Poe

by Battles, Brett

  Would it be enough to get her to open up?

  It was worth a try.

  There was a sharp bend to the tunnel for the first several yards, before it eased into a relatively straighter path. Alex thought she could just make out the dead end at the far reach of her flashlight beam.

  Just a little closer now.

  She was going over what she’d say, trying to get the words exactly right, when she heard a low noise behind her and started to turn. Her head had only moved a couple inches when something smacked into the side of her skull.

  At first there was no pain, only confusion, as she staggered to the left, the flashlight slipping from her hand. Then the whole side of her head began to scream.

  She put a hand over the spot and felt something sticky and wet. Blood, she realized. How…?

  Something grabbed her shoulder and twisted her around. She could see the outline of a person only a couple feet away, but whether it was the darkness or blurred vision, she couldn’t make out any details.

  She could, however, see a hand flashing toward her face. She ducked, not in time to completely clear the blow, but enough that it glanced off the top of her skull.

  Without missing a beat, she swung out with her left as her training with Emerick kicked in, and followed with an upper cut from her blood-covered right.

  Both blows found their targets.

  There was a yell, loud and angry—definitely not El-Hashim.

  Alex stepped backward, knowing her attacker was about to make another assault. The move would have been a good one if not for the slippery stone that her foot first found, then quickly lost.

  Alex twisted sideways as she tried to keep her balance, but there was no way to avoid the fall. She hit the wet ground with an oomph, but before she could even move, a foot connected with her gut. A second later she heard splashes of someone running away.

  Alex fought through the pain and pushed herself to her feet. She looked around for the light of her flashlight, but all she could see was dark.

  Had the water shorted it?

  “El-Hashim,” she said. “Where are you?”

  No response. The only thing she could hear now was her own breathing. She was completely alone without a light.

  The steps had gone…that way.

  Her head throbbing, she turned to her right. She could still hear the steps faintly in the distance. She moved within arm’s length of the wall so she could touch it with her fingertips, and began to run.

  * * *

  THE ASSASSIN KNEW her target wouldn’t get far.

  It wasn’t a complete surprise to her when El-Hashim snatched up Powell’s flashlight and made a run for it. The woman was no idiot, and saving her own skin would be the only thing that mattered to her.

  But running wouldn’t do her much good. Hers was a world of clandestine meetings and backroom deals, not fleeing for her life from someone whose sole purpose—for the moment, at least—was to take it.

  Unfortunately, the assassin hadn’t had time to completely finish off Powell before El-Hashim took off. After choosing to neutralize whom she considered the more dangerous of the two, she was now paying the price by having to abandon the job halfway through.

  A gun would have been nice, but, sadly, prisoners don’t get to have firearms.

  She’d been right about Powell. The woman definitely had had some training. The sting along the assassin’s rib cage was proof enough of that. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had been able to lay a hand on her.

  As she ran through the tunnel, she didn’t bother masking the beam from her own flashlight. El-Hashim already knew she was coming.

  She could hear the woman ahead of her, both the splashes of her feet and the desperation of her breath.

  A few seconds later, there was a gasp, then the rate of the splashes increased, and she knew that El-Hashim must have looked back and seen the light reflecting off the curved tunnel walls.

  The assassin had a brief moment of surprise when the tunnel straightened again. She had expected to see El-Hashim’s light, but the passageway ahead was completely dark.

  She could still hear the footsteps, however, and the breathing—off to her left.

  A dozen feet farther on, she figured out what had happened. El-Hashim had reached the fork in the tunnels and had taken the correct one this time.

  Sure enough, when the assassin took the turn, the other light came into view less than fifteen yards ahead.

  The assassin picked up her speed.

  Time to finish this.

  * * *

  ALEX SAW A brief flash of light reflecting off the tunnel wall, then it was gone.

  As she ran, she tried to figure out who her attacker had been.

  If it had been a guard, the person would have been armed, and a quick gunshot would have taken care of things. But there had been none. The attacker was a woman, she knew that much. The yell had confirmed that. But the brutality of the attack suggested it wasn’t just any woman.

  The assassin. It had to be.

  Her head pounding mercilessly, Alex reached out and again felt the wall with her fingers, tracing the curve until it came to a stop, indicating she was approaching the fork again. Since there were no lights in front of her, she figured they must have gone down the other tunnel, in the direction of the exit.

  Switching to the opposite wall, she slowed her pace until she reached the corner, and carefully made her way around it.

  Sure enough, up ahead were two lights. The closest, about fifty feet away, would belong to the attacker. The other, not more than thirty or forty farther on, would be El-Hashim.

  Alex took another step, and nearly stumbled when her foot landed on a loose rock. Recovering, she started to step over it, but stopped, leaned down, and picked it up. It was heavy and solid and a little larger than palm size—but manageable. Probably around the same size as the stone the assassin had used on her.

  Well. Two can play at that game.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Cooper told himself he would only go fifty feet down the tunnel, but when he reached that point, he heard splashes in the distance. The kind of splashes someone would make slogging across water-covered stone.

  Another fifty, he decided.

  This time when he reached his goal, he stopped and cupped a hand to his ear.

  Footsteps. No doubt about it. They were regular for several beats, then they would slow or speed up randomly.

  He was just about to call out Alex’s name, when he heard a faint voice shout, “Come on!”

  That was enough to get him to yank the Beretta 9mm from the backpack and get moving again.

  * * *

  The assassin smiled when El-Hashim turned back to look at her.

  It had to be a frightening sight—a killer, only ten feet away and closing fast.

  Heart-attack stuff.

  Hopefully, El-Hashim’s heart was sturdier than that. This hunt wouldn’t have a satisfying conclusion if the woman just dropped dead.

  El-Hashim screamed and tried to run faster. She gained herself an extra half-second of freedom, but that was about it. The assassin lunged, clamped down on the woman’s shoulder, and jerked her backward, off her feet.

  The flashlight flew straight up into the air. On its way down, the assassin snatched it—just because she could.

  Damn, she felt invincible right now.

  She pointed both beams at El-Hashim, lying now in the water, her body trembling.

  “I bring a message from your employer,” the assassin said. “Your services are no longer needed.”

  The fear suddenly turned to shock. “The committee sent you?”

  “Life’s a bitch, ain’t it?”

  The assassin reached down and put a hand on each side of El-Hashim’s head. The woman grabbed at them, trying to pull them off, while rolling side to side.

  The assassin dropped her knee onto the woman’s chest, pinning her down. “Just relax,” she said. “This will be nice and easy.�
�

  “No! No! Let go of me!”

  * * *

  AS SHE RAN, Alex discovered that the edges of the floor curved up into the wall. If she traveled along them, she could minimize the amount of water she stepped in. This helped her increase her speed while making little noise. Her new pace wasn’t fast enough, however, to keep the attacker from reaching El-Hashim.

  Alex saw El-Hashim go down and the woman jump on her, grabbing for El-Hashim’s head.

  There were some words, but Alex didn’t try to listen.

  She raced forward, the rock gripped tightly in her hand. As she angled herself to circle around them, she pulled her arm back and swung it forward, flinging the rock into the attacker’s forehead.

  Right before the stone connected, she registered the woman’s battered face.

  Frida.

  Alex had no time to consider what this might mean as Frida flew backward with a watery thud against the stone floor.

  Grabbing the flashlights, Alex pulled El-Hashim to her feet.

  “Come on!”

  * * *

  FRIDA REMEMBERED THE feel of the woman’s head in her hands. But what she didn’t remember was how she had ended up on her back, with El-Hashim gone.

  Pushing herself up on her elbows, a wave of dizziness swept over her, nearly sending her back down. She gritted her teeth through it, then stood up.

  Pain radiated through her forehead, and there was water trickling down her face. She reached up to wipe it off, winced, and jerked her hand away, looking at her fingers.

  Though it was too dark to see them, she knew they were covered in blood.

  How long had she been out?

  Minutes? Hours?

  Listening carefully, she heard rapid footsteps moving away. Two sets.

  Powell, goddammit. Frida knew not finishing her off before would be a problem.

  At least they hadn’t gone far, so that meant she must have been out for only a few seconds.

  She didn’t care that she didn’t have a flashlight.

  She could operate in the dark.

  She had always operated in the dark.

  * * *

  “HURRY,” ALEX URGED.

  El-Hashim had been limping since they left Frida behind, but that wasn’t what was slowing her down. She seemed distracted, even stunned.

  “What did she say to you?” Alex asked, still hardly believing that Frida was the assassin.

  El-Hashim didn’t respond, lost in her own thoughts.

  “What did Frida say to you?”

  El-Hashim came around now. “Frida?”

  “The woman who was sitting on your chest. Frida was the name she used in the prison.”

  “She’s…the one they sent to kill me.”

  “Who sent to kill you?”

  It was obvious El-Hashim had descended into thought again, so Alex decided to drop it for now.

  The map was soaking wet as she pulled it from her pocket, but at least the lines were still visible. According to Teterya’s directions, there was one more false tunnel, then a straight shot to the end of a passageway that would lead to the rendezvous point, where hopefully Deuce and Cooper would be waiting.

  Before they reached that point, though, she still had to get them through this godforsaken tunnel, and get El-Hashim to tell her how to contact her father.

  She pointed the light ahead, and spotted the split with the last tunnel.

  “Come on,” she said, giving El-Hashim a tug. “We’re getting close.”

  * * *

  WITH EVERY STEP, Frida’s mind cleared a little more.

  She knew Powell and El-Hashim had to be getting near the end of the tunnel. She also knew if they were able to reach it, her job would become exponentially much more difficult.

  So she was surprised when she saw the beam of the flashlight less than a minute later. El-Hashim and Powell were walking not nearly as rapidly as Frida had expected. As the gap between her and her target narrowed, she thought she could hear Powell urging El-Hashim on.

  And a moment later she saw why.

  El-Hashim was limping.

  Hurt when I took her down. Good.

  Frida was only twenty feet away from them when her toe caught on a hole where a stone should have been. She grabbed at the wall, searching for a handhold, but her momentum was already carrying her toward the center of the tunnel.

  With a loud splash, she stepped into the water, and started to fall to the ground. She jammed a hand down onto the stone floor, catching herself at the last second.

  As she shoved herself back up, the beam of light caught her in the face.

  “Go!” Powell yelled. “Run!”

  * * *

  ALEX WOULD HAVE liked to take the final false tunnel and execute the plan she was going to do before, but with Frida somewhere behind them, that wasn’t an option. As they passed the junction, she noticed that El-Hashim’s limp seemed more prominent than before.

  “Is it your knee?” she asked.

  “Yes,” El-Hashim said, pain lacing her voice. “It’s hard to bend it now. I think maybe it is swollen.”

  “We’ll take a look at it when we get out. And the faster you go, the sooner that’ll happen. Lean more on me.” Alex slipped her arm around El-Hashim’s back. “There. That help?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s see if we can pick up the pace.”

  They had taken no more than three steps when Alex heard a splash in the tunnel behind them.

  She let go of El-Hashim and twisted around, bringing the flashlight with her.

  Frida.

  There was blood on the assassin’s forehead where the rock had smashed into her, but it didn’t seem to be fazing her.

  “Go!” Alex said to El-Hashim. “Run!”

  El-Hashim got the message. Though she didn’t exactly run, she took off at a faster speed.

  Frida charged. By the angle she took, it looked as though she intended to run right past Alex and go after El-Hashim.

  But Alex wasn’t about to let that happen.

  She waited until Frida was five feet away, then launched herself, knocking into the other woman’s shoulder, and slamming the crown of her head against Frida’s jaw. In a tangle, they crashed against the wall, the flashlight falling to the floor, its beam now pointing across the width of the tunnel.

  Frida tried to pull herself free, but Alex kept her arms wrapped around her as she turned her back toward the center of the tunnel, and hooked her foot behind the killer’s. Down they went, Alex on top, water soaking both of them.

  Frida screamed in rage. She jerked side to side, trying to get her arms free, then jammed her knee up into Alex’s thigh. The sudden pain was enough to momentarily loosen Alex’s hold.

  Frida ripped her arm from Alex’s grasp, and shoved her hand into Alex’s face, pushing her back. With her other fist, she repeatedly jabbed Alex in the ribs.

  Alex could feel her hold on the woman slipping away. Frida must have sensed it, too. With a final, extra hard push, she sent Alex tumbling to the side.

  Alex rolled with it, popping onto her hands and knees, then rapidly to her feet. Frida was already up, looking like she was about to run. Fortunately, Alex had ended up between her and El-Hashim.

  “So you were faking it all the time, huh?” Alex said.

  Frida snickered. “And you weren’t?”

  “The fights? The injuries?”

  “It’s not hard to get into a fight in a prison. Of course, I couldn’t always rely on others. Sometimes I had to inflict a little of my own pain.”

  Through the indirect light of the flashlight beam, Alex could see Frida smile. The woman’s gaze flicked down the tunnel in the direction El-Hashim had gone, then back at her.

  “That’s right,” Alex said. “You’re not getting to her unless you get through me.”

  “Good,” Frida told her. “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

  She charged again. No yell this time, no scream.

  Only focused
anger in her eyes.

  * * *

  COOPER RAN AS fast as he could through the wet tunnel. He could hear splashes ahead, and what sounded like shouts and grunts. It all added up to one thing in his mind—a fight.

  It was only a few more seconds before he realized there was something odd about the sounds. The big splashes and fighting noises seemed to be originating from a fixed point, but there were other splashes, rhythmic—splash-splash, splash-splash—coming closer and closer.

  Someone was headed his way. If the tunnel didn’t have a slight bend, he was sure he would have seen them by now.

  He stopped and raised his gun, filling the tunnel ahead with the beam of his light.

  There were no breaks in the pace of the splashes, and now that they were right around the corner, he could hear heavy breathing, too.

  Instead of continuing, however, the splashes came to an abrupt stop, just out of sight.

  “Who’s there?” Cooper called out.

  When no one responded, he took a few steps forward, his gun ready.

  “I said, who’s there?”

  Still nothing.

  Instead of walking forward this time, he ran, hoping to surprise whoever it was. As soon as his flashlight beam fell on the woman around the curve, she turned and started to go the other way.

  “Stop!” he ordered. “I’m armed.”

  For half a second, he thought maybe she didn’t speak English, but then she halted. He approached her, stopping just outside of arm’s reach.

  “Turn around.”

  Slowly, she did as asked.

  She was blonde, wearing a black shirt and pants. Maybe not quite middle-aged, but working on it.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  She hesitated, then said in a heavy French accent, “Marie.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “That is not business of you.”

  Though he knew he’d never met her before, there was something familiar about her.

  “Did you come with Alex?”

  “Alex?”

  Her answer was a tad too quick for his liking. There was also something in her eyes, a forced innocence.

  Her eyes.

  They were brown, which didn’t exactly go with her hair—assuming her hair was naturally blonde.