.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “Put her in the room I was using. I’ll stay with the others.”
He looked relieved.
As he turned away, Alex said, “And make it fast. I don’t want us to be here any longer than we have to be.”
“Not worry,” he said. “I feel same.”
Chapter Thirty
Teterya pulled the curtain back and smiled.
“You stay tonight so can keep check on you,” he said, and handed her two pills. “For sleep, will make less your pain, too.” He gestured. “Water and glass on table beside you. One moment, take you to room, okay?”
The prisoner nodded, her voice strained. “Thank you, Doctor.”
He closed the curtain again as he left. To the guard he said, “The prisoner will be staying here. Pl
ease put it in the log to have someone check with us in the morning. She should be fine by then.”
The guard stood up. “Yes, sir. I will. Would you like me to wait until she’s in one of your cells?”
“Does she have any history of violence?”
“None that I’m aware of.”
“In that case, I think we’ll be fine. You can go.”
The guard left, and for a second, Teterya let his shoulders sag, belying the confident front he’d been projecting. The game may have been on, but it wasn’t going as smoothly as it should be, and his focus was wavering.
Irina approached and touched his arm. Keeping her voice low so that the prisoner wouldn’t overhear, she said, “Are you okay?”
“I’ll just be glad when this is over.”
“Me, too.”
He took a deep breath, knowing he was only wasting time. “You’d better check to see that the others are out of sight. I want to move our new patient into an isolation cell.”
With a squeeze of his arm, she nodded, and left.
The doctor grabbed the curtain and pulled it all the way open. The prisoner was sitting up now, a half-empty glass of water in her hand.
“How is head?” he asked.
“Still hurts.”
“Pills work soon. Do not worry.”
He heard the door to the back room open. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Irina stick her head out. He raised an eyebrow and she nodded.
“Everything is ready,” he said to the prisoner. “You need help?”
She rose unsteadily to her feet. “I’m okay, I think.”
“This way, then.” He motioned toward Irina waiting at the door, then trailed behind as the prisoner walked gingerly across the floor and into the back room.
“Door in the back corner,” he said, indicating the isolation cell Powell had vacated, where Irina was now waiting.
The prisoner looked around. “Popular place, huh?”
“I do not understand,” Teterya said.
“The other two rooms are closed. They must be occupied, right?”
“Ah. Well, yes, we almost always have someone here.”
She paused and closed her eyes, letting what appeared to be a wave of pain pass over her.
“You are all right?”
“Sorry. That one was bad.” She started walking again.
Once they were in the cell, Irina explained that the button on the wall near the bed would summon her, should the prisoner need assistance.
“Medicine help you sleep through night,” Teterya said. Once Irina had helped the woman into bed, he added, “But we check you every hour. So no worry.”
“Thanks,” the woman whispered, sounding quite sleepy.
“I’m sure you be fine by morning, Miss Norman.”
“Call me…Rachel.”
“Goodnight, Rachel.”
Teterya and Irina left the room. Once the door was closed, he raised the window flap and looked through the slit.
Yes, the pills had worked. The woman was already asleep.
After replacing the flap, he moved quickly down to the cell at the far end and opened the door.
*
“ALL RIGHT,” TETERYA said, sticking his head into their cell. “It is time.”
Alex exited first, but when the others started to follow, she blocked Marie’s passage. “This is the point where you stay behind.”
Marie looked at El-Hashim, speaking in French. “I need to stay with you. We don’t know if it’s safe yet.”
“Of course it’s not safe,” El-Hashim said. “It won’t be safe until I’m away from here.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant.” She gestured for her friend to step back. “Stay, Marie. I will be fine. Frank Poe’s daughter would not hurt me.”
The nod was reluctant, as was the step backward, Marie eyeing El-Hashim with what looked like genuine concern.
Standing in the doorway, Alex said, also in French, “She’s right. The last thing I want is to hurt her.”
Which was only partly true. She didn’t hold any soft spots for a woman who aided terrorists, and she wouldn’t hesitate to hurt El-Hashim if it came down to it. But not before she found out everything she could about her father.
Looking not even remotely reassured by Alex’s words, Marie just glared at her as Alex closed the door.
“Please. Over here,” the doctor said after the door was shut.
He stood at a metal table along the front wall. There was a stack of files and loose papers to one side, along with a few magazines. He picked one up, flipped to the back, and removed two sheets of paper that were definitely not part of the publication. He set them side by side on the table.
It was a map, hand drawn and crude.
“Prison is old,” he said. “Stalin make before war. Simple place, yes?”
Both Alex and El-Hashim agreed that it was.
“But sometime prisoner for…political reason, more problem alive. Sometime many prisoner. Understand?”
“They needed to disappear,” Alex said.
“Yes. But if kill here in prison, make other inmate angry and…” He paused, holding his fists up in the air and shaking them.
“Rise up? Fight?”
“Yes. These things. So make building half kilometer away. Big wall, you know? Keep sound inside. When want to take someone there, tell everyone prisoner be transferred. But not transferred. Take them here.” He pointed at a line on the map that led from inside the prison walls to a square representing the aforementioned building.
“A tunnel,” Alex said, realizing it couldn’t be anything else. Teterya had already hinted that their escape would involve a secret exit. “Like the one we took to isolation.”
“Yes,” he said. “Tunnel. Built same time as one you and me take, but is different. Much deeper.” He raised his left hand and held it out flat at eye level. “Isolation tunnel here.” Then he raised his right hand, holding it flat several inches below the left. “Kill tunnel here. Understand?”
Alex and El-Hashim nodded.
Teterya pointed to the crude drawing, running his finger along a line that marked the tunnel. “Is not used for many year. At far end, is some mud and…and…garbage. Collect from storm in winter.”
“But we can still get through it?” Alex asked.
“I think so, yes.”
This wasn’t a definitive answer. “How many times have you been down there?”
He hesitated. “Two.”
Two? “When was the last time?”
“I go from other end five days ago to make map.”
“You didn’t have any problems?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“All right,” she said. “Sounds easy enough.”
“Not easy,” he said quickly. He pointed to several more lines that branched off from the main one. “These tunnels, like here, here, and here, they built to trick prisoner if try to run. Lead to…dead stop.”
“Dead end.”
“Yes, dead end. Also they look like main tunnel, easy to confuse. Understand?”
“I got it,” Alex said. “If we stick to the map, we’ll be good.”
“Yes.”
“Okay. So that’s getting through the tunnel. How do we get to it? We can’t go through any checkpoints dressed like this.”
“There is way,” Teterya said. “But must be very careful. I take you.”
A buzzer sounded—short, then long. Alex tensed, her gaze shooting to the door into the examination area. Teterya, on the other hand, was looking toward the back of the room.
Alex twisted around, following his line of sight. There was a small yellow lightbulb blinking above the center cell door.
Frida’s cell.
“Your friend wake up,” the doctor said.
El-Hashim looked at Alex. “What friend?”
“An inmate. She got beat up earlier, is all.”
El-Hashim’s eyes narrowed. “What is t
his, some sort of ambush? You’ve got Marie locked up and—”
“Do we really need to go through this again?” Alex said. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you.”
“Calm down, all right? Even if she wanted to, Frida couldn’t hurt anyone right now. If you don’t believe me, look for yourself.”
Alex headed for Frida’s cell. The doctor, already a few steps in front of her, was reaching for the handle.
“Hold it,” Alex told him.
He paused.
Alex looked at El-Hashim, who had followed cautiously. “Let her look inside, first.”
“Is that really necessary?” the doctor asked.
“Just let her look in.”
Obviously irritated, Teterya lifted the flap covering the window. Alex stepped out of the way so El-Hashim could move in for a look.
El-Hashim hesitated, then stepped forward and peeked inside. After several seconds, she stepped back again and said, “What happened to her?”
“There was another prisoner who liked to use her as a punching bag.”
“Liked?”
“The problem’s been remedied.”
Teterya gestured, not hiding his annoyance. “May I check patient now?”
Both Alex and El-Hashim moved to the side so Frida wouldn’t see them as the doctor opened the door and went in.
They heard Frida say, “Can I…get some water?”
Her words punctuated by pain.
“Yes,” Teterya said. He called out in Ukrainian.
Irina, who was waiting nearby, rushed over to the sink and started filling a pitcher.
“I thought…I heard my…friend’s voice,” Frida said.
“Friend?”
“Maureen. She’s another prisoner. Is she here?”
“No. Am sorry. Probably only medicine. Will sometimes make head think things.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Teterya said.
Irina entered the cell with the pitcher and a glass.
“Here you are,” the doctor said. “And please to take this. Will help you back to sleep.”
For several seconds, Alex heard only subtle sounds of movement.
Then Teterya said, “Okay. Just rest. Tomorrow you sore but feel little better. Am sure.”
The doctor and nurse exited and shut the door.
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