Poe (33 page)

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.

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!”

* * *

A
S 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!”

* * *

F
RIDA 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.”

* * *

W
ITH 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!”

* * *

A
LEX 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.

* * *

C
OOPER 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.

Still, it
was
her eyes that were familiar. Why?

Another shout from down the tunnel broke into his thoughts.

Alex. She had to be involved with whatever was going on down there.

He grabbed the woman’s arm.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“You’re coming with me.”

Whoever she was, he wasn’t about to let her get past him until he found out. But Alex came first.

Pulling her after him, he headed toward the fight.

“Please,” she said. “My leg. I cannot go so fast.”

“You were doing all right a minute ago. Pick it up.”

There was a small S curve in the tunnel. When they came out of it, there was a light about sixty feet away, low and focused on the wall. He could still hear the fight, but couldn’t see anyone.

Then suddenly two shadows danced into the beam. They struggled with each other, twisting and turning, pulling and punching.