“We need to get out of here, now,” Alex whispered.
Teterya nodded. “Yes. Now would be good.” He said something to Irina, then looked back at Alex and El-Hashim. “Follow me.”
“Wait a second,” Alex said. She gestured to El-Hashim’s scarf. “Time to take it off.”
“Now? But—”
“No excuses this time.”
After a brief hesitation, El-Hashim reached up and removed the hijab from her head, revealing for the first time more than just her eyes.
If there was an ounce of Middle Eastern blood in the woman, that’s all it was. An ounce. The gray-streaked blonde hair and pale skin both belied those brown eyes. Contacts, undoubtedly. Her eyes were more likely blue or even gray. If Alex had to guess, she’d say the woman was northern European or Scandinavian.
She eyed Alex defiantly. “Happy now?”
“Surprised,” Alex said. “I guess you’re lucky the Crimean authorities are very tolerant when it comes to religious garb.”
“The Crimean authorities are pigs,” El-Hashim—or whoever she was—said. She rolled the hijab into a ball and tossed it into a nearby corner. “Can we go now?”
The doctor stared at El-Hashim in surprise.
“Doctor?” Alex said.
“Sorry,” he said, blinking. He grabbed two flashlights off the counter. He gave the miniature one to Alex, retained the larger one for himself, and led the two women out the back door of the infirmary. Instead of heading left toward the stairwell, though, he went right. There were only a few more rooms in this direction. The one he took them into turned out to be a storage room stuffed full of shelves and boxes.
“Is this way,” he said, weaving a path through the mess.
When he finally stopped, he stood in front of a set of double doors to what looked like a cabinet built directly into the wall, about three feet above the floor. He opened the doors and revealed what amounted to a large, empty, wooden box.
“Is for moving…items, you know? Up and down.”
“Supply elevator?” Alex suggested.
He nodded. “But only work if person here and person downstairs. See button?” He pointed at a red button mounted beside the jamb just inside the door. “I go down and push. When you see button light up, you push, too, and everything work.”
“Okay,” Alex said. “I got it.” She looked at the box dubiously. “Is this strong enough to hold both of us?”
“I think no problem.”
“You think?”
He shrugged, and made his way out of the room.
Alex was pressing a hand against the box, checking how sturdy it was, when El-Hashim said, “What happens once we’re on the outside? Will your father meet us?”
“No. A couple friends of mine are waiting to help us.”
“So where is your father?”
Alex couldn’t help but laugh at the irony. “Not a clue. He’s not that great at keeping me informed.” Satisfied that the box was strong enough, she looked at El-Hashim. “Maybe you can tell me.”
“Why would I know?”
“You’ve talked to him more recently than I have.”
“But he sent you here.”
“Text messages and e-mails, remember?”
El-Hashim shook her head. “Your father is…unusual.”
“You think?”
“I was actually surprised he sent you here to help me.”
“Why’s that?”
“The deal we were working on, I’m fairly sure he was not as interested in it as he was pretending to be.”
Alex shrugged. “Not my area.” She wanted to bring the conversation back to her father’s potential whereabouts, but didn’t know how to do that without making El-Hashim suspicious. She changed the subject. “I’m sorry we couldn’t bring your friend along.”
“She’ll be out soon enough. She knows that I’ll make sure of it.”
Then she’s about to be very disappointed, Alex thought.
The red button suddenly glowed and Alex waved at El-Hashim. “Get in.”
El-Hashim climbed into the box, and pressed against the back wall so Alex could squeeze in next to her. Once Alex was sure she was all the way inside, she reached out, pushed the button, and snapped her hand back in.
The doors closed automatically and the box began a slow, steady descent, plunging them into darkness. It was several seconds before a set of closed doors appeared, light seeping in around the edges.
This would be the first floor. They continued their descent and soon everything was dark again. When they reached the next floor down, the elevator jerked to a stop, and the doors opened, revealing the waiting doctor in a dimly lit room. As the women climbed out, he put a finger to his lips, telling them to be quiet.
The room was about half the size of the storage space upstairs. It smelled of musk and dirt, and was packed with decaying cardboard boxes. Cobwebs clung to the corners and draped over the cardboard. The room looked as if it hadn’t been disturbed in several decades.
The doctor leaned in close and whispered, “We need go two doors. Must be very quiet. Three doors down is main part of basement.”
As soon as Alex and El-Hashim nodded, he went over to the door and opened it.
The hallway was low and narrow. Like the tunnel to the isolation area, single lightbulbs hung from the ceiling at consistent intervals, creating pools of light surrounded by areas of shadow. About thirty feet down the hall, more light spilled out from a window mounted in a closed door. Alex assumed this was the main basement entrance the doctor had mentioned.
Teterya stepped into the hallway first and headed in that direction. Alex motioned for El-Hashim to go next, then brought up the rear. They’d gone only a few feet when they passed a darkened doorway.
That would be door number one.
Alex hoped number two would come as quickly, putting them as far from that lit doorway as possible, but her wish was not to be. The second door was only a handful of steps from the third.
It also had the added bonus of being closed.
The doctor approached it quietly, then turned the handle and pushed. The squeak that followed was brief, but to Alex it sounded like an explosion that reverberated down the hallway. Her gaze shot over to the lit window, expecting to see the shadow of a guard at any moment. But the light remained undisturbed.
A tap on her shoulder snapped her attention back. El-Hashim gave her a wave, then turned and walked through the now open doorway. Once Alex was inside, Teterya shut the door behind them, the creak once more setting Alex’s nerves on edge.
With a click, the doctor’s flashlight came to life, its beam cutting through the darkened space, revealing that they weren’t in a room, but another corridor.
“This way,” he whispered.
Alex turned her light on, and panned it through the corridor as she followed the others. The hallway looked even less used than the nearly abandoned one they’d just been in. What Alex could see of the floor was covered with dust. There were cobwebs along the ceiling, and what paint hadn’t already fallen off the walls was slowly peeling away. There were boxes and discarded furniture and twisted pieces of shelves strewn about, turning their route into an obstacle course primed to twist an ankle at the first misstep.
They came to an archway on the left. The doctor turned, stepped through it, and immediately backed out.
“Sorry,” he said. “Not right way. Next one.”
He found the archway he was looking for another twenty feet in. On the other side was a stonewalled room, with a ceiling so low that Alex found herself ducking despite the fact she had about a half foot of clearance.
The doctor swung the beam through the space, stopping on the back corner, where the stones were built into a six-inch-high, four-foot-square pedestal.
As they drew near, Alex saw a metal grate centered in the top. She shined her light through the slits, but could see nothing. She could, however, hear the trickle of water.
“The tunnel?”
“Yes,” Teterya said. “Down and go left.”
Alex listened to the water again. While it sounded as if it was coming straight up from below, it also sounded as if…
“How far down?” she asked.
“Six meter. Maybe little more.”
Almost twenty feet.
“Is there a ladder?”
Teterya shook his head. “Cable on other side. Metal, yes? Go down maybe three and half meter. Climb down, drop.”
The drop would still be close to eight feet onto who knew what. But if they were getting out, this was the way they were going. And Alex was sure as hell getting out.
After turning off her light, and stuffing it in her pocket, she reached for the grate. “Does this come off?”
Teterya nodded.
Alex gripped two of the thick slats, bent her knees, and pulled upward. The metal groaned loudly as it fought to remain where it was. The doctor gave the flashlight to El-Hashim and bent down to help Alex.
They raised it about half an inch before the doctor lost his hold, and Alex was forced to set it back down.
Resting her hands on her thighs, she took several rapid, deep breaths. “When was the last time…someone…pulled it out of there?”
“I open first time here,” the doctor said. “Two year ago. Think no one open since.”
Two years?
She shot El-Hashim a sideways glance. “You don’t have to just stand there looking pretty, you know. If you give us a hand, we should be able to do it.”
El-Hashim looked surprised at the suggestion.
“I’m not asking you to do it alone,” Alex said. “A little help is all. Or would you rather we just go back and turn ourselves in?”
El-Hashim frowned. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it.”
“Good,” Alex told her. She took a long, deliberate breath and straightened up. “Shall we try again?”
Chapter Thirty-One
Keeping busy hadn’t distracted Irina as much as she had hoped it would.
While Symon was risking his life for two people they barely knew, she had gone out to the reception desk and tried to work through the everpresent stack of files. Within moments, however, her nerves got the best of her. She stared blankly at the wall, as her mind counted the many ways this could all go wrong, and land her and Symon in very serious trouble.
When the buzzer went off, she jumped in surprise, knocking her knees against the bottom of her desk. She looked toward the door, then the window, then down at her desk before she finally realized the buzzer had come from one of the isolation cells.
She rubbed her knees, calmed herself, and stood up. Before she could take a step, though, the buzzer sounded again.
“Yes, yes,” she murmured. “I’m coming.”
Walking into the back room, she saw the yellow light glowing above one of the cells. As she crossed to the door, the buzzer sounded again.
“I’m coming,” she repeated, this time raising her voice, not caring if the patient understood her or not.
She made a stop at the medicine locker to get a pain pill, filled up a glass of water, and opened the cell door.
“Good evening,” the prisoner said.
Irina jerked back in surprise, some of the water splashing out of the cup and onto the floor. The prisoner was standing right on the other side of the door, an odd smile on her face. She glanced at the pill and cup in Irina’s hand and said, “I won’t be needing those.”
It suddenly occurred to Irina that the woman was speaking Ukrainian. Quite capably, in fact. Flustered, Irina said, “You should lie down. You’ll feel better.”
“Oh, I feel fine,” the prisoner told her. “Excellent, even. How about you?”
She stepped out of the cell, forcing Irina to take a step backward.
“You—you can’t come out here,” Irina cried. “You need to go back inside and lie down. When the doctor returns, I’ll have him check in on you.”
“That won’t be necessary,” the woman said. She smiled again. “Your name’s Irina, right?”
Irina’s eyes widened in shock. “How do you know that?”
“I wouldn’t be any good at my job if I didn’t.” The prisoner continued moving forward, forcing Irina to back further away. “I need you to pay attention, Irina. First you’re going to put that cup down before you spill any more water, then—”
Irina didn’t wait to hear what “then” might be. She tossed the cup at the woman’s face and ran for the alarm next to the door. As she was reaching for it, a hand clawed at her shoulder and yanked her back.
“Let go of me!” Irina cried.
The prisoner spun her around and slapped her squarely across the face.
“Let’s not do that again, shall we?” the woman said, her calm, almost unconcerned manner only frightening Irina all the more.
Suddenly someone started pounding on one of the other cell doors, the inmate inside demanding to be let out, to know what was going on. It was the friend of the woman who had gone with Symon and Powell.
The prisoner holding Irina’s arm ignored the shouts. “I need you to listen very carefully to me, Irina. Are you listening?
She was too frightened to respond.
“I asked if you’re listening.”
Irina didn’t trust her own voice, so she nodded.
“Good. Now, here’s what I want you to do. I know your friends are headed for a tunnel. I want you to show me how to get there. Right now. And you won’t be making any wrong turns that might lead to some of your friends working in the building.” She smiled again. “Are we clear?”
This time, Irina managed to eek out a yes.
“Excellent,” the woman said. She nodded toward the door. “After you.”
*
IT WAS AT moments like these that the assassin loved her work. The assigned killing itself was often routine, but it was what led up to it—a series of moves and counter moves that forced her to use her wits and often improvise—that she relished.
Her instincts about Powell had proven to be correct. And her decision to keep close tabs on the woman had led her to the exact place she needed to be, at the exact moment she needed to be there.
She had assumed there was some sort of escape plan in the works, and listening at her cell door as the doctor and Powell spoke had confirmed this.
The assassin had waited until she was sure everyone was gone, then had pushed the button to call for help. And while she often got a kick out of scaring the crap out of people, sometimes even hurting them—slowly—in the process, she knew tonight was not the night to indulge her baser desires. Prolonging the nurse’s terror would only keep the assassin from the task at hand.
And time was of the essence.
After telling the nurse to find a flashlight, she followed her down a hallway into the storage room, and immediately became suspicious. “This is the way?”
“The tunnel starts in one of the basements.”
“So why are we in here?”
The nurse gestured to a set of double doors at the rear of the room. “Elevator for supplies,” she said, looking even more frightened than before. “It will take you to the proper basement. But…but it can only be operated if there is a person at each end.”
The assassin nodded, then went to the doors and tried them.
Locked.
“Why won’t they open?”
“The elevator car must not be here,” the nurse said. “They remain locked if it’s on another floor. For safety.”
The assassin examined the doors for several seconds before turning again to the nurse. “And once you get to the bottom, where is the tunnel entrance?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve never been down there. Symon…Dr. Teterya said it’s in one of the rooms close by. That’s all I know.”
“You’ve never seen it?”
“No.”
Disappointing, the assassin thought, but not the end of the world.
Smiling again, she thanked the nurs
e, and for a moment the poor girl looked relieved. The assassin let her hold on to that feeling for a few seconds, then reached out and snapped her neck.
Never one to disrespect the dead, she gently laid the nurse on the floor, out of the way.
Then she returned her attention to the elevator doors.
Chapter Thirty-Two
It took them a couple minutes—and more than a few grunts and groans—to finally pull the grated cover free and drop it to the stone floor.
Alex retrieved her flashlight, flicked it on, and shone it through the hole they’d just uncovered.
The opening was a cement cylinder about three feet long, stopping where the roof of the tunnel began. As she’d been warned, it was a leg-breaking drop down to a damp floor. The tunnel walls seemed to be oozing water. The passageway was so old and decrepit it was leaking groundwater.
Badly.
There was no missing the smell, either—dank and tinged with rot.
The cable the doctor had mentioned was embedded in the cylinder about half a foot up from the bottom. What it had been used for, there was no telling, but Alex did notice three other evenly spaced points around the tube where other cables had most likely been anchored.
She pulled herself back up, and stuffed the flashlight into her pocket. “I’ll go first,” she said, looking at El-Hashim. “Wait until I’m down, then you start. The trickiest part will be shimmying down the tube. Take it as slow as you need to, and make sure you have a good grip on the cable before you commit yourself. When you reach the end, I’ll be there to help you.”
El-Hashim peered into the hole. She looked as if she were unsure she could actually do this, but she said nothing.
Alex turned to Teterya. “Thank you, Doctor. After you help her into the hole, your job is done.”
She held out her hand for him to shake. He hesitated, then took it.
“You are welcome. Please not to come back.”
Alex grinned. “I promise.”
Alex swung her legs into the opening and moved down, bracing herself against the cement. Reaching the cable, she grabbed on, then carefully relaxed the tension that was holding her body in the tube. As her legs dropped down she swung a bit from side to side, so she hooked a foot around the end of the cable to arrest the movement.
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