The Unknown

by Brett Battles

  While she looked surprised at his news, it barely made a dent in her otherwise dour expression.

  “It’s okay, Tiana. Put me on the first plane out of here, and the old man will never have to worry about me again.”

  “That’s not what he’s requested.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “He’s worried you’ll say something about this place once you’re away.”

  Grigory rolled his eyes. “You know I would never do that.”

  She said nothing.

  “You think I would?”

  “No. But it doesn’t matter what I think.”

  He sat back, grimacing. “So, what do I have to do? Kiss his ring or something?”

  “I’ve been ordered to terminate you.”

  Grigory said nothing. Then, “So that’s it, huh? Sounds like something he’d want. But could you really kill me, Tiana?”

  “Not if I don’t have to.”

  “Good, because you don’t have to. The general’s insane. All you need to do is—” He paused as a thought hit him. “Oh, shit. You’ve ordered someone else do it, haven’t you?” He glanced at the door, expecting it to burst open and emit his executioner.

  “No one else is coming.”

  “Then what am I missing?”

  “I believe you when you say you would never talk about this place or Future Planning. But I need you to promise me that’s true.”

  Grigory was not a stupid man. There was only one answer to her request. “I promise. I will never speak of this place again for as long as I live.”

  Tiana moved her hand out from under the table and set it on the table. In her grip was a pistol, pointed at him. He considered lunging for the weapon, but knew she’d be able to get off a shot before he could put a finger on it.

  And she would not miss.

  She stared at him for several seconds before rising to her feet and walking around the end of the table to the back wall. The entire time, she kept her weapon trained on him.

  She put her free hand on the wood paneling and pressed against it. The section of wall slid to the side. Beyond it was a dark space, the only thing visible a large bag at the edge of the light spilling in from the room.

  “Through here is a long hallway,” she said. “At the end are stairs that lead up to an emergency exit. This is your way out.”

  Hope swelled inside him, but then he thought about what he’d be facing when he reached the top. “There’s nothing up there. Where am I supposed to go?”

  “Ketovo is seventy-five kilometers away. You should be able to get there in a couple of days. The bag has food, water, a blanket, and a handheld GPS device. That should be enough to get you there.”

  “You want me to walk through the desert?”

  Her face hardened. “No. I want you to have not put me in this position in the first place.”

  He had nothing to say to that.

  “Understand the risk I’m taking here,” she said. “If the general finds out you’re still alive, then I will be the one who pays for it. So, either you take this opportunity and start a new life under a new name, or I do what I was ordered to do.”

  She raised the gun slightly.

  “I’m…I’m sorry. You’re right. You’re taking a big chance.” A pause, then a nod. “I’ll go.”

  As he moved toward the secret doorway, she backed away, denying him the possibility of grabbing the pistol. He stepped across the threshold and picked up the bag.

  “Thank you,” he said, with the appropriate amount of contriteness.

  “Don’t come back. Ever.”

  She shut the door.

  In the pitch blackness, he reached out, searching for a light switch. But before his hand touched the wall, an overhead bulb blinked on.

  Motion sensor, he guessed.

  The illumination was just enough for him to see the beginning of the hallway she had mentioned. As he approached it, another light came on.

  A pattern emerged as he proceeded down his escape route—lights coming on as he neared them, those behind him going off not long after he left their halo.

  Now that he was alone, the anger he felt at Nesterov came crashing back with a vengeance, growing more intense with each step.

  What right did the old has-been have to determine whether Grigory lived or died? The asshole was clearly deluded, maybe even suffering from dementia. What else could explain Nesterov thinking he would turn Kazakhstan into a future world power by stealing everyone else’s secrets?

  And now Grigory had to change his life because of that sack of shit?

  Over and over these thoughts ran through his mind, until a light flicked on in front of him revealing the end of the hall. He jerked to a stop.

  How long had he been walking? In his fury, he’d totally lost track of time. It had been at least ten minutes, maybe more.

  Mounted to the wall near the end was a ladder that led up through a hole in the ceiling.

  He started to climb, the cycling of lights and his growing resentment persisting.

  Tiana could have killed him, but instead had offered him a lifeline. If he were to now ignore her directive to change his identity, she would pay the price and he would be responsible. But if he did follow her order, the life he would live would not be the one he’d known.

  “Dammit,” he muttered more than once.

  He stewed in his fury as more and more rungs passed through his hands. Should he pick up where he left off and let Tiana fend for herself? Or should he throw everything away and start anew? Could he even do that?

  He felt something looming above him and looked up to see he was only a few meters from the top. He spotted a lever beside the ladder, two rungs up.

  He grabbed it and gave it a yank.

  Chapter Thirty

  Jar worked her way down the corridor until she heard a noise ahead.

  She looked at the nearest camera, pointed at her ears, and then down the hall. When no response came over the comm, she clicked her mic half a dozen times in rapid succession.

  “I’m here, I’m here,” Orlando said. “What’s going on?”

  Jar pantomimed for the camera again.

  “Hang tight,” Orlando said. “Let me check.”

  Orlando hadn’t mentioned how she’d gained access to the security camera system, but Jar knew the answer.

  She’d been thinking about that muffled voice she’d heard when she was talking to Orlando.

  Based on her photographic memory of the moment—or would it be audiographic, in this case?—she realized the pitch of the indistinct speaker’s voice had sounded more female than male. But Orlando was the only woman in the car, and the voice had cut her off.

  That left two possibilities: Misty and Danara.

  Jar had heard Misty’s voice on only four occasions, but it was enough for her to know the tone of the muffled voice did not match that of the head of the Office.

  It did, however, match Danara’s. And if Danara had returned, it made sense that she’d use her extraordinary abilities to break into Lonely Rock’s security network.

  Whatever the case, Jar was thankful that access to the cameras had allowed Orlando to visually track her progress and warn her of upcoming trouble. Like right now.

  “Four men,” Orlando said. “All in fatigues. They’re about twenty-five meters ahead and just turned down another hallway. Give it thirty seconds and you should be good to go.”

  Jar clicked once, to indicate she understood.

  When the half-minute was up, she crept forward and paused just outside the intersection. To this point, she’d encountered only doors. This was the first new hallway.

  She heard footsteps fading around the corner as the soldiers moved farther away. She peeked around the corner. There was a slight bend in the corridor, and though the men’s steps echoed faintly, the soldiers had moved out of sight beyond the curve.

  She checked the corridor in the other direction and saw that it, too, had a bend. She wondered if they
came together again somewhere on the other side of the base, like a giant circle. If she had designed a place like this, she would’ve definitely considered creating hallway rings.

  She moved through the intersection, then whispered, “How do things look ahead?”

  “You’re clear for at least five more cameras.”

  “Copy.”

  Jar sneaked down the main corridor, staying tight to the wall, and noticed a change to her surroundings. Gone were the piles of boxes and discarded equipment she’d been hiding behind. Here, the only things that could serve the same purpose were the concrete support pillars. They looked more like arches—going up one side, crossing the ceiling, and coming down the other. The columns protruded about three-quarters of a meter into the walkway, leaving her barely enough room to conceal herself, and would be useless if someone walked by.

  If someone was indeed heading toward her, her only other option would be to duck through one of the doors. The good news was there were more of them now, some only a few meters apart. The bad news: the door she chose might lead to a room that was occupied. Unless, of course, it was Brunner inside.

  More noises ahead. Voices and footsteps and humming machinery. But she couldn’t see anything because her hallway had begun to curve left.

  “Company ahead,” she whispered into her mic.

  There was a prolonged pause before Orlando said, “Hold your position. I’m dealing with something here so I need a few minutes.”

  “Copy.”

  The sounds down the corridor were far enough away that Jar thought she had a little room to play with, so she decided to improve her position while she waited.

  Creeping tight to the left wall, she moved forward as far as she dared and stopped behind a pillar.

  From her new position, the voices were clear enough for her to pick out distinct speakers. Unfortunately, everyone was speaking what sounded like Russian and it was not a language she knew. A flaw, like her lack of German, that she would rectify after the mission was over.

  She peeked ahead, but the curve in the hallway still kept the others out of sight. She eyed the next pillar, and then moved quietly down to it.

  The speakers couldn’t be more than a few meters away. Which meant a glance around the pillar was out of the question.

  She looked back the way she’d come. There was a door about fifteen steps behind her. She thought about it for only a second before easing her way back to it and pressing her ear against it. The only sound she heard was a hum that seemed to be coming into the door from the walls.

  She gently pushed down on the handle and pulled the door from the frame, ready to freeze at the slightest squeak. It was dark on the other side. She slipped inside, then pressed her ear against the door to make sure no one had heard her and was coming to investigate. When she felt confident she was in the clear, she turned on her flashlight.

  The room appeared to be a giant storage area. It had to be at least forty meters long, paralleling the corridor, and was filled with floor-to-ceiling metal shelves, which in turn were filled with boxes, also made of metal. They looked old, dinged up, even rusty in spots. She was curious about what they held, but checking them was not on her to-do list.

  The only way to move through the room was down a center aisle between the shelves.

  Jar walked in the direction of the voices, and found another doorway between the shelves, not far past where she estimated those conversing were standing.

  Even before she put her ear to the door, she could hear them. Either they’d moved since she’d been in the corridor or she had guessed wrong, because it sounded like they were standing right on the other side of the door.

  “Ja…on’t se….whe…ou? Jar?...ar…ou…hear….”

  Jar returned quickly to the center aisle and back the way she’d come, putting plenty of distance between herself and the talking soldiers. She whispered into her comm, “Orlando? Do you read me?”

  “Ja…ome in. Jar…re…ou? Jar.”

  “I’m here. Can you read me?”

  She should have been still in range of the last relay she’d put up, but maybe the room’s walls were interfering with her signal.

  “Jar. Yes, I…re you…uble?”

  Jar pulled out another relay and stuck it to the door she’d entered through, then said, “Please repeat.”

  “I have you now,” Orlando said. “Where are you?”

  “I am in a room off the corridor, approximately the same location where you should see at least three men talking.”

  “Copy.” A pause. “I’ve got them. What happened?”

  “Nothing happened. I have been searching for a way around them.”

  “Jar, I think maybe you’ve gone as far as you’re going to get. I can search the base on the cameras from there. Perhaps you should start heading back to—”

  “The cameras cannot tell you everything,” Jar countered. “You cannot hear with them. You cannot see into the rooms with them. What you might be able to do is find where they are holding Brunner and lead me there.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Nate’s voice cut in. “Jar, he’s liable to be guarded. You can’t take them on alone.”

  “I did not say I would,” she replied. “But I can recon the area, look for hiding places, so that you will be well informed when you join me.”

  Silence on the line. The kind that told Jar the others had muted their mics.

  When they came back on, it was Nate who spoke, and he surprised her by saying, “All right. But stay where you are until Orlando finds him. And promise me you’ll be even more careful.”

  She felt a slight tug on her chest. “I promise.”

  “We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

  “I know. You also be careful.”

  “I promise.”

  While she waited for instructions from Orlando, Jar decided to take a better look around. She walked down the center aisle, this time continuing past the door near where the soldiers were talking. She was hoping the room went on long enough that there would be another door she could use to slip back into the corridor.

  There was. But even more interesting, straight ahead down the aisle and embedded in the wall at the end of the room, was a door that had to lead into another room, as there was no way it could directly lead into the corridor.

  If this room led to the next one down, would that room lead to the one after it? Would it be possible to parallel the path of the hallway?

  She approached the doorway. On the handle side was a long narrow window running vertically. The glass was frosted but she could tell it was dark on the other side.

  Jar turned the handle and stepped into a room that looked identical to the one she’d been in. She hurried down the aisle until the next wall came into view. And there, sitting directly in her path, was yet another door, with no light shining through its narrow window.

  The end of her mouth ticked upward.

  Ahead was the team’s destination, a couple of flat-top boulders on the valley’s rim, as close to directly behind Lonely Rock as they could get.

  Quinn slowed the vehicle as the terrain took a small dip. On the comm, Orlando was suggesting Jar return to the surface. Jar, however, was not keen on the idea, and had offered an alternative that didn’t seem to be sitting well with Nate.

  Orlando turned off her mic and looked at Nate. “Her idea’s a good one.”

  Quinn glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the muscles in Nate’s jaw tighten.

  “I agree,” Quinn said. “If she can get us the lay of the land, that could save us a lot of trouble.”

  “I realize that,” Nate said, the words seemingly forced from his throat.

  “The question is, can she really do it?” Quinn said.

  Nate frowned, then gave a curt nod. “She can.”

  “Then I guess I’d better see if I can find Brunner,” Orlando said. “You want to tell her?”

  Another nod from Nate as he turned on his microphone.

  Quinn
negotiated a way between some brush as Nate relayed the decision to Jar. When the Land Cruiser reached the point where the boulders were between the vehicle and the secret base, Quinn turned and drove toward them, then stopped a few meters from the rocks.

  “We’ll be right back,” he said to Orlando.

  Without looking up from her screen, she said, “’Kay.”

  Quinn, Nate, Daeng, and Kincaid exited the vehicle, approached the boulders, and found a good vantage point on the right side. Quinn tasked Daeng and Kincaid with scanning the desert for patrols, and had Nate do the same with the base. Quinn trained his binoculars on Lonely Rock.

  The boulder that dominated the formation jutted into the sky like it was reaching for the sun. The massive rock was easily twice as big as the ones Quinn and the others had encountered along the valley’s ridge. Many of the rocks that surrounded it were also big. Perhaps they had all started life as one giant boulder, and pieces had broken off over eons.

  Orlando had said the base’s power schematics showed something was in the area; she just didn’t know exactly what. Quinn slowly scanned the entire formation, first in normal light mode, then in thermal. If the power was feeding another vent, the thing wasn’t releasing any heat.

  He’d just turned his attention to finding a way to get to the rocks unnoticed when Daeng said, “There’s someone out there.”

  Quinn lowered his glasses. “Where?”

  “About three hundred meters this side of the rock, heading roughly in our direction.”

  Quinn aimed his binoculars in the direction Daeng had described. If the team had been seen, surely there would have been more than one person coming to deal with them.

  He spotted the walker almost right away. It was a man, probably in his thirties, wearing fatigue pants and a white T-shirt, and carrying a black bag over his shoulder.

  There was something familiar about—

  “Hey,” Kincaid said. “That’s the guy from the train. The one with the walking stick who helped Clarke.”

  That was it. Quinn recognized him now from the airfield in Slovakia.

  Kincaid turned and ran toward the SUV.