by C. J. Lyons
“Exactly. Plus, I added a few surprises. The only path clear is via the overhead catwalk or the path you and Angie originally took when you found Esme down here last month. I’m texting you a map now.”
They kept moving at a brisk pace down the dimly lit section of tunnels. Seemed like he was doomed to spend more of the night underground. At least this time he was the one holding the weapon. “So you and me, we’re it?”
She stopped to unlock a heavy bulkhead door. The corridor beyond was lit, the doors lining it painted green. Ryder stepped inside, and Flynn closed the door behind him. He began down the hall. A door at the other end opened.
Out stepped Rossi. He couldn’t help himself. Approaching enemy be damned, he ran to her. He knew of no words that could convey what he felt, so he settled for gathering her into his arms and holding her so tight he felt her heart pounding against his chest.
Chapter 35
SEEING RYDER WAS like being ambushed by a sudden bolt of lightning created of pure joy. It felt so good, being in his arms again. I could almost remember what life felt like back before I got sick, back when I was normal, living a normal life, sleeping normal sleep, envisioning a normal, long-lived future.
Ryder made me question every decision I’d made. Worse, he made me hope. I hungered for faith like his, the simple belief that somehow, someway we were possible. God forgive me, I surrendered to the feeling, to the hope, and let him hold me. The pendant he’d given me grew warm, pressed between our flesh as he framed my face in his hands and kissed me soundly.
“Missed you at dinner,” he whispered with a wink. He knew I’d been dreading meeting his family at Christmas dinner—after all, I was the one who’d gotten him shot last month. “Don’t worry. Mom’s making pork and sauerkraut for New Year’s, said you’re invited, and she won’t take no for an answer because it’d mean bad luck all year long.”
I flushed, the thought of making it past tonight, much less surviving a week, shattering the fantasy. He relaxed his grip on me, giving me the room I needed without asking and without making me feel guilty for needing it. Which, of course, only made me want to flee back into his arms.
Flynn pushed between us, heading down the hall to another door. “Gear up,” she said, waving us inside.
Ryder whistled at the sight of racks of rifles and machine guns and shotguns. “Nice. We’ll be up top?” he asked as he selected one of the rifles and looked through its sights as if aiming into the distance. “About twenty feet, right? And the corridors are what, eighteen feet wide?” He put down the first gun and picked up another, then sorted through magazines of ammunition, making his selections. “We don’t want overkill—can’t risk a stray round going through any walls.”
“The tunnel walls are steel reinforced concrete, eighteen inches wide. Interior walls the same but half as thick. Don’t forget these.” She handed him a set of night vision goggles that strapped over his head. They were shaped rather like a rhinoceros’ horn: regular goggles at the base to cover both eyes, but one central receptacle to see through. I couldn’t help but smile. He looked so strangely fierce yet comic.
“What are Grey and Tyrone’s men armed with?” Flynn asked.
“MAC-10’s, M-4’s, and semiautomatics,” he answered. “A few Remington 870s. Plus, I spotted cases of C-4.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant, except I knew the Remington was a shotgun, the same that law enforcement used. And C-4, I knew that from the movies. Plastic explosives. Not good.
Flynn turned to frown at me.
I shook my head. “No guns for me.” What if I froze up with a fugue, pulled the trigger with a muscle spasm? “But you’re not leaving me here to wait, so don’t even suggest it.”
“Wasn’t going to—you’re our secret weapon, remember? We can’t risk you getting caught.”
No one mentioned that I was also the main reason why Grey and Tyrone were coming after us. I knew better than to suggest that I surrender—Flynn might see the strategic value if I could convince her it was the best way to save Esme, but Ryder would never agree.
“Why don’t you take Rossi to shelter with Devon and the kids?” Ryder suggested to Flynn. “I can hold down the fort, cover your back.”
Flynn hesitated as if she was seriously considering the idea, so I immediately jumped in.
“No. We all go together.” They both gave me the “silly civilian has no idea what she’s talking about” look, but I stared them down. “What are you going to do? Hog-tie me and carry me out of here?”
“Don’t tempt me,” Ryder said, his voice dropping ominously. “If it wouldn’t slow us down—”
“Here,” Flynn said, plopping a bulletproof vest into my arms. “Put this on.” She turned to Ryder. “We don’t have time to argue.”
I slid the vest on. Ryder spun me, tightening the straps and making sure it fit properly. From the way he yanked at the Velcro, he was most definitely not happy. Made two of us, since I wished he was anywhere but here—after all, keeping him safe was the whole reason why I’d left him in the first place.
As he spun me around, I spotted a box with slotted compartments like what Patsy stored her Christmas ornaments in. Only this box was filled with brown balls that even I recognized. Hand grenades. When Ryder turned to finish settling his own gear, I reached for one. It fit perfectly in the palm of my hand, and my fingers curled naturally around it. The pin had a loop made of wire—just like in the movies. It was lighter than I thought it’d be, and I wondered if that made it harder to throw very far. Maybe it would be best to roll it or toss it underhand?
Ryder stopped adjusting his night vision gear long enough to frown. He took the grenade and returned it to the box. “Not in these confined spaces, too risky. Here. You can act as our spotter,” he said, handing me a pair of binoculars. “Click there for thermal, there for infrared. And here’s your zoom and focus.”
Reluctantly, I tried out the binoculars. Then, while he and Flynn finished stuffing their vests with ammo and strapped handguns to their thighs, I slipped a grenade into my pocket.
There was one thing I was certain would bring our enemies out into the open. Me. If I had to go that route, I was sure as hell taking them down with me. End this once and for all.
“Angie,” Flynn said. I startled, wasn’t sure if she’d spotted me pocketing the grenade. If she had, she said nothing. As usual, her face was unreadable. “Check your phone. I’ve mapped out a safe corridor from Good Sam’s to St. Tim’s—same one you’ve traveled before. The side corridors are all booby-trapped, so avoid them. And I’ve marked safe places to climb up onto the catwalk. If we’re lucky, we can stop them at Good Sam’s. If not, we fall back, follow the catwalk, and keep sniping, take as many out as we can.”
“Where are Devon and the kids?” Ryder asked, peering over my shoulder at the map on my phone.
“The area in orange on the other side of St. Tim’s. If they get past us—”
“They’ll run right into them.”
“Devon has the section sealed off with locked hatches.”
“Yeah, but easy enough for these guys to bring in a thermal lance, cut right through.”
Flynn hefted the machine gun in her hands. “Exactly why we’re not going to let them get past us.”
<<<>>>
FROM HIS PREVIOUS excursions into the tunnels, Ryder wasn’t surprised by the stockpile of weapons—last month during their search for Leo, they’d found a ton of cheap, street-level arms left behind by the drug dealers who’d hidden their stash down here.
But these weapons were anything but cheap—or street-level. Belgian, made by FN Herstal. All military grade, state of the art.
Too bad Daniel Kingston hadn’t also stockpiled more men to use them. Because, despite Flynn’s optimism and sound military tactics, they were outnumbered at least five to one. Odds he didn’t mind facing, as long as he could ensure Rossi’s safety. He wished he could convince Flynn to take her, let him deal with Grey and Tyrone, but he knew neither
woman would agree, and there was no more time to argue.
Flynn took the lead heading back out into the tunnels, Rossi the more protected position in the middle, while Ryder covered their backs.
“You said there were only eleven, right?” Flynn asked, pausing to glance at her phone. They were at the bottom of one of the retractable ladders leading up to the catwalk. She gestured for Rossi to climb while Ryder held the narrow lengths of chain and metal cross braces steady.
“Eleven, right,” he murmured back. “Why?”
She held her phone up to him. “All eleven are coming through the Good Sam entrance.”
Damn. He’d hoped his bomb threats would send enough law enforcement there to slow them down. Then he realized the problem. “All of them? Why aren’t they trying to outflank us?”
Price had the other tunnel entrances secured, but Grey and Tyrone wouldn’t know that.
“Exactly. I don’t think they’re trying to ambush us.”
“No. They want to herd us. They’ll have more men waiting—”
“If Devon tries to lead the children out, they’re toast. And if they wait inside, they’re sitting ducks once the bad guys find them.”
Ryder grimaced at her blunt assessment. But she was right. “Let’s make sure they don’t find them. We neutralize these guys, and then whoever they bought off as backup won’t stick around.” At least he hoped not. Last thing he wanted was to end up in a shooting battle against other cops—men and women he knew.
The ladder stopped shimmying—Rossi had made it to the fixed section. He pointed to Flynn’s phone screen now that he could free a hand.
The Lazaretto men were all dressed in firefighting gear. His bomb threat might have actually given them cover, damn it. Security wouldn’t have challenged responding firefighters—and Flynn had said the cops she saw at Good Sam’s were the ones they knew the Lazarettos had bought off.
He pointed to the screen. “Those two, Grey and Tyrone, they’re the leaders. Said they were brothers.”
“Angie said the entire Lazaretto family was involved. How many of them are there?”
“I don’t know, but they mentioned at least two more by name. The other men with them didn’t talk much, but they seemed loyal, followed orders without hesitation. Not sure if they’re family or hired muscle.”
“What’s that on their backs? I don’t think they’re air tanks. Packs of additional weapons? Ammo?” Flynn squinted, but the men weren’t positioned for the camera to get a good view. All of the men carried assault rifles and pistols, plus five of them had backpacks.
“Let’s get into position.” Ryder held the ladder for her—she climbed it fast, barely touching the metal slats that served as rungs, instead using the chains like an acrobat ascending a rope would. As soon as she’d cleared the retractable section of ladder, he swung his own weight on it. It swayed in protest, but he only had to climb about twelve feet before he reached the more sturdy fixed ladder bolted into the concrete wall of the tunnel.
Ryder pulled the collapsible length of ladder up behind him, anchoring it to a hook on the wall, then scrambled up the main ladder the rest of the way, passing the foil-lined ductwork and myriad lengths of pipe to the catwalk that ran immediately above them. He’d expected the ducts and pipes to obstruct his vision, had been worried about how he’d be able to find a good angle to shoot from, but the designers had cleverly routed the catwalk so it didn’t run parallel to the pipes but crossed over them at an angle. Made sense, as it allowed maintenance workers access to the vital areas but without needing to follow the twisting labyrinth of corridors below that the pipes did. Instead, the catwalk provided excellent straight-line shortcuts to the main sections of the bunker.
From below, the catwalk was invisible, hidden in the dark recesses of the tunnel’s roof. But from up here, he had a direct sight line down to the corridors. He quickened his gait to catch up with Flynn and Rossi, who’d gone forward to the section above the route Grey and Tyrone would take from Good Sam.
“I’m going to have Devon kill the lights,” Flynn said as soon as he arrived. “I didn’t see any night vision gear on them, so it should give us an advantage.”
Ryder nodded his agreement as he lowered his own NVG. The tunnels went black, losing even the low-level emergency illumination. Flynn sidled down a few paces, Rossi between them, all focused on the tunnel below.
Now came the hard part. The waiting.
Chapter 36
DESPITE THE FACT that people often call the ER a war zone, I’d never experienced anything like a true battle. Not even last month, when I’d faced Leo Kingston and killed him with my own hands. Nothing in my life had prepared me for this.
We sat on the metal mesh catwalk floor in the dark. Silent. Waiting. The binoculars were heavy, and all they revealed when I played with the settings were different colors reflecting the temperature of whatever the pipes running below us carried. When I looked at Flynn and Ryder through them, they turned into ghastly pale green-gray specters. Their features were surprisingly clear, but that only made it seem more surreal. Not only the strangely shaped night vision equipment, although that was weird enough. Rather, the expressions on their faces: more than calm, relaxed. Ready.
Same look I liked to see on my trauma team before the ambulance arrived. But here it felt like a cruel parody.
To be so calmly prepared to not save lives but take them.
To be facing others who felt the same way, who had no qualms about targeting innocent children to get what they wanted. As if killing was no different than buying stock, all in a day’s work.
The hardest thing was seeing that calm readiness on the face of the man I loved.
Ryder must have sensed something, because he stretched his hand toward me far enough to reach my foot and squeeze it. Then he was back in position, on alert, scanning the corridor, searching for targets.
I lowered my binoculars. Ryder had told me my job was to scan the area beyond the corridor, to make sure we weren’t ambushed or outflanked. In other words, to look anywhere except where he and Flynn would be killing people. I didn’t feel calm or prepared. Not anxious or frightened, either. I felt saddened. Resigned.
The logic was impeccable: kill them before they could kill us or the children. A story as old as mankind. I think that was the problem. Knowing that whatever happened here tonight, it wouldn’t end the bloodshed or solve anything.
Cautiously, I felt the grenade sagging heavy in my coat pocket. Could I end things? Was it even worth trying?
Leo’s memories still flitted through my mind, pages of a textbook rustling back and forth as I searched for a solution. He’d been privy to Tommaso’s research developing different formulations of the PXA. Tommaso had divulged a lot of his thinking about prions—my prions in particular—and why he thought Patient Zero’s disease—my disease—was unique. He’d also mentioned that he’d used up all of his original sample—wherever the hell he’d gotten that from—developing his prion-transfer injection.
If no one had more of Patient Zero’s tissue to work with, then maybe it could all end here. With me. It wouldn’t save the children, but it could save more lives in the future.
I’d been willing to take my own life to spare my own suffering—did I have the courage to do the same to spare the lives of people I hadn’t even met? And to take the lives of the Lazaretto brothers—part of my own family, no matter how disgusted that thought made me feel—along with mine?
Foul thoughts, considering cold-blooded murder. I felt as if my mind was polluted. But why had I taken the grenade in the first place if somewhere deep inside me I hadn’t thought it was the best option?
Even without the binoculars, I felt both Flynn and Ryder alert. Then the sound of their guns firing. It was loud, especially up here so close to the concrete roof, but not as booming as I’d expected. More like a popping. Firecrackers going off too close.
Then the bullets began to come at us, pinging off metal and cracking against concre
te. I clutched the binoculars tight, fighting the impulse to cover my head and hide. There wasn’t anything to take cover behind, not up here on the catwalk. Ryder and Flynn shot a few more rounds, but nothing compared to the volume coming our way.
“One down,” Ryder said in a calm voice barely raised above his usual tone.
“And one for me,” Flynn replied. She had her phone’s earpiece on and was giving someone a running report—Devon, I assumed. “That’s two down. Nine left. They’re taking cover, scattering.”
Ryder duck-walked past me to take up a new position on the other side of Flynn. “What are they doing? Look, two o’clock.”
Flynn craned her neck, and I raised the binoculars. They flared with sudden color. I focused them and saw two men waving what looked like wands at the stacks of supplies on the shelves lining the corridor beside them.
Ryder shot at the men, trying to drive them back into the open.
“Flamethrowers. Those backpacks,” Ryder said, reloading his gun. “They’ve got flamethrowers.”
“Not very big. Must be the kind gardeners use.” Flynn aimed at the men and fired. They ducked back, taking cover. But the damage was done, flames spreading deeper into the shelves. With them came smoke.
“That’s why they’re dressed as firefighters,” I said.
“All these pipes and none of them are sprinklers?” Ryder asked.
Flynn climbed to her feet. “No. They are. The valve must be turned off. Cover me while I go check.”
She eased past Ryder as he knelt and fired into the smoke and flames.
“One more,” he muttered. But the men below had zeroed in on his position and returned fire with a vengeance. I couldn’t help myself. Bullets zipping around us, I ducked down and covered my head. Ryder kept firing back, inching his way over to me. Then he was covering me with his body, pulling me back the way we came.
