Phantom Instinct (9780698157132)

by Gardiner, Meg

48

  Harper ran, past empty assembly lines, around ruined and rusting equipment. A second later, she heard Aiden at her side, his boots hitting the concrete. Sorenstam was behind them. The stairway loomed across the factory in the moonlight, a mouth leading down into more darkness.

  Travis said, “You can’t outrun me, Flynn.”

  The call went dead.

  She might have stuck her hand into a live electrical circuit. “He knows. He’s coming.”

  She sprinted to the stairs and pounded down. Aiden and Sorenstam were a step behind her. Sorenstam’s flashlight veered back and forth, illuminating the staircase in flailing streaks.

  Halfway down, at a landing, the stairs turned. Harper swung around. Aiden was a silhouette a couple of steps above her, sporadically outlined by the swerving Maglite.

  Behind him and Sorenstam, across the factory floor, came two more swinging flashlights.

  Harper’s skin shrank. “They’re coming.”

  Sorenstam glanced back. Harper and Aiden careened down the stairs two at a time, sinking into the dark. Sorenstam’s flashlight barely illuminated their path.

  They reached the bottom of the stairs and Harper ran, hands out now, feeling for obstructions. Her knife was in her hand, blade open.

  She said, “Light. Put it on the ceiling, Erika.”

  Sorenstam swung the barrel of the shotgun upward. The Maglite illuminated a trail of thick electrical cabling and conduit and rusting pipes bolted to the ceiling.

  Pied Piper. Hansel and Gretel. Ariadne.

  “Follow it.”

  The cabling and pipes were what Piper had cryptically spoken about on the phone earlier. They were the bread crumbs in the forest. They were Ariadne’s silken spider’s thread—the trail Piper had seen as they brought her in. The girl had the presence of mind to note her surroundings and to recognize the conduit that would lead her out again.

  “This way.”

  Harper ran along the corridor. After fifty yards, the pipes and cables rounded a corner to the right, into another hallway. It was dark, but at the end, some hundred yards distant, light was leaking from around another corner. A shadow wavered within it.

  Harper kept running and slipped on something slick. On the floor ran a thin trail of what looked like blood.

  She inhaled sharply and pointed. “Gotta be.”

  Aiden said, “If we find her, we have to get her out. Where’s another exit?”

  “Second staircase at the opposite end of the building.”

  Sorenstam took the lead, sweeping the Maglite across the walls and ceiling as she ran. The passageway was deep within the guts of the old plant. Twelve-inch pipes rose vertically along the walls, with rusted valves and joints. The pipes disappeared into the concrete.

  Sorenstam drew up. “Stop.”

  Harper saw that they had not, in fact, come to the end of the rainbow. “God.”

  Directly ahead, the floor vanished. There was a ten-foot break in the concrete. They approached and looked over.

  Below, down at least twenty feet, was a platform that seemed to have been lowered on a hydraulic piston.

  Aiden said, “Platform ram lift—for heavy pallets or rolling loads. Looks like it’s stopped on the floor below.”

  They looked around for a switch to activate it. Aiden saw the button on the wall and slammed his palm against it. Nothing happened.

  Beyond the gap, around the corner at the end of the passageway, the light spilling onto the floor continued to flow with shadows.

  “Piper,” Harper called.

  There was shuffling and a weak cry. The shadows slid again. They heard the unmistakable clink of a chain.

  “Harper?”

  Her heart raced. “We’re coming.”

  Behind them, back by the stairs, came the sound of men moving at speed.

  “We have to get across,” Harper said.

  Abandoned equipment was stacked along the walls. Aiden pulled a drop cloth from a humped pile and said, “This.”

  He lifted a ladder, his face striped with pain.

  Harper helped him extend it. They dropped it across the gap in the floor. It clattered and landed on the far side with just inches to spare.

  Aiden knelt and braced it. “Erika, you first.”

  Sorenstam slung the shotgun across her back by the strap. She stepped onto the ladder and walked carefully across. The aluminum creaked. She reached the other side and knelt down to brace the ladder for the next person.

  “Harper, go,” Aiden said.

  Pulse thudding, Harper stepped gingerly onto the ladder. It was flimsy and vibrated with her weight.

  “I got you,” Aiden said. “Walk.”

  She put her fingertips against the wall for balance and stepped out over the drop. The rungs felt insubstantial beneath her feet. Her entire body seemed to clench and rebel against what she was doing. Holding her breath, she began walking across. Jesus. Her heart pounded, ready to jump out of her chest.

  “You got it,” Aiden said. “Keep going.”

  From around the corner at the far end of the hall, Piper called, “Harper, are you coming?”

  Harper looked down. The pit beneath her telescoped. Ready to vomit, she stepped off the ladder onto solid concrete, realizing she was close to passing out. She turned around and knelt next to Sorenstam, helping to brace the ladder so Aiden could cross.

  He stepped onto the ladder without pause, even though one shoulder was higher than the other, tight with strain, and his leg looked like it might buckle.

  Behind him at the distant end of the hall, where it turned, flashlight beams careened.

  Sorenstam said nothing, but drew her pistol.

  Aiden crossed quickly and stepped off. They pulled the ladder toward them across the gap, stood, and rushed down the hall.

  Behind them, at the end of the hall, two men came around the corner. They didn’t say anything. They started shooting.

  49

  Harper stared back down the passageway. At the far end, two forms materialized, running around the corner. Men, slight and lithe, wearing all-black tactical gear, holding automatic pistols. They both fired. The shots hit the wall and the floor. She turned and ran with Aiden and Sorenstam toward the next turn, toward the leaking light and Piper’s fading voice.

  “Hell are those guys?” Harper said.

  They were sure as shit not Travis Maddox and Eddie Azerov.

  Harper careened down the corridor around mothballed equipment and fat pipe works. A shot echoed and pinged against metal. Her skin felt alive with nervous sparks. Aiden put a hand on her back and urged her onward. At the end of the corridor, Sorenstam stopped, pressed herself to the wall, and peered around the corner. Then she ran. Harper and Aiden pitched around the corner behind her.

  The sparks seemed to jump from Harper’s skin. She caromed off the wall, thinking, Christ. Five feet ahead was an open office door—the source of the leaking light.

  “Piper,” she said.

  Painfully, with the sound of a clinking chain, Piper crawled into view. She collapsed to a sitting position just inside the door.

  Harper threw herself into the room and dropped to her knees at Piper’s side.

  “Girl, girl,” she said.

  Piper held her right hand pressed against her chest, clutching it with her left. Blood ran down her arm from her wrist. Her blouse was soaked. Strips of fabric torn from its hem were cinched around her wrist as a makeshift tourniquet. In the dim light, they were iron red. Her face was the color of newsprint, more gray than white.

  Harper put her hands on either side of Piper’s face and tried to see her through her stinging eyes and pounding pulse.

  “Told you,” she said.

  Piper nodded, quick and fearfully. “You came.”

  Piper’s face was cold. Harper reached for Pi
per’s arm, but the girl inhaled and shrank from her, a cry falling from her lips.

  “Hurts. Bad.”

  Harper backed off. “Just keep the pressure on. We’re going to get you out of here.”

  Piper clutched her right wrist with her left, pressing it against her breastbone. From the hallway, around the corner, they heard men’s voices, harsh and guttural. They couldn’t make out their conversation, but the men seemed to be hunting for a way to get across the gap in the floor.

  Aiden said, “Not much time, Harper.”

  A handcuff was locked around Piper’s slender ankle. The second cuff was locked through a chain, and the chain ran to a standpipe along the wall, where it was padlocked.

  Sorenstam crouched and examined the cuffs. Piper eyed her as though Sorenstam had dropped in from outer space.

  “The cops are here?” Piper said.

  “I am, and Detective Garrison. More are coming.” Sorenstam got her handcuff key and freed Piper.

  Outside, the men in the hallway were arguing. Harper heard them throwing stuff around, trying to find something to use to bridge the gap in the floor. She caught snatches of their debate.

  “Speshite.”

  “Oboydite?”

  “Nyet, tam net vremeni.”

  Hurry. Go around? No, there’s no time. They were speaking Russian.

  “Who are they?” Harper said.

  Piper said, “They’re from Spartan Security.”

  Harper and Aiden looked at her sharply, and at each other.

  “Fuck,” Aiden said.

  Harper said, “Let’s get you up.”

  She worked an arm around the girl and helped her to her feet. Piper sagged. Her legs held, but she leaned over and lowered her head to restore blood flow to her brain.

  Sorenstam said, “We can’t retrace our steps. Harper, if we keep going down this hallway, will we get to that second set of stairs?”

  Harper tried to picture the layout of the building. “If we go down the hallway, we’ll be heading for the center of the building. We should find a main corridor that runs the entire length of the basement. It’ll take us to the stairs.”

  Outside the room, around the corner where the floor gapped, a motor hummed to life. The hydraulic lift had been activated.

  The Russians had jerry-rigged a battery to the switch, or Travis had restored power. The platform was on its way up. They wouldn’t have to jump across. Once it reached floor level, they would just stroll.

  Harper pulled Piper tight against her side. “We’re going out the door behind Detective Sorenstam, and we’re not stopping.”

  Aiden ejected the clip from his weapon, checked it, and reinserted it in the butt of the gun with a hard slap. “We’re going to push them back with covering fire and run down the hallway to the next junction. On my mark.”

  The hydraulic lift continued to hum. In Russian, a man said, “Go—now.” They heard scuffling feet and the sound of men jumping, landing, and pulling themselves up again.

  Piper straightened and looked at Harper. “I don’t want to die.”

  “Me neither. So we won’t.”

  All Piper’s snark and feistiness had drained away. Harper wanted to cry.

  Say something. Something ridiculous and hopeful.

  “Ding-dong, motherfuckers. Your doom’s here,” Harper said.

  Piper stared at her with amazement. Footsteps pounded in the hallway.

  Aiden spun into the doorway, aimed, and fired. One shot, two. He moved his arm ten inches right. One shot, two.

  He ducked back inside the room. An instant later, return fire bellowed from the corridor.

  He huffed a breath. Ducked low and rolled into the doorway, firing again.

  There was a scream in the hallway, retreating.

  He rolled to his feet, charged out the door, and said, “Now.”

  50

  They ran into the corridor. The echo of shots reverberated. Sorenstam led, the Remington up. Harper followed, pulling Piper with her. Aiden brought up the rear, HK at shoulder height, covering the field of fire behind them.

  They advanced down the corridor, into the deepening dark, following the swinging light from Sorenstam’s Maglite toward the center of the building. Piper drooped against Harper. Her eyes were the size of quarters.

  They reached a turn. Sorenstam approached the corner carefully, barrel of the shotgun up and flat against her chest. She stopped, leaned around, and pulled back.

  “It’s a wide tunnel. Looks like the main passageway through the basement.”

  Aiden said, “Hostiles?”

  “No sign, but there are emergency lights on.”

  He edged to the corner and looked. Harper peeked over his shoulder and down the tunnel. There was enough light to see, barely.

  The tunnel floor was slick concrete, wider than a two-car garage, and had a yellow line painted down its center. It was designed so forklifts and flatbed trucks could drive directly to and from the road to load and unload chemicals. It ran straight as a gun barrel more than two hundred yards to a loading ramp with a rolling door that was down and locked. Next to the door, an emergency exit sign was glowing. The way to the stairs.

  The sound of men arguing behind them around the corner at the end of the hallway grew louder. They were planning their next move. Piper whimpered. Harper wanted to crawl out of her skin.

  Aiden and Erika looked at the tunnel, and at Harper, and at each other.

  They needed time, and cover. They didn’t have it.

  Piper nearly shuddered. “We can’t . . . we won’t make it.” Her voice was little more than a whisper. “What if we surrender?”

  Erika shook her head. “Surrendering would be bad.”

  “Better than getting shot,” Piper said.

  “The choice isn’t between surrendering and getting shot.”

  Harper knew it, too: The choice was between surrendering, in which case they would be shot in the back of the head while bound and on their knees, or running for it.

  Aiden seemed to both coil and grow six inches taller. Sorenstam went completely still.

  “I’ll cover the three of you,” she said.

  Aiden said, “No.”

  She turned sharply. “Shut up.”

  There was no way the four of them could run down the length of the tunnel and reach the stairs before the hostiles regrouped and came charging. Two hundred yards: Harper had never covered that distance in less than thirty seconds. Piper could barely stand. Even if she and Aiden each slung one of Piper’s arms over their shoulders, they wouldn’t get out of this tunnel in under two minutes.

  “I’ll stay here and cover you,” he said. “You’re faster than I am right now, Erika.”

  Determination filled her eyes. “No. You have the strength to carry Piper if need be. And I’m the better shot,” she said. “You know it. And you know that’s what’s going to count.”

  From two feet away, Harper felt the electricity crackle between them. They were no longer officially partners, but their training and history and bond had come alive and held them poised, together there.

  It would take two people at a minimum to exfiltrate Piper. The girl was severely injured. Neither Harper nor Aiden could carry her by themselves, not if they were going to respond to an armed attack.

  “No,” Sorenstam said. “If you stay here, Harper and I will never be able to get Piper out alive.”

  He held Sorenstam’s gaze. His eyes seemed to fill with a depthless despair.

  “It has to be me,” Sorenstam said.

  The only way for any of them to get out alive was to stop the opposition before they got into the tunnel. If men with guns got around the corner, she and Aiden and Sorenstam would have no chance. The tunnel was merciless: no equipment nor the ubiquitous barrels to hide behind. A couple of doors, b
ut only to closets. To get to the far end of the tunnel, they would have to run, without protection, without stopping.

  The only way to do that was for Sorenstam to make a stand.

  “Go, and don’t look back,” she said. “No matter what. I’ll stop them when they come around the corner.”

  She had the shotgun and her pistol. She snapped the Maglite free from the Remington’s barrel and tossed it to Aiden. Harper understood: Sorenstam didn’t want to give the attackers a target. She turned and jammed the butt of the weapon against one of the emergency lights high on the wall. It shattered and the tunnel dimmed.

  “Erika,” Aiden said.

  “On three,” she said. “One, two—”

  He caught her arm. She looked at him, fierce and otherworldly.

  “Three,” she said.

  Hanging on to Piper, Harper and Aiden ran down the tunnel toward the bloody shadows and whispers in the far, faded dark.

  51

  Harper ran down the tunnel, trying to sprint on the hard concrete, through dim and reddish light, toward the distant turn that would bring them to safety. Aiden pounded along, his stride ragged, a syncopated tattoo. The gun in his hand swung back and forth, flashing dully under the emergency lights. Piper hung between them.

  Harper focused on the telescoping tunnel and the distant wall, now a hundred fifty yards ahead. The very air behind her felt full of sparks. It was her fear. It was her knowledge that they were coming, and that they were armed.

  Aiden didn’t look back. But his face was open terrain, his emotions plain even in the nightmarish light of the tunnel.

  Behind them, waiting, was Erika Sorenstam. She was all that stood between them and being in the middle of an open field of fire. Harper’s throat felt the width of a straw.

  Sorenstam was covering them. But there was no cover for her. Only exposure.

  The corridor stretched ahead. It looked like a tunnel from a locker room to the playing field at a stadium—but longer. Harper was going flat out—as flat out as she could run, half hauling an injured teenager. Aiden was barely keeping up. She realized he was running close to empty. Still, he kept going.